Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biography/Survey on Style-Prefixed Honorary Titles

message: Do not do it. This is a survey in progress, and changes to the frame without a strong consensus that a rewording is absolutely necessary are disfavored. In the instant case, Neutrality unilaterally changed the wording of Alternative 3, and I had to revert. Whig 05:53, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Note, I don't believe the change was substantive, because he only edited the examples given, which are not strictly prescriptive. Nonetheless, this should not be done. Whig 06:32, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Changing the survey wording 

message: The current Wikipedia usage is heavily slanted towards "styles for European Christian figures", but not for other people.  I think that POV is essentially what motivates most of the "yes on Alternative 1" voters.  E.g.:
# (His Imperial Majesty, Emperor) Haile Selassie
# (Dear Leader) Kim Jong-Il
# (His Holiness) Dalai Lama
# (King) Sunny Ade
# (Messiah) Sun Myung Moon
None of those are "fringe" figures (in the sense of fewer than thousands of followers).  But, of course, most European monarchs and royalty have the styles.  The case of the Dalai Lama is particularly notable.  The only time his style ever appeared was when a couple of the pro-Pope advocates went over there to add it; but all the people who actually know about the Dalai Lama, and contribute meaningfully to the page, took the style back out.Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 21:39, 2005 May 8 (UTC)
:His Magesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej the Great, His Imperial Magesty the Emperor Akihito, His Majesty King Abdullah II ibn al-Hussein, His Majesty Samdech Preah Bâromneath Norodom Sihamoni, Sayyed Qaboos ibn Sa’id Al ‘Bu Sa’id, and so on. Gentgeen 09:07, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: While I think you've demonstrated that Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters overstates the "pro-European" bias in the present use of titles, none of the examples you post are particularly controversial figures to American and Commonwealth Wikipedians. I think there are nonetheless a great many tribal, religious and political figures who, particularly when they may be perceived to be adverse to the dominant political or religious organizations in our countries, are denied style. This, IMHO, is improper POV if Alternative 1 wins. I kind of liked his Messiah Sun Myung Moon example, if that's actually how he's formally addressed by a substantial number of people. But I could probably think of a lot more controversial edits. How is Osama Bin Laden styled by Al Qaeda, for instance? And presumably, by some substantial number of people in the Arabic world. Whig 06:21, 3 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Bios w/o Styles

message: Malay titles, Monarch, Style (manner of address), Chinese style name, Title
Haile Selassie of Ethiopia "He took the full title His Imperial Majesty, Emperor Haile Selassie I, King of Kings and Lord of Lords, Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah, Elect of God." 
4.250.198.247 10:18, 6 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Do you know what you are voting on?

message: The vote above is concerned with whether people who have a formal style ought to be named with that formal style in their own articles. Nowhere, however, do I see a definition for "formal style", and I think this is going to make the survey impossible to read.
Much is the discussion centers around topics along the lines of "Well, if you're suggesting that the Queen gets to have her formal style used, then you're suggesting that Sollog ought to have his formal style used," and "Well, if Pope Benedict XVI gets his formal style, shouldn't anti-pope Pius XIII?" This is a corollary of the "slippery slope argument," and it only has weight because nowhere on this page do we define "formal style" in any terms, even ambiguous ones.
According to Style (manner of address), "A Style is a form of address which by tradition or law precedes a reference to a person who holds a title or post, or to the office itself." When I voted for option one alone above, I did so with this definition in mind. Sollog has no tradition, law or large body of support behind his "style", and so, were option one to "win" under this definition, he would not be covered under it. Clearly we need some definition of style, and a good candidate is the one I mentioned.
Of course, everyone is free jump in and start making Sorites-like arguments that don't get us anywhere, asking "well, what defines 'popular'? 1,000 people? 10,000 people?" The point, however, remains that we need some rough definition of "formal style" and, unless we're arguing just for the sake of being argumentative, that definition is probably not going to be one that requires us to call random people like myself by some random style that gets made up on the spot.
— Asbestos | <FONT COLOR=#808080>Talk</FONT> 09:15, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: My suggestion is to carve out a NPOV rule for exceptions under Alternative 2. Sollog aside, and others who self-proclaim themselves to have a style which nobody else respects, there are many people who do claim and are afforded a style by substantial numbers of people who do not currently have their style prefixed in their biographical entries. If Alternative 1 prevails, I don't think these can be excepted unless you can clearly demonstrate that in each such case the style is objectively unreasonable. (Note, I'm agreeing with you that Sollog's style is objectively unreasonable, but recognized political, tribal and religious leaders of numerous and sundry kinds have styles that cannot be so easily discarded.) Whig 10:46, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure we need a formal definition here - all we need to do is apply our (unwritten) policy that disputed (or indeed unusual) information is supported by reputable sources, jguk 11:11, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: In the absence of a carefully carved out rule of exception provided under Alternative 2, it seems to me that the only support required for use of the prefixed style in the first alternative is that it can be documented that it is seriously used by anyone other than the person him or herself. No exclusion for Kim Jong-il, certainly, in this case, and probably not even for Lucian Pulvermacher. If you do want to exclude these cases, make the rule explicit. Whig 16:15, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I haven't seen any evidence that Kim Jong-il has a style in the same way as the Queen does, or the Pope. Until and unless such evidence is supplied, I don't need to consider it. I've never heard of Lucian Pulvermacher, but if you have a reputable source to show that he is often officially given some style, I'm happy to read it, jguk 16:37, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

text: In the case of Kim Jong-il, please see this biography. Whig 17:17, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: That's not a style. (This discussion on styles has made one thing absolutely clear: most people haven't the faintest idea what one is.) Proteus (Talk) 17:31, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

text: Whether it is or is not a style, I think you make the point very well that we are correct to refer to formal style of address rather than using a technical term you claim people haven't the faintest idea what is meant by. Whig 17:52, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

text: If an award carries with it a prefixed formal style of address which is seriously used, then I think it applies. Whig 16:19, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

text: If the person is alive, we put in post-nominals and other such things (The Right Honourable Sir John Major, KG, CH, for example). If they're deceased, we generally don't (although a few military leaders have articles with their post-nominals - Horatio Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener of Khartoum). ugen64 21:20, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The reason for that practice being started was that people were being given post-nominals when they lived in a time when such things weren't generally used, which is probably inappropriate (Knights of the Garter weren't generally referred to as "Sir John Smith, KG" in the fifteenth century, for instance). But post-nominals were used in, for example, the nineteenth century, since Lord Nelson was certainly called "The Right Honourable The Lord Viscount Nelson, KB" in his lifetime, so it's not really inappropriate to use them for people who've lived in the last couple of centuries. Proteus (Talk) 11:17, 3 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Hmm, that's what I'd originally thought. But I deferred to Emsworth, whose opinion I outlined above. So, say, 19th century or later is a good rough benchmark for post-nominals? ugen64 00:33, 4 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Definition of "Formal Style"

message: To all of you who have used the phrase "gaming the system" in fleshing out your votes: it's not "gaming" the system.  Condorcet/Beatpath (Beatpath == CSSD) was openly announced as the voting system, and Condorcet has rules.  Just because you're not aware of the rules and expect "first and only choice" to mean something it doesn't, doesn't mean you're gaming the system once you alter your vote so it does mean what you intended.
By the way: Condorcet does not require strict ranking.  You could have given your vote as Third choice, Fifty-fourth choice, fifty-fourth choice, Eighteenth choice, Ninety-fifth choice, and that would correspond to a ballot 1>4>2=3>5.  I daresay poor Whig would prefer you don't leave gaps (and we'd all like to be able to read the votes without a spreadsheet), but expressing equality of options, like that vote as "First/Third/Third/Second/Fourth", should be perfectly allowable. Whig? TreyHarris 21:09, 8 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Gosh, please don't do that. It is not strictly prohibited by Condorcet rules to use random numbers to rank your preferences, but we want to be able to reasonably infer voter intention from the ballots cast. Some people have voted a First and Fifth choice, for instance, in which case, a strict reading might say that the other three options are ranked BELOW Fifth, but this is clearly not the voter's intention. First/Third/Third/Second/Fourth isn't too hard to figure out because all options are ranked, and you are certainly allowed to rank choices equally. Whig 02:03, 9 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Gaming the system", equality of preference 

message: Can we get a discussion here on whether the non-Wikipedia-standard vote here will actually lead to a consensus policy?  Since this vote does not establish consensus, can we even say that the results will be binding?  My opinion is no.  RickK 05:51, May 9, 2005 (UTC)
:Can we wait until the voting is closed before we decide that no consensus will emerge? People continue to vote and some who have voted continue to change their rankings. We can certainly talk about what alternatives we may have if a consensus fails, but we should not prematurely assume that it will. Whig 06:13, 9 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Consensus

message: Per requests, this section is being archived to reduce the level of incivility here. Whig 21:01, 11 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vote Corralling 

message: I don't want to offend anyone, and I hope I'm posting this message to the right page.  I have a query about two votes which were posted anonymously (from computer number 66.82.9.22) according to the history of the page , yet were signed as from houshuang according to the page itself.  The first vote, at 19.54 on 9 May, was First choice for Alternative 4.  The diff is here .  The second vote, made one minute later, was Second choice for Alternative 3.  The diff is here .  Houshuang seems to be a valid user - I had a look at his page yesterday - and I have no wish to deny him a valid vote.  But if he was not logged in, then the ~~~~ would not have produced his user name.  If he was logged in, then the history of the page would show that those two edits were made by him, rather than by a computer number.
As far as I can see, any anonymous user could look through Wikipedia to find some users that are unlikely to visit this particular page, and could then enter this page anonymously, and vote by signing something like A.N.Other.  It would then appear on the page as A.N.Other, and the time could be added.
I have had a look at the contributions of computer 66.82.9.22  and there are very few.  I can see nothing that would connect it to houshuang.
Whig, since you seem to be organizing this vote, perhaps you could check this out?  Many thanks.  Ann Heneghan 09:03, 10 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I will post a Talk query to houshuang. If the votes are not properly authenticated, they will be discarded. Whig 09:10, 10 May 2005 (UTC)

text: Actually, I noticed the edits and had asked him about it two days ago. Since he never replied, I think his votes should be flagged as coming from an anon (but not removed), and if no reply is forthcoming by the end of the vote they should not be counted. — Asbestos | <FONT COLOR=#808080>Talk</FONT> 07:53, 11 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Votes from bogus user?