Ph: 84102218174

Talk:Chairman

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

  (Redirected from Talk:Chair (official))
Jump to: navigation, search

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Chairman article.

Please sign and date your posts by typing four tildes (~~~~). Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic. New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Ask questions, get answers. This is not a forum for general discussion about the article's subject.
Be polite Assume good faith No personal attacks Be welcoming
Article policies
No original research Neutral point of view Verifiability
WikiProject Parliamentary Procedure      (Rated C-Class)
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Parliamentary Procedure, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Parliamentary Procedure articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks.
C This article has been rated as C-Class on the quality scale.
??? This article has not yet received a rating on the importance scale.
This article has been rated but has no comments. If appropriate, please review the article and leave comments here to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article and how best to improve it.

Contents

1 Debate 2 Name 3 American Heritage Dictionary 4 Proposed changes 5 Really bad editing 6 FTSE, Fortune 500 7 Academic chairs 8 This is a very important article 9 Requested move to "Chairman"

[edit] Debate

Is there any information about chairman in a debate? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.142.171.137 (talk) 08:48, 2 March 2008

[edit] Name

Excuse me, a "Chair" is something you sit on! An official person, as described in the article is a chairman (whether male or female- just like human, policeman, fireman etc.). It should be changed. Btline (talk) 22:56, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Y Done Btline (talk) 22:04, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
I've undone this bold move. The Chicago Manual of Style (5.202) favors "chair" over "chairman". If you want to try to move the article again, I suggest you go through the more formal channel of Wikipedia:Requested moves, in order to generate a large discussion (from which a real consensus, instead of a 'silent' consensus, can be raised). -Andrew c [talk] 22:30, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
I was under the impression that the "man" in chairman derived from the Latin "manus" meaning hand. The chairman is therefore the "guiding hand" chairing an organisation and is therefore used irrespective of whether the person occupying the chair is male or female. Or is this a British vs American difference? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Geoccountant (talk • contribs) 02:35, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
I'm extremely skeptical that the "man" in chairman means anything but "man". It's almost unheard of to mix languages in a synthetic word except for neologisms. If the word were not referring to a person, but to a hand, then it almost definitely would be "chairhand" (cf. words like "deckhand"). If "man" were Latin, wouldn't it be something terribly awkward like mansella? I haven't read Riddick's Rules, but surely it's possible that it's wrong? 141.202.248.68 (talk) 19:18, 5 November 2008 (UTC)


It is extraordinarily unlikely that the man in chaiman comes from manus, and even if it originally did, it doesn't any more. Hence the plural (which I will admit is unlikely in a single committee) of chairmen, and not chairmans, which would follow the plural of other words ending in -man which do not refer to men, such as humans, talismans, and so on. 84.102.218.174 (talk) 19:04, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

[edit] American Heritage Dictionary

I removed some confusing words about the "members" of this dictionary. The reference talks about some sort of "usage panel," but doesn't say what it is. Members of the panel are certainly not members of a dictionary. Lou Sander (talk) 13:09, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed changes

I'm thinking of making some changes to the lead of this article, but I seek feedback first. The changes are:

Drop "convener" and "convenor" from the topic sentence. They are different words than "chairman". Maybe mention them as such later in the article. Gather all the forms of the word, usages, etc. into one paragraph or section Clarify the difference between a "chair" as an academic office and "chairman" as the head of an organization. (Does the academic "chair" even belong in an article on "chairman?" Expand the discussion of the word as the head of an organization. There is something small, as the chairman of an informal committee, something larger, as the chairman of the board of a small organization such as a social club, and something much larger, as the chairman of a large corporation.

I'll leave this here for a while to draw comments, then make the appropriate changes. Lou Sander (talk) 20:43, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

I have to agree. There is a big confusion between what many words mean (chairman is different to chair, convener etc.). Btline (talk) 21:29, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

The changes are good. However encyclopedia articles cover topics, not words. There is no reason why the lead section shouldn't broaden the topic to include both officers and the office, as well as other related English words, even if the meanings differ. I added back a brief mention of some English words. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 09:05, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Really bad editing

The entire article is written from the perspective of "chairman." He/she who changes the title to "Chair" really needs to do more than just change the article's name. Lou Sander (talk) 08:06, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

[edit] FTSE, Fortune 500

I removed the unsupported assertion that the majority of these have a "chairman." It had been questioned for six months, with no response. Lou Sander (talk) 10:58, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Academic chairs

Wikipedia needs an article on the type of chair found in academia, usually denoting an eminent professorship, possibly specially endowed with funds. This article hints around at that subject, but it's really a totally different type of "chair." Lou Sander (talk) 13:02, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

[edit] This is a very important article

I just looked at "What links here," and found hundreds and hundreds of pages that link to this one, either directly or through redirect pages. IMHO we have a responsibility to make this page as good as it possibly can be. The lead has been worked over quite a bit and is pretty thoroughly referenced. The rest of the article pretty much lacks references. Lou Sander (talk) 14:07, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Also IMHO we need to do a bit better on dealing with other words like president, etc. The "chair" position, by whatever name, is basically somebody who sits in front of a group and directs their activities. Some of the other related words don't apply to someone who does that. We ought to be clear about the essence of "chair" and its distinction from other words for executives. Lou Sander (talk) 14:39, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I think it gets 200 or 300 visits a day: http://stats.grok.se/en/200809/Chair%20(official) which I guess is not bad for something with parentheses in the title.
I have enjoyed tweaking the article, but I am neither an expert on corporate governance, (nor a rules of order wonk.) Perhaps you could drop a request for a volunteer at WikiProject Companies.
I agree with your concern about the US meaning of president: Wall Street Words (via dictionary.com) seems to support your concern. In other parts of the business world, the president often takes the chair, so that needs some work.
Dictionary.com also suggests we have got it wrong regarding chairman: each definition refers to an officeholder, not an office (or the dignity of the office.)
Although it is a bit more worthy of wiktionary than wikipedia, we could mention that the term 'chair' in debating is a direct reference to the "seat occupied by the person presiding". OED2 will back that up, but I am not sure how to smoothly work that into the article. It might quieten the occasional person that concludes that because a chair is a piece of furniture, it is not a suitable title for this article.
Moderator has a dozen meanings, but one of those is 'presiding officer' at a meeting. I don't think we need a footnote for that, as we are not asserting a fact, merely clarifying the scope of the article.
--Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 11:41, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
Several months ago the article was pretty incoherent, so I started to work on it from time to time. I've been very insistent about citations, mainly to avoid a relapse into incoherence, but also to follow Wiki-rules about original research. I've resisted the temptation to insist on citations for the "moderator" stuff because I don't want to seem overbearing. I'll try to find some references myself, though.
I'm somewhat familiar with Robert's Rules of Order, and I know a bit about corporate governance in the U.S., but I'm not an expert in either. Since RROR is such a basic work on the conduct of groups by a leader, I've used it sort of as a "bible." Most of its stuff seems to fit in with the corporate governance stuff pretty well.
"Chair" DOES refer to an office, a seat, and an officeholder. The article was formerly named "Chairman," and I think I'd favor renaming it, since most of the "what links here" stuff seems to be about officeholders. Even when restricted to the officeholder, there are many names that refer to the same thing. Some boards DO have a "President," for example, but when an organization has a "Chairman," the "President" usually refers to an executive position, rather than to the presiding officer of the board. Even in that situation, the same person often holds both offices.
The more I think about it, the more I like the notion of a "Chair" article that discusses the triple meaning of seat, office, and officeholder, and a "Chairman" article that discusses the various titles, duties, etc. of the officeholder. Whatever happens, please do keep your hand in this article. It helps. Lou Sander (talk) 14:51, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Lou wrote: I've resisted the temptation to insist on citations for the "moderator" stuff because I don't want to seem overbearing. I'll try to find some references myself, though.

Overbearing people make me grumpy, even though I am sometimes overbearing myself. So I am glad you didn't insist.

Moderator is fully defined in OED2, but to be honest, I have cited it so many times in the article I feel like I might be plagiarizing it one day soon. But my other favourite dictionary doesn't have this sense (except in Presbyterianism !)

I shall try to remember your request and add a citation to the article when I next have some time online. I need sleep now.

--Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 22:19, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Requested move to "Chairman"

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was move. JPG-GR (talk) 16:50, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

I propose to rename this article to Chairman. Reasons:

It is about an office the ancient and longstanding name of which is "Chairman." It is linked to from hundreds of other articles, most of which links seem to involve somebody being "Chairman" of something. (I haven't counted them, though.) The introduction to the article is now very thoroughly referenced, and it is clear from the references that "Chairman" is a gender-neutral term. (In the former absence of references, there was a perceived gender neutrality problem.) "Chair" suffers from having too many meanings that don't directly apply to a presiding officer of a group. Among these are the academic meaning of "distinguished professorship," which can be spun off as a separate article. I will be glad to spin it off myself, or to yield to someone more proficient.
Comments are solicited, and welcome. Lou Sander (talk) 19:13, 26 October 2008 (UTC)
I disagree with 3. We have the MoS and how to guide that prefers gender neutral language (and gives "fireman" as an example of something not gender neutral that can easily be changed to avoid that problem). The Chicago Manual of Style (sections 5.202 and 8.31) support the use of chair over chairman. I would not oppose changing the parenthetical comment for disambiguation purposes (i.e. changing "official" to something more descriptive), but I would not support moving the article to "chairman". It seems old fashion to me personally, and goes against our MoS in regards to gender neutral terminology. We can consider creating chair (disambiguation) as well to cover other meanings, if other articles are created for sure. But we don't need an individual article on chairwomen, nor chairmen for that matter. I believe we can address your concerns through other means. Hopefully we can reach a modest solution! -Andrew c [talk] 00:27, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
I can see why you feel that way about gender neutrality. I felt that way myself when I started working on the article. But when I consulted the authoritative works in the field, I found that the word has nothing to do with gender. The situation is explained in the article. Lou Sander (talk) 00:37, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
Oppose: although etymologically "Chairman" might be gender neutral, it is nonetheless considered dated by many people, and "Chair" is the acceptable term today. PamD (talk) 08:41, 27 October 2008 (UTC) Support, per reasons 1, 2, 3, and 4: What we or "many people" feel doesn't matter much. Look at the references from the subject matter experts. Look at the links like Adobe Systems, Akio Morita, BMW, Glenn T. Seaborg, NASDAQ, Ted Turner, Wal-Mart, The Walt Disney Co., Norwegian Air Shuttle, Harry Ried. While "chair" may be preferred by some dictionaries and non-subject matter experts for new usage, this is an encyclopedia, and the use of "chairman" is huge compared to the recent use of "chair." DCLawyer (talk) 09:09, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
Use of chair is small in recent times, but it is just as valid and over 400 years old. See the OED: "1647 CLARENDON Hist. Reb. IV. (1843) 118/1 The committee of the Commons appointed Mr. Pym to sit in their chair." --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 12:42, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
Strong support - a chair is something you sit on! As per reasons 1-4 and those supporting above. Also note that "Chairman" is NOT GENDER SPECIFIC as some people say. It is equivalent to human, policeman and fireman - all of which can be male or female (according to dictionary definitions). Btline (talk) 15:30, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
a chair is something you sit on - agreed - something that the king sat on while his subjects sat on benches. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 12:42, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
Weak support - A move from Chair (official) to Chairman will mean we don't need those clumsy disambiguation parentheses in the title. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 12:42, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
Those "clumsy disambiguation parentheses in the title" are the standard way to disambiguate the most common name used to refer to the topic of a given Wikipedia article from other uses of that name, and their presence in an article title should never be a reason to move an article. If Chair was the most common name given to refer to the topic of this article, then the current title, including the parenthesis and disambiguation information inside them, would be most appropriate, for it would clearly convey that Chair is the most common name given to refer to the topic of this article. --Born2cycle (talk) 15:08, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
Support - "chairman" is more common and unforced, and carries no implications of masculine sex, only gender (and anyway English doesn't really have grammatical gender). See Merriam-Webster's ("the presiding officer of a meeting, organization, committee, or event; the administrative officer of a department of instruction (as in a college)") and Oxford ("The occupier of a chair of authority; spec. the person who is chosen to preside over a meeting, to conduct its proceedings, and who occupies the chair or seat provided for this function."). Biruitorul Talk 15:08, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
Support as unambiguous and (probably) the most common name. "Chair (official)" seems to be a neologism or Americanism that has not yet achieved preponderant usage. Also keep in mind other uses such as in political contexts (e.g., Chairman Mao) where the form "chairman" is used. — AjaxSmack 17:59, 2 November 2008 (UTC)
Since 'chair' was attested in 1647 (to refer to the office not the officeholder), I think we can only call the reference to the officeholder a neologism or Americanism. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 10:53, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
Comment for those supporting a rename, I have a question. If the rename were to occur, would we have to move other articles as well? We currently don't have a policeman or fireman or mailman or workmen's compensation article (etc.) Is the term chairman somehow different from these other articles where if we moved this it would not be backtracking and setting a new precedent, in defiance of the already established MoS guidelines? That is my major concern. We have reliable sources backing up the use of "chair", and we have the MoS which guides us to use gender neutral language. For someone like Ajax who claims that chair is a less common, neologism, do we have any reliable sources to back up these claims? People can state their opinions all they want, but when we have the Chicago Manual of Style and The American Heritage Book of English Usage, and other style guides which support "chair", it seems very odd to go against these things without going to source material, but instead going on personal opinion.-Andrew c [talk] 18:15, 2 November 2008 (UTC)
MOS also suggests that we use the most unambiguous name for an article title. Unlike police officer and firefighter, chair is ambiguous. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 10:53, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
Chair is of course ambiguous, but the title of this article is not Chair, it is Chair (official), which is not ambiguous. The fact that Chair is ambiguous is not relevant to choosing between Chair (official) and Chairman for this article's title, which is the issue at hand. By the way, reason #4 in the proposal is irrelevant too, for the same reason. What is relevant here is whether Chair or Chairman is used more commonly to refer to the subject of this article. Pointing this out has helped me make my decision... thank you! --Born2cycle (talk) 15:08, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
Support. While there have been many efforts to adopt the term Chair instead of Chairman since the 1970s, the adoption has not been nearly as widespread as other similar efforts (e.g., using flight attendant instead of stewardess). Chairman remains the most common name used to refer to the topic of this article, the primary usage of Chairman is this article's topic (in fact it's not ambiguous at all), and so Chairman should be the title. --Born2cycle (talk) 15:08, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Chairman"

You are viewing a mobilized version of this site...
View original page here

How do you rate mobile version of this page?

Mobilized by Mowser Mowser