Talk:Jane Marple

SOTO is right that the first name is not used in the references I've seen. Chances are it was never mentioned (or it could have been: such small references often go unrecorded). However, it is absolutely clear which character is meant. In a similar prior case, the first name of a real-world reference was used as the best way of disambiguating, despite not being mentioned in the DWU. While strictly speaking, it is not necessary to disambiguate Marple at the moment, I added the first name as future proofing. Amorkuz ☎ 22:57, August 13, 2016 (UTC)

UPD: I was not able to find the mention of "Jane" in TV stories mentioned on the page. Amorkuz ☎ 21:57, August 14, 2016 (UTC)

I don't see any need for a rename. This is not a character in the DWU, this is a fictional character in the DWU. Shambala108 ☎ 13:44, August 15, 2016 (UTC)

T:HONOR, in its current formulation, does not distinguish between types of characters or, indeed, types of pages. The exact quote is: "Honourifics are titles that come before a name, such as Mr, Mrs, Dr, Professor, religious ranks, or military ranks. These should generally not be included in article titles, unless they provide the only reasonable means of disambiguation." Amorkuz ☎ 14:26, August 15, 2016 (UTC)

If T:HONOR says that Miss Marple and Doctor Strange need to be renamed, that sounds like a problem with T:HONOR, not those page titles. Absolutely no one is going to wonder "Has Doctor Strange ever been mentioned in Doctor Who?", hop online, and search for "Strange (fictional character)". These page renames are actively eroding this website's usefulness as an encyclopedia. – N8 ☎ 17:26, November 7, 2017 (UTC)

Fortunately for T:HONOUR, there are pages Miss Marple (series) and Doctor Strange (film) that should have {{you may}} to the character pages for those users who are not familiar with our policies. There are plenty of DWU characters that are almost universally referred to with some kind of honourifics, Sergeant Benton comes to mind. There are characters that are only referred to once or twice, and with an honourific,. It is, in fact, better to apply the rule uniformly than to make readers guess how deep into the DWU a given character embedded, and whether it was featured in the Land of Fiction, etc., to determine whether T:HONOUR applies or not. It's not like anyone would mistake Miss for a first name. I would be more careful with Little Lord Fauntleroy because that is not a standard honourific, but Miss, Doctor, Captain, etc. are stripped for everyone. Amorkuz ☎ 18:01, November 7, 2017 (UTC)

You know what, let's meet halfway. I think I figured the optimal way in terms of minimising the number of clicks. If the character page is Marple, the series page is Miss Marple (series), and there is a redirect from Miss Marple to Marple, then

• a person who goes by the wiki's naming policy gets to this page in one click;
• a person who types "Miss Marple" is instead presented with two options and can choose among them, also in one click. Amorkuz ☎ 18:49, November 7, 2017 (UTC)

That sounds like a great compromise :) May I make an analogous redirect from Captain Nemo to Nemo? – N8 ☎ 19:07, November 7, 2017 (UTC)

Glad we agree. I made the redirects myself then, to save you the trouble. Amorkuz ☎ 19:30, November 7, 2017 (UTC)

In response to the first bit of the edit summary "the point of policies is their universality. Many people would search for Captain Harkness, so what?", universal means universal, and the way the policy is being applied to this case is not. Mr Smith is a fairly big character whose page could hardly have slipped underneath the eyes of individuals who cared about enforcing policy. The many Dr. Whos perhaps less as notable, but still a concrete example of the non-universality of T:Honourifics.

I'd chalk it down to another factor involved in these renames: that pages should have the name by which their subject is most commonly known.

Nobody calls her just "Marple". It's thus far universally "Miss Marple", just as Dr. Who is always "Dr. Who" (unless of course, he's "Dr Who").

We can all agree that there is a line it just doesn't make sense to cross; which (ignoring Dr. Who (Dr. Who and the Daleks), Mr Smith, Grandfather Paradox, and probably a few more examples I can't think of) I would put between "fictional" people and "real" people. My line runs between Professor X and Paterson (Survival). The moment... uh, I dunno... Thebes publishes a novel all about Erimem & company going back and solving a murder with the real Miss Marple, I'm all for moving this page to Jane Marple. But as it stands as a page about a concept rather than a person, I really think Miss Marple is more suited. CoT ? 01:44, November 8, 2017 (UTC)

On the one hand, I don't want to wade into this discussion and start all over. On the other hand, it seems impolite not to answer at all. So generally, this is my last post here. If you put back the rename tag back, you might well find an admin to eventually rename it back. I'm not gonna fight this: there are almost 300 fresh renames, and I would dearly love to make renames into what they're supposed to be: initiating a discussion leading to a decision rather than gathering dust. I feel like many editors (based on the delays I guess) treat a change from speedy rename to rename as the final failure of the rename proposition. But it isn't. It shouldn't be. Just like speedy renames should be things that can be renamed immediately and require almost no waiting time. So I'm not gonna rename the same thing twice if I can help it (either direction that is).

But in response to your examples, I view them differently. These are all cases when Mr, Dr, Grandfather etc. cannot be viewed as honourifics. We do not believe that Who is the last name, so Dr is not a title. Computers don't have last names (and Mr Smith does not seem overly masculine other than voicewise), so Mr Smith is not an honourific-last name but a nickname (or pet name). I know less about Faction Paradox, but I never thought Paradox to be a last name. I thought this is closer to "Father Frost" (though I'm less sure about Grandfather Halfling). While X is known to be used as a last name, it is not naturally one, so again Professor X sounds like a nickname. But anyways, the page Professor X is about the television series, not its protagonist, and we certainly don't strip honourifics from series names. In summary, all the cases I changed are the cases of genuine honourifics followed by a last name. The discussion at Talk:Nemo that reached the same consensus as I implemented in other cases was trying to ascertain exactly this: Nemo being a weird Latin construction, was it really used as a last name, i.e., separately from "Captain"? Since it was, the rename was agreed upon.

I have to say that the idea of a page about the concept is an interesting one. But there are references that do not fully conform to that. Amy Pond uses an alias "Miss Marple" once, so it's clearly a person. (Why couldn't she just introduce herself as Jane Marple??? Beats me.) People who are named after concepts are often ridiculed for this, being told those are not real names. I hope that Miss Marple (series) is sufficient to collect links to the concept (in the inclusive sense).

Once again, I'm done with this page. This was a courtesy reply rather than a prompt to begin a discussion. Amorkuz ☎ 23:17, November 12, 2017 (UTC)