Misplaced Pages

Talk:Ptolemy (disambiguation)

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Carcharoth (talk | contribs) at 00:15, 30 March 2006 (→Issues and where to discuss them). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Revision as of 00:15, 30 March 2006 by Carcharoth (talk | contribs) (→Issues and where to discuss them)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)

History of the page

This page started as a disambiguation page, and has recently outgrown its disambiguation status. A lot of the extraneous material will be moved to another page, but discussion is (or will be) ongoing at the talk page of Misplaced Pages:Disambiguation and other places as I want to clarify and discuss a few things before I (or others) make changes. I will add links to the discussions. I would be grateful if people could wait a few days until the discussions reach some sort of conclusions. Carcharoth 15:00, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Creating an article from a disambiguation page

This editing history summary concerns work I did on Ptolemy (disambiguation). This started when I realised that Ptolemaic redirected to Ptolemaic dynasty, as seen here (27/09/2003). This rang a warning bell in my mind, as I realised that many people would link Ptolemiac in articles referring to Claudius Ptolemaeus, the famous astronomer of the 2nd century AD, not the Egyptian ruling dynasty (of Macedonian origin) of the 3rd to 1st centuries BC. Clicking on "What links here" confirmed my fears. I eventually got round to tidying up those links and redid Ptolemaic as a disambiguation page (24/03/2006). While changing those links, I had got interested in the history of the Ptolemies, and the confusing tangle of Ptolemies in the Ptolemaic dynasty. I then gradually started tidying up the disambiguation page by adding descriptions to help people find the Ptolemy they needed. Previously, a reader had to click back and forth between different Ptolemies, and try and mentally keep track of where and when these Ptolemies existed. I also expanded the list and organised it into mostly historical sections. Over the course of a few days, Ptolemy (disambiguation) went from this (25/03/2006) to this (28/02/2006). During the course of this work I had been delving deeper and deeper into the history of the Ptolemies (see here for 'The House of Ptolemy' by Edwyn Bevan, an enthralling history of the Ptolemies). At some point I also tidied up the disambiguation page at Ptolemais.

The reorganisation of Ptolemy (disambiguation) into historical sections had made me realise that there was a narrative thread here, one that spanned over 2000 years of history. This focused my interest on the etymology of the name Ptolemy, to add to the history of the people bearing the name, and how the name has come to be used in today's world. This accounts for the addition of the etymological section ranging across several languages. By the time of this version (29/03/2006), my earlier fears that the page was no longer a disambiguation page were well and truly confirmed!

At this point, I initiated discussions at various places in Misplaced Pages, to add to the discussions I had already started at places like the Help Desk and the Reference Desk. Here, I provide links to some of these discussions (some discussions may have since been archived, and talk page discussions have not been refactored):

I then spent some time browsing through the Manual of Style (disambiguation pages), and the talk pages there and at Misplaced Pages:Disambiguation. I then posted this summary at the Ptolemy (disambiguation) talk page. I intend to continue the current discussions and, if needed, start discussions at the Misplaced Pages Disambiguation talk page. Eventually, after taking advice and discussing the best way to organise the material, the split to Ptolemy (name) will take place.

Links to new discussions will also be added here. Carcharoth 23:40, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Comments requested

More comments were requested at the following places:

Issues and where to discuss them

There are several issues I would like to lay out and ask advice on. Please either discuss them here (preferably starting and linking to a new section), or add a link to a discussion you start elsewhere (if the discussion is best taken to another page). Please also add other issues to this list:

  • What is the easiest way to move stuff from here to Ptolemy (name), while still preserving the relevant history and leaving material here to form the disambiguation list?
  • What is the best style for the disambiguation page that is left behind? Is the historical ordering at the moment the best one? What should be listed and what doesn't need to be listed?
  • Something about the different regnal numbering schemes for the Ptolemies needs to be put on the disambiguation page. Some older books will refer to Ptolemy Caesarion XV as Ptolemy XIV. And similarly for other Ptolemaic kings of Egypt. This is because more Ptolemies were discovered after the first numbering system was introduced.
  • Would a similar sort of "historical ordering" help at other pages where a name has a long history? Jesus (disambiguation) is an example that I found.
  • I read something about "primary" topics on the Disambiguation Manual of Style. Would I be correct to say that both: (1) Ptolemy I Soter or Ptolemaic dynasty; and (2) Claudius Ptolemaeus are the most recognisable Ptolemies, and that Ptolemy has two "primary" topics? Note that the article about Claudius Ptolemaeus currently resides at Ptolemy.