Forum:SH:Nobility Titles by gender

This page is an archive of a community-wide discussion. This page is no longer live. Further comments or questions on this topic should be made in a new Senate Hall page rather than here so that this page is preserved as a historic record. —spookywillowwtalk 00:01, 13 December 2024 (UTC)
Forums > Senate Hall archive > SH:Nobility Titles by gender

Context

We discussed this recently on the discord and I think it is worth a senate discussion. We are currently inconsistent when it comes to if we combine typically gendered titles or leave them separate. For example the King and Queen articles separate but the Prince article is for both Prince and Princess. It should also be noted that Queen (biology) is its own article for insect/hive like species but only for canon. The fact that one of the most notable people in Star Wars is Princess Leia and she references the prince article is notable for this discussion.

Current combined titles

  1. Baron, Baroness
  2. Baron/Legends, Baroness
  3. Count, Countess
  4. Count/Legends, Countess
  5. Duke, Duchess
  6. Duke/Legends, Duchess
  7. Emperor, Empress
  8. Emperor/Legends, Empress
  9. High Lord, High Lady
  10. Lord, Lady
  11. Lord/Legends, Lady
  12. Pirate King, Pirate Queen, or pirate monarch
  13. Pirate King/Legends, Pirate Queen
  14. Priest, Priestess
  15. Priest/Legends, Priestess
  16. Prince, Princess
  17. Prince/Legends, Princess

Current separate titles

  1. King
  2. King/Legends
  3. High Priest
  4. High Priest/Legends
  5. High Priestess - (only legends)
  6. Queen
  7. Queen/Legends
  8. Queen (biology) - (only canon) for insect or hive like species

Options

Combine equivalent titles

  1. King and Queen articles would combine under a new Monarch article with redirects.
  2. Queen (biology) would remain its own article and a legends page would be created for any content from the Queen/Legends article.
  3. Pirate King would be moved to Pirate monarch with redirect.
  4. High Priestess would be combined with High Priest/Legends

Separate all titles

  1. All the current combined titles would separated, as in we would have both Prince and Princess, Duke and Duchess ect.
  2. We should note, gendered titles as typically masculine or typically feminine.
  3. Queen (biology)/Legends will be created from any content from the Queen/Legends article.

Separate some titles

  1. The some titles like King, Queen, Prince, Princess, Pirate King, Pirate Queen are separate but the rest as remain combined as they aren't as commonly gendered. And having Queen, and Princess separate can be useful for female empowerment.
  2. Queen (biology)/Legends will be created from any content on the Queen/Legends article.
  3. High Priestess would be combined with High Priest/Legends

ThePedantry (talk)

Discussion

  • After the initial discussions on discord, I personally lean more towards the "Separate some titles" approach. - ThePedantry (talk) 21:52, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
  • Separate all - unless, in any in those examples, in all of SW history, there has only been one or the other - a Baron, but never a Baroness, or a Duchess but never a Duke. And I'm certain that isn't the case. - JMAS Jolly Trooper Hey, it's me! 22:38, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
  • Restating some points from Discord, but wholly opposed to merging equivalent titles, for two main reasons. One, I think that it's a disservice to refer to characters in general by a less specific term than is defined in canon just encyclopedically, butespecially for queens and the like; they're proud ladies and want to be called Queen. Secondly, should we ever get a trans monarch (which is likely someday), then we'd be intentionally not using the term they felt suited them best (for instance, King or Queen) in favor of forcibly relegating that to a gender neutral alternative. Of course—there's many monarchs who don't have a canonical term assigned or a known gender—or even if they do, maybe they want to use Monarch and that'd be totally fine as well! But it shouldn't result in characters who do to use the gendered titles having to not; they should have the ability to make that choice (or rather, the authors should in this case). Less of an opinion on the rest; mostly just opposed to merging in any fashion.—spookywillowwtalk 22:59, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
    • We wouldn't actually be referring to them with the wrong title though. Queens would still be called queens, the page would just get pipelinked to a different page instead. CometSmudge (talk) 23:23, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
      • Even so; I still personally feel like pipelinking a rank to something that's less specific than its canonical term is a disservice; it'll be pointing readers to a gender neutral page. Which of course, should and can still exist for monarchs that go by "Monarch" or we don't know the gender of, but it needn't remove the pages for Kings and Queens seperately, especially given the number of sources that ID those properly in both continuities.—spookywillowwtalk 23:39, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
  • I think its best to be consistent and either separate all or merge all, only merging some doesn't make sense to me. CometSmudge (talk) 23:23, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
  • per spooky OOM 224 (he/him/they) 23:42, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
  • I think splitting in almost every case makes sense. Things like Duke and Duchess maybe be mostly definitionally equivalent but they still have their own history, examples, description, etc. that doesn't need to be put together just because. Wok142 (talk) 01:01, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
  • I personally think we should separate them all, but agreed that it should be consistent either way. For cases where a gender-neutral term exists and is also used in-universe (such as monarch, undoubtedly) then I suppose that could exist in addition (but without merging the other titles entirely into it, per above). Zed42 Wolfpack emblem (talk) 02:52, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
  • Eh, yeah just split 'em all Fan26 (Talk) 02:55, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
  • Per spooky. Let's split them all. There is enough content for each to have its own page anyway, so it's not like we're forcing a bunch of identical articles. Master FredceriqueCommerce Guild(talk) (he/him) 05:10, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
  • I too think splitting all the articles into Duke and Duchess, etc. is the way to go. They all have their own history and examples. -StarWarsFan327 (talk) 11:43, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
  • I'd support separating some. Rsand 30 (talk) 23:22, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
  • Others have said it best. Separating the two is better than merging under a generic title. Bonzane10 Bonzane10-Sig 06:48, 26 October 2024 (UTC)
  • Going to be a dissenting voice, with all due respect. Neither binary gender nor binary biological sex is universal in Star Wars (and yes, I'm aware of non-binarity IRL, but the scale is different), contentful difference is non-existent (for instance, there doesn't seem to be a contentful difference between Lumiya being Dark Lady of the Sith but Kreia being Dark Lord), and there will be tough choices you're seemingly not thinking about (wikipedia:Queen regnant vs. wikipedia:Queen consort, for instance). Merge everything, describe gendered terms within the page. Demetrius Viridianus (talk) 23:05, 27 October 2024 (UTC)
  • This discussion shouldn't be limited to titles. For sitewide consistency, all gendered terms—including gender itself—need to be included. If the chosen option is "split 'em all," then gender also should be divided into articles for male, female, nonbinary, and others. (There are probably other gendered articles, but none come immediately to mind.) Asithol (talk) 04:44, 22 November 2024 (UTC)