Talk:P. J. Sebastian

Untitled
This is the Home page of Late Mr P J Sebastian, Freedom Fighter, Community Activist from Changanacherry, Kerala, India

- There is more info in the sourced -Hindu article (Msrasnw (talk) 00:49, 6 September 2010 (UTC))

Question of proper title
Would like to reaffirm my stance on the title which I expressed below, after having considered the discussion. Also would like to undertake efforts to change policy in accordance with this stance. While the discussion (in the section below) has closed, further comments on the question are invited in this section, prior to a reopening of official discussion and moves to change policy. Karnan (talk) 20:39, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Request for undoing of 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. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: no move, the article should remain at its restored name. There is rough consensus for this. Only the proposer has spoken in favour of the move, advocating a novel approach with no Wikipedia policy or guideline to support it. Two other contributors have offered valid arguments opposing. Andrewa (talk) 19:06, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

P. J. Sebastian → P. J. Sebastian, Pullamkalam — Present title lacks the surname which makes the title insufficiently distinctive (consisting merely of first name and initials). Conventional reorderings (which include the surname) usual to Europe and other countries with well established Christian naming practices (e. g., Sebastian J. Pullamkalam) will render the name unrecognisable due to historical reasons. Discussion has continued for some time (cf. below). Proposed appending of surname to the common form of the name is how the indviduals in the community in which such names occur (mainly Kerala Christians) have traditionally dealt with the issue. Karnan (talk) 22:43, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

This is currently at P. J. Sebastian which is the the name used in the autobiography. The lede says the full name is Pullamkalam Joseph Sebastian. Moving this article to P. J. Sebastian, Pullamkalam is at odds with the reference and the full name. Tassedethe (talk) 15:01, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

No one will recognise him if referred to as Pullamkalam Joseph Sebastian. P. J. Sebastian is how he is commonly known (among those who are well aware of his surname). However, in official contexts, the surname is added to distinguish him from other P. J. S.'s. Karnan (talk) 15:06, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
 * As he is commonly known as P. J. Sebastian then as per WP:COMMONNAME that is how the page should be titled. As there are no other articles on Wikipedia about anyone else called P. J Sebastian then there is no need to add further disambiguation. If the page did need to be disambiguated then there would need to 3rd party references to him being known as P. J. Sebastian, Pullamkalam which seems a very odd formulation as the P stands for Pullamkalam. Tassedethe (talk) 15:17, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
 * The oddity is in abbreviating the name as P. J. Sebastian instead of Sebastian J. Pullamkalam, but this has been the universal practice in Kerala. Hence the disambiguation is also somewhat unusual. A ref. is . Also I have seen letterheads of people with such names, and they do use the same form of appending the surname. Since the surname is absent is the title, it is better to append it there. Karnan (talk) 15:26, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I am happy for you to add P. J. Sebastian, Pullamkalam to the lede to show that he can be referred to in that way but I don't see it necessary to move the page, as per WP:COMMONNAME as I said above. Tassedethe (talk) 15:36, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
 * That form does not show his surname, which is what is distinctive. There is no instance of a common name as title which omits a person's surname. Therefore appending the surname is essential. (e. g. In the link given, how does one know that the P. J. Sebastian referred to is the same as this one? Only because the surname is appended.) Karnan (talk) 22:36, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Madonna (entertainer) omits the surname, Cicconne, even though there are lots of other people named Madonna. There are many examples of people only known by a single name, sometimes their given name, sometimes their surname (see List of one-word stage names) but if that is how they are commonly known then that is how they are titled on Wikipedia. Tassedethe (talk) 22:46, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
 * This system of naming arises not because of the pressures of the entertainment industry, but because of a strange way of abbreviating which considered first names alone and not surnames, mainly in schools where first names were enough (this propagated through the school records). In the wider world, this is not so. Moreover, as I said, the letterheads of such people carried the names with the surnames appended. Karnan (talk) 14:36, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I am moving the page. Karnan (talk) 03:49, 2 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I am disappointed that you moved the page. Without more input this is a disputed move and should be taken to a full discussion at WP:RM. Tassedethe (talk) 04:55, 2 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Oppose. Since he is the only P. J. Sebastian currently with an article and Karnan himself says that this is now he is commonly known, then there is no reason to disambiguate the title. If an article about another P. J. Sebastian is written then we can look at this again, but I can see no reason to use this form in any case. People from Sebastian's community may understand it, but nobody else would. -- Necrothesp (talk) 00:04, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I used the qualifications `among those who are well aware of his surname' and `in schools where first names were enough' to refer to contexts where he was commonly known as such. In wider official contexts, the surname is appended. Kindly see the link added above (and also consider how one would go about verifying whether the two Sebastians are the same without seeing the surnames appended). Karnan (talk) 01:11, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Also consider the purported reference in the article. Since the ref. does not quote the surname at all, the connexion of that ref. with the person the article deals with is uncertain. Karnan (talk) 01:40, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Note that we do not disambiguate unless we need to within the encyclopaedia. It doesn't matter how many P. J. Sebastians are knocking about - as long as only one has an article on Wikipedia we do not need to disambiguate the article title. This is basic article naming. Any uncertainty should be dealt with within the body of the article, not the title. -- Necrothesp (talk) 01:53, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Unless the surname is appended, it is not even clear whether the article refers to only one person or to many. The ref. could refer to one, the wiki article to another, indeed each statement in the wiki could be to a different person. The surname is necessary to bring the required amount of specificity to any factual statement. This is a stage prior to usual disambiguations, somewhat comparable to distinguishing Charles I and Charles II; only at a later stage would one consider whether Charles I was from England (the beheaded one) or the continent (Charlemagne) and disambiguate. If this article were not moved, it would be like keeping Charles as the title for Charles I until an article for Charles II also came up with the same title Charles, then recognising (if ever) that these are different people, and until then refusing to see the problem. Such numbness of mind must be rejected in anticipation. There should be no instance of a person with a wiki article which does not include his surname (except for people in the entertainment and other such showy professions, where rigour is relaxed). This is not a question of disambiguation, but of specificity of naming. Karnan (talk) 07:39, 3 April 2011 (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. No further edits should be made to this section.