Talk:John Davenport (minister)

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived 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: multi part move completed per talk page consensus below. Feel free to make other subsequent moves as already discussed as well. Tiggerjay (talk) 10:46, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

– We tend to disambiguate people using occupations rather than membership in a religious group. The meaning of "Puritan" is also not immediately obvious to everyone, and it is frequently misunderstood. I am using ministers as a test case. There are several more members of Category:Puritans who are theologians or other occupations and can be moved in another RM if this one succeeds, and I may have missed some ministers. Please note that "Puritan" is not the most common disambiguator being used in the category. JFH (talk) 03:51, 17 April 2013 (UTC)
 * John Davenport (Puritan) → John Davenport (minister)
 * John More (Puritan) → John More (minister)
 * Thomas Carter (Puritan) → Thomas Carter (minister)
 * John Wilson (Puritan) → John Wilson (minister)
 * John Higginson (Puritan) → John Higginson (minister)
 * Puritan seems more identifiable in this case. Apteva (talk) 05:20, 17 April 2013 (UTC)


 * I've created a couple of these articles, and used what was out there as a model for naming. I agree that minister may be more specific than Puritan, and most people likely have a better understanding of what a minister is, versus a Puritan.  For these reasons, I agree that the title change would be appropriate.  Also, John Cotton (Puritan) can be added to the list. Sarnold17 (talk) 23:51, 17 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I left out anyone described as a theologian in the lead because it seems to me that being a theologian usually trumps being a minister in terms of notability, but if you think Cotton is better described as a minister feel free to add him. If this RM succeeds I will do another one with theologians and others. --JFH (talk) 13:22, 18 April 2013 (UTC)
 * This is a valid point, but Cotton spent his entire adult life as a minister, and in all the research I've done on him, I've never seen where anyone called or considered him as a theologian. The much noted Roger Williams, on the other hand, did not spend much of his life as a minister, though he was a prolific writer, and had very refined theological ideas.  I would stick with minister for Cotton, since that is really what he is known as, despite his scholarship on theological subjects. Sarnold17 (talk) 16:11, 18 April 2013 (UTC)


 * As an additional argument, I see that proper nouns are to be avoided as parenthetical disambiguators per WP:NCDAB --JFH (talk) 13:28, 18 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Support per nom rationale and Sarnold and observation that "minister" is more common in book sources, at least for the first name. Dicklyon (talk) 01:53, 18 April 2013 (UTC)
 * 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.