Forum:Surname article creation

Let's talk about surnames. We have many pages involving surnames. I have an idea on how we can simplify what we already have.

In many of the surname categories, we have a whole bunch of information. Section headers for variants, orgin, meaning, external links, etc. Thing is, most of these are empty. Of course, we do want to expand and have a lot of history of surnames. And when we do the actual pages in the category gets pushed to the bottom of the page.

A solution brought up multiple times is to have an article separate fro mthe category. Meaning, Smith contains information on the origin, meaning, variants, etc. of the surname, while Category:Smith Surname only lists the articles that are categorized with it.

Take a look at Help:Surname. Perhaps it could be more simple? How about just one method of surname page standardization? Which one? I have an idea for a new one I have been developing:

Template:SurnameArticle provides an infobox, which can link to variants of a surname, to Wikipedia's article on the surname, and, categorize the article with the Surname, and put it into the Category:Surname articles categories. This template is used on articles such as Smith. Use the template, fill in the infobox, and under the infobox goes all the background info, history, etc. On the very top of the article, a link to the surname's category. Example: Ferguson

Template:SurnameArticle is used on surname categories and provides a link to the article describing the surname (see above paragraph) and a brief sentence telling the readers what the page is all about. Just a link, brief description and all the categorized subcategories and articles. Example: Category:Ferguson Surname

If we use this method, we can simplify the Help:Surname article, because having one method that uses the solution mentioned in paragraph 2 and being able to link both pages will be a lot simpler. - AMK152 (talk • contribs) 03:24, 28 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm pleased you have been convinced that we want separate articles so as not to push subcategories and articles out of sight on the surname category pages. I agree with the overall proposal 100%. I couldn't see how "Template:SurnameArticle is used on surname categories" if it's also used on the article page; study of the Ferguson example shows that you meant a new Template:SurnameCategory; in my opinion not as good as the standard Template:Catmore, particularly because yours invites readers to see something "here" when in fact they have to look on another page. Robin Patterson 04:44, 28 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Your last paragraph is a bit short on logic. We can simplify Help:Surname by cutting out two of the three currently offered options; nothing to do with "If we use this method". Rewriting the remaining option so that it refers to the article instead of the category may simplify the help page further but I doubt if it will unless we put all the explanatory bits under the template or on its talk page or "/doc" subpage. Robin Patterson 04:44, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Before we go too far
Okay, just realized something. We can't just use Smith anymore. We should use Smith (surname) and be consistent with all the other surnames.

I realized this when I thought of my great-great-great-great-grandmother, Sarah England (1814-1897). Her surname "England" page would be at England, but England is the name of a country. Same goes for George Washington and other surnames that come from place names or just are place names. Or even people whose last name is May, which is also a month. So, what we should do is this:

England (surname) - about the surname

Then have some sort of disambiguation system for stuff like this.

For surnames that don't have a disambiguation to it, the article with the surname only can be redirected to the surname article.

Example: Smith redirects to Smith (surname) until "Smith" becomes a disambiguation for other things.

Unless someone thinks we don't need to do this, I'm going to start to transfer the templates and articles to the new format. - AMK152 (talk • contribs) 03:12, 30 July 2008 (UTC)


 * On the whole, I agree that the plain name would not be good. Too many exceptions or conflicts, as you say: England, Spain, Washington, London, March, May, Adam, and so on. But why bother with parentheses? England surname, Washington surname, May surname, Adam surname, etc. Will require us to abandon some of the use of PAGENAME but you can handle the coding there! I would like (and have for a couple of years wanted) to give the category names "surname" instead of "Surname" too. Your bot could do that; that would simplify the coding of the link in  . Robin Patterson 03:40, 30 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, I have been thinking of a transfer to lowercase "surname" instead of using "Surname" for category names for quite a while (why hasn't that been brought up before? or has it?). Anyway, I will try to figure out how to make the bot do that. One method would be to change categories for all 2,300+ categories individually. I'm not sure if there is another way, but I will look into it. But, we can start by transferring the articles about surnames to a title that contains the word "surname." - AMK152 (talk • contribs) 03:52, 30 July 2008 (UTC)


 * They will need the links from their categories changed eventually, but the automatically created redirects will do for now. Robin Patterson 05:08, 30 July 2008 (UTC)


 * There is, of course, more to changing the surname category names than I said. Each old one would need to become a category redirect, and we would need to do thousands of category redirect fixes for the articles in those categories. That goes back to what's now the first proposal left on User talk:AMK152Bot. Robin Patterson 05:08, 30 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I think use of (surname) looks better than just surname. (Smith (surname)/Smith surname) Wikipedia uses this too. (Smith (surname)). I can get the bot to move pages to a new category, but I don't know how to do the category redirects. I have adjusted Template:SurnameArticle and added the needed additions to the template on the pages. - AMK152 (talk • contribs) 14:16, 30 July 2008 (UTC)