Template talk:Otherpeople

There is Template:Otherpersons for more or less the same case. -- User:Docu
 * Sorry, did not see that one when I created this, I guess because it's not in use much. I used the wording found most often in these situations for this template. --Dryazan 22:44, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * I went ahead and redirected Template:Otherpersons to this template because they are relatively the same, but this template has an additional parameter. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 21:39, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

People or persons
Centrx has changed this three times, and been reverted three times. This is a template used in an enormous number of articles, so could we please cut down on changes without consensus? Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 17:16, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes, so explain why it should use the less accurate "people". —Centrx→talk &bull; 18:49, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

I'll copy the basic arguments from your talk page since there's no point in retyping them.

Where's this consensus that you're referring to for renaming Category:Living people? AP Style Guide prefers people over persons, which generally comes off sounding awkwardly formal. Persons is generally limited to cases of specific numbers, as far as I can tell, and in many of our usages it's such an indefinite quantity that people seems fine. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 17:11, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Persons is the correct word when dealing with multiple independent individuals. People is for collective or indefinite uses; though it is used as a mere multiple of the word person, persons is clearer and better suited. Persons is used for certain kinds of specific numbers, as in "There were 12 persons at the party", but if you were to say "The 12 people at the party were rowdy" that is an indefinite usage despite having a specific number (the rowdiness is a collective property, and perhaps some of the 12 were not even rowdy). On Wikipedia, the articles are distinct and about persons who may have lived hundreds of years apart and have no relation whatsoever. There is nothing collective or indefinite (definite is not the same as having a fixed number); it is not about the people of a country or the people that is a group of friends. —Centrx→talk &bull; 18:42, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Of course, the people that we're talking about here all have the property of sharing the name or sharing the quality of being alive; we're referring to the group of living people, or people named john smith. Your example of a rowdy group says nothing about other cases. We say "Happy people," not "happy persons," not because the group has the quality of being happy, but because all the people are individually happy. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 00:59, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
 * We don't see that they are individually happy. We say "happy people", for example, because we look around and see a indefinite mass of happiness, but that doesn't include the several persons standing around not happy, but they are lost in the hub-bub. —Centrx→talk &bull; 01:53, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

If I meet five john smiths, would I say "there are a lot of people named john smith" or "there are a lot of persons named john smith"? If I meet five definitely happy individuals, do I call them "happy people" or "happy persons"? Our knowledge need not be indefinite to say people. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 04:50, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
 * If you met five John Smiths, it would be precise to say "I met five persons named John Smith" ("There are a lot of people named John Smith" is a general, indefinite statement). Clearly, "people" is often used as a simple plural, but these examples are still more appropriate for that use than is referring to several distinct articles on Wikipedia. Meeting people is entirely different from articles in an encyclopedia. —Centrx→talk &bull; 16:15, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

See also: [] I think it should be "other people" and not "other persons". --Salsa man 18:07, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

TfD notice
I've nominated the Otheruses templates for discussion on Templates for deletion. --JB Adder | Talk 14:02, 8 July 2007 (UTC)