Template talk:Marriage/Archive 3

Survived parameter

 * The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Should the current use of "survived" as a parameter be changed? DrKiernan (talk) 18:37, 23 January 2014 (UTC) Change current use: Let me try once again to explain why "survived" is being misapplied in this template, and why it should it be replaced with "died". If you look at the two examples opposite, Technical 13 wants "survived" to mean that the spouse was survived by the subject of the article. So, on Henry VIII's article, Technical 13 wants the template to say that Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour and Catherine Howard were survived by Henry. However, no-one ever uses that term in that way, and using it like that is confusing and unusual. I would go as far as to say it was unique to wikipedia.

In the second example, I demonstrate how "survived" is commonly used, i.e. as a synonym for "widowed". So, only Catherine Parr "survived"; she was widowed. The three wives who died are only ever described as died (or beheaded).

In this template, "survived" should be used to mean that the spouse survived the subject of the article not the other way around. If the spouse dies before the subject of the article, then it is simpler and easier to just say so. DrKiernan (talk) 17:11, 23 January 2014 (UTC) Change current use: In the example opposite, I demonstrate how survived is commonly used, i.e. as a synonym for "widowed". So, of Henry VIII's wives only Catherine Parr "survived"; she was "widowed". The three wives who died are only ever described as died (or beheaded). In this template, "survived" and "widowed" should be used to mean that the spouse survived the subject of the article not the other way around. If the spouse dies before the subject of the article, then it is simpler and easier to just say so. This is the usual wording used in histories, biographies and genealogies. DrKiernan (talk) 16:39, 24 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Okay, let me explain.
 * widowed → "... whose spouse has died; who has become a widow or widower."
 * survive → "(transitive) To live longer than; to outlive."
 * be survived by → "Used to list the living family members of the deceased person"
 * survived on thefreedictionary.com v.tr 1. → "To live longer than; outlive: She survived her husband by five years. "
 * survive on dictionary.reference.com → "verb (used with object), sur·vived, sur·viv·ing. 4. to continue to live or exist after the death, cessation, or occurrence of: His wife survived him."
 * It is pretty clear to me based on all of these definitions from multiple sources that "survived" when used as a transitive verb in this context as relating to a married couple means that the topic died and left the listed spouse behind. As a side not, I have no objection to using the more specific "beheaded" if in fact the spouse was beheaded, and this was never before discussed. More clarity is good in my opinion, less clarity (going from survived meaning the topic died leaving the spouse to simply died leaving it totally ambiguous) is not acceptable. Technical 13 (talk) 17:49, 23 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Frankly, I haven't a clue what you're talking about. You state that survived means "the topic died and left the listed spouse behind", which is EXACTLY what I am saying. You're making no sense whatever by then going completely against that statement and doing the opposite in your edits. DrKiernan (talk) 18:43, 23 January 2014 (UTC)
 * It still makes no sense. Seymour wasn't widowed in 1537. She died. It makes no sense to arbitrarily decide that "widowed" relates to the topic only, while "survived" relates to the spouse only. It is clearly confusing. DrKiernan (talk) 19:12, 23 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Henry was widowed, no? The text that is displayed by the template is to relate the topic's association to the spouse.  Therefor, the spouse died, the topic was widowed, the topic died, and was survived by the spouse.  Is that clearer?  I sure hope so because I do believe that you have good intentions here, but are completely misunderstanding how the template is suppose to work. Technical 13 (talk) 19:28, 23 January 2014 (UTC)
 * No. Henry didn't survive Catherine. He died. So the parenthetical comment does not relate to the topic's association with the spouse, i.e. "Henry survived Catherine Parr" is wrong. DrKiernan (talk) 19:31, 23 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Again, you are not reading the discussion... Henry was survived by Catherine. Yes, he died. So the parenthetical comment does relate to the topic's association with the spouse, i.e. "Henry was survived by Catherine Parr" is correct. Technical 13 (talk) 19:49, 23 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I am reading the discussion. You just won't accept that someone has a different view. DrKiernan (talk) 20:32, 23 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Edit: I've updated the sandbox to be clearer. It now has the full verbose of "survived by" so that you won't be confused. Technical 13 (talk) 19:53, 23 January 2014 (UTC)
 * No. Now it just looks as though the date is uncertain, which makes it more ambiguous. DrKiernan (talk) 20:32, 23 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I should point out, that I went through all the transclusions yesterday and couldn't find any that use the survived parameter, so I believe it could be removed immediately without any loss of data. DrKiernan (talk) 19:35, 23 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Then there needs to be some going through all of the transclusions and fixing where people are misusing the template. It most certainly should not be removed in favor of a more ambiguous, less defining term. I'll work on that with AWB soon Technical 13 (talk) 19:49, 23 January 2014 (UTC)
 * As I said, there are no misuses to correct. It is not in use. DrKiernan (talk) 20:32, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

It seems to me that has very specific ideas about how such things should be written and read, and is determined that everyone use them. If there is some authority behind this, like general practices in genealogy, or some earlier established consensus, that might carry some weight, after due consideration. However, at this point, it feels a bit like a case of ownership of the template, where others simply want to make the template produce results that are easiest for readers. Sure, we can try to make sure that every editor using the template knows how these are meant to be read, but that doesn't help readers at all. Thus, the information should be presented in a way that is not ambiguous to readers. SamBC(talk) 22:29, 23 January 2014 (UTC)
 * There is no ownership here on my part, and I am all for removing the ambiguity. I've linked above in bullet points dictionary definitions for these words and phrases, which I would consider an authority on the definition of the words.  I would hope that they would carry some weight with due consideration.  I am all for making changes to this template as consensus dictates.  In this section, User:DrKiernan has set forth  opinion, I have set forth mine with multiple various sources explaining the definitions of these words as is written in dictionaries, and I await input from the community to see a consensus form.  If people want to add ambiguous terms and ideas to this template, I would be happy to make the edits to employ those terms.  At some point though, this template is going to become so full of ambiguous crud, that it will be worthless as a template, and I will support its deletion at that time as unsalvageable.  Technical 13 (talk) 22:42, 23 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Dictionary definitions aren't that helpful here, because the problem is the unclear antecedent. You're saying 'widowed this date' when there are two people being referred to. The same, frankly, applies to died. In all three cases, the user can work out which it was by looking at other biographical information. Is there an advantage to using separate terms for the two cases when that doesn't tell the reader anything without them either knowing our convention, or checking biographical info? Of course, to English-speakers, many will have heard the rhyme for Henry VIII's wives, and expect the use of 'died' and 'survived' in that way. Not sure that's a great guide, though. SamBC(talk) 22:50, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

It's worth noting that someone elsewhere has suggested that this should be seen as an MoS issue. What do people think of seeing (and discussing) it in that context? Is there an appropriate MoS section? SamBC(talk) 15:24, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

Addendum: Perhaps WP:MOSBIO? SamBC(talk) 15:26, 24 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I've added policy and style to the RfC header to add it to those categories that would attract MOS people. I really don't care what does or doesn't go into this template as long as the process is followed to achieve consensus.  So, I'm all for bringing in more editors from MOS since this is essentially a WP:MOS issue as Andy suggested on AN/I.  Well, the "which abbreviations do we use for which words" part anyways.  As far as to whether or not we should do away with survived and/or widowed and opt for more ambiguity, it's not a MOS issue, but I'd still be very interested to see what the people that come for the MOS part of the abbreviations have to say about whether or not we go from "divorced, survived, widowed" to "divorced or died".  I'd actually quite like to do the opposite and expand the options to "annulled, divorced, survived, widowed".  I don't think that "beheaded" is really an acceptable default option because it doesn't say anything about the marriage itself and does not apply to the topic of the page.  The topic was not beheaded, the spouse was.  Even if the topic was beheaded, they were survived by the spouse and the detail that they were beheaded belongs in the prose and not in this infobox enhancing template. Technical 13 (talk) 15:41, 24 January 2014 (UTC)
 * The problem with all of the parameters under consideration, died, survived or widowed, whether abbreviated or not, is that they are all ambiguous and unclear - which party died, was the subject of the article survived by the other party, or did they survive them? At least the user can usually look in the same infobox to see if that's the date the subject died, but it's still unclear. If it's impossible to be both clear and succinct, what are our priorities? That said, if there's an existing, outside-Wikipedia and fairly universal, convention on this, for example in genealogy, it may be worth following that, though clarity to readers should, IMO, be the most important thing.
 * The questions that need to be asked about who the term is about are: "Who is the page about?" and "Who is the infobox about?" It is pretty clear to me that if the page is about Jon Doe, and the infobox with all of the information is about Jon Doe, then the terms on the "spouse" line of said infobox on said page must be about "Jon Doe". You wouldn't go to a store and ask that clerk "What isle is milk in?" and have him respond "In this store?", so why would there be content on a page that isn't about the topic of the page?  Just my thoughts. Technical 13 (talk) 16:31, 24 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Except that widowed and survived are both transitive verbs - so yes, the verb is applied the the page subject, and to the spouse, but which is subject, and which object? It is not obvious, knowing which is meant would be a matter of convention, and if there isn't an existing convention 'out there' in the world, we shouldn't be inventing one. SamBC(talk) 20:13, 24 January 2014 (UTC)


 * In newspaper obits I frequently see the phrase "X was survived by..." followed by a list of close relatives of X, usually spouse, children and parents, sometimes grandchildren or nephews/neices (X being the deceased). I don't know how more technical works on genealogy use "survived". I would rather that we were clear than concise. Perhaps the template could contain a link to a legend page to explain any abbreviations? Just a thought. DES (talk) 16:33, 24 January 2014 (UTC)
 * is what I have to the right here what you had in mind? Technical 13 (talk) 16:51, 24 January 2014 (UTC)
 * would the one further to the right not work just as well and look even better? Technical 13 (talk) 16:58, 24 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I object to that because inventing our own abbreviations is contrary to Manual of Style. The guideline rightly seeks to prevent unnecessary confusion by promoting the use of standard abbreviations only. DrKiernan (talk) 17:04, 24 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Who said anything about inventing our own abbreviations. We would still use whatever is consensually agreed upon as the "normal" abbreviations. Technical 13 (talk) 17:12, 24 January 2014 (UTC)
 * We need to determine what are the normal abbreviations based on evidence, rather than our own common sense (because common sense isn't that common, as in it's not generally the same between different people). I had a look at some genealogy glossaries, and they mention w. and ww. for widow (and wwr. for widower), but don't have 'widowed' mentioned - the person is labelled, not the date, apparently, and then the date of the change of status (to widow, for instance) applied to the status. The abbreviations used for married are m. or md., and for died, it's d., for what it's worth. SamBC(talk) 20:38, 24 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I already provided 6 references in the last discussion. DrKiernan (talk) 20:40, 24 January 2014 (UTC)
 * The references I'm seeing are references to the meaning of words, not to conventions on abbreviation. Or do you mean in another section? SamBC(talk) 20:48, 24 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Sorry, lost track of who I was talking to, so was looking for references from the wrong person. I'll check the references :) SamBC(talk) 20:50, 24 January 2014 (UTC)
 * , I've taken the rightmost one even further and made a full sentence out of most of the terms there so there can be zero ambiguity. Technical 13 (talk) 17:12, 24 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Given that you've now altered the template to read "Marriage was widowed by Anne Boleyn", it's difficult to believe that you're not deliberately trying to make the template look more and more ridiculous. DrKiernan (talk) 17:20, 24 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Something along those lines, yes. But instead of "Topic was widowed by spouse." which is technically correct but I think confusing, I would suggest "Widowed: Topic's sposue died during the marriage". DES (talk) 17:22, 24 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Why not just say "spouse died"? I don't see why the complex is being favored over the simple. DrKiernan (talk) 17:28, 24 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Because it doesn't get much more ambiguous than "spouse died". Technical 13 (talk) 20:24, 24 January 2014 (UTC)
 * "Anne Boleyn died" is obviously clearer and more succinct than "Henry VIII of England was widowed by Anne Boleyn", which is what your current sandbox3 would generate. DrKiernan (talk) 20:32, 24 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I find it more ambiguous. So what she died?  "died" is not directly related to being "married", being "widowed" is.  Stop trying to force our readers to have to think about what it means that she died.  It is an extra mental step "oh she died, so that must mean that he was widowed... well hell, why didn't they just say he was widowed in the first place"... Reader don't like being made to jump through hopes to arrive at the information they want.  This is an encyclopedia, and the facts should be stated as clearly and concisely as possible to how something relates to another.  Technical 13 (talk) 20:54, 24 January 2014 (UTC)
 * That goes both ways... you could say "it says he was widowed, so that must mean she died... why didn't they say that in the first place?". Except, of course, that if it just says 'widowed' you don't know who was widowed, being as there's perfectly good reasons to guess either way. SamBC(talk) 21:19, 24 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I suppose, but wouldn't the information about her death belong in her article? Technical 13 (talk) 21:24, 24 January 2014 (UTC)
 * It can be read either way. You assume that it's about the article subject, which is a reasonable assumption. I (and my non-'pedia-editing OH I just checked with) would read it as being about the spouse because that's the person it's written nearest the name of. Both are reasonable and plausible. It's ambiguous. That said, the glossaries I've been checking don't seem to have 'survived' used as a thing at all, presumably because in genealogy the convention is that the word/abbreviation is written by the name of the person they apply to, which would be nearer the way I read it. SamBC(talk) 21:39, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

Suggestion by Nickmxp
How about using divorced, died, beheaded and saving widowed for the last one? (presuming she was his wife when he died) when using words like dead, beheaded, and then "survived" in the same list.. it kind reads like one almost got killed but got away... Nickmxp (talk) 16:38, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

survived by is generally used when talking about the deceased and widowed is usually used when talking about the deceased's spouse.. example john married jane... in 1982 john died, he was survived by his wife... (survived by being used relative to the deceased)... Jane was widowed in 1982 after her husband john died.... since this list is in reference yo the spouses i would say widowed would be the more accurate term... the terms died or beheaded are also accurate because widowed is only listed once ergo all other deaths where relative to the wife... which is what this list is aboutNickmxp (talk) 17:05, 24 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I agree. DrKiernan (talk) 17:40, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

Remove survived parameter entirely
It seems reasonable to me that if the template doesn't show when the marriage ended, the spouse survived the subject. Displaying a survived date is confusing and misleading, IMO. Surviving is not an action that occurs on a particular date; the spouse continues to survive the subject until the spouse dies. Surviving just means that the spouse lived longer than the subject. Kaldari (talk) 01:36, 1 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I agree. As is clear from this discussion, the use of "survived" just causes confusion. The are perfectly good other terms to use instead. Neljack (talk) 08:53, 1 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I agree too: it's essentially a confusing way to repeat the death date of the topic, which should be given in the infobox already anyway. DrKiernan (talk) 10:26, 1 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I thought initially that I'd be more inclined to agree with the suggestion in the subsection above, using "widowed", as being the least ambiguous and most information-rich. For example, in the situation that the subject has fewer spouses to be listed than Henry does, in omitting that field, it may not be as obvious to the unfamiliar reader that the table is meant to indicate the end date of the marriage as well.  On second thought, though, I think most readers would assume the marriage went the distance if it doesn't say otherwise...right?  AdventurousSquirrel (talk) 15:32, 3 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I think adding widowed to the last marriage of the man's life would be beneficial to the average reader because it would help the firgure out how long the marriage lasted... it also kinda looks like the marriage is still going when there is no end date...Nickmxp (talk) 03:38, 4 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I agree that leaving it empty implies that the marriage is still on-going, however, it would be confusing to use the words "widowed" (implying the spouse died), "died" (entirely ambiguous not offering any insight as to whom is dead and whom is still alive), or "survived" as there seems to be some people that are greatly confused between widowed and survived and who the article is about. So, the next logical step is to not use a template at all and let the user just write the formatting as they see fit on the article and delete this template. — &#123;&#123;U&#124;Technical 13&#125;&#125; (t • e • c) 03:54, 4 February 2014 (UTC)


 * I don't think widowed would imply the wife died... the chart lists what is happening to the wives here...it lists information about the beginning and end of each wife's marriage in order to show how those marriages in his life played out... (considering the names are placed first)... if the focus of the marriage was on Herny's life it would start with the dates of his life first then list the person he was married to... (like Married 1500 divorced 1526 - Jane Smith) but since the dates come after the wives then it reads as if the events are in relation to the life of the wife... so the end of those marriages would be in relation to the wife... anullment,divorce,death,widowed are all clear descriptors of what happened to the wive's marriage...Nickmxp (talk) 04:08, 4 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm telling you that is what it implies to me and based on discussions above, I'm not the only one it's implied to. — &#123;&#123;U&#124;Technical 13&#125;&#125; (t • e • c) 16:06, 4 February 2014 (UTC)


 * I'm trying to understand why.. considering that beheaded and died doesn't refer the the husband, why would widowed? I guess if you were to do it in relation to the husband.. you would put widowed where died and beheaded are noted and put death in the last marriage...then it would show the marriages that made him a widower (the beheading isn't related to him) and the marriage he had that lasted till his death...but I would suggest an order where the name of spouse isn't listed first in order to show the items in the chart are related to the husband...Nickmxp (talk) 19:21, 4 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Apparently you are not looking at my example above. Where did I include beheaded or died?  Here, I've put another copy of the infobox down here attached to my previous post to make it easier to find. — &#123;&#123;U&#124;Technical 13&#125;&#125; (t • e • c) 19:29, 4 February 2014 (UTC) &rArr;

In that example death might be more appropriate.... at the end Nickmxp (talk) 20:10, 4 February 2014 (UTC)


 * As I alluded to before, I think it's important that - no matter which way it's decided - that it make intuitive sense even without multiple wives to give context to what is meant by the description. Not all article subjects will have multiple spouses listed.  AdventurousSquirrel (talk) 06:02, 8 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Stating that someone was survived by someone else on a certain date doesn't really make sense to me (even if I know that it's referring to the original person's death). To me, "survived by" implies a length of time, not a point in time. What's wrong with just not putting anything in the event that the marriage did not end prematurely? It is, after all, "until death we do part". Kaldari (talk) 05:46, 12 February 2014 (UTC)


 * The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.