Template talk:Ahnentafel

Thanks

@Frietjes: Good job with this template. A suggestion: would it be possible to tighten it up a little bit liker the previous template, in order for it to better suit general screen resolution limitations? See for instance Conrad III of Germany. Unfortunately, the previous ahnentafel designs worked well even on telephone devices, whereas the new one don't. Chicbyaccident (talk) 22:29, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

Chicbyaccident, are you asking about the line-height? Frietjes (talk) 13:31, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

It seems as though the entries now are thicker, making a 5 generational ahnentafel extending beyond the vertical limits of typical screen resolutions. Chicbyaccident (talk) 13:53, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

Chicbyaccident, do you see where you removed the 'line-height' in this edit? I can make the default something with less vertical spacing, but if the reason why the old version was using less vertical space was because someone set the line-height to be narrow. if I recall, the default is around 160%, so 110% is much less. Frietjes (talk) 14:05, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

160%	130%	110%
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.	Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.	Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.

Sorry, that is beyond my competence. But yes, please revert to more narrow spacing in general template that is called for from all individual articles, including that of Conrad III of Germany. Chicbyaccident (talk) 14:12, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

I changed the default to line-height to 130% and the default font-size to 88%. Frietjes (talk) 15:01, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

@Frietjes: Unfortunately, it still looks like articles applying this template has another look than the what ahnentafel compact 5 used to have, which was better suited for general screen resolution limitations. The former, more tighter rows I suppose were more suitable. Furthermore, there seems to be other incorrections of black lines over some of the updated ahnentafels that I don't understand. Chicbyaccident (talk) 07:03, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

Chicbyaccident, you should provide an actual example since I can't understand what you are saying. also, ping only works if add ~~~~ at the exact same time. you can't go back and add a ping and have it work. Frietjes (talk) 17:38, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

I put the old compact5 code in sandbox2 and added a comparison in the testcases Frietjes (talk) 17:44, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

Alright, please check it in mobile devices and you should see the incorrect rendering of the tables. Chicbyaccident (talk) 20:14, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

by the way, for that particular example, them HTML output for the new template is 1250 characters (20k) vs. 3778 characters (52k) for the old template. so, the new template generates about 1/3 the html code, which should be much better for mobile viewers. Frietjes (talk) 11:26, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

Qazi Mohamed Shamsuddin

Since the recent change the template is causing a at Qazi Mohamed Shamsuddin. I assume it’s a problem with the template or module as the article has not changed, but that error does not give any clues what the problem is.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 02:41, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

The error has now been fixed by removing some data from the template in the article. It still might be worth looking at though, to see if it can generate a more useful error when unsupported data is provided to it.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 17:23, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

I will put an upper limit on the number of levels. Frietjes (talk) 13:26, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

Making this work on mobile view

after some testing, it looks like even the old non-Lua versions of this template had problems with rendering correctly on mobile devices. I am hoping that some mobile-browser css experts can help come up with a solution. here is the basic output in (wikitable format) for a two level diagram.

				2
	1
				3

as far as I can tell, it looks fine on all desktop browsers that I tried, and even looks fine through the mobile interface on a desktop browser. however, on the Chrome browser on Android, it looks bad, with dangling edges, etc. I did some experimentation where I split the multi-row/multi-column spanning padding and branch cells, and that fixes the problem. however, it dramatically increases the size of the HTML for diagrams with more than 2 levels. does anyone know of a better way to fix the rendering on mobile devices (e.g., Chrome on Android)? @RexxS, Redrose64, Chicbyaccident, TheDJ, and Great Brightstar: or someone else? I can post screen shots if that's helpful, but you should be able to see the problem on a mobile device. Frietjes (talk) 22:04, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

				2
	1
				3

of course, the moment that I post something, I stumble on a possible solution (sorry for the unnecessary ping). it looks like using 'border-collapse:separate; border-spacing:0;' works (now added to the main module). Chicbyaccident can you tell me if this fixed the problem? and/or if there are still issues on any other devices? Frietjes (talk) 22:21, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

Good! I don't see any table issues anymore. Thanks. Now I only wonder whether the row height is optimal as opposed to the seeimingly tighter row heght in the previous template, wasn't it? Chicbyaccident (talk) 22:45, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

on my browser, Template:Ahnentafel/testcases#Old_templates shows that the row height is tighter on the current version vs. the old version in sandbox2. Frietjes (talk) 22:48, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

Great. Another remark, though: please consider making the tables consquently a little bit longer horizontally. See for instance Grand Duke George Mikhailovich of Russia. Chicbyaccident (talk) 22:03, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

when uncollapsed, the table adjusts to fill the width of the page. can't really make it any wider than the page. Frietjes (talk) 22:54, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

Needs a way to set the title

Currently, this template automatically sets the title as "Ancestors of {PAGENAME}" but that leaves no way for us to insert citations into the title, which is useful when one or two sources cover every person in the tree (instead of adding individual citations to each person). Thanks. —howcheng {chat} 16:28, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

Howcheng, use |ref= for a reference at the end of the title and |title= to completely override the default title. Frietjes (talk) 19:01, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

How did I miss that in the documentation? Thanks. —howcheng {chat} 03:19, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

While at it, what about implementing the design and look of the title (header) in accordance with that of Template:S-anc? This way a natural space for notes and references would be part of the template, while also harmonising its header and frame with the look of succession boxes. Chicbyaccident (talk) 17:42, 24 April 2018 (UTC)

it's not a succession box, and there is already a place for notes, see |headnotes= and |footnotes= and |ref=. Frietjes (talk) 17:54, 24 April 2018 (UTC)

It isn't, but if so the look of it would be harmonised with those, which arguably look better than this ahnentafel in its current state, isn't it? Chicbyaccident (talk) 18:21, 24 April 2018 (UTC)

bug

This template seems to leave }}</noinclude> in the result, which looks strange. I don't know where it comes from, though. Gah4 (talk) 00:23, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

There also seems to be a duplication issue, where the ancestry table is repeated twice. See Mary Tudor, Queen of France for example. Ruby2010 (talk) 03:00, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

It was caused by a test edit by an IP editor. I have reverted it so hopefully fixed it, though pages may need purging.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 03:21, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

Issue

Moved from Module talk:Ahnentafel

 – {{3x|p}}ery (talk) 21:26, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

There seems to be an issue with the ahnentafel template, but I can't tell whether the issue originates here or not. The current issue is that the genealogy table is repeated twice, and has }} in between the two repeats... Hires an editor (talk) 02:39, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

Hires an editor, can you link to an example with the problem? Frietjes (talk) 14:16, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

Hires an editor, never mind, it looks like it was caused by this edit which was reverted. Frietjes (talk) 14:17, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

put this as top line of the code

{{ahnentafel top|width=100%}} 68.40.122.133 (talk) 20:35, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

where? Frietjes (talk) 14:20, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

just above

{{ahnentafel |collapsible=yes because it confines the width of the unopened header, making it easier to navigate68.40.122.133 (talk) 03:00, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

Support 100 % as default width, if nothing else is stated. Chicbyaccident (talk) 10:48, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

you can set |width=100% to override the default min-width when collapsed. if you check Thomas Seymour, 1st Baron Seymour of Sudeley (which you were editing) you will see that when you uncollapse it, the table expands to the space required. Frietjes (talk) 11:05, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

Footnotes

If the parameter "footnotes" "Adds optional text below the chart (most useful in collapsible mode)" then it would be useful. However it does not do so in the article James FitzJames, 1st Duke of Berwick It adds footnotes to the {{reflist}} if one exists. This is a bad idea as the format of the footnote may not match that of the format used in the rest of the article. This is a specific problem when an Ahnentafel template is used in other templates as may be done with category:Family templates or some of the sub categories.

Also as in the case of James FitzJames, 1st Duke of Berwick it may encourage editors to lump all the sources used to build the tree under one parameter instead of adding the appropriate source to the relevant leaf. I think to stop this type of lumping of sources more documentation needs to be added discouraging it.

-- PBS (talk) 15:46, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

agree that "footnotes" are not the same as references in this situation. I have fixed James FitzJames, 1st Duke of Berwick. Frietjes (talk) 16:07, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

Idea: Lua module with Wikidata

Recently, I have been adding references to ancestry tables across many articles. When I finish for one person, I can copy-paste most of it to their siblings, and I can use most of it for the parents' articles. In the course of doing so, I was trying to think of a way to make this more efficient. The traditional way would be to make a template that could transcluded for all siblings with the same parents, but this is kind of unwieldy because each template would only be used by a small number of people, plus it doesn't solve the problem of when part of a tree is used in a different article. It then occurred to me that we have these relationships in Wikidata, so the best solution would probably be to have code that generates the tables in the articles. That way you could just do something like {{#invoke:Ahnentafel|generate}} in the article, and we could put the references in Wikidata. Does this sound like something worth pursuing? Although I'm a software developer, I've never done work in Lua, but I'm willing to tackle it if no one else wants to do it. —howcheng {chat} 20:04, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

Upon closer inspection, I guess we are already using Lua to do the rendering, so we could extend the module to grab the data. Then make a template like {{ahnentafal-auto}} that will invoke the auto-generated version. —howcheng {chat} 20:12, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

In the sandbox, I moved the rendering code into its own function and created a new function sample that manually sets the people, which seems to work fine (see Template:Ahnentafel/testcases#Sample), so theoretically this should be doable, assuming we can get all this info from Wikidata. —howcheng {chat} 20:47, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

the hard part isn't the rendering. the hard part is recursively traversing the wikidata without causing unnecessary load on the servers, or introducing errors. this is going to be especially problematic when the wikidata is incomplete, or ambiguous. Frietjes (talk) 23:00, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

@Howcheng: Some automatic Wikidata-referring templates of this kind could perhaps be implemented in the future, for encyclopedically relevant entries. Possibly ultimately including a fairly grand family tree on Wikidata in equivalence with Wikitree, Geni.com etc., but naturally with larger concern for personal integrity as well as encyclopedical relevance. Why not take some early steps on investigating the matter? Feel free to ping Wikipedia:WikiProject Genealogy to get the attention of more concerned users. See also: Wikipedia:WikiProject_Genealogy#Wikidata_equivalent. Chicbyaccident (talk) 10:07, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

@Frietjes: Makes sense. My company actually does something similar in that we run a daily job to regenerate the org chart (who reports to whom) and store that in a database table. @Chicbyaccident: Good idea, but I'm not interested in leading such an effort, as I'm not particularly interested in genealogy itself. My interest was mainly in doing the references to improve the articles and possibly doing some of the coding (just so I could learn Lua). As the idea is already out there, I'll leave it to others. —howcheng {chat} 16:00, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

Noresize class for mobile

Moved from Module talk:Ahenntafel

 – {{3x|p}}ery (talk)`

@Frietjes: this template breaks the viewport in mobile severely impacting reading experience. I noticed while looking at the Charles I of Austria page.

Can we make the containing div scrollable? I think adding a noresize class to the containing element should suffice.

I attempted to fix in the template level on my mobile phone but I couldn't work it out. Jdlrobson (talk) 14:07, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

Jdlrobson where does the noresize class go? in the outer collapsible table, or in the inner content table? I added the class to the inner table, but I don't know if that helped. Frietjes (talk) 14:15, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

Entire table should be wrapped in a div e.g.

<div class="noresize">{table}</div>

Jdlrobson (talk) 14:19, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

Jdlrobson, okay, I added the div. did that fix it? Frietjes (talk) 14:27, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

sure did!! So fast! Thank you :) Jdlrobson (talk) 14:28, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

Transforming into the standardised navbox look

@SMcCandlish: inter alia: This template retains an exceptionate style in its collapsible heading frame for no obvious reason. Other than the graphical style aspect, this can bring about problems as seen for example in Template:Muhammad's ancestors2. I see two solutions to this problem: 1) Transform the code and graphical style it into the standard look of Template:Navbox. 2) Let go of the collapsible heading althogheter. As for my two cents, I advocate the solution n:o 1. Chicbyaccident (talk) 12:23, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

Depends. If this is meant to be a navigation tool, then option one, but update the doc to require that it be used as a navbox, at page-bottom, not in mid-article (navboxes never, ever go there). However, it appears to be intended to be informative article content, and it is rarely if ever at the bottom of the page as a navbox. In that case, eliminate the collapsing option, per MOS:DONTHIDE. We also need to remove that from track list templates, and several other things. A collapse option can be present, it just cannot auto-collapse in article prose, just be a manual collapse widget. Auto-collapsing is a both an accessibility problem and a usability one (can't be uncollapsed in a screen reader, nor in various mobile browsers). We permit it in navboxes and perhaps infoboxes, but not in the actual article body.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:02, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

To change the default behaviour from collapsed to not collapsed wrong. It has for many years been collapsed as a compromise, because many editors do not consider these boxes to be suitable for Wikipedia articles. If the default behaviour is to be changed then there needs to be an RfC to agree it. -- PBS (talk) 13:23, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 8 August 2018

Please set the default width for this template at 100%. AlbanGeller (talk) 18:00, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

 Not done: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit template-protected}} template.

I can't see anywhere that you've recently used or discussed this template, even less anywhere that you've used the |width=100% option for {{Ahnentafel}}. Cabayi (talk) 19:54, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

@Cabayi: I edited the article for William Cavendish-Bentinck, 3rd Duke of Portland yesterday which uses the said template. I really don't see why the width shouldn't be set to 100%, I'm editing on a tablet and the template is so disproportionately wide that it zooms the entire page out of focus. AlbanGeller (talk) 20:31, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

@AlbanGeller: Have you contemplated the proposal in the section just above this one as a solution (it does implicate 100 % width)? Chicbyaccident (talk) 20:26, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

@Chicbyaccident: I agree with your proposal. AlbanGeller (talk) 20:31, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

If you do, please state so right under the proposal. Hopefully we can get a consensus for that. Chicbyaccident (talk) 20:34, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

If the width is set to 100% this can cause formatting problems with images, leaving large areas of white spacing. I suggest that the default is set to what is was in the old templates (what ever that was). -- PBS (talk) 13:26, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

agreed. the default width for the module is the same as the default width for the old template. Frietjes (talk) 14:18, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 8 September 2018

Please set the default width for this template at 70%. On tablet screens, the current width stretches the page, causing the entire page to shrink slightly, please see screenshot for example. AlbanGeller (talk) 20:20, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

The problem seems to be the use of em for min-width. Using percent widths as I did in the sandbox seems to fix the issue but could have other side effects depending on the screen - ping Frietjes for their thoughts Galobtter (pingó mió) 12:01, 9 September 2018 (UTC)

percentage-based min-widths are bad on narrow screens as well. I have reduced the default value for the min-width, but I am open to exploring other options (e.g., scrollbars). Frietjes (talk) 13:26, 9 September 2018 (UTC)

Standard for formating of boxes starting with "1.", "2.", etc.?

Some articles has the template rendering simply "Earl X" in every box, whereas other say "4. Count Y". There seem to be some inconsistency. Should a standard (with or without) be determined and introduced into the documentation for this template? PPEMES (talk) 22:41, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

Ahnentafel template raison d'être, WP:V issues, and 5 generations default extent?

Surtsicna insisted that 5 generations is overdetailed for a person like Valdemar IV of Denmark. The users insists that a "standard" was never agreed upon. I am surprised to learn that. Ahnentafel article seems to indicate 5 generations has been standard since the beginning, before Wikipedia came around. There seems to be 1,000s of articles applying the 5 generation standard where ancestry template is deemed relevant. Feel free to chime in, though. PPEMES (talk) 22:26, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

I would love to be pointed to a discussion that concluded with the agreement that articles about a certain group of people should feature a 5-generation ahnentafel. That there are thousands of articles with the 5-generation chart is the bold copy-paste work of a handful of people who did not obtain a prior consensus. Surtsicna (talk) 22:38, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

(New addition) The article Ahnentafel does not say that 5 generations is the standard. If it did, I'd put a {{cn}} next to the statement. Surtsicna (talk) 23:14, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

Well, doesn't the first ahnentafel imaged in the article come with 5 generations? See also this. Doesn't it seem like WP:BURDEN is on you should you wish to promote something else than 5 as a a priori standard?

"One possible explanation is that the example given in the documentation is the five generational one." So the reason why most articles use the 5-generation one is that someone, likely arbitrarily, decided to use a 5-generation example in the template documentation. And as WP:BURDEN says, the burden "lies with the editor who adds or restores material", not on the editor who removes it. If you can demonstrate that a historian or biographer of Valdemar IV shows a genealogy chart with the names of his great-great-grandparents or even mentions his relationship to them in the text, then surely they should stay. If not, they are irrelevant and we are threading dangerously close to original research. These charts are an egregious violation of our verifiability policy anyway. Surtsicna (talk) 10:38, 30 March 2019 (UTC)

Is the general tendence of presentation totally irrelevant for the reflections of facts available in individual biographical articles? Meaning, at least in the year 2015, that 7976 applied 5 generations, whereas 97 used 4 generations and 51 used 6 generations? PPEMES (talk) 10:58, 30 March 2019 (UTC)

Is the 5th generation really useful in understanding the subject, or is it just gratuitous, included either just to satisfy someone's curiosity (usually the editor's) or out of a misplaced desire for uniformity? I would argue that for each additional generation the utility of the information is exponentially lessened, and that we rarely find any connection only in the fifth generation that illuminates the actions, alliances, motivations, etc. of the article subject, and as such it is simply gratuitous genealogy for genealogy sake - WP:NOTGENEALOGY, (and that including a 6th generation is unjustifiable in every possible circumstance). Even when there is a specific relationship that is relevant in the fifth generation, such as the derivation of a title, it is almost always better addressed textually than by showing 15 incidental people just to include one of importance.

There is a precedent for such ahnentafeln in encyclopedias - I remember an early 20th century one that included similar charts, but only for a very small number of extremely-prominent monarchs (just three or four among all the English/British rulers). While I can accept that WP:NOTPAPER might allow more liberal use, editorial discretion is still required: it doesn't justify incorporating these charts for every person who ever held any title, their wives, siblings, and even children who died in infancy - what possible actions and motivations are we trying to contextualize. And that doesn't even touch on the WP:OR and WP:V concerns (I don't want to think about all the times I have had to go through dozens of pages to purge all the charts of a single bogus relationship, and the more generations are included, the more pages have the information). No, I am of the 'less is better' school regarding these charts and think Surtsicna's change is an improvement. (I also agree with that editor's removal of ahnentafeln in which nothing but the male-line and their wives were known - all context we might learn from such a chart can be better stated in one sentence.) Agricolae (talk) 14:43, 30 March 2019 (UTC)

In principle, I am all for detailed ahnentafels for people where ancestry is a significant aspect of their biography. However, the degree of detail should be endogenous to the individual, at least to a degree. That is, if there is no reliable source about an individual that discusses the individual's second great grandparent, it is a bit of a stretch to include that information in an article about the individual. That is, evidence of the relevance of a detailed ahnentafel and WP:V concerns should/could be satisfied simultaneously. Similarly, using multiple entries in a directory or encyclopedia to create the Ahnentafel would be OR. On the other hand, for a King of Denmark from the 14th century, I am sure that 4 or 5 generations of genealogy could be found in a source somewhere. However, going beyond 5 or 6 generations is likely unnecessary even if a reliable source exists that presents the information. I would note, however, that the most important question is what defines a reliable source for the relevance of an extended ahnentafel - genealogical almanacs (Burke's, for instance) may not be very reliable, nor would they be good indications that a large ahnentafel is relevent. Smmurphy^(Talk) 18:45, 30 March 2019 (UTC)

There seems now to have been an individual enterprise of priorly undiscussed mass changes from former consensus of 5 generations. PPEMES (talk) 10:20, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

You have not yet pointed to the discussion that led to such consensus, so it is reasonable to conclude that such consensus has never existed. Surtsicna (talk) 11:50, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

Right. 7,000+ articles means nothing at all? PPEMES (talk) 13:14, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

They mean that someone made a priorly undiscussed mass change without consensus. Surtsicna (talk) 13:26, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

That applies to thousands of articles - for years. That pretty much brings us to "Wikipedia - a priorly undiscussed mass change without consensus", is it? PPEMES (talk) 14:28, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

I don't think someone made a mass change - somebody did it on a few pages, and various other people used some combination of, 'if we can, we should' and 'if he has it, she should have it too' and similar to have these 5-gen trees spread like a cancer (example, a few years back I had to take one off a page for an actor). This does not represent a tacit consensus, just mission creep. Agricolae (talk) 17:36, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

5 generations was the original scope of the original creator of the ahnentafel for centuries, as seen in the ahnentafel article. This standard has also been reflected on Wikipedia since its beginning. Now, after centuries of use preceding Wikipedia, and years of rendering here, you claim that there was never a consensus to keep this on Wikipedia. And so now you delete information on thousands of pages, calling it a "cancer". I'm not sure this is helpful to the readers. Just for starters, now the ahentafel of Hugh Capet doesn't graphically render what substantial part of the text of the particle talks about. PPEMES (talk) 12:26, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

The original creator did display 5 generations, but his choice for whatever he was doing in the 16th century is not really a useful indication of what is the best way to satisfy the mandates of Wikipedia. We have a policy for what genealogy is to be included - that necessary to assist in understanding the subject (not just for its own sake, because we can). Rarely if ever does the identity of a great-great-grandmother contribute sufficiently to this understanding to merit its inclusion along with the names of every other person in this generation. That is not to say that there is can never be an informative relationship in the fifth generation of a chart, but this is by far the exception, and the usefulness of one specific relationship does not mandate including everyone in that extra generation on that page, let alone on every page where the template is used. It is not the case that more information, no matter how trivial, equates with a better page. (As to Hugh Capet, the change was made over 4 years ago, explicitly because the extra generation was "unsourced, [containing] several errors and speculation" - sounds like an action entirely consistent with VP:V. Equally important, the actual individuals in the 5th generation are not named at all in the text - not a one of them - so it is hard to see how their inclusion would address your complaint that the chart doesn't represent the text. While I agree that the chart doesn't represent the text very well, I see that as an argument to replace it with one that is more bespoke to the purpose rather than to keep adding generations until we get to Charlemagne, the only named ancestor outside of the generation span in the 4-generation chart.) Agricolae (talk) 19:19, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

OK. Seems rather like a WP:IDONTLIKEIT conflict of subject interpretations - yours and mine - of what readers can be estimated to find helpful. Third part opinions would be welcome. PPEMES (talk) 16:01, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

Four people have taken part in this discussion so it's a bit late to seek a third opinion. Surtsicna (talk) 16:42, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

Until someone can explain based on policy why it is important to tell the reader that Constanza Manuel was great-great-granddaughter of Sibylle d'Anduze, a connection that cannot even be arrived at without WP:SYNTH, I will continue to view this as violating WP:NOTGENEALOGY (and SYNTH) - policy, not the frivolous IDONTLIKEIT you would like to portray it as. And the exception proves the rule: if there are any cases where it is not appropriate, then all cases should be evaluated by their merit and not just include this because 'a lot of pages have a 5-generation ahnentafel'. Agricolae (talk) 18:14, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

I prefer a case-by-case basis for a question like this, but I think a general principle certainly exists that would cover a 14th century European Queen Consort. That is, if the question is, is 5 generations of ancestry of Constanza Manuel (or Valdemar IV of Denmark) fit to include in an encyclopedia, I would say yes. It is trivial to find a genealogy with Ferdinand I of Portugal as the root in reliable histories going back 6+ generations. I agree that there may not be a single page of a single book or scholarly article that includes Manuel and the matrilinial line of Manuel's father, and if there were an active discussion on Manuel's page with an aim to bring the article to A-class, I would defer to those in that discussion. But Manuel's family tree is fundamental to her encyclopedic value, the synthesis required is not more than the synthesis required to write an article about her, and 5 generations seems perfectly reasonable. So in principle, I support a family tree of 5 generations for Manuel's page. If it were removed, of course I wouldn't notice. But I wouldn't see mass deletion of these things without a discussion to be within the spirit of building an encyclopedia, either. Smmurphy^(Talk) 18:48, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

I'm with Smmurphy here - with the addition that I could imagine probably lists of people qualifying in the same way as the couple above mentioned examples. As for mass edits, these are already caried out, and it would be hard to see all instances. I have seen some examples, though, without revering or discussion any singular case, but have reacted still. If we took the reasoning of Surtsicna on the money, I fail to see why we should have two generations presented in some ancestry chart, let alone any ahnentafels whatsoever. Then only parents should suffice to talk about in article texts, effecticely ruling any need of some redundant ahnentafels. PPEMES (talk) 19:20, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

This seems to be presented as if it were an argumentum ad absurdum, but I actually agree with it in principle. There are cases where a tree is entirely unnecessary, such as with a princess who died in childhood, yet many of these have a full five generations to contextualize their infancy - I deleted one some time back that was for a child who only lived for hours, but for some reason the reader nonetheless needed to be told the identity of his father's mother's mother's father to place his tragic life in appropriate context. In many cases, naming the parents does indeed provide all the context that is necessary, and only occasionally does anyone beyond the grandparents prove necessary. How often does ODNB name all great-grandparents? Never. In a few specific circumstances they will briefly account for one specific great-grandparent when the there is an inheritance critical for context, but that hardly makes everyone in that generation relevant. I can't think of any instance where they name an ancestor in the fifth generation. Yes, NOTPAPER, but just because we can doesn't mean we should (WP:PROPORTION). Agricolae (talk) 21:18, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

Constanza Manuel's family tree is indeed fundamental to her encyclopedic value, but not up to her great-great-grandparents. Her descent from the kings of Castile is relevant, and we only need 4 generations to show that. Her descent from Charles I or Charles II of Naples, on the other hand, is far from fundamental. Why should a general principle involve an ahnentafel anyway? They are not standard in biographies. Biographies include genealogical charts that show the subject's relation to relevant individuals, normally those mentioned in the text. Since an aunt or a cousin is more likely to be relevant than a great-great-grandparent, Template:Tree chart is much more deserving of being part of a general principle. In your previous comment you said: If there is no reliable source about an individual that discusses the individual's second great grandparent, it is a bit of a stretch to include that information in an article about the individual. I concur with that entirely, and I dare say that generally there are no quality sources discussing an individual's mother's father's father's mother, so ahnentafeln consisting of five generations should not really be a general principle. Surtsicna (talk) 19:41, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

I don't agree with Smmurphy at all. It is not non-trivial to find a WP:RS account of Ferdinand I of Portugal that traces 6 generations in every line, and in terms of encyclopedic value the relevant relationships for Constanza are that she was daughter of Juan Manuel and descended via infante Manuel from her first husband's great-grandfather (providing the pretext for their divorce), and that her mother was daughter of the King of Aragon, pretty much just what is laid out in the text. All the rest is just decoration. There is not a single iota of informative context to be derived from the fact that her great-great-grandmother was Sibylle d'Anduze. That "If it were removed, of course I wouldn't notice" pretty much summarizes my argument in a nutshell - if it was necessary for encyclopedic context (WP:NOTGENEALOGY) its removal would be noticable. Agricolae (talk) 21:18, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

Well, the first 5-generation ahnentafel appears to have been published by Michaël Eytzinger in Thesaurus principum hac aetate in Europa viventium in 1590. As PPEMES pointed out above, this is explained in the introduction to the Wikipedia article on Ahnentafels. This method of presenting genealogy appears to have been standard since then. That's why so many articles on royal and noble subjects in Wikipedia use that genealogical numbering system.

Since that format is clear and presented in a drop-down menu, so that only interested readers even end up seeing these charts, it seems to me that it's a very good idea to retain that system in articles where editors have found and provided sourcing about genealogical material. We should retain this system because that's how genealogy has commonly been presented in published sources for 430 years. Flyte35 (talk) 04:04, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

@Flyte35: I'm sorry, this has already been mass changed. If you inquire, they will say that this has never been standard in nor outside Wikipedia, that none cares or wants it on Wikipedia anyway, and that in any case it is not relevant, at least not generally, to the scope of biographical articles on Wikipedia. PPEMES (talk) 11:44, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

That's why we're discussing it here, to try to come to a consensus to determine whether it's inappropriate to provide ancestry of 5 generations in genealogical charts. The fact that some editors are being WP:BOLD and editing charts is, I assume, the reason for this discussion. The goal is to reach WP:CONSENSUS so we don't have to keep having this discussion on individual articles. Flyte35 (talk) 13:48, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not 16th century Austria. Ahnentafeln are not "standard since then". They are very uncommon in biographies and you will not find a 5-generation ahnentafel in virtually any biography. It is not true that genealogy has been presented in published sources using ahnentafeln "for 430 years". If you had ever read a biography of a royal person, the kind on which our featured article are based, you would know that genealogy is not presented in 5-generation ahnentafeln but much more commonly in charts that include uncles, aunts, cousins, and other people who actually had an impact on the subject's life. Surtsicna (talk) 09:49, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

This method of presenting genealogy appears to be standard among genealogists. This is about whether or not to change the the Ahnentafel template. The idea of presenting ancestry and relatives some other way to reflect whatever you may have been reading in contemporary trade biographies is outside the scope of this discussion. Again, since the format is clear and presented in a drop-down menu, so that only interested readers even end up seeing these charts, it's a very good idea to retain that system. We should retain this system because that's how genealogy has commonly been presented for more than 400 years.Flyte35 (talk) 13:48, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

The numbered ancestor table is common among genealogists and has been used for centuries, true, but that it should be 5 generations is not so limited. One American journal has been publishing an ahnentafel in serialized form for decades and they are well over a dozen generations back by now. The only thing special about 5 generations is that (and this is likely behind its popularity) it represents about the number of people who can be put in tree form on a printed page with bmd data and titles, without it been too compacted for easy reading. Wikipedia is not constrained by the size of the printed page, but it is constrained by what content is appropriate - editorial decisions on Wikipedia are not subject to the practices or whims of specialist communities. For biographical entries, Wikipedia aims at mirroring the coverage in scholarly biographical encyclopedic works of a general nature, not the distorted perspective people with an interest in one specific aspect of biography (e.g. genealogy, military, political or religious history, etc.) might apply. A 'genealogists do it this way' argument really carries little weight: Wikipedia is WP:NOTGENEALOGY - a specific policy limits the degree to which genealogical information is to be included in articles, and a 5-generation chart is inconsistent with this policy in most instances. Agricolae (talk) 15:14, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

I don't think WP:NOTGENEALOGY, really applies here. That's a guideline about how family histories should be presented only where appropriate to support the reader's understanding of a notable topic. Clearly many of editors here believe the standard chart is entirely appropriate. It's the sort of thing that might guide an editor against, say, including 4 paragraphs in Barack Obama's article explaining how he's related to David Cameron. It's not rule against including genealogy altogether. Flyte35 (talk) 23:45, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

It is exactly what should be applied here. You are drawing a distinction without a difference. The fifth generation almost always consists of family history information that does not help in the least in understanding the subject of the article. You learn nothing useful whatsoever about Constanza Manuel by being told that her father's mother's mother's mother was some obscure woman with the name Sibylle d'Anduze - though the relationship you mention is equally trivial, at least David Cameron is himself a notable individual. Agricolae (talk) 00:28, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

Nevertheless, WP:NOTGENEALOGY doesn't prohibit including genealogy altogether, nor does it indicate the number of generations that should be included in a genealogical chart.Flyte35 (talk) 05:03, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

Well, may I suggest another perspective on this? Please be reminded that we have plenty of footer templates around various articles. These contain links of which some may be more indirect than others, but they are there often more in order to assist navigation rather than by implication of immediately relevance in article text or sections. The way I interpretate it, the ahnentafels are present quite often for considerably comparable reasons. That is, link-navigation help in a graphical overview format, rather than necessarly strictly implying for the reader any significance per se of included links/topics. For an indication of this dimension of the issue, few ahnentafels exist containing no links at all. I would suppose for part said reaons. That is why I was surprised to this new proposed policy of disclosing these templates. There are other topics in certain footer templates that some may consider even more digressing in this and that biographical article, should we apply these changed policy proposals more extensively, isn't it? I'm not sure how that would be helpful for the readers, though, if we would apply that rigidly. What I'm trying to say is that this might not so much a discussion about whether something is trivial, but also or at least combined with to what extent a navigations template might help readers simply navigate in fashions that certainly does exist across Wikipedia. This includes surfing freely through history - including perhaps sometimes in genealogical routes, notwithstanding eventual positions on the importance of such navigation by us Wikipedia users. PPEMES (talk) 00:43, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

That is it exactly. There's a template for US Second Ladies and Treasurers of the United States. I doubt anyone would argue it was terribly significant part of Lynn Cheney's life that her husband's predecessor's wife was Tipper Gore or that it was at all important to William Alexander Julian's life that Georgia Neese Clark moved into his office after died. Templates like ahnentafels are here in part because they provide useful navigation for Wikipedia users. Flyte35 (talk) 01:38, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

While I see where you are going, it strikes me as significant overkill to formulaically show 31 individuals, some of them completely unlinked (often completely unreferenced, and in some cases completely fictitious), just to cater to the rare person who feels the need to jump back four generations in one fell swoop without having to click through pages of intervening generations - it's not like we don't name their parents in both the text and the increasingly-ubiquitous infoboxes. They entail too much downside for minimal upside, in my mind, if all they are is a navigation aid. Agricolae (talk) 01:53, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

It goes without saying the material should be referenced and reflect real people. Since the charts are presented in a dropdown menu that no one sees if he's not interested in the material I don't think there's really much downside at all. Flyte35 (talk) 02:07, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

It certainly doesn't go without saying, if actual practice is any indication. The overwhelming majority of these are entirely unreferenced, and that is the downside - they are conveying novel factual information, not just handy navigation links, and that information seems to be treated by actual editors as if it was completely divorced from the strictures of WP:V. Hiding it not only hides it from the disinterested, it also hides it from those who might see that it is wrong. A template with too many generations simply invites this kind of behavior. Genealogical hobbyists see a chart with empty fields, they feel an irresistible pressure fill it in, independent of policies like WP:V and WP:NOR, and the more generations are included, the more fields there are to be filled, the more opportunity there is to add unverifiable or controversial material. When I ended up having to spend time I didn't really have just to write an entire detailed Wikipedia page on someone that arguably isn't really notable just to get people to stop repeatedly putting the same disputed information back into a set of these charts, that told me everything I need to know about their upside vs downside. Agricolae (talk) 02:42, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

That's not a downside to Ahnentafels; that's Wikipedia itself. Literally all of the encyclopedia is something to which hobbyists feel an irresistible pressure to contribute independent of policies. All templates contain fields to be filled, with opportunities to add unverifiable material. The fact that a structural entity like an Ahnentafel encourages contribution from users is not something to avoid in an encyclopedia whose purpose is to "benefit readers by acting as a... comprehensive written compendium that contains information on all branches of knowledge."Flyte35 (talk) 05:03, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

It is a downside of Wikipedia itself, a downside that is at least attempted to be mitigated by policies like WP:NOT and WP:SYNTH, policies that the use of this template encourages the violation of. It can indeed be a problem with other templates, including infoboxes and even succession boxes in some instances. That is why infoboxes, for example, are reviewed and fields that are inherently problematic, that represent trivia or encourage original research more often than not, are routinely reviewed and sometimes removed (as was the Religion: field for non-religious historical figures) to minimize this downside. A template that actively encourages violation of the very policies enacted specifically to temper such editorial excesses is absolutely 'something to avoid', with each generation added to this template more egregious invitation. Agricolae (talk) 11:17, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

The question under discussion here is whether or not the Ahnentafel template is too detailed. If you believe the template itself should be removed there's a procedure to go about that.Flyte35 (talk) 03:07, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

Maybe I wasn't clear. When I said every additional generation makes the situation worse, that was meant to imply that if the template is to be retained, then the fewer generations that violate content policy by being superfluous genealogy, the better. Agricolae (talk) 21:46, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

Let me add that if these are to be viewed as nothing but navigation boxes, then they should be treated as such - placed at the bottom of the page among the other navigation and succession boxes, and not be presented in an Ancestry section in the body of the article. That the template is universally placed in the body, often with a section heading, tells me they are being used as content and will be viewed that way by readers. Were there an agreement that this template is nothing but a glorified navigation aid, then this should be explicit, with both the template documentation stating it is to be placed with the navboxes (after the citations and bibliography) and not in the body, and with a visible line at the top of ahnentafel stating that all information it contains is intended solely for navigation purposes and should not be interpreted as verifiable article content. Agricolae (talk) 03:03, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

No one said that they are nothing but navigation boxes, but it does seem reasonable to place them at the bottom of the page among the other boxes, if that solution seems reasonable to other editors. That really might be a good way to fix this problem here and get out of the WP:IDONTLIKEIT conflict of interpretations here. Flyte35 (talk) 01:43, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

So this is a Schrodinger's Template: both a Navigation box when it otherwise be subject to the content restrictions like V and NOTGENEALOGY, and yet not just a Navigation box when subjected to NAVBOX - and you can't tell whether it is a Navigation box or not until you try to apply a policy, then it becomes whatever in needs to for that policy not to apply. (Oh, and IDONTLIKEIT doesn't really apply when the argument has been 'I don't like it violating this specific policy'.) Agricolae (talk) 04:03, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

So, place the Ahnentafels at the bottom of the page among the other navigation and succession boxes? That solution seems reasonable to me.Flyte35 (talk) 05:03, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

Agricolae has just explained to you that it is not a solution. How does that solve the problem of verifiability and pertinence? Surtsicna (talk) 10:01, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

That was the idea Agricolae proposed. The question under discussion is whether the Ahnentafel template is overdetailed. What would you prefer, Surtsicna? Flyte35 (talk) 02:34, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

Not my proposal. My proposal was explicitly conditional, that if it is nothing but a navbox, it should be treated as a navbox (and implicitly, subject to the policies on navboxes). You responded that no one said it was nothing but a navbox. That negates my conditional and hence the consequences of it - if it isn't a navbox (which turns out to have been a red herring), it is content, subject to the content policies, wherein every generation not needed to understand the subject is superfluous (i.e. what Surtsucna has referred to in edit summaries as "overdetailed"). Agricolae (talk) 21:46, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

And if these ahnentafeln were meant to function as navboxes, then WP:NAVBOX would apply and the only people mentioned in them would be the people with a biography on Wikipedia. None of us here honestly see this template as a navbox, as even those supporting such interpretation argue that people such as Johann Friedrich Waldau should be mentioned in the ahnentafel of Crown Princess Victoria. Furthermore, treating Template:Ahnentafel as a navbox would effectively absolve it of WP:V, which is unacceptable. Surtsicna (talk) 10:22, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

It is over-detailed and there's no agreed standard for how many generations should be included. Celia Homeford (talk) 13:59, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

The standard is the template we're discussing here. The discussion is about whether 5 generations is too detailed. How many generations do you think is the appropriate level of detail? Flyte35 (talk) 23:45, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

This is begging the larger question - not what the right number of generations is in a standardized systematic ancestor spew, but whether we shouldn't instead be showing a person's relationships that are relevant to their inheritance, actions and immediate context, whether they be aunts, cousins, step-fathers, etc., that actually may help the reader understand their interactions, as opposed to giving some arbitrary number of generations of direct ancestors because . . . well, just because! Our decisions regarding what genealogy to show should be dictated by the content of each page, not a by some uniform template. Agricolae (talk) 00:28, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

Request for comments advised

I'd still say we could use a RFC on this discussion. It regards a substantial amount of articles information that have been around for a substantial amount of time. PPEMES (talk) 11:14, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

That is a great idea, yes.Flyte35 (talk) 03:01, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

What would this RFC be about anyway? Whether we should make this template the standard in all royals-related biographies? Or whether it should contain a set number of generations? I cannot imagine an RFC that could enforce the use of any template across thousands of articles. Not even infoboxes are a given. Surtsicna (talk) 07:03, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

That depends on how user:PPEMES sets up the RFC. This is exactly the sort of ambiguity we've been wrestling with here. Flyte35 (talk) 02:30, 26 May 2019 (UTC)

It doesn't really. No RFC could force or prohibit the use of a template across thousands of articles. Surtsicna (talk) 05:53, 26 May 2019 (UTC)

Things as there were until just recently may have been nuts. But can you at least agree that the reforms you brought unto Wikipedia have meant a significant change in a short time? As such, would a "Request for comments" really hurt awfully? PPEMES (talk) 19:56, 26 May 2019 (UTC)

It would not hurt. It would just be a waste of time. What could it achieve? No template has ever been mandated on any page and no template should ever be regarded as a sacred cow. Content that fails basic policies such as WP:V and WP:OR must be eligible for removal and the rest must be open for individual discussion, don't you think? Surtsicna (talk) 20:59, 26 May 2019 (UTC)

Presumably the RFC PPEMES is proposing creating would be aiming to establish whether it's appropriate to include the template in articles, so that we could get out of this WP:IDONTLIKEIT morass. No one is proposing mandating anything. Flyte35 (talk) 01:35, 28 May 2019 (UTC)

Nobody is suggesting that this template should never be included in articles, so I again do not understand what the proposal is about or what it could accomplish. If anybody thought this template inappropriate to include in articles, I assume it would be nominated for deletion. Surtsicna (talk) 14:11, 28 May 2019 (UTC)

It regards the typical 5 generations standard question, prevalent for half a millenia on Planet Earth. PPEMES (talk) 16:47, 28 May 2019 (UTC)

I do not know which biographies you are reading, but a 5-generation ahnentafel has never been prevalent or typical. Ealdgyth demonstrated this very clearly. Surtsicna (talk) 10:58, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

I would like nothing better than for this template to go away, but I am not so much of a fool not to recognize that the template is too much of a 'shiny object' that people like putting on pages just because they can for such a proposal ever to pass. Wikipedia would benefit from almost all of them being removed or replaced with purpose-designed trees that only have the relationships specifically relevant to each subject, rather than this grossly-overused, one-size-fits-none, policy-violating chart showing only direct ancestors (e.g. it would be a whole lot more useful to see how Empress Matilda was related to Robert of Gloucester and King Stephen than by being shown she was great-great-granddaughter of Fulbert the Tanner). Agricolae (talk) 19:39, 28 May 2019 (UTC)

As has already been pointed out, it is disingenuous as well as inaccurate to dismiss the argument that existing policy (WP:V and WP:NOTGENEALOGY) should be followed with regard to all content as if it were nothing but IDONTLIKEIT. Indeed, the suggestion that such policy should be ignored smacks a whole lot more of WP:ILIKEIT than the opposing argument that favors following policy resembles the opposite. (And again, the choice made by a 500-year-old Austrian are not binding on Wikipedia.) Agricolae (talk) 19:39, 28 May 2019 (UTC)

In fact I would be happy to delegate this to Flyte35, if you don't mind? PPEMES (talk) 06:49, 28 May 2019 (UTC)

Delegate? Delegate what? Flyte35 (talk) 22:04, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

Creating the request for comments? PPEMES (talk) 22:35, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

Sorry. If you want this to happen I recommend you just go for it.Flyte35 (talk) 14:38, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

Why couldn't you go ahead with it? You seem also better informed than I am. PPEMES (talk) 14:38, 1 June 2019 (UTC)

Sorry, no. If you want this to happen I recommend you just go for it. Flyte35 (talk) 22:16, 1 June 2019 (UTC)

OK. Sorry. I thought you wanted it. If I am alone in calling for this, I guess I better not bother. PPEMES (talk) 10:36, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

As I said, I think it's a good idea you proposed. I just think you need to go for it if you want to see it happen. Flyte35 (talk) 15:39, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

A request for comments on what exactly? Surtsicna (talk) 22:51, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

Interpretation and application of WP:NOTGENEALOGY in this case? PPEMES (talk) 08:47, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

Now, there's a lot of trivia floating around in biographical articles. While few individuals can offer 5 generations of encyclopedically relevant family background in each and every instance, a vast amount of biographical material has included such information for a half a millenia, and for 15 years across Wikipedia - its existance until now. Even if ahnentafels in their standard scope since half a millenia would be considered trivia, perhaps we should channel our frustration of this renduncy on biographic writers and genealogists, telling them to drop what they're doing and get on with something else? Until, however, I fail to see concluding arguments for why Wikipedia should not reflect the external world in this regard. At least, perhaps a request for comments would help us who doubth the merit of this recent information deletion with more convincing arguments? PPEMES (talk) 11:01, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

It is demonstratively not true that "a vast amount of biographical material" includes 5-generation ahnentafeln. It never has. I am getting a strong feeling that you have not gone through many biographies of royal and noble people and so I am genuinely confused as to which "external world" you are referring to. Surtsicna (talk) 11:15, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

As I already have pointed out, I know of only one encyclopedia (the style of biographical publishing to which Wikipedia aspires) that has even made use of 5-generation charts, the 1913 (?) Encyclopaedia Larousse (going from memory here - I last looked at it in the 1980s). It used such charts (not ahnentafeln) for a very small number of exceptional individuals, not for every king, noble, politician and actor for which the compiler could find the information, and I don't recall any other biographical source doing so at all. As to genealogists always doing so, even were this the case (which I dispute), that is completely irrelevant - while genealogical writing often incorporates some biography, and biographical writing often incorporates some genealogy, they are fundamentally different branches of history - genealogy is not biography, and Wikipedia is WP:NOTGENEALOGY. Agricolae (talk) 12:14, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

Requests for comments (RfC)

Please see above discussion for background. Changes has recently been enforced across a wide range of articles. Large changes after a discussion with quite few participants. Then again, perhaps more voices would be welcome to settle the issue: Is this template motivated, and if so where, according to what criterias, and to what extent? 5 generations being the standard in genealogy and quite some biographies as well external to Wikipedia. PPEMES (talk) 20:54, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

• Comment. The policy at Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not#Wikipedia is not a directory states that 'Family histories should be presented only where appropriate to support the reader's understanding of a notable topic.' In almost all cases, the family relationships ancestry of the subject of a royal biography can be understood from a 4-generation pedigree. More remote ancestors that have no bearing on the article's topic and that reliable sources never discuss in relation to the topic should be excluded. Furthermore, according to policy at Wikipedia:No original research, if an article is about person A, it is incorrect to provide a citation that shows A is related to B, and then another one that shows B is related to C, and then another that shows that C is related to D, and then another that shows D is related to E, in order to show that A is related to E. That is the same as 'original research by synthesis': taking two citations, one showing that A is related to B and another that B is related to C, to show that A is related to C. There should be a single citation that shows A is related to B, C, D, and E. The citations should all mention person A. If they don't, then that information doesn't belong in an article about person A. These two policies, and the policy at Wikipedia:Verifiability, are project-wide policies that have very wide consensus and that have been agreed and discussed by a large number of participants. For royalty four generations is ideal enough: it shows the relationships and ancestry of the article subject but without going into too much (often uncited, poorly cited, or irrelevant) detail. Celia Homeford (talk) 07:28, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

  I don't entirely agree with this - I agree that a five-generation chart is not ideal for the reasons stated, WP:NOTGENEALOGY (the part of WP:NOTDIRECTORY quoted) and WP:NOR - but not that a 4-generation chart is necessarily ideal. I would rather see the chart template (or a chart image file) used in almost all circumstances, showing the relationships relevant to someone's biography, importantly including those who are not direct ancestors, as we do on Empress Matilda, but in many cases the problem is more basic - there is often no content-related reason to name anything more than the parents of the subject (e.g. for an actor or media personality, a politician or minor historical figure) and they don't need a chart at all. In such cases, we shouldn't be using a chart at all, not a not 5 generation tree, not 4 generation, not anything else. Agricolae (talk) 13:40, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

  Yes, I see now that my comment should have been more restrictive. I have changed it and marked the inserted text in underline and the deleted text as struck though, as described at Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines#Editing own comments. I also accept that bespoke charts or family trees showing the relationships relevant the topic are often more useful and explanatory than the one created by this template. Celia Homeford (talk) 13:58, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

  Thanks for the clarification. I am fully on-board with your revised text. Agricolae (talk) 14:26, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

  "I would rather see the chart template (or a chart image file) used in almost all circumstances" see Help:Family trees#Image file for why image files are not a good idea, particularly if they are constructed by Wikipedia/Commons editors as they frequently suffer from problems of WP:V and they can not be edited easily. -- PBS (talk) 08:52, 20 June 2019 (UTC)

All charts suffer from WP:V issues - it is not something that affects image charts uniquely. When a chart requires inline citations, it is usually because they are WP:SYN, not because they are image files. They do require use of different software to edit, but they are more flexible and more elegant than the template, which can occupy inordinate screen-space and can become real mazes of lines going every which way in an attempt to fit is all in (plus they are ugly, but that is just MHO). Agricolae (talk) 14:09, 20 June 2019 (UTC)

Not all trees suffer from WP:V issues (Eg ahnentafel tree in the article Charles I of England). The images are kept on WP:COMMONS and usually they are in the form of an image that can not be edited. In practice often the only option with a poorly source image is to remove it, because the person who uploaded it onto commons has (1) no ability to edit it, (2) can't be bothered to or no longer has access to the sources used to create it, (3) -- the most common -- has long since stopped participating in the Wikipedia project). Also in practical terms where do the citations go (as notes in the image they may not meet the requirements of WP:CITE for consistency)? -- PBS (talk) 08:04, 22 June 2019 (UTC)

To be more clear, all types of trees have WP:V issues, not just the image ones. Given that the Charles I chart is adequately documented with a single citation at the top, I am not really seeing the problem. We put citations in image legends all the time. Agricolae (talk) 21:08, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

@User:Agricolae: verification is not the only problem. Suppose an editor wishes to remove a leaf (because the person is not notable), this can not be done as easily as it can on a Wikipedia article page. But staying on the issue of verification and images you write "We put citation in image ledgends ..." (1) in many cases it is not just in the ledgend where citations are needed, if more than one citation is used in a tree then they need to go on the leaves and it may see for example Henry Percy, 3rd Earl of Northumberland#Ancestry. See also how few images have any citations: c:Category:Family trees of the United Kingdom and c:Category:Family trees of England. So I put it to you that in paractice images are not a sutible subsitute for trees created with templates such as {{tree chart}} on Wikipedia if the tree is to be easily edited over a number of years by several editors to meet the guidence in the three content policies. -- PBS (talk) 14:16, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

There are pluses and minuses to each. It is easier to edit the chart template (at least once an editor familiarises themselves with the code), but it is harder to do complex relationships (double intermarriages, six spouses) in an elegant manner, and they also take inordinate space, which means that to display large families you end up either having them go way off the side of the screen or stacked/compacted so tightly with lines zigzagging all over the place such that they are nearly unreadable. As to 'See also how few images have any citations', see how few ahnentafeln have any citations, see how few chart templates have any citations. It is not compelling to put forward a general fault of all charts on Wikipedia as if it was a specific fault that makes one type inferior to other types that have the same fault. Agricolae (talk) 17:19, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Anyone with a basic knowledge of how parameters work in templates (eg citation templates) can figure out how to add citation to any in-en-wiki family tree (if not a request at the Wikipedia:Teahouse will find someone who can help). Modifying a commons-wiki image is quite another thing and is further still from "the free encyclopaedia that anyone can edit".BTW ancestry trees never include multiple spouses and if anything there a plus for ahnentafel trees and lack of complexity as the traditional way of showing someone is an ancestor more than one way is to number the relationship; eg to show that both paternal great-grandfather and maternal great-grandfather is the same person is to include "12.=8" for the maternal great-grandfather leaf. Although of course Roman emperor's family trees with public adoption of an heir are never going to be good candidates for ahnentafel trees helping to clarify things (horse for courses). -- PBS (talk) 07:57, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

And yet they don't add references. The lack of citation is a problem with all types of trees - just looking at the trees on Wikipedia makes this evident. That the ahnentafel lacks the capacity to display relevant but non-ancestral relationships is not an advantage, even if it does make it simpler. A straightforward sentence stating that X is daughter of Y and Z would beat any templates or image in lack of complexity, but were that a plus, we wouldn't be arguing over using templates and images to display more complex genealogical information.Agricolae (talk) 14:57, 5 July 2019 (UTC)

• Comment The question is unclear ('motivated' ??) and it is non-neutral, ending with with one premise (that 5-generation charts are standard in genealogy) that is unsupported and not entirely relevant and a second that is blatantly false (that quite a few biographies external to Wikipedia use them). I would strongly recommend the question be restated in a clear and neutral manner. (Suggestion: Should a five-generation ahnentafel template be standard for biographical articles? or maybe simpler: Should the 5-generation chart be the preferred standard when the Ahnentafel template is used?) Agricolae (talk) 13:40, 4 June 2019 (UTC)
• Comment. I have explained two or three times here that a 5-generation ahnentafel is not standard in biographies outside Wikipedia. I have linked to an extensive overview of literature proving that. The premise of this RFC is thus not only biased but a blatant lie. I just cannot wrap my mind around that. Surtsicna (talk) 17:29, 4 June 2019 (UTC)
• Comment. There is some debate as to whether this sort of thing constitutes trouble with regard to WP:NOTGENEALOGY or WP:NOR, but that's a concern about genealogy itself, and has nothing to do with what level of detail is appropriate to include in this particular chart. The first 5-generation ahnentafel appears to have been published by Michaël Eytzinger in Thesaurus principum hac aetate in Europa viventium in 1590. This method of presenting genealogy appears to have been standard (meaning commonly used and accepted by genealogists) since then. That's why so many articles on royal and noble subjects in Wikipedia have used that genealogical numbering system. Since that format is clear and presented in a drop-down menu, so that only interested readers even end up seeing these charts, it seems to me that it's a good idea to retain that system in articles where editors have found and provided sourcing about genealogical material.Flyte35 (talk) 16:52, 5 June 2019 (UTC)
  • No, 5-generation ahnentafeln are not standard in biographies outside Wikipedia. They are not found in academic and peer-reviewed biographies. I have provided a link to an extensive overview of literature proving that. At this point, claiming that this is standard is no longer ignorance but a blatant lie and I will keep pointing it out. Surtsicna (talk) 18:20, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

It's not standard in trade biographies no. The chart is commonly used and accepted by genealogists, in genealogical materials. Flyte35 (talk) 20:07, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

All kinds of charts are commonly used by genealogists. There is no standard chart. Agricolae (talk) 21:30, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

It a simply not possible to divorce NOTGENEALOGY from the question of how many generations of genealogy to include on a Wikipedia page. If five generations exceeds the amount of genealogy necessary to understand the subject of the article, then that is exactly what NOTGENEALOGY forbids, and it is completely fallacious to suggest that Wikipedia editorial choices must be determined by a decision made by an Austrian in 1590. Agricolae (talk) 21:30, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

• Comment. Politely invited by user Flyte35 to engage in this discussion and give my opinions, here I am. The main problem that I have encountered with ahnentafels in my significant years in this Wikipedia is the absence of direct sources. For instance, an article of a "subject X" will say that he/she is a parent of "subject Y", and the article on "subject Y" will say that he/she is a parent of "subject Z", but that, apparently, is not enough to form an ahnentafel of "subject Z", because, as I said, in a subject's article other Wikipedia articles do not serve as source, which is sort of contradicting. But that is besides the point. The huge problem, literally and figuratively, and the one that I shall strive to tackle here, is the needlessness for a 5-generation ahnentafel. This amount of intricate detail goes against Wikipedia's inclusion policy and that fact alone should be enough for all editors to reduce the size of all ahnentafels. By observing the work of great Wikipedians such as DrKay and also Celia Homeford and Surtsicna, there is a reasonable argument for the reduction of the size of ahnentafels and is this: uselessness. A 5-generation ahnentafel is useless; it serves no other purpose than to satisfy a fetiche on pedigree that does not belong in this community. As I have recommended to some, if you wish to discuss genealogy, who is the "great-great-grandmother on his/her grandmother's father side"—almost had a stroke describing this situation—, do it on a Genealogy forum, not Wikipedia. Wikipedia needs to strive towards objectivity and precision, and a 5-generation ahnentafel does not attend to these needs, and it is quite ugly and unpractical to look at, be that on a computer screen or, and especially, on a mobile phone screen. So my recomentadion is: let's stick with a 4-generation ahnentafel, consisting of subject, parent, grandparent and great-grandparent, and that is enough. Examples are the articles on British royalty in all ages, and on current members of Belgian, Danish, Dutch, Luxembourgish, Spanish, Swedish, Norwegian, etc, royal families, some of which do not even contain an "Ancestry" section. That is the pattern we must emulate. M. Armando (talk) 18:33, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

The chart provides information about a subject's ancestors. Such information is only useless if you don't think a subject's ancestors are important. But that's an argument against studying genealogy itself. Such an opinion doesn't really have much to do with this chart in particular. The template was created in March 2018‎ by Frietjes, apparently as a merger of several templates (I think that's what's going on anyway). The only reason the truncated 4-generation ahnentafel is now used in the articles on members of the British, Belgian, Danish, Dutch, etc. royal families is because a few Wikipedia editors cut them down recently. It looks like the 5-generation ahnetafel was pretty standard there earlier. Flyte35 (talk) 20:07, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

And the menu of Henry II at the feast of St. Michael in the third year of his reign is only useless if you are not interested in it. All information is useless to those not interested in it. That is an argument for including any trivia anyone wants. However, we have a policy that says only to include genealogical information that helps understand the subject (NOTGENEALOGY) and we have another (PROPORTION) that says we should cover a subject with similar emphasis to the coverage given in reliable secondary sources, and as you have already accepted, most reliable secondary biographies don't obsess over the complete ancestry of their subject. Agricolae (talk) 21:30, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

If we took your idea, Agricolae, and applied it universaly—that is a Kantian principle by the way—we wouldn't have biographies of less than 4,000 pages. What you say, pardon, is nonsensical. We are the controllers of information, we get to decide what is important and what is not and we even get to discuss it, like right now. That is the truth. So let's be true to that and reach a 4-generation compromise, as DrKay proposes below, and I enthusiastically agree, and run with it. And finally move on. Now Flyte35 you are quite right about what used to be the consensus. And it was not a few editors who decided to change it, it was the administrators. Without administrator backing our ideas are as good as nothing. Let's change with the tide and reach that compromise. I accepted it. Now it is your turn. Respectfully, M. Armando (talk) 20:36, 6 June 2019 (UTC)

Wait, what? "It was not a few editors who decided to change it, it was the administrators." (Noting the point of Surtsicna about administrator authority, below btw) At what point did the administrators decide to change the standard here? Who decided that all genealogical charts should have only 4 generations? Please point us to that decision. I'm not being a jerk here, seriously, M. Armando if there was a decision about this I think that decision would help guide this discussion. If you know of one please point us to it. Thanks.Flyte35 (talk) 06:56, 7 June 2019 (UTC)

You overestimate the power of administrators. Their role is to perform certain special actions but their opinions are not worth more than those of other contributors. Of course, Wikipedia should not have 4,000-page-long biographies. But if we base our biographies on comprehensive works of reputable historians (as we should) and condense the information found there to fit into an encyclopedia (as we should), then it does not make sense to habitually include information that such thousand-page-long biographies do not contain at all. Our decision on what is important should not be arbitrary but based on what is found in high quality sources. I agree that, when included, the default number of generations displayed in this template should be four. I do not, however, agree that the template itself should be included by default. Surtsicna (talk) 22:23, 6 June 2019 (UTC)

Flyte35, If I can paint a picture here, no one sat around a table and decided to do anything. I did not mean to sound like some sort of conspiracy or even a planning went on. It was something that began happening organically and now it is a point of discussion here. Apologies if I expressed myself poorly. The reality is: you make an edit; an administrator deems it unworthhy, unreasoable, inconsequential, unnecessary, or whatever, he/she undoes the editing, and I dare you, any of you, to undo the undoing or to bang heads with them. The administrator position is a very important one and should be respected. A sense of hierarchy needs to be maintained, if royalty taught us anything. And Flyte35, noticed how Surtsicna agreed with the 4-generation display compromise on ahnentafels? About content and all else, how our decisions on content should not be arbitrary, but rather based on fine pieces of historical work, I agree with Surtsicna. Respectfully, M. Armando (talk) 18:29, 7 June 2019 (UTC)

With all due respect, royalty has taught us nothing of the sort. Administrators should be respected when they carry out administrative functions. When it comes to their edits, they are not imbued with special weight above those of any other editor, except in so much as they are better able to defend their edits due to the (assumed) greater familiarity with policy. Any administrator who claims that their role makes their edits beyond contestation is misusing their position. The only administrative decision that was made with regard to these ahnentafeln was that a set of individual ahnentafel templates with 4-generation, 5-generation and 6-generation charts should be consolidated into a single template that could be used for charts with any number (? up to 6) generations, an action taken following consensus in a discussion over the proposal. When the combined template page was then produced, a 5-generation one was shown as the featured example, but this was never intended to imply that this was the preferred version (the issue of a default number of generations was explicitly raised in the discussion and specifically answered by those carrying out the merge that the display of a five-generation chart on the new combined template was only being done as an example, not a directive). There has been no administrator decision to change the standard, because there never was a standard.

As to the 4000-page biographies, that is not what I was saying at all. As Surtsicna indicated, I am saying we should use information in proportion (not full extent) to its use in biographies. If there are biographies like ODNB or HOP that are similar length to a Wikipedia article, we want to provide similar amounts of coverage for the same topics, while if we are using a 300 page book, then something that gets a page might merit a sentence (at most) in our article, while something mentioned only in passing in a single sentence in the book probably shouldn't be mentioned on Wikipedia at all. What we don't want to do is add material that is in excess of what is covered by such sources, which really could result in 4000-page biographies if taken to extreme - as I said above, an American periodical has been publishing a serialized ahnentafel of Charles I of England since the 1980s, and if I remember correctly, last time I checked a few years back it was on the 14th generation and would now be hundreds of pages long in total, but its inclusion on the Charles I Wikipedia page would be completely out of WP:PROPORTION). Agricolae (talk) 19:58, 7 June 2019 (UTC)

Can we reach a consensus here or we're just going to endlessly repeat ourselves in a loop? "A four-generation chart in a collapsed section is a reasonable compromise", said DrKay, who is not just an administrator, but a Wikipedian, and, apparently, you're choosing to disregard what DrKay said entirely and dismiss the job that DrKay does and the experience DrKay has. So I ask again: can we reach a consensus on a 4-generation display on ahnentafels? And by the way, what has royalty taught us, then?, if anything! Respectfully, M. Armando (talk) 22:02, 7 June 2019 (UTC)

• Comment. In ancestry sections of royalty articles, which is really only what's being discussed here, four generations is easily sufficient in almost all cases to demonstrate relevant connections and relations. Some people think these sections should be removed entirely, others think they should be expanded or maintained at five-generations as a minimum. A four-generation chart in a collapsed section is a reasonable compromise. DrKay (talk) 20:22, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

I completely agree with you. Nothing further to add. Respecfully, M. Armando (talk) 20:36, 6 June 2019 (UTC)

• Comment. Following thus far, I interpretate that there is WP:CONSENSUS to maintain this template for at least some biographical articles. Part as visualising genalogical trivia in biographical text where exceptionately relevant, part to facilitate navigation. Moving on, opposition against that this template should keep its tradition of 5 a generational scope since the inception of Wikipedia, tend to refer to WP:NOTGENEALOGY. I suppose more specifically to this WP:NOTGENEALOGY paragraph: "Genealogical entries. Family histories should be presented only where appropriate to support the reader's understanding of a notable topic." Should the prior five generational standard be shrinked to 4 generations (or less), wouldn't this be a reinterpretation of WP:NOTGENEALOGY not previously asserted? If so, am I the only one that would be happy to see more arguments that can refer to prevalent use of 4 generations ahnentafels outside of Wikipedia? PPEMES (talk) 23:01, 7 June 2019 (UTC)

There never was a 5-generation standard, and there is nothing novel about the interpretation that superfluous genealogy shouldn't be put in articles, even if people do it all the time (people regularly break all kinds of policies, but that doesn't mean it is a reinterpretation of the policies to clean this up). Ealdgyth analyzed the use of genealogical charts in biographical articles and books (this analysis is linked to by Surtsicna, above), and found no use of ahnentafel-type charts at all, not 5-generations, not 4-generations, though several had purpose-designed charts showing relevant relationships (showing non-ancestor kin, while only showing some ancestors). Agricolae (talk) 01:19, 8 June 2019 (UTC)

• Comment: Although five-generation ancestry charts are very rare in published sources, I don't see why the information shouldn't be included when they do exist, e.g. here. Sir Iain Moncrieffe wrote a whole book about the ancestry of the yet-to-be-born Prince William called Royal Highness (1982). Opera hat (talk) 14:31, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

Special-interest publications have special-interest focus that is not the best indication of appropriate proportional coverage for a general biographical account such as a Wikipedia article. The standard should not be whether a published 5-generation chart can be found anywhere, but whether any general biographies of the subject includes such a chart. Agricolae (talk) 16:32, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

I'm afraid few articles follow that ridigity. Conversely, I'm afraid if that would be the case, substational material on Wikipedia would qualify as WP:SYNTHESIS and WP:ORIGINALRESEARCH. PPEMES (talk)

Hyperbole aside, it is a problem - special-interest trivia litters biographical articles. Just because you find something in print somewhere doesn't make it appropriate for a general-interest biography article. Agricolae (talk) 21:24, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

Substantial material on wikipedia is synthesis and original research, but that doesn't mean more should be added. It should be removed. Celia Homeford (talk) 08:22, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

There is a danger of SYN when multiple sources are used. -- PBS (talk) 20:19, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

It is very easy to construct an ancestry tree from unreliable sources published on the internet. However it only takes one mistake for large parts of the tree to be incorrect. For example if a grandmother is recorded as the first wife rather the second wife (the correct mother), then a quarter of the tree will be inaccurate, even if all the other entries for every single person are correct. For this reason trees need accurate sourcing from reliable sources. It is easy to find the parents of a child in the child's biography, but it is often difficult to find all the children of couple. However if some of the children are notable enough to have their own biography in a reliable source, this can lead to editors unwittingly adding WP:OR into an ancestry tree. Let us suppose we are looking for the parents of a daughter X (the grandmother of the subject of an article). However X does not have a biography in a reliable source, but the father of X does (call him Y). In the biography of Y it names his wife (Z). The biography of Y states that Y and Z had a son (A) and four daughters, only 2 of which are named (B,C), but not the other two. Now it maybe that X is one of those two unnamed daughters, or it may be that X is the daughter of another marriage not included in the biography of Y. If one jumps to the conclusion that X is the daughter of Y and Z then this breaks the WP:NOR policy specifically a "synthesis of published material", because to conclude that the mother of Z is the grandmother of X is a synthesis.

• Comment This RfC is missing the point. A far better question is "ought Ahnentafel trees in Wikipedia articles follow the usage in reliable sources for the subject of the article?". For example the biography article of Charles I of England while a "featured article", was reduced from 31 to 15 ahnentafel leaves (five generations to four) when challenged for the leaves of the tree to be backed up with inline citations to reliable sources (Revision as of 12:39, 18 November 2013 and Revision as of 19:36, 18 November 201). There sould be no golbal rule, but each article sould follow the usage in reliable sources that support that article. Sections that contain ancestry trees that are not supported by reliable sources should first have a {{unreferenced section}} added to the and if no reliable sources are added after resaonable time the trees ought to be deleted per the policy section WP:UNSOURCED. After a suitable length of time all entries that are not supported by reliable sources, and any ancestor of those entries, ought to be removed. This is just following standard verifiability policy which for ancestry trees is far too often ignored. -- PBS (talk) 20:19, 17 June 2019 (UTC)
• Comment: I concur with PBS in that I don't think it particularly matters if there are 4 or 5 generations shown, as long as the relationships between parents and children can be cited to reliable sources. That being said, I don't think it's good form/etiquette to be removing a 5th generation just because you think it's overly detailed. There are plenty of WP precedents/guidelines that state that later editors should not arbitrarily change the way things are done in an article (e.g., date formats, variety of English, and citation style – yes, I realize that those are simply stylistic edits, but the principle is the same). When such edits are made, they are governed by WP:BRD. If you delete the 5th generation and you are reverted, it's your responsibility to convince the other editors of your position, and you can't do it, you need to recognize when to fold. —howcheng {chat} 22:41, 21 June 2019 (UTC)
  • I disagree with your comparison of this content dispute to stylistic edits. It is not nearly the same principle. Whether an article should contain a 5-generation ahnentafel or a 4-generation ahnentafel or no ahnentafel at all should not depend on how many editors like or dislike the content but on whether reputable biographers include it. Surtsicna (talk) 22:50, 21 June 2019 (UTC)
    • Many of the biographies I've seen don't even use ahnentafel genealogy trees; they tend to use top-down family trees. Would you agree then if a major biography of a historical figure uses the latter type of family tree but goes back 5+ generations, then a 5-generation ahnentafel might be acceptable? —howcheng {chat} 22:54, 21 June 2019 (UTC)
      • Yes, that would be perfectly reasonable IMO. If a major biography mentions all 30 5th-generation ancestors even just in prose, it would be acceptable to include a chart (say, an ahnentafel) containing those names. Surtsicna (talk) 23:03, 21 June 2019 (UTC)
        • I don't think that is the scenario Howcheng is describing - not when a biographer includes an ahnentafel. They are suggesting that when the biographer includes a descendants chart that includes the subject (e.g., were they to include a War of the Roses chart that traces the lines from Edward III down to the claimants), that if that chart happens to have five generations along that single line(s) traced, that would justify showing an ahnentafel that traces five generations in every line for a person at the bottom of the tree. Agricolae (talk) 23:44, 21 June 2019 (UTC)
      • No. If a biographical source shows a line descent for five generations, they have selected which relationships they think are historically relevant, and that justifies including a similar pedigree tracing that relevant line that goes back five generation (or even more), but not an ahnentafel that traces every line of ancestry for five generations with a majority of the included individuals being people the biographer did not think were worthy of displaying, while excluding uncles, step-relationships, etc., that the biographer might have included in their chart. It justifies using Template:chart, not Template:Ahnentafel. And as much as this appears a stylistic distinction, it is not - this is about including relationships biographers have deemed relevant (and not including those the biographer did not deem relevant). Agricolae (talk) 23:49, 21 June 2019 (UTC)
        • I agree with User:Howcheng, it is similar to style issues if one removes the 5th generation and that is reverted then WP:BRD applies. However if (as is likely) the 5th generation is not supported by inline reliable sources, then it becomes a case of WP:BURDEN ("burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores materia"). One can argue that 5th generation is not covered by WP:PRESERVE (one can argue that a whole family tree of any number of generations is not relevant) -- PRESERVE "as long as any of the facts or ideas added to an article would belong in the "finished" article, they should be retained if they meet the three article content retention policies". If the 5th generation is supported with reliable sources then it becomes a consensus issue over preserve and should be decided on the article's talk page -- In the example of ancestry in Charles I of England I gave above, a request for sources was all it took gain a consensus that 4 generations was enough (no discussion was necessary). -- PBS (talk) 07:51, 22 June 2019 (UTC)
        • User:Agricolae in response to your comment "If a biographical source shows a line descent for five generations, they have selected which relationships they think are historically relevant" there is a danger of systemic bias. Thanks to primogeniture in the past in parts of Europe there was a strong bias towards paternal ancestry (in countries such as England, it was normal from 1066 onwards for the eldest son to inherit everything titles and land). It means that for many notable family not only for the first son but for all children their paternal decent will be better documented. As many secondary sources (eg Burk) were written by authors and for audiences who all assumed this is was the most important relationships to record. However in these more enlightened times there is a danger of that presenting a systemic bias which the Women in Red project is trying to address. Perhaps it is no coincidence that ahnentafel trees were popular in Germany where inheritance tended to divide property between all male descendent and it ended up in those very small states where marrying you cousin could reunite territories split in a previous generations (picking one at random as an example ernestine duchies). -- PBS (talk) 07:51, 22 June 2019 (UTC)
          • If I misunderstood Howcheng, and Agricolae's interpretation is correct, then I agree with Agricolae. A family tree should include only those people who are included in the family tree presented by the biographer or at least mentioned in the prose of the biography. The fact that ahnentafeln are extremely rare in published biographies, as noted by Howcheng, means that they should not be the norm in Wikipedia biographies, not that we should break our backs trying to justify their inclusion. PBS, style issues are not comparable to content disputes. If some relationships are not well-documented, as you say, and for that or any other reason the biographer does not consider them relevant enough to mention, then it is not up to us bring them up. It is undue and means threading dangerously close to original research. Surtsicna (talk) 11:33, 22 June 2019 (UTC)
          • Some biases are due to historians, but some are due to history. If a historian decides only the historical passage of the title is informative enough to include in a chart, it is SOAPBOX, trying to right a historical wrong, to conclude you have to show all ancestors in all lines just to balance the historical bias of male-preference primogeniture. Some ancestors of more noteworthy than others based on the historical context in which the subject lived, even if (especially if) that context was gender-biased. For a biography of Alfonso VII, his maternal grandmother is more noteworthy than his paternal grandmother, his maternal grandfather more noteworthy than his paternal grandfather, (for that matter, his mother more noteworthy than his father,) and one really can't understand his biographical context without showing his step-father, his sister, one of his aunts (the other three are less relevant) and her son. Using a 5-generation ahnentafel as a supposedly-unbiased way of presenting his genealogical context does a severe disservice to the reader's understanding. Agricolae (talk) 12:54, 22 June 2019 (UTC)
            • I and other readers may find it a service. I really don't understand why the rush to try to censor available information there. Doesn't it border WP:POINTy about asserting that just because something is of little to no importance to me, that shall apply also to others? PPEMES (talk) 13:44, 22 June 2019 (UTC)
              • Thankfully, we can rely on academic biographers to indicate which information is and which is not important to understand the topic of an article, so we do not have to stoop to what-if-I-like-it kind of arguments or accuse each other of censorship or WP:POINT. Surtsicna (talk) 14:05, 22 June 2019 (UTC)
              • (e/c) This 'someone may be interested' argument could be made about the most trivial tidbits of information - what Henry II had for dinner on Michaelmas eve of the third year of his reign, for example. The world is a diverse place and there is going to be someone interested in just about anything, no matter how obscure. Someone will be curious about a subject's astrological sign. Someone will care about their blood type. Someone will be fascinated by a description of their genitalia. As far as that goes, the same argument could be made for the 12th generation, or the 32nd generation of ancestry - someone is certainly going to find it a service to give as much genealogy on all sides as can be determined back to the dawn of time. However, 'someone may be interested' cannot be the basis for inclusion decisions, or we would just get random collections of obscure facts rather than coherent biographical articles. WP:PROPORTION says we should focus on those aspects of the subject in proportion to the degree to which they are covered by reliable sources, not based on our personal whims or our suppositions about the interests of some hypothetical reader - for biographical articles we leave it to the published biographers to make those decisions and we mirror their treatment. This is discernment, not censorship. (See also WP:IINFO - Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information, and an ahnentafel is nothing if not an indiscriminate collection of ancestors.) Nothing POINTy about this whatsoever. Agricolae (talk) 14:37, 22 June 2019 (UTC)
                • I certainly do not advocate limitlessness. Just some humble harmony with tendence of typical extension on this trivia in sources, where deemed relevant on a case by case basis. As such, excuse but I'm not sure the reductio ad absurdum comparisons really fly. PPEMES (talk) 14:47, 22 June 2019 (UTC)
                  • Deemed relevant by whom, editors or academics? I do not understand what you mean by "humble harmony with tendence of typical extension on this trivia in sources". Surtsicna (talk) 15:07, 22 June 2019 (UTC)
                    • I'm sorry, I don't buy this argument. When we write articles, we cobble together information from multiple sources to make one narrative. Fact A may in be multiple sources, but let's imagine that Fact B shows up only in one single source. The questions that concern us as editors are 1) are the sources reliable; 2) does our content accurately reflect what is stated in the sources (not original research nor synthesis). If those conditions are met, then the last question is, are those facts relevant to and/or worth of inclusion in the article? That's a decision best left to the individual editors of an article, not applied across-the-board. —howcheng {chat} 16:58, 22 June 2019 (UTC)
                      • If the argument you do not buy is that the content of Wikipedia biographies should reflect the content of published, peer-reviewed biographies, then I am afraid we have some fundamental disagreements that go well beyond genealogy charts. Yes, we cobble together information from multiple sources to make one narrative, but those sources should all be publications specializing in the subject of the article if we want the narrative to be a comprehensive, general biography. If Fact B shows up in a single major biography of the subject, then its inclusion is justifiable; if it shows up only in a specialist, non-biographical publication, then it does not belong in a general biography article. For example, the fact that Henry VIII wore a lot of rings on Saint George's Day in 1515 appears in a perfectly reliable source published by a reputable historian. Should that fact then be mentioned in Henry VIII of England? No, because the source is not a biography of Henry VIII but instead specializes in Tudor fashion. What the article Henry VIII of England should include is information gathered from biographies of Henry VIII. Surtsicna (talk) 17:48, 22 June 2019 (UTC)
                        • Yes, exactly - we do not take our lead from the focus given by special-interest sources, whether they be fashion, geology (I can remember seeing an obituary in a geological society publication that never mentioned the subject had been Prime Minister but went into detail on their presentation to the Royal Society of a fossil from the Pennines) or genealogy publications. For thoroughly-studied people, there is going to be any number of such articles in special-interest publications that focus on the intersection of that person with their topic of interest, because that is how academics can publish something new on a well-trod ground, but we weight our coverage based on coverage in general-interest sources. Agricolae (talk) 18:10, 22 June 2019 (UTC)
                          • You have misunderstood me. What I meant was that in addition to information that is taken from major biographies of the subject, it is permissible to include other information, assuming it's reliably sourced. The decision to do that is up to the editors of the page and should be decided on a case by case basis, not dictated as a policy. —howcheng {chat} 19:19, 24 June 2019 (UTC)
                            • I think it would be incredibly presumptuous for Wikipedia editors to decide that a Wikipedia article should include information which is not found in any of the major biographies of the subject, as it would suggest that all the academics who invested years of their life into researching the subject failed to include something important and relevant. And if inclusion into (or exclusion from) published, peer-reviewed biographies is not the decisive criterium for inclusion into (or exclusion from) Wikipedia biographies, what will be? Voting? Personal preferences? "I don't like it so it should go", "I find it useful so it should stay"? Surtsicna (talk) 20:07, 24 June 2019 (UTC)
                            • I didn't misunderstand you at all. I just disagree. I don't think editor whim ('I think it is interesting', 'I think someone may find it useful') is sufficient basis for including information. One editor's curiosity is another's mindless trivia. That is why we have policies like WP:PROPORTION. Agricolae (talk) 20:43, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

This conversation is drifting off topic. If you wish to pursue the last couple of posts perhaps you would like to take a look at the articles George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham, Art patronage of George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham, and Talk:George_Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham#Art patronage of George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham (and walk the walk). As you will see I am not against your arguments, and I repeated something similar at Talk:Edward the Black Prince over the section on the name "Black Prince".

However ahnentafel trees (as are most other family trees) are presented collapsed in articles as a compromise between those who want them and those who do not (this compromise is a contradiction of MOS:DONTHIDE, but has held for a decade or more). As they are collapsed by default, I think that the issue is one that editors can decide on case by case using the talk page for dispute resolution, as the impact of ahnentafel trees is one line in the body of an article whether or not there are four of five generations, and it does not affect a reader unless (s)he choose to open it. At a technical level the number of additional bytes that are contained in an extra line of an ahnentafel tree is not enough to concern us. -- PBS (talk) 16:56, 23 June 2019 (UTC)

I am amazed by how much leeway this template gets. We turn a blind eye to the violation of MOS:DONTHIDE, WP:SYN, WP:INDISCRIMINATE (there being no context or explanation why someone's mother's mother's father's father is relevant enough to mention), WP:PROPORTION, and, most egregiously, WP:V policy (with over 95% of these being unsourced, even in FAs). And so it stays an untouchable holy cow for another decade - because it's collapsed.
The use of this template should be deprecated on the basis of ahnentafeln being completely alien to published, peer-reviewed biographies, and preference given to Template:Chart, which mirrors academic usage. Surtsicna (talk) 18:50, 23 June 2019 (UTC)

Not to mention WP:NOTGENEALOGY. Using an ahnentafel instead of a chart is sacrificing usefulness for uniformity. We should use charts, not just because that is what biographers do, but also for the reason biographers do so: the flexibility of charts allows them to convey the important relationships, not just whichever ones have a field in a standard template. Agricolae (talk) 20:43, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

1. The compromise over collapse is best left alone because there will almost certainly be no wide consensus either way and I for one would not like to have these trees uncollapsed, and I am sure a lot of editors would be upset if they were removed. Hence the compromise as is.
2. WP:NOTGENEALOGY is not an issue because either a family tree is notable in its own right (eg Family tree of the Greek gods) or it is supposedly there to support notable subjects. Although it does happen that one can argue that a specific tree is NOT "appropriate to support the reader's understanding of a notable topic", this is often debatable.
3. Likewise WP:INDISCRIMINATE, can be used to remove a leaf from a tree but if it is verified to a reliale source is that something to bother about. Ie if it is not false do halfd a dozen names in a tree in a collapsed box matter, when there are so many trees with no sourcing what so ever. Personally I might be bold and remove some sourced entries, but if they were reverted I would not bother to debat the issue on the talk page.
4. The issue of WP:V. This is a much easier issue thanks to WP:CHALLENGE/WP:BURDEN. Providing editors are given reasonable time to provide references it is not a matter of opinion whether the unsourceed information is deleted -- so no long debates on the talk page. Whenever I run AWB to change something I include a search to add {{Unreferenced section}} template to any sections I fins that contain ancestry trees that do not have inline citations (or {{refimprove section}} if there are some but not for every leaf)--I already gave the example of Charles I of England and in 2015 I added "Unreferenced section" to all the templates in Category:Family tree templates. There are 187 templates in that section many of them where no new citations have been added since 2015 (eg Template:Morice family tree) and they are now candidates for deletion because the WP:CHALLENGE has not been met. This sort of method of dealing with unsourced trees seems the best was to removed unsourced trees as it follows WP:V challange, burden sequence.
5. Checking for WP:SYN is time consuming, but if the relationship meets WP:PRESERVE and the 3 content policies, then time consuming is not a reason to delete a branch.

So does anyone want to walk the walk and follow up what I started in 2015 in Category:Family tree templates? --PBS (talk) 20:06, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

NOTGENEALOGY is an issue, exactly the issue you raise. Showing genealogical information in an article, just because we can and because there is a template that has that number of fields, is not making any judgment whatsoever of what is appropriate to support the reader's understanding. PRESERVE is one of the most miscited policies, used to support a 'nothing should be removed no matter how tangential or trivial' argument - it specifically applies to fixing appropriate text that is problematic in its presentation, not saying that all content should always be retained. You also make what amounts to a 'what does it hurt?' argument. How it hurts is that including well documented but tangential genealogy serves as an encouragement for others to include tangential genealogy no matter how badly documented, and there is a lot more of that latter type out there than the quality kind. Much more so than the chart template, the ahnentafel template has evident missing fields that are an open invitation to be filled in, and more likely than not, it will be filled in from whatever web page happened to come up on a Google search. Likewise the use of 5-generation trees on some pages has encouraged its spread to the pages of actors, TV personalities, dirt-farmers, (none of these are hypotheticals), etc., with content that even if verifiable is simply gratuitous. There are some instances where an ahnentafel might be justified, but nowhere near the number of places it is being put. Further, while another editor called this reductio ad absurdum, if only the parents are necessary to understand the subject, but 5 generations are given, what is the argument not to give six generations, or seven,. . . ? If you open this door, that any genealogy is allowed as long as it is verifiable you end up with the naming of 32-generation ancestors or descendants (and yes, it is absurd, but again, not a hypothetical). Charts (and all genealogy) in articles should be of limited extent, showing the most relevant relationships and not a set number of direct ancestors; as to walking the walk I think effort would be better spent replacing most ahnentafeln with charts or removing them altogether. Agricolae (talk) 21:08, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

actors, TV personalities, dirt-farmers, well of course most aristocrates are and were dirt-farmers (altough some of them were also tax-farmers). However you have obviously not seen the category Fictional family tree templates! -- PBS (talk) 11:29, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

WP:PRESERVE does not say nothing should be removed. It says that "As long as any facts or ideas would belong in an encyclopedia, they should be retained in Wikipedia". It is up to you using the talk page of the artilces to convince editors who use Ahnentafel templates that they are mistaken and that the content they have included ought to be deleted or changed into tables that use {{tree chart}} (WP:CONSENSUS). You write "as to walking the walk I think effort would be better spent replacing most ahnentafeln with charts or removing them altogether" that is the whole point of my asking for citations for these templates. Now that more than a year has passed and for many of them no citations to reliable sources have been provided, there is justification for using the Wikipedia:Templates for discussion process to have them deleted, or just to radically edit them. BTW most of them are not using Ahnentafel templates, but {{tree chart}} or {{family tree}}. Once you have delt with them there are only around 9,000 articles with an ahnentafel left to be sorted out. I suggest you start with those that have featured article status, then good article status etc. I look forwards to seeing how many you have managed to do by the end of the year. Personally I keep my ambitions smaller and just insist that if a family tree is to exist in an artilce then it must meet WP:V and WP:SYN (I find that removes much of the problem and meets much less opposition). -- PBS (talk) 11:29, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

• I just remembered that Seize Quartiers were a thing: being able to show nobility in all sixteen great-grandparents was held in very high regard in European court circles. This information would not have been regarded as trivial during the lifetime of many historical figures, but in fact an important part of their status and identity. Opera hat (talk) 17:31, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

  Just as well they did not have DNA testing: Richard III: Solving a 500 Year Old Cold Case by Dr Turi King -- PBS (talk) 19:41, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

  • Yes, it was a thing in 17th-century ballrooms. In 21st-century academic biographies, it isn't a thing. Surtsicna (talk) 17:48, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

Can we at least agree that we lack consensus on 1) categorically withdrawing this template, and 2) that 5 generations lack real, more source-backed competitors as standard count after all? PPEMES (talk) 15:51, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

I am not trying to be incivil here, but I can't even figure out what you are trying to say for point 2. Agricolae (talk) 21:55, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

Sorry. Do we have any sources support claims that 4 or less or 6 or more generations would be the standard rendering for ahnentafels? PPEMES (talk) 07:17, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

No, because not only is there no such thing as a standard rendering, but biographers, by far, prefer a different type of chart entirely. If something like a standard is to be deduced from practice, it would be for using the chart template instead of an ahnentafel. Agricolae (talk) 07:56, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

I intended to refer to ahnentafel generations practice exclusively in this case, though. PPEMES (talk) 08:01, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

Well, then the answer is 0 (zero). The "real, source-backed competitor" as the standard number of generations to be shown in Wikipedia articles is 0 (zero). That is because 0 (zero) ahnentafel generations are found in academic biographies. That much has been demonstrated. Surtsicna (talk) 09:52, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

Could we at least move on from the argument that everything in biographical articles needs to be strictly found in biographical books on subjects? Source-weighting on other data doesn't seem to work like that in practice around Wikipedia biographies, so I don't know why this should be so rigidly referred here. PPEMES (talk) 11:56, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

No, I don't think we can move on from that argument. It is not a small thing to ask for. Besides, you yourself asked for "source-backed" arguments. Inclusion into academic biographies is the only objective criterium for inclusion into Wikipedia biographies. Everything else revolves around "I like it" and "I do not like it". I don't know what you mean by "source-weighting on other data". Surtsicna (talk) 13:04, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

I don't think that's right. It's wikipedia policy to treat material with proportion. Celia Homeford (talk) 14:11, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Actual monographs about medieval people are rare, often not even particularly good, and yet we still have articles about many such people. I think that is not a real problem? This discussion seems to have pushed itself into an extreme position. It is obvious our articles about individuals are not only sourced from biographical works.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:55, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

Generational extent standard (5?)

For the record, all other prerequisites met, I for one am not convinced there is any better extent than 5 generations, as has been repeatedly suggested as preferable (again, other comme-il-faut prerequisites met). PPEMES (talk) 16:35, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

And I for one am not convinced that 5 generations is ideal. The reason I am unconvinced is that this is unheard of in academic practice. What's the reason for your conviction? Surtsicna (talk) 17:52, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

The convention established by Michaël Eytzinger as covered in Ahnentafel, as echoed by seize quartiers, Geni.com etc., for lack of better determining candidates for default extents. PPEMES (talk) 18:42, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

I think 5 generations is just a practical thing that has been reinvented several times in the history of depicting families. It is about as far as you can go without making a big mess. I don't see any reason to insist on it at all times. For example with famous people who we already know lots about, or people living in modern times when family connections were not interesting, less generations might be interesting, or of course no ancestry discussion, or the typical parents remark in the first section which we often do.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:11, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree that paying tribute to this convention is also the ideal or at least the least bad solution also from a mere practical and technical Wikipedia view. Which, yes, doesn't mean 5 generations has to be stretched all the time, but at least settled as a default - and a default maximum. PPEMES (talk) 19:29, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

Eytzinger did not establish any convention. He proposed a format, and that format has not been used by biographers. Therefore your repeated references to a convention are unsubstantiated. That said, I oppose mandating the use of this template and, naturally, I oppose settling any number of generations as "a default". Surtsicna (talk) 20:35, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

Feel free should you have any more substantiated default extent alternatives than the typical 5 generations renderings of Eytzinger's ahnentafel, the Sosa-Stradonitz method, and seize quarters, as reflected in Media related to Category:Ahnentafel at Wikimedia Commons? PPEMES (talk) 23:50, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

I am not sure I understood what you said. Surtsicna (talk) 23:56, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

I do not have any default extent alternatives to propose because I, as clearly indicated in my preceding post and numerous others in this discussion, do not believe that this template should be included by default. It should be included only if warranted by the subject of the article, as with any other template on Wikipedia. I do not believe that this one should be made into a sacred cow. Surtsicna (talk) 00:24, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

All prerequisites provided for actual warranted inclusion of this template by the subject of the article, though, do you have any more substantiated default extent alternatives than the typical 5 generations renderings (as seen in Media related to Category:Ahnentafel at Wikimedia Commons? PPEMES (talk) 00:45, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

If the inclusion of this template is warranted by the subject of the article, the number of generations required will be clear from the context. Surtsicna (talk) 12:19, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

I do not think we need to have one standard number of generations, and I am not aware of 5 generations being any generally recognized standard. Having said that, it is a common format for individuals whose genealogy is important. (And ancestry pedigrees showing all known direct ancestors are of course a standard format which show something relevant for many articles, and can complement other types of complex genealogical table.) I see no problem using 5 generations for medieval individuals whose main importance is as a cog in the wheels of the various dynasties they belonged to, with short articles. To both sides in this particular part of the discussion: My advice is that we should not seek drama about things which cause no problems. We should not go around deleting things or imposing rules out of general principles, but instead we should work on each article as needed. Also concerning tagging, be informative and tag in the most clear and detailed way possible. Use the talk page.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:24, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

Well, the problem is that there seems now suddenly to appear a new de facto standard imposed over the board without prior discussion: 4 generations. You suddenly see it here, and there, and everywhere around biographical articles. I have seen no discussions about support for such a 4 generations default. Still, suddenly that became the case. Hence this discussion, to which I would invite more commentators. PPEMES (talk) 17:39, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

I agree 4 should also not be seen as a standard. What needs to happen on each article is a bit of discussion about the pros and cons of each case. That will be possible if discussion is constructive enough. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 21:45, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

It is recently enforced a de facto standard, though. Until arguments are brought up for why 4 generations happens to be more correct than 5 generations previous standard, with why that is discussed now immediately here above, I suggest these revert be reverted back from 4 to 5 generational ahnentafel scope (all other prerequisites provided). Again, please review Media related to Category:Ahnentafel at Wikimedia Commons for starters. PPEMES (talk) 13:54, 27 July 2019 (UTC) Interestingly, 5 generations seems also be the distance which seems to be the limit for discussing family background in plain text, such as Boris Johnsen case here below. It seems to be a recurrent convention. PPEMES (talk) 13:54, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

Concerning about mission creep arising from this discussion: example of William I, Count of Hainaut

• Comment. I come to this discussion after finding a few deletion cases involving Surtsicna and have left messages on their talk page also. I have never made one of these boxes, and I would be more likely to delete them, but the idea of mass deletion seems inappropriate. Some relevant issues:

1. It is clear from S's own edsums that "I do not like it" is one of the main real arguments being used for deletion. I have in fact seen no discussion yet being attempted in any cases I have seen about specific sourcing concerns. (OK, I've done no close study of the history of this debate.) Instead I see arguments about the format and so on.

2. For the period I am most concerned about, let's say pre-1300, genealogical links are both important and discussed in scholarly literature, whereas much of what WP typically has is from old speculative works, not the best scholarship. Furthermore, these links are hard to explain easily and difficult to hold in the mind of a reader and so graphical representations are normally used, and good.

3. We do demand verifiability but we not demand footnotes in the same way as we do for running text for things like dynasty infoboxes or maps of medieval territories.

4. It is easy to delete individuals out of these boxes. Why start a program of mass deletions? I don't see how that would be justified. A lot of these articles have bigger problems, but arguably for the period I am looking at these boxes are some of the most solid bits.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:13, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

True. It's sad, not the least in cases where the ahnentafel is pretty much what's substantially offered as context around a person in available direct or thusly indirect sources. PPEMES (talk) 09:45, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

Not 100% sure I understand but my impression for the period I am concerned with is that most of these ancestry boxes can be sourced, and if anyone finds a nice way to create footnoting or section-specific references, without defeating the aim of clear illustration that's fine. It is also not only WP which has to pencil together a "life story" based on a few facts in many of these cases, but also serious historians. I am wondering if behind this whole discussion there is not a debate about styles of history writing. I see many of our articles are sourced, but use older or weaker sources which have the old colorful narrative style that turns a couple of family connections and land documents into a romantic story (eg Leon Vanderkindere). Give me the facts any day, but it is hard to disallow such sources based on WP policy, because for many of these individuals with biographies, more recent historians may not even bother to fabricate a "biography", and of course their works are generally not on line. So it takes time to get due weight. When I find more time I hope to carefully strip back more articles, but I am really not seeing these infoboxes as the problematic bit in most cases. It might be different in later periods of course.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:22, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

No, none of my edit summaries make any reference to whether I like the content or not. I delete content that has been tagged as unsourced for years and I make it clear that WP:V concerns are the reason for deletion. I do not understand how you could miss that. No, genealogical tables of this kind (ahnentafel) are not used in scholarly literature. That has been soundly disproved by Ealdgyth. Continually repeating this without refuting the evidence presented by Ealdgyth is not helpful. And again, the fact that we do not demand footnotes for these tables does not mean that we should not; all suggestions that ahnentafeln be treated any differently in relation to the WP:V policy have been thrown out of the window. Surtsicna (talk) 12:15, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

Surtsicna, in the discussion above, and in every discussion I have seen you in on this subject you have focused mainly on whether published authors use the same format. "Ahnentafel" just refers to a presentation format with numbers on it. What is being presented are family connections. Format has nothing at all to do with WP:RS or any other content policy. It is purely a matter of presentation and taste. So do you have any other point apart from this presentation point? Are you seriously saying that publications about medieval people do not discuss who their ancestors were? I don't think that will fly?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:31, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

BTW the article where I objected to your deletion is not Louis V of France, which may well have some kind of problem, it is the article for William I of Hainaut. Here is our discussion. As can be confirmed, your last word on the issue there is that one person in the pedigree is non notable and therefore the whole thing needs to be deleted? Of course we do mention her on the article for Henry III of Limburg. Not everyone mentioned in an article needs to be notable enough to have their own article.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:42, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

That could be the best summary of arguments for caution I have seen presented so far. PPEMES (talk) 16:44, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

Rarely (i.e. almost never outside of specialist genealogical articles) do publications addressing a medieval individual discuss their complete ancestry for X generations, as found in the ahnentafel template. They often discuss a broad range of relationships that they deem relevant: not exclusively ancestors, but siblings, uncles step-relationships, etc. By using the Ahnentafel we are not just using a different format/taste to display the same information, we are choosing to display different information than the sources, substituting our own sensibilities in terms of which relatives are noteworthy (only direct ancestors for X generations) and which are not (anyone but a direct ancestor). Agricolae (talk) 19:40, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

Agricolae, what you are describing is a format/aesthetic preference though? If we make a map to show where Belgium is, and that map contains the Isle of White, what you are saying is equivalent to saying that you've looked at scholarly works and their maps don't show the Isle of White, or they use a different colour for coastlines. This would be a strange remark to make about a WP map? For one thing, Wikipedia aims to make better media than old books. It would not be a complaint based on WP:RS or notability etc. An WP:RS or WP:V problem would be if the ancestors can not be verified and I am not seeing that here. Of course when that is a concern, that should be discussed. But if that is the concern then these info boxes should be looked at case by case, surely? I am all for deleting unverifiable information, and re-weighting our articles away from old speculations, but not only in these info boxes. Nothing in this infobox discussion seems aimed at addressing that.

As a second remark, now focusing on the aesthetic/presentation opinion about 5 generations, I do not agree with your description of what is typical in published works at least for the periods and regions I am looking at right now. Or to put it more specifically, there is nothing unusual about showing 5 generations. In order to explain how people reached their positions in the period of early county formation from say 950-1200 this is often very critical information. Once again therefore I can only understand your remark about what we find in books as format-specific. For example, history books don't have ahnennumbers, or most commonly will have custom-made pedigrees to show different connections in different tables. But none of this has any relevance to WP core content policy though.

I think in any case it is quite misleading of Surtsicna to have deleted a table with an edsum accusing me of ignoring WP:V, when the explanation later turned out to switch to a complaint about how one person in the table probably (according to Surtsicna's expert opinion?) had no significant effect on the article's subject. What I am seeing are arguments which shift around and do not parse, trying to justify a large scale deletion program. That is surely a red flag.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:39, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

If you do not agree with Agricolae's description of what is typical in published works, if you claim that it is common to show all ancestors in 5 generations in published biographies, and if you dispute Ealdgyth's finding to the contrary, then please provide some evidence. Cite a biography. Otherwise those are unsubstantiated claims contradicted by a serious analysis presented by other users. And no, as you have been told by multiple users by this point, this is not about format but about content and the lack of such content in high-quality published works specializing in the subject. And that is a WP:V concern, as well as a WP:PROPORTION issue. Surtsicna (talk) 10:17, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

"Typical" is a pretty vague word, but I am going to give a link to 2 charts from a work I literally had open in a tab before starting this discussion. https://books.openedition.org/pulg/1472 and https://books.openedition.org/pulg/1473. Of course a lot of modern academic works are not online, so this is a handy one because published in open format, but I do not plan to post hundreds, because you are either open to reality or not. Of course 5 generation ancestry was very important to medieval clerics (meaning most history writers in the middle ages itself) and nobles, and it gets discussed a lot today, because this defined 5 degrees of consanguinity. Connections this "distant" could cause wars, excommunications and bloody feuds. If you don't know what I am talking about I suggest you give up telling me to study what Wikipedia editors believe.

Of course there are an enormous number of formats used by scholars of various types. There is no reason to use their exact thousands of formats for each family on WP, which is not a printed book. So what though? WP:V and WP:RS are about information, and family connections are important in this period, whether they are represented graphically or not. WP is one tertiary source which cites millions of different secondary and primary sources. We often develop our own formats.

All of this is in any case a red herring, because you are essentially demanding sources for a format, or look at it another way, you are asking for sourcing not for individual facts, but for editorial decisions about how we stick them together in a WP article. The only policy that comes close to being relevant is WP:NOTE, but this is also clearly not relevant as per my remarks about the Isle of Wight being on a map, above. WP's rule about not being a genealogy website also obviously does not mean that anything genealogical is forbidden. Any other arguments you can come up with?

If you can not state any fact (not format) which you believe is unverifiable in the William of Hainaut pedigree, then please stop deleting it, and definitely please stop citing WP:V as if that is relevant to your concerns. The tag of course also had to be removed because it misunderstands WP:V.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:06, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

What's more, Template:Ahnentafel doesn't disqualify implementing a Template:Chart for horizontal family connections, as has sometimes been suggested as more important. I'm not sure, but aren't there biographical articles that include Template:Ahnentafel, Template:Chart, and patrilinial descent as well (some, such as Family tree of Muhammad, take it even further)? Obviously a bit too XL a solution generally, I guess, but just to illustrate the usefulness of maintaining ahnentafel as at least one of alternatives of graphical presentation of available sources when suitable and helpful, even in presenting the standard 5 generations extent. PPEMES (talk) 12:35, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

I think everyone here agrees that Template:Ahnentafel should be used when suitable and helpful. What is being debated are the criteria for suitability and helpfulness and whether verifiability should also be expected. Surtsicna (talk) 13:12, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

That is not what I am reading here. But if this were the discussion, then the first question is whether there really needs to be a Wikipedia-wide standard set of rules about this template, connected to a campaign to go out and do mass deletions. It implies big problems, and I am just not seeing those problems. I am also not seeing any good consensus on any such clear action plans.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:03, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

The lack of citations is a big problem. If it is not for you, then I do not know how to continue this discussion. Many here have voiced verifiability concerns, and in the past, all attempts to define this template as exempt from WP:V have failed miserably. Tagging unsourced content as unsourced and removing it if no sources are provided (for years!) has never been controversial. Surtsicna (talk) 15:39, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

When it is done massively as part of a "principled" campaign by someone who is not looking at the specific articles, and did not get strong community consensus, it can be seen as controversial.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 16:59, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

I am looking at specific articles; when removing unsourced content, I always make sure to specify for just how many years that specific piece of information had been tagged as unsourced. Surtsicna (talk) 17:37, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

You have absolutely insisted on not explaining anything about any verifiability concern on the article we are discussing where you deleted a whole table. You've treated it as a generalizable point of principle. That is my concern. If you did have a point, like in the Charlemagne case, why on earth won't you say so? Deletions are find but I object to the bad procedure here of deletions without posting a clear rationale. My post about your deletion was the first post on that talk page.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:14, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

No, I have always been very clear in saying that the verifiability concern in the article is the complete lack of citations. The 5-year-old tag was also clear: "This section does not cite any sources." That is a WP:V issue. Surtsicna (talk) 18:35, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

Look at the talk page discussions where you posted nothing. But I asked you to explain more, and look at your responses.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:37, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

I do not follow. I would have thought "This section does not cite any sources." to be clear enough. Surtsicna (talk) 21:01, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

The article cites sources. It is not a well cited article. So the constructive and normal thing to do when asked this good faith question is to explain what your concerns are so that editing work can be prioritized. In many cases that look like that it is just a matter of making an in-line reference to one of the sources already cited. Why would you not want to work along that normal constructive type of path? Why would you use extreme definitions which block proper discussion? Honestly we know that you have no specific concerns. The reality is that you know something about this subject and you know the sources are out there and it is just a case of grunt work needing to be done, which you do not want to be done, because you want to delete something. The deletion was part of a Wiki-wide campaign. Your lack of concern with the article's sourcing shows that WP:V is not your concern. Do you see how this does not look "good faith"?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 22:33, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

No, I do not see that, and your reality does not seem real to me at all. I resent your pretending to know what I know and will not address such absurd claims. I will also not repeat myself anymore. If it's just a matter of making an in-line reference to an already cited source, do it. Surtsicna (talk) 00:35, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

I do not have copies of any of the sources cited, so it is a matter of double checking with someone who does. Of course to put sources in the section deletion should be reversed, but you have reverted me twice. Keep in mind I did not make this article, and only got involved with it recently. Therefore the 5 year tag argument is meaningless to me. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:01, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

The deletion reversion and the addition of an inline citation can easily be accomplished in a single edit, per WP:V. I am sorry, but I do not see how your non-involvement makes a section being tagged as completely unsourced for five years any more acceptable. Surtsicna (talk) 13:40, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

That is a nonsensical excuse. Why is it is so important to you to make it difficult for me to see what I have to source? After years, suddenly you need to rush around and delete templates, and the revert me when I try to help them concerning WP:V concerns. I can't see any good faith explanation for such behavior.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:00, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

What was or was not important to medieval clerics and nobles is of no relevance to Wikipedia because Wikipedia is not a medieval publication, as explained months ago by Agricolae. Wikipedia relies on modern scholarship and its content should be based on the content of "reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy". Some family connections are important. Indeed, some are of vital importance. But it is never the case that all of a person's great-great-grandparents are relevant. It is never the case that they are all discussed in peer-reviewed publications specializing in the subject. The works you cited only prove this: they show cousins and in-laws, but not every single great-great-grandparent. I am demanding sources for your claim that there is nothing unusual in showing all 30 5-generation ancestors in general biographies. I am also demanding a source that shows all 30 5-generation ancestors of William, preferably in a work specializing in William. And please see Wikipedia:Verifiability, not truth. It does not matter that you believe all of the information in William's ahnentafel to be true. That ahnentafel "must have been published previously by a reliable source", as has been argued here extensively by Celia Homeford. Surtsicna (talk) 13:08, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

You seem to be deliberately trying to ignore and distort what I wrote. But taking you seriously, what was and was not important to nobles and clerics was absolutely critical to the lives of those people and the people around them, and that is why this type of thing is important to modern scholars. Keep in mind that the example here is not a King of France but someone about whom much of what we can say is concerning his family and its inheritances and connections. Coming back to the real point: we do not need sources for our formatting and presentation editorial decisions. See my Isle of White example. You clearly know that family connections are useful, important, interesting etc. When we make editing decisions, or when we make graphic representations, our aim is to build a highly linked, clear, tertiary source, that uses the strong points of the internet such as hyperlinks. We are not limiting ourselves to only make maps that look like they were printed in academic books for example.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:10, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

If naming all 30 ancestors in the first five generations were "important to modern scholars", you would have no trouble producing one scholarly biography that includes such information. No, we do not need sources for the formatting. We need sources for the content. We need sources for the names and connections. I do know that family connections are useful and important; I also know that verifiability is crucial. Our graphics do not need to look like they were printed in academic books, but the information they contain must be found in academic books. Surtsicna (talk) 15:39, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

Is this post about WP:V or about the editorial decisions we need to make about whether five generations are trivial etc? For ancestors who can not be verified, they should of course be deleted, but you are not taking that approach. You are deleting whole sections. For the editorial decision, there is no such policy as the one you keep citing, and there should be discussion before you delete anything on each article. NOTE the logical conclusion: if WP:V is not your only concern, but rather an editorial judgement call, you should be using the talk page. Concerning such issues, my point is that for nobles in catholic Europe, direct ancestors were always important, and that should be a default approach. This means the onus should be anyone who thinks they weren't in some special case, to explain why. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:00, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

So let's remember that here we are discussing the article for William I of Hainaut. When I asked you to define the problem you picked on one of his ancestors and said she wasn't important to the article. Where is the WP:V problem on the William of Hainaut article please? If it is Waleran III of Limburg's wife, why did you not tag his article also? I know you understand this question, because concerning Charlemagne you actually could name a sourcing concern.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 16:59, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

The problem is not one person. The problem is that there are no citations. That is what WP:V is about. Surtsicna (talk) 17:37, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

You are not answering my questions. If you see a complex of problems in several WP articles you should take some time to find the roots and tag and edit in the places where it will do most good. Do you agree? If you agree, then please explain your actions on the William of Hainaut article. Why not work more on the article and the article of his relatives? Why not post notes first on the talk page? How does deleting these boxes, and giving no rationale, help? You say you are happy to work case by case but I am not seeing it here.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:29, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

Working on the articles about William's relatives will not fix the problem of the ahnentafel in the article about William being unsourced and of dubious relevance. That section was tagged for five years. Anyone wishing to retain that information had five years to provide citations. I gave a perfectly clear rationale: "tagged as unsourced for five years; also excessive and of no apparent relevance". How does deleting these charts help? Well, it appears to be most effective in stimulating users to find sources. Surtsicna (talk) 21:25, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

"Tagged as unsourced for x years" is, in the context of this discussion between you and me now, wikilawyering and irrelevant to why you deleted now. Most likely the article was on no one's watch list and so the question was not addressed. You added no details about your concern and no remarks on the talk page. You are playing a very hard to get game here also. Relevance is WP:OR. Bullying other volunteer editors is not the right way to work either. Whoever sourced the article used genealogical sources and I see no reason to doubt that such sources will be suitable for this information. This means your complaint effectively comes down to a demand that an in-line footnote is required, though sourcing is apparently already there.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 22:33, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

The content being tagged as unsourced for so many years is one of the reasons I gave in my edit summary when I deleted it. That refutes, again, two of your claims. But I suspect that you will again claim to know that I know something and that I have hidden motives. This is becoming pointless. As for relevance being WP:OR, I can only raise my eyebrows. Surtsicna (talk) 00:35, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

The tag being there for 5 years can not be the reason that you recently reverted me twice, rapidly, when I tried to restart investigation into this subject. Yes, all your remarks about relevance in this table for William of Hainaut I have been OR. Apparently you also know very little about the branches you feel to be less relevant.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:01, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

Yes, it can be, and indeed it is. If I know very little, please enlighten me; prove their relevance. Cite sources that put William in the context of those branches. Surtsicna (talk) 13:42, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

You are the one who named specific ancestors of his as being so unimportant to him that they should not be mentioned. The onus is on you to convince other editors that you are saying this for some good reason. For nobles like William in his period and region the default assumption is that all his lines of direct ancestry were important to who he was and how he and others saw him.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:00, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

I had a look at the posts of Celia Homeford on this page. I see in practice she likes a 4 generation ahnentafel, at least for royalty, instead of 5 generations. So this is (as it should be) a discussion about what works best editorially. Much of the earlier discussion above was like that. Fine. So I am saying for earlier and less well-known nobility more generations is often important. I've given examples. In practice, my retort to her position is that I am not sure Wikipedia needs a single simple rule. I think we should indeed use different formats as appropriate. Can we really for example equate all royalty? However Surtsicna, what you are demanding is quite different, and not a good WP-style consensus-building approach.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:23, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

I am not sure what you think I am demanding. I have said that I am not arguing for a complete ban on this template. I am arguing for presenting information found in academic sources in whichever format is best suited for that purpose. This necessarily involves case-by-case decisions. Surtsicna (talk) 15:39, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

There is another issue in one of her posts which you seem to want to lean on, but I think honestly it is wrong. If A is the father of B and B is the father of C, then we can conclude that C is the grandfather of A. This is not WP:SYNTH because the basic logical necessity of this is too low level. You only need to do the though experiments to realize this use of the synth rule would block pretty much all editing except direct quotes.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:23, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

In the case of William I of Hainaut, if we were to abide by policy, we would need a source that says he was the son of John II of Hainaut, and that he in turn was the son of Adelaide of Holland, and that she was the daughter of Matilda of Brabant, and that she in turn was the daughter of Henry I of Brabant, and so on for each of the relationships mentioned in the chart. What I would settle with is a mere snippet of what is actually required by WP:V (and thus may be understood as being against WP:SYNTH): just that these people are mentioned somewhere as (great-)great-grandparents of William, regardless of the actual line of descent. That is really not too much to ask. Surtsicna (talk) 15:39, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

What does this mean in practice though? How do you add footnotes into these tables without ruining them? I see no discussion of this idea above. The article mentioned is badly sourced right now, but you've posted no tags in the other parts of the article. Why not work on the main article texts first? You are demanding that the table becomes an article about the family before we even have articles about any members? It would be nice if someone with lots of time wrote an article about the family I guess, but this is a wiki. We can't work that way. We are all volunteers. Any approach which breaks things and then demands other people fix it is a bad approach. We need to make edits which marginally improve the wiki each time, and never take it backwards.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:19, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

I do not know what you are talking about. The article about William I of Hainaut has been exceptionally well sourced for some time now. Everything but one sentence is supported by an inline citation. Besides, I have not posted any tags in that article. I merely reacted to the one that had been there for five years. And no, neither the person who tagged the section nor me who removed it broke anything; citations are not optional, nor are ahnentafeln indispensable. Surtsicna (talk) 21:14, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

You've already written above that deleting the section might force other editors to add an in-line reference, so you are changing your story. I am not seeing any concern with WP:V here. The sources used are WP:RS but not strong. They are good enough for now. They are works known for genealogy, not history, but they are of a quality which gets cited by historians, who do need to look constantly at the genealogy of people in this period as we both know. The genealogies of people in this period is a kind of reference information that is important for reading and studying the history of the period. The kind of thing that might go in a tertiary source, like WP. What we can strongly expect though, which is relevant to your supposed WP:V concern, is that these sources already being cited in the article will name many ancestors in a systematic way.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 22:33, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

In case it is not clear, in practice I propose that at least in pre 1300 bios we should work primarily on the rest of these articles which are almost all badly sourced. Maybe one day they will all be so good that an argument about the pedigree format is meaningful. Of course as in the Charlemagne case I have no problem rooting out truly unsourced individuals. But for best effect we should note our rationales so that this work also impacts editing on the rest of the article, and connected ones.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:35, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

If your proposal is that unsourced content of dubious relevance in pre-1300 biographies should be just ignored, I must disagree with it. There is also no such thing as "truly unsourced". Content is either sourced or it is not. Surtsicna (talk) 21:14, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

I think the discussion would go better if you stopped playing the WP:IDHT game? No, I obviously did not propose this. And there is no logical conflict between "Content is either sourced or it is not" and the term "truly unsourced" because there is a possibility of something being claimed to be unsourced when it is sourced. For example if someone would say that because there is no inline citation in this map, then there is no citation at all, even if the map is explained in the text. I fear we are getting to the point where you are making up your own rules about what a "real" citation is. The funny thing is that you gave one example and it did not look very different to the article where you reverted me twice to insist on a section deletion. Although perhaps you are not familiar with the sources involved? The fact that none of us know everything is a good reason to engage in discussions where you explain your concern before acting, and respond to people who ask for clarification.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 22:59, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

Agricolae, what you are describing is a format/aesthetic preference though? No, absolutely not. I have never seen a biographical account of Alfonso VII of Leon that thought it was worthwhile to give the parentage of Stephanie, wife of William I of Burgundy as part of a recitation of his familial context, yet just yesterday I had to remove a wild guess from the ahnentafel on his page, because an ahnentafel has all ancestors including the ones no historian cares about when talking about the subject. This is not aesthetics or format, it is a content choice, making the editorial decision that this woman's obscure parents are inherently more worth showing than his highly-influential sister, or the relatives who were his main rivals, his step-father Alfonso I and his cousin Afonso I. In using an ahnentafel, we are substituting our judgment of what content is noteworthy over the judgment of scholars. I keep pointing this out - one could put on the page of Henry II of England what he ate on certain days. The information has been published, so it would not violate WP:RS or WP:NOR (or even WP:SYNTH) but it nonetheless is trivia, no matter how fascinating these dietary details might be to certain culinarily-inclined editors. Of course, one editor's trivia is another's curious detail so how do we, as a community, decide what level of detail to include? We couple WP:GENEALOGY with WP:PROPORTION - we include genealogical detail in proportion to the level that reliable secondary sources find specific relationships useful to contextualize the individual, not just because we can, or because a 5-generation ahnentafel template exists. If we are to ignore this critical razor that tells us where to shave the genealogical strands, there is no other policy that prevents an editor exercising their personal interests and adding a 12-generation ahnentafel, or putting on every relevant page what that person's degree of relationship is to Diana, Princess of Wales (whether it be 1st cousin or 35th - some would say that WP:SYNTH prevents this, but you have dismissed the applicability of WP:SYNTH to such genealogical connect-the-dots). Agricolae (talk) 16:13, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

Well, what I replied to was clearly a formatting question. But I think a big problem with this whole discussion is the way the subject keeps changing.

• 1. Removing unsourced individuals from these tables is something I can completely understand, but it seems entirely irrelevant because no one is arguing against that? (Indeed, I suppose one reason I miss these tables when they are being deleted is that if they can be a scorecard of what our articles say, they give a handy way to run up and down dynasties and work on the texts of those articles, which is more important. If we do that, and then keep reducing the templates after we reduce what is in these articles, we can systematically improve them.)
• 2. Concerning notability and trivia, see once again my point about the Isle of Wight. The Isle of Wight might not be important, but a map is a map. When we use this template we are NOT judging what is important and I am confident the format makes this clear. It is a map. It shows links to linked articles. When we delete individuals for not being notable then we are using our judgement. Demanding that we use good sources to tell us who is not a notable relative is just not practical because that is not how these sources are normally written.
• 3. Concerning the number of generations, we have no source or policy to tell how many is the correct number to describe, but that does not mean the correct number is zero. I think this should be a case by case decision. In pre-1300 bios I would propose we are never going to hurt anyone by naming ancestor we actual know confidently.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 17:09, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

You view an ahnentafel as a scorecard. I view them as an invitation full of blank spaces that provide an inherent pressure to complete with whatever someone finds on the internet. Not everyone in an ahnentafel deserves a Wikipedia page, not every space in an ahnentafel is occupied by someone whose identity tells use something useful in understanding the subject.

When you use this template, you are making a direct judgement. There is nothing wrong with a map that leaves out the Isle of Wight, all of Hampshire and the rest of southern Scotland with it in an article about Scotland. Choosing a chart that shows siblings, step-relationships, aunts and cousins at the expense of an obscure mother's father's mother's mother, is prioritizing based on information value, rather than simply 'depriving readers of the Isle of Wight' as if any genealogical table that does not show a person's complete ancestry back 5 generations is somehow inherently, jarringly incomplete, while leaving out important non-ancestral relationships is just fine.

You would set a limit on a case-by-case basis, but based on what, whim? personal preference? gut feeling? And if someone else has a different personal preference or gut feeling, what then? We end up right back here. Or we could have set criteria, show what relationships the scholarly sources think are the relevant ones. Basically, I think we should decide what genealogical information best helps us understand the subject, based on what the sources choose to name, and only then pick the right template to show these people, rather than picking a template and having that choice drive the genealogical content decisions. Agricolae (talk) 17:53, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

Yes. Yes to all of that. Surtsicna (talk) 17:57, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

"You would set a limit on a case-by-case basis, but based on what, whim? personal preference? gut feeling?" Allow me to shock you. Maybe we should edit based on consensus about what explains things in the clearest ways? We sometimes forget on WP with all these discussions about our inside rules, that for editing judgement even things like whether a choice is more enjoyable to readers can be quite a valid issue. That would be why a map maker might prefer a map with a particular colour of coastline or a bit of the Isle of Wight showing. But once again, this map maker can explain why he is not distorting the sources. He is just taking a neutral approach to presenting the information. That is important. If we make a pedigree, then encouraging editors to remove people who can be sourced is a can of worms. Encouraging people to remove individuals who can not be sourced is something I'd happily get behind. Surtsicna deleted a whole table, and can explain no doubts about any of the relationships. Are you saying that was a good thing to do or not? Please be clear.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:10, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

BTW again there is the practical issue. Making a custom-made pedigree is nice, but demanding that other Wikipedians make them for every medieval bio is not going to work. Templates are easy options. Also this template is handy and helps readers get context quickly. It is also collapsible and compact. What harm does it do? We should get rid of unsourced people yes, but why not, as with all good editing, post a rationale whenever we do that. Maybe even suggest some sources on the talk page. It is amazing what a few good posts can do to encourage other editors. We need more mentoring I reckon, not more play acting that we are doing something academic? :) --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:42, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

Surtsicna also replaced an ahnentafel with a chart (on Alfonso VI of Leon) - that was definitely a good thing. As to whatever you are referring to, it depends on the page - I have removed an entire ahnentafel and thought it a 'good thing', and I have also left an ahnentafel in articles when I thought it justifiable. The idea that we should encourage their addition and then try to police them after the fact is unworkable - there aren't enough experts to police them all and the nonsense will grow quicker than it can be policed. I don't think it is a bad thing that using the chart template is harder - it is also harder to insert footnotes when adding text, but it results in a better product, and we don't want to encourage doing something unnecessary in an incorrect manner under the assumption that someone can always clean it up later, when it is still unnecessary. If it is harder to do, then they are less likely to be done on a personal whim, but only, as intended, when they provide insight into the subject of the article. The very nature of an ahnentafel is that it has gaps to be filled in, and encourages the addition of trivia and inaccuracy just to complete the grid. Agricolae (talk) 01:14, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

Obviously I am not denying these should sometimes be deleted, and sometimes have people and branches deleted. Also I am not saying we should encourage their addition. I came to this discussion to raise concerns about a deletion crusade which is being done with no consensus or good practice caution. I think you know I sympathize with your concerns about human nature but in effect you are saying the Wikipedia way of working is not good here. People can add things but should expect them to be removed if they don't meet certain norms and community agreement. That might be true, but until someone invents another approach, this is what we are working on. One problem is indeed perhaps that we have no rules. But discussions on this talk page or some similar forum might eventually create guidelines that help push things better, but the discussion has so far been completely confused with all types of different concerns and opinions mixed up in every post. Eventually the discussion needs splitting up into logical sub-topics. Until there is a better discussion, frustrated individuals should no go around edit warring and refusing discussion.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:01, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

I agree that you should not. And once the frustration subsides, you might see that there are no crusade banners flying around. Surtsicna (talk) 13:32, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

I am sure you did not want to advertise it, but that does not make it better. I do think you need to adjust your approach to working with others.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:00, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

Let's summarize some of the arguments given on this talk page, and see if they are about the sourcing of facts, and not about whether mentioning genealogy is allowed, but perhaps about trying to push specific editorial/format choices which actually have to be made by individuals within WP:

• Agricolae: "If something like a standard is to be deduced from practice, it would be for using the chart template instead of an ahnentafel."
• Surtsicna: "I would have no trouble with the format itself if it were used in peer-reviewed biographies."

Hmmm. I can't see any policy problem at all with this template. I can imagine there might be debates on specific articles. I can imagine that for example if someone makes one of those customized family trees they might suggest using that instead, but most medieval articles are short (or will be if they ever get stripped back to what is really known) and about people who we know very little about. In any case these are case by case editing decisions.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:30, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

What we are debating here is not whether this template is inherently flawed. It is also not whether genealogy is allowed. The latter is a particularly dishonest interpretation of arguments presented here. What is debated here is whether Template:Ahnentafel should be the standard genealogy chart, a format used by default in Wikipedia articles. It is clearly a policy problem if, by default, Wikipedia articles present content (in this case, the names of all 30 ancestors within 5 generations) that is not generally found in published, secondary sources. And if all 30 great-great-grandparents are never named in such sources, as demonstrated by Ealdgyth, then it is a huge policy problem for Wikipedia to habitually present such information. Of course, the same information (names of all 30 ancestors within 5 generations) can be presented in other ways, such as simple prose or Template:Chart, and would then be equally troublesome; so no, it is not about the format but about the content and the lack of such content in published biographies.

And yes, I agree that these are case by case editing decisions, but decisions that should be based on historiographical practice, not our own whims and preferences. Thus, in the case of William, it is up to you to prove that historians name all of his great-great-grandparents. Merely restoring content that had been tagged as unsourced for five years, and arguing that sources are not needed, is not a reasonable editing decision. If we know very little about medieval people, as you say, how can you claim that there is no need to cite sources for their descent from people who lived a century or more before them? Surtsicna (talk) 13:08, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

Let's be clear about what you are saying with this: "it is up to you to prove that historians name all of his great-great-grandparents". What I think you are saying is that I have to find a published book which uses the EXACT same format of genealogical table? Can this possibly be your real position? This demand has nothing to do with Wikipedia policy? Again I point to my Isle of Wight example. If I make a map of Belgium which includes the Isle of Wight, but can not prove that an academic did that somewhere first, would you have an issue with that also? These table are not at all the same as including text in the main body which lists thirty ancestors, because like a map this is a compact design that is meant to be easy to absorb. If we randomly start deleting bits of a diagram like a map we make it harder to understand what it represents - and we achieve nothing important or good.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:34, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

No, you do not need to find a published book which uses the exact same format of genealogical table. I expect you to find a book that names all of his great-great-grandparents in whichever format, even simple prose. That demand is entirely in line with WP:V policy. The tables are obviously not the same as text, but present the same information that can be presented in the form of text, and (again) are no exception to WP:V. Surtsicna (talk) 15:39, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

So to be clear, is it important to you (or indeed according to your reading of WP policy) for all the great great grandparents to be listed in one sentence, or perhaps on one page, or perhaps in all in the same book? Or can they be mentioned on different pages, or in different books? By the way, being in line with WP:V does not mean demanded by WP:V. The question here should be whether these tables can be in line with WP:V. It is confusing and seems meaningless, to say that your concerns are in line with WP:V. And also, what you say about information needing to be presented consistently with WP:V also applies to maps. That does not mean people should tag them and delete them in the way unsourced sections often are.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 16:53, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

It is important to me that all the genealogical information presented in the Wikipedia biography of a person can be found in an academic biography of that same person. Now, I would argue that being in line with WP:V is exactly the same as being demanded by WP:V because WP:V is not a guideline but a core policy; citations are not optional but a requirement. I do not wish to argue maps here and I will not comment on that any further. They are entirely unrelated to this template, unless maps can also have great-great-grandparents. If you wish to learn more about map sourcing, take a look at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Maps#Recommended_conventions or ask about it at Wikipedia talk:Verifiability. Surtsicna (talk) 17:37, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

Can you please answer my direct question? Do all the great great grandparents to be listed in one sentence, or perhaps on one page, or perhaps in all in the same book? Or can they be mentioned on different pages, or in different books?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:02, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

All I find necessary is that the descent of the subject from each person included in the ahnentafel is mentioned somewhere in the scholarly biographies of the subject. Surtsicna (talk) 18:35, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

OK then, putting aside the SYNTH issue mentioned above which I think must surely be resolvable, that means we agree on the ideal aim. How do we get there in practice? Mass deletions without using talk pages? :) Concerning William I of Hainaut I would not mind working on it just for fun if you can advise me though what would make you happy. So I have to ask you again: are you asking for footnotes about each relationship on every person's cell in these tables? I see no argument for this above so is this not a completely new moving of the goals? I would not even mind making a reference list for the section but I think this is not going to look nice or create any consensus either? So I still need to understand why we can't just treat this as an infobox where we are given some latitude to look in the articles in the infobox for the sources. Is that not completely normal on WP for infoboxes which link several articles?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:49, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

Ideally there would be a single citation that confirms all the relationship in a comprehensive study of William I of Hainaut. I would settle for multiple citations from such a study (though I understand the concerns of Celia Homeford and others that this might fail WP:SYNTH). This would not only satisfy WP:V but also prove that all the people named there are relevant to a general biography of William. Now, we seem to have some terminology issues. Template:Ahnentafel is not an infobox. Do you mean navbox? If so, this has been discussed as well; look it up above. Surtsicna (talk) 21:01, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

We don't live in an ideal world and these remarks show how you are not addressing the reality of making a better encyclopedia with the sources that exist and the human editors we have as volunteers. Solo deletion campaigns are not what works here. Most medieval people have no comprehensive study and those who do are not really the ones I am concerned about. I'm afraid that even professional historians now regularly cite sources from 1900 or earlier for the latest ideas on some of these people. As far as I can see the demands you are now coming up with now (comprehensive study... multiple) are purely yours and you have no right to make them. The synth discussion can be had if you want to spin the discussion out but you know this logic won't hold up against any inspection, so I suggest stop referring to it. Concerning navboxes, infoboxes, etc, not only do I compare to them but also to maps, graphs, illustrations. It is not important to this discussion whether they are actually in one of those categories. The point is that these are examples of how WP handles similar situations. I did look at the references on this page though, and I keep seeing two people who have strong personal preferences, and lots of people disagreeing with them. Your attempt to tell me that your two reverts of me are simply missing footnote concerns is new and silly, and not consistent with a good faith reading of WP:V. On a point about presentation and editorial judgement like this one, the fact that many editors are concerned with your proposal is relevant, because us editors are also readers. Making something interesting and easy to use and read in different contexts is ALSO a WP aim. Please don't work against it. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 22:50, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

No, these remarks reflect Wikipedia policy. I am not coming up with any new demands nor are the ones you are referring to purely mine. Please take some time to read this three-month-long discussion. As for me not having the right to make such arguments... well, watch me. WP:Synthesis have been voiced by others, so I suggest that you take your suggestion elsewhere. If you only see two people, you are not looking hard enough; if you only see personal preferences, you are ignoring references to scholarly practice and an extensive analysis of the presentation of genealogy in royal biographies. What is interesting to you may not be interesting to me, and we are not here to debate tastes and preferences but to refer to the experts on the subject. Surtsicna (talk) 01:32, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

True, you can say what you want. But no one has to take it seriously. This talk page has so far not achieved any clear decisions as far as I can see. To pretend otherwise is not going to work well. If you want better discussion and better end decisions you should consider the way that you keep changing your positions and mixing personal preferences with exaggerations about policy claims. Drama is not going to get better results. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:01, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

I have never cited a personal preference. I have only ever referred to scholarly practice and Wikipedia policy. I leave references to personal preference to those who know that scholarly practice is not on their side. Surtsicna (talk) 13:48, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

But it is your personal preference. And that should not be a problem, when it comes to editorial judgements such as the question of when templates are trivial, or 5th generations are irrelevant, but you keep trying to call it policy or scholarly practice. It is neither. You should simply present your case for triviality in clear terms on the talk pages of articles where you have a concern. You should avoid mixing it with the WP:V concern which is clearly mainly a technical disagreement because you are demanding the in-line style of citation we do not always use in such summary boxes. (I am not seeing lots of unverifiable ancestors in the cases I've checked so far, and where I am seeing them, deletion of the whole table is still not required.)--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:00, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

Remember, in the end the question behind WP:V is whether something is verifiable. As far as I know, you don't have any doubts about any of the relationships on the deleted table at all? This is relevant. Why are you picking on this article?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:51, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

"Verifiable" in WP:V does not mean that we, the editors, should know that a source exists somewhere in the universe. It means that the readers are provided with a citation proving that what they are reading has not been invented by us, the editors. Surtsicna (talk) 21:01, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

I think you are not parsing the logic correctly here. Even on WP, the word "verifiable" does not mean what you say it means. I presume you are saying that the WP policy (WP:V) says this? It doesn't and you should look into the fine points of this policy, but this is not our problem here. My concern is what WP norms are about how to address a WP:V concern, in a practical way. After your deletion I reverted you and tried to engage in discussion to work out what was needed. You simply re-reverted, and you've avoided constructive discussion. Now you've admitted above it comes down to one missing footnote which could probably just cite one of the existing sources. Normally when we see problems like this we should fix them ourselves, not delete whole sections. The aim of WP:V is not to wikilawyer about footnote positioning as an excuse to delete things we don't like, but to make sure readers can verify things with reasonable ease. In other words, it is very relevant in practice if we expect that information is correct, but badly cited, or perhaps not correct and therefore never verifiable. This is a long established WP consensus, and not a new topic. You can look at discussions like WP:IRE. Keep in mind I only noticed the deletion by accident. I was not actually editing WP much lately but I've been reading a lot about the counties of this region of Europe, and I wanted a quick reference about how the breaks worked in the Avesnes line and how they connected to some of their neighbors. So there is a reader (me) showing you how these tables are useful. WP:V says "When tagging or removing material for lacking an inline citation, please state your concern that it may not be possible to find a published reliable source for the content, and therefore it may not be verifiable.[5] If you think the material is verifiable, you are encouraged to provide an inline citation yourself before considering whether to remove or tag it."--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 22:33, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

If you dispute my interpretation of the word "verifiable", please bring it up at Wikipedia talk:Verifiability. It is a cornerstone of Wikipedia and I do not feel that I should debate it here any further. And why not quote the rest of the paragraph you quoted? "Any material lacking a reliable source directly supporting it may be removed and should not be restored without an inline citation to a reliable source." So I was right to remove it for being unsourced and you were wrong to restore it without an inline citation to a reliable source. "In some cases, editors may object if you remove material without giving them time to provide references; consider adding a citation needed tag as an interim step." The citation tag was there - for five years. Plenty of time to provide the references. As for you finding these tables useful, I will quote Agricolae because it's getting late over here and I am not fit to phrase it any better: "I don't think editor whim ('I think it is interesting', 'I think someone may find it useful') is sufficient basis for including information. One editor's curiosity is another's mindless trivia. That is why we have policies like WP:PROPORTION." Surtsicna (talk) 00:35, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

I am an experienced editor who arrived recently at the article AFTER the deletion and asked for discussion. You edited warred and your approach to discussion has been unconstructive. WP:V does not tell us we have to do that. But then again, when we've looked at WP:V more closely you changed your position and said WP:V is not necessarily your real concern. Not once have you tried to engage with the actual article material, and you've resisted my efforts to get such discussion, showing that your deletion was part of a blind crusade. And yes, you defined both the word and the policy wrongly.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:01, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

No, I never changed my position that WP:V is my primary concern. The matter is simple: there are no citations. There is nothing in the article to prove to the readers that the material is not made up. Therefore I do not have anything to engage with, really. And if you believe that I define the word and the policy wrong, you had better take it up at Wikipedia talk:Verifiability. Surtsicna (talk) 14:01, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

Groan. Your own edsums when you delete these sections is always referring to the non-existent and impossible "rule" that all the people in the table need to have all been cited in a biography about the article subject. This has nothing to do with WP:V, and even the good example you showed me does not meet this demand. If WP:V was your real concern you would not be re-deleting tables after I have asked to be allowed to work on. The WP:V discussion has been about the way we make these tables verifiable. WP:V is in the end about making sure readers can verify information. How we do this for running text is not necessarily the way we do it for summary tables and illustrations, and that has been an on-going discussion here. Your misrepresentation of WP:V implies that WP:V is only about footnotes like we use in text blocks.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:10, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

No, my edit summaries always refer to the section being tagged as completely unsourced for a number of years. John, William, Floris. That is the WP:V demand. Expecting that the people named should be mentioned in a comprehensive study of the subject is not meant to satisfy WP:V but to establish relevance and the need to mention them in the Wikipedia biography. That is, if no source discusses Theobald I of Bar in the context of William I of Hainaut, then Theobald is presumably not relevant enough to be mentioned in the article about William. But relevance and verifiability are different things and the latter should be dealt with first. Surtsicna (talk) 12:16, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

In recent hours you seem to have changed your standard message because of this discussion? I notice you post your examples here, and not below where I posted mine which show the opposite. You sure like making discussions silly. Anyway, it still does not change the fact that your actions and words have already shown that WP:V is NOT your concern with this template. You don't tag any of these genealogical bits except this template, not even other pedigrees, and you never tag particular individuals in the template etc etc etc. Your main concern is, at best, a matter of editing judgement, where we have no simple rules. Your demand for biography sources should be seen as part of your attempt to convince others about a certain editing judgement you prefer, but I believe it has not convinced any single fellow editor at this stage? It should please cease being presented as WP policy and used for barging through edits without discussion about the actual cases. You should also please stop dishonestly pretending that you have been checking all biographies and found that a person has never been mentioned in one. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:33, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

No, I posted my examples below, right after yours, to disprove them, and I did that before posting here. And no, nothing has changed in recent hours. Yes, both my actions and my words make it obvious that WP:V is my primary concern. And no, it is not true that nobody else here thinks that the relevance of the people mentioned in genealogy charts should be proven by demonstrating that the said people are mentioned in comprehensive studies of the subject. You have even responded to other editors who argued this. It is likewise not true that I was the first to suggest this. All this is obvious from the 3-month-long discussion which you have apparently not yet read. And if you dispute my claim that an obscure great-great-grandparent has never been mentioned in a study of the subject, feel free to disprove me. Surtsicna (talk) 14:02, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

LOL, you posted those after I noted above that you did not. Why do you bother with this kind of side show? There are only probably a few of us capable of handling these issues, so it is tragic if one of them is constantly being a dick to other editors.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 21:47, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

No, I did not. Please check the timestamps in our signatures. And calling a fellow editor a dick is a dick move indeed. Surtsicna (talk) 22:19, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

Well, if I made an error on that timing my apologies. Everything remains as I said. Concerning being a dick, I think it depends on the situation, but in any case you should consider the small but important difference between saying someone should stop "being a dick" and someone "is a dick". I am trying to be optimistic, and hope you can actually switch the BS off. If you want allies to help get rid of nonsense on WP, there are not many of us around. We need to be able to talk to each other.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 22:32, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

Hmmm, on that William of Hainaut article I just noticed which sources are being used. I don't have them at home but I am pretty confident that they will confirm all these relationships, and even though they are not ideal sources, while we have no other ones they at least seem to be WP:RS. For example academics sometimes cite Schwennicke, Europäische Stammtafeln, for better or for worse. Normally in such a case I'd be saying this is good enough for now, and better sources welcome in the future - not starting to delete? So in the spirit of using this as an example, how do others see this case? Why would we start deleting? And if we start deleting why only the table?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:16, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

Does anyone have a copy handy?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:41, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

Case study: Charlemagne

Charlemagne previously included an ahnentafel. Could sources really be said to be lacking in that case? Note that the ahnentafel was not complete: in this case it only included ancestry which could arguably be satisfyingly reflected in sources. Curiously, even as such, Charlemagne's ancestry was included in the very documentation of this ahnentafel template as an example of application until recently. Surtsicna repudiated the ahnentafel of Charlemagne with this edit in December 2018. Does this repudiation really make this article better, more helpful to readers, and a better reflection of available sources? PPEMES (talk) 13:51, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

To me it seems like a misleading edsum to begin with. It is clear surely that Surtsicna did the deletion as part of a WP-wide campaign, and not looking at anything specific to do with individual articles, which is the implication of his edsum. Such crusades are generally frowned upon for good reason on WP. I propose that the crusade as such should stop, because it simply does not have the level of community consensus which would justify such behavior. Obviously discussions about article-specific issues should never stop. The edsum also mentions no consensus to keep, but it seems there is also no consensus to delete?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:00, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

Andrew Lancaster, I kindly ask you to assume some good faith. Yes, I am crusading against unsourced content. That has never been frowned upon on Wikipedia. The ancestry presented in the ahnentafel of Charlemagne was described as "speculative" by you in 2017. These speculated ancestors remained in the ahnentafel until I removed it. It is therefore not true that the ahnentafel only included verifiable ancestry; the parentage of Charlemagne's grandmother Rotrude is disputed and is not even discussed in any comprehensive biography of Charlemagne. And lastly, "the onus to achieve consensus for inclusion is on those seeking to include disputed content". Surtsicna (talk) 14:55, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

Sorry if it seemed that way. I am sure you have good intentions and think you are doing the right thing. I just see that there are practical issues and confusions in your approach. This type of situation, when someone breaks off and starts deleting anyway, is a common one, and that is why I say there is a sort of community position on it. Concerning AGF, please also stop writing as if I said WP:V can be ignored. You have not been able to convince me this is a WP:V problem, at least in any of the other cases. A WP:V problem is when someone really doubts something is verifiable. WP:V does not apply to editorial and presentation decisions. We do not tag maps or graphs in the same way we tag text. If there was actually a dispute about the people in the table which was discussed before deletion then I clearly misunderstood, based on the context.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:12, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

BTW good catch finding my old comment on the table! I hope this also helps explain my own priorities. I don't think I am lax about WP:V.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:14, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

I am afraid you are misinterpreting WP:Verifiability. It is not about whether you and I, the editors, feel that something can be verified. It is about whether the people reading an article are provided with a source that proves that what they are reading was not just made up by us, the editors. I may be a history buff who knows that Charlemagne was the son of Bertrada of Laon, and that she was the daughter of Charibert of Laon, and that he was the son of Bertrada of Prüm; but we owe a citation to our readers. Surtsicna (talk) 15:47, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

Technically, you are not really reporting the policy accurately. We do not need to cite for everything. But in any case that is irrelevant, because I never removed any sourcing or said sourcing was not important. Diagrams and illustrations should represent information which our readers can verify somehow, but not necessarily through the footnotes we typically use for running text. Typically this means making sure that everything is cited within the article. In this case we have an infobox about a whole cognatio, similar to the situation of a dynasty infobox, or an infobox about people who held an office, and so in some cases a reader may have to click to one of the other articles if they want to check the sourcing for someone the infobox mentions.

Let's be realistic about the context too please. We both know this is not a concern about whether something is verifiable. You are not rushing around deleting anything else in all these poorly sourced articles. Furthermore, most of the editors you see as agreeing with you were apparently happy if we could reduce the number of generations which means none of these wikilawyering points are seen by them as very strong I presume. You are the one going around deleting. We surely all know that tagging is not always done correctly. It is something even done "strategically".--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 16:28, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not an academic publication. In terms of formats, we are quite new and innovative.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:04, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia is based on academic publications. The format is not the issue here. Article content is. If all 16 great-great-grandparents are never named in academic biographies, naming them all should not be common in Wikipedia biographies. If no published biography of Charlemagne names Lambert of Hesbaye, neither should Wikipedia's biography of Charlemagne. Surtsicna (talk) 18:14, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

Is anyone arguing otherwise? Who would you see as the equivalent of Lambert of Hesbaye in the William of Hainaut table which you deleted?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:24, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

What we do not need to cite is that which is common knowledge. It is not common knowledge that Bertrada of Prüm was the mother of the father of the mother of Charlemagne; therefore that needs to be sourced. We should not leave our readers to "somehow" verify what we write. I agree that Charlemagne's descent from Bertrada of Prüm would not need to be cited within a chart if it were mentioned (with a citation) elsewhere in the article - but it is not. A reader must also not be required to go to other articles to verify information found in Charlemagne. If you have doubts about this, I strongly encourage you to refer to Wikipedia talk:Verifiability. And no, we do not "both know this is not a concern about whether something is verifiable". To me, the lack of citations is a concern. Surtsicna (talk) 17:52, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

So what is your verifiability concern in the William of Hainaut article where you deleted a whole table? Not the first time I asked.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:04, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

The lack of citations for the chart. Not the first time I said that either. Surtsicna (talk) 18:09, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

But is this not then a general call for deletion of all these tables in WP, on a point of principle which not everyone agrees with? How would your demand be satisfied?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:23, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

No, it is not. Some of these tables are sourced. My demand would be satisfied by providing citations. Surtsicna (talk) 18:38, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

Maybe you can show me a good example?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:52, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

A good example of an ahnentafel that is at the very least perfectly verifiable is the one found in George V. Surtsicna (talk) 19:42, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

Thank you! I think we are bringing this forward. Thank you both for your patience. Would you mind for that ahnentafel to be extended to 5 generations, provided satisfactory WP:V? PPEMES (talk) 19:46, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

Yes, I would mind that. Surtsicna (talk) 20:24, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

PPEMES I would say this is as an editorial decision to be made by active editors of the article. But is there any need to raise a controversy? I think for a modern monarch where all relatives have heaps we can say about them, and also big long names, 4 looks pretty good?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:50, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

Indeed thank you. It is a neat case where one footnote apparently suffices. This has been done by using a genealogical source, but I think WP:RS at first sight for this type of information. So what is wrong with the sources on William of Hainaut which are probably also suitable for such use? I am sorry that I do not have ES handy, but I guess it is going to contain the needed information.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:53, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

Which sources on William of Hainaut do you consider probably suitable for such use? Allow me to note, again, that merely being verifiable does not make information worthy of inclusion. It has been argued here, extensively by several users, that Wikipedia biographies should only contain information that is found in comprehensive studies of the subject; that is, if no expert in the subject has found it necessary to include a piece of information, then that piece of information should not be included in Wikipedia's general biography of the subject. So while citing a specialist publication such as a genealogy magazine satisfies WP:V, it does not prove that the content is relevant enough to be included in a general biography. But that bridge should be crossed once more pressing matters have been addressed.
In the case of William I of Hainaut, I would certainly prefer a chart that includes people directly relevant to his life and thus mentioned in the article (e.g. his brothers, his uncle, his brother-in-law Philip VI of France, his sons-in-law Edward III of England and Louis of Bavaria, his cousins Guy of Namur and John II of Brabant) rather than some obscure great-grand-grandparents, whose relevance is not obvious from any scholarly work about William. Surtsicna (talk) 20:24, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

I think you are moving goals very fast here and maybe you've confused yourself and not only me! Which genealogy magazine do you think we are talking about? You explained your concern (WP:V), and you gave an example. Let's stick to that concern first, especially given that you pretty much insisted that was your only concern. What difference are you seeing between that acceptable example of sourcing for someone's ancestry, and the sources already on the article we were discussing which we can put in a footnote if you insist? (Concerning a diagram showing other types of relationships I think that is a different subject. This is not a long article. There is nothing strange about using more than one diagram to show family positions for nobles in this period. So make one? Let me know if you have a good idea and want me to help.) It seems to me that you must be circling back to what I thought you were saying originally. Basically you are using WP:OR to argue that William's Limburg ancestry was not important. I am finding that bizarre from a historical point of view, but from a WP policy point of view it is simply not how we work. A pedigree is a neutral and compact presentation of a type of information we have agreed to be relevant for this period. Deleting the branches you do not like is (still) like deleting an island from a map. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:50, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

No, I am not moving goals. This has all been discussed. The discussion started in March, so I understand it is very difficult to get a hold of it in one day. I did not refer to any specific genealogy magazine. I mentioned "a specialist publication such as a genealogy magazine"; this can be any publication dealing with genealogy. While it verifies the content, it does not prove that is relevant to a general biography. I am all for addressing WP:V concern first, though I have never insisted that it is my only concern. In fact, we have been discussing relevance in addition to verifiability here for months. Which ancestors of William are important can be determined by checking scholarly biographies of William. If no comprehensive study of William mentions William's Limburg ancestry, neither should a general Wikipedia biography. In the case of Charlemagne, dozens of comprehensive biographies exist; if none of them mentions his descent from Bertrada of Prüm, neither should the Wikipedia biography of him. The people who should be mentioned in a genealogy table in that article are those who are habitually discussed in these works: his brother, sister-in-law, nephews, cousins, etc. Surtsicna (talk) 21:42, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

Are there even any scholarly biographies of William? Quite likely not, but he is a notable person discussed in many books. Suddenly you are demanding a source which might not exist, when previously you were saying the sources in this article were good! How on earth have you suddenly come to feel that you may demand that WP may only use biographies for articles about individuals? Are we going to start an even bigger mass deletion campaign? Of course we can use many types of expert publication, and of course you already know that these do inform us of his family connections, including the one to Limburg. Waleran III was a Duke! His inheritance is a major topic for historians of this region, and we are talking about the male line of William I's own mother whose father was a Duke in that line. This discussion does not seem serious. You are clearly just inventing your own rules to try to make things impossible, but the table you said was acceptable did not cite a biography, and you already said you thought the sourcing for the William article was good except for the box!!!--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 23:08, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

I could not find any stand-alone biographies but there are very detailed entries in the biographical reference works of Germany and Belgium. Yes, we can use many types of expert publications to verify content, but relevance to a general Wikipedia biography is proven by citing a comprehensive biography. That is not something that I have suddenly come to feel. It is one of the major points of this three-month-long discussion and has been argued by multiple users. If Waleran III of Limburg is relevant in the context of William I of Hainaut, it will be easy to find a source explaining this relevance. The table I said was "at the very least perfectly verifiable" did not cite a biography, true, which is why I feel that it excludes relevant people and includes irrelevant people. For example, much is made of George V's relationship to Wilhelm II and Nicholas II in every biography of George V, but you would be hard-pressed to find a single reference to Louise Caroline of Hesse-Kassel or the Duke of Kent and Strathearn. Surtsicna (talk) 01:13, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

It is clearly an arbitrary rule which as you say, has evolved, or is continuing to evolve, as part of a specific long and confused argument on this talkpage. What is clearest about this talk page is that not even the proposals of different sides are clear, let alone the definitions for future action. So we can expect a mess if anyone tries pretending that following this "rule" is somehow following a clearly agreed consensus or WP policy. The place to debate reliable sources when needed is WP:RS, and this rule is not compatible with the normal approaches there.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:40, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

And just to keep pointing to the hypocrisy and "digging deeper" nature of this demand, this "rule" would make the example you chose of good sourcing (George V) unacceptable, because the table is not citing a biography. This of course makes sense because the way you've designed your rule it would be almost impossible to use in practice in order to make a good article, using normal editorial judgement. Above in this discussion I see that some editors with doubts about these pedigree tables believe it is better to make custom made pedigrees showing important relationships. This rule could lead to debates about deleting one person from a verifiable family tree (of any format, including running text) because they can only be cited in a book which is not a biography. Or it could perhaps lead to the types of debates WP had in its early wikilawyering era whereby someone insists that a mistake in a biography needs to be included in the WP family tree, even though stronger sources make it clear it is wrong. (Biographies are not the strongest sources normally speaking.)--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:26, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

I see that you have a habit of doing section deletions where this self-invented biography rule is your main/only explanation. Obviously those deletions can and should be reverted and discussed properly. Please avoid unclear or misleading edsums and tag bombing.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:26, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

"Verifiability does not guarantee inclusion." Several times I have provided a link to WP:ONUS, the policy saying just that and explaining it. WP:PROPORTION has also been brought by me and by others. Yes, custom-made pedigrees showing important relationship and not showing trivial ones are better. No, I only have a habit of deleting sections that have been tagged as unsourced for many years. I would appreciate if you followed WP:V, which says that such material "should not be restored without an inline citation to a reliable source". Surtsicna (talk) 13:25, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

What we are talking about here are deletions where by your own account WP:V is not the issue. Your own edsums and your explanations when pressed here on this talk page keep showing your mainly concerned with standards you've developed yourself.

To the extent that WP:V might be an issue in some cases I am asking you as an editor arriving fresh to this problem, to work on these cases, which I can not do if you keep deleting everything using this "tag was old" excuse. After 5 years what does it hurt to give an extension in the context of this good faith discussion? Whatever else you think, you have to admit that at least in my mind and the minds of some other good faith editors, it is not clear that there has been or is any consensus about how to meet WP:V in this particular template. Furthermore, similar types of templates and boxes show that WP has a long history of flexible approaches to such cases (which does not mean exemptions from WP:V). While this is the case, wikilawyering and edit warring is a very unconstructive approach which has nothing to do with the aims of this wiki. So you know there is a good faith discussion, and you know I am trying to look into and work on some of these examples afresh and was not involved with the articles while they were tagged.

Today I have added sourcing to one template, but had several re-deleted before I could work on them. Your edsums have pretended no knowledge of any other discussion or context. This does not look good faith to me. You seem a bit obsessed with these templates.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:38, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

No, whenever I delete a section tagged as unsourced, the primary reason is it being unsourced and that is made perfectly clear in the edit summary. Your continuing denial of this does not set the ground for a good faith discussion. Surtsicna (talk) 13:55, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

Nonsense. Yes you sometimes also mention WP:V, but not always and when you do it is not generally marked as a more primary reason. Furthermore, when you do you often dishonestly pretend you went out and checked all the biographies which supposedly exist. Furthermore, your own actions such as redeleting when someone asks to work on something, show zero concern for actually improving the ease of verification. You also never mention that there is a discussion on-going while you rush around deleting. From edsums for deletions by Surtsicna: --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:24, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

• Floris V, Count of Holland "no relevance and no precedent for the use of charts such as this one in academic biographies", "replacing an unsourced chart containing people of dubious relevance with a chart sourced to a scholarly biography",
• William I, Count of Hainaut "excessive and of no apparent relevance", "The relevance is also not obvious at all because none of William's biographers name these people. How exactly did Philippa of Dreux or Theobald I of Bar affect William's life?"
• John I, Duke of Brabant "No indication that these people are named in any biography of the subject"

That is grossly dishonest. In every single case, the first time I deleted the ahnentafel, the first reason given was it being tagged as unsourced for many years. John, William, Floris. Surtsicna (talk) 12:00, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

What you say is what you are LOL. You have a history of mentioning this fraudulent pseudo rule. You don't have a history of saying it is a less important matter. But anyway I am happy if this discussion means you will stop posting this BS and tricking editors to believe in rules we do not have. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 22:10, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

Holy crap. Surtsicna (talk) 22:28, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

Crap indeed. But in short WP has no rule at all which says genealogical charts need to be based on "scholarly biographies". You have written over and over and over as if there is one.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 22:38, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

Of course it does not. It does have a rule that says that articles should "treat each aspect with a weight proportional to its treatment in the body of reliable, published material on the subject." This was originally pointed out by Agricolae and Celia Homeford. Surtsicna (talk) 22:52, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

Which is of course not a rule which says we should use biographies only! Why do you keep going on and on? In some cases, such an approach will certainly be in conflict with our policies, as I have explained below. We can and should of course use good sources if we have some, to guide our balancing/weighting editorial judgment. But basically it comes down to consensus seeking. The spirit of WP:DUE (and indeed our content policies) is of course exactly the opposite of telling people to only use one source, or one specific type of good source for such discussions. Any family connection of an individual which is published in a RS and notable might potentially be included in our articles on that person. There is for example no rule which stops us proposing to use a work written about Lambert I of Louvain for something we put in an article about his descendant. Celia Homeford was apparently grappling with a WP:SYNTH concern which maybe related to specific cases, but with all due respect I think that attempt to create a general definition of SYNTH for family connections in biographies was not completely thought through, and nor was it correct according to WP norms. Very simply WP:SYNTH does not apply to rewording of English, and the word grandparent, for example, can be rewritten as parent's parent. Banning that level of "research" would mean we can only cut and paste from sources. We do not have to source "synthesis" based on an understanding of the English language. We can also, certainly, put together ideas found in several sources. WP would not be possible otherwise, and there have been many discussions about these misunderstandings over the years.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 23:14, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

Yes, any family connection of an individual which is published in a RS and notable can and should be mentioned in the article about that individual. The notability of this connection should be demonstrated by references to historians who are experts in the individual, i.e. in the subject of the article. Merely claiming something to be notable does not cut it. Surtsicna (talk) 09:23, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

No, lack of evidence is not evidence of a lack. By the logic you are using, if I find an article about someone's castle building you can argue that this is not allowed in the article about the castle builder, only in the article about the castle. You are trying to invent general rules which do not exist and which we do not need. The relevance of a topic to an article is something you have to discuss with fellow editors, including people with other tastes and interests. Our source authors do not need to be specifically experts on the article subject, because they are often experts on topics which relate to only one aspect of the article subject, such as a castle they built. You can't say books about dynasties, for example, are not allowed to be used because they are too genealogical, and not only about one individual.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:59, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

The relevance of content is not something to be determined by the "tastes and interests" of editors. It is Wikipedia policy that the content of an article should reflect the content of expert literature on the subject. Surtsicna (talk) 10:34, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

No, the content itself should come from published sources. The editing decisions about such as things as the boundaries of the article topic, which determines relevance, are decided by us.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:44, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

You are contradicting policy, which makes discussion with you futile. Surtsicna (talk) 11:11, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

You are apparently trying to confuse the issue by making unclear accusations. Or do you say that WP policy strictly prohibits the use of books on castles or books about dynasties, in the making of WP articles about individuals who built castles, or were part of dynasties? That is what you were replying to. I am saying WP content and balance policies do not attempt to define to this level of detail. You have to convince other editors. We all have tastes and interests, sure, so this will influence our actions, including yours. The problem comes when one person tries to push their POV unduly, which is what you are doing with the deleting and the dishonest policy explanations.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:23, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

My references to WP:PROPORTION policy are exactly the same as those made by other editors on this page, and there is nothing dishonest about that. Anyone can read the policy and find out themselves. Surtsicna (talk) 11:53, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

Do you say that WP policy strictly prohibits the use of books on castles or books about dynasties, in the making of WP articles about individuals who built castles, or were part of dynasties? That is what you were replying to. Whatever other people have said, it was not in reply to that.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:09, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

No, I do not say that. I say that the ancestors mentioned in a WP biography should be the ancestors mentioned in "reliable, published material on the subject". WP:PROPORTION. Surtsicna (talk) 12:30, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

Strange thing to say in reply to my post on another subject then? Is there anyone actually proposing anything else? I was replying to a point you made about notability, not verifiability. You were saying notability can only be determined by looking at sources by experts in an individual. That was not correct, just as it was also not true that we can only cite biographies for family connections. OK?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:53, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

Charlemagne article includes both maps and other images, as do many biographical articles, containing bits of information as well as connections of bits of information of whose importance may not be discussed in biographical literature, or even be included there at all (if something is surely off the chart in the article design, it better be deleted, though, obiously) Whereas ahnentafels surely are around for Charlemagne in print, although not necessarely in most print biographies, with importance of relations to 2nd great grandparents being discussed. Still, precisely an ahnentafel including this has been included for years. Point is, if we want to rigidly enforce over-the-board deletion for 5 generational ahnentafels even on articles like Charlemagne, we risk cutting of a whole lot of branches of information by the same interpretation of policies in a way that I find it hard would benefit Wikipeda's progress. PPEMES (talk) 13:50, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

I'd have to look at the case again but I believe one of the problems we will see with many pre-1050 (approx) people is that the ahnentafels are going to be full of gaps (as long as we stick to well verified people). In those case it is not an efficient means of presentation. I am sure Agricolae would also want me to add that people have a bad habit of wanting to fill those gaps with whatever they can find on geni.com or whatever. If you think I'm wrong in this case please feel free to post the proposed Ahnentafel on my user page to show me. (I presume it was already discussed on the article talk page?)--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:57, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

Well, obviously not all entries in a 5 generational ahentafel needs to filled, even if sources exist. In Charlemagne's case, only certain branches of family origins where display, when offered satisfactory sources. Howevever, it's good we brought this up. In scarcely covered biograhpies of the Early Middle Ages, obviously information may be provided in plain text reflection varying degrees of certainty in sources, but how to deal with that level of certainty in ahnentafels? WP:V should be hard on this one, but arguments could also be made for minor leeways on a case by case basis. C.f. for intance the varying degrees of acceptance of certainty of sources in early medieval Norse sagas, etc. PPEMES (talk) 14:16, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

I personally don't have strong feelings about including speculative ancestors (ancestors which good sources have speculated about, not ones which we speculate about) with for example a question mark, but we have to realize that if we dare do this we make our work less likely to create a stable consensus. I think using this template for the most certain people only is safest. Of course there will be cases where a particular ancestor is uncertain, but also important to a person's life story. I think in those cases special explanation should be in or near the pedigree, or in a footnote attached to that person or section. Do you have examples in mind?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:47, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

I agree. I don't have anything to add to your comment, really. I try to keep myself short here - already considerable text around. PPEMES (talk) 16:01, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

Case study: Boris Johnson

While we could exclusively contain available information in plain text as seen in Boris Johnson#Early life and education, would providing an ahnentafel somewhere suitably in the article really be commiting such a sin? Perhaps even Template:Boris Johnson family background section could be helped by the ahnentafel template? PPEMES (talk) 19:36, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

I'd need to look at the case. Typically for modern people I would avoid these tables, but I know his ancestry is considered newsworthy.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:50, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

He should not have an Ahnentafel. This is the problem - you start asking 'why not', and 'what harm' and that becomes an excuse for littering genealogical trivia all across Wikipedia, using it as decoration. A modern politician's complete ancestry for 5-generations may be a passing curiosity to some editor, but is not noteworthy, nor an actor's, nor a TV commentator's, nor a social media star's - we should have a better reason than simply 'because we can' to include any information in a Wikipedia article. Agricolae (talk) 18:32, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

Case in point, starring my much younger self. Rather embarrassing now! :) Surtsicna (talk) 18:38, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

I took this case because the material of an ahnentafel is already discussied in plain text. I take it you think that material should be deleted then from that article? PPEMES (talk) 18:56, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

A 5-generation ahnentafel, as you advocate it, cannot be formed from the material already discussed in plain text because only 5 out of 30 needed people are named in plain text, and those 5 include the subject's parents. Surtsicna (talk) 19:01, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

I'm not saying necessarly all 30 entries are needed. Possibly, an idea would be to just fill those entries that have their own articles, in the same fashion as the plain text deals with the material. Would you mind that? PPEMES (talk) 19:09, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

Yes. I would mind that. Agricolae (talk) 19:37, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

It is probably worth mentioning - the Boris Johnson page had a tree, but it was removed years ago and nobody seems to miss it. Agricolae (talk) 19:48, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

So here it is purely a matter of preference of presentation, whether plain text could also be illustrated by this template? PPEMES (talk) 20:29, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

Not accepting that the Prime Minister cannot be adequately understood without naming an obscure Pennsylvania pharmacist on his page is more than just preference of presentation. Agricolae (talk) 21:03, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

Let's say you suggested that those preexisting details be deleted from plain text, but the suggestion would not be accepted - would an ahnentafel reflecting the included material not be helpful?

Not following your hypothetical - if information that isn't in the article but was in the ahnentafel before it was removed were to hypothetically be in the article and I wanted to remove it but it wasn't, would that justify an ahnentafel? Huh? I am just going to say no, because there shouldn't be an ahnentafel in that article, as its very structure encourages further addition of true-but-trivial genealogical information to fill out the format.

I get it that a (historical) royal is governing within a context of collaboration and competition among neighboring monarchs, and that close genealogical relationships might explain their claims and alliances, but the same is not true of the Prime Minister. Giving his parents and siblings is pretty standard in all biographical accounts. In his case, the unusual cosmopolitan nature of his background has been specifically highlighted in coverage, and is thus worth mentioning, but this does not justify making a full study of his complete ancestry a part of his article. We don't need an ahnentafel or tree to convey the fact that he had Jewish and Muslim great-grandfathers - stating it is enough. Agricolae (talk) 01:58, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

And just to add a counterpoint, not all historical kings are appropriately illuminated with an ahnentafel either. A recent edit drew my attention to Godfrey of Bouillon, King of Jerusalem, a page I have had watchlisted for a decade but haven't really looked at closely before. The most important genealogical relationships in placing his actions into context are those named in the text, as nephew of Godfrey IV of Lorraine, and as brother of Godfrey's successor Baldwin I and of Eustace III. Do we provide a chart to illustrate these important relationships? No, of course not. Instead it has been deemed more important to show that his great-great-grandfather was some obscure bolognese count whose entire Wikipedia article is nothing but a genealogical place-holder. This is a prime example where an ahnentafel is illustrating trivial distant ancestral connections at the expense of a chart showing more noteworthy relationships. This is not simply a question of format/style - it is a fundamental question as to whether genealogy is shown here to serve the articles, or if the articles are just to be used as excuses for showing genealogy. Agricolae (talk) 14:47, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

I have addressed this issue by replacing the ahnentafel with a chart sourced to a biography of Godfrey. Your last point is also echoed by WP:Not genealogy, which says: "Family histories should be presented only where appropriate to support the reader's understanding of a notable topic." Since naming Arnulf III of Boulogne does not support the reader's understanding of Godfrey of Bouillon, there is no reason to mention Arnulf in the article about Godfrey (or, indeed, vice versa). The family history that does support the understanding of Godfrey includes his uncle Godfrey the Hunchback, aunt Matilda of Tuscany, cousin Albert III of Namur, and other collateral relatives. Surtsicna (talk) 17:42, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

This is an interesting example of why the style of rationale which has been treated as a rule is actually in some cases going to be lead to infringement of core content policies. It is by no means better. I will just go through the logic. Proposal is that if we only use charts from biographies, this must be better than charts we constructed ourselves. We've already see how this is not true. As long as the family links, the facts, are sourceable, making a chart is an editing judgement, and not needing this kind of rule. But now let's ask ourselves could this "BS pseudo policy" even be problematic according to WP policies and priorities sometimes? Yes certainly. Because biographies of someone like Geoffrey focus on various aspects of his life and links. Longer works about people in this periods indeed rarely only have one table, but several. Maybe we should do the same. He is a person concerning whom I think it is very safe to say that every part of his family tree has been seen as possibly significant. So, although we can now say we have a chart which appears in a book, in practice that is not so important. The essence of what has been done is actually a deletion of branches judged to be less important. Who did that judgement? Was the writer of the book thinking of WP when they made the chart? No, the decision was made right here. Surtsicna has deleted all reference to Geoffrey's own male line (not just Arnulf III) which is in this period always important, and even the much discussed Louvain connection. Reading the post above you can see Surtsicna's rationale. It is Surtsicna, the WP editor, who is demanding that specific lines are important and others are not. I can't see any way to say that this decision is somehow policy-based, and of course it is also not consensus based because Surtsicna does not appear able to do working with others. On the other hand I am not saying the chart is bad for showing the things Surtsicna wanted to show, and as a fellow editor I can see those are relevant things to show. Therefore I believe in this case there should also be a plain ancestry template like the one which was removed. I see absolutely no problem having both. This is certainly not the type of individual where there is any doubt about the importance of his direct ancestors. These are always important in this period. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 22:04, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

The judgement of which relatives of Godfrey are important to mention was done by Dr Simon John, a senior lecturer in Medieval History at Swansea University, in a "new appraisal of the ancestry and career" of Godfrey, which explores him "in the light of the careers of his ancestors". So no, it is not Surtsicna, the editor, who is "demanding that specific lines are important and others are not". It is also not Surtsicna who first suggested that the ahnentafel was a wrong choice. Surtsicna, the editor, merely addressed the concern raised and reasonably argued by another editor and cited an expert in the subject.
The problem with having "a plain ancestry template" is that it shows people who are not mentioned by historians in the context of Godfrey of Bouillon. I trust that an academic historian who published four works specifically about Godfrey of Bouillon knows who is relevant to Godfrey's life better than a Wikipedia editor. If you can cite a historian that discusses "the importance of his direct ancestors" and "Geoffrey's own male line", you are welcome to. Surtsicna (talk) 08:49, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

You are either getting yourself confused or else trying very hard to confuse others. First, the example. Dr Simon John is the author of one book you can see snippets of on google books. His book contains no opinions about what should be in the WP article. Lack of evidence is not evidence. The book does also mention all or most of the people who've now been deleted from the article. Here is another book which complements his, but of course we know that in this case verification is easy. It is tendentious to suggest that you think the relationship of Godfrey and his paternal grandparents is mentioned by no RS!! Second concerning your actions, you are the one deleting and one posting the dishonest rationales for the deletions. No one else is responsible. Examples, of authors who explain the importance of direct blood ancestors in this period for nobles are David Crouch and Georges Duby, right? Fourth, the "problem" you keep mentioning is not a WP policy problem. It is your POV. You need to convince others in each case if you think it is important.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:10, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

Please do not be ridiculous; we do not need authors to express opinions about what should be in a Wikipedia article. John has made it clear what he considers relevant to the subject by including it in his comprehensive study of the subject. No, the book does not mention Arnulf or other people who have been removed; cite it to prove otherwise. Where does Murray's book mention Godfrey's descent from the people who have been removed? I do not see it. If Godfrey's descent from his paternal grandparents is mentioned in a study of Godfrey, cite it. Do Crouch or Duby discuss Godfrey's descent from his paternal grandparents? No, this is not about my POV. Repeating this accusation will not make it true; neither will shouting it in boldface. This is about what experts in the subject consider relevant. Surtsicna (talk) 10:30, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

If we are deleting whole sections of articles when we know other editors don't want us to, the onus is on us to show we are doing this for good faith reasons. If we are using a date tag as a supposedly main excuse, when we know the tagging itself has been the subject of long good faith policy-based discussion, which was never in conflict with WP:V, the onus is on us to show that we are doing this for good faith reasons. All these things seem to be in fundamental conflict with WP norms, such as, for example WP:DEADLINE. I mentioned Crouch and Duby as sources for a talk page discussion, not an article. I was pointing out that published experts tells us about the general importance of blood lines in this period. Concerning the article, can you post opinions and questions there?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:48, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

No, "the onus to achieve consensus for inclusion is on those seeking to include disputed content." See WP:ONUS. The tagging of these sections as unsourced has never been found to be dubious, much like the sections themselves have never been made exempt from WP:V. Blood lines being generally important does not translate to Godfrey of Bouillon's descent from Arnulf of Holland being important; the latter has to be demonstrated directly. I am not sure which opinions and questions you would like me to post. Surtsicna (talk) 11:09, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

But you've admitted many times there is no disputed content. You say your reason for deleting is that you come across old tags. You know the tagging itself has been disputed and that there are ongoing discussions. But you rush ahead and delete as many as possible so others can not improve them in a way which would suit everyone's demands in a more widely agreeable way. That has to stop. You can keep trying to twist my words, but it won't get us anywhere.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:14, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

There is unsourced content and there is content whose relevance cannot be demonstrated by citing the literature on the subject. Neither belongs in a Wikipedia article. I do not know that tagging itself has been disputed; I do know that genealogy being subject to WP:V has been disputed, and that attempts to declare it exempt have failed. I do not know which words of yours you think I have twisted; it is evidently wise of me to have taken to quoting you directly and providing direct links to your comments. Surtsicna (talk) 11:39, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

You do know there is dispute about the appropriateness of the type of tag because the type of verification has been a technical question. You try to represent this as a demand that genealogy being exempt from WP:V, but this is a dishonest misrepresentation. Most important to me is that we've shown with real examples that the WP:V problem can be resolved in a way which suits all the different policy-based opinions. Your section deletions now are clearly only intended to block that from happening on a larger scale!--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:57, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

No. Surtsicna (talk) 12:16, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

If you keep deleting after our recent discussions and the examples I went through with you in good faith, then this clearly has nothing at all to do with anything other than disruptive POV pushing.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:39, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

Deletion campaign moratorium required; and summary of discussion points

If necessary we can call a bigger community RFC, in case discussion here keeps getting bogged down by people trying to muddy the waters, but let's try to establish some basics here if we can. To me it is clear that the deletion campaign is against Wikipedia norms and should stop and be reversed as much as possible, at least for medieval nobles. The dates on the unreferenced tags should be ignored for now, and material should be fixed and preserved where appropriate, but not deleted as a whole. I will attempt to summarize the issues, and see if they justify a mass deletion campaign, as has been pursued by one editor:

• Missing footnotes, tagged for years. In context, this is clearly being done as POV pushing, rushed deletion "on a technicality", avoiding discussion, and thus not an appropriate reason for massive deletions. Notes on this:
  • Since the old tags were placed there has been both debate and technical work about how to make the information verifiable. The tags were written by someone who wanted to insist on using the same rules as running text, and it is extremely clear that many editors found that inappropriate. Arguably the tags should be deleted or perhaps replaced with a more specific tag. Maybe even a custom made one to explain the situation?
  • My thanks to User:Surtsicna for showing us the George V article which demonstrates how a footnote can now be added to the template. That's all that is needed to avoid the issue which is being used to justify deletions. But time is clearly now needed. In the meantime it would be obviously inappropriate for those who don't like the template to run around deleting them all before this can be done.
  • Verifiability itself, the question of whether the information is verifiable, and can be shown to be so, is not itself the major concern of any editor I've seen in any of the examples I've looked at, only the format and approach to citations. Often the sourcing already appears on the articles but is just not in any in-line footnote. That is relevant to how we should work together in a common sense way.
  • It is clear that deletions are being done by people who don't like the template, using the old tags as a technical excuse. Using this as a reason for deletions allows editors to avoid consensus building concerning WP:DUE weight etc. This is against wiki norms and policy.
  • According to WP:PRESERVE and common sense our default approach when there is no good clear consensus is that we should not delete informative work, that will tend to get lost or difficult to recover. Anyone trying to deliberately make material get lost before it can be discussed is clearly working in opposition to some very old and core principles of this wiki.
  • There is no WP:DEADLINE on WP, so demands that the tags have to be acted on because old are not correct. New discussions and solutions have created a new solution and the dates on those tags should be seen as irrelevant now.
• Other policies have been raised as possible justifications for massive deletion but none of those can justify mass deletions because they are all matters of editorial judgement. The approach to defining where to draw the line is supposed to be consensus building and discussion, except in clear cases. Any approach which seeks to circumvent discussion is clearly working against the spirit of all such guidelines.
  • WP:NOTGENEALOGY obviously does not tell us we can not mention anything genealogical.
  • WP:SYNTH obviously does not forbid all types of synthesis. For example we do not need to cite the dictionary in order to show what a grandfather is, and of course putting together information from several sources is basically our main mission.
  • There is certainly no rule anywhere that we have to use "biographies" for all genealogical or prosopographical citations. The widespread use of this claim to justify deletions has been fundamentally dishonest.
  • There are certain types of article where genealogical information is obviously important, such as with medieval nobles. In those cases the default assumption before any discussion is that it should not be quickly deleted. In the mass deletion campaign these are however the cases where deletions have been pushed through the most, clearly in order to try to rush through changes without discussion. That should stop.
• There is a also the "slippery slope" concern of User:Agricolae. According to my understanding, the fear is that allowing people to add genealogical information will inevitably be like a gateway drug to silly levels of inappropriate material (trivial, unverifiable etc). I can surely sympathize with the concern but it is the concern with almost anything on any wiki. We can't stop wikis being wikis. This concern is too general to be anything but a background guide to specific decisions like this one. Unless we say WP is seriously going to forbid all mention of family relationships, I don't see how it justifies massive deletions. That conclusion is really only a non-consensus POV matter, and not coming from any real policy. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:21, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

We've just had an RfC. Posting a massive 5.5kB wall of text like the one above is guaranteed to lead to "getting bogged down". DrKay (talk) 08:24, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

Sometimes you have to go through the points to get past a problem. The previous "RFC" was about whether to make 5 generations a standard? This one is more complex because it has to consider the various debating points which have evolved. If this discussion here gets nowhere though, then we can go to a bigger discussion forum for community input, and use this as a reference link.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:34, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

• Nobody has said that WP:NOTGENEALOGY forbids us to mention anything genealogical. Implying that someone has argued that is dishonest. What has been argued is that, per WP:NOTGENEALOGY, the genealogy shown should support the reader's understanding of the subject. The relevance of the genealogy should be demonstrated by those inserting it or restoring it by references to experts who discuss it in the context of the subject of the article.
• No, you do not have to use biographies. You can cite any comprehensive study of the subject to demonstrate the relevance of the people you want to mention. In fact, if any historian ever mentioned the ancestor when discussing the subject of the article, I could accept that as proof of relevance. I cannot speak for others, who have argued for studies specializing in the subject.
• If the genealogical information is "obviously important", you will have no trouble citing historians who discuss it. Merely repeating that something is "obviously important" does not demonstrate any importance. And no, it cannot be assumed, by default, that all great-great-grandparents of a medieval noble are relevant. That is preposterous. Ealdgyth has presented an analysis of scholarly works in which she could not find a single case of all 16 (or anything remotely close to that number) great-great-grandparents being discussed or even merely named. You have not attempted to disprove this, so your claims to the contrary are unsubstantiated and contradicted by the evidence presented by others.
• And finally, once again, deleting content tagged as unsourced for years is not POV pushing, nor should such egregious violations of WP:V be ignored. Surtsicna (talk) 09:08, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for moving a few small steps, but the deletions have to stop. Your short last bullet is in conflict with the rest, looking at the way you have been working, because as you see, the WP answer to the problems here is consensus building, and the deleting is being done to make that impossible. I've explained above, and to be honest I think what I've it allows no room for movement. In context these deletions to avoid discussion are not consistent with WP policy, guidelines and norms. You are using tags made during a different situation to justify something else. That type of deleting should stop, and the tags dates should not be used for wikilawyering. These are not a standard routine deletion. The study by Ealdgyth is a study of formats and we don't need sources for formats. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:33, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

ADDED FOR THE SAKE OF COMPLETENESS. Apart from the ahnentafel format itself the other issue mentioned is the 5 generations. But actually this is a red herring. From the sputtering RFC above it was clear there is no consensus for any standard number of generations. And also from Surtsicna's own chart making it is clear that 5 generation genealogical links are extremely common (almost a standard!) in reliable sources, even if the Ahnentafel format is not.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:08, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

I do not see how it can be clear from one example that something is "extremely common (almost a standard!) in reliable sources". Besides, in that example, only one fifth-generation ancestor is named, while in ahnentafeln you want to keep, 16 fifth-generation ancestors are named. This is not a difference in format but in content. Surtsicna (talk) 12:09, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

We have not only looked at 1 example. And we know this is common. For that matter, more than 5 generations is common. See the map example below concerning the pseudo problem of "excess" content linking. Consider also WP:BTW which is one of our most basic and old directives.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:48, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

No, we do not know that this is common. Again, your claims are not substantiated. I also do not see anything in WP:BTW that relates to this. Surtsicna (talk) 13:01, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

We have hyperlinking, and we are not limited like printed books, so we can help people find all notable and verifiable relatives they might be interested in using one neutral template. This is a core aim of WP.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:35, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

Even older and more basic, WP:PURPOSE: "Wikipedia is intended to be the largest, most comprehensive, and most widely-available encyclopedia ever written". None of our sources have that purpose, and this obviously impacts their format decisions.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:57, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

No, that's not true. It is the purpose and aim of every scholarly work to be the most comprehensive study of the subject it explores. The notion that Wikipedia editors might know what's relevant to say about Godfrey of Bouillon better than academic historians who invested their careers into researching Godfrey of Bouillon is absurd beyond belief. And again, it is not about the choice of format but about which content to include. Surtsicna (talk) 13:13, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

Please don't keep missing the point on purpose? Our sources focus on special topics. Of course we don't say we know more than them. That is why we use them as sources. But we do not limit our coverage like they do, not only concerning topics which have articles but especially when it comes to showing the links between our articles. We should never base our decisions on things like wasting paper etc. WP content policy is not telling us we can not mention the relationships between people, and you should please stop making up fake policies! --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:35, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

The study by Ealdgyth is a study of content because ahnentafel as a format dictates which content should be included and which cannot be included. We do need sources to prove the veracity and the relevance of the content. The deletions are not done to avoid discussion. The deletions are done because the content is unsourced, tagged, and not obviously relevant. You are always welcome to cite sources verifying the content and proving its relevance to the subject. Surtsicna (talk) 09:43, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

ADDED FOR THE SAKE OF COMPLETENESS. The connection between format decisions and content has been discussed above by me using the example of map making, which has the same (pseudo)-"problem". When we pick a scale, we also incidentally mind end-up showing more or less neighbouring areas. The approach being proposed here has been like demanding a new general rule that map scales must always avoid showing any neighbouring regions in whole. We don't need people making rules like that up.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:12, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

Map scale should serve to help the reader understand the subject of the article. The same is true for genealogy and any other content. That is Wikipedia policy. Surtsicna (talk) 12:09, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

Exactly my point. Ahnentafel generation number is the same as scale in the map example. We've seen how books about medieval nobles often use 5, 6, 7 generations, but then need to use several tables to help explain connections. But Wikipedia policy does not tell us exactly which "scale" to pick, right? It DOES tell us to work with others and seek consensus.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:48, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

No, we have not seen that books about medieval nobles mention all ancestors within 5, 6, 7 generations. Wikipedia does tell us which scale to pick - the scale that is "appropriate to support the reader's understanding of a notable topic". Surtsicna (talk) 13:01, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

Yes we have seen maybe half a dozen sources since I entered this discussion, and I think all had 5 or more generations. And yes, WP does not tell us an exact scale. It tells us to decide together. It means seeking consensus and not bulldozing people with stories of policies which do not exist.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:35, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

Yes ahnentafels are thus a format and we can use them. Using a standard procedure to delete is not appropriate when you know there is an on-going discussion. (There is no room on that!) To be clear: Deletions continue to be appropriate where it is reasonable to presume no reasonable, policy-consistent objections from editors (or indeed readers) with other tastes and interests, and in cases where there has been reasonable discussion, and something close to a consensus can be proposed. In Godfrey of Bouillon where there has been discussion and good faith work on both sides, I've raised concerns about the changes made which deleted reference to some eminently verifiable relationships (his father's family). I have not reverted. But for medieval nobles where there has been no discussion there should be no deletions because the importance of lignage can be assumed to be important, always, and most of these are short articles where this information, if verifiable, does no harm and is clearly considered relevant to many editors and readers and published writers. It would be like saying we can't mention a person's castle-building because the article is not about castles and you found a biography which does not discuss castles.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:49, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

Just to be clear, if we can't get an agreement on the moratorium of these tendentious deletions, the next step is bringing it to a different forum to get broader communal opinion, because it is to a large extent a policy and behavioral matter, not a template or WP:V issue. I am absolutely confident that the policy principles I've explained above have strong and wide acceptance throughout WP.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:52, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

Ahnentafeln are content; this content, like any other, can be presented when it is verifiable and when it can be demonstrated to be relevant. Again, "clearly relevant" does not cut it; cite experts in the subject to prove the relevance. The content of Wikipedia articles should reflect the content of "reliable, published material on the subject", not the "tastes and interests" of editors. Surtsicna (talk) 10:12, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

Correct, and irrelevant. No one is arguing otherwise. I am saying something very specific: using those tag dates as a reason to go out and delete massively without discussion is not an acceptable way of working, because you know there is on-going discussion and delay caused by disagreements about the technicalities. (And you are anything but a neutral observer in those.) Can you drop the stick please?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:41, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

You are indeed arguing otherwise, saying that "tastes and interests" of editors should be considered[1][2] and that the content of Wikipedia articles need not necessarily reflect the content of expert literature[3]. It is not irrelevant to point out that this is contrary to Wikipedia policy. You are always welcome to restore content deleted on the grounds of being tagged as unsourced for far too long if you provide sources; per WP:V, such content "should not be restored without an inline citation to a reliable source." After that we can debate the relevance. Surtsicna (talk) 10:56, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

No, I said that your edits should not only appear reasonable to people who share your tastes and interests. And no, it is not reasonable to propose continuing with deletions and allowing other people to dig them back up from their graves in the future. There would be only one reason for proposing something so impractical, and again it is your POV pushing. You are trying to impede other editors, and make their lives deliberately difficult, and also to misinform the less experienced ones. Those things have to stop. If our aim is good articles then we should follow WP:PRESERVE, add sources, try to help others understand how to use these templates better, work on improving them ourselves if and when we can, and collectively keep a watch on as many as we can to stop the normal problems of over-enthusiastic adding. Massive deletion campaigns require very strong and clear consensus decisions.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:04, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

No, the reason for proposing this is WP:V. "Any material lacking a reliable source directly supporting it may be removed and should not be restored without an inline citation to a reliable source." "Adding a citation needed tag" is "an interim step". There is no evidence that naming all 16 great-great-grandparents of an individual is common in historiography or biographies; in fact, there is evidence to the contrary. And when the practice that is alien to historiography and biographies is also completely lacking in sources, there is no reason to tolerate it. Surtsicna (talk) 11:25, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

WP:IDHT But you say you did not place the old tags, you know they are disputed, and also you know there is on-going discussion which is happening and already demonstrating that everyone's policy concerns can be achieved without these deletions. You know you are using a blind standard procedure when you know that it is not a standard situation. Can you agree to stop the deletions or do we need this to be brought to a bigger part of the community for discussion? There is no doubt about what the result will be, so it is just a question of how awkward you want to be.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:29, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

No, I cannot agree to tolerate content that has been tagged as completely unsourced for years. That would be against WP:V. This is already being discussed by a big part of the community. I do not know how much bigger you think it should be, but I have encouraged you multiple times to refer to Wikipedia talk:Verifiability. Surtsicna (talk) 11:58, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

It is clearly not against WP:V. WP has no deadline, and WP:V clearly does not say you have delete everything without a footnote, nor even everything some editor has ever tagged. WP:V's aim and spirit is all about making sure things are verifiable and you know that is not the issue in these cases, but rather there is a POV dispute about the technicalities of the template. What I am talking about with a bigger discussion should be seen in the light of the fact that this is purely a problem to do with an individual editor. You are pushing things too far and it is deliberately disruptive. Please take a step back and consider what we are all trying to work on together here.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:06, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

Yes, inclusion of unsourced content is against WP:V. Verifiable means that the article contains a reference that verifies the content, not that the reference exists somewhere in the universe. Do not presume to know what I know. And no, this does not concern just one editor. This one editor did not tag this content years ago, nor is this one editor the only one addressing the problem. Surtsicna (talk) 12:15, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

Yes to all of that, and now we have shown with real examples how we can do it in future, and we should reset the clock and allow existing ahnentafels to be improved. We should also perhaps add a link to unsourced cases, to help editors find examples and/or instructions? Full section deletions are not appropriate in any of the cases I have seen for medieval people.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:48, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

What's inappropriate in every case, as made explicit in WP:V, is the restoration of material deleted for being unsourced without providing a source. Surtsicna (talk) 13:01, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

Not in this case. Because we have a way of fixing the verification concern. There is a discussion about how to do this better than deletions. You know that. You've actually blocked me a few times but then let me do it on several articles. But I can not work on hundreds of articles while you are racing me to delete them first! Deleting is much faster than improving.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:35, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

Proposal: can this template have its own tag for unreferenced cases?

I would like to propose a specific tag for this template, to replace generic tags, which includes text that...

• Makes it clear (just by being a specific tag) that the tag really is meant to be used for this template.
• Gives a quick link to somewhere where there is an example and instructions showing how to add references to the template.

I note from discussion on this talk page and in various places that the major reasons the template is often never given footnotes are that:

• Most editors including myself have historically believed that normal "unreferenced section" tags were being used wrongly for the template.
• No one realizes how to place a footnote into them. (I discovered when I pushed quite hard for an example in a discussion here recently.)

As a result we've seen examples of the template being entirely deleted, section and all, in short articles where the required source is already there and actually quite obvious, but just not in a footnote. In other words we have a situation which should be easy to fix, but which is not being fixed by the current approach of tagging in a standard way and then deleting. If no one sees a problem we can start looking into it.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:39, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

No. If a section containing an ahnentafel cites no sources, then Template:Unsourced section is perfectly appropriate. The community has rejected every attempt to have ahnentafeln treated differently than other content in regards to WP:Verifiability policy, and so I reject this one. Surtsicna (talk) 15:07, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

I am not saying WP:V would apply any differently, only that there would be extra clarification. How can that be bad? Can you explain any policy basis for you personally wanting to make the explanation poorly understood? --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:16, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

There is nothing unclear about the wording: "This section does not cite any sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed." Surtsicna (talk) 15:23, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

WP:IDHT. See above. You know very well this is not clear to everyone, or read in the same way when it comes to this template. This talk page is full of direct and undeniable evidence, including people like myself who are examples. Please see if you can find any policy-based reason to want these situations to be unclear. And anyway, if it would be easy to attempt this, what bad could it do?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:31, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

Not agreeing with your point does not mean refusing to get it. I do get your point and I reject it. The wording of Template:Unreferenced section should be read in the same way whether it comes to this template or any other content. If it is unclear to you, go to Wikipedia talk:Verifiability. Surtsicna (talk) 15:57, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

We have seen that people can read the situation differently without having any problem with WP:V. As you know this, why would you want this to remain the case? And even if you claim to think there is no problem, what risks can you see?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 06:15, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose. There's nothing wrong with the usual tag. A specific one is unnecessary duplication. It's also more likely that people will not know or understand about a specific tag than the generic one. The template documentation includes details of the ref and footnotes parameters. DrKay (talk) 16:05, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

What we are seeing in practice is that the generic one is not working and there are good reasons for that. Obviously many editors reasonably believe based on similar situations on WP that this generic tag is not appropriate here. Just saying the tag is clear is not enough in such a case because these tags are made by other WP editors, not some higher authority, and no WP editor can accepts every demand made by every other WP editor. It is also not practical to say that people should just know about all the parameters and how they work. In practice they don't.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 06:15, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

It works for me. I think it's appropriate. I didn't say that people should just know about all the parameters and how they work. DrKay (talk) 17:21, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

If something is not working for many editors it can lead to deletions by misunderstanding. I can not see anyway to deny this is opposed to some really basic aims of Wikipedia? Can you explain any mistake I am making in my thinking?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:02, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

To be clear in case you missed it BTW I looked at the template pages, but did not see how to add a neat reference until Surtsicna finally agreed to show me a real example of an article with a citation that was as desired (George V). Nothing here explains all the details. Apparently you still need to add <ref></ref> mark-up into the template. Also, that there is a practical problem can be seen in the example of William of Hainaut which brought me here. The deleted section had its obvious source neatly posted just below it in the article.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:01, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

I don't see it there and the one you've just added is from CreateSpace. Self-published sources don't count as Wikipedia:Reliable sources. DrKay (talk) 17:24, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

Schwennicke, Europäische Stammtafeln, will clearly have this information. This is a case where common sense and knowledge of the background basics, such as what kind of book this source is, gives clear guidance about where to put the onus/burden/risk. It looks very much like the table (which was deleted) is what all the sources were mainly backing up.

Concerning the new source Richardson I had his books to hand, and have acted quickly because forced to. (There is a race, apparently, to put in sources before big chunks of thousands of articles are deleted at a rate of dozens a week. So much for the old "no deadlines" rule.) But very well-known and widely cited self-published sources like Richardson are commonly acceptable, and have presumably been discussed on WP:RS before. We can discuss at WP:RS of course, but the fact is that we can be 100% sure William's ancestry is in Schwennicke too, and I have seen no claims of failed verification in any details. BTW Richardson cites Schwennicke too.

It is always relevant, at least from a best practice point of view, if we have evidence that actual verifiability is almost certainly not a real concern, but only things like citation formats.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:02, 29 July 2019 (UTC)