Stevertigo wrote:
Well, you might consider the notion that people come to an encyclopedia to learn something.
But naming articles with the common English word does not prevent such learning at all! If the article starts out be telling us that people in Japan call the country "Nihon" or "Nippon", we've learned something. But the correct name of Japan, in English, is Japan.
Only people who are vain about what they know, feel disturbed by what they dont. An Encyclopedia is here to present information - not to simply agree with what people already know.
This is a red herring, though. No one has ever argued that we should not present information, or attempt to conceal that different places have different names to different people.
In fr.wikipedia.org, there is an article "Londres": http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Londres
Shall we tell the French that they are wrong, that they should title the article "London" because the "real" name is London? Good luck telling the French that they should use English words. :-)
But you do have some strong points to address - however, Im calling for a change of convention - Im not making claim that its *not conventional to simply follow convention. I'm calling to question the *merits of that convention - and whether its a convention from another era - say, 1672. (Before telephones, I might add.)
It is not a convention from another era for different things to have different names in different languages.
Look, it's simply *wrong* to act, in a French encyclopedia, as if the "la capitale de l'Angleterre et du Royaume-Uni" is "London". (Not to mention, what the hell is this Angleterre Royaume-Uni crapola, let's make those French people use the REAL NAME, huh?)
I think this is a big stink about nothing, and I think that the position that you have taken -- which is nearly identical as far as I can tell to the position of Lir -- is incoherent on the face.
Of course, we can be sensitive to language uses that are strange or offensive to people. But if fr.wikipedia wants to call London "Londres", that's *correct*, because that's what you call it *in French*. And if we want to call Prague "Prague", that's *correct*, because that's what you call it *in English*.
--Jimbo