Thomas Dalton wrote: This is certainly not the case in, for example, medieval history. It's all relative to a background: what expectation is there of ample factual material? And another thing - I'd resist this in all cases where there was a place for a person in a line of succession boxes. It is really no good merging an article if it messes up some useful navigation. Charles

Thomas Dalton wrote: While it is fashionable, seemingly, to look at these small "issues" separately, as if they can be treated as isolated cases where hard-edged rules apply, I think this is the wrong approach. And I don't think it for the general good to dismiss exceptions. Anyone who formulates a general "rule" is under the obligation to think through the exceptional cases, and I deprecate the business done the other way round, where the onus is put on thoughtful people to point out that clumsy rules can do harm. Charles

On Sun, Feb 22, 2009 at 4:24 PM, Charles Matthews <charles.r.matthews(a)ntlworld.com> wrote: Succession boxes are useful navigation? :-) In some places, and for some things, yes, but succession boxes can be misused and overused, like anything else. In particular, I hate those articles where someone held multiple offices and titles and you see 5 or 6 succession boxes (or those big list templates) crammed in at the bottom of the article. Sure, I use them sometimes to find other articles, but they *look* horrible and unprofessional. Those big "list" or "topic" template (footer boxes?) are bad in other ways as well. They mess up "what links here". There was a time when "what links here" for a random Nobel laureate would get you relevant links to articles related to that person. Now you get all the other Nobel laureates in the list as well, and when the footer bloat is bad you get totally unrelated articles appearing in "what links here" because those articles appear somewhere in some broad topic template that's been stuck on the bottom of 50 or so articles. Really annoying - categories was (is!) meant to avoid that. Carcharoth

On Mon, Feb 23, 2009 at 12:50 PM, Charles Matthews &lt;charles.r.matthews(a)ntlworld.com&gt; wrote: <snip> 15 succession boxes? That must be some kind of record. Personally, I'd find a good timeline there easier to read than trying to work out which bits overlap where from the succession boxes. And its the timeline I want, really, not who came before and after (though that information should still be present if salient and accessible even if not). When you click open the templates at the bottom of Pope Julius II, only about 60% of the article's screenspace is actually the article itself. The other 40% is the succession boxes and templates. Maybe I need to switch to a skin that puts categories somewhere more visible? I wonder if there is also a record for the number of navbox footer templates shoehorned in at the bottom of an article? I found five here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_I_of_England But I'm sure I've seen more. And there is invariably massive redundancy between the template listings, the succession boxes, and the categories (different ways of presenting the same, or nearly the same, information). A better-designed system would give the reader the option to switch on and off the bits they want to see - in a more permanent fashion than "show/hide". Carcharoth

2009/2/23 Ben Kovitz &lt;bkovitz(a)acm.org&gt;rg>: Dora Kent should redirect to Alcor_Life_Extension_Foundation#Dora_Kent (the section already exists and contains details not given in the Dora Kent article - it also misses some details, so a merge may be appropriate). The person is only notable because of one event - her death and preservation - in those cases, we generally merge (I know she isn't living, so BLP1E doesn't strictly apply, but the logic behind it still does). Laura Nickel is also only notable for one event, but there isn't an obvious merge target. A new article on the discovery of Mersenne Primes could be created listing all the known examples with details of their discovery, but unless someone actually wants to do that the current article may as well remain.

2009/2/23 Carcharoth &lt;carcharothwp(a)googlemail.com&gt;om>: He was a duke, that's not a single event. It is very unusual for someone that died an infancy to be notable, but this is such a case - there are always exceptions. Murder is a difficult one because in many cases it just boils down to a matter of what you call the article. Should it be [[Joe Bloggs]] or [[Murder of Joe Bloggs]]? I would say the latter is preferable because most of the article will be about the murder and what happened afterwards, rather than about the person, but it makes little difference. In the case of multiple murders, there should certainly be one article discussing them all. Being a saint is like being a duke, it's notable and is not a single event. That article seems pretty good to me. This is an example of a child whose life was actually notable, not just one event in his life (one aspect of his life, sure, but that's the case with most notable people).

On Tue, Feb 24, 2009 at 3:15 AM, Ray Saintonge &lt;saintonge(a)telus.net&gt; wrote Just pure random luck.

On Thu, Feb 26, 2009 at 6:24 AM, Carcharoth &lt;carcharothwp(a)googlemail.com&gt;wrote;wrote: I was being sarcastic. Obviously there are reasons that there's an article about Ben Bowen and not about every 2-year old that died of cancer. In fact, there's at least one good one: There are not verifiable sources for every 2-year old that died of cancer. I was listening to Wikipedia Weekly from a short while ago when they were discussing what should be in Wikinews vs. what should be in Wikipedia vs. what should be in both, and I think a case could be made that the story of Ben Bowen is a good candidate for Wikinews instead of Wikipedia. I think it's a useful story, and belongs somewhere (along with, in my opinion, stories about even less publicized 2-year-olds so long as they can be derived from verifiable sources). But it does seem out of place in an encyclopedia - the impact of this particular child will likely not be historically significant 20 years from now, though I think it will provide a glimpse into the culture in which we live. Newspaper archives are a good source for such cultural information, I'd think. The [[StoryCorps]] project is also archiving this "slice of life" type information, although they're doing it in a way which doesn't enforce verifiability. That said, I don't think Wikinews is currently in a state where it can handle this type of content, and I have no problems with it living in Wikipedia until there's a more suitable home (I know, this notion is blasphemous, but I'm an outsider so I can make such blasphemous statements). A Wikinews article on Ben Bowen would likely look completely different from the Wikipedia article on him, and I think it'd necessarily be worse instead of better or even just different.