> There's a tricky ethical question here: if someone changed their name and ask for not being called their former name ever again, you can either ignore their will, which is rude, or chose to follow it but then you are doing a disservice to the public's understanding.

Calling somebody with his former name and mentioning his former name in a Wikipedia page are two completely different things. Using the fact that the former is seen as rude by some to avoid the second is in my opinion just an example of the level of extremism of the pro-trans activists.

But if in fact it made sense, shouldn't we completely remove any reference of the previous name also from the pages of people like Yusuf Islam [1] or Muhammad Ali [2] ?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_Stevens

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_Ali

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could-of an hour ago | parent | next [-]

According to MOS:GENDERID [1], a person's former name can be used when they were notable under that name. You're trying to make it out as if there's some nefarious double standard when there's not, editors just want Wikipedia to be clear and encyclopedic.

It's incredible that in a discussion about brutal violence against a child, the child victim is being painted as the "extremist"!

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Biog...

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philistine 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Notability. Those two celebrities were known for a very long time under their old name. To prevent confusion, their old name is shown.

The victim of a crime was not notable before their name change.

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whycome 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Notability is subjective

	▲	komali2 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		In the Universe, yes. In the closed system of Wikipedia, no, it's a well defined term with clearly established criteria, tested over the years on thousands of Talk pages on controversial pages, of how to achieve consensus: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability

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ajsnigrutin 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Many married women are known under their husbands last names, from Maria Salomea Skłodowska, Betty Marion Ludden to Melanija Knavs. Some celebrities even use stage names, such as Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta.

Many of these women are not really known under those names, but somehow, they're still listed on their wiki pages.

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littlestymaar 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Most of the married women on Wikipedia didn't get the choice of keeping their own name, so we cannot really compare it to someone who changed their name.

Same for stage names, people don't use stage name because they want to escape their former name, they use stage names because it's cool.

And when people use a pseudonym and want to keep their real identity secret for personal reasons, their name doesn't appear on Wikipedia, and nobody is ever complaining about that! It's as if people were obsessed by trans people in particular…

	▲	ajsnigrutin 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		But it's not a secret, the name has been mentioned in mainsteam media on multiple occasions, and even here, in this thread on HN. > It's as if people were obsessed by trans people in particular… Yet, they keep every other name on wikipedia, especially if we're talking about peoples legal names, except if the person was trans for some reason. Wikipedia is the one making exceptions here for one group in particular.

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littlestymaar 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Calling somebody with his former name and mentioning his former name in a Wikipedia page are two completely different things

Except when people keep vandalizing Wikipedia renaming people there with their dead name. And yes it happens over and over and over again.

Because the most active extremists on the topic are by far the anti-trans crowd. (And it's not even close, there are trans people assaulted every week, sometimes going as far as murder this is extremism).

And again, Wikipedia keeps mentioning the former name when it's necessary (look for Bradley Manning on Wikipedia, the page redirects to Chelsea Manning but the old name is state because it's important).

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113 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> level of extremism of the pro-trans activists

What on earth are you talking about?

	▲	eimrine 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Sometimes it easier to downvote that Earthian than to argue.

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komali2 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The use of the masculine pronoun here when we're referring to someone who transitioned from male kind of gives away that you're probably less concerned with searchability and preservation of history, and more concerned with promoting a transphobic agenda. I suppose it's possible you were using it as a generic pronoun, but in that case I would have expected "they." Am I wrong?

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eimrine 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Your statement can be reversed amasingly. It is easier to proof that it is your side of frontline who does not care about searchability than what you have said. And therefore it is easire to suspect you in promoting an old Klaus Schwabbe's fairytale about DEI missvalues. There are no reasons of calling one person as "they" because we use to call a person who will always have hairs on his face as "male".

	▲	komali2 an hour ago \| parent [-]
		So, you don't think I'm wrong? The OP used "he" because they have a transphobic agenda? > because we use to call a person who will always have hairs on his face as "male". We may not have solved the question, "what is a woman," but you have brilliantly solved the question, "what is a man": a human with eyebrows.