Talk:George Spafford Richardson

Common name

I thought that the article is a bit thin on content for a GA candidate and thus looked into his local body career. From my brief reading, it would appear that his common name is George Richardson. Thoughts? Schwede66 09:56, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

There are already quite a few George Richardson articles, so I think the middle name is a useful disambiguator. Cheers. Zawed (talk) 04:12, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

It seems to be a reasonably common misconception that middle names can be used for disambiguation when that is clearly not the case: "If there is no usual form of conventional disambiguation, place a disambiguating tag in parentheses after the name." If the common name does not include the middle name, it shouldn't be used for dab purposes. Schwede66 04:32, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

Material for possible article expansion

This funny story was in the newspapers in 1924. Schwede66 19:01, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

Requested move 17 August 2016

George Spafford Richardson → George Richardson (New Zealand military leader) – As mentioned above and since researched further by reading contemporary newspapers, he was not generally known by his middle name; "George Richardson" was his WP:COMMONNAME. As explained above, middle names cannot be used for disambiguation according to WP:NCPDAB. "military leader" would be a suitable dab, but there's also an Indian military leader of this name so I suggest that we add "New Zealand" to the dab, too. Schwede66 08:31, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

• Support this move 2601:541:4305:C70:8CA1:4165:CEFB:318D (talk) 19:19, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose Middle names can be used as disambiguators per WP:NCPDAB and WP:MIDDLENAME. He appears in the NZDB, the Encyclopaedia of New Zealand, the National Archives and London Gazette all using his middle name. A search on Trove yields every mention of him using the middle name! So it was the conventional form of disambiguation per WP:NCPDAB, and was used often enough to qualify for WP:COMMONNAME as well. Hawkeye7 (talk) 22:46, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

• Regarding NCPDAB, what it does say is as follows (italics as per the original): "Adding given names, or their abbreviations, merely for disambiguation purposes (if that format of the name is not commonly used to refer to the person) is not advised." Hawkeye7, where do you see that it can be used for disambiguation, please? Regarding DNZB (not NZDB), you need to know that every single of the 3000 entries lists the subject by their full name. No exception. Their general convention is to mention the common name only once or twice in the article; most commonly in the last paragraph, less commonly during the early life section, but sometimes not at all but they refer to the subject by surname only. The latter is the case here. The London Gazette always uses full names, so this cannot be used to establish common names. Regarding your Trove search, I note that you used 'George Spafford Richardson' as your search term, so what do you expect to find other than entries that use the full name? Schwede66 21:42, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

• That is a good point RE the DNZB practice of full names. Zawed (talk) 22:33, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

• Oppose, as above. I note that the story from 1924, linked to in the previous section regarding his pension, recites his middle name. Zawed (talk) 06:01, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

• I never said that the full version of the name isn't in use in contemporary sources. What I said is that the use of "George Richardson" is more common than "George Spafford Richardson". Much more common, in fact. Schwede66 21:42, 19 August 2016 (UTC)