User:SOTO/Forum Archive/The Panopticon/@comment-7302713-20130519181606/@comment-7302713-20130520222558
In the example you provided you only listed one K9. I wasn't sure if that meant 2 and 3 wouldn't be listed.
I'm sorry that I'm been regurgitating the same points over and over again, but they were never really addressed, just dismissed.
From my perspective, cutting down how much of the name we show "Christina" instead of "Christina de Souza" is confusing. Not because there are two Christinas, but because I only remember who the template is referring to when I see the whole name.
Using only one name would be consistent in terms in terms of using one name, yes. The inconsistency is in the source. Yes, there are lots of characters for whom most people would be hard pressed to remember their last names. But there are other characters whom are know be their last name (few though there are) and many characters for whom the last name is very helpful when people are trying to place the name. I know that for me, there are some companions I cannot place with only a first name. If we are really trying to make things easy for readers of all levels of familiarity, then this is not only unnecessary, but IMHO, it's obstructive.
I don't like this whole obsession with "most common name". I get that it's necessary when we can ONLY use one name, but this isn't the case here, so why are we trying to treat it as such? Referring to characters by only one name when they have more than one requires a judgement call.
What is the advantage here? What is it that necessitates this judgement call being made? I know I keep asking this, but aside from the fact that we apparantly believe that standard alphebetisation is too much for 12 year olds to handle (really??) and the fact that this makes the templates slightly longer than they'd otherwise be, what do we get out of doing this?
All that making this shorter does is...well, make this shorter. But I know that this will make it harder for me to use these templates. And I don't think that I'm alone. If you only know these characters by their first names, then adding their last names doesn't detract. But if a first name isn't enough for you (and in several cases it's not, at least for me), then a last name is very beneficial.
