Talk:Nancy Dickerson

WikiProject class rating
This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 15:57, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians, I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on Nancy Dickerson. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes: When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20060907122422/http://www.clarke.edu/news/NDWMedallion/index.htm to http://www.clarke.edu/news/NDWMedallion/index.htm

Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 23:16, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Requested move 19 October 2023

 * 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 (non-admin closure) BegbertBiggs (talk) 21:54, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

Nancy Dickerson Whitehead → Nancy Dickerson – Just "Nancy Dickerson" is the name she used in her public career and the name she is most known by, by far. This Ngram shows that "Nancy Dickerson" alone was used essentially all the time, in books anyway, except for a period between her marriage and death, where even at its peak "Nancy Dickerson" alone was still used more than twice as often as "Nancy Dickerson Whitehead". This peak might be accounted for by the fact that she was also well-known as a socialite (article says) so I suppose reporting of the society doings of the couple would have been of interest. This seems to have flatlined after her death (one assumes that that would have put a crimp in her appearances at society events), and gone back to "Nancy Dickerson" alone almost always. The lede and infobox caption use just "Nancy Dickerson".Herostratus (talk) 20:54, 19 October 2023 (UTC)
 * at 17:22, 7 January 2022 moved page Nancy Dickerson to Nancy Dickerson Whitehead over redirect (Switching to the name she used after her second marriage. This is her name as it appears on her Arlington Cemetery tombstone.) — wbm1058 (talk) 22:04, 19 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Huh. Are we supposed to much care what name is on her tombstone, or something? It's a data point, but a pretty small one. I hope we're not going to default to calling accomplished, famous, and ground-breaking women by their husband's name. User:Tdadamemd19 should not be making controversial (and in this case, dead wrong) moves on their own dime, and hopefully this was a one-off mistake. Which, fine, User:Tdadamemd19, we all make mistakes, God knows I've made many very gmuch worse than this. Hopefully it's a learning experience to lean strongly to find out what other people think before moving articles, if there's any possible doubt. Herostratus (talk) 16:59, 21 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Support per nomination. The unilateral move to Nancy Dickerson Whitehead made in January 2022 should be reverted. Nancy Dickerson was a celebrity news personality in the 1960s, exemplified in the title of her biography — Dickerson, John (2006). On Her Trail: My Mother, Nancy Dickerson, TV News' First Woman Star. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster. As Nancy Dickerson, she covered top news events and interviewed presidents. There is a "Nancy Dickerson Whitehead Medallion", but that news award was instituted after she married her second husband John Whitehead in February 1989, eight years and eight months before her death. —Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 00:21, 20 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Support, but the lead should show her full name per MOS:FULLNAME. – wbm1058 (talk) 14:43, 22 October 2023 (UTC)
 * OK. But is her full name her birth name (Nancy Conners Hanschman), her name under her first husband (Nancy Hanschman Dickerson I suppose) or her second husband (Nancy Dickerson Whitehead I suppose)? I genuinely don't know how this is done. Herostratus (talk) 17:11, 25 October 2023 (UTC)


 * I guess like this?
 * Maybe? Seems a bit wordy but IDK. Herostratus (talk) 19:36, 25 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Maybe? Seems a bit wordy but IDK. Herostratus (talk) 19:36, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

Dickerson Whitehead vs Dickerson, follow-up
"I hope we're not going to default to calling accomplished, famous, and ground-breaking women by their husband's name." - Herostratus

I hope everyone here is crystal clear that this was going to be done one way or the other. The question at hand was whether one or both people she married were going to be reflected in the name selected for our purposes here. She herself used both.

Now there is also the issue of consistency across projects. For those who argued to revert my change, then you might also want to put effort into having Wikidata parallel your choice. WikiData.org:Nancy Dickerson Whitehead

...or re-examine the reasoning which went into that project. I myself had no involvement whatsoever.

When a journalist literally jumps into bed with the guy who was Chair/CEO of Goldman-Sachs, then I see Wikipedia to do a disservice by burying that fact. As the article stands today, the reader has to scroll all the way down to the Personal section to find this info. After my set of changes, made almost two years ago now, this info was clearly presented in the infobox.

As for my decision to do the move, I don't remember my full reasoning from back then. But it has clearly been shown to have been a mistake for me to not seek consensus before taking that step. Undoing an article move is not as simple as reverting an edit. So I owe you all an apology. I'll keep the lesson learned here in mind for future changes. --Tdadamemd19 (talk) 06:06, 27 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Right, right, thank you for the apology, it's fine, errors are an important way to grow and learn. Sorry about the arch comment, I talk too much. Point taken.


 * As to the other, after all her other name is bolded in the second sentence. But, yes, it was important to society people, and your point about that being buried is a good point. I'd be OK with changing the second sentence to maybe "Famous as a celebrity and socialite (in which context she was sometimes called Nancy Dickerson Whitehead after marrying he former Goldman Sachs chairman John C. Whitehead)" or something. I don't know if it should be in the lede like that, but maybe.


 * Really it might be best to have to a whole small section called "Socialite" or something, and have a paragraph or so about that, including that she and Whitehead were a famous couple. It'd need refs but I'm sure they're out there, I'm not up to doing it atm. Herostratus (talk)