Talk:Dylan

Fourteen members of Bob Dylan's family?

I detect the hand of a Bob Dylan fan here. And rather a heavy hand, I have to say. I have removed: all those family members without a wikipedia link; about 14 extra links to Bob Dylan (generally we want to link the first mention only); and several red-links because Google searches are not confirming notability to me. This is a disambiguation page, not a family tree for Bob. Nor is it a collection of Wikipedia entries with the word "Dylan" in them. I live in the town with the Dylan Thomas Centre, and I have never heard anyone refer to it as a Dylan. It's the Dylan Thomas Centre (or Tŷ Llen, depending). And are there really four albums all referred to as "Dylan"? People don't refer to "Freewheelin'" instead?

On the matter of Bob Dylan's first wife, Wikipedia has had a Sara Lownds article for a year. The Sara Dylan one is more recent. The two need merging and redirecting appropriately and then the link from this page fixing appropriately. Which name does she actually use?

Feel free to discuss here rather just putting all the ever-increasing number of Bob-relatives back into the article, but I will defend removing them because I do not believe that people typing "Dylan" into a search box are actually looking for the complete family history of Bob.

Telsa 15:19, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

I am at a complete loss as to why you have removed people with the surname Dylan, from a section entitled: "People with the surname Dylan". As for Sara Lownds, she ceased to exist forty years ago. Sara Dylan uses her correct legal name, Sara Dylan. I have removed Sara Lownds from this article.Lion King 16:04, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

A complete loss? I explained both here and in the edit summary. (Might I respectfully suggest you use rather longer edit summaries, incidentally? The history of this page is somewhat opaque to a cursory viewing.)

I must reiterate what I said on a related page: this is not a personal thing to do with the topic. It is simply a Wikipedia policy issue and my--possibly erroneous--interpretation of the policy.

Wikipedia is not a web directory or phonebook. That means that it is not here to list every person in the world whose name includes Dylan. Given the number in Wales (we have phone directories full of them: I can name several without thinking), this is probably a good thing. Wikipedia is here to contain articles about the notable. Bob Dylan is most certainly notable. Almost, I would say from my parochial little perspective, as notable as Dylan Thomas.

But it strikes me as ludicrous to list multiple (14 at last count) relatives of Bob Dylan who do not have Wikipedia articles. Similarly, I removed a huge number of other "articles with the word Dylan in the title", which I note you did not query.

The aim of a disambiguation page is to list the possibilities someone who typed an ambiguous search string into the search box might have wanted. Not to list all the relatives of someone who has their own Wikipedia page. If you want to list all those, then I might as well list Aeronwy Thomas, guardian of her father's legacy, Dylan Iorwerth (cy:Dylan Iorwerth) and Tudur Dylan (who won an Eisteddfod chair this year) and perhaps even some of the multiple Dylans I know personally. But this way madness lies. By all means create Wikipedia articles for these relatives-of-Bob, but then to list them on a disambiguation page as "perhaps you meant this person" does not really follow the aim of a disambiguation page. Such a page is intended to disambiguate (like Google's "did you mean...?"), not to index ("other pages with this word in the title"). The proper place for links to "relatives of Bob" is the Bob article.

--Telsa 22:57, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Coolest guy in the world?

It might just be me, but I'm under the impression that "Dylan Hancey, the coolest guy in the world lol" shouldn't be here.

Etymology

Shouldn't llanw be translated as tide (see Talk:Dylan Eil Ton#Etymology)?

Are the names derived from Dylan Eil Ton in which case shouldn't that be mentioned in the etymological preamble? Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley _{talk contrib} 12:34, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Cleanup

Would anyone object if this was made to conform more to MoS both stylistically and by removing people who aren't referred to only by Dylan (without any first or surname mentioned first)? Or maybe it would be more appropriate to split the people and etymology off into a seperate list of people called Dylan at Dylan (personal name) or something.

Also, if we do keep all the people here, I think that things should above people. Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley _{talk contrib} 12:34, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

How can "things" be above "people?" Dylan has been a "people" name for thousands of years Lion King 13:04, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

As I watch another Dylan arrive, I think Joe is right. We need to do something. The page is ridiculous. Lion King has been very annoyed at my efforts in this direction in the past, so I am doing two things. I'm saying it on the talk page first, and I'm linking to the policies in this area. I think this is the critical one (from the first link) "Ask yourself: When a reader enters this term and pushes "Go", what article would they most likely be expecting to view as a result?" I do not believe that people typing in Dylan are expecting a list the size we have now. They may be notable enough to be in Wikipedia, but most of them are not notable enough to be one-word names.

• WP:DAB:"Disambiguation pages are not search indices."
• WP:NOT#DIRECTORY: We don't need to list everyone.
• WP:MOSDAB Manual of Style for dab pages.

Here is the list of links to the Dylan page. It's surprisingly short. Most of the links are from user pages, which should make things easier. Looking at it, my thoughts would be to trim down this page to: Bob Dylan (surname, if someone said "give a first name that goes with it", I doubt many would say anything other than Bob); the Dylan programming language (not sure how else people will find that one), and possibly Dylan from the Magic Roundabout (he doesn't have an article, so I don't know), Dylan Eil Ton (although if I were looking for a relatively obscure god, I would start by going to the page for that culture or pantheon) and Dylan Thomas (although I suspect people generally type his whole name in). That's all. All the rest, I would simply delete, or move to one of those "People called..." pages that show up occasionally. The relatives of Mr Bob are all linked off his page: it's only a click away.

Has anyone any objections? Similarly, do I hear any ayes?

Telsa (who forgot four tildes, but I apparently wrote this 30 November 2006)

Um... so do I take silence as permission to zap 90% of the page? If no-one objects, I shall. Telsa (talk) 13:02, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I would like to state, that I am now in complete agreement with you Telsa, I was angry with you because when I first started editing, I did not fully understand what a disambiguation page was, and I sincerely apologise for the childish comments directed towards you. Best wishes, Lion King 16:05, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Hiya, Lionking, and sorry for the delay in replying. Thanks for that. I promise, I wasn't trying to get rid of data, just to keep disambiguation pages straight! So, you too think we should start trimming? Smashing. I shall get out the hedge--er, article trimmers when I have a moment. :) Telsa (talk) 00:27, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Why can't Bob Dylan have an entry for himself? (as a singer) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.41.82.122 (talk • contribs) 2007-05-10 05:25 UTC

Right, this page definitely needs splitting. (I just came in to propose the same thing.) I'm moving all the anthroponymy content to Dylan (name). --Piet Delport 20:22, 5 July 2007 (UTC)