Forum:Married Companions

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Some, such as Jo Jones, use the married name, but others, like Evelyn Smythe, retain the original name.

Should we not have some consistency? TemporalSpleen ^{talk to me} 20:25, January 19, 2012 (UTC)

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds -- Ralph Waldo Emerson. Boblipton ^{talk to me} 00:16, January 20, 2012 (UTC)

I think it just depends on what name the character uses. In Death of the Doctor, Jo was shown to have taken Cliff's last name, but Gwen and Amy are both shown to have kept their maiden names in every episode after their weddings. I don't know anything about Evelyn Smythe though, so I'm not sure whether this helps or not.Icecreamdif ^{talk to me} 03:15, January 20, 2012 (UTC)

Evelyn is specifically called Evelyn Rossiter in Thicker than Water, and in terms of televised companions Barbara's page still uses "Wright" TemporalSpleen ^{talk to me} 17:31, January 20, 2012 (UTC)

I don't think that Barbara was ever shown to have taken any other name though.Icecreamdif ^{talk to me} 19:06, January 20, 2012 (UTC)

Death of the Doctor: Sarah Jane refers to Ian and Barbara Chesterton. TemporalSpleen ^{talk to me} 21:08, January 20, 2012 (UTC)

Proposed rule change

Guys, please use colons prior to your posts in order to indent your messages. This makes the article conversation easier to read.

As to the current state of our rules, we do have a policy on married characters. Please consult T:CHAR NAMES. Basically, it says that we tend to prefer later to earlier names, and that we don't automatically switch to the married name. We are being consistent with Evelyn's name because her stories are being released out of order. Thus the most current stories involving Evelyn have her as Evelyn Smythe. Yes, her last story, chronologically, has her as Evelyn Rossiter, but that story was close to ten years ago. The most recently released episodes have her as Evelyn Smythe.

Personally, I think a better rule might be "use the name that's in the majority of stories in which the character appears". That's way easier and much less controversial. But that's not the current rule. We can make it the current rule if you like, of course. But, again, it's not the current rule.
czechout<staff /> ☎ ✍ 07:54: Sat 21 Jan 2012 

I'd agree, and say that the most frequently used name should be used for the title. --TemporalSpleen ^{talk to me} 09:44, January 21, 2012 (UTC)

yes, it should be the most frequently used names or the name the person is known by for the majority of their stories. for example, i think it makes it more confusing to have jo's page under jo jones when for the majority of televised appearances she is known as jo grant (all except for one story to be exact) and jo grant is the name most people (out of universe, of course) know her by. Imamadmad ^{talk to me} 07:16, January 23, 2012 (UTC)

I feel this goes against some of the idea of our in-universe pages, writing from the 'end of the universe' perspective. So in many ways I think we should go with their later used names.

As, if there's clear narrative proof of their name change that should be the one we use.

However, I understand that for linking, logic and readability purposes there is benefit in using their most frequently used names.

Also a side note, that A Death in the Family was published in October 2010, chronologically that's Evelyn's last story where she uses Rossiter. --Tangerineduel / talk 13:42, January 28, 2012 (UTC)

Revival

CzechOut reopened this topic because I said at Forum:Disambiguation: Omegas:

Frankly, I think it would make sense for the Doctor's granddaughter to be at Susan or Susan Foreman, and all the other Susans currently at Susan to be at Susan (disambiguation); Susan Campbell seems quite absurd, like another wiki having an article on the protagonist of Pride and Prejudice at "Elizabeth Darcy", or the title character of Jane Eyre at "Jane Rochester" (after all, "Reader, I married him").

Yes, the in-universe pages are meant to be written from the perspective of someone writing from Event Two, but does that really mean that they have to be named that way? I think that article naming is already out-of-universe — otherwise we wouldn't be able to use story names to disambiguate characters with the same name. And from an out-of-universe perspective, it makes much more sense to have the Doctor's granddaughter at Susan or Susan Foreman than at Susan Campbell, because that's where the vast majority of readers will look for her. Jo Grant/Jones is perhaps a trickier issue, since young viewers might know her primarily from The Death of the Doctor, but I'd still favor Jo Grant over Jo Jones and Evelyn Smythe over Evelyn Rossiter. Finally, it's worth remembering that if the practice of always using married names had been in place when this wiki was founded, Sarah Jane Smith would be at Sarah Jane Morley. —Josiah Rowe ^{talk to me} 03:35, May 11, 2012 (UTC)

I think it important to clarify that I didn't "reopen" this topic, so much as I mistakenly closed it. There is no precedent being set whereby a topic can be "re-opened" just because there is new interest in a topic. Ordinary procedure is still to simply start a new thread in such a situation.

However, this thread was closed in a hurry, only a few days prior to Josiah's comment, and in my zeal to do normal, quarterly archiving of the forums, I had obviously moved a little too fast. In talking to Josiah about the subject, I was encouraged to re-read the thread more closely, whereupon I found that the topic had not actually been resolved at all.
czechout<staff /> ☎ ✍ 20:52: Sun 20 May 2012 

Does anybody still want to defend Donna Temple-Noble? (She had dozens of appearances as Donna Noble, and about a minute on screen as Donna Temple-Noble...) I think that using the name which a character used in the majority of her appearances is a better rule. Anybody want to disagree? —Josiah Rowe ^{talk to me} 05:53, May 30, 2012 (UTC)

well, using the most commonly used name makes the most sense. however, if the changed name is used for a significant portion of time on screen (or in text or on audios etc) after being changed, e.g. one or more season versus a short mention in an episode looking back at the past, then i think it would be ok to use the latter name. but in general, the most commonly used name i believe should be preferred. Imamadmad ^{talk to me} 11:53, May 30, 2012 (UTC)

We seem to be moving towards a general consensus that it's acceptable to go with the most common name. But I think we should wait about a week for any opposing views to surface.

In the meantime, I think we should examine Imamadmad's proviso. Imamadmad says that characters that have a substantial number of stories under a married name should go with the married name. That means Temple-Noble and Jones are definitely gone (though a redirect should remain), but the Evelyn Rossiter case might need some further discussion.

What does "substantial" mean? Is it enough to have more than one story under the married name? To me, that would be enough to justify the name switch. I tend to think that Rossiter should be at Rossiter with a redirect from Smythe. Where do we think the line is between incidental and substantial use of a married name?
czechout<staff /> ☎ ✍ 19:10: Fri 01 Jun 2012 

Pardon me if I don't think there should be any hard-and-fast rule. Amy Pond is called "Amy Williams" a couple of times, but it's not the name she chooses to go by in any substantive sense. Donna intends to call herself "Donna Temple-Noble" so that's all right -- but I would still call her "Donna Temple" because we see her under her married name for less than a minute and never while in direct interaction with the Doctor... perhaps as an alternative name. Evelyn, however, tips the scale on the other side. So it's somewhere between thirty seconds and two or three full stories.

I think that, when there is a problem, the best place to discuss the matter is on the talk page of the character. Frankly "Evelyn Smythe later Rossiter is just right, as is the way we finally decided with River Song. I know that many people are happy with hard-and-fast rules, but there are always sticky cases and it's better to hang your hat on judgment from the get-go.Boblipton ^{talk to me} 20:30, June 1, 2012 (UTC)

I agree that we can and should play it by ear in sticky cases. (For example, I still lean towards Jo Grant, but I could see an argument being made for Jo Jones.) —Josiah Rowe ^{talk to me} 00:40, June 2, 2012 (UTC)

I, too, agree that we can have exceptions. But an exception definitionally requires a rule. People that are new to editing with us — and we're pickin' up new editors all the time — need a starting guideline to help them. Nothing wrong with specifying the usual pattern and then suggesting that some cases might require special handling.
czechout<staff /> ☎ ✍ 18:49: Mon 04 Jun 2012 

Not "and then" but "while".Boblipton ^{talk to me} 21:51, June 4, 2012 (UTC)

Well, it's been nearly two months since CzechOut said "we should wait about a week". I think we have a clear consensus on some of these, so I'm going to be bold (as they say on Wikipedia) and move Susan Campbell, Jo Jones and Donna Temple-Noble back to Susan Foreman, Jo Grant and Donna Noble. Evelyn is already at Evelyn Smythe. Are there any others?

Should I also change all the links, or is that better left to CzechBot? —Josiah Rowe ☎ 02:59, August 10, 2012 (UTC)

Happily, this is an instance where no moving is required. Sure, the primary name of the article should be Susan Foreman, but Susan Campbell is not an incorrect name. Thus, married names can (and should!) remain as redirects. Hopefully, when you moved the article, you chose to retain redirects. If you didn't, please re-create those redirects and everything will be fine.

Also, if you haven't done so, could you please move lock the articles, so that people aren't tempted to move Jo Grant back to Jo Jones? Thanks :)
czechout<staff /> ☎ ✍ 17:20: Sun 12 Aug 2012 

I suppose that any page on navboxes like {{Companions of the First Doctor}}, {{Companions of the Third Doctor}}, and {{Companions of the Tenth Doctor}} should have the redirects changed to what they went by during their travels. -- Tybort (talk page) 19:46, August 12, 2012 (UTC)

Done, for those and {{Time Lords}}. I also move protected the articles (it looks as if I already did it for Susan Foreman, but not the others, oddly). All the married names remain as redirects; the only question is whether we care that now there are links, like the one in the infobox for An Unearthly Child (TV story), which will send readers to a page which says "redirected from Susan Campbell" when that name doesn't appear in the visible text of the referring article. It's a pretty minor thing, but if you're looking for something to keep CzechBot busy it might be a good little task. —Josiah Rowe ☎ 03:44, August 13, 2012 (UTC)

Actually, it's precisely the kind of task the bot can't do. At least not automatically. I'd have to put the bot on "semi-automatic" and actually read the text of the article to see whether it's contextually better to have a link to Foreman than Campbell. And I'm not seeing that kind of bot run in my future. If user:TimeTraveller34 wants to call her "the future Mrs. Susan Campbell" on one page and user:Frajiumus wants to call her "the girl who once was known as Susan Foreman" on another, I'm not bothered. I certainly wouldn't want to do an automatic bot run, though, cause it would make a nonsense out of TimeTraveller34's sentence. The way I look at it, Foreman and Campbell are equally legitimate, and I say this is precisely why we have redirects in MediaWiki.

I certainly don't care that someone will get a "redirected from ..." message. If that causes confusion because the current lead doesn't contain "Susan Campbell", then the easy solution is to just make sure that it does.

Maybe I'm not quite understanding what you're saying, but I don't see anything that requires bot attention, or is a cause for more general concern.
czechout<staff /> ☎ ✍ 05:09: Mon 13 Aug 2012 

Oh wait. I've just re-read what you've said. Are you claiming that people have pipe-switched Campbell to just Susan, as in [[Susan Foreman|Susan]], and that this will cause confusion? I can kinda see that point, yeah. If you would, give me some precise usage patterns that are troubling you, and if I can design an automatic bot run to take care of it, I will.
czechout<staff /> ☎ ✍ 05:09: Mon 13 Aug 2012 

Yeah, that's exactly what I was saying. In the infoboxes for (I think) all of her stories, and in other places, Susan is listed as Susan, even though that's not her name in any TV story except The Five Doctors. Again, it's not a big deal, as it doesn't show up visibly except in mouseover text (and the "redirected from" if people click on the link). If it's something that would involve complex programming, it's probably not worth it... or I could fix it manually some time when I've got some time to kill. —Josiah Rowe ☎ 19:11, August 13, 2012 (UTC)

I've been using "Susan Foreman" but pipe-switching to "Susan"; are you saying I shouldn't do that? No one calls her Foreman (after the first story) and if she's not yet married in the story, it feels weird to call her Campbell. Shambala108 ☎ 20:18, August 13, 2012 (UTC)

Even if most of the Susan stuff is usually just Susan in the main text, what about places which [[Jo Grant]] or [[Donna Temple-Noble|Donna Noble]]?? Could that specific stuff be corrected with a bot? -- Tybort (talk page) 19:22, August 13, 2012 (UTC)

Weird. I would never have expected this kind of behaviour from users. I guess they never knew there was a redirect from Jo Grant to Jo Jones, cause the bot is literally making hundreds of changes.

Seriously people: why would you type [[Jo Jones|Jo Grant]] when you could just type [[Jo Grant]]?

Anyway, the bot is running to do what Tybort has suggested: moving [[Jo Grant]] into [[Jo Grant]]. The thing the bot can't do — automatically — is to change [[Jo Jones]] into [[Jo Grant]], because the decision to use either of those surnames is contextual.
czechout<staff /> ☎ ✍ 04:53: Tue 14 Aug 2012 

Okay, those three bot runs are over. Just a point about infoboxes. I've no intention of changing them to include the last name. Susan, Tegan, Jo, Zoe, etc. are all preferred in infoboxes so as to limit the total vertical height of the box. The last name of companions doesn't actually improve the accuracy of the infobox, so surnames are superfluous. It's the cast listing in the body of the article itself where we want to get the character name as credited, so as to accurately reflect the titles.
czechout<staff /> ☎ ✍ 05:09: Tue 14 Aug 2012 

And now I'm doing bot runs for [[married name|first name]] --> [[single name|first name]].
czechout<staff /> ☎ ✍ 15:14: Tue 14 Aug 2012 

Ugh, I knew eventually I was gonna do an automatic bot run that honestly should've been done manually. And this was it. There are some legitimate uses of [[Susan Campbell|Susan]]. But they're so few and far between — mainly relative to BFEDAs — that it doesn't really matter, I guess. Seems like most of these, in context, have the word Campbell floating around, anyway, cause she's mentioned in the same breath as Alex Campbell or David Campbell. As for Jo and Donna — they too are overwhelmingly known as bachelorettes. I'm honestly not feelin' the overwhelming need to be hyper accurate on pages like Death of the Doctor and The End of Time. And, actually, unlike Martha, who is Martha Smith-Jones throughout her appearance in TEOT, Donna's only Temple-Noble at the very end. So it's accurate enough to say she's Donna Noble in every appearance (so far) in DW fiction.
czechout<staff /> ☎ ✍ 15:22: Tue 14 Aug 2012