[WikiEN-l] Naming convention under vote

[Haukur Þorgeirsson]

Hi!

There's currently a vote underway at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_(Norse_mythology)

The proposal under consideration is, basically, to use common English
names - like Thor, Odin and Valhalla - where those exist (as per "Use
English") and to use the original Old Norse forms where no common English
name exists (as per "Use English"). There are also some specific
recommendations regarding representation of alternative forms and some
thoughts on what the "native spelling" should be considered in this case.

Last time around those of us most heavily involved in editing the Norse
mythology articles (Wiglaf and myself) agreed on a convention and slowly
worked according to it for several months. Then this fact suddenly came to
the attention of people who criticized us for not having publicized our
proposal outside of Norse mythology pages and naming convention pages. So,
this time I'm posting notices hither and yon and this is one of them.

What grates me a bit is that there has been very little material
discussion on Old Norse names. Many of those expressing their opinions
simply have a blanket opinion against all non-English characters in
article titles.

So we have oppose votes like these:

"I do not think that article names in an English language encyclopedia
should ever use non-English letters."

"Strongly Oppose the use of exotic non-English characters as if they were
a normal part of the alphabet"

This is, of course, an entirely legitimate opinion but I just wonder if
the larger issue of non-English characters couldn't be settled one way or
another somewhere else.

Anyhow, if you have opinions on the matter - or, *sigh*, if you want to
use this vote as a proxy to express your blanket opposition to non-English
characters in article titles - here's the location again:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_(Norse_mythology)

Regards,
Haukur Þorgeirsson