Talk:William Gillies (Australian politician)

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Requested move 11 December 2017

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. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: William Gillies (Australian politician) is not moved; Robert Butler (Australian politician) is moved as proposed. (closed by page mover) Brad v 05:00, 22 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

– Per the recently closed discussion for William Drayton Armstrong, I believe there is a case that the articles about other Australian politicians Gillies and Butler should use their full names per WP:COMMONNAME and WP:NATURALDIS.

Sources from their lifetimes use their full names. In the case of Gillies, an article in the 26 February 1925 Townsville Daily Bulletin [1], as well as over 200 Australian newspaper articles from his political career [2] and this 1918 article from Northern Herald (Queensland). The Queensland Parliament entry about Gillies uses his full name [3].
Scholarly sources also do so, like the 1997 book The People's Champion, Fred Paterson by Ross Fitzgerald and the 2006 book Talking Politics: A Wordbook.

About Butler, my search of the Australia newspaper archive shows the most results - 800+ in Queensland media - for "Cuthbert Butler". I found articles from 1915 using "R. J. Cuthbert Butler", another from 1916, 1917, and 1918 using "Mr. Cuthbert Butler". This 1920 article refers to him as "Mr. Cuthbert Butler, M.L.A." (Member of the Legislative Assembly). So I am convinced that he is commonly known as "Cuthbert".

Note that Cuthbert Butler primary article is about an English Benedictine monk, hence my disambiguation. Arbor to SJ (talk) 03:06, 11 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Firstly, I do not know why these two are being done jointly - they are completely separate as far as I can see. Clear support for Butler - that's the kind of thing that doesn't really need to worry about an RM. On the other hand, I am inclined to oppose Gillies. As has previously been explained, usage was different back then (and the Qld Parliament website is another official one - every single person gets their full name there). We need to look at present usage, and given that a Google Books search shows a pretty wide range of texts using simply "William Gillies" (compare 1190 in that search for '"William Gillies" Queensland' to 226 for "William Neal Gillies"), I am inclined to think "William Gillies" is probably more usual. Frickeg (talk) 07:26, 11 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Reply: Are you sure most of those just plain "William Gillies" results are about the Premier and not other people? Also, Google Books search results aren't exactly accurate, as I am encountering books that do not mention him at all (from what I can gather from searching within some of the books). Arbor to SJ (talk) 18:13, 14 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Even if only a third of them are about the premier, that's still enough. Even comparing the first page of each search is instructive - for "William Gillies" we seven general histories or histories of premiers, one biography of TJ Ryan, one statistical document, and one gazette about someone else. For "William Neal Gillies" we have three general histories, six appearances in formal lists/gazettes (where full names are a matter of course) and one biography of Fred Paterson. Not to mention that the sources provided above really don't make much of a case for the full name either. Frickeg (talk) 21:13, 14 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Similarly on Google Scholar, I get far more results for "William Gillies" + Queensland premier than including his middle name. Arbor to SJ (talk) 17:13, 15 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Weak support first per books. Haven't checked second, as I don't understand why it is bundled in with this RM. In ictu oculi (talk) 09:22, 11 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
- To answer your last question, I bundled these because they're both early 20th century Australian politicians, whose articles I explored after the William Drayton Armstrong page move discussion. Arbor to SJ (talk) 16:33, 11 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
As Frickeg said, jointly not a good idea: they're two different cases.
- Oppose Gillies, as Frickeg's Google Books search demonstrates abundant sources referring to him by the name we already use. (Not surprisingly, considering the period he was in office and being a Labor MP - not that many middle names in regular use in that era).
- Support Butler - I was wary off those sources that it might be a double-barrelled name, but Trove makes very obvious that it was the name he commonly went by. The Drover's Wife (talk) 09:29, 11 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose first; support second. Both per WP:COMMONNAME. -- Necrothesp (talk) 16:09, 13 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
- Question: What makes you think first-last is the common form for Gillies? Arbor to SJ (talk) 16:21, 13 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.