Naming Articles

In theory, you can name an article anything you want. In practice, its a good idea to conform to certain cnventions about these titles. The following are suggestions to help minimize confusion. You are not obligated to follow them.

The main reason you want to conform to these conventions is because it helps folks find articles. By having a standard set of conventions for titles it makes it easier to find an existing article about someone. And if you've written an article, you DO want others to find it. Otherwise, they will probably think there isn't one, write one of their own, and reinvent the wheel.

Here are some things that you want to do, or not do as the case may be.

John Walker IV (c1735-c1818) aka "Indian Killer"
 * Use a full name to the extent possible---e.g, First Middle Last.
 * indicate a life range (YOB-YOD)
 * no spaces!
 * no day and month---keep it simple
 * If you don't know the YOB or YOD, use an approximate date if possble (e.g, c1795-c1856)
 * use 'c' for circa, rather than "About" or "Abt"---it doesn't really mattr what you use, all the above are OK, BUT using 'c' simplifies the hunt for articles.
 * if you are really stuck the convention this site has adopted is to indicate an unknown date with a "?" as in (?-?). Avoid using "Unknown" or "Unk"
 * If you want to insert a "by-name", put it at the end of the title, rather than between first and last names. Thus
 * This site uses a single person as the basis for an articles name. If you want, you can add the spouse's name to the title, but then you run into the problem of what to do with multiple spouses.  It seems to work better is only one person is in the title, with their spouse being written up in a separate article of their own, and linked back so people can follow their lineage.