Talk:Israel C. O'Neal

I.C. O'Neal and J.L. O'Neal are not the same person

Within an hour after I added language to this page about Israel C. O'Neal being a sutler, Google Gemini was reporting that Israel C. O'Neal and J.L. O'Neal were the same person (citing this page as the authority for that conclusion). They were not. For starters, it's not even the same name. Plus, the source cited for Israel C. O'Neal being a sutler clearly indicates that he was a sutler to a federal regiment. J.L. O'Neal was a sutler to a confederate regiment (plenty of evidence out there to support this, as J.L. O'Neal sutler tokens are valuable among coin collectors). The language I added was to deter both humans and AI bots from drawing the same incorrect conclusion that Gemini drew, but apparently the community didn't like it. You not liking my fix doesn't make it any less of a problem. Propose a solution. Mpedone (talk) 19:25, 18 April 2026 (UTC)

This is not a problem with Wikipedia. If you thank that the language of your edits are confusing to people reading the article, then you are encouraged to improve it. But if you are having issues with Google products, then you need to speak to Google: https://support.google.com/gemini/

--Gurkubondinn (talk) 19:46, 18 April 2026 (UTC)

I tried improving it, but you didn't like my improvement. You propose an improvement. Anyone can delete. Show me how you'd fix this problem. Mpedone (talk) 19:56, 18 April 2026 (UTC)

Volunteer editors of Wikipedia cannot help you with problems that you are experiencing with Google products. This is the wrong venue, you need to contact Google if you have problems with their products. I don't work for Google, I am not Google support, and I cannot help you. --Gurkubondinn (talk) 20:04, 18 April 2026 (UTC)

Explain why it is not appropriate to include a sentence distinguishing the subject of a Wikipedia article from another person with a similar name and occupation who could be easily confused with the subject of the Wikipedia article. Mpedone (talk) 20:09, 18 April 2026 (UTC)

That is not done on Wikipedia. We don't include WP:COMMENTARY in articles, nor do we include instructions for AI chatbots or ML training. I have already pointed you towards {{For}} and similar hatnotes, but those are used when article subjects have sufficiently similar names that people could mistake them. If you believe that your prose is confusing to readers of the article, then you are encouraged to improve it.

You seem to have a bit of a misunderstanding about where your problem is. You have a problem with Gemini. Wikipedia has nothing to do with Gemini, it is a Google product so should contact Google's support. Wikipedia editors cannot help you with problems you are experiencing with Gemini, GMail, AdSense, or any other products made by Google. I have given you the link to the Gemini page on the Google Support site, and unfortunately there isn't anything more that I can do to help you with this. --Gurkubondinn (talk) 20:19, 18 April 2026 (UTC)

I'm glad you are so confident a human could never make the same mistake as Gemini did. Congratulations on making Wikipedia less reliable. Mpedone (talk) 20:24, 18 April 2026 (UTC)

This is meant as friendly advice, but I would encourage you to read the WP:AGF guideline, as well as the WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA policies as soon as possible. As you are a newer editor, you might not be aware of them yet. --Gurkubondinn (talk) 20:35, 18 April 2026 (UTC)

I don't understand what you two are arguing about. While I agree that the parenthetical mpedone originally proposed about AI bots is not appropriate, I do agree with his general point that humans could have trouble distinguishing between these two notable people. The fact that the problem first arose in an AI context doesn't mean a human couldn't make the same mistake. Including some language to clarify who IC ONeal was NOT could be a useful. Bottom line, while I disagree with mpedone's original implementation, I disagree with the substance of Gurkubondinn's response. DaveChan78 (talk) 20:45, 18 April 2026 (UTC)

I've never claimed a person could not make this mistake (that was incorrectly asserted by the editor). In fact, I have pointed the editor to the {{For}} hat note, but they have not chosen to add it to the article. I believe that the other notable person is the son of this notable person, who is mentioned in the prose. I have also in two occasions encouraged the editor to rewrite the parts that they feel are confusing (I personally don't find it confusing, but I'm hardly the arbiter of what is confusing and what isn't), which they have also shown limited interest in.

There is no argument from my point of view. I have only reverted some commentary directed at chatbots (which does not belong in a Wikipedia article), and they tried to explain why I did that. --Gurkubondinn (talk) 20:55, 18 April 2026 (UTC)

What is your evidence for believing that J.L. O'Neal is the son of I.C. O'Neal? Mpedone (talk) 20:58, 18 April 2026 (UTC)

What? Why do I need "evidence" for that? Apparently his son was named Lewis (which starts with an L, hence why I got him confused with "J. L."), but what does that matter?

The productive solution, which I have pointed out to you twice now, is either rewriting the prose if you find it confusing, or using the {{For}} hatnote (the {{other people}} hatnote is meant for people with the same name). I pointed out that it should be used for article subjects with sufficiently similar names, because if we start listing everyone named "O'Niel" then it would get out of hand very quickly. There might even be guidelines or essays on when or how to use these hatnotes, I don't know. --Gurkubondinn (talk) 21:05, 18 April 2026 (UTC)

Or a footnote. Use your judgement. If someone disagrees, it might get reverted. Or not. --Gurkubondinn (talk) 21:06, 18 April 2026 (UTC)

To be fair, you did say you believed that J.L. O'Neal is I.C. O'Neal's son. I was also curious why you believed that. When I first read that statement, I thought maybe you had some fact that would be useful here. If you have such a fact, sharing it would be helpful. Otherwise it's just argumentative. DaveChan78 (talk) 23:00, 18 April 2026 (UTC)

How on earth would it be "argumentative"? This was a passing comment that had no bearing on anything here. My point would have been that this other O'Niel would already have been mentioned in the prose that could have been reworked to alleviate this supposed misunderstanding. Since this is not the same person, nothing really changes, anyone is still welcome to change the prose to alleviate the supposed misunderstanding. --Gurkubondinn (talk) 23:07, 18 April 2026 (UTC)

But to rework the prose as you suggest, the editor would have needed some factual basis for it. Surely if he had revised the prose to reflect your "belief", but failed to provide a citation for it, you would have then complained that the editor was making a baseless statement. Perhaps he was simply asking if you had evidence so he could avoid such a problem. DaveChan78 (talk) 23:42, 18 April 2026 (UTC)

That's exactly why I asked. Mpedone (talk) 23:48, 18 April 2026 (UTC)

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. If we had to say "this John Smith is not that John Smith, but also not that one, but the grandfather of the third John Smith who also went by Johnny" at the top of every article, it would not be usable. Disambiguation is for that and footnotes can serve as helpers on name confusion. Misinterpretation because of poor OCR by a large language model (LLM) is not Wikipedia's problem. Wikipedia's role is not to respond to how a search engine or LLM interprets its text. LLMs make mistakes a million times a second, human editors cannot and should not have to patrol its errors. We focus on ground truth (verifiable, evidence based ground truth from reliable source) and the Internet uses it (and consumes it) how it does. Arguably, these LLMs will get better over time and this error correction should happen at the vendor (read: consumer of Wikipedia), not the source (Wikipedia). If we add these disclaimers, Google fixes its bugs, and we still have that disclaimer text after their bug, then aren't we propagating that confusion (and bug) past its lifespan? --Engineerchange (talk) 21:00, 18 April 2026 (UTC)

We don't have to say it — I'm not saying it's a "must do" — but we MAY do it. What's the harm? DaveChan78 (talk) 21:23, 18 April 2026 (UTC)