Talk:John

Trivia section

Trivia sections on Wikipedia are considered very bad form. All imformation within this section should be dispersed to apropriate places within the article. --The_stuart 18:24, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

There were more male MPs named John than there were women MPs as in the United Kingdom until the 1997 general election that brought Tony Blair and New Labour to power.

• John the Apostle, to whom the Gospel of John is attributed
• John the Evangelist, traditionally identified with the apostle, and to whom the books 1 John, 2 John, 3 John, and Revelation are attributed.

Isn't this kind of backwards? Doesn't "John the Evangelist" mean "John the Gospel-writer"? Josh Cherry 16:03, 26 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Presidents and PMs?

Do the lists of Presidents and Prime Ministers really belong here? Previously this page was only for people who were known only as John, as Kings, Saints, and Popes are, as they use no last name, but adding guys like Kennedy and Major opens it up to anyone with the first name John, which is just impossibly unmanagable. Are the US and UK so special that only they should get this treatment? I think they should be deleted. We could spend the rest of our natural lives adding people named "John" to this list. -R. fiend 04:48, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I went ahead and removed them. -R. fiend 09:00, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Though I agree that making a list of all the Johns would never be completed, though many other disambiguation pages of first names have a list of people with that first name, could you please explain why there shouldn't be an ever-added list of Johns? Granted, I am predjudiced for Johns. omnijohn 03:47, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm adding my two cents worth here. I actually started to checkout John Smith John Jones John Williams and so on for England, Wales and Isle of Man top of the list on List of most common surnames and not surprisingly every one of the top twenty was a disambiguation for John first names. I don't think a disambiguation list would be very useful and a list of Johns most certainly wouldn't.
User:Brenont 02:53, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Gospel title: "according to"

The Greek – in the case of all four Gospel accounts – has kata, Latin secondo, both meaning according to. In other words [The] Good News according to .... There is a lively discussion as to the genre of the Gospels, hence their precise title, while not original but very early all the same, may be considered significant. (It is easy to see, why one often encounters of, even in scholarly writings ... it is 9 characters and 1 space shorter, and rolls better off the tongue.) Portress 03:18, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

Translations

I am somewhat confused about the translations. Among Danish translations Jens would be exactly as relevant as Hans. Johannes, Johan, Jan, Jon, Ivan and John are more or less common Danish names too. The popes and the biblical persons are called Johannes.

I believe that you can find similar tendencies in several other languages. --Troels Nybo 10:13, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

Biblical references

This section is specifically intended to make clear the difference between Bible references such as 'John 3:16' and 'I John 3:23', which some people may not realize are from different books of the Bible. It is not intended to distinguish John the Apostle and John the Baptist, which is done under Saints. Myopic Bookworm 10:18, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Reverting

I know some of you have been reverting back. But the way I have it makes it look more organized because having those few John's in "other" make it look dis-organized when there are tons of other John's that could be added. If you are not going to add them then don't revert. Mr. C.C. (talk <-> contribs <-> review me) 21:22, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Jean

Jean is the French way of spelling John and it is even pronounced like John. Jean Chretien (former Canadian prime minister) first name was pronounced like John as I said. Should this be included in the article? Mr. C.C. (talk <-> contribs <-> review me) 21:27, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Maybe it should be in Jean instead. Mo-Al 00:48, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. I also put a link at the top of the page that says:

See Jean for persons whose names are Jean but can be pronounced John. Mr. C.C. 05:59, 7 July 2006 (UTC) (talk <-> contribs <-> review me)

The problem with that is that Jean is not pronounced exactly the same as John. Mo-Al 03:14, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Names removed

I'm removing these entries as they are simply redirect pages back here. Some inspired person may want to change the redirects into stubs.

• John of Falkenberg, Catholic author
• John of Fécamp, Ascetic writer
• John of Montesono, Catholic theologian
• John of Roquetaillade (de Rupescissa), alchemist

I deleted the redirects, as there was certainly no reason for them to redirect back here. Hopefully this will encourage someone to write articles on them. -R. fiend 01:50, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Question

In the "other" section, I notice some aren't biblical or religious. Should this have links to anyone named John, fictional or real, or only religious Johns? --Vaati 00:32, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

I believe the general idea is that people that are well-known by just the name "John" should be listed here if they have an article in Wikipedia. Its not just a list of people named John (which would not be too useful to find people, as it would be very long). Its to help people find the right page. (John User:Jwy talk) 00:39, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that's the guideline. `'mikka 00:41, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

This is an inconsistent and contradictory guideline if it allows people like "Johnny Carson" and other Johns but not others. That's called bias. Either include all Johns or don't include any. ∞Σɛ_Þ² ^(τ|c) 04:53, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

I disagree. Not all John's are equal. Some people are better known as others. Some are more appropriate for an article than others. Its not a black and white thing, some judgement is required - so there might be minor inconsistencies. If it is bias to provide the most likely targets and leave off less likely targets, then fine. Its biased. But biased to be most useful to the user.

If you think Johnny is inappropriate, feel free to remove him. I left him in on a bit of a whim. (John User:Jwy talk) 05:19, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Better known relative to who? Notability is relative. Appropriation is relative. It's not a black-and-white thing but then it's biased and subjective. Likeliness is also relative, as is usefulness. Just because you think some links to some articles you think are notable/appropriate/likely/useful does not mean someone else does. Providing links to all relative articles is more logical and unbiased (except towards incompletion, of course). Feel free to chime in on Talk:Book World and Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages)#All pages beginning with... in relevant discussions. ∞Σɛ_Þ² ^(τ|c) 08:19, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Everything is relative and subjective if you bend your mind enough: that's why Wikipedia operates on attaining common consensus, reflected in its policy and guidelines.

The disambiguation guidelines do not include lists of articles whose titles merely contain the title being disambiguated: as noted on AfD/List of people named John, this applies to given names and surnames as well. --Piet Delport 21:26, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages)#The "See also" section for a conflicting guideline. Also, this article (John) includes "lists of articles whose titles merely contain the title being disambiguated". The dab guidelines are contradictory. ∞Σɛ_Þ² ^(τ|c) 20:17, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

The "See also" guideline does not warrant this:

1. John Smith (or any other last name) is not likely to be confused with John; if a user wants John Smith, they would search John Smith.
2. John is not a likely misspelling of John Smith.

As expressed above, John includes articles that do more than merely contain the title being disambiguated, i.e. they are known as simply John (for historic figures, there are sources on the way in which they are referred, dispelling your subjectivity claim). The guidelines appear contradictory due to your loose interpretations. –Pomte 20:46, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

I disagree. The guidelines appear contradictory because they are contradictory--precisely because of how varied they can be interpreted (and not just by me). Regardless of how you want to sugar-coat the disambiguation system, it's a half-assed implementation that needs a serious overhaul to be more of a navigation system, since that is how most users seem to treat it (considering all of the compound word links that appear on them). A true disambiguation system would incorporate an indexing and navigation system. Set index articles don't cut it, and Wikipedia's list inclusion guidelines are too restrictive to allow for a proper navigation system (one in which categories and the Special:Allpages function fall short (as I've explained before, include redirects, don't have proper article descriptions that don't include wiki markup, etc--if each article could have an HTML meta description attribute that would at least provide a way to put a brief dab-page-esque description). Dab pages are what most users encounter most often when searching for a term, and I don't see why such pages need to be as restrictive in content as they are. By providing links to root words and compound words (most of which would be dab pages on their own with still more root/compound words on them), seamless navigation will be possible. As it is now, most articles don't tend to link to their root words.

For example, outer space should explicitly link to outer (which would link to out and -er) and space, plus an {{otheruses}} link to outer space (disambiguation) (which would link to outer (disambiguation) and space (disambiguation) in its "See also" section). This is even more frustrating for more complicated/technical topics like theoretical physics and computer-related articles that do not have this sort of navigation system. This is how I envision an integrated "wikipedictionaria" (or something) would work, gradually/seamlessly leading to more detailed and complex meanings/etymologies of a word (or word component) without having to bounce back and forth between wikis and remaining as vague and general on the "outer branches" of the navigation system. ∞Σɛ_Þ² ^(τ|c) 06:30, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

All these points have been answered before, but once again:

• Yes, just by you.
• Disambiguation is not searching is not categorization is not topical listing: they all perform their own specific navigational purpose.
• The disambiguation system is useful because the pages are not drowned in morasses of unrelated links.
• No one wants to turn Wikipedia into Wiktionary.

If you want to experiment with unconventional navigational systems, Wikipedia is freely mirrorable. --Piet Delport 07:12, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Names of figures in the colonies.

I propose we add the names of the Johns who contributed to the English colonies (e.g. White, Smith, Rolfe, etc.). ~ Wikipedian19265478 (talk) 05:04, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't think that makes sense. This is a disambiguation page for the term "John" - few people entering John in the search box will be looking for these colonial Johns and having them on the page makes it more difficult for those that are trying to find someone they are looking for who is more generally known as just "John." --John (User:Jwy/talk) 05:09, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

I think it does make sense. First, I was one who was looking for the colonial Johns. Second, it would be a good reference to anybody trying to remember them all. Third, it would be easy enough to create a new section for them. Anybody who is looking for another John would simply scroll past. ~ Wikipedian19265478 (talk) 06:05, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

For those people focussed on Colonial John's, it might make sense. But if we were to include all people with articles who's first name is John, the page would be unmanageably large. Why stop at Colonials? The longer list would belong at John (given name). --John (User:Jwy/talk) 03:53, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

You have a good point. Perhaps we should create a new page for them? I do feel that a list of them should be on Wikipedia, because there are so many, and are therefore easy to forget. ~ Wikipedian19265478 (talk) 06:07, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

John of Cyzicus

A historical Ionian figure with the given name John from maybe 2,500 or more years ago. The age of the name usage makes the inclusion important more than what is known about him. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.252.113.37 (talk) 07:46, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

"John (European rulers)" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect John (European rulers) and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2023 January 23 § John (European rulers) until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Lennart97 (talk) 22:54, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

The result of the discussion, in February 2023, was delete. Wire723 (talk) 19:47, 20 May 2023 (UTC)