User:SOTO/Forum Archive/The Panopticon/@comment-1046-20180501024620

Thread:231243 ended with a decision that information from novelisations may be included in articles, but that when a novelisation gives a more complete name for a person than the televised story, the article name should be based on the TV version alone, as at Miranda (Doctor Who). That's fine. But what about the cases in which a person's name is not given at all on TV, but the novelisation gives them a name? We have a short article at Mickey Smith's mother. Rose (novelisation) names her as Odessa Smith (and incidentally confirms that "couldn't cope" is a euphemism for her suicide). I would be inclined to move Mickey Smith's mother to Odessa Smith, but the policy as written would seem to argue against that. Can we distinguish between cases in which a novelisation gives a surname to a character who doesn't have one on TV, and cases in which a novelisation gives a name to a character who doesn't have one at all on TV?

CzechOut explained the decision to use Miranda (Doctor Who) instead of Miranda Gerhardt as being in the interest of aiding casual readers of the site. But are casual readers more aided by an article titled Mickey Smith's mother than by one titled Odessa Smith? Surely the most likely method for anyone searching for an article on Mickey's mother would be for them to go to Mickey Smith and click on a link to the article on his mother, either in the infobox or in the article text. I could be wrong, but I don't think most readers would type "mickey smith's mother" in the search field.