<P>I'm tired of this debate. No, what someone calls a place is not what is "theirs". Every language has certain place names in other countries that are not the same as the way the natives of that place call it. And again, we run into the situation of whether we call such places as Liege as, well, Liege, or Leuk, or whatever. The English wikipedia is designed for people for whom English is the native language, by and large. The people who speak English say Munich, not Muenchen.
<P>Zoe
<P> <B><I>Oliver Pereira <omp199@ecs.soton.ac.uk></I></B> wrote:
<BLOCKQUOTE style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #1010ff 2px solid">I must protest!<BR><BR>I know that I'm just a newbie here, and you're a terribly important sysop<BR>person, but Lir doesn't seem to be around right now, and I'm not going to<BR>let that attack go undefended...<BR><BR>> Regarding banning Lir or not. If Lir can't be bothered to speak with<BR>> Jimbo, stop behaving childishly (name-calling, whinging, and making<BR>> guerilla edits that result in non-NPOV articles), and work in a<BR>> cooperative, collegial, manner, then a ban is in order. The community<BR>> has certain standards, and from what I've seen, Lir is as guilty as<BR>> Helga ever was of flouting them.<BR><BR>Judging by what I've seen, Lir is an intelligent person with much to<BR>contribute. Childish, of course, but then I've seen just as childish<BR>behaviour from some of the regulars and even (perhaps more so) from the<BR>sysops. It seems that Lir is just more vociferous about it. There seem to<BR>be a lot more complaints about Lir's attitude and over-the-top<BR>pronouncements than about any actual edits, which surely should be what we<BR>are most interested in here. If Lir's actions are to be the subject of<BR>public debate, could we establish details of specific bad edits, rather<BR>than just ranting?<BR><BR>> Lir's belief is very POV. Articles he renames or redirects in<BR>> furtherance of that belief are therefore infected with that non-neutral<BR>> POV.<BR><BR>This is just plain nonsense. *Everyone's* political beliefs are POV:<BR>that's the whole point of them! But an editor's renaming an article to<BR>give it a different version of its name doesn't somehow magically invest<BR>that article with the editor's point of view. Of course, one *can* insert<BR>a point of view into an article title, by inserting a qualifying adjective<BR>such as "Excellent" or "Rubbish" into it, but as far as I'm aware we're<BR>only talking about exchanging one version of a name (used by one set of<BR>people) with another (used by another set of people). This has no effect<BR>on the point of view whatsoever.<BR><BR>> As to correct language and the evils of americanization -- bullshit,<BR>> pure and simple.<BR><BR>Now, now, let's not descend into that sort of language. Lir has a point. I<BR>personally would be quite offended if English-speaking people were to<BR>rename *me* "Oliver Peartree", simply to make it more "English". I would<BR>consider it to be arrogance: who are they to decide my name? This was my<BR>name at birth, and always will be, no matter what anyone else decides to<BR>call me! Of course, I am exaggerating to make my point: no-one is trying<BR>to call *me* by any other name. We are mostly talking about inanimate<BR>locations and dead people, who are in no position to object. But the<BR>principle is the same. I think it smacks of arrogance to rename other<BR>people and places without the consent of the people and inhabitants of the<BR>places, even if the people and places are distant in time or space, and<BR>even if their renaming has now become widespread. And I am offended on<BR>their behalf, even if they're not. :)<BR><BR>But all this talk of emotions is just a side issue. The main point is not<BR>about what offends whom, or anything like that. This is an encyclopaedia.<BR>We're after facts. And the fact of the matter is that anglicisations of<BR>names are simply distortions (or replacements) of foreign names. Calling<BR>Jo~ao "John" is just an *approximation* to the truth in the same way that<BR>calling a Jean Claude van Damme "French" is. It's sort of *nearly* right,<BR>but not quite. The job of an encyclopaedia should be to correct these<BR>sorts of approximations!<BR><BR>> While it is deplorable that most English speakers are not bilingual,<BR>> that fact does not make it in any way sensible to change place-names,<BR>> etc., to their "original" form. By the way, I'm not even sure what that<BR>> means -- is it Strassburg, Strasbourg, or, as it was called before there<BR>> was a clear definition between French and German, Straziburgensis? <BR>> London, or Londinium?<BR><BR>I don't think anyone was arguing for *original* names of places, so you<BR>are attacking a straw man here. In the case of a place which still exists,<BR>I would argue that it makes most sense to call it whatever the people who<BR>live there do. It is, in a sense, *theirs*, after all. If there are<BR>several official versions of the placename locally, one could simply use<BR>the one that the largest number of locals use. We should aim to be most<BR>familiar with whatever is on the signposts, so that we don't get lost when<BR>we get there. ;)<BR><BR>> Should Paris have a note in the title that says "pronounced Paree, you<BR>> morons"?<BR><BR>I'd quite like to see that, actually. :)<BR><BR>> We agreed that it made the most sense to use the most common<BR>> English-language version of a name (different forms of English<BR>> notwithstanding) for the title BUT, because we all felt it very<BR>> important to let people know that other cultures and language-speakers<BR>> had different names for the same thing, so we listed alternate names in<BR>> the article itself. This means that English-speakers, arguably the<BR>> largest audience, could search for articles in the way most natural to<BR>> them, but the articles would still appear in searches by speakers of<BR>> other languages searching in those languages.<BR><BR>Eminently sensible, of course. Which is why nobody is proposing the<BR>removal of any of these alternative names. As I understand it, the<BR>argument is simply about swapping one name round with another. Both names<BR>would still be there, but just in different places.<BR><BR>> I can't see that Lir's political beliefs are valid reasons to change<BR>> this policy.<BR><BR>It's not about political beliefs; it's about giving articles (arguably)<BR>more accurate titles. I hope I've laid out some of the arguments clearly<BR>enough. I probably haven't, but it'll do for now. Oh, and I should add<BR>that the language thing applies to all languages equally; I'm just using<BR>anglicisation as the example I'm most familiar with. Just thought I'd add<BR>that so that I'm not told to post this on the English language mailing<BR>list (which I haven't quite got round to subscribing to yet)...<BR><BR>Phew. That's enough of that for one day. I think I really *will* go to bed<BR>now... :)<BR><BR>Oliver<BR><BR>+-------------------------------------------+<BR>| Oliver Pereira |<BR>| Dept. of Electronics and Computer Science |<BR>| University of Southampton |<BR>| omp199@ecs.soton.ac.uk |<BR>+-------------------------------------------+<BR><BR>_______________________________________________<BR>Wikipedia-l mailing list<BR>Wikipedia-l@wikipedia.org<BR>http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l</BLOCKQUOTE><p><br><hr size=1>Do you Yahoo!?<br>
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