Talk:William Selig

Date of birth
The date of birth is different from the one on Find-A-Grave. Lincher 13:22, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Requested move 24 October 2020

 * 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: Nobody favors the current title. As for what would be best, commentators seem to narrowly prefer "William Selig" so I am moving there per WP:OTHEROPTIONS. (t &#183; c)  buidhe  03:04, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

William Nicholas Selig → William N. Selig – per WP:COMMONNAME. No indication that subject regularly used his full name or that he was generally known by his full name. The article was created in March 2005 as "William Selig" and was unilaterally moved to "William Nicholas Selig" on July 16, 2008. The name appears as "William N." on, in the headline of his New York Times obit as well as in his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. An alternative form for this nomination, if preferred by consensus, would be simply the restoration of "William Selig". — Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 15:12, 24 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Support move to William Selig. Browsing Google Books results, I can see both that and William N. Selig are used interchangeably, with the latter being in the title of a biography. Still, the fact that we can be more concise in dropping the middle name or initial and still not lose meaning (there aren't other notable William Seligs) means to me that just the first and last name are sufficient as an article title. Erik (talk &#124; contrib) (ping me) 17:00, 24 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Support this alternative.--Ortizesp (talk) 18:46, 24 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Support move as proposed. Middle initial is used enough that I have no objection to its inclusion. There is no other "William Selig" in the encyclopedia mandating disambiguation of any kind. BD2412  T 17:16, 24 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Comment. Inclusion of a middle name or initial in numerous English Wikipedia main title headers is dependent on inconsistent reliable sources indicating WP:COMMONNAME (Harry S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower or Lyndon B. Johnson, but not Richard M. Nixon, Gerald R. Ford or Donald J. Trump). As far as film people are concerned, in addition to Louis B. Mayer, there are two others named "Louis Mayer", but "David Selznick" and "Darryl Zanuck" simply redirect to David O. Selznick and Darryl F. Zanuck. —Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 18:23, 24 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Support move to William Selig, the middle name/initial is not needed.--Astral Leap (talk) 09:58, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

Blockquotes, citations, external links
- some of the things you are doing to this article look very peculiar to me.

MOS:QUOTE, and particularly MOS:BLOCKQUOTE, are worth referring to. It should be made clear that a quote is a quote, usually with an introduction. So, for example, something like this would be normal: Architectural Historian Charles McKean described it as "one of the grandest houses in Scotland". You appear to be taking quotes from websites, and presenting them as if they were Wikipedia's voice - that isn't what quotes are for, and simply linking to the source doesn't make it OK. This needs to be written in your own words, summarising the sources; if there is a direct quote from a particular author you want to use, you may do so, but make it clear in the text that that is what you're doing.

The purpose of a citation is to support an assertion in the article (WP:WHYCITE). A single one is generally fine; sometimes you might use two or even three, especially if the assertion is potentially controversial. I can't think of a reason why the assertion "Selig apprenticed to a magician" requires nine supporting citations, or why "Multiscope & Film Company produced... ...a series of panoramic still cameras." would require 21 (!) citations - that is the most extreme case of WP:OVERCITE I've ever come across! What's going on with those?

External links are discussed at WP:EL. I'm not convinced that having external links to PDF documents in the body of the article is compliant with that policy, and it's not clear to me why they are there. I guess they might be usable in the external links section?

Other names: do you really think we need to list all of those variants of his name? I mean, they're all just standard abbreviations of his regular name, he's not like Edson Arantes do Nascimento. I'd suggest ditching those.

I haven't reverted all these changes just yet, but I'd be grateful for your thoughts on these point. Thanks Girth Summit  (blether)  14:12, 4 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I removed some of that stuff before seeing this talk page section. Writ Keeper &#9863;&#9812; 14:24, 4 August 2021 (UTC)
 * No worries. The OVERCITE and EL issues are addressed, but the issue of using quotes as if they were in Wikipedia's voice still remains, I would like to see something happen about that or they may need to be cut as well. Girth Summit  (blether)  14:48, 4 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Agreed. I'd also say that I feel that the amount of quoting that's in the citations itself also needs serious trimming; there's way too much unrelated text in the reflist. Writ Keeper &#9863;&#9812; 14:51, 4 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Sources prior to my editing are third-hand repetitions of vague innacuracies, a gestalt needs to occur to correct subtle problems in the article and to determine what those problems are. This article needed a complete rewrite and I was attempting to do that, in place, in the article, when some letter-of-the-law bureautic pedant threw out my research notes. so I guess should have backed it up to my user pages. Or is this? .... 0mtwb9gd5wx (talk) 14:58, 11 August 2021 (UTC)