Misplaced Pages talk:Naming conventions (use English-language sources)

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Examples

In a new attempt to enhance the practicality of this guideline (and its coherence with other naming conventions guidelines), I propose an approach where on this talk page we would work with examples, lots or examples - first see if we can agree on these examples, without worrying about how to grasp that in a guideline formulation.

My best guess at this point is that if we have enough examples on which we agree, that the way the guideline should be (re)formulated would be the easiest part, after a certain time.

A German-English example

A month ago someone created Eine Alpensinfonie - today I created An Alpine Symphony as a redirect to that page.

So, for me, I'm quite indifferent whether the one is the content page and the other the redirect, or vice versa - anyway, as far as I'm concerned the present situation is OK, and I see no reason to propose a change.

Any ideas? --Francis Schonken 14:46, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

A cursory web search indicates that "Eine Alpensinfonie" is by far the commoner title in use, so I'd stick with that for the content, and keep "An Alpine Symphony" as the redirect. --Stemonitis 08:45, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

A French-English example

Fin de siècle exists already for some time, current redirects:

(French): Fin-de-siècle
(Without diacritics): Fin De Siecle, Fin de siecle, Fin de Siecle
(English): Turn-of-the-century, Turn of the century

In this case I have a preference: "Fin de siècle" has a richer set of connotations than the English equivalent/calque; without accent grave doesn't seem too suited to me, and French with hyphens is probably not as current as without. In other words, my present preference is to keep it as it is, only, maybe still add Fin-de-siecle as a redirect. --Francis Schonken 12:55, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

A French/English-English example

A bit more tricky - I proposed this WP:RM:

Talk:Salomé — Salomé → Salome – "Salome" appears to be more often used in English than "Salomé", e.g. Oscar Wilde names his play Salomé in French and Salome in English, see Salome (play)#External links for the original text of both the French and English version of this play

Please go vote at talk:Salomé#Requested move one way or another, this helps making clear how the wikipedia community thinks about the border zones of WP:UE! --Francis Schonken 19:10, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

After a fairly unanymous vote, the page was moved to Salome. --Francis Schonken 09:07, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

A Norse/Old English-English example

Another WP:RM vote recently initiated:

Talk:Níðhöggr/archive1 — Níðhöggr → Nidhogg – Move article back to English name for the mythical creature... editor who moved it claims that if a name isn't common enough in English by his standards that we should use archaic Icelandic instead, rejecting the Misplaced Pages:Use English standard and creating his own. DreamGuy 23:16, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
I've been using 10 sources to write that article, 5 of them are in English. None of them uses or even mentions the spelling "Nidhogg" which is now being claimed to be "the English form". - Haukur Þorgeirsson 19:37, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Notification copied here by Francis Schonken 19:26, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

I closed this vote on December 4th as having no consensus either way. Please continue any unresolved discussion from the vote here, not on the associated talk page. JRM · Talk 01:18, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Diacritics, South Slavic languages

I've been searching many Misplaced Pages: namespace articles for "established" convention of naming the articles with diacritics but I'm confused at the end. So, I'll pose this as a question:

How to name articles with diacritic (non-Western) letters about South Slavic topics?.

The current situation is pretty much a mess. Take a look at e.g. Category:Serbia stubs. Most pages do have diacritic marks on Serbian-specific letters (š, č, ć, ž), but some don't (Kostana, Marko Lopusina). And no, there are no "well-established English names" nor the language(s) have "official transliteration" -- the most common 'transliteration' is mere "drop the diacritics". My proposal for resolving the situation is to create non-diacritic pages redirecting to "diacritic" ones (like Nada Obric). In this way, one gets correct spelling (which matters) but English speakers can relatively easily find the page using solely English letters. But this ought to be listed somewhere as an official policy so that I don't waste my time convincing other editors (most of them from Balkans) to do so for every affected page. Duja 11:56, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes, this is indeed a good suggestion and it is in practice what is done for almost all articles for locations and people related to European countries which use the Latin alphabet, exceptions are places which have English names separate from the name used in the country, e.g. Nuremberg. There are also some articles, manly stubs, which do not use the diacritics marks but when people get round to expanding them they are usually moved to the version with diacritics by the expander. It is very difficult to get this into the "official" policy, even when there is a broad majority for this, see e.g. Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions (Norse mythology) and the talk page there, and if these moves get posted to Requested moves there are always some people who have never look at the article but start opposing. Stefán Ingi 12:10, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Sorry for multiposting – Wikiproblems; fixed. OK, I'll see what I can do among the, erm, community of South-European editors about it.

It would be far easier to make it an official policy though -- are you referring to the, erm, doubtful 62:48 vote on Diacritics (I only stumbled over it)? Duja 12:22, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Current article moving policy with voting is IMO also a bad idea. And voting is, for the most part, a bad idea as well. I already moved pages few times without the consensus, fixing obvious mistakes. It makes it difficult to fix things that are more or less obviously misnamed. Duja 12:22, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

I wholeheartedly agree with you, Duja, as can be seen in my latest screed on Talk:Níðhöggr where I use Lech Wałęsa as an example. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 12:28, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Ah, thus the link to Talk:Níðhöggr ;-). Voted. Noblesse oblige :-). Duja 12:51, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

A Polish/French-English example

In 1810 a guy was was given the name Fryderyk when he was born in Poland. When he was 20 years old he moved to Paris, hence his first name was better known as Frédéric. The English equivalent of that is Frederic (or Frederick?), nonentheless the wikipedia article is at Frédéric Chopin. That's OK for me, though I could live with Frederic Chopin too. Note that on recordings with the sleeve notes in English the name is most often written with the French accents, so there seems no problem at all to keep the guy where he is now. --Francis Schonken 11:00, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

An American/South Slavic roots/Belgian-English example

This pianist and composer lives in the French-speaking part Belgium for nearly 30 years: Frederic Rzewski. Nonetheless his first name did not get affected by French accents. --Francis Schonken 11:00, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

A German/Italian-English example

Crowned Emperor in Rome, he was known in his home country by his German name: Friedrich I. von Hohenstaufen, with a nickname that was the Italian version of Redbeard. The wikipedia article is at Frederick Barbarossa - why not Friedrich Barbarossa? Or Friedrich Redbeard? Or Frederic Barbarossa? Or Frederic Redbeard? etc... I think "Barbarossa" is agreed to be the common name. Whether "Friedrich" or "Frederick" is more suitable as first name mentioned in the wikipedia article name I don't know, but I can live with what it is now. --Francis Schonken 11:00, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

An Estonian-English example

The Estonian composer Arvo Pärt is known in the Western world usually with the diacritical on the "a" of his last name. Maybe some record sellers have him in the search engine as "Part", e.g. Amazon, but when they show an image of a CD (which nowadays have almost always the title and notes in English), the spelling is always with the diacritical, e.g. "Orient & Occident" at Amazon

So, no, I don't think this problematic, "Arvo Pärt" seems the only logical choice. --Francis Schonken 11:00, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

A Czech/Bohemian-English example

For similar reasons as the previous I prefer Leoš Janáček above Leos Janacek or Leos Janácek for the article title in English wikipedia. In this case the version without accents has a higher Google result than with diacriticals. Nonetheless, English CD's, concert program notes and books (like John Tyrell's Janáček's Operas) always have the diacriticals, as well on vowels as on consonants. --Francis Schonken 11:00, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

A Polish-English example

The Polish union leader that later became president is now at Lech Wałęsa. With this one I don't agree: this guy has major press coverage in the Western world, where his name is nearly always spelled Lech Walesa, for example the Time magazine covers shown in Lech's article. "Lech Wałęsa" seems like "Fryderyk Szopen" to me: an irrelevant academic correctness for an article title, while that name, by native English speakers, is without doubt much easier recognised as "Frédéric Chopin".

Consequently, I'll trigger a WP:RM on Lech (to my surprise there doesn't seem to have been one yet). --Francis Schonken 11:00, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

After a fairly unanymous vote, the page was not moved. --Francis Schonken
07:29, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

FWIW, whatever correctness there may be to "Fryderyk Szopen" is not of the academic kind. "Chopin" is based not so much on FC's adult life as an expatriate in France as bcz it was the French name of his French father, who was in Poland as an expatriate (and presumably searcher after his lost-for-generations Polish roots).
--Jerzy•t 04:37, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

I have to say that I think you are making a lot of work out of something which is not going to be resolved this way. All that will be decided are the names of some specific articles, it is not a way to work out policy. This issue has been discussed for over a year and no agreement has been reached. --Philip Baird Shearer 11:36, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, I made some work out of it (but don't exaggerate). Whether in the end it will make the guideline more practical, I don't know. I don't see a "line" in the examples yet, I mean: not something I could formulate in a simple principle. Maybe in the end the examples make us start to see a "line", which might help in a clearer formulation of the guideline. Maybe not, but then maybe a choice of representative examples (that help others in making choices) can be added to the guideline, for instance like wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names) which has several examples, as well of instances where the most "common name" has been used, as of instances where that was not the case. But for that conventions text, the whole, that is the principles and their explanation & exceptions + selected examples, give IMHO an insight in how it works - which is far from how things are w.r.t. WP:UE, which is presently only used to slap other wikipedians on the head with, whatever preference one wants to push.

Don't take your failures out on me. I don't intend to "discuss" at length too much. Let examples speak for themselves as much as possible. If the examples bring clarity I'm sure that will make the discussion in the end shorter, while clearer and less emotional. --Francis Schonken 12:26, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

It is not my failure or anyone else's. This issue has turned out to be as is a devise as American English and Commonwealth English. The examples you are dredging up are not going to clarify the situation. The 60% threshold for a consensus for an individual "Misplaced Pages:requested move" can not be used as an indication for setting a Naming Convention, which must need to be closer to a true consensus than a 60% supermajority for controversial and divisive issues. If I did not think you were acting out of misguided good faith I would be tempted to thing that this was a troll. --Philip Baird Shearer 13:19, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

I suppose I think oracle-like assertions ("The examples you are dredging up are not going to clarify the situation") even of less help. --Francis Schonken 13:36, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Another attempt to build a consensus

Clearly as the straw poll shows the Misplaced Pages community is at present not able to build a consensus over the use of diacritics in article names. Over the last year this issue has wasted a lot of time for a lot of Misplaced Pages editors and Francis Schonken's latest attempt will IMHO waste a lot more without reaching any consensus. So I have added the following to the page.

Words with diacritics need not be respelled to contain only the 26 letters of the English alphabet, nor vice-versa; for example, either Zurich or Zürich is acceptable. If agreement can not be reached over the spelling of a word, then consider following the spelling style preferred by the first major contributor (that is, not a stub) to the article.

The first sentence is an adaptation of the current WP:UE "American spellings need not be respelled to British standards nor vice-versa; for example, either Colour or Color is acceptable." The second WP:MOS#National varieties of English "If all else fails, consider following the spelling style preferred by the first major contributor (that is, not a stub) to the article."

I have removed my original third sentence from the previous attemt, which was an attempt to adapt the WP:UE phrase "However, any non-Latin-alphabet native name should be given within the first line of the article (with a Latin-alphabet transliteration if the English name does not correspond to a transliteration of the native name)" because this has been added with other words since I originally proposed this compromise. --Philip Baird Shearer 11:36, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, I don't agree with your new paragraph, so I removed it. Simply said: there's no consensus to push it that way. If you fear to waste time with the approach "by examples", then I wouldn't invite you to take part in it: just make up your own mind. I can't guarantee any results re. the guideline formulation, but I see that any WP:RM vote in the end has a "result" (whether that result is qualified "consensus" or not), in the end an article is at one place or another. Pushing your preference, after having established that all previous attempts did not result in anything is obviously a loss of time too, while simply, there's no consensus about it.

re. "...style preferred by the first major contributor", I wouldn't apply it in this case. It was applied -against what I'd proposed- in WP:CITE. A few weeks later the person pushing the formulation was on my user talk page asking I'd comment on the RfC conducted against him, based on the interpretation of "...style preferred by the first major contributor". So I think "...style preferred by the first major contributor", is not the way forward, if other techniques to achieve consensus (like WP:RM) are available. --Francis Schonken 12:04, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

After a year of this there is no consensus available via WP:RM or consensus building on this page. WP:RM uses a very low threshold for consensus and in every case where there is a debate there is no agreed method for deciding which style of spelling is the "best" one. So any WP:RM debate only applies to that page. Further when we tried to hold a straw poll about the issue there was no consensus.

The wording I have added does not say that one has to use the first contributer only to suggest that is is used if no other agreement can be reached. This does not stop a vote in WP:RM reversing it for specific pages. The wording is from the AE CE section of the WP:MOS and works well in disputes over different English spellings and words Eg color/colour or petrol/gasoline or tram/street car. So the wording does not stop you putting up test cases (although I think them a waste of time).

I am going to reverse your removal. If someone else (other than you) delets the two sentences then so be it, I will not put them back again. This is nothing against you but it seems the easiest way for us to agree to differ. --Philip Baird Shearer 12:34, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

So, pushing your POV in the guideline whatever the odds? Presently there's 50% of the people involved who want it in (that is you), and 50% of the people involved who want it out (which is me). Which can only be called "consensus" in a very confused way ("it seems the easiest way for us to agree to differ" - what a convoluted nonsense). If no consensus, it goes out. --Francis Schonken 12:43, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

No Francice I am trying to avoid a revert war with you, please read what I wrote. I said if another person agrees with you and delets it I will not revert it. Seems to me that I an not "pushing POV in the guideline whatever the odds". But as you and I dissagree all that is happening now is that we are getting into a revert war. --Philip Baird Shearer 13:02, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

It's not up to you to make the rules of how consensus works. And re-invent them every time we meet. You removed some of my stuff from wikipedia:Naming conventions (names and titles) saying I had not been successful in building consensus prior to making the change (quote: "You have not built a consensus to do this so please do not make any changes to the article until you have built a consensus to do so." diff - note that the change in question had been notified on the talk page of that guideline and on wikipedia:current surveys without receiving any negative comment several weeks before I operated the change). Now apply the same principles to yourself. --Francis Schonken 13:31, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Hello! I concur with Francis Schonken: this is probably not the way to go about arriving at consensus on this. As well, there's a distinct difference between rendering different dialectic spellings in English (e.g., American/British, et al.) and words with non-native derivation. In absence of any consensus I support inclusion of variants, not exclusion of one or the other based on what may or may not be a subjective instigating preference. Including this is not a modus vivendi: discuss it here and arrive at consensus here first. E Pluribus Anthony 13:11, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

tx, let's return to reasonable arguments. --Francis Schonken 13:31, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

I am also in favour of including common variants on the first line of the article. This is nothing to do with that. This is to do with whether the page should reside under the name Zurich or Zürich and how to minimise disputes over the name of the article. --Philip Baird Shearer 13:47, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

We agree to disagree; these numerous issues are inextricably linked. Until consensus is reached (or identified) on these issues, and there is currently none, discuss them here before amending conventions. E Pluribus Anthony 21:24, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Haukurth's proposal

When considering a title change for an article it can be useful to consider some of the following questions, though none of them settles the matter definitively.

What spelling did the first author of the article use?
What spelling do those who have contributed most extensively to the article seem to prefer?
What spellings are used in the references used to write the article?
What spellings are used in other reference works which treat the matter in similar detail?
Are there any technical issues involved? Have they changed in the past? Will they change in the future?

Try to work with other regular editors of the article in question towards solving the question with consensus or a compromise. If outside attention is needed a move request can be filed and a vote started. Votes are usually a poor framework for building consensus so consider using that option only when all else fails. Try to stay cool and maintain a sense of proportion - the title of the article is far less important to the reader than the contents of the article.

(moved here for discussion by Francis Schonken)

What has this to do specifically with "use English"? Rather seems stuff for wikipedia:naming conflict or for the intro of wikipedia:requested moves. --Francis Schonken 21:20, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, this is quite general and might belong elsewhere. But it's the "use English" convention which seems to be the most flammable part of our article naming scheme (being vague and disputed) so I thought it would be at home there. These are thoughts along similar lines as Philip's live-and-let-live idea and I feel they might be helpful.

But if you think this is out of place then that's fine, I'm not going to press the issue. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 21:32, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Hello! What's good for the goose may not be for the gander. I believe another meaning of 'live-and-let-live' may be to let sleeping dogs lie: discuss proposed changes (that may or may not be NPOV) before amending or adding to Wp conventions and (given long-standing controversies) only when consensus is reached or IDd with them. E Pluribus Anthony 21:40, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Neah, just boldly edit the thing. Someone will revert you if they don't like it. And there's no consensus on the present convention anyhow - or at least no consensus in how to interpret it. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 21:43, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Noted. I sometimes agree in shaking the tree to see what falls from it ... just so long as you're not injured in the process. If the fruit is forbidden, so much the better. :) E Pluribus Anthony 21:46, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Standardized names across all wikis?

Is an alternate that might be better than having language-x-ized articles all over the place, and making life oh-so-difficult on transwiki bots and other automated validity tools, as well as difficult on search engines.Kim Bruning 03:55, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

I don't understand what any of that means. —Michael Z. 2005-12-6 04:18 Z

If you use the same name for an article in all languages (at least when refering to proper nouns), you get the added advantage of being able to find the artice quickly in all languages, and you'll be able to translate between articles that much faster. Kim Bruning 04:28, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Do you mean the article titles only? I couldn't see this working out. There would be too much resistance if I moved Taras Shevchenko to Тарас Шевченко, or Beijing to 北京, for example. —Michael Z. 2005-12-6 04:34 Z

Which is probably petty, because redirects take all the pain out of that. Of course, if there's some way that redirects *don't* take all the pain out... then that's interesting. Kim Bruning 04:47, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, there's the title at the top of the page and in the browser's title bar. If you browsed a bunch of articles on Chinese cities, you'd have a hard time going back to a particular one in your browser's history, unless you can read Chinese. —Michael Z. 2005-12-6 05:07 Z

So instead of redirects, we need actual aliases (hardlinks instead of softlinks, in unix parlance). Hmmm. Kim Bruning 05:38, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

IMO we should definitely not have corresponding articles use identical names over all Wikis. For instance, the city of Geneva should be (and is) described under en:Geneva, fr:Genève, de:Genf; London under en:London, fr:Londres, it:Londra, nl:Londen; Brussels under en:Brussels, nl:Brussel, fr:Bruxelles, de:Brüssel, es:Bruselas, ru:Брюссель; etc. Interwiki links exist, and allow finding corresponding articles in various Wikis even if the article name is not identical: see for instance the "In other languages" section somewhere on the above-mentioned pages, usually at top or left depending on which skin you are using. -- Tonymec 04:43, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

I concur with Tonymec. E Pluribus Anthony 15:18, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Giving "native versions"

I would like to tentatively propose (or at least see what other people think about the idea) that the requirement to give "native versions" of article names should only apply to proper names, such as personal names, names of organisations, and placenames. I am particularly inspired to this by the experience of the article on Baklawa, where at a previous stage of the article's evolution, the first paragraph consisted mainly of a list of names in bold type, many of them in scripts most of our readers probably can't read, and what's more all of them being more or less versions of the same word. Where we are just talking about a "thing" like a kind of food that is found in more than one country (thus leading to nationalistic demands for "all" the "native versions" to be included if any are), and for which there is one or more more-or-less established English names do we really need to give these foreign-language variants in all their multi-alphabetic glory?

I recognise that where what we are giving is a name of something that's not well known in English and the English name is therefore little more than a transcription of a foreign name, the situation may be slightly different (e.g. Mujaddara). Any comments? Palmiro | Talk 17:30, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

In the case where there are many possible names or name variants it's often better to relocate them to a separate subsection (perhaps linked to with a footnote) rather than cluttering the first paragraph. That's what seems to have happened in your example. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 17:41, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Mm, so should the guidelines explicitly recommend something like this? Palmiro | Talk 17:55, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Definitely. How about:

If the list of word variations — by spelling (see hookah) or by language (see baklava) — is awkwardly long, e.g. longer than a single line:

a section at the bottom of the article should be dedicated to variations in spelling/language,
there should be a link from the top to the section alternate forms, and
a single term should be used throughout the article.

Thoughts? --Mgreenbe 18:06, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Seems fine to me. My only beef is with the third point which may not apply in every case. For example if we're discussing what is basically the same dish but known by different names in different countries it might be expedient to use the local name in a subsection discussing a particular variant and another local name when discussing another local variant. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 18:14, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

That could be the case sometimes. Actually, I think Hookah is fine as it is; my objection would be if we then had Arabic, Hebrew, Syriac, Farsi and Turkish (or whatever) versions of argilah and shisha. Palmiro | Talk 18:21, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Indeed. Look at résumé for a somewhat messy lead sentence. Generally the reader is more interested in content than terminology-wrangling. Let's try to codify some common-sense recommendations while avoiding instruction creep and being too rigid. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 18:40, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Instruction creep was also my worry. Perhaps something along the lines of:

"For the sake of concision, it may be helpful to move the list of word variations to a separate section; see Baklava for an example of this. For the sake of clarity and consistency, articles should use a single form whenever possible."

No more instructions, just advice. If it would help, we could be more specific in the second sentence, saying "Naturally, if circumstances call for a specific form, by all means use it." I don't think there's a need, though. --Mgreenbe 19:14, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Okay - no-one has objected that something like this be included and several of us feel that it's a useful point. I'm inserting a short note into the convention. Feel free to improve, of course :) - Haukur 15:37, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Hawaiian English in Hawaiʻi articles

I propose that it is acceptable and preferred, as mandated by the Hawaiian English standard (solely co-official with Hawaiian in the State of Hawaiʻi), to use full proper Hawaiian language spellings (including ʻokina and kahakō) in every instance of a word of Hawaiian origin in Misplaced Pages articles, except specifically in situations where a proper name (e.g. Hawaii Five-O) omits the detail. This includes the State of Hawaiʻi's official names for itself and its political terms and units (which differ from the United States national records—a note of this can be made where relevant). Article titles should also be appropriately rendered this way, with the flexible exception that (until Misplaced Pages either uses {{unicode|template}}-style Unicode character resolution for the display of article titles in HTML, or until the ʻokina becomes displayable for most computer users) article names can use a simple apostrophe (') for ʻokina, with existing redirects for (`) and the absence of the ʻokina altogether (where there is no confusion among minimal pairs), and additional redirects (also without confusion of minimal pairs) for article names without ʻokina nor kahakō. The {{okina}} template can be used for each instance of the ʻokina—this template also internally uses the {{unicode|template}}, which forces even obselete browsers such as Internet Explorer to scour each system's installed fonts for any font that includes the ʻokina character. Browsers such as FireFox do not have this problem, but the user must still have a font such as Arial Unicode MS or Code2000 that contains this character. In practice, Hawaiʻi-related articles and Hawaiian names and terms in other articles are already steadily integrating these conventions into article texts, as per Hawaiian English. For those who may dispute the appropriateness of using Hawaiian English and not American English in these contexts, it should be noted that:

The United States has no federal official language, and American English is a standard adopted individually by states.
Hawaiian English together with Hawaiian is the official language of the State of Hawaiʻi.
Though Hawaiian English is partially reliant on American English, plain American English itself is not an official language of Hawaiʻi.

- Gilgamesh 07:04, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Indeed. As far as I can see this is already our policy :) Any national variety of English is allowed and Hawaiian English is preferred for Hawaiian topics just like Indian English for Indian topics. You should add a note to that effect in here. We don't really need a long note in the use English page but maybe the part on national varieties should be reworded a bit to make it clearer that it's not just a question of US vs. UK spellings. - Haukur 16:46, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Okay, I went ahead and rewrote the relevant paragraph to be more explicit and, in my opinion, less weird. We usually don't refer to redirects as "articles" for one thing. Please improve as needed. Does this look acceptable to you, Gilgamesh? - Haukur 17:10, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

I see Philip shortened the paragraph a bit and added a link to the MOS. I think he's right - it makes sense to basically treat this in one place and link to it from other places. Any details about Hawaiian English specifically are best treated there. The only point we really need to get across here is that the rule holds for article titles as well as article content. I think the color/orange (colour) example illustrates that nicely. - Haukur 17:26, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions (common names)

I think we've done some good work on updating this guideline lately. But another equally important project page is the "common names" guideline. I think it needs some work to more clearly reflect the opinions of Wikipedians. So please come on over, people and have a go at improving it! :) - Haukur 15:15, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Proposing "Spelling according to first edition in English"

Proposing to add the following to WP:UE:

(v0.1) When in English there are two variant spellings of the same title of a book, film, etc..., use the version of the title according to the first full edition in English, unless when this version of the title is barely remembered.

Oddly, if this would become an acceptable part of WP:UE this says something in the diacritcs debate too (in the subject-specific range), if applied to, for instance, this example:

Salome (play) - First edition In English spells "Salome", subsequent editions sometimes spelled "Salomé", also in English;
Salomé (1923 film) - This film, based on the play, was first published in the USA, as "Salomé"; later, when it was published outside the US, it was known there as "Salome", apparently also in English-speaking countries. (see IMDb link in article about the film)

--Francis Schonken 14:22, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

So what would "The Canterbury Tales" appear under or any book that was first published with a spelling different from the common modern spelling? --Philip Baird Shearer 14:58, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

You have a point, although I'm not sure whether it applies to The Canterbury Tales (see, for instance, page XV of this PDF - first "complete" publication would be Thynne's 1532 edition, but it's not clear what spelling of the title is used there - and whether it differs from the first "modernised" edition from 1737/1740).

Is "modern spelling" defined in English? I mean, is that term unambiguous? E.g., from what period on would spelling be "modern"? "Common modern spelling" at least seems tackish to me, as there are at least several "common" modern spellings, according to Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style#National varieties of English. If, however, the concept "modern spelling" would not be provoking more controversy than it would solve, a formulation in this sense might be attempted:

(v0.2) When in English there are two variant spellings of the same title of a book, film, etc..., use the version of the title according to the first full edition in modern English, unless when this version of the title is barely remembered.

Anyway, for the Canterbury Tales, as probably for many other old books, I don't think the addition "modern" would be strictly necessary. Is, e.g., (the) Tales of Caunterbury as version of the Title "well remembered", in comparison to the version The Canterbury Tales? --Francis Schonken 16:49, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Early Modern English, which seems better defined than "Modern English", is maybe useable, in this sense:

(v0.3) When in English there are two variant spellings of the same title of a book, film, etc..., use the version of the title according to the first full edition in English (for pre-1650 books: first full edition in English printed after the Early Modern English era), unless when this version of the title is barely remembered.

Would that work? --Francis Schonken 17:23, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

I don't have a strong opinion on this but it strikes me as likely that many people will prefer using the title of the best known edition to that of the first edition. - Haukur 17:28, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

I would say modern spelling came in with the general acceptance of dictionaries as we know them today. When was the first generally accepted dictionary introduced and used?

Is there a policy on movies released on different sides of the pond with different names?

For many centuries most educated English speaking people could read French, Does this mean that if a book was well known in English with a French name that only a translation of the name is acceptable. EG would this mean that "Le Morte d'Arthur" must be moved to "The Death of Arthur" or to it's original title "Le Morte Darthur"?

I don't think that guidelines on a title of a book needs to spelt out here in UE. It crosses too many other guidelines and will lead to more not less arguments. For example if a book is first published in New Zealand in hardback which sold <1,000 copies with CE spelling in the title but is best known in the American paperback addition using AE that sold in the millions and if the article with written using a title with the American spelling then, this suggested guideline would see it moved to the NZ spelling. This breaks common usage and probably the MOS's advice on national spelling. --Philip Baird Shearer 11:18, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Hi Philip, you come to about the same conclusions for books as what I just wrote at Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_(films)#disambiguation_of_films_by_.22nationality.2Flanguage.22 re. films: no need to make new rules, for borderline issues that are (and have been) solved, without making them into a "problem", by a combination of common sense and existing guidelines.

Nonetheless, I'd appreciate if WP:UE would give some indication, specifically for books, *when* a title is translated to English and *in which cases* it isn't, for example: most of Alexandre Dumas, père's books are at the English equivalent of the title - I even used that as example in Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions (definite and indefinite articles at beginning of name)#Titles of works; now recently *exactly* the example I used to indicate a difference in the use of the definite article between English and French (Queen Margot) was moved to its French title: La Reine Margot is certainly not more English than the Les Trois Mousquetaires, yet these are still in all peace at their English equivalent, The Three Musketeers.

In sum, I think something should be done regarding the randomness with which titles are at their foreign original, or English equivalent.

Note, in this context, that, for example, for operas the "translation" issue is settled in Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions (operas); and that just now in Misplaced Pages:Village_pump_(policy)#Titl.28ing.29_books someone remarks that for books naming conventions are not really elaborated.

Shouldn't we start work on that, e.g. Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions (books), elaborating the *short* and apparently insufficient paragraph Misplaced Pages:Naming_conventions#Literary_works (which also doesn't mention how to handle book subtitles in article names, on which I could give only an *intuitive* answer at Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions#Literary_works_and_subtitles)? --Francis Schonken 13:02, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Francis's recent additions

Francis has recently added two paragraphs. The first one reads

There appears no issue to this question as long as it is described in terms like: "When the native name of an entity contains characters with diacritics some Wikipedians prefer to use those diacritics in the relevant article title, even in cases where they are more often omitted in English texts. Others prefer to apply the most common principle throughout." However, treatment by topic often easily yields result, for example:

The second one is an example about some asteroids. I read this first paragraph as saying that nobody takes issue with the paragraph "When the native . . . principle throughout.". This is the exact paragraph which Haukur has repeatly inserted into the common names guideline and just as often is has been removed by Francis. He has exspressed opposition to it repeatedly, e.g. at with the words "I have two reasons why I wouldn't do it (1) the "dispute" might get solved in a few weeks or months, and then the paragraph is incorrect (and might get forgotten, and then used to resuscitate the dispute, etc); (2) It adds unnecessary volume to this guideline, essentially saying "on this topic we have nothing to report" - in that cas, IMHO, leave it out." and at with the words "I also can't agree with: while I don't fit in either category:"

So what is going on? Don't these objections still apply? Stefán Ingi 20:54, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

"No issue to a question" means: "no outcome to a question", or: "the question remains unresolved" - not what you read into it.

The rest of your remark is quite valueless, while based on misunderstanding, so I won't go into that, in order to give you the opportunity to reformulate.

All the objections you quote still apply, even more since it appears not too difficult to solve each and every diacritics question that has come up. So, is there still a diacritics question? I don't see any. I only see persons that try to formulate the diacritics question in an unresolvable format. A.k.a. making problems where there are none. --Francis Schonken 00:53, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Ah, thank you, this makes everything a lot clearer. It's just that I had never seen this expression before and it confused me. As for the rest of your comment, it is of course a lot easier to resolve problems when they are split down into smaller chunks. I'm quite happy to agree with you that it's easy to resolve the diacritics question in each individual case (or rather in small chunks of related cases) but I worry that my willingness to do that relies on the fact that almost all the relevant moves have gone the way I want. This might also be related to the reason why Philip removed the section. Take care, Stefán Ingi 11:05, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

I have removed this addition because it does not sit comfortably in either Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions (use English) or Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions (common names) and have passed on the information to Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Astronomical objects#Minor planets so the people who edit that page can decide whether the WP:RM move was justified, and if they want to include it in their guideline. If they do then it can be added to WP:RM#Relevant policies and guidelines like that of Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Rivers etc --Philip Baird Shearer 00:50, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

That's not enough IMO. It needs to be directly or indirectly available from the base Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions page, in such a way that that someone trying to decide what to name an article in the first place, and with as little as possible assumed knowledge of Misplaced Pages, will find it. Andrewa 15:00, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

I propose the creation of Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions (astronomy) and I'm surprised one doesn't exist already. Surely there are some recommendations somewhere buried in some project? :) - Haukur 15:09, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm a bit surprised too. But it's not enough to create it. It also needs to be accessible. I support the creation of a new naming convention, assuming we can't eventually find one buried in some inaccessible backwater of our enormous project namespace (actually, Minister, you can't bury anything in a backwater,...). Andrewa 15:23, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

"First catch your hare" I suggest that you raise the issue on Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Astronomical objects#Minor planets and with a group of like minded individuals see what can be done. However normally a "new naming convention" is not needed because the issue of page naming within a scope of a project is covered in the project page. For example the Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Military history states "Articles should be called something like Battle of Gettysburg or Siege of Nuremberg. "Battle" and "Siege" are neutral terms and are preferred to "attack", "slaughter", "massacre", "raid", etc..." or Misplaced Pages:WikiProject_Rivers says "River articles may be named "X", "X River", or "River X", depending on location and most common usage. "X river" and "X (river)" are not recommended. ...". --Philip Baird Shearer 19:31, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

I must disagree here. Yes, we should seek to involve the Wikiproject. But the desired outcome is a guideline that has been approved in the normal way, and is accessible through the more general guidelines so as to maximise the likelihood that someone looking for it will find it. Provided this is done, whether the details of this guideline are in the Wikiproject page, as a section of a more general guideline, or in a seperate guideline doesn't concern me. I don't think it matters in the least. I support creating a new guideline because it will do the job, and because there seems to be resistance (for reasons that mystify me) to incorporating this material in the more general guidelines. Andrewa 13:45, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, there are two different things:

Whether and where it should be included in astrology-related project and/or naming conventions pages;
Whether it can be used (as a reference) in the guideline that (until now) centralises info on use of diacritics.

The first point is taken up by Andrewa elsewhere, thanks! But anyhow, that wasn't something to be sorted out on the WP:UE talk page.

For the second point, some questions are to be answered:

Is the example of the 10-odd planets stable? I mean, is there any chance that in the (near) future, the WP:RM multiple page move on these planets would be reverted? - Otherwise, of course, it would be not so interesting to use it as an example. We could wait till the astrology-related NC is fixed and meets community approval. That it would annihilate the WP:RM decision on these minor planets with diacritics seems however very unlikely to me, the consensus on the collective WP:RM vote was outspoken.
Would it be an instructive example? When it illustrates that the "no consensus" situation re. diacritics is not as hopeless as it seems, I don't think anybody would doubt it being an "illustrative" example. Maybe it could be balanced with an example of where there was a community decision not to apply diacritics. I don't have a series example on that, except if the three Leopold/Léopold kings of Belgium would be seen as a series (Leopold I of Belgium, Leopold II of Belgium, Leopold III of Belgium) - if they are used as example it would however be best to retrieve the Village Pump section where that was discussed & decided a few months ago.
Also Salome, Salome (play), Salome (opera) and Salomé (1923 film) could be used as a sort of "series" example, most of them with an "explicit" community approval (see also wikipedia talk:naming conventions (films)#disambiguation of films by "nationality/language"). This example is also illustrative that a "one strike" solution (i.e. a solution that propose diacritics in all cases or alternatively in no single case) wouldn't really work.
Do we accept such examples to be used on the guideline page, as the most appropriate guidance the WP:UE guideline has to offer presently, as long a "general formulation" of the involved principles seems to elude? No secret, also on this question I'm positive. If you can't grasp it by rules (which on top would have the disadvantage of risking to be instructions, a.k.a. near to instruction creep) - then list a few illustrative examples.

--Francis Schonken 15:03, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Disagree with most of this, but I'm beginning to see the problem, and perhaps a solution.

Firstly, WP:UE is as good a place to discuss the first issue as anywhere. The question is, should we have a guideline at all? So far, we have a very strong consensus that the diacritics belong in these particular article names. The only vote against, before or after the poll, has been that of a malfunctioning bot. We also have a strong likelihood that the issue will arise again, and that without a guideline we'll just be re-inventing the wheel. So that's a no-brainer IMO.

Secondly, these questions to be answered are irrelevant to the matter under discussion. The first (might this decision be reverted?) is the whole point of having wider discussion before making this decision a guideline. Yes, of course the decision might be reverted with this wider participation, there'd be little point in seeking this wider participation otherwise. Let's take that a little further: If the decision on guidelines is that including the diacritics is not a good direction, then it should be reverted. That's the idea of a guideline. We follow it.

The basis of these questions seems to be the theory that we need to come to a consensus on this whole mess before we can have a guideline on astronomical features. If there was a good prospect of consensus soon on the larger issues, then it would be sensible to wait for the more general guideline. But it's not the only way.

It's a principle of heuristic to attack any tricky problem from all angles. So, why not try biting off a small chunk and solving it? That's the opportunity we have here. Let's take it. Andrewa 21:27, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Are diacritics part of everyday English?

This has possibly been said before, there has been so much said before that I may have missed it...

Following the question about minor planet names, see Talk:657 Gunlöd, I began to ask myself, are there any other occasions when I, as a native speaker (writer), would use a diacritic as a normal and unaffected part of my writing? I found two cases in which I would: cliché and flambé both look wrong without the accent, and are current Misplaced Pages article titles. See Talk:Flambé, also of course List of English words with diacritics and English language#Written accents. Andrewa 15:15, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, I was leafing through my Webster's 3rd Int'l 1981 printed edition just now, p. 258-259 there are the following:

böttger ware (named after Johann Friedrich Böttger)
bouche and bouché (not interchangable)
bouche fermée
bouchée
bouclé or boucle (interchangeable), but apparently always bouclé yarn (PS: Oxford English Minidictionary has only "bouclé")

On other pages of Webster's:

Always without accent: premiere, siege, chassis,...
Always with accent succès de scandale, succès d'estime, succès fou, fin-de-siècle (always with accent and hyphens), cliché (two entries, both with accent), clichéd, flambé, flambéed, château, château d'eau (which seems to have another meaning than in French),...
Interchangeable with diacritic or without: château d'eaus or chateaux d'eau (plural of "château d'eau" - wondering whether there isn't a typo involved),...

Note that in the Fin de siècle article someone remarks that "The expression often occurs in English prose without the grave accent" - which is different from what Webster's would have. --Francis Schonken 16:52, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Another contributor has just commented at Talk:Cliché that they regard the diacritic on that article name as correct. Andrewa 13:27, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

It's also a misleading question. Neutral Point of View isn't a part of everyday English, but a Misplaced Pages article can be held to higher standards. If we agree that diacritics play a part in the quest for accuracy (and we don't), then we should strive for them. Everyday English is a red herring in that debate. Arbor 13:44, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps I could have expressed it better.

The situation is simply that a decision has been made, by due process, on the naming of a few asteroids. Several of those involved searched for a relevant naming guideline, and were surprised not to find one. Rather than repeat this search and discussion for every new article on a minor planet whose name includes a diacritic, we seek to implement such a guideline.

Resistance to this seems to centre on the assertion that diacritics are in some way contrary to the general principle of using English in article names, and by the intensity of some of the comments, I'm guessing that there is fear that this is the small end of the wedge, and may lead to proposals that other article names should also incorporate diacritics.

I don't think this is the case, but in any case, I think we should have a clear and accessible standard for the naming of astronomical features, and that it should be to follow the IAU guidelines, which in these cases means including the diacritics. Andrewa 14:16, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Dispute or discussion?

I've put some more headings and a TOC into the article to make it a little easier to navigate.

In the headings I've used the word discussion rather than dispute. This is with two things in mind:

We've been a long time without consensus on some of these, and need to try some other tacks. Taking the heat and personalisation out of the discussion is one I recommend.

In the meantime, this convention remains in use (not just a proposal), and needs to be as useful as possible.

We're all here to build an encyclopedia. Winning arguments can be a help to this. But trying to win them is more often a hindrance IMO. See Misplaced Pages:rhetoric, User:Andrewa/creed. Andrewa 15:07, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

I think replacing dispute with discussion might indeed be a good idea for the reasons you outline. - Haukur 15:25, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

See the Monty Python argument sketch. It is not a discussion it is a dispute because after more than a year of discussing the situation we are no closer to agreement on the issue. The section quite rightly says dispute. It is on the talk pages we discuss the dispute. --Philip Baird Shearer 15:31, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Agree that Monty Python is an excellent insight on the current process.

If you find it more helpful to think of it as a dispute, I'm not going to revert. Actually, I very rarely revert anything. IMO the past year's discussion here hasn't been particularly productive, in that it hasn't left the guideline in a particularly useful condition. IMO the current version is neither clear in what it covers, nor in what it says, and as an inevitable result people are reluctant to refer to it. IMO the current process is unlikely to improve things.

So, I recommend you try something new. Backing off on the confrontational model would be my first choice, but it's not something anyone can impose on you. Andrewa 17:22, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

We have an article on The Argument Skit for those not familiar with it. One of its key insights IMO is that sometimes people seem to enjoy arguing, even when they are losing and complaining. But this point is made with Pythonesque logic (as are many, many others), and IMO no article can do it justice. Andrewa 23:42, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

But back to the subject at hand, I think that you really need to read ALL the archives to this talk page. I have suggested a compromise based on the wording found in the MOS for the great AE/CE divide, ... (See An attempt to build a consensus) and although he is on the other side of the divide, so has Haukur Þorgeirsson, but there are still a lot of people who do not want to compromise on the issue of "funny foreign squiggles" (to nail my flag to the mast). One positive move is that since I wrote the compromise suggestion, the guideline does now to include explicitly the point that all common spellings should be in the first section (but unfortunatly it can of course be argued that Ubeda and Úbeda are the same spelling :-( ). When I included the full compromise text on the project page it was deleted by two different people almost immediately see above #Another attempt to build a consensus. --Philip Baird Shearer 00:33, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Just to clarify, I have read ALL the archives. I thought I'd implied that above.

Agree that the idea of including all common spellings early in the article is a good one, and of having matching redirects. I don't think this is very clearly expressed currently however. Andrewa 12:30, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

I do indeed support some sort of compromise and I think we made some progress towards it in the last year. As Philip says it helps to include all alternative names/spellings in the article text and that does include spellings with and without diacritics. Some of my ideas for compromise include:

Local government. The people actually writing the article should have more say than outsiders coming in to "correct" the spelling. Philip emphasizes the ~~role~~ rôle of the first major contributor while I'm thinking more along the lines of deferring to all major contributors. "But", you might say, "that could encourage people to make major contributions to an article just so they can have their way with the spelling!" Well, yes, but if that would get a spelling warrior to make contributions to articles then that's a perfectly acceptable side-effect :-)
Live-and-let-live. Keeping the peace is more important than maintaining completely consistent naming across our article space. We might have an article at Zürich and another at 1st Battle of Zurich without the inconsistency killing us.
Check the sources. If the references used in the article overwhelmingly use one spelling then that's a pretty solid argument for using that spelling in the article. Again, this could possibly encourage people to find good sources which use their preferred spellings but that's an acceptable side-effect.
Check other reference works. That's often more workable than Google searches.

None of this is really specific to the diacritics debate but more about naming conflicts in general but I still think the points are worth considering here. I think we have a chance to establish some sort of peaceful live-and-let-live environment on this. What I don't think we can do is getting a consensus on exactly when to use diacritics - that debate has been going around in circles since I first entered it and not a single person ever changes their opinions :-) - Haukur 02:04, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

I support the Live-and-let-live idea, for several reasons. One is, I don't think any of the debatable cases greatly impact the quality or usefulness of the encyclopedia, either way. The other is, we seem to have no choice.

I'm beginning to doubt that any of this is helpful in the naming of articles about minor planets. We can't agree what English is, whether or not it includes diacritics, and IMO therefore what it means to Use English is similarly vague. We can't even agree on whether or not it matters what English is.

I haven't checked the histories or archives for whether the main players take wikibreaks, but I recommend them. There's a reason for taking them that the project page doesn't mention any more, although m:Wikibreak still does: If a policy decision (however minor, or major) is likely to be reversed without you, it's generally best to let it happen. Andrewa 12:30, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Article titles for books in foreign languages

There is currently a discussion at Talk:Polish Biographical Dictionary#RfC: Request for Comment. The question is whether the title of the page should be "Polski Slownik Biograficzny", or "Polish Biographical Dictionary". Has this kind of "book name" debate come up before? How was it resolved? Elonka 17:52, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm sure I was not the first to mention it. I said something about it above regarding Queen Margot/La Reine Margot. Shortly after that I started the Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions (books) guideline proposal, which effectively contains a Title translations section. Could you indicate whether (or not) that can help solve your question?

Intuitively I would say: use the English title, while: "Generally, article naming should give priority to what the majority of English speakers would most easily recognize, (...)", as indicated in wikipedia:naming conventions, the "official policy" regarding page naming.

The English version of the name of the dictionary appears to be used, e.g. a reference to the 18th volume of the Polish Biographical Dictionary on this webpage (see Fabian Luzjañski short bio on that webpage); this is not a reference to the S. S. Sokol one-volume dictionary. --Francis Schonken 18:19, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

FYI, I've just expanded Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions (books)#Title translations a bit, for books that have no printed English translation (yet). --Francis Schonken 19:28, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Quotes in secn "Disputed issues"

I conv'd the single quotes to double quotes w/ intervening blanks, to avoid confusing apparent merging of the single quotes with the quoted character. If that's not satisfactory, put the two characters each indented on its own line, w/o any quotes.
--Jerzy•t 04:19, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Letters representing themselves should be italicized, without any quotation marks. I'm updating the last section. —Michael Z. 2006-01-26 13:27 Z

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