Talk:Steve Ball

Disambiguation: Steve Ball (England)

I propose renaming this article "Steve Ball (England)", to make room for a short biography named "Steve Ball" (alternatively "Steve Ball (USA)").

Based in Seattle, Washington, the American Steve Ball is guitarist, graphic designer, sound engineer, and entrepreneur; in particular, he apparently (a) led the development of the sound system of the Microsoft Windows Vista operating system, which featured the start-up sounds of Robert Fripp, his friend (and the other half of Fripp & Eno---Brian Eno having developed the previous start-up sound for Windows). (b) As a graphic artist, he developed the logos for Guitar Craft and Discipline Global Mobile. (c) All Music lists a number of his albums and his compositions (often with The League of Crafty Guitarists. He has also been involved with several start-up companies, apparently, but I don't have reliable sources yet. (There is a not-for-quotation sketch in my userspace's sandbox.)

Ball himself corrected an erroneous linking of his name here, suggesting "Steve Ball (musician)", which is too narrow, I believe; even "Steve Ball (artist)" leaves out his most notable achievement, the software- and sound-engineering of Microsoft Vista.

Thanks for your help. I leave two questions below.

Sincerely,  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 11:50, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Discussion

Questions

1. Should Steve Ball should be moved to "Steve Ball (England)" or "Steve Ball (football player)"?
2. Should the American Steve Ball's article be called "Steve Ball" or "Steve Ball (USA)" or another name?

Steve Ball (footballer) would be the correct dab for this page if it was to be moved -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 20:19, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

I concur. – Kosm1fent 20:21, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Okay, "Steve Ball (footballer)" would work for this SB, if and when the other gets an article. The other SB is WP-notable as a sound-engineer software-leader and likely as a designer, and perhaps as a musician. Below, the Rambling Man suggests that nationality---e.g., "Steve Ball (USA)"---would be okay. Does anybody have an objection?  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 21:00, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

So we have two folks who have vaguely notable careers, one of whom doesn't even have an article (unless that changes while I write this), so all we normally do here is to have two articles, disambiguated by profession or year of birth or nationality etc, and a hat-note on both so our readers don't get confused. So if we follow that, then this Steve Ball becomes "Steve Ball (footballer)" and the one without the article becomes "Steve Ball (engineer)" if, indeed, KW's assertion that his most "notable" work is as an engineer for Mircosfoft. Initially, the redirect of Steve Ball would lead to the footballer as the other has no article. In due course that may change. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:25, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

(ec)Leading the development of the sound system of the Windows operating system is several orders of magnitude more notable than being an engineer at MS, of course. You can listen to the National Public Radio story (or read the transcript at the NPR website), which discuss the Windows OS and Ball.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 21:00, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Fully agreed on all counts, though if Mr Ball is as described also notable as an artist then (artist and engineer) is a reasonable dab term compromise. Disambiguating on profession is better than disambiguating on nationality per our general guidelines on the emphasis of such. Regardless, this is a non-issue now, as we do not prematurely disambiguate: disambiguation is solely for navigating articles which conflict and not simply subjects. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 20:56, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

I can create a stub today, to which 6 or so articles would redirect.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 21:03, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

A stub (or full article) can be created without moving the existing one. This discussion appears to be full of what-ifs. Once the article is created and past stub status, then is the time for discussing page moves and so on. In the mean time the existing article keeps its title as the only topic by that name in the encyclopaedia. If the footballer is moved in the future, ChrisTheDude has already indicated the suitable location. Cloudz679 08:36, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

• Have one at Steve Ball (footballer) and the new one at Steve Ball (engineer), and turn Steve Ball into a disambiguation page which could also mention Stephen Ball. GiantSnowman 08:53, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

  "Steve Ball (craftsman)" would be better than "SB(engineer)", given that leading software-engineering projects is a craft rather than an engineering discipline and given that he identifies himself as a crafty guitarist, etc.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 09:39, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

  I suppose the location of the new SB isn;t an issue, given that there are only two of them, but to me 'craftsman' would be someone involved in arts & crafts. I suppose we could make 'engineer' into a redirect to assist navigation for people like me. GiantSnowman 09:48, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

  Thanks for the suggestion about the redirects. There would be redirects also for "SB (musician)" and "SB (designer)" and perhaps for "SB (guitarist)" or "SB (composer)"....  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 11:08, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

  There is no need to create superfluous pre-disambiguated links. Editors will create them when they need them; readers will find the article through the dab page. Creating additional redirects in advance only causes problems when further down the line another notable Steve Ball has an article written about him and he happens to fall under one of these categories. FWIW I'm agreed with GiantSnowman regarding "engineer", which is an industry-standard term, as opposed to "craftsman" which I would understand to involve woodworking more than computers. And while it's obviously best to work with rather than against living persons while writing articles on them, that doesn't include inventing clever puns for their disambiguation terms. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 11:50, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

  See my sandbox for a draft.

  "Craftsman" is not a pun, although thanks for "clever". I quote the 2 lede sentences from the body of our article on software engineering (computer programming):

"Within software engineering, programming (the implementation) is regarded as one phase in a software development process.

There is an ongoing debate on the extent to which the writing of programs is an art, a craft or an engineering discipline.

"

• Cheers,  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 16:18, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

  Yes, so if there is debate over the "preferred" phrase, let's just stick with engineer which is factually accurate. The Rambling Man (talk) 16:49, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

  All of these are accurate. "Artist" is accurate, according to Knuth. I'll ask for second opinions at the relevant projects. Thanks,  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 17:00, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

References needed

I removed a BLP violation before.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 11:50, 29 March 2012 (UTC)