Daniel Mayer wrote in part:
A Wikipedia that uses the some pedantic, more scholarly
"correct" system of
naming articles gives me the creeps. This is one of the reasons why I have
moved so many organism articles from the Latin to common English forms.
I don't think that this is analogous.
"mammal" is an English common noun (as is "angstrom"),
while "Munich" is an Anglicisation of a German proper name
(as "München" is the German proper name in question).
I would treat these different situations differently.
But it's not like there's no analogy whatsoever,
so let's look at your observations:
Under
the Latin people have tended to write to a more technical audience but now
under the common English forms people tend to write in more inclusive
language.
That's interesting. So do you think that people would write
for a German-speaking audience if we titled an article [[München]]?
That doesn't seem likely to me -- the predominant English text
would keep people using that language.
There have also been more edits (many people were
probably put-off
by the foreign titles).
This datum would carry over better to the present discussion.
If [[Munich]] attracts more editors than [[München]], then that's important.
Were there jumps in editing frequency when you moved each article,
or is the increase matched by a general increase in editing all of Wikipedia?
pedantic
adj : marked by a narrow focus on or display of learning
especially its trivial aspects
I don't see how this applies.
It's not like everybody agrees that "München" is correct,
but some people want to be lax and use the more common "Munich"
while others are pedantic and insist on "München".
The disagreement is more basic; you're claiming that
"München" is *not* correct but "Munich" is.
So both sides are striving for correctness.
-- Toby