Talk:Sarah, Duchess of York

Ancestors section

 * Deleting the Ancestors section does not seem a constructive edit, particularly as by default her ancestry tree was hidden. : I think her ancestry tree would be more useful if it went further back to illustrate the ancestry claimed in the second paragraph of the Early life section. I find the visual representation easier to follow than the text.

213.18.173.87 (talk) 23:00, 22 September 2022 (UTC)
 * All the relevant relatives can be mentioned in prose. Names such as Muriel Fletcher do not belong here because Wikipedia is not a genealogy website. Surtsicna (talk) 06:12, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

A member of the royal family?
Is she a really a member of the royal family. She does not participate in any events. She is not as well known as before. She is a divorced member of the royal family. I think associate of the royal family or something along the lines of that will be more justifiable Theeveralst (talk) 21:30, 26 September 2022 (UTC)


 * Sources differ as to whether she is a member of the royal family, as noted in the article body text. The Lord Chamberlain lists Sarah, Duchess of York as a member (the document is among a list of documents dated as being from 2022). This article from People implies that she is a member. However, she is not listed as a member on the royal family's website. Due to the ambiguity, I understand the desire to add clarity, and I think this article does to some extent in the article body. However, I don't think we should be creating categories like "associate of the royal family".
 * I assume this comment is in relation to the article's lead paragraph: Sarah, Duchess of York (born Sarah Margaret Ferguson; 15 October 1959), nicknamed Fergie, is a member of the British royal family. She is the former wife of Prince Andrew, Duke of York, a younger brother of King Charles III. If Sarah, Duchess of York's status as a royal family member is in question, maybe we should just delete that reference and simply say Sarah, Duchess of York (born Sarah Margaret Ferguson; 15 October 1959), nicknamed Fergie, is the former wife of Prince Andrew, Duke of York, a younger brother of King Charles III. I don't have a strong opinion about this either way. Aoi (青い) (talk) 22:08, 26 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Families include divorced in-laws if they have children in the family. SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:58, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

I think it is best to have a vote on this matter Theeveralst (talk) 21:34, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I don't think a vote is necessary. The Lord Chamberlain's guidelines clearly list her as a member of the royal family, whereas it does not mention Mark Phillips, the divorced husband of Princess Anne. If the palace considers her a member, we cannot possibly argue against it (it would fall under WP:OR). Sarah's situation more or less resembles that of Diana, Princess of Wales, who was still considered a member of the royal family even after her divorce (though her position as the mother of a future king was way more prominent). Keivan.f  Talk 06:08, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
 * The issue of Disownment of family members, even to the point of divorced in-laws, is a pretty strong case of a WP:BLP issue. There should be no vote, because the WP:Voice of Wikipedia, even to the point of editors on a talk page, should not be speaking to such a personal issue.  Wikipedia needs to hold back to what reliable others say.
 * If there is any real doubt on “… is a member of the British royal family” then the question is whether the article should contain this statement or drop it entirely. For Sarah, I don’t think there is good reason to raise the question.  I see sources name her as “ex daughter in law”, but never “ex family”. SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:18, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
 * @Theeveralst, I reverted this edit here for the reasons I noted in the edit summary. Looking at this discussion again, I was reminded of MOS:BIOFIRSTSENTENCE, which states [t]he first sentence [of a biography] should usually state...[t]he main reason the person is notable (key accomplishment, record, etc.). In Sarah's case, her claim to notability is drawn hugely from her status at Andrew's ex-wife. If there's dispute over whether she should be considered a royal family member, then I suggest amending this statement by replacing "a member of the British royal family" with "the former wife of Andrew, Duke of York]]" (or perhaps former daughter-in-law of Queen Elizabeth II or former sister-in-law of King Charles III), but (and I know this contradicts my statement above) I don't think we should omit her relationship with the royal family completely. Thank you, Aoi (青い) (talk) 19:36, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

Image changes
I've restored the longstanding lead image, which appears to have been the lead image since November 2017. Please stop edit-warring and get consensus here on the talk page for whatever replacement image you want. Aoi (青い) (talk) 22:17, 26 September 2022 (UTC)

"Fergie" nickname
The nickname "Fergie" has been in the lede intermittently; it was most recently removed without comment by on 3 October, then restored by ; then re-removed by Kievan.f with the comment:

This was discussed before and the consensus was against including it. All royals have nicknames; Elizabeth II's was Lilibet, George VI's was Bertie, William's is Will, Catherine's is Kate, etc. Yet there's no need to mention them in the lede when these nicknames have not used officially by the subjects.

1. I can't see a decision being made on this in the past - can anyone point me to that?

2. Regarding: "when these nicknames have not used officially by the subjects" - firstly, she does use the name officially, for example in the title of her Youtube series, "Storytime with Fergie and Friends". Secondly, the subject's own naming is not definitive on Wikipedia, rather that used by sources. Looking at the references on this article, 27 of them (14%) use "Fergie" in their titles to refer to the subject of the article. For comparison, not a single one of the 320 sources on Elizabeth II's page uses "Lilibet" in the title. ("Kate" and "Will" are different cases, as they are common hypocorisms of their first names, on which Wikipedia has a specific policy.)

"Fergie" is clearly an extremely common name used by our sources to refer to the subject of this article - by my reading of MOS:NICKNAME it should be included in the lead. Can anyone provide a policy-based reason why it shouldn't be? TSP (talk) 18:41, 9 December 2022 (UTC)
 * To add to this, I’ve been bingeing a lot of royal documentaries, and most/all heavily use the name Fergie. The concept of lèse-majesté does not exist on Wikipedia, even though I’ve seen no indication that the subject of the article objects to the nickname. Regardless, I do strongly think it should be in the lede. Park3r (talk) 19:15, 9 December 2022 (UTC)
 * The discussion on this subject occurred many years ago on an individual talk page between some users, but a new consensus can be officially established here to settle this matter once and for all. I was simply opposing the inclusion of the nickname because it was being thrown in the lede without a proper discussion. As you pointed out, only 14% of sources used on this article actually use the nickname Fergie, which is not a large percentage in my opinion. But, then there's the issue of her embracing the nickname. Well, Catherine, Princess of Wales, had also embraced the nickname prior "Kate" to her marriage to the royal family (similar to her sister Philippa who is known as "Pippa"), but she has not used it for eleven years now. That doesn't seem to be the case with Sarah, but Storytime with Fergie and Friends was made for an audience mainly composed of children. In her professional career she has not used that nickname to the best of my knowledge. Not to mention that the article clearly says in the "Early life" section that she's "known informally as Fergie". I'll be looking forward to see what others might think with regards to this matter. Keivan.f  Talk 20:14, 9 December 2022 (UTC)
 * I added it to the lede because it seemed non-controversial, and WP:BOLD is a thing - changes can be reverted for any number of reasons, but there is no requirement for them to be discussed first. In any case, it appears that there was no consensus on not using the nickname in the lede (that can be found), and there is no clear policy reason for not having the nickname in the lede, so it should be added. Park3r (talk) 00:39, 10 December 2022 (UTC)
 * WP:BOLD is a thing until your edits get reverted, after which you are obliged to discuss the matter. And regardless of what happened in the past, I don't see a consensus here at the moment, and while there is no clearly policy for omitting a nickname from the lede, there is equally no clear policy that states it must be used. Keivan.f  Talk 15:42, 10 December 2022 (UTC)
 * After the edit was reverted, I did raise it on a talk page, but then I deleted it, it wasn’t worth my time. I don’t believe I’m obliged to discuss the matter as long as I didn’t resort to edit-warring (which I didn’t). I also don’t think that this current discussion being up for a couple of days allows us to draw any conclusions about a current consensus, or lack thereof. Let’s allow other editors to participate. Park3r (talk) 18:48, 10 December 2022 (UTC)


 * Actually answering the latest arguments:
 * As I've already mentioned, Wikipedia has a specific policy against including common hypocorisms for first names in the lead, which applies to Kate; if it were not for that (e.g. if her legal first name was something other than Catherine), I think "Kate" should absolutely be mentioned. But perhaps more relevantly, Wikipedia pages are judged against policy and consensus, not against other pages; feel free to go to Kate's page and discuss whether "Kate" should be included, but we're talking about this page.
 * 14% of sources use the name in the title. That's quite a lot - for comparison, 27% use "Sarah Ferguson" and 31% "Duchess of York", and our sources are likely to be biased towards formal usages by their nature.  Also for comparison, 4% of Sir Alex Ferguson's citations use "Fergie" and 0% of Queen Elizabeth II's use "Lilibet".
 * I don't think we're biased against usages aimed at children. She uses the name in an official capacity.
 * You're welcome to link where that "consensus" was forged, but I find it hard to see how a true consensus could be achieved on individuals' talk pages without any mention on the relevant article talk page. But I see nothing in the editing history of the article for the last 5 years suggesting anyone else believes there is a consensus on this.  ("Fergie" remained stable in the article for almost a year in 2018-19, before you removed it - no other editor seemed to have an issue.)
 * I noticed you saying in one edit comment, "she is not widely known by this nickname". I suspect that may be at the root of the disagreement here - I think you may not have lived in the UK during the 1990s?  At the time, she was absolutely a household name, and always as "Fergie" - I'm not sure I even knew her real name or title.  I think anyone who remembers that time in the UK would be flabbergasted by the suggestion that she isn't widely known as Fergie.  It's also perhaps worth noting that, as discussed in various move discussions at Talk:Fergie (singer), this page is usually the second most popular location from the Fergie disambiguation page. (Incidentally, I caught a clip of the latest Meghan and Harry interview the other day, in which Meghan refers to - you guessed it - "Fergie".) TSP (talk) 15:34, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

Looking back through article history, I found these relevant edits: [Edited to add:]
 * 5 Oct 2022, removed by
 * 5 Oct 2022, added by
 * 3 Oct 2022, removed by Keivan.f
 * 18 Sept 2022, added by
 * 28 May 2021, removed by Keivan.f
 * 14 April 2021, added by
 * 30 Jan 2020, removed by Kievan.f
 * 23 December 2019, added by
 * 26 June 2019, removed by Kievan.f
 * 18 May 2019, added by
 * 6 April 2019, removed by Kievan.f
 * 24 June 2018, added by
 * 23 June 2018, removed by Kievan.f
 * 23 June 2018, added by
 * 17 June 2018, removed by Kievan.f
 * 14 June 2018, added by
 * 24 February 2018, removed by Kievan.f
 * 23 February 2018, added by
 * 23 February 2018, removed by Kievan.f
 * 28 November 2017, added by

Between those edits, and this debate, I count four logged-in editors, plus two IPs, moving to have this included; versus just the one editor opposing that. As there is, at the very least, no policy either way; and the basic arguments used in removing it seem to have been disproved (the name is used by the subject, as well as by sources; there does not appear to be any previously-established consensus for removal), I'd suggest the indications are in favour of inclusion, in the absence of a contrary consensus emerging reasonably swiftly. TSP (talk) 22:30, 12 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Let me make something clear. I do not own this article, but I have been contributing to it for years, literally bringing it up from the piece of crap that it previously was. Thus, I have had a reasonable expectation that when changes like adding a nickname to the lede are about to happen, they should be discussed properly. I have done the same when introducing changes to other articles. The discussion is taking place now, and I will accept the consensus, whatever the outcome might be. Keivan.f  Talk 22:39, 12 December 2022 (UTC)
 * How long do we want to wait before we put the nickname in the lede? Park3r (talk) 06:05, 15 December 2022 (UTC)
 * I've now gone back through five full years of edits, during which time this has been added to the article 10 times, by six registered users and three IPs (often staying stable in the article for many months); and removed every time by the same one. In this debate, we have two people arguing for inclusion and one for exclusion, and the debate has been here for a week without another exclusion-favouring editor appearing; so that's currently 10:1 for inclusion. , if you'd like to call a full WP:RFC on this, feel free; but it seems hard to argue that consensus at the moment is in favour of removal.  I'm going to re-add it. TSP (talk) 15:34, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

What is a "chalet girl"?
Article says


 * At a young age, she developed an interest in skiing and later briefly worked as a chalet girl.

Article needs to provide some explanation as to what a "chalet girl" is.

(To User Celia Homeford: No, I have not seen "the film", nor would it make any difference if I had. Wikipedia articles are supposed to be comprehensible to a general audience, not just to people who have seen certain films.)

- 189.122.243.241 (talk) 22:32, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Common terms understood by most readers in context do not need to be defined within the article, including subjects with which most readers will be at least somewhat familiar. The words 'chalet' and 'girl' are common terms, and the term is used in context within a sentence about skiing. We don't write, "She briefly worked as a chef, which is a person who prepares food in a kitchen." If readers come across a word that is unfamiliar to them, they can look it up. The article text shouldn't contain digressions that are unnecessary for the bulk of readers. Celia Homeford (talk) 08:54, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

Title
Has there been an RFC regarding the her title Duchess of York?, as she is divorced surely she no longer holds that title as it usually belongs to the current wife of that royal. ChefBear01 (talk) 08:15, 22 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Diana remained Princess of Wales after her divorce from Charles. -- Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  08:22, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
 * This is explained and cited in the article. Celia Homeford (talk) 09:51, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
 * She is no longer "THE Duchess of York", she is "Sarah, Duchess of York. Similar to "Diana, Princess of Wales". Keivan.f  Talk 14:51, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

Coats of arms and copyright
A discussion is going on at the Commons concerning the copyright status of several coats of arms that are in use on pages related to British royalty. Please feel free to share your comments and input at commons:Commons:Deletion requests/Coat of arms of Queen Camilla.svg. Thanks. Keivan.f Talk 18:35, 4 May 2024 (UTC)