Change her last name to Unknown? [13 May 2015]
Based on what is under "Origins," should we change her last name to Unknown?--Jillaine 10:41, 13 May 2015 (UTC)
- There are some adherents of the "Unknown" school here are WeRelate. However, I feel such a move is at least partially a mistake for several reasons:
- There is a clear note on the front outlining the doubts about the name so it seems clearly represented what the status of knowledge is. Thus the representation is not misleading. And, of course, it is not proven wrong, so removing it is basically an arbitrary decision that up to now none of the many watchers felt compelled to make.
- Many people are going to be looking for the name Hurd, be it right or wrong, and removing it will make it harder for them, whereas most serious people that think it is not Hurd, are probably aware of Hurd, and so on the whole the page will probably be more easily recognized as Mercy Hurd than as Mercy Unknown of which there are least 49 here at WeRelate.
- Any changes to the name field generates lots of rippling change notifications, and it is basically an informationless change, just one person's preference for how to present this, but will bother all the watchers.
- That said, changing it to Unknown is more accurate in the same way "About 1782" is more accurate than simply saying 1782 for an estimate. IF the following steps also occur (which does not typically happen in these cases), Unknown may be the better approach:
- Preserve the name Hurd on the page so that keyword searching can find it (or add it as a alternate name - do we need a new type of alternate name?)
- Preserve the argument of its supporters, as much as is known, so this possible clue is not lost --Jrich 14:30, 13 May 2015 (UTC)
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