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It's ludicrous to assert that this guy was ever called "Carlos Fitz-James Stuart". . . . --MikeTalk 13:48, 3 September 2010 (EDT)
- I assert nothing one way or the other - except that Wikipedia (WP) represents a person by this name. For purposes of my harvest of WP biographies, it is important that pages are at least initially created under the name used by WP. That way, when I encounter a page on WP that references another biography that has already been harvested into WeRelate (WR), the connections latent between the WP pages are essentially automatically reproduced on WR. The names on WR can subsequently be changed (which leaves the original name as a redirect), but there is presently no obvious convention for noble/royal/aristocratic names - so the WP name is considered an acceptable alternative. Further, while the WP names may leave a lot to be desired, they are almost always superior to the mangled forms that emerge from the upload of GEDCOM data that has accumulated via repeated dump/import cycles ("Unknown Duke", "Sir Unknown", etc., etc.). If you have ideas on making such names sane, you might peruse the current WP biography set by searching "Person" pages using keyword "wikipedia-notice" (search). The problem is daunting. --Jrm03063 14:50, 3 September 2010 (EDT)
- The difference, though, is that I've been a working librarian, archivist, and historian for some 40 years, and doing genealogy for longer than that. I'm familiar with the requirements of historical evidence. I've also written a couple dozen articles on Wikipedia, and edited 100+ others, and the necessities there are rather different.
- Actually, since Wikipedia forbids "original research," their published info is already second- or third-hand. And citing Wikipedia as a "source" on WeRelate makes it all fourth-hand. Surely we can do better than that. Adopting their methods for naming monarchs and peerage in an age before surnames existed is one thing. However, calling a person page at WeRelate "Arabella Churchill (royal mistress)" because Wikipedia found it expedient to include a descriptive phrase to distinguish her from another person of the same name is quite another thing. Likewise, one look at "Carlos FitzJames" and you should know that it would never fly -- and whoever thought up that name for a page at Wikipedia apparently is not familiar with the person or his milieu. Wikipedia doesn't always get it right. Nor are our needs the same as Wikipedia's. We are allowed to think for ourselves over here. --MikeTalk 18:29, 3 September 2010 (EDT)
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