Talk:Willie Brown (American football)

Biography assessment rating comment

The article may be improved by following the WikiProject Biography 11 easy steps to producing at least a B article.-- Jreferee 22:17, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Brown listed on NFL Top 100

Willie Brown was ranked #66 on the NFL Channel's The Top 100 Greatest Players.(2010)Cjstanonis (talk) 14:27, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

Date of Death

The New York Times article could be wrong about the day he died, all the other sources say he died on Tuesday October 22, 2019 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.237.64.88 (talk) 15:22, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

Requested move 25 December 2019

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: No consensus. (non-admin closure) Cwmhiraeth (talk) 16:52, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

---

Willie Brown (American football) → Willie Brown (American football, born 1940) – Current title is ambiguous for the other American football person, Willie Brown (American football, born 1942). Both people were players and coaches in American football. Per Wikipedia:Naming conventions (sportspeople)#Gridiron football, If two or more people played the same position and their careers overlap, use the year of birth as disambiguation. —Bagumba (talk) 10:19, 25 December 2019 (UTC)

I oppose moving this article to Willie Brown (American football, born 1940) b/c Wikipedia:Naming conventions (sportspeople)#Gridiron football says “In situations where there are two or more people who played gridiron football but they played different positions, use the name of the position they played”. B/c of that policy, I support moving Willie Brown (American football, born 1942) to Willie Brown (running back) & moving this article to Willie Brown (cornerback). Blaylockjam10 (talk) 06:18, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

There's no perfect name. They were both coaches too, and your suggestion would not help for someone looking for a football coach named Willie Brown. The Hall of Fame cornerback is probably most notable for his playing career, but the other Willie Brown is listed at two playing positions, wide receiver and halfback at pro-football-reference.com,[1] and his Wikipedia infobox shows "Running Back, Wide Receiver, Defensive back". Also the generic "defensive back" would be ambiguous with the other if he's disambiguated with "cornerback".—Bagumba (talk) 07:26, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose per WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. Keep the Hall-of-Famer, who at least 97% of readers are looking for, at the more concise name, and just add a hatnote per WP:TWODABS pointing to the other one. A 2-year age difference is not going to help people recognize them, anyway. Station1 (talk) 08:49, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

  There is no primary topic. Willie Brown is a dab page, and Willie Brown (politician) get more views than the football player anyways.—Bagumba (talk) 14:54, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

  He is the primary topic, by a huge margin, for the title "Willie Brown (American football)", not for "Willie Brown". Station1 (talk) 19:10, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

  That is not consistent with the subject-specific guideline Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(sportspeople) (underlining added for emphasis): The qualifier should be as simple and general as possible while still being descriptive and not being ambiguous with another article. They are both in American football; it is ambiguous. That does not follow the detailed options at Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(sportspeople)#Gridiron_football.—Bagumba (talk) 23:47, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

  If there were any inconsistency, WP:PRIMARYTOPIC would take precedence as the broader guideline, but that's not an issue as the sportspeople guideline also says "Disambiguation of sportsperson article titles should follow the general conventions as much as possible, just like any other Wikipedia article." There is no benefit to anyone to expanding the current title, since anyone searching for "Willie Brown" already gets to the dab page where both players are listed, while the extremely rare reader searching for the 1942 Willie Brown at "Willie Brown (American football)" still gets to that article with one click through the hatnote. By unnecessarily expanding the current title, we would be inconveniencing the 97%+ who expect the famous Willie Brown by searching for or linking to "Willie Brown (American football)", while also promoting a false equivalence between the 16-season All-Star Hall of Famer and the 3-season player. Station1 (talk) 07:03, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

  Autocomplete search ... anyone searching for 'Willie Brown' already gets to the dab page where both players are listed ... There is autocomplete in the search window, which suggests likely search titles, so it's antiquated to assume everyone lands at a disambiguation page and that non-ambiguous titles are not important.—Bagumba (talk) 09:03, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

  True. But right now autocomplete shows "Willie Brown (American football)" (as the second item) and "Willie Brown (American football, born 1942)" (sixth item). The former would appear to most people to be primary between the two, but if they were identical except for one showing "born 1940" and the other "born 1942", I think that would make the sought article less recognizable to anyone who doesn't already know each player's exact birth year. Station1 (talk) 09:45, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

  The second item would stay the second item based on the current search algorithm, independent of the title.—Bagumba (talk) 11:12, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

  If it helps, the 1942 Brown could also be moved back to Willie Brown (coach), where he was until a year ago. He apparently spent significantly more time as a coach than a player, and also played baseball. Station1 (talk) 07:19, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

  Pinging Yankees10, who moved that page, for comment.—Bagumba (talk) 09:05, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose per Station1. This is the primary topic for the disambiguated topic, much the same as Steve Smith (cricketer).  — Amakuru (talk) 12:41, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

---

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.