Template talk:Surname/Archive 2

Surname pages should be considered by bots as disambig pages

 * This discussion has been moved to be a subsection of Template talk:Dmbox since it is a continuation of that discussion. --David Göthberg (talk) 17:12, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Recently bots on other languages are removing (correctly placed) iw to surname pages on english wikipedia. The problem is that (new?) interwiki bots are removing in disambig pages any interwiki to non-disambig pages. Surname pages are actually disambig pages (and very often they also contain links to non-surname pages eg.1, 2, 3, 4, etc. but this template is no longer considered a disambiguation template. I suggest to urgently categorize this template as disambiguation template in order to block this wrong behaviour. -- Basilicofresco  (msg) 07:03, 17 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I agree with Basilicofresco. The biggest part of the other languages are managing the list of surnamees as disamb pages (and, actually, they are disamb pages). Fale (talk) 16:12, 17 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I have moved this discussion to be a subsection of Template talk:Dmbox since this is a continuation of that discussion. Please continue there.
 * I'll write a response over there. Meanwhile, I recommend you guys read the technical details in that discussion.
 * --David Göthberg (talk) 17:12, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Automated template link to list of living people with same name?
It might be possible to add a link to this template (or maybe to a talk page template) directing readers and/or editors to a category listing of living people with the same surname. To see what I mean, follow link a link like articles on living people named 'Atherton', and then compare to List of people with surname Atherton. Would something like this be possible to add to the template? It would ideally be a link covering all biographical articles (both of living people and the dead), but as we don't have a category containing all biographical articles, that is not currently possible (hopefully it will be possible one day - ideas on how to do that welcomed), but it is currently possible for articles on living people. That example, chosen purely at random, has only two of the living people listed on the surname disambiguation (technically set index) page. That may be because the others are less notable than those who are dead and safely notable, so indiscriminate updating of such lists may not be the best idea. (copied from here). Carcharoth (talk) 03:09, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Expanding on what I said above (which was copied from Template talk:Hndis because I went to the wrong place): Currently the template reads: "'This page or section lists people with the surname Surname. If an internal link intending to refer to a specific person led you to this page, you may wish to change that link by adding the person's given name(s) to the link.'" What I propose to add is something like (using Atherton as an example): "'This page or section lists people with the surname Atherton. If an internal link intending to refer to a specific person led you to this page, you may wish to change that link by adding the person's given name(s) to the link. This list may be incomplete - for a listing of living people with the surname Atherton who have been correctly categorised and sorted by surname in the 'Living people' category, please see here. If that list includes people not listed here, you may wish to add them to this list. There is currently no way to generate an equivalent list for articles on people who are not living and have the same surname, but it might one day be possible if a category is maintained for all articles on people, in the same way that a category on all articles on living people has been maintained.'" Now, clearly I'm not seriously proposing this wording, but I'm going a bit over the top here in the hope that people understand what I am proposing (the first person to respond at the other template said they didn't get what I meant, and though I fear I may have written too much here as well, I hope the point gets across): essentially, the link is pointing to the category listings and asking people to help keep these manually maintained surname pages updated. Note that the page List of people with surname Atherton uses this form of the template: . The parameter "Atherton" would be used to generate the category listing link of the form http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Category:Living_people&from=PARAMETER (where PARAMETER would be the surname). This is already in the template coding and all that would be needed is to do something similar to what was done in Surnamelinks to produce the "Living persons" link. In fact Surnamelinks does a lot of what I've proposed, but seems woefully underused. So is there any chance of: (a) trying this out; (b) working towards a super-category for all articles on people (living and dead) so surname lists can be linked to automatically in this fashion, enabling bots to compare and help maintain the lists? Carcharoth (talk) 03:09, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
 * No interest in this? Carcharoth (talk) 21:06, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
 * We could transclude surname links in this template if you think this would be useful, or just pick out certain parts. We can also use parser functions to check existence of a page List of people with surname XXX and include a link to this where appropriate. &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:10, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Plural of person is NOT people
Hi, the term Persons, which refers to specific individuals, is preferred to People, which refers to a large and indefinite group. The plural of person is persons. http://www.worldwidewords.org/articles/people.htm http://www.dailywritingtips.com/people-versus-persons/ --Hutcher (talk) 04:42, 27 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Preferred by whom? Both links you provide indicate mixed usage, both even implying that use of persons is limited to legal or formal settings. older ≠ wiser 04:53, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Misplaced modifier
Could someone please change the error message "" to ""? Thanks. Peter Chastain (talk) 19:51, 24 December 2011 (UTC)
 * ✅ &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:03, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 5 June 2012
It seems that this template exists in ukwiki, ruwiki,and slwiki, can the interwikis be added? Greetings!-- Jc a  ra b allo   16:51, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Please add them to the bottom of Template:Surname/doc, thanks &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:29, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Done, thank you.-- Jc a  ra b allo   17:23, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

{{Clear}

Protected edit request on 17 August 2014
Not a big deal but the parameter category catches

can be condensed into

Without changing the intended result

mol uɐɯ  15:58, 17 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done — Mr. Stradivarius  ♪ talk ♪ 20:13, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

Additional clarification requested in the documentation
Hello, considering the current documentation for the surname template, I'm not finding two pieces of information I'm interested in. For the first question, I would like to see it mentioned clearly so that at least it is clear and no one has to guess.
 * Is a surname page a dab page or not? Is it an article?
 * Are internal links allowed on surname pages, other than the links to the persons the page is disambiguating? I'm referring in particular to the introduction (lede) of the page.

For the second question, I notice some editors tend to add clarifications in the lede, e.g. "the name is derived from foo, which means xx in Latin ...". So clear issue: do we allow those internal links or not? By the way, along the same lines, it might be useful to mention if the individual entries should follow the guidelines for dab pages, as in "one blue link per entry", and, "adding a blue link if the disambiguated name is currently a red link".

Thanks, --Midas02 (talk) 14:11, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 22 November 2015
When displaying the actual pagename, the template should automatically strip the frequent qualifier " (surname)". There should be no need to enter a display name except in very specific situations. In the last version of the sandbox, I replaced PAGENAME with PAGENAMEBASE, fixing this issue. PanchoS (talk) 03:14, 22 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Tested and ✅. Be prosperous! Paine 10:34, 22 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Awesome, thank you! PanchoS (talk) 15:11, 22 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Pleasure! Paine

Use in sections
The template contains a parameter to specify that it's referring to just a section rather than the whole page. It says "this section", implying that the template would be used at the bottom (presumably) of the section rather than at the bottom of the page as would be usual. Is this positioning of a dmbox normally acceptable? It looks quite odd. M.Clay1 (talk) 16:03, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

Usage ambiguity vs hndis
I keep coming across simple lists of people with the same surname that are tagged with, but I understood should be (or, when there are other non-name entries, ). The instructions here say:
 * ...should have a brief lead (aka lede, opening section or introduction) that describes the etymological and (when applicable) the pronunciational history of the surname... Do not use this template on those disambiguation pages which contain a list of people by family name as well as the more usual types of other entries.

However, the doc for says:
 * A page that lists all people with the surname "Smeltsdorf" should use.

(presumably meaning a pure list, not requiring the brief introduction). I'm sure this has been asked before, but aren't these contradictory? Question: is it OK to use this template without the etymological lede?

I looked at the docs because I was editing a dab page that contains several people with the same surname, plus the name of a glacier under a ==See also== heading, and is tagged with, which appears to be wrong on two counts. David Brooks (talk) 17:10, 23 August 2018 (UTC)
 * hndis is only for disambiguation pages for people whose entire name is ambiguous. Most commonly, this applies to combinations of given name and surname. Less commonly, there are some ancient and historical single word names that might ambiguously refer to multiple persons. Hndis should never be used on pages that only list persons with a common surname. Such lists are not disambiguation pages, but a type of set index. older ≠ wiser 02:02, 24 August 2018 (UTC)
 * OK, that's what not to do (although I don't think the entire WP community is clear on that). What is the right tag for the case of a list that has people with the same surname, but doesn't have any discussion of the name's meaning or derivation (and hence is incorrect)?  has non-specific plaintext, and  with "type=surname" doesn't seem very logical. David Brooks (talk) 08:34, 24 August 2018 (UTC)
 * is the correct template to use for pages that ONLY contain a list of people with the same surname. The etymological lead is ideal, but not required. That is, there are a lot of surname articles that need further development. Pages that contain a list of surnames as well as other types of things are disambiguation pages and should be naked with } older ≠ wiser 10:19, 24 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Ah, thanks, I missed the import of the word "should" in my extract from the doc. I'll use surname in the dab I just created, and not try to guess at its origin. David Brooks (talk) 22:20, 24 August 2018 (UTC)
 * And, to continue my monologue, it seems that is an valid tag, despite the obvious dissonance between the template's name and its parameter. It does seem to categorize the article in the same way as surname. David Brooks (talk) 12:02, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

Changing Wikilink to "maintenance category"
It would be helpful to have the "maintenance category" Wikilink link here: Categorization instead of remaining as a link here. Please let me know what you think. Best, Upjav (talk) 20:09, 2 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Please disregard the above request. I thought the page protection level prevented me from editing the documentation. Upjav (talk) 20:13, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

Lee (surname) is a bad example of use of the section parameter
Lee is not a good example for use of  for two reasons. First, the redirect for Lee (surname) points to a section of a disambiguation page, and this template should not be used for disambiguation pages. Second, the example does not in fact use this template (and it shouldn't), so it doesn't make sense to use it as an example.Coastside (talk) 15:01, 11 January 2019 (UTC)

Deprecate section parameter
Is the section parameter of this template ever used? If so, can you give me some examples? I'm writing an essay on surname pages, and I can't find an example. There are examples of embedded lists of people with a specific surname, but typically these pages simply use the surname template without any parameters. The template should not be used for disambiguation pages, and the case (as is common practice) of including a small list of people with the surname on disambiguation pages, should not provoke use of this template to cover that case. Accordingly, I would advocate deprecating this parameter altogether. Coastside (talk)

surname param broken?
Seems to me the surname parameter is broken. Pages with the (surname) qualifier still show up with the qualifier in Category:Surnames, even when this param is used. For example, Call (surname) uses  and it still appears in Category:Surnames as "Call (surname)". If there is some other intended use of the surname parameter, what is it?Coastside (talk) 15:21, 15 January 2019 (UTC)
 * In categories, real page names are always shown. Staszek Lem (talk) 20:50, 15 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks for explaining. Of course I meant the "display" parameter.  In any case, when is this parameter actually used? Coastside (talk) 17:38, 5 February 2019 (UTC)
 * It is used right in the surname page, in the text of expanded surname. Try to put some garbage text as param and hit "Show preview". Staszek Lem (talk) 19:23, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 27 March 2021
Can someone please add the "cat=" and/or "cat1=" parameters (from Template:Given name) to this template? Because Category:Surnames is too big already. Shāntián Tàiláng (talk) 13:51, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Are you basically saying that


 * should be replaced with


 * Yes? If so, I think it would be a good idea to sandbox it first just to make sure nothing gets broken in the transition. Primefac (talk) 17:52, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
 * is this the right thing to do just because "Category:Surnames is too big already"? The first info note in the category is a reminder that "For convenience, all surnames should be included in this category. This includes all surnames that can also be found in the subcategories."  P.I. Ellsworth   ed.  put'r there 03:30, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the template. Seems like the language indicates that it should stay as-is. If this isn't the case, please get a consensus to that effect. Primefac (talk) 16:29, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

This template is in the Surnames category?
I noticed that this template is in Category:Surnames, even though I would expect that category to only contain mainspace pages. Maybe someone forgot to add a ? &horbar;JochemvanHees (talk) 23:09, 15 April 2021 (UTC)
 * good catch! Actually, it is customary to include the template that places pages in a category. Yet it should be sorted to the TOP of the category and not included in the main body of the category. So while it was found before under "Su", it is now on the TOP page where it should be. Thank you very much for your input!  P.I. Ellsworth   ed.  put'r there 07:20, 19 April 2021 (UTC)


 * Ah, thanks for the explanation. Although I do see that now the category contains a lot of pages that are sorted at the top, because the  that you added in the category also gets transcluded. &horbar;JochemvanHees (talk) 13:40, 19 April 2021 (UTC)
 * appears that you were right and I was wrong. I added your suggestion there.  P.I. Ellsworth   ed.  put'r there 20:07, 21 April 2021 (UTC)