Talk: Picard family

Should this be a redirect page to Jean-Luc Picard, with other Picards at Picard (disambiguation)? "Kirk" and "Riker" currently link in that manner. --Columbia clipper 03:42, September 18, 2010 (UTC)

Would anyone object to this change? --Columbia clipper 20:38, October 16, 2010 (UTC)

I think that this should be a disambig, and Kirk and Riker should be changed to suit. But that's just me. -- sulfur 21:34, October 16, 2010 (UTC)

I agree with sulfur, the root names have become pretty common and will continue to expand. Already we have a ton of Picards, Kirks and Rikers -- the redirect would be a cheat that would work around the necessity of using the whole name specifically, meaning people might be tempted to not complete in their writing if the shortcut "Picard" were available. -- Captain MKB 22:56, October 16, 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean in reference to persons cheating by working around using the whole name. Would you mind explaining further?

I think that the importance of articles of similar title should be taken into account when considering redirect versus disambiguation (it already is when considering alternate universe counterparts). While there are several Kirks, Rikers, and Picards, the vast majority of searches that involve those names will target James T. Kirk, William T. Riker, and Jean-Luc Picard - just as most searches for James T. Kirk target his prime reality incarnation. --Columbia clipper 00:54, October 18, 2010 (UTC)

I mean that people, at the height of their own laziness, would type the shortcut "Picard" instead of taking the simple effort to type Jean-Luc Picard as they should when writing articles about him. He is not "Picard" and we should not get into the habit of shortening people's names inappropriately.

This is in keeping with Wikipedia's policy set, where simply typing "Washington" will not automatically take you to George Washington, even though he is the most important Washington in most people's eyes.

I don't understand the concern about searches, as most people will be quite sure which Picard they mean, and if they actually get a result from the moronically-programmed search that Wikia has cursed us with, it will take them to a disambiguation where the correct link will be the most prominent displayed.

I haven't seen anything contributed to the discussion here that changes my view, nor is there an overwhelming majority of users who desire to change this, so I continue to agree with Sulfur about the correct path to take as he outlined it. -- Captain MKB 01:23, October 18, 2010 (UTC)

I think that "cheat" can have merit, if one is writing about Captain Kirk, or Doctor McCoy, yes it is lazy to not do the whole [[Captain]] [[James T. Kirk|Kirk]] thing, but kind of handy! I also agree with Columbia that there is a certain appeal in just being able to type McCoy into the search bar and immediately end up on the Leonard McCoy article; because most of the time that's where you want to be; and the minority of times you want a different McCoy it's no biggy to click the link to the disambiguation page at the top of the page to get to them.

Though as a general rule I prefer disambiguation pages not to be disambiguated themselves. So I'd rather see Burns (USS Enterprise) making way for Burns to be a disambiguation page to lists all Burns. The difference here is Kirk, or McCoy, are far more prominent characters than any of the Burns, so perhaps they do deserve that prominence to be recognised in where the disambiguation page is located? (I'm happy either way though) --8of5 01:36, October 18, 2010 (UTC)

Despite their notability, you aren't gaining any recognition by passing up the [[Captain]] [[James T. Kirk|Kirk]] and simply starting the sentence with "Captain James T. Kirk was..."

This is now an even greater concern because, unless you require the added information, we are going to have a lot of people writing about James T. Kirk (alternate reality) soon -- and if we leave "Kirk" as their shortcut, they're going to be writing links to the more notable James T. Kirk even though they are actually referring to James T. Kirk (alternate reality).

Now, if we let them write the shortcut, the links will join the 1,000s going to James T. Kirk and be difficult to discriminate from the valid ones when correcting links. However, if we keep Kirk as a disambiguation -- then the links will stand out in Sulfur's systems being put into place to identify anomalous links to disambiguations -- and I think he deserves some credit and leeway for wanting to make this effort, without all this squabbling about such minor details. -- Captain MKB 01:48, October 18, 2010 (UTC)

Moving the disambiguation page to 'Kirk' won't improve that problem. The link will still appear blue, because the page exists. Many current pages are improperly linked for this reason (or because contributors see a blue link caused by a non-disambiguated article). I don't think your proposal will affect that problem at all.

Further, we would have a similar problem, regardless, because of our policy regarding differentiation between versions of a character from different universes. Some persons will almost certainly link to James T. Kirk when they mean James T. Kirk (alternate reality). Your argument could as easily be made as a case against our preference for prime reality variants - which preference we have for precisely the reason that I suggest "Kirk" should link to James T. Kirk: because that article is the mostly likely aim of a search. --Columbia clipper 02:34, October 18, 2010 (UTC)

No, you're wrong there, it will help -- because the disambiguation "Kirk" will be orphaned of extraneous links as a matter of practice -- meaning that when a new link to it is written, it will be identified as needing attention, and will be corrected to point in the correct direction.

If it is made a redirect, links to both "James T Kirk" and "Kirk alternate" will be written linking to it as a matter of course -- and if we are intent on correcting these links to point to one of the two or more correct locations, then the redirect becomes useless, as we would have to take more effort to discourage/correct any use of it. Why bother having something that will lead to more inaccuracy? Why bother having a redirect that we would then have to correct people, in essence taking effort to make sure it is not used? -- Captain MKB

I don't think it will lead to more inaccuracy. When orphaning "Kirk" of extraneous links, wouldn't it work just as well to have it redirect to James T. Kirk as to make it a disambiguation page? I don't see why making the page a redirect to 'James T. Kirk' would alter the frequency with which it was linked to in lieu of James T. Kirk (alternate reality) (or James T. Kirk (mirror), for that matter). --Columbia clipper 03:34, October 18, 2010 (UTC)

It wouldn't alter the frequency the linkages, it would alter the efficacy of methods to deal with correcting the links. You're obviously not interested with the actual administrative task of those who are going to be correcting the links when they are written incorrectly, so you aren't concerned about the consequences as much as the people who actually are working on correcting such situations. This makes me wonder why you're even involving yourself in the discussion after two administrators have expressed a concern about the links and expressed a desire to correct them, and a third has stated they are "happy either way". -- Captain MKB 04:04, October 18, 2010 (UTC)

Woah there Mike, let’s cut out the authority stuff please, the opinions of admins are no more valid than any other user. Columbia is clearly participating in this discussion because he suggested the idea and wants to see it through. You do not need to resort to what seems a lot like intimidation to back up your own opinion.

Now in principle I can understand the argument that a link to "Kirk" or "James T. Kirk" when referring to a Kirk from any reality is just as likely. In practice I think most links to "Kirk" will actually come later in an article, once the full name is already established (from whichever reality), so in most cases stray links to Kirk will be more useful ending up on a disambiguation page where you could find the right Kirk. In which case I agree with Mike and Sulfur that we should make Kirk, McCoy, etc disambiguation pages. --8of5 13:42, October 18, 2010 (UTC)

Whoa, a personal accusation, thanks but no thanks, that's not a correct definition of my behavior here, let's not make this personal.

I'm not trying to be authoritative or intimidative, I'm talking about the fact that we are outlining a project with very real concerns and parameters (rewriting disambigs/codes to identify anomalous links to them) and taking responsibility for the maintenance on the links and the site and someone is arguing against us doing that, without what I see as any solid reasoning. Regardless, Thank you for your support. -- Captain MKB 17:12, October 18, 2010 (UTC)