The article should be put at the policy-determined place (which happens to be "Ivory Coast")
In your opinion. ;=)
Sam
No really. Any halfway objective examination of the evidence shows that "ivory coast" is used more widly. Anyone who thinks otherwise is ignorant of the evidence or acting illogicaly .
-- geni
My point is not that "Ivory Coast" is the proper name of the country. Nor is it that I insist on making "Ivory Coast" the title of the article.
1. What I *AM* saying is that the English-name POLICY has already passed consensus: country articles are given the title of the most commonly used English-langugae name of the country. (Like "Germany" or "Italy")
This is a procedural question: shall we set aside the policy and make an exception here? And by voting on it, or what?
Policy should be the default, and an exception should be made only if there is consensus for an exception.
What some people are trying to do is call the status quo the default (lots of people ganging up to thwart policy by using the French name) and requiring a supermajority vote to PERMIT ENFORCEMENT of the policy.
2. I am *ALSO* saying that letting a government tell Wikipedia what to do is a dangerous erosion of our editorial independence. We can simply say in the article that Ivory Coast's government "forbids" anyone - inside or outside their jurisdiction - to translate the country's name (if this is really so). But since our servers are in Florida, I think we can safely assume we are outside their jurisdiction.
If "Ivory Coast" ever lose currency - as it no doubt will in years to come - then of course we'll reflect this.
3. People seem to think that the TITLE of the article makes a statement about the "true name" of the country. This is ridiculous. The article itself even says so - or would, if partisans didn't keep removing this statement.
The article keeps saying that the offical name of the country is Cote d'Ivoire, and that the government has gotten other governments to use the French name. That should be enough.
Ed Poor
On 11/17/05, Poor, Edmund W Edmund.W.Poor@abc.com wrote:
My point is not that "Ivory Coast" is the proper name of the country. Nor is it that I insist on making "Ivory Coast" the title of the article.
- What I *AM* saying is that the English-name POLICY has already passed
consensus: country articles are given the title of the most commonly used English-langugae name of the country. (Like "Germany" or "Italy")
This is a procedural question: shall we set aside the policy and make an exception here? And by voting on it, or what?
Policy should be the default, and an exception should be made only if there is consensus for an exception.
What some people are trying to do is call the status quo the default (lots of people ganging up to thwart policy by using the French name) and requiring a supermajority vote to PERMIT ENFORCEMENT of the policy.
- I am *ALSO* saying that letting a government tell Wikipedia what to
do is a dangerous erosion of our editorial independence. We can simply say in the article that Ivory Coast's government "forbids" anyone - inside or outside their jurisdiction - to translate the country's name (if this is really so). But since our servers are in Florida, I think we can safely assume we are outside their jurisdiction.
If "Ivory Coast" ever lose currency - as it no doubt will in years to come - then of course we'll reflect this.
- People seem to think that the TITLE of the article makes a statement
about the "true name" of the country. This is ridiculous. The article itself even says so - or would, if partisans didn't keep removing this statement.
The article keeps saying that the offical name of the country is Cote d'Ivoire, and that the government has gotten other governments to use the French name. That should be enough.
Ed Poor
Well said, Ed. I've been trying to make this point for a couple of days. I disagree with your conclusion, but thank you for stating this so clearly. I am sure you have the sense to recognise the validity of other people's opinions.
Sam
Poor, Edmund W wrote:
If "Ivory Coast" ever lose currency - as it no doubt will in years to come - then of course we'll reflect this.
I think it's already happened - as several people on the talk page have mentioned, it's been a long time since they've heard "Ivory Coast". Most organizations that deal with international names have MoSes that require use of current official names; WP is somewhat unusual in specifying "most common", which works well with names familiar to the general public, but breaks down for the less-known. The handful of people who even know about the country are also the ones most likely to respect the country's official stance, and to change their personal usage. "Ivory Coast" will live on in online documents (and skew Google results) long after it has passed out of current speech.
Along the same lines, just a couple weeks ago, I was talking to a waiter who said "I'm from Bombay", to which I said "not Mumbai?", and he snorted that that was just what the politicians called it. But I see our article is under Mumbai anyway...
On some less-controversial article titles, I've taken the position that if "most common" is at all unclear, to pick the official name. The samples of usage from Google, print pubs, etc, have huge margins of error.
Stan
Stan Shebs wrote:
Most organizations that deal with international names have MoSes that require use of current official names; WP is somewhat unusual in specifying "most common", which works well with names familiar to the general public, but breaks down for the less-known.
Perhaps not so unusual. For example the Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules, which are essentially the standard MoS for libraries in US, UK, Australia, and Canada, take a stance weighted even more heavily towards the use of English in place names:
"23.2A1 Use the English form of the name of a place if there is one in general use. Determine this from gazetteers and other reference sources published in English-speaking countries. In case of doubt, use the vernacular form."
A standard of "in general use" is perhaps less open to dispute than a standard of "most common".
On 18/11/05, Andrew Venier avenier@venier.net wrote:
"23.2A1 Use the English form of the name of a place if there is one in general use. Determine this from gazetteers and other reference sources published in English-speaking countries. In case of doubt, use the vernacular form."
A standard of "in general use" is perhaps less open to dispute than a standard of "most common".
I confess, knowing cataloguers, I wonder how much of this was someone's bright idea of reducing the number of special characters that would have to be dealt with when not strictly necessary... :-)
-- - Andrew Gray andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk
Andrew Gray wrote:
On 18/11/05, Andrew Venier avenier@venier.net wrote:
"23.2A1 Use the English form of the name of a place if there is one in general use. Determine this from gazetteers and other reference sources published in English-speaking countries. In case of doubt, use the vernacular form."
A standard of "in general use" is perhaps less open to dispute than a standard of "most common".
I confess, knowing cataloguers, I wonder how much of this was someone's bright idea of reducing the number of special characters that would have to be dealt with when not strictly necessary... :-)
My copy of the 5 volume "Library of Congress Subject Headings" for 1998 prefers "Côte d'Ivoire".
Ec
Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote: My copy of the 5 volume "Library of Congress Subject Headings" for 1998 prefers "Côte d'Ivoire".
And the relevance of that is???
You can just see the world's English language users basing their linguistic use on the US Library of Congress subject headings for 1998. Come of it.
--------------------------------- Yahoo! Model Search - Could you be the next catwalk superstar? Check out the competition now
Poor, Edmund W wrote:
- I am *ALSO* saying that letting a government tell Wikipedia what to
do is a dangerous erosion of our editorial independence. We can simply say in the article that Ivory Coast's government "forbids" anyone - inside or outside their jurisdiction - to translate the country's name (if this is really so). But since our servers are in Florida, I think we can safely assume we are outside their jurisdiction.
This argument is particularly laughable. I don't think anyone on either side is arguing on the basis that any country's courts will be charging anyone for improper use of the country's names. Just because a country has laws to establish standards or procedures doesn't mean that they will ever need to argue the details in court. Respect for a country's laws goes much deeper than a simple fear of prosecution.
Ec