Talk:Douglas Ford (British Army officer)

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Requested move 5 July 2018[edit]

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: move the page to Douglas Ford (British Army officer) at this time, per the discussion below. Please initiate a new move request at any time if you would like to propose a different title for the article. Dekimasuよ! 20:56, 24 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Douglas Ford (GC) → Douglas Ford (British army officer) – User:Necrothesp reverted my move of this page to Douglas Ford (British army officer) on the basis "GC and VC are normal dabs" so I would like to open it to discussion. I don't see how "GC" is more WP:Precise than "army officer". The George Cross (GC) is also an award, not a position, so it is not correct to say he "is a GC", which is what putting the term in brackets does. If we are to stick with including "GC", I would propose moving to Douglas Ford (GC recipient) or similar instead. jamacfarlane (talk) 23:12, 5 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose. As I said, "GC" is the usual disambiguator for GC recipients. See Category:British recipients of the George Cross. This is a consistency issue. The only exception is usually if they reached very senior rank (as in the case of John Rowlands (RAF officer)), when they are probably more notable for being an air marshal or whatever than for winning the GC. In Ford's case, however, this is his sole claim to fame, as it is with most GC or VC winners. And in Britain, we do talk about people being GCs (or VCs) - saying "Douglas Ford was a GC" would be completely normal - so in this case it's use as a disambiguator is entirely accurate (note that these are the only two awards to which this applies - they are so prestigious as to be used to describe a person who has won them). In addition, please note that the disambiguator, if we used it, would be "British Army officer", not "British army officer". Thousands of articles use this construction, as the British Army is a proper name. -- Necrothesp (talk) 07:50, 6 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support in principle, but speedy close - this is a terrible disambiguator that fails to inform and fails WP:NCPDAB, in that the disambiguator is usually a noun indicating what the person is noted for being in his or her own right. In most cases these nouns are standard, commonly used tags such as "(musician)" and "(politician)". Try to avoid using abbreviations or anything capitalized or containing hyphens, dashes or numbers (apart from instances where more specific guidelines specify particular exceptions). (my emphasis). Disambiguations should never refer to accomplishments. This should be resubmitted as a batch RM to handle all the offenders at once. -- Netoholic @ 09:54, 6 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    • Note that this issue affects many articles in Category:Recipients of the George Cross, Category:Recipients of the Victoria Cross and Category:Recipients of the Medal of Honor, all of which use this form of disambiguation. No, it certainly shouldn't only apply to a single article. However, I would argue that it is not a terrible form of disambiguation for the reasons I have stated above. I should also point out that we have used this form of disambiguation for these people since we've had disambiguation on Wikipedia. I see no good reason to suddenly change something that has worked perfectly well. That seems to me like change for change's sake. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:42, 9 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Support per Netoholic GhostOfDanGurney (talk) 13:12, 6 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support in principle, but submit as batch per Netoholic. "George Cross recipient" would be a better disambiguator than simply "GC" - besides Wp:NCPDAB, I think it's just generally good practice not to have the first instance of an abbreviation in its contracted form (unless it's both common and predominantly used in that form, such as "RAF"). I disagree that "[d]isambiguations should never refer to accomplishments", though; per Necrothesp, in the case of GC or VC recipients, receipt of the medal is what makes them notable, so should be used as the disambiguator (unless there is another reason for notability, in which case the other reason is prefered as the disambiguating descriptor). — Sasuke Sarutobi (push to talk) 17:12, 9 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support a move, but suggest Douglas Ford (soldier), failing that I suggest Douglas Ford, GC. And I agree entirely, it's the British Army not British army. Cavalryman V31 (talk) 20:42, 9 July 2018 (UTC).[reply]
    • We don't use "soldier" to disambiguate British Army officers. We always use "British Army officer". And we don't use the latter form of disambiguation using postnominals. -- Necrothesp (talk) 08:23, 10 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    • Strongly oppose moving to either Douglas Ford (soldier) or Douglas Ford, GC. Officers and soldiers are not the same (see British Army#Ranks, specialisms and insignia) and we don't include postnomials/suffixes in article titles. My preference is for "British army officer" (i.e. an army officer from Britain, so it includes his county and occupation, similar to how we would say "British politician") as opposed to "British Army officer" (i.e. an officer in the British Army), but I recognise there is an estalished style for using "British Army officer". jamacfarlane (talk) 11:15, 10 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    • Strong oppose Douglas Ford (British army officer), if neither suggestion is acceptable then Douglas Ford (British Army officer). And as a commissioned officer in one of Her Majesty's armies, I can definitively say I identify as a soldier. Cavalryman V31 (talk) 13:20, 10 July 2018 (UTC).[reply]
I defer to your greater knowledge. My reasoning was the Army's own website refers to "soldier or officer", implying they are distinct. I am happy to move to Douglas Ford (British Army officer) with a capital "A". jamacfarlane (talk) 21:40, 10 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
It's complicated. All members of an army are generically soldiers, but when referring to "officers and soldiers" the latter only refers to other ranks. Hence we use "(British Army officer)" and "(British Army soldier)" as disambiguators for the two categories. British military traditions are designed to bamboozle the uninitiated! -- Necrothesp (talk) 12:16, 11 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support "(solider)", or "(British Army officer)" as second choice. He received the award for deeds done as a solidier/officer, the end. On "(solider)" versus "(British Army officer)": the latter fails WP:CONCISE and our WP:AT#DAB / WP:DAB principle that we do not disambiguate any more than is strictly necessary. While I could support a temporary WP:CONSISTENCY move to "(British Army officer)", all the pages with such a "mega-DAB" need to be mass-RMed for discussion of something more concise (probably "soldier" in any case where this doesn't produce a second-tier ambiguity, e.g. between US and Canadian or American or whatever soldiers). Regardless, Douglas Ford should be disambiguated as a soldier, with one term or another. His acts as one are why he's notable. "(GC)" is meaningless to most readers (other than probably standing for something else in their minds); a disambiguation that introduces another ambiguity is a failure. And we do not disambiguate by achievement; that's a site-wide principle. "'GC' is the usual disambiguator for GC recipients" is WP:LOCALCONSENSUS nonsense. It's doubly sub-standard disambiguation practice and is has to go. It's nonsense because local consensus does not apply at the category or meta-topical level, only on a page-by-page basis, and clusters of editors deep into some particular topical niche cannot make up their own rules against site-wide ones. See WP:CONLEVEL policy, and previous ArbCom decisions striking down the idea of wikiprojects or other little gaggles of editors forcing their own novel idiosyncrasies.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  02:55, 13 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    • I take it you'll also be trying to get the disambiguators for sportspeople changed too? Disambiguating an individual as a "tennis" or an "American football" or a "rugby union" is also technically "against the rules"! -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:11, 13 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
      • Rules, rules, rules: They are a communication device written by you, not a textbook written by someone else. Andrewa (talk) 00:03, 19 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
        • My point was we don't have rules, yet some here seem to be trying to enforce them! -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:12, 23 July 2018 (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 or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.
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