Talk:Michael Cunningham

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Yesterday I created an article for "The Hours" novelist Michael Cunningham. As I would have expected there are a number of extant articles that already link to this page. But, there's also a link to it from what's obviously different Michael Cunningham in the article: September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attack/City of New York casualties which is now erroneously linked to the new article. I'm not sure how to proceed. Can someone help? Thanks. Bill 07:51 24 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Normally, as 'your' Michael Cunningham is the more famous, the thing to do would be to rename the other one to something like Michael Cunningham (bond broker), and have a brief note at the bottom of Michael Cunningham noting his existence; however, as there's not mention of his profession, I suppose one should move him to Michael Cunningham (author), and at Michael Cunningham put a disambiguation page.

HTH.

James F. 08:23 24 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Liking my idea too much, I went ahead and did it.

James F. 08:33 24 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Please restore as it was. The solution is to unlink the name of "Michael Cunningham, who died in the 11th of September 2001 terrorist attacks", who is not encyclopedia material -- Tarquin 08:55 24 Jul 2003 (UTC)

This was my first instinct, but I wasn't sure it was proper. Thanks. But since the namespace Michael Cunningham is now occupied by a disambiguation page won't this require administrator intervention? Bill 09:00 24 Jul 2003 (UTC)

No, disambiguation pages are just normal pages with some special code in them. You can edit them in the normal way. CGS 11:48 24 Jul 2003 (UTC).

yes.... but i think Bill means an admin needs to delete the disamb to then move back the origianl page. -- Tarquin 12:10 24 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Indeed, Tarquin is correct; if some kind admin will delete the disambiguation page, I'll patch things up from there. Please? Bill 16:10 24 Jul 2003 (UTC)

To unlink one name out of thousands appearing on the page seems at best arbitrary, surely? I don't think the Michael Cunningham should be on the Wikipedia either, but I haven't the time to re-edit the source page to strip out all the persons' links from that page. This way is, if not good, possible.

Perhaps I was and am being overly cautious and lazy, though.

If people want me to undo the 'damage' I have done, I'm happy to. Sorry about this.

James F. 16:18 24 Jul 2003 (UTC)

It's not really arbitrary. It's the one instance (AFAIK) of an unpopulated link on the page that's inhibiting rational use of the Wikipedia namespace. I do agree that theoretically all the unpopulated links should be removed. Most of them will never have articles. If someone wants to create an article for any of these people, they can create the link when they create the article. Bill 16:54 24 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I found 4 by cursory random glancing at sucessful links (no, I don't remember which ones, as I was just checking), so I'd guess there are quite a few of these. Some of them (very few) are sucessful links and also point to what they were meant to; working out which ones are which is only do-able by a human, and stripping off all of the links would be a step in the wrong direction.

Maybe it's just me, but I find stop-gap measures undesirable.

James F. 19:10 24 Jul 2003 (UTC)

You're missing my point, I think. It's the unpopulated links (those that are displayed in red) that I'm addressing. I have no problem with the links that point to real articles. However, it's not worth the struggle. I had some more work to do with the Cunningham article and links thereto and my main concern is that the article name remain stable. Bill 20:37 24 Jul 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Moved back

Obviously, the author's article belongs here. Whenever we have one person immensely (or even just noticeably) more famous than the other, we reserve the main article title for that person e.g. Paul Simon, John Adams, and others. --Jia ng 01:55, 5 Jan 2004 (UTC)