Talk:Louie Bickerton

Requested move: Her name was Louise, not Louie, according to the vast majority of reliable sources

To call the requested move of this article "uncontroversial" on WP:RM was shockingly disingenuous.

(1) Google reports only 40 references in English (14.9%) to "Louie Bickerton" compared to 228 in English for "Louise Bickerton" (85.1%).
(2) Google reports only 4 references in French (16.0%) to "Louie Bickerton" compared to 21 in French for "Louise Bickerton" (84.0%).
(3) The French, Norwegian, and Polish language Wikipedia articles use "Louise Bickerton," not "Louie Bickerton".
(4) Reuters refers to her as "Louise Bickerton."
(5) In American news media, About.com (owned by the New York Times), CBS, Sports Illustrated, and USA Today refer to her as "Louise Bickerton", not "Louie Bickerton".
(6) Funk & Wagnalls New Encyclopedia refers to her as "Louise Bickerton", not "Louie Bickerton".
(7) The consensus on English-language Wikipedia is to refer to her as "Louise Bickerton" (22 instances, 88%), not "Louie Bickerton" (only 3 instances, 12%).
Tennis expert (talk) 08:14, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Louie Bickerton is the correct title.

The spelling "Louie Bickerton" is supported by primary, secondary and tertiary source information. "Tennis expert" has not, and cannot, present primary and secondary source information in support of their spurious claim that "Louise Bickerton" is the correct spelling. Instead, all the sources are not referenced and are probably derived from the same faulty information - possibly even from a single transcription error. It is easier, after all, to replicate other people's lists, rather than doing the research or transcription themselves... so they simply "copy and paste". Does anyone really believe that all those many websites with tennis lists all transcribed them afresh? AND from a reputable source?

All that "Tennis expert" provides are links to internet tennis lists and Wikipedia articles, that are likely based upon the same data. Tennis lists can be, and are, replicated widely without correction, despite errors. Therefore Google percentages mean little. All it proves is that incorrect data replication is rife on the internet - even on some 'name' sites. But, at the end of the day, it is the quality of information that counts, not quantity.

The Reuters, About.com, CBS, Sports Illustrated, USA Today and Funk & Wagnalls New Encyclopedia are all tennis lists, not biographies. And they are not authoritative. What, for instance, are their sources?

At the risk of sounding repetitive... check some authoritative sources. Go on, humour me. No, don't Google it. Go here:

NSW Registry of Births Deaths & Marriages

Enter the groom's surname of Cozens in the appropriate field. Then enter the bride's surname of Bickerton. Enter the marriage year of 1935 (or a date range from 1788-1957). Click "Search Now" and voila! That is information from their marriage certificate.

If you're still not convinced, then wander along to this place. Search the picture database for "Louie Bickerton" to see a captioned photograph of her:

State Library of NSW

This is another credible source. Neither of these sources are lists copied from other unreliable and unsourced sites.

There are some other interesting local history sites that have actually researched their subjects. Not surprisingly, they spell her name Louie:

Strathfield District Historical Society.

[www.scenenewspapers.com.au/supp/issues/March2006/page12.pdf Strathfield Scene newspaper March 2006].

[rotarnet.com.au/users/9/96933/Strathfield%20Heritage%20Tour%202004.pdf Strathfield Heritage Tour].

How about published sources? Well, they spell it Louie too. Here are a couple of oldies, but they're goodies:

Metzler, Paul (1979). "Great Players of Australian Tennis", Sydney, Harper & Row. (page 89)

Matthews, Bruce (1985). "Game, set, and glory: a history of the Australian tennis championships, Hawthorn, Five Mile Press. (page 18)

Contemporaneous newspaper articles? Well, they spell it Louie, of course. Here's a quotation from one article (of many):

"Miss Nell Lloyd and Miss Louie Bickerton, with the chairwoman, Mrs. R. J. Conway, asked Mrs Warburton to accept their thanks on behalf of the women tennis players." (Sydney Morning Herald 14-Feb-1935, p. 20, "Tennis Pioneer"). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.221.111.60 (talk) 14:15, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Move to Louie Bickerton

This article, currently at Louise Bickerton, recently (July 2008) went through several moves to Louie Bickerton and back again. The "move war" with this article has subsided, but I have come across this talk page and see that the evidence in favour of Louie Bickerton, provided by 203.221.111.60, is strong, and cogent, and persuasive. Human nature, especially when it comes to the internet, plays a hand here: we must admit that "Louie" is an odd name for a female, and there isn't much argument in speculating that she may have got her own name wrong on her marriage certificate, or that it's just a coincidence that Paul Metzler goofed the name Louise in his Syndey, Harper & Row-published book. There has to be a reason to lose the s; whereas there need be no reason, other than a person's own assumptions, to add the s; suggesting that Louie is the correct name. It is similar to an argument that I used in support of moving October Guard to Oktober Guard. A lot of the sources were (by the very nature of the action figure genre) those of collectors running personal websites for their own collections, and they invariably spelt it Oktober, but these weren't considered "appropriate" sources. But they have the action figure, something has to persuade a handful of, say, Americans, to spell something wrong. If it wasn't on the packaging, or wasn't in the comic book, they'd have spelt it October. This might not hold true for a lot of words, especially those that are commonly misspelled by the masses, but Louise and October very rarely are, even with typos reigning on the web in general.

The solid web evidence and printed evidence provided by 203.221.111.60 may be sparser than that provided by Tennis expert, but keeping this article at Louise Bickerton would rely too heavily on "google hits"; Tennis expert has shown that the references to Louise are more common than Louie, but not necessarily correct. 203.221.111.60 has invariably proved a case of error replication.

If there is opposition to my moving this article to Louie Bickerton, please discuss it here before reverting! Maedin\^talk 20:32, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

You really should have discussed this controversial move at WP:RM before you moved the article. That's where this issue was handled before, resulting in this article being moved back to Louise Bickerton. See, e.g., this. The issue was settled then in accordance with established Wikipedia procedures, not as part of a move war. You bypassed those procedures with your move, which is very unfortunate. Tennis expert (talk) 10:21, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

I did read the dicussion at this review and noted that there was no consensus. I do not consider Parsecboy's lone agreement (as the only uninvolved contributor to the discussion) to be the final word, and therefore don't understand how the issue was "settled" there. In any case, his answer to his own argument is flawed, as he appears to base his decision on "what can be verified, not necessarily what is true" (as per WP:V), but Louie is both verified and true.

I don't feel that this move is controversial and I didn't bypass procedures, as WP:RM is not required. If this were a controversial move, I almost certainly would have taken it there. As it is, strong evidence has already been provided for Louie, which in an encyclopaedia (even if it is an online one) should outweigh Google hits. Maedin\^talk 11:15, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Of course your move is controversial. That's why there was an extensive discussion about how this article should be named and why there is conflicting evidence about her name in the real world. You chose to believe evidence that points only one way, unilaterally concluded that the other evidence is not credible, and then ignored the outcome of a previous WP:RM to force this article to reflect your opinion. That's very unfortunate and should be reversed. By the way, how do you know that "Louie" is "true"? Your personal opinion about truth is irrelevant and is WP:OR. Tennis expert (talk) 20:44, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

The discussion was not 'extensive' and only one editor was in agreement with you. You also appear to believe only evidence that points one way, although I do you the benefit of guessing this instead of stating it.

Certainly, active editors may feel free to move or take to WP:RM, or actually state disagreement here. If the move was controversial, I am sure someone else will point it out. Maedin\^talk 21:39, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Faith in Wikipedia restored!

This is 203.221.111.60, who tried to change Louise to Louie all that time ago. I must confess that I had given up the cause as lost, having provided such authoritative references, and still not convinced other contributors at the time. Until now I hadn't checked the page, but was relieved to find that the correct name has prevailed (I notice that the number of other websites adopting the correct name are on the increase. Such is the influence of Wikipedia!).

Other resources, such as old newspapers that have been digitised, are increaingly becoming available online. The following are some further references to Louie Bickerton from old Australian newspapers, provided on the National Library of Australia site:

The Argus, Melbourne, 12-Dec-1916 page 5 http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/1617754?searchTerm=%22Louie+Bickerton%22

The Argus, Melbourne, 13-Dec-1918 page 4 http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/1410420?searchTerm=%22Louie+Bickerton%22

The Courier-Mail, Brisbane, 19-Jan-1934 page 9 http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/1161589?searchTerm=%22Louie+Bickerton%22

The Courier-Mail, Brisbane, 23-Jan-1934 page 10 http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/1163058?searchTerm=%22Louie+Bickerton%22

The Courier-Mail, Brisbane, 27-Jan-1934 page 10 http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/1164633?searchTerm=%22Louie+Bickerton%22 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.221.111.186 (talk) 16:03, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Hello 203.221.111.60, we finally made it! I had a fight of it, too, to get the page changed to Louie Bickerton, but it worked in the end! Thank you for the sources, I'll see if they can be incorporated into the article. Thank you for all of your legwork, previously, too. The research was a big help. Maedin\^talk 16:43, 12 August 2009 (UTC)