Talk:Walter Anderson (RAF officer, died 1959)

GC

According to the London Gazette - http://www.rafweb.org/GC_holders.htm - he originally received a MBE and at some point was no doubt given the option to convert to a GC Gbawden (talk) 10:26, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

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Requested move 11 July 2018

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: there have been no new comments here for ten days. Although there is some ongoing discussion taking place at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (people) in relation to the rationale underlying this move proposal, we have had trouble subordinating move requests to RfCs in the recent past, so it seems appropriate to close this discussion according to the consensus here to move most of the pages involved in the request. However, there is no consensus to move Leslie Fox (GC), Tony Smith (GC), Bob Taylor (GC), and John Clements (GC) to any particular titles at this time; and Necrothesp's objections to certain proposed titles have been incorporated into the moves. Finally, there was an objection related to the use of the disambiguator "(sailor)" in the discussion. Although I have moved those pages to "(sailor)" titles as proposed, a new move request can be initiated at any time to propose different disambiguators for those articles. Other titles can be revisited as necessary following the conclusion of the Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (people) discussion. Dekimasuよ! 19:33, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

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• Walter Anderson (GC) → Walter Anderson (RAF officer)
• Robert Armitage (GC) → Robert Armitage (Royal Navy officer)
• John Babington (GC) → John Babington (Royal Navy officer)
• John Beckett (GC) → John Beckett (RAF airman)
• Sandy Campbell (GC) → Sandy Campbell (British Army officer)
• Donald Clarke (GC) → Donald Clarke (sailor)
• John Clements (GC) → John Clements (teacher)
• Robert Davies (GC) → Robert Davies (Royal Engineers officer)
• John Dowland (GC) → John Dowland (Royal Air Force officer)
• Charles Duncan (GC) → Charles Duncan (British Army paratrooper)
• Jack Easton (GC) → Jack Easton (Royal Navy officer)
• William Fleming (GC) → William Fleming (lifeboatman)
• William Foster (GC) → William Foster (British Army officer)
• Leslie Fox (GC) → ?
• Brandon Moss (GC) → Brandon Moss (constable)
• Dick Moore (GC) → Dick Moore (Royal Navy officer)
• Cyril Martin (GC) → Cyril Martin (British Army officer)
• James Kennedy (GC) → James Kennedy (security guard)
• Thomas Kelly (GC) → Thomas Kelly (sailor)
• Barry Johnson (GC) → Barry Johnson (British Army soldier)
• Kim Hughes (GC) → Kim Hughes (British Army officer)
• Joe Hughes (GC) → Joe Hughes (British Army driver)
• Leonard Harrison (GC) → Leonard Harrison (RAF officer)
• Roy Harris (GC) → Roy Harris (British Army soldier)
• John Gregson (GC) → John Gregson (sailor)
• George Goodman (GC) → George Goodman (Royal Navy officer)
• Roger Goad (GC) → Roger Goad (explosives officer)
• Michael Gibson (GC) → Michael Gibson (British Army soldier)
• John Fraser (GC) → John Fraser (British Army officer, born 1896)
• Arthur Nicholls (GC) → Arthur Nicholls (British Army officer)
• Peter Norton (GC) → Peter Norton (British Army officer)
• Matt Osborne (GC) → Matt Osborne (RAF airman)
• Herbert Reed (GC) → Herbert Reed (British Army gunner)
• Richard Ryan (GC) → Richard Ryan (Royal Navy officer)
• Tony Smith (GC) → ?
• Kenneth Smith (GC) → Kenneth Smith (British Army signalman)
• Henry Stevens (GC) → Henry Stevens (constable)
• Bob Taylor (GC) → Bob Taylor (George Cross recipient)
• William Taylor (GC) → William Taylor (Royal Navy officer, born 1908)
• Terry Waters (GC) → Terry Waters (British Army officer)
• Mark Wright (GC) → Mark Wright (British Army soldier)
• George Wyllie (GC) → George Wyllie (British Army sapper)

– I'm making this batch request following the discussion at Talk:Douglas Ford (GC)#Requested move 5 July 2018. I have no firm view on what the best disambiguators would be, but consider "GC" to be unsatisfactory because it refers to an achievement (although I recognise it may not be incorrect to refer to someone as "a GC") and is an abbreviation which fails to inform all/most readers. There is no specific convention for George Cross (or any medal/award) recipients, but Wikipedia:Naming conventions (people)#Disambiguating states "the disambiguator is usually a noun indicating what the person is noted for being in his or her own right. In most cases these nouns are standard, commonly used tags such as "(musician)" and "(politician)". Try to avoid using abbreviations or anything capitalized or containing hyphens, dashes or numbers (apart from instances where more specific guidelines specify particular exceptions). Try also to limit the tag to a single, recognizable and highly applicable term." I would be happy with "George Cross recipient". jamacfarlane (talk) 19:02, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

• Support per nom. Also, the currently unspecified pages would probably work under the identifier "(Civil Defence Service member)". ToThAc (talk) 01:23, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
  • What's one of those then? Helpful disambiguation? I think not! -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:08, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
• Support (with WP:CONSISTENCY corrections suggested by Necrothesp below). "GC" doesn't mean anything (or at least not anything pertinent) to the majority of our readers. A disambiguation that introduces another ambiguity or confusion is a failure. Our disambiguations should identify the nature of the subject, and this is done with "officer", etc. That said, I think a number of these could be shortened to "British officer", even to "soldier", etc. It's not really necessary to include branch of service or even country. E.g. we use "(author)" not "(British author)" unless there are two authors. Still, this is a step in the right direction, and any cases that can be more concisely disambiguated can be discussed one at a time or in small clusters. There may be some naming conventions (military, etc.) we'll need to look at in more detail for that.

  For the two "?" cases, try descriptors that directly address the reason for their notability: Leslie Fox (rescuer) and Tony Smith (rescuer). This would be in keeping with other disambiguations of people notable for a single event and which are not occupational disambiguations, e.g. "Foo bar (murderer)" and "Baz Quux (murder victim)".  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:35, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

  PS: I agree with Necrothesp's consistency corrections, below, but not that editor's oppose rationale. But that reasoning, everyone should be disambiguated by achievement, yet our actual practice is exactly the opposite.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  02:59, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

  @ToThAc and SMcCandlish: Thanks, and I agree in keeping it simplistic. I considered something like "Civil Defence Service member" but thought it was too unweidly, and "carpenter" isn't really what he was known for, but "rescuer" should do. I'd be happy with "soldier", "sailor", etc. but "officer" probably needs to be a bit more precise as it can mean a range of things (police officer, CEO, etc). jamacfarlane (talk) 03:13, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

  The way our disambiguation system works is that it doesn't need to be more precise unless there's a conflict with someone else with the same name who might also qualify for "officer".  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:34, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

  This usage (British Army officer etc) was established long ago and is in use on thousands of article titles. Trying to change something on a handful of articles that is in use on many more is completely unnecessary, a waste of effort, in contradiction to WP:CONSISTENCY, and a complete disservice to the project. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:43, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

  WP:CCC, WP:CONTENTAGE. It doesn't matter how old a decision is, if it conflicts with site-wide policies and guidelines like WP:CONCISE, WP:AT#DAB, and WP:DAB, it has to be revisited. I have no issue with a WP:CONSISTENCY argument to move these to disambiguations consistent with the existing pattern ("GC" sure as hell isn't it), but the patterns themselves needs RM discussion, or an RfC, or some other broad examination. They're unnecessarily lengthy and over-specific "super-DABs", and are just not what we do.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:01, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

  I know, how about something that describes why we have an article about him. Like, I don't know, "(GC)"! Instead of twisting ourselves in knots needlessly. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:43, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

  Don't play WP:IDHT games; it's unbecoming and I know you know better. >;-) Repeat: "GC" doesn't mean anything (or at least not anything pertinent) to the majority of our readers. A disambiguation that introduces another ambiguity or confusion is a failure. Our disambiguations should identify the nature of the subject.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:03, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

  No games. Just a statement of common sense. Yes, and they do! You are taking something that works perfectly well, saying "it's not a good disambiguator" (for no good reason that I can see), and then twisting yourselves into knots trying to find something that is a good disambiguator. Whereas in fact the current disambiguator is the best and most sensible one. It's utter madness! -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:08, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

  Pinging @Necrothesp, Netoholic, GhostOfDanGurney, Sasuke Sarutobi, and Cavalryman V31, who were involved in the original RM. jamacfarlane (talk) 03:13, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

• Support except for those marked (George Cross recipient) - per previous RM, I support as a batch because this GC disambiguator fails to inform and fails WP:NCPDAB as quoted by OP. A principle on WP:NCSP is that Disambiguations should never refer to accomplishments and I think that should be broadly applied to all disambiguations, so (George Cross recipient) should be replaced by something else. I'll stipulate to consensus on any individual entries where a better disambiguator than OPs is suggested, but (GC) has to go. -- Netoholic @ 03:31, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

  Netholic is correct that WP:NCSP militates against the use of "(George Cross recipient)". There only seems to be one, presently Bob Taylor (GC). I'm not sure what to suggest for him. He's notable only for the GC awarded posthumously for being shot while trying to stop the escape of a pair of bank robbers.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:39, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

  He was a former soldier, but it's not what he's known for and is unconnected to him receiving the GC. So it "salesman". That's why I tentatively proposed GC recipient. I accept it's not ideal, but if you read WP:NCSP in context, the reason for the policy is to maintain a neutral point of view in articles about sportspeople. I can see why "(world champion figure skater)" should not be used (when "figure skater" will suffice), but when the only thing that makes someone notable is their bravery in a single incident leading them to receive the GC, using this as the disambiguator might be appropriate. jamacfarlane (talk) 04:43, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

  Actually, if that's the case, then the discussion should be whether he is notable enough for an article. -- Netoholic @ 12:51, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

  Any recipient of a country's highest award for gallantry is notable per WP:SOLDIER. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:43, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

  "The George Cross (GC) is the second highest award of the United Kingdom honours system." If its the second highest award, then it fails WP:SOLDIER. That guideline links to Template:Highest gallantry awards which lists Victoria Cross, not this one. These recipients that are not notable independently of the George Cross should be merged and redirected to the List of George Cross recipients article. -- Netoholic @ 21:33, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

  It's the highest non-military award, so I would consider recipients to still be notable. jamacfarlane (talk) 02:44, 14 July 2018 (UTC)

  Recipients of the GC are absolutely notable, this is the highest recognition of for non-combat related gallantry. Cavalryman V31 (talk) 22:33, 19 July 2018 (UTC).

  I think this is a good argument for a "one time only" disambiguator of "(George Cross recipient)", but only because there's no concise way to put "guy who got shot trying to stop some bankrobbers" while still conveying that he's notable for being highly honored rather than getting shot. In the above cases "(rescuer)" works perfectly, but we have no 1-or-2-word solution for Bob Taylor. The danger is that the people from the "dwelling on awards all day" set may latch onto it and try to declare is their "standard" and move all George Cross recipients to said unnecessarily windy and achievement-based disambiguation. A decision to use it in this one case [and for something like it in the future] would need to be carefully annotated in the close as being a WP:IAR exception being made for lack of any other appropriate disambiguator.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:13, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

• Support as (GC) is hopelessly inadequate, although with Necrothesp's amendments below. Although my position remains that disambiguators for service personnel should be (soldier), (sailor) or (airman)/(airwoman). Aside from precedence (which this discussion has established is flawed and confusing) I see no policy reason why this should not be the standard. Amended position, Cavalryman V31 (talk) 22:33, 19 July 2018 (UTC). Having reviewed the number of people already using "(British Army officer/soldier)" etc I believe that precedence should be maintained. It gets complicated for non-service members and as per SMcCandlish's suggestion above, I think "(George Cross recipient)" should be considered. Cavalryman V31 (talk) 04:05, 12 July 2018 (UTC).
• Strongly Oppose. These people are only notable for winning the George Cross. Things like John Clements (teacher) are to my mind ludicrous. He's not notable for being a teacher. He's notable only for winning the George Cross. Anyone looking for him would be helped far more by the current disambiguator than the proposed one (yes, sometimes you have to abandon dogma and use common sense). Articles in Category:Recipients of the Victoria Cross and Category:Recipients of the Medal of Honor use exactly the same construction for the same reason. WP:CONSISTENCY applies here. Note that there are many disambiguation conventions that "break the rules". The most obvious is for sportspeople, where we always omit "player", so it's "(American football)" instead of "(American football player)" and "(tennis)" instead of "(tennis player)". These people aren't American footballs or tennises, but we still use the disambiguator. Have done for years.

I should also point out that following are flawed in any case, even if they are moved:

Robert Davies (GC) → Robert Davies (Royal Engineers officer) - Should be Robert Davies (British Army officer) per our usual conventions.

John Dowland (GC) → John Dowland (Royal Air Force officer) - Should be John Dowland (RAF officer) per our usual conventions.

Charles Duncan (GC) → Charles Duncan (British Army paratrooper) - Should be Charles Duncan (British Army soldier) per our usual conventions.

Brandon Moss (GC) → Brandon Moss (constable) - Should be Brandon Moss (police officer) per our usual conventions.

Kim Hughes (GC) → Kim Hughes (British Army officer) - Should be Kim Hughes (British Army soldier) per our usual conventions; not an officer.

Joe Hughes (GC) → Joe Hughes (British Army driver) - Should be Joe Hughes (British Army soldier) per our usual conventions.

Herbert Reed (GC) → Herbert Reed (British Army gunner) - Should be Herbert Reed (British Army soldier) per our usual conventions.

Kenneth Smith (GC) → Kenneth Smith (British Army signalman) - Should be Kenneth Smith (British Army soldier) per our usual conventions.

Henry Stevens (GC) → Henry Stevens (constable) - Should be Henry Stevens (police officer) per our usual conventions.

George Wyllie (GC) → George Wyllie (British Army sapper) - Should be George Wyllie (British Army soldier) per our usual conventions.

-- Necrothesp (talk) 14:43, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

By that reasoning, all disambiguated recipients of major awards should be moved to such names, e.g. "Jane Doe (Academy Award winner)", "John Doe (Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame inductee)", "Pat Doe (Nobel Prize recipient)". We just don't do that. Whether someone has won an award, and which one(s) is something readers are usually trying to find out, not knowledge they already possess.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:18, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

That's simply not true. If you win an Academy Award then you're notable as an actor. If you win a Nobel Prize you're notable as a scientist (or whatever). But John Clements isn't notable for being a teacher. He's notable for winning the GC! And that's it. If he hadn't won the GC he wouldn't be notable enough for an article. That is simply not the case with the examples you mention above. They won an award because they were notable, not the other way around. Bravery is not linked to one's profession. The people here are notable outside their profession. Using their profession as a disambiguator is essentially pointless. -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:03, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

They didn't win awards "because they were notable", but for particular actions (performances in a film, or set design in one, or whatever the Oscar was for; the actual research/discovery other worth for which the Nobel was award, etc. The hall of fame case, yes, was a bad examples, and is actually based on notability (it's a form of lifetime achievement award; a Nobel and Oscar, like a GC, generally is not. Whether the action is professionally connected is immaterial, unless it presents us with an actual disambiguation problem. Being a military soldier/officer (at least during conflict) is obviously not at all disconnected from bravery. Only a handful of people on this list are challenging cases to disambiguate, as we're discussing below, and only of one of them looks challenging still after further discussions; that might end up being a lone WP:IAR case, but it doesn't magically create a new "rules" to stick "(GC)" or "(George Cross)" or "(George Cross recipient)" at the end of the name of everyone who ever got one.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:06, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

An actor or set designer or scientist wins an award because their career has brought them to the point when they are good enough to win an award. Someone who wins a bravery award can be anyone. You don't have to train to win a bravery award. You just do it. Children, for instance, have won bravery awards. If someone wins an Oscar for acting then they have won because they are an actor. If we disambiguate them as an actor then it's obvious who we are talking about. John Clements, on the other hand, didn't win the George Cross because he was a teacher. He could have been anyone. His teaching training and career did not prepare him to win the George Cross and aren't why he won the George Cross. If we disambiguate him as a teacher it implies he's notable as a teacher; he is not. The only reason for his notability is his award. This is simply not the case for winners of Academy Awards, Nobel Prizes, etc. They are notable for their careers and what they do for a living. Their awards merely acknowledge that notability. I think disambiguation of winners of bravery awards has to be a special case for this reason. -- Necrothesp (talk) 08:18, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

• Support per nom — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:241:300:C930:D69:B6E8:FDFC:E499 (talk) 21:44, 17 July 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose per Necrothesp. An additional flaw concerns those for whom the qualifier "(sailor)" is proposed. As already mentioned at the currently active nomination Michael E. Thornton → Mike Thornton (Medal of Honor) at Talk:Michael E. Thornton#Requested move 27 June 2018, entries at Category:Olympic sailors by country demonstrate that the qualifier "(sailor)" has been used in scores of main headers delineating Olympic competitors rather than military men: Keith Barker (sailor), Warren Brown (sailor), Alex Cooper (sailor), Danielle Dube (sailor), Peter Gordon (sailor), Norman Jones (sailor), Walter Jones (sailor), Christopher Nash (sailor), John Voss (sailor), David Wright (sailor), etc, to name but ten.    Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 08:37, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

  So what? Unless we need to disambiguate between a navy and a sport sailor more specifically, it's not problematic. We similarly don't need to disambiguate biologists or anthropologists by subfield until two in the broader topic have the same name.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:06, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

We disambiguate among editors — at parent Category:Editors, the qualifier under Category:Film editors is "(film editor)", not simply "(editor)". Among military men, we do not qualify all as simply "(soldier)" or "(sailor)" when we have Category:Generals or Category:Admirals. Among persons of the cloth, we do not qualify everyone as "(priest)" or "(minister)" when we have Category:Bishops by nationality or Category:Roman Catholic cardinals or, for that matter, Category:Government ministers by portfolio, etc.    Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 08:41, 21 July 2018 (UTC)

• Support I don't like the (GC) disambiguator. For any article on a person truly only notable for the Georges Cross, let that article use (George Cross recipient). But in all instances of there being a notable career, use that as the disambiguator in the normal manner. I believe this is consistent with the naming guidelines. There are many article here which is complicating matters, so I will remain with the broad statement. — Frayæ (Talk/Spjall) 18:03, 20 July 2018 (UTC)
• Comment please note RfC started on the naming convention at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (people)#George Cross Disambiguation jamacfarlane (talk) 16:05, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.