Talk:Beauvoir (other)

Beauvoir misdirected
04-February-2007: I have redirected name "Beauvoir" (in the English Wikipedia) back to the famous American home of Jefferson Davis, built in 1848, the U.S. National Historic Landmark discussed in recent news, which is being restored after Hurricane Katrina. The American home continues to be the intended target for all but one existing wikilink to "Beauvoir" (the other link was for a place in France), so the decision was obvious: redirect to the article intended by over 90% of article links. That redirection will resolve the majority of those article links, leaving just 1 to disambiguation, from Beauvoir (Biloxi, Mississippi).

Three-month trial: In November 2006, the name "Beauvoir" had been redirected to "Simone de Beauvoir" even though no Wikipedia articles at all linked that usage, and 96% of all WP references to "Beauvoir" mentioned the Jefferson Davis home, 4% mentioned a place in France, and no articles mention any person, living or dead, as "Beauvoir" in a link. After 3 months, the problem was still the same: absolutely no wikilinks intended "Beauvoir" as the name of a person.

POV push? - For most of 2006, the term "Beauvoir" was logically redirected to the home of that name, the famous home of Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederacy, built in 1848, predating the 1911 Britannica. Several articles all linked to "Beauvoir" as meaning that same mansion built in the 19th century.

Then, according to some unknown agenda, in November 2006, the term was redirected to "Simone de Beauvoir" (1908-1986) for the author who gained fame 100 years after the Beauvoir mansion was built, even though there were no Wikipedia articles linked to "Beauvoir" as meaning that person. In the past 3 months, no articles yet have been linked to "Beauvoir" as meaning any person, just places (one as a region in France, and the rest meaning the Davis mansion). As could be expected, the Beauvoir mansion from 1848, known by that name for 100 years before the author became known, is back in current news, while the author has been dead 21 years.

The situation slants as a POV push to publicize the author's life or politics, regardless of the historical past and current events about the mansion. Perhaps someone wanted "Beauvoir" to have the impact of "Einstein" (201 wikilinks) as an iconic name for the person, but actual Wikipedia usage has favored the home (named exactly "Beauvoir") as the link intended. All progress has come full circle: the use of a specified name tends to be linked to an object of that exact name, as is the case for articles linking the Beauvoir mansion. Meanwhile, after 3 more months, the author is still considered and linked by full name "Simone de Beauvoir" rather than by an iconic last name (such as "Einstein").

Lessons learned:
 * Redirect a name to the object most likely to be mentioned by that exact name.
 * Also, give precedence to a name used 60-100 years earlier in mainstream history.
 * Beware of anyone redirecting a term to an article that has no absolutely no links, whatsoever, using that term, in any manner in any article, anywhere, at any time.
 * If an article does get redirected through a name that is never used, check the links 3 months later to confirm the long-term mistake and correct it before the problem is propagated further.

Hopefully, the lessons learned will help focus WP efforts in the future, to avoid many hours of potential problems for other articles. -Wikid77 23:13, 5 February 2007 (UTC)