On Thursday 21 November 2002 12:44 am, Toby Bartels wrote:
NPOV, of course, has nothing to do with this (despite what Lir says). As you know, NPOV doesn't mean the majority point of view. It means presenting every point of view in a manner fair to it.
Key words "in a manner fair to it". In my world view what is most "fair" in terms of NPOV is to express majority opinions as majority opinions and minority ones as minority. This also affects the amount of text we give to any particular opinion in an article. So majority opinions get majority time. Therefore if something is known by a particular name by the great majority of English speakers we should reflect this fact in our choice of what to name the article. So yes, NPOV does most certainly apply.
A truly NPOV title would be [[The city known to its residents as "München" but commonly called "Munich" in English, and which some people argue that we should talk about in an article entitled "München" becuase <blah blah blah> but which others argue that we should talk about in an article entitled "Munich" because <yada yada yada>]]. But we can't do this, so we pick one or the other. Either is an equally POV choice (since the majority POV is as much a POV as going to the original name is), which is why we use naming *conventions* instead.
Either is /not/ equally POV. See above. And the description of things go into the articles themselves, not in titles so that anti-argument is no argument at all.
Under the current plan we also have to delve into linguistic usage (not *wars* that I can see, but I don't anticipate those in any case), to decide which usage is most common. That's an issue of linguistic usage.
Eh? Finding out what most English speakers actually use is much easier than having to research what the residents of where the term is derived use it. Their language evolves too, just like ours. Should we use what they call the term now, back when the term was coined or some arbitrary date inbetween? There will also be different spellings and different use of diacriticals to deal with, not to mention competing terms. How in the world can an English-only speaker sort this out? The proposed plan is asking way too much and the more I argue about it the more I am convinced that it would be a very very bad thing to do.
I don't know about Lir, but I don't propose such a thing, because "mammal" is a common noun, not a proper noun. I certainly don't want to change all of our article titles back to Proto-Indo-European ^_^!
Well that is the road we will be heading down if this convention takes hold. I for one will fight tirelessly to stop this from happening. Already there is a continuum of opinion on how such a convention would work; Lir on the extreme "all anglicization is bad" end, you in the middle and Ec on the more liberal and IMO sane side.
There is also article rankings by Google to take into consideration: Articles that have the searched-for name in the title are ranked higher. Why should we purposely reduce article rankings and therefore reduce the reach of our content?
This is definitely the best point that I've seen so far. You can tell, because I don't have any response to it ^_^! I'll have to think about that.
The "Google question" is an important point to consider.
Below are some questions that you haven't answered yet to my recollection.: 1) There is also the fact that the proposed change absolutely requires the use of a technological fix to work (namely redirects). How is it less complicated when redirects are absolutely required? Not to mention the fact that the current display of redirects is rather ugly after following them. To fix this would require yet another technological fix. 2) Google's language tools can be used as an objective measure of widest usage whereas the proposed plan depends on subjective choices between different more native transliterations and language sets. 3) How is it more NPOV when it shuns widest English usage for a minority naming scheme? 4) What about the audience: How is it more useful for them to use words they can't pronounce, spell or are familiar with? 6) What about the writers: How is it more useful for them to have articles that they can't link to directly (or at all when redirects are not made)? Also, most English speakers do not know how to make the more elaborate diacrtic marks with their keyboard. So they will have to copy and paste to make direct links. How is that at all user-friendly? 7) How would the proposed system not cause a chilling effect by favoring titles that most English speakers don't know? Remember: "Otherwise somebody will come by later and move the article and probably chide the original author for their Anglo-centric based ignorance." Just because you won't do it, doesn't mean that others will be so nice.
-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
On Thu, Nov 21, 2002 at 10:41:04AM -0800, Daniel Mayer wrote:
Key words "in a manner fair to it". In my world view what is most "fair" in terms of NPOV is to express majority opinions as majority opinions and minority ones as minority. This also affects the amount of text we give to any particular opinion in an article. So majority opinions get majority time. Therefore if something is known by a particular name by the great majority of English speakers we should reflect this fact in our choice of what to name the article. So yes, NPOV does most certainly apply.
We should be more concerned with presenting facts than with opinions. People turn to an Encyclopedia to find out the truth about things. Just regurgitating "what everyone knows" is counter-productive when actual facts exist.
Believe it or not, NPOV requires the facts to be presented wherever possible, instead of opinions.
For the record, the above two paragraphs have nothing to do with what you talked about in the rest of your message.
Jonathan
On Thu, 21 Nov 2002, Jonathan Walther wrote:
Believe it or not, NPOV requires the facts to be presented wherever possible, instead of opinions.
One important reason for the neutrality policy is precisely that people disagree--have different opinions--as to what the facts are. And those people of differing opinions are being asked to work on the same project. The neutrality policy is what allows those people to maintain peace.
Alternative formulation of the policy: assert facts, including facts about opinions--but don't assert opinions themselves
We sometimes give an alternative formulation of the nonbias policy: assert facts, including facts about opinions--but don't assert opinions themselves. By "fact," on the one hand, we mean "a piece of information about which there is no serious dispute." In this sense, that a survey produced a certain published result is a fact. That Mars is a planet is a fact. That 2+2=4 is a fact. That Socrates was a philosopher is a fact. No one seriously disputes any of these things. So Wikipedians can feel free to assert as many of them as we can. By "opinion," on the other hand, we mean "a piece of information about which there is some serious dispute." There's bound to be borderline cases where we're not sure if we should take a particular dispute seriously; but there are many propositions that very clearly express opinions. That God exists is an opinion. That the Beatles were the greatest rock and roll group is an opinion. That intuitionistic logic is superior to ordinary logic is an opinion. That the United States was wrong to drop the atomic bomb over Hiroshima and Nagasaki is an opinion.
For determining whether something is fact or opinion in this sense, it does not matter what the actual truth of the matter is; there can at least in theory be false "facts" (things that everybody agrees upon, but which are, in fact, false), and there are very often true "opinions," though necessarily, it seems, there are more false ones.
Wikipedia is devoting to stating facts and only facts, in this sense. Where we might want to state opinions, we convert that opinion into a fact by attributing the opinion to someone. So, rather than asserting, "God exists," which is an opinion, we can say, "Most Americans believe that God exists," which is a fact, or "Thomas Aquinas believed that God exists," which is also a fact. In the first instance we assert an opinion; in the second and third instances we convert that opinion into a fact by attributing it to someone. In presenting an opinion, moreover, it is important that we bear in mind that there are sometimes even disagreements about how opinions might be best stated; sometimes, it will be necessary to qualify the description of an opinion or to present several formulations, simply to arrive at an overall characterization that fairly represents all the leading views of the situation.
But it's not enough, to express the Wikipedia nonbias policy, just to say that we should state facts and not opinions. When asserting a fact about an opinion, it is important also to assert facts about competing opinions, and to do so without implying that any one of the opinions is correct. It's also generally important to give the facts about the reasons behind the views, and to make it clear who holds them. (It's often best to cite a prominent representative of the view.)
(end of quote)
Larry
Mav wrote:
Toby Bartels wrote:
NPOV, of course, has nothing to do with this (despite what Lir says). As you know, NPOV doesn't mean the majority point of view. It means presenting every point of view in a manner fair to it.
Key words "in a manner fair to it". In my world view what is most "fair" in terms of NPOV is to express majority opinions as majority opinions and minority ones as minority.
As is done in the sort of article text that I would write:
'''München''' (population whatever), usually called '''Munich''' in [[English language|English]], is a [[city]] in [[Germany]].
(Or write "[[Deutschland]] (Germany)", but that's a finer point, and a more radical one than we need to discuss now.)
This also affects the amount of text we give to any particular opinion in an article. So majority opinions get majority time. Therefore if something is known by a particular name by the great majority of English speakers we should reflect this fact in our choice of what to name the article. So yes, NPOV does most certainly apply.
I've decided that this is probably a category error. The neutral point of view covers our article content. This is possible only because we have room in our articles to explain every POV fairly (possibly even by spinning it off to its own separate article). This isn't possible in article titles, so we come up with *conventions* to deal with these. Was it NPOV that told us not to capitalise article titles? No, most English speakers capitalise the titles of articles -- but it's a heck of a lot more convenient if Wikipedia doesn't. And *Naming* conventions aren't the only POV that Wikipedia holds. Heck, was it NPOV that told us to be NPOV? Not at all, most people write from a POV, up to and including most editions of the Encyclopædia Britannica. But Wikipedia decided to a neutral encyclopædia. So the content of our articles is neutral. Nevertheless, our copyright policy certainly isn't! Etc.
A truly NPOV title would be [[The city known to its residents as "München" but commonly called "Munich" in English, and which some people argue that we should talk about in an article entitled "München" becuase <blah blah blah> but which others argue that we should talk about in an article entitled "Munich" because <yada yada yada>]]. But we can't do this, so we pick one or the other. Either is an equally POV choice (since the majority POV is as much a POV as going to the original name is), which is why we use naming *conventions* instead.
Either is /not/ equally POV. See above. And the description of things go into the articles themselves, not in titles so that anti-argument is no argument at all.
You know that it's not NPOV to state only the majority opinion. However much we may give *more* time to the majority opinion, we must also indicate minority opinions where applicable. It is applicable in article titles -- but we can't do so there, because (as you say, and this is *central* to my argument, not contradictory to it), such discussion goes into the article itself, not into the title, which must present only one thing. We must make a decision in the title, we can't be NPOV there, (and we don't have to in order to be a neutral encyclopædia since everything is explained immediately beneath said title).
Under the current plan we also have to delve into linguistic usage (not *wars* that I can see, but I don't anticipate those in any case), to decide which usage is most common. That's an issue of linguistic usage.
Eh? Finding out what most English speakers actually use is much easier than having to research what the residents of where the term is derived use it.
Not at all. There are a lot fewer residents of München than English speakers. No, Google does *not* do the job; Google isn't anywhere *close* to a reprsentative sample of English speakers. The fact that a Google measurement is *easy* to do doesn't change the fact that it's highly biased and thus almost meaningless.
Their language evolves too, just like ours. Should we use what they call the term now, back when the term was coined or some arbitrary date inbetween?
Well, if our language evolves, then what *English* term should we use, what English said back then, or what English says now? Actually, I know the answer to my question: what English says now. Similarly, we can come up with an answer to your question. I suggest referring to a place by the name used by the current residents (or the residents at the time for articles focussing on a historic period) and referring to a person by the name that they used for themself. That seems pretty natural to me.
There will also be different spellings and different use of diacriticals to deal with, not to mention competing terms. How in the world can an English-only speaker sort this out?
The same way that such a speaker currently sorts out what's most commonly used in English: by making the best guess that they can using the resources easily available to them and then being corrected by later editors. Such corrections happen now under the current policy, too. Example: [[Pythagorean Theorem]].
The proposed plan is asking way too much and the more I argue about it the more I am convinced that it would be a very very bad thing to do.
I'm not surprised, since we're only arguing about the reasons against it. Whoever's on the offensive at a given moment tends to gain ground ^_^.
I don't know about Lir, but I don't propose such a thing, because "mammal" is a common noun, not a proper noun. I certainly don't want to change all of our article titles back to Proto-Indo-European ^_^!
Well that is the road we will be heading down if this convention takes hold. I for one will fight tirelessly to stop this from happening.
I for one will *also* fight tirelessly to stop any such outrageous misinterpretation of the new policy. The new policy is proposed for *proper*nouns* only, and refers to historical forms *only* in historical contexts. It's not about retracing the origins of English etymology *at*all*. I will fight tirelessly, should this proposal be adopted, to prevent people from making such mistakes.
Already there is a continuum of opinion on how such a convention would work; Lir on the extreme "all anglicization is bad" end, you in the middle and Ec on the more liberal and IMO sane side.
Yes, there's a continuum, going from Lir to me to Eclecticology to you. Why does it follow that you must then be right? Why not Lir?
From her perspective, there's a continuum of opinion about
how words derived from proper names should sometimes be anglicised; you on the extreme "any anglicization done by most anglophones is good" end, Ec in the middle and me on the more liberal and IHO sane side. It's not like there's some wide gulf between you and Eclecticology that doesn't exist between me and Lir.
This is definitely the best point that I've seen so far. You can tell, because I don't have any response to it ^_^! I'll have to think about that.
The "Google question" is an important point to consider.
Yep. Still considering. You may yet see a post from me where I decide that the current convention is best for just this reason. In the meantime, I'll respond to your other objections.
Below are some questions that you haven't answered yet to my recollection:
Well, in one case, that's because it was never even raised before. But I will answer them now or indicate where answers may be found.
- There is also the fact that the proposed change absolutely requires the use
of a technological fix to work (namely redirects). How is it less complicated when redirects are absolutely required? Not to mention the fact that the current display of redirects is rather ugly after following them. To fix this would require yet another technological fix.
See http://www.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2002-November/000069.html.
- Google's language tools can be used as an objective measure of widest usage
whereas the proposed plan depends on subjective choices between different more native transliterations and language sets.
See http://www.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2002-November/000069.html.
- How is it more NPOV when it shuns widest English usage for a minority
naming scheme?
See this very post, of course.
- What about the audience: How is it more useful for them to use words they
can't pronounce, spell or are familiar with?
It's more useful for them to have the name used by the person in question or in the place in question up front and direct in their minds. We use pronunciation guides for weird words like "Kong-fu-zi" (/koN 'fu dz/) and "Confucius" (/k@n 'fju S@s/), which as you can see in this example, include both native and common English forms in most cases.
- What about the writers: How is it more useful for them to have articles
that they can't link to directly (or at all when redirects are not made)?
See http://www.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2002-November/000036.html.
Also, most English speakers do not know how to make the more elaborate diacrtic marks with their keyboard. So they will have to copy and paste to make direct links. How is that at all user-friendly?
They don't *have* to make direct links. Just like I hardly ever make direct links to long titles today. For example, I don't link to [[Kernel (category theory)|]], I link to [[Kernel (categories)|]], a redirect, because it's shorter. Similarly, you link to [[Memphis (Egypt)|]] since it's shorter than [[Memphis, Egypt|Memphis]] (or at least you said that you'd do this on [[Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (city names)]]).
- How would the proposed system not cause a chilling effect by favoring
titles that most English speakers don't know? Remember: "Otherwise somebody will come by later and move the article and probably chide the original author for their Anglo-centric based ignorance."
See http://www.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2002-November/000069.html.
Just because you won't do it, doesn't mean that others will be so nice.
This may well be read as a response to that post. But of course, it's just as possible for somebody to be mean while correcting a native form in the current system. You're essentially arguing against a proposal because one mean person (Lir) supports it. (But she's banned, and since it's highly unlikely that she'll meet Jimbo's stated criteria for returning, even that's no longer relevant.)
-- Toby
Having succombed to the urgings of both Mav and Toby to join the WikiEN-l list, despite my protestations about having yet more e-mails to thwart my constructive participation in Wikipedia, and having dutifully ploughed through the mass of messages that have accumulated therein in a very short period of time, I am now prepared to move back in the stack to those substantive matters that are a part of the mailing list. I dream that some day I may be able to escape the stack and rejoin Wikipedia's Mainframe.
Toby Bartels wrote:
Mav wrote:
Toby Bartels wrote:
NPOV, of course, has nothing to do with this (despite what Lir says). As you know, NPOV doesn't mean the majority point of view. It means presenting every point of view in a manner fair to it.
Key words "in a manner fair to it". In my world view what is most "fair" in terms of NPOV is to express majority opinions as majority opinions and minority ones as minority.
I find it hard to see how NPOV is a serious part of this debate. Sure there are POV titles; I've raised that point in connection with "Pseudo-science". This debate is about a convention. Establishing a convention is about choosing between equally functional positions. Accident rates in Britain and Japan have not been significantly affected by their choice to drive on the wrong side of the road in defiance of Pope Boniface VIII's edict for the year 1300.
This also affects the amount of text we give to any particular opinion in an article. So majority opinions get majority time. Therefore if something is known by a particular name by the great majority of English speakers we should reflect this fact in our choice of what to name the article. So yes, NPOV does most certainly apply.
Greater amount of text? With the title "München" the article adds "It is called Munich in English." With the title "Munich" the article adds "It is called München in German." Where the length difference.
...we must also indicate minority opinions where applicable. It is applicable in article titles -- but we can't do so there, because (as you say, and this is *central* to my argument, not contradictory to it), such discussion goes into the article itself, not into the title, which must present only one thing. We must make a decision in the title, we can't be NPOV there, (and we don't have to in order to be a neutral encyclopædia since everything is explained immediately beneath said title).
It's not just that we "must" present only one thing in the title; it's that we "can" present only one thing. There are still some instances where NPOV becomes a problem in selecting article titles. One example is in choosing between Oder River (from the German name) or Odra River (from the Polish name). Wikipedia should not be put in the position of having to choose sides in that dispute.
Under the current plan we also have to delve into linguistic usage (not *wars* that I can see, but I don't anticipate those in any case), to decide which usage is most common. That's an issue of linguistic usage.
Eh? Finding out what most English speakers actually use is much easier than having to research what the residents of where the term is derived use it.
This could work either way, and although what most English speakers use is easy to determine for some of the better known entities, there is a lot more uncertainty as the subject becomes more obscure. Disputes have already arisen over what name to use for Charlemagne, or, more broadly various European monarchs named Charles, Henry, William or Peter.
Not at all. There are a lot fewer residents of München than English speakers. No, Google does *not* do the job; Google isn't anywhere *close* to a reprsentative sample of English speakers. The fact that a Google measurement is *easy* to do doesn't change the fact that it's highly biased and thus almost meaningless.
I would avoid an unhealthy addiction to Google. It is clearly the most popular search engine now, but Yahoo and Lycos have been there in the past, A new engine could appear at any time and change that fact. I do look at Google statistics, and take that into account as only one of several possible influences.
Their language evolves too, just like ours. Should we use what they call the term now, back when the term was coined or some arbitrary date inbetween?
Well, if our language evolves, then what *English* term should we use, what English said back then, or what English says now? Actually, I know the answer to my question: what English says now. Similarly, we can come up with an answer to your question. I suggest referring to a place by the name used by the current residents (or the residents at the time for articles focussing on a historic period) and referring to a person by the name that they used for themself. That seems pretty natural to me.
That makes sense.
There will also be different spellings and different use of diacriticals to deal with, not to mention competing terms. How in the world can an English-only speaker sort this out?
The same way that such a speaker currently sorts out what's most commonly used in English: by making the best guess that they can using the resources easily available to them and then being corrected by later editors. Such corrections happen now under the current policy, too.
Yes, even under an original language regime the first author of an article can use the English name to get the matter going. Perhaps his only information source is something like the 1911 Encyclopedia. If that does not fit with our naming policy somebody else can and probably will change it.. We'll appreciate both efforts.
I don't know about Lir, but I don't propose such a thing, because "mammal" is a common noun, not a proper noun. I certainly don't want to change all of our article titles back to Proto-Indo-European ^_^!
The new policy is proposed for *proper*nouns* only, and refers to historical forms *only* in historical contexts. It's not about retracing the origins of English etymology *at*all*.
It is primarily about proper nouns, though I still support the principle that the primary entry for life forms should be by the unambiguous Latin binomial. On the other hand, I still very much disagree with Tarquin's idiosyncratic predilection for using the french form "département" (with the extra "e") instead of "department" when referring the the political sub-divisions of France.
Already there is a continuum of opinion on how such a convention would work; Lir on the extreme "all anglicization is bad" end, you in the middle and Ec on the more liberal and IMO sane side.
This is frightening! I'm being accused of sanity.
Yes, there's a continuum, going from Lir to me to Eclecticology to you. Why does it follow that you must then be right? Why not Lir?
From her perspective, there's a continuum of opinion about
how words derived from proper names should sometimes be anglicised; you on the extreme "any anglicization done by most anglophones is good" end, Ec in the middle and me on the more liberal and IHO sane side. It's not like there's some wide gulf between you and Eclecticology that doesn't exist between me and Lir.
I don't know how I feel about having the centre-right position in such a political spectrum, even as Lir's uncertain credibility makes me more of a centrist. (Ed Poor eat your heart out!)
There is also the fact that the proposed change absolutely requires the use of a technological fix to work (namely redirects). How is it less complicated when redirects are absolutely required? Not to mention the fact that the current display of redirects is rather ugly after following them. To fix this would require yet another technological fix.
Redirects are one of the earliest techniques that new Wikipedians learn. They are so common that I hardly consider them as technological fixes. IIRC when I suggested deleting some such entries a few months back because they were useless, it was Mav who objected because Google could use them for a search, or somebody might have them bookmarked; this could mean the loss of potential new Wikipedians. He further argued that redirects didn't take up a lot of space in the system anyway. Now he has elevated redirects to the status of technological fixes.
Google's language tools can be used as an objective measure of widest usage whereas the proposed plan depends on subjective choices between different more native transliterations and language sets.
It is only one measure. Why wouldn't it also work for original language frequencies?
- What about the audience: How is it more useful for them to use words they
can't pronounce, spell or are familiar with?
It's more useful for them to have the name used by the person in question or in the place in question up front and direct in their minds. We use pronunciation guides for weird words like "Kong-fu-zi" (/koN 'fu dz/) and "Confucius" (/k@n 'fju S@s/), which as you can see in this example, include both native and common English forms in most cases.
Using SAMPA makes it even less pronounceable. I find "Kong-fu-zi" more pronounceable than its SAMPA counterpart, but then I would also advocate IPA for pronunciation guides. (But that's an entirely different issue that I'll save for another day.) Strangely enough, the present issue is not about pronunciation, but about the visual representation of names. A Chinese ideograph is more closely connected to its meaning than its pronunciation. At the risk of seeming to go out on a limb, I believe that there is a linkage between a culture and the way it writes things. Köln does not communicate the same picture as Cologne even though they refer to the same city. This is perhaps the saddest result of anglocentric expressions of these names: that somehow a cultural subtlety is not communicated, and the Dresden before and after the bombing remains the same pile of bricks and mortar.
What about the writers: How is it more useful for them to have articles that they can't link to directly (or at all when redirects are not made)?
If all the redirects are not made, we need to do more housework. Direct linkage is not a necessity as long as they can get there.
Also, most English speakers do not know how to make the more elaborate diacrtic marks with their keyboard. So they will have to copy and paste to make direct links. How is that at all user-friendly?
Present ignorance is no excuse for future ignorance. Making the characters in ISO 8859-1 is not difficult, just a little inconvenient. The evedent difficulty will be with languages using the roman alphabet with characters outside if 8859-1, which even I will admit may need to wait for a better solution. In languages requiring transliteration or romanization there may not even be a problem since the transliterations mostly use 8859-1.
Eclecticology