Talk:List of people by name: Sti

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[edit] Jock Stirrup

As a senior commisioned officer in the Royal Air Force, Jock Stirrup cannot properly be described as a soldier which implies that he is a member of an army. He could be described as a military commander or as an air marshal. The term "air-soldier" has no currency in British English (I am doubtful as to its use in American English). He could also be decribed as an airman, although this term might suggest that he is of non-commissioned rank.

I have edited the list back to British military commander as I don't think that this is too high resolution, it reads well and, most importantly, is correct. Greenshed 14:39, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

_ _ He should certainly be described as an air marshal in his bio, which is the place to get "correct" and thoro biographical information -- as opposed to reaching it, for is what the LoPbN tree is for.

_ _ Altho "air soldier" is probably my coinage (degendrifying "airman", which i don't consider a big deal either way, and am happy to see settled by accommodating the view that would probably be more stubbornly advocated), it's perfectly accurate and clear: Everyone has known, nearly since the first solidi were minted, what a soldier is, and that has not been changed by the 19th-century innovation of putting soldiers into balloons, the 1910s one of powered military flight, or the mid-20th-century one of creating separate services for most air soldiers -- no more than it has changed for marine soldiers (a term immediately grasped by Americans, even tho ours is called "the [United States] Marines" and tho ours may for all i know never have been routinely called "marine soldiers"). If you are part of a unit organized for fighting battles under unified command, and are not responsible for the operation of a water vessel, you are a soldier.

_ _ I think we would probably agree that it would be absurd to claim that members of navies are soldiers; IMO the are the kind of exception "that proves the rule". How much of a special case they are is suggested by the fact that marines are not called sailors. IMO, that's because it became clear that their three functions are incompatible with their being lumped with the sailors. It may not be too far off-topic to contemplate why that separation arose. I'm not willing to guess whether their role as sharpshooters during close action in sea battles was a more important factor than that as quellers of mutinies. I speculate both that:

1. Maintaining their long-gun proficiency ruled out the time to "learn the ropes" and handle them, as did the risk of mangling fingers and hands in doing so; it's still (in the era of tanks, Marine aviation, etc.) a US Marines truism that "every Marine is a rifleman."
2. The prospect of firing into a crowd of mutineers precluded either sailors or marines thinking of each other as their fellows; it's a truism in the US Navy that

   Your bunkmate before your messmate;

   your messmate before your shipmate;

   your shipmate before a sailor;

   a sailor before a soldier;

   a soldier before a dog;

   a dog before a Marine.

It's also the case that the line between naval and merchant sailors has, by the nature of seafaring, been muddy, and far less clear than the one between naval sailors and marine soldiers. Merchant sailors were impressed into naval service, i think, not just in the case of Americans by Britain in the lead-up to the War of 1812, but whenever losses far from home had to be made up by the same nation's merchant sailors. Again by the nature of seafaring, piracy is much harder to suppress or flee from than land brigandage, and every merchant ship that traveled other than with warships had to be equipped for repelling pirates; i suggest that "naval sailor" may be a recent back-formation reflecting relative modern success at suppression, and that the deep uniqueness of seafaring (both military and merchant) is the only kind of thing that can create a separation from non-naval military life, a realm of soldiery that is fundamentally similar across the superficially differences (marines, infantry, armor, air) within it.

_ _ You seem concerned to be specific between marshals and other general officers, so part of your explicit objection to "air-soldier" applies equally to even more generic distinctions dispensed with in using

"soldier" for generals and field marshals (or to lower ranked officers),

"sailor" for admirals, etc.,

"academic administrator" for college presidents and deans,

"business administrator" for CEOs and other CxOs,

"actor" for movie and stage stars,

"musician" for rock and pop stars, and

"model" for super-models,

and to omitting "star", "professional", "champion", and "Olympic" and its refinements, when listing sports figures. All these distinctions are nearly always redundant to the task of navigating to bios. General officers dominate the notable soldiers as thoroly as the professional athletes dominate the notable athletes, and a reasonable user will understand that "professional athlete" and "high-ranking soldier" apply pretty much without saying, when there is no adjective. Mentioning high rank or professional status just contributes to the background noise, and what is potentially useful information is, where the bio-subject is a notable amateur or a notable soldier of low rank, to mention "amateur runner" or "non-commissioned soldier", bcz it can help distinguish someone from the mass of generals and professionals among the notable people. And distinction is the point on LoPbN, as on Dab pages. In that light, one side of the coin that is the response to your argument for specifying such details is that the additional information is almost never helpful.

(In fact, in the case at hand, the 358 WP hits on "Stirrup", are for

the equestrian gear or things the resemble it visually or in mode of use,

Sir Jock,

an unwikified entry in a long unwikified list of "sundry artists" working on one series,

an unwikified entry for a losing Conservative candidate in a constituency that appeared to me to be contested by his party only pro forma, and

a rd-lk'd elementary school named after someone (so surnamed) who apparently lacks even direct mention in WP, let alone a lk, let alone an article.

The only danger with him is that someone will look for G.E. Stirrup and decide he's not covered; i've just set up that redirect and the other likely punctuation, and mentioned the AKA on Stirrup (disambiguation), which i'll also do for the LoPbN page we are discussing.)

The other half of that counter-argument coin is that unneeded detail is harmful, and what to do about that, as follows.

_ _ There may have been a time, when there were a few thousand names on LoPbN, that browsing it made sense for some non-editors, but there are now tens of thousands of names, and it's a rare browse that will lead somewhere more interesting than a random article. What LoPbN is for is finding the article you have in mind, when you're unsure of the exact name or exact spelling.

(I just wondered whether our Jerry Ohrbach article and LoPbN entry reflect his death, and even tho i can think of 4 places i could be wrong about the spelling -- ?erry O?rb?c? -- and thus 16 spellings for it, i know i can find the correct one by looking at 1, maybe 2 LoPbN pages. Whoops, my first guess above is a rdlk, after i felt regret that i probably was going to blow the example by being right on the first try! Now i've opened List of people by name: Sti in a new window, from the top of this page, clicked on Exhaustive page-index and gone down the page by clicking "N - Q". The O row gives me the choices of

Name O | Prefix O | Oa-Ok | Ol-Oo | Op-Os | Ot-Oz

and i still like that first "h", so my 4th click on "Oa - Ok" (and 3rd page fetch) gets me to the List of people by name: Oa-Ok page, one click to its "Oh" section (due for subdivision, but no scrolling needed yet), ruling out half of the 16. Two back clicks and a click on "Op-Os" (one more page fetch) lets me click on "Ora - Ore" (still same page), and there is my answer, without any opportunities for typos or loosing track for which of the sixteen options i've already tried:

• Orbach, Jerry (1935-2004), American actor

(Wow, i was sure it was less than a year ago [blush].) 8.5 clicks, 4 page fetches, and one more of each to the bio; if i'd been lucky on my first guess, 5 clicks and 3 page fetches. (Actually, i always have my browser home page in a window, and it has a lk to the "exhaustive index", so my normal route might start with window selection, and then usually tab selection.) That is what LoPbN is for.)

In that light, the entries not only can be short, but need to be kept short. When names are identical or similar enough, users need to be able to quickly rule out those other than the one they are after -- especially if the one they want is not there, in which case they will be double- or triple-checking the bad ones to be sure.

_ _ What to do about that need is not just a matter of what the ideal page design to present to users would be, but needs to also take into account two facts:

1. Every WP page is a work in progress, and in particular new entries are likely to be made without careful attention to how they affect the suitability of existing ones.
2. Editors adding an entry, or interested in a person they notice on a page, will edit boldly, and decide what format to use in adding or modifying, by looking at nearby entries rather than at the WP:MoS.

Both of those facts mean that we can't, for instance use entries like

• Stirrup, Jock

as we ideally would (except as interim measures to get names in quickly): there are no other Jack or Jock, or even J. Stirrups to confuse him with, so we'd love to dispense with all the detail. But we can never be sure one or even two confusable ones won't be added soon, nor on the short term can we adequately check for that having happened. And variation among entries (bcz the John Smith's need more detail to do the nav'g'l job than do the Javier Smiths near them) invite the misunderstanding that the length of the entry is more a reflection of how notable the person is, or how complex their notability, or how loyal their fans are, or worse, that it doesn't matter, so that an editor's own knowledge or whim is a good guide to whether they should add something, or perhaps worst of all, that it's the-more-the-better. This is the reason for the effort to standardize as many entries as feasible at a very clear level, on that one of our colleague's Template:LoPbN Entry supports and hints at:

• The piped lk,
• vital stats (years only),
• nationality, and
• occupation that occasions notability

I've gone so far as to go out of the way of dramatically deviating from that format when info outside that minimum (well, further outside than one thing beyond passport being slipped in under nationality, and/or one or two extra relevant occupations); the two Davey Moores' entries in List of people by name: Moo-Moq#Moore, C-H is a personal favorite that exemplifies this by going outside the format to distinguish them by cause of death, for the benefit of users whose knowledge doesn't make the difference in vital stats sufficient for them.

_ _ Here's the crux of the matter: it doesn't advance navigation for it to read any better, "correct" is irrelevant since what you changed from won't interfere with navigation, and your concern may focus on the RAF, but the implications of such a change are global, and deciding what is "too high resolution" has to reflect a lot more than your taste. The changes you advocate would end a tacit working consensus, and reach far beyond the scope of WP:BOLD. If you're still not satisfied, move this to the bottom of Talk:LoPbN for wider consideration, and i don't pretend to know what will come of it. Pending resolution of such a discussion, i'm putting the entry back (with the "G. E." info added).
--Jerzy•t 06:36, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

---

Thank you for the rationale as to why you reverted my edit. I'm sure that you put a lot of work into it. However, I would find it easier to respond if you were to use fewer than the approximately 2000 words you gave in your last edit. As I see it, these are the key points:

• Correctness. The article is the place for thorough information; the LoPbN tree must be brief - on that we agree. The whole of the Wikipedia must be factually correct and use accurate terminology. You seem to be suggesting that brievity is a stronger principle than accuracy when it come to navigation. If you are suggesting this, then I cannot agree; the whole of the Wikipedia must be built on verifiable sources to ensure accuracy.
• Inventing terminology. You set out a long argument as to why the term "air soldier" should be used, with reference to naval and marine terminology. You also said that "air soldier" was probably your invention. Whilst I am tempted to engage in this discussion, I don't intend to at the present time as inventing terminology is a special case of original research. My contention is that we must use recognized terminology.
• Distinction between senior air force personnel and others. I am not concerned to distinguish between air marshals and other air force personnel here. I absolutely take your point about not distinguishing between generals and other soldiers. Although some of the following a perhaps a little awkward, I would have no major problem with them:
  • British airman
  • British member of air force
  • British air force officer
  • Member of British Armed Forces
  • British serviceman

In fact the main reason I chose the word "commander" was so that I could use the adjective "military" (in its widest sense). Incidentically, commanders can range from junior non-commissioned officers all the way up to the most senior ranks and, should the situation have arisen, I would have fully supported changing "senior British military commander" to "British military commander" in the interests of brevity.

• Special case. As Jock Stirrup is the British Chief of the Defence Staff (the professional head of the UK's armed forces) he could be described as:
  • British Chief of the Defence Staff

Out of all of the above, "British airman" seems the least contentious and I will edit accordingly. Some may object to the "man" element but it is a recognized term and fits in with using "soldier" and "sailor". If you want to take it to Talk:LoPbN for wider consideration then perhaps you could provide a concise summary of your argument. I would also be open to using any other occupational descriptions that are recognized terms. Greenshed 00:38, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

_ _ Thank you for your patience, nay, endurance, and when i say that i regret being a burden to you, i am not being ironic, let alone sarcastic: i'm aware that the way i have to express some things is frustrating to most colleagues. But i remain convinced that something besides adding entries needed to be done to rescue LoPbN from the state i found it in; 3 years' experience suggests that's mostly my job; and nobody has emerged offering to state, more clearly than i can, what i've learned.

_ _ That being said, it's more important that i failed to communicate clearly, since you needed to lecture me about "Inventing terminology" and speculate that i think "that brievity is a stronger principle than accuracy when it come to navigation".

As to brevity, i note that your last two bold-faced headings imply you're willing at least to tolerate my preference of brevity over precision -- i.e. over detail that is unneeded for navigation.

As to terminology, it has only tangential relationships to accuracy:

One who asserts that incorrect terminology is correct (standard, accepted) has been inaccurate.

Referring a spaniel using "cat" is inaccurate, but if ignorance of the non-feline attributes of spaniels is at fault, this is not a matter of terminology.

If i say of a spaniel "That's no spaniel, but a flop-eared beast", i've (technically, disregarding any figurative meaning) i've made an inaccurate statement about canine terminology, but if i say "Look at that flop-eared beast", or "That's one flop-eared beast",

my use of "flop-eared beast" is not even technically terminological but only descriptive, and my accuracy or inaccuracy has nothing to do with the correct (customary) terminology for spaniels.

_ _ A navigational page should not concern itself with terminology (any more than it does with telling life stories), but only with accurate descriptions (like "air soldier") that facilitate access to the bios -- which are far better suited than nav pages to doing both. An occupational description on LoPbN need not be an established term as long as it is an accurate description, and it makes no assertions about terminology. Asking that it implicitly do so is antithetical to its purpose, since it can be misleading and can demand extraneous words (or contemplation of extraneous concepts).

_ _ But reaching the bottom line, as you correctly seek to, whether i've said so or not, i chose "air soldier" over "airman" anticipating complaints, abt either

its being considered lapsed terminology, or

its use amid accurate descriptions of notable women being potentially misleading.

If you're happier with using that customary term, go ahead, and if you like, use Google (with the

site:wikipedia.org

spec) to find the other places i've applied it. But i'd probably side with anyone with any half decent idea for changing "airman", unless someone's proposed by then, in a new section on the Talk:LoPbN page/subpages, how the entries for notable female air soldiers should read -- i assume you'd not countenance "airwoman", presumably a neologism (and incorrect terminology).
--Jerzy•t 01:56, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

---

Before making widespread changes, I'd like to be sure that we've reached the best solution. I'm not that keen on "airman" (it is rarely used to describe air force officers), it's just that I prefer it to "air soldier". A few points:

• Terminology. I would be happy to say that "air-soldier" is terminology, descriptive language or descriptive terminology. However, which ever way we label it, I would say that it's a neologism (Wikipedia:Avoid neologisms).
• English usage. In British English, Australian English, Indian English, etc, members of an air force are not considered to be soldiers (I think that this is the case in American English as well but I'm not quite 100% sure on this). I know that you laid out your reasons as to why it would be a good idea to describe them as a type of soldier but it's just that they're not. It might be worth remembering that in 1918 the Royal Air Force was formed as an independent service from both the British Army and the Royal Navy and so a new vocabularly was chosen. However, the description of "a soldier who operates in the air" could apply to a member of the Royal Flying Corps or the Army Air Corps. For these reasons, I think that if we are to improve on airman, we will need to avoid references to soldiers.
• Airwoman. I would countenance "airwoman". Not a neologism (in the Oxford English Dictionary).
• A solution (perhaps for Talk:LoPbN). My favoured solution would be to use something like:
  • "navy officer" and "sailor" for naval personnel.
  • "army officer" and "soldier" for army personnel.
  • "marine officer" and "marine" for marine personnel.
  • "air force officer" and "airman/airwoman" for air force personnel.

Or, what about changing everyone above to:

• • "military person"
  • or just "military"

I understand that your view is that my favoured solution would result in overturning a tacit working principle and result in significant changes to LoPbN. Is this purely because of the need to avoid adjectives that indicate seniority or status? I had a quick look and, for example, saw Archbishop not clergyman/christian. Would you accept a distinction between, say, manager and blue-collar worker? Greenshed 01:48, 4 January 2007 (UTC)