Talk:William III

Article title?

Should the word Britain be in this title? Perhaps there is a more appropriate and accurate disambiguation word we could use. Britain narrows things down to that island, though William was king of Ireland also. Then of course, he was Dutch too. Maybe that would help. Or something along the lines of William III (of Orange)? --Mal McKee 11:26, 13 May 2008 (CDT)

Britain is both a geography term and a history term, and here it's history. That is "Britain" is the usual historians' term for the country he ruled. --although the "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland" terminology came 5 years after his death. Richard Jensen 11:59, 13 May 2008 (CDT)

Right, but William III wasn't known as "William III of Britain" necessarily, was he? He was the third other than Scotland, so far as I know. I suppose, technically speaking, he should be regarded as William I of Ireland. Scotland though, as I'm sure you know, is part of Britain - both historically and geographically.

I still think the mention of Britain in the title is potentially misleading and inaccurate, especially given the wealth of confusion surrounding the term - even by inhabitants, and perhaps a better title could be found. --Mal McKee 13:22, 13 May 2008 (CDT)

Well, we need something to disambiguate him from the other William III's. Is there something you can suggest which would be better?

If we could separate the 'page name' and the 'article title' (as suggested here) it would be nice (so the title would only be "William III"), but there's still some resistance to doing that. J. Noel Chiappa 13:52, 13 May 2008 (CDT)

I added a footnote to the first sentence to clear it up a little--I got it wrong the first couple times! He was crowned William III for England, and separately crowned Willian II for Scotland. He was never crowned king of Netherlands, Wales or Ireland.Richard Jensen 14:07, 13 May 2008 (CDT)

[Edit conflict] response to J. Noel Chiappa:

Yeah - I thought possibly "William III (of Orange)" or "William III (Nassau)" (did I spell that correctly!?). Maybe Richard Jensen or someone else can come up with a more appropriate alternative. Of course, he was a British king, so that gives us another possibility: "William III (British)" or "William III (British monarch)" or something along those lines.

One thing that should probably be decided early on (if a change to the title is made) is that the titles should have some measure of consistency throughout. We shouldn't have a situation whereby there are articles titled "William III (British)", "Elizabeth II (English)" and "George VI of England", for example. Having said that, perhaps official titles should be considered, though this is made complex by the fact that many British monarchs have held multiple titles concurrently (King/Queen of.. Scotland, Ireland, England, United Kingdom etc etc). The more generic "British" might serve us well to that end though.

Thanks for pointing out the forum discussion to me - I've not joined it yet, but I should hopefully be doing that tomorrow. I'll have a look at the pros and cons of the system you describe and maybe add my own thoughts to the discussion there. --Mal McKee 14:10, 13 May 2008 (CDT)

Britain becomes the formal term starting in 1707, but that was five years after William's death. I think we can stretch Britain to cover him (he promoted the UK union idea). As the discussions on Naming make clear, CZ does not use a person's official titles to name the article; rather CZ uses the most commonly used name. In this case I found only one historian who calls him "William III and II" and no one who calls him "William II". There are several other William II and William III in history. Richard Jensen 15:02, 13 May 2008 (CDT)

If it's policy for us to use the most commonly used name, then that would probably be William of Orange, or even "King William" or "King Billy"! I think we're probably all agreed that those names are unworkable or inappropriate! I've never heard him referred to as "King William III (Britain)" though. Sorry to be a pain in the arse about this, but I think that at this relatively early stage in the development of CZ, it might be a good idea to thrash things out - even matters which might seem trivial to some: the fact is, the title works. In effect, there's nothing really wrong with it as such. I just think it might be a good idea to come up with a better one, and one which also allows for a certain level of consistency throughout similar articles. As all the kingdoms were British at the time, I think I'd favour "(British)" after the name. "(Britain)" refers only to the kingdoms of England (with Wales as a principality) and Scotland, whereas "(British)" implies all the British kingdoms. Perhaps "British monarch" might be better. Just to be clear, I'm not so much concerned with his technical number in each of the kingdoms, as I think it's well established that William III is the designation he's usually given. --Mal McKee 18:22, 13 May 2008 (CDT)

The whole naming system is still not totally worked out. The current policy is at CZ:Naming Conventions, but we are having a lengthy debate about how to name people at CZ Talk:Naming Conventions, and especially CZ:Proposals/Naming Conventions for Biographies; there may be a thread on the forums too. I think Richard's using (Britain) because we'd kind of decided on using the name of the place they ruled to disambiguate among multiple rulers with the same 'common' (i.e. not full formal) name. Of course that falls down when there's no simple description of what, exactly, it was that they ruled, as here. 19:57, 13 May 2008 (CDT)

[De-indenting here] If there has been no naming convention thoroughly fleshed out yet, then we should probably go with what's been done and come back to it later, if necessary, once some conventions have been put firmly in place. I think in the case of William III and other British monarchs it might be more logical to suggest the name of the people they ruled in the title, rather than a singular geographic or political region. I think that solves the problem of where they ruled - presenting instead who they ruled.

Ultimately the content of the article is more important, and I'd like to extend a further apology to Richard for distracting him from that. That's not to say that the issue shouldn't be looked at, at some point. --Mal McKee 20:28, 13 May 2008 (CDT)