On 18 October 2010 12:23, Charles Matthews <[email protected]> wrote:
> As far as I can see [[Wikipedia:Manual of Style (biographies)]] doesn't > cover this ground, while dealing with numerous points in the same > general area of naming. My instinct is that multiple possible spellings, > for example surname variants, should go into a footnote or perhaps be > boxed up, as a way of keeping them from distracting the casual reader. > They are certainly of interest to specialists and scholars, and have a > role to play in making search work. That seems sensible. Certainly we don't need something like the five names in one sentence we currently have for Copernicus: "*Nicolaus Copernicus* (Polish: *Mikołaj Kopernik*; German: *Nikolaus Kopernikus*; in his youth, *Niclas Koppernigk*;[1] Italian: *Nicolò Copernico*; 19 February 1473 – 24 May 1543) was a Renaissance astronomer ...". There's a note on his name in the article itself, which lists a further nine variants. In reality, of course, all these are just variants on one name, rather than "alternative names" in the strict sense of people who've changed their name or published under pseudonyms. From the search perspective, of course, we could use "silent" redirects (ones not noted in the article text), but some (especially latinised names) are essential to have clearly available to the reader. Maybe an infobox section would be appropriate here? -- - Andrew Gray [email protected] _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
