Talk:William L. Dickinson

Requested move 25 December 2022

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 after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved. Per consensus. (closed by non-admin page mover) – robertsky (talk) 06:41, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

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William Louis Dickinson → William L. Dickinson – WP:COMMONNAME. Most sources during his political career abbreviated his middle name. Examples:

• A front page story in the Alabama Journal (now Montgomery Advertiser) on November 4, 1964, the day after Dickinson first won election to US Congress, reported: "Swept into office in the wake of the states rights protest from thousands of Republican and defiant Democratic voters alike were...William L. Dickinson in the 2nd [district]..." (emphasis mine)
• The Montgomery Advertiser, the local newspaper in Dickinson's congressional district, slightly preferred "Bill Dickinson" in its news coverage. For instance, "Congressman Bill Dickinson" has 700+ matches, and "Rep. Bill Dickinson" has 3,000+ matches, for a total of about 3,700. In contrast, there were about 3,100 for these variants of William Dickinson:
  • "Rep. William Dickinson": 1,000+ matches
  • "Rep. William L. Dickinson": 500+ matches
  • "Congressman William Dickinson": nearly 900 matches
  • "Congressman William L. Dickinson": 700+ matches
• In contrast, national media preferred William. For instance, "william l dickinson" alabama site:Nytimes.com has 69 results to the seven for "Bill Dickinson" Alabama site:nytimes.com when searching The New York Times website.
• Also, The Washington Post used William L. Dickinson - "William L. Dickinson R-Ala" site:washingtonpost.com has 66 results to just three for the same search term using "Bill".

Arbor to SJ (talk) 00:52, 25 December 2022 (UTC) This is a contested technical request (permalink). Steel1943 (talk) 22:37, 25 December 2022 (UTC)

• This discussion thread initiated at WP:RMTR. Steel1943 (talk) 22:37, 25 December 2022 (UTC)

  Hi @Arbor to SJ, thank you for taking the time to make your point in such great detail. We also have another article, William L. Dickinson High School, about a school that is named after a different William L. Dickinson. This leaves me wondering whether we actually need to shorten this title. Also, although many sources refer to this politician with the abbreviated middle name, many others use the full name, so that shows a mixed picture. Could you please comment on these points? Thank you. Dr. Vogel (talk) 03:09, 25 December 2022 (UTC)

  Regarding the high school: "William L. Dickinson High School" +"Jersey City" has 73k+ google results. Dropping the "William L" from that search returns 97k+ results, indicating that the "William L." needs to be kept in the title.

  Regarding the politician: Very few non Wikipedia sources use his full name; most use his middle initial like the news media reports linked previously, in addition to his official congressional archive. The official congressional directory uses his full name, but that site uses full names for every member. Arbor to SJ (talk) 05:45, 25 December 2022 (UTC)

  This is too much of references and citations for just WP:RMTR to allow one editor to approve this move. Thus, I moved this to full discussion. Steel1943 (talk) 22:39, 25 December 2022 (UTC)

  @Arbor to SJ and DrVogel: Pink current participants as the discussion has moved here. Steel1943 (talk) 22:38, 25 December 2022 (UTC)

• Support per nom.--Ortizesp (talk) 06:44, 26 December 2022 (UTC)
• Support per nom. There are plenty of subjects named William Dickinson, but only one in the encyclopedia with an "L." middle name at all (there does not seem to be a case for the school official), so it would be natural to abbreviate the name to this. BD2412 T 00:40, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.