On Sunday 09 February 2003 02:34 pm, Erik Moeller wrote:
No, because that name is used neither by scholars nor the public. As I wrote, I am not opposed to anglicization, and anglicization is by itself not unscientific. (There are reasonable arguments that can be made against it in the case of European languages, but I do not subscribe to those arguments.) If there exist two different English terms, however, the one which is correct should in most cases be used, provided it has already been adopted by scholars.
Anglicization is the process by which foreign words are altered and enter into common usage by English speakers. If you support this form of common usage then why do you not support common usage when presented with two words which are already in English?
I think we need to change our naming convention to use the more correct article title if everybody who knows the history of the term in question agrees that it is correct; that is, if everybody who has a coherent POV on the matter shares the same opinion. In other words, we should use academically correct titles, not those which Google prefers.
Examples:
- Ockham's Razor should not reside at Occam's Razor (Occam is the
latinization of the town name Ockham; the town still exists today).
- Pennsylvania Dutch should be at Pennsylvania German (it is not Dutch at
all; the word is merely a corruption of "Deutsch" or "Dütsch"). .....
Hm. "more correct article title" Correct to whom? OIC to a small group of people. That is hardly NPOV. Titles are /nominative/ - and that is their only role. And as such, they should reflect what most people who are at all familiar with the subject call it (unless the term is unreasonably ambiguous).
Academics are harmed the least by this since they most definitely already know what the common name of subjects are that they are experts on. But the non-academic isn't going to necessarily know what that academics call the subject. By extending the logic you propose all animals in Wikipedia should be under their scientific names, [[Mark Twain]] would be under [[Samuel Langhorn Clemens]], [[Linda Lovelace]] under [[Linda Boreman]], [[Billy the Kid]] under [[William Henry Bonney]], [[Eva Peron]] under [[María Evita Durante de Peron]], [[Marilyn Monroe]] under [[Norma Jeane Mortenson]].
It is also more academically correct to use somebody's real name, right? And it is even /more/ academically correct to use their entire name, isn't it? Oh yeah, it is also misleading to call an orca a killer whale since they are not whales and the term "sea lion" is also misleading since these animals have nothing to do with lions. Rubbish!
Academics also disagree -- which ones do we listen to? Many also prefer foreign language forms. Should we use those because some academics think so? Getting rid of the common usage naming convention opens the floodgates to these type of arguments. By contrast trying to determine common usage is far easier in most cases.
Abandoning common usage would make it more difficult to directly link to articles and find them. Above all else the name we choose should be the one that will attract the largest number of eyes and fill the largest number of edit links -- without having to deal with redirects.
We are not writing an encyclopedia for academics and specialists, we are witting an encyclopedia for use by the masses. As such the subjects they look for should be at page titles that are recognizable by the largest number of people (with a reasonable minimum amount of ambiguity). But after a title has served its /one and only/ purpose (to get a person to the correct article), /then/ we can explain why academics think why the page title is not correct and then procede, where appropriate, to use what the academics in that field think is the best term. So in the [[Linda Lovelace]] article her real last name 'Boreman' is used, and in the [[Billy the Kid]] article 'Bonney' is used (although it is not certain whether that is correct though), and in [[Occam's razor]] we use Ockham's razor.
Page titles should reflect common usage in order to ensure our content is exposed to the largest possible audience. But once the person has the article in front of them /then/ we educate them as to why some academics think the common usage is not correct along with whatever else the article has to say.
So instead of hitting people over the head that are wrong by placing the article at the academically correct title (giving them a jolt of surprise when they are redirected from a title they know to a title they don't), we allow them to land at the page title they know and then gently explain why academics think the commonly used form is incorrect.
We are also not working with a static set of articles here and each article's title serves as an example of our naming conventions to newbies. And one thing I've noticed is that, in general, newbies don't know about or care to use redirects.
So how about we support the naming convention, that if followed by reading the naming convention or looking at examples, /naturally/ is the one that a new contributor is most likely to use when creating a new page? People look for things by the titles they already know - let's continue to follow this natural tendency and not work against it, shall we?
-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
WikiKarma: [[February 3]] and all year pages linked from there and many of the other articles.
Mav-
Anglicization is the process by which foreign words are altered and enter into common usage by English speakers. If you support this form of common usage then why do you not support common usage when presented with two words which are already in English?
If one of these words is an obvious linguistic error, and the other one is commonly used among academics, it is clear that we should use the latter. I repeat, it is not POV to highlight the correct term if nobody factually disagrees that it is correct (besides, arguably, no matter which name we choose, we always take a POV in the process, it is just whether we go by Google, or by what is more accepted among scholars).
As the example of [[Pennsylvania German]] shows, people in other articles prefer linking to the correct term, not the incorrect one. From that perspective alone using the more correct term is justified. You yourself constantly use the linkability argument.
By extending the logic you propose all animals in Wikipedia should be under their scientific names, [[Mark Twain]] would be under [[Samuel Langhorn Clemens]], [[Linda Lovelace]] under [[Linda Boreman]], [[Billy the Kid]] under [[William Henry Bonney]], [[Eva Peron]] under [[María Evita Durante de Peron]], [[Marilyn Monroe]] under [[Norma Jeane Mortenson]].
Names of people, cities, tribes and so on are decided by popular usage and, in case of people, by themselves; academic opinion is of less importance here. There is nothing wrong with pseudonyms, and if people are primarily known under these pseudonyms, then that is the title we should use. It is also the more likely one to be linked. Names that are, however, in error (e.g. of historical persons) should not be used where there is a reasonable scholarly alternative.
William of Ockham should reside under that title, as he does, which makes the fact that "Occam's" Razor is misspelled even more egregious.
Oh yeah, it is also misleading to call an orca a killer whale since they are not whales and the term "sea lion" is also misleading since these animals have
nothing to do with lions.
That depends on which term is used by biologists.
Academics also disagree -- which ones do we listen to?
If there's substantial disagreement, we can fall back on the common name rule.
Many also prefer foreign language forms. Should we use those because some academics think so?
Most academics prefer anglicized names. However, we should avoid losing information, so we should call an article about Jörg Haider either "Jörg Haider" or "Joerg Haider", but not "Jorg Haider".
Getting rid of the common usage naming convention opens the floodgates to these type of arguments.
Not necessarily this type of argument, but yes, it makes our conventions more complex. As they should be: Finding the right title for an article should not be as simple as throwing a few keywords at Google. It is a process where different factors have to be weighed against each other. These factors are:
1) Is the term based on a misconception or outdated convention and therefore avoided by scholars? 2) Which title will other articles want to use for linking? 3) Which title will people want to search for (which is most popular)?
If there is disagreement on 1) or 2), we ignore them.
Abandoning common usage would make it more difficult to directly link to articles and find them.
No, because we should only abandon it in cases where common usage is incorrect and we therefore do not want to use the incorrect term for linking either. We will usually want to link to [[Marilyn Monroe]] using that name, but it is unprofessional to use an incorrect name in other articles, and therefore avoided.
Above all else the name we choose should be the one that will attract the largest number of eyes and fill the largest number of edit links -- without having to deal with redirects.
We have to deal with redirects in any case.
We are not writing an encyclopedia for academics and specialists, we are witting an encyclopedia for use by the masses.
That doesn't mean that we have to make the same mistakes as the masses :^)
Page titles should reflect common usage in order to ensure our content is exposed to the largest possible audience.
As I have repeatedly demonstrated, it does not "ensure" that significantly more than using the correct term.
Regards,
Erik
You keep saying that it's unprofessional to use the terms you don't like (not those which are incorrect, because that's only your interpretation), but you haven't responded to my pointing out that Britannica, perhaps the most professional of encyclopedias, calls it Pennsylvania Dutch. Zoe Erik Moeller erik_moeller@gmx.de wrote:Mav-
Anglicization is the process by which foreign words are altered and enter into common usage by English speakers. If you support this form of common usage then why do you not support common usage when presented with two words which are already in English?
If one of these words is an obvious linguistic error, and the other one is commonly used among academics, it is clear that we should use the latter. I repeat, it is not POV to highlight the correct term if nobody factually disagrees that it is correct (besides, arguably, no matter which name we choose, we always take a POV in the process, it is just whether we go by Google, or by what is more accepted among scholars).
As the example of [[Pennsylvania German]] shows, people in other articles prefer linking to the correct term, not the incorrect one. From that perspective alone using the more correct term is justified. You yourself constantly use the linkability argument.
By extending the logic you propose all animals in Wikipedia should be under their scientific names, [[Mark Twain]] would be under [[Samuel Langhorn Clemens]], [[Linda Lovelace]] under [[Linda Boreman]], [[Billy the Kid]] under [[William Henry Bonney]], [[Eva Peron]] under [[Mar�a Evita Durante de Peron]], [[Marilyn Monroe]] under [[Norma Jeane Mortenson]].
Names of people, cities, tribes and so on are decided by popular usage and, in case of people, by themselves; academic opinion is of less importance here. There is nothing wrong with pseudonyms, and if people are primarily known under these pseudonyms, then that is the title we should use. It is also the more likely one to be linked. Names that are, however, in error (e.g. of historical persons) should not be used where there is a reasonable scholarly alternative.
William of Ockham should reside under that title, as he does, which makes the fact that "Occam's" Razor is misspelled even more egregious.
Oh yeah, it is also misleading to call an orca a killer whale since they are not whales and the term "sea lion" is also misleading since these animals have
nothing to do with lions.
That depends on which term is used by biologists.
Academics also disagree -- which ones do we listen to?
If there's substantial disagreement, we can fall back on the common name rule.
Many also prefer foreign language forms. Should we use those because some academics think so?
Most academics prefer anglicized names. However, we should avoid losing information, so we should call an article about J�rg Haider either "J�rg Haider" or "Joerg Haider", but not "Jorg Haider".
Getting rid of the common usage naming convention opens the floodgates to these type of arguments.
Not necessarily this type of argument, but yes, it makes our conventions more complex. As they should be: Finding the right title for an article should not be as simple as throwing a few keywords at Google. It is a process where different factors have to be weighed against each other. These factors are:
1) Is the term based on a misconception or outdated convention and therefore avoided by scholars? 2) Which title will other articles want to use for linking? 3) Which title will people want to search for (which is most popular)?
If there is disagreement on 1) or 2), we ignore them.
Abandoning common usage would make it more difficult to directly link to articles and find them.
No, because we should only abandon it in cases where common usage is incorrect and we therefore do not want to use the incorrect term for linking either. We will usually want to link to [[Marilyn Monroe]] using that name, but it is unprofessional to use an incorrect name in other articles, and therefore avoided.
Above all else the name we choose should be the one that will attract the largest number of eyes and fill the largest number of edit links -- without having to deal with redirects.
We have to deal with redirects in any case.
We are not writing an encyclopedia for academics and specialists, we are witting an encyclopedia for use by the masses.
That doesn't mean that we have to make the same mistakes as the masses :^)
Page titles should reflect common usage in order to ensure our content is exposed to the largest possible audience.
As I have repeatedly demonstrated, it does not "ensure" that significantly more than using the correct term.
Regards,
Erik
Zoe-
You keep saying that it's unprofessional to use the terms you don't like (not those which are incorrect, because that's only your interpretation),
No, it's the interpretation of everyone who actually talks about the terms.
but you haven't responded to my pointing out that Britannica, perhaps the most professional of encyclopedias, calls it Pennsylvania Dutch.
And they call Ockham's Razor Ockham's Razor. My guess is that Britannica uses whatever spelling the authors of the article in question prefer. In any case, as I said, it's reasonable to refer to the people as "Pennsylvania Dutch" if they call themselves that.
Regards,
Erik
I normally don't reply with "Me too", but I had to say that mav is saying EXACTLY the way I feel. Zoe Daniel Mayer maveric149@yahoo.com wrote:On Sunday 09 February 2003 02:34 pm, Erik Moeller wrote:
No, because that name is used neither by scholars nor the public. As I wrote, I am not opposed to anglicization, and anglicization is by itself not unscientific. (There are reasonable arguments that can be made against it in the case of European languages, but I do not subscribe to those arguments.) If there exist two different English terms, however, the one which is correct should in most cases be used, provided it has already been adopted by scholars.
Anglicization is the process by which foreign words are altered and enter into common usage by English speakers. If you support this form of common usage then why do you not support common usage when presented with two words which are already in English?
I think we need to change our naming convention to use the more correct article title if everybody who knows the history of the term in question agrees that it is correct; that is, if everybody who has a coherent POV on the matter shares the same opinion. In other words, we should use academically correct titles, not those which Google prefers.
Examples:
- Ockham's Razor should not reside at Occam's Razor (Occam is the
latinization of the town name Ockham; the town still exists today).
- Pennsylvania Dutch should be at Pennsylvania German (it is not Dutch at
all; the word is merely a corruption of "Deutsch" or "D�tsch"). .....
Hm. "more correct article title" Correct to whom? OIC to a small group of people. That is hardly NPOV. Titles are /nominative/ - and that is their only role. And as such, they should reflect what most people who are at all familiar with the subject call it (unless the term is unreasonably ambiguous).
Academics are harmed the least by this since they most definitely already know what the common name of subjects are that they are experts on. But the non-academic isn't going to necessarily know what that academics call the subject. By extending the logic you propose all animals in Wikipedia should be under their scientific names, [[Mark Twain]] would be under [[Samuel Langhorn Clemens]], [[Linda Lovelace]] under [[Linda Boreman]], [[Billy the Kid]] under [[William Henry Bonney]], [[Eva Peron]] under [[Mar�a Evita Durante de Peron]], [[Marilyn Monroe]] under [[Norma Jeane Mortenson]].
It is also more academically correct to use somebody's real name, right? And it is even /more/ academically correct to use their entire name, isn't it? Oh yeah, it is also misleading to call an orca a killer whale since they are not whales and the term "sea lion" is also misleading since these animals have nothing to do with lions. Rubbish!
Academics also disagree -- which ones do we listen to? Many also prefer foreign language forms. Should we use those because some academics think so? Getting rid of the common usage naming convention opens the floodgates to these type of arguments. By contrast trying to determine common usage is far easier in most cases.
Abandoning common usage would make it more difficult to directly link to articles and find them. Above all else the name we choose should be the one that will attract the largest number of eyes and fill the largest number of edit links -- without having to deal with redirects.
We are not writing an encyclopedia for academics and specialists, we are witting an encyclopedia for use by the masses. As such the subjects they look for should be at page titles that are recognizable by the largest number of people (with a reasonable minimum amount of ambiguity). But after a title has served its /one and only/ purpose (to get a person to the correct article), /then/ we can explain why academics think why the page title is not correct and then procede, where appropriate, to use what the academics in that field think is the best term. So in the [[Linda Lovelace]] article her real last name 'Boreman' is used, and in the [[Billy the Kid]] article 'Bonney' is used (although it is not certain whether that is correct though), and in [[Occam's razor]] we use Ockham's razor.
Page titles should reflect common usage in order to ensure our content is exposed to the largest possible audience. But once the person has the article in front of them /then/ we educate them as to why some academics think the common usage is not correct along with whatever else the article has to say.
So instead of hitting people over the head that are wrong by placing the article at the academically correct title (giving them a jolt of surprise when they are redirected from a title they know to a title they don't), we allow them to land at the page title they know and then gently explain why academics think the commonly used form is incorrect.
We are also not working with a static set of articles here and each article's title serves as an example of our naming conventions to newbies. And one thing I've noticed is that, in general, newbies don't know about or care to use redirects.
So how about we support the naming convention, that if followed by reading the naming convention or looking at examples, /naturally/ is the one that a new contributor is most likely to use when creating a new page? People look for things by the titles they already know - let's continue to follow this natural tendency and not work against it, shall we?
-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
WikiKarma: [[February 3]] and all year pages linked from there and many of the other articles. _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@wikipedia.org http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
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