Announcing minor change in usage of middle initials

Question

Hi WikiTreers,

We're implementing some changes to how middle names and middle initials appear on WikiTree.

In short, we're going to start using full middle names in more places and middle initials in fewer places.

The longer explanation:

Our name displays are rather complicated. We display names in at least a dozen different ways on hundreds of different pages and tree views. The format we use depends on privacy level, whether the viewing user is logged-in and on Trusted List, whether the context has space limitations, etc. We've been moving toward simplification, but unfortunately, some complexity is necessary, or at least, a reasonable compromise.

On profile pages we have been linking to family members using middle initials rather than middle names. We're now using full middle names if you're on the person's Trusted List or they are public. If they're private and you're not on the Trusted List we won't be using the middle initial anymore.

This should help with some member's concerns about the awkward construction when a person's Preferred First Name is their middle name. For example, if someone's name is Peter Robert Jones and they go by Robert, they appear as Robert R. Jones in some places.

This should also help us with cousin bait in Google. Our usage of middle initials has been hurting us here. Genealogists don't generally search with middle initials in keyword strings, so for this purpose it's better to use full middle names or nothing at all.

We will still have the awkward and unfortunate Preferred First Name + middle initial format elsewhere. With private people we have promised not to show the Formal First Name or the full Middle Name. We can only show Preferred First Name and middle initial. If we leave out the middle initial we leave out potentially useful information. For example, a search for Chris Whitten will result in four private people. The middle initials help distinguish us from each other.

I know this is confusing but we have to make compromises for a variety of competing purposes.

Chris

Answer 1

Thanks for this change. This substantially resolves the issue discussed yesterday in http://www.wikitree.com/g2g/167535/naming-improvement

Answer 2

Has this already been implemented?  I am still seeing the Middle Name + Middle Initial + Surname display in search results for ancestors whose preferred name is the middle name, so that doesn't appear to be resolved.  (Two examples shown at the link in Ellen's note.)

Comments

Hi Dennis. We implemented changes on profiles pages but not elsewhere. We will be making changes on trees. I doubt we will remove middle initials on search results. See my second-to-last paragraph above. To my thinking, the searcher would be losing useful information. It would require clicking to the profiles to establish, for example, that this Chris Whitten is different from that Chris Whitten because we couldn't differentiate Chris I. Whitten from Chris G. Whitten.

There is another way we could approach the problem of Preferred First Names being the same as Middle Names. We could run a check to see if they're the same before displaying the middle initial. I'm just not sure it's worth the extra calculation. Things like this happen in milliseconds, but it does all add up.

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Hi Chris.  I do see and appreciate that there's some complexity in these displays, but I'm still not following the logic.  I'm not arguing for the removal of middle initials.  I'm just questioning why we would use a variant of a name that is always going to be incorrect -- i.e., Middle Name + MI + Surname.  My (public) grandfather, for example, is John Guernon Barton, who preferred Guernon.  He could be properly displayed as John G., J. Guernon, John Guernon, or J.G., but he was never Guernon G.  Whether I search for John or for Guernon, I get the Guernon G. display.  I'm not sure why extra calculation would be necessary to get it right, since the system does find the correct person and already knows the format of the name.

The original note says you don't want to display formal first name or full middle name for private profiles, just preferred name and MI.  But in fact you are displaying the full middle name when that is the preferred name.  So OK, granted, I'm a little slow, but what am I missing?.

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Hi Dennis. Where are you seeing Preferred First Name + full Middle Name?

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I'm not seeing that, I'm just saying that if the middle name is the preferred name, then you are, in fact, displaying the middle name when you display Preferred Name + MI + Surname.  So if there is a security issue about displaying a middle name on private profiles, then this workaround isn't very secure.  Perhaps the term "Preferred First Name" is self-contradictory, and a confusion factor, when the middle name is the preferred name.  At least in the case of a public profile, if there is no security issue, why can't we display the name correctly?  My grandfather was J. Guernon Barton, not Guernon G. Barton.

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Maybe we need an option to "suppress display of middle initial," with a warning that you shouldn't check that box unless you understand what it's for.

Dennis' grandfather was J. Guernon (not Guernon G.) but my great grandfather completely discarded his first name; to his family and the world he was DeBaun Van Aken, not J. DeBaun (and certainly not DeBaun D.).