Talk:John W. Williams (legislative clerk)

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On 2 November 2021, it was proposed that this article be moved from John W. Williams (Virginia politician) to John W. Williams (legislative clerk). The result of the discussion was moved.

Requested move 2 November 2021

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved. (closed by non-admin page mover) Lennart97 (talk) 09:51, 9 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

John W. Williams (Virginia politician) → John W. Williams (legislative clerk) – The subject was not a politician as far as I can see; he was an administrative official of the legislature. 207.161.86.162 (talk) 06:05, 2 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

This is a contested technical request (permalink). Anthony Appleyard (talk) 14:49, 2 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@207.161.86.162 and Lennart97: queried move request Anthony Appleyard (talk) 14:54, 2 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@207.161.86.162: I agree that it doesn't seem like he was a politician, but I would note two things: 1. the first sentence is (and has always been) broken and states that he ... served as a member of the served as Clerk of the Virginia House of Delegates; does that imply that maybe he was at some point a delegate? And 2. if indeed he was not a politician, (legislative clerk) may be a nonstandard qualifier for disambiguation. For both reasons, a full move discussion would be useful. Lennart97 (talk) 13:13, 2 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Lennart97: That looks to me to be a typo, and if there were any evidence that the subject was a member of the House of Delegates, the existing title might be fine. Absent any such evidence, we can only title the article according to its contents.

As to the qualifier, consistency is indeed a factor in article title criterion 5 (Consistency – The title is consistent with the pattern of similar articles' titles. Many of these patterns are listed (and linked) as topic-specific naming conventions on article titles, in the box above [emphasis removed]). I did a bit of searching around before my request and didn't see anything stand out as an existing standard. If the proposed qualifier is "nonstandard", does that imply that you know of an existing standard for administrative officials of legislative bodies against which you're comparing this qualifier? 207.161.86.162 (talk) 20:23, 2 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I personally wouldn't know what the right qualifier is, and it could very well be that the one you chose is just fine. If no one comes along with a better idea in the next few days, we'll just move as you proposed. Lennart97 (talk) 21:31, 2 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Current disambiguator appears to be just plain inaccurate, and I have no better suggestion than the proposal. I know of no policy or guideline that prohibits using a unique disambiguator, just so long as it is recognisable. Fair enough to query the technical request, but the move seems a no-brainer to me. Andrewa (talk) 07:31, 9 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.