Eclecticology wrote:
Daniel Mayer wrote:
BTW our current primary naming convention is to use what most English speakers would know and recognize as article titles with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity and do any usage explanation in the article itself.
Emperor "Franz Josef" of Austria: 203,000 Google hits; "Francis Joseph": 24,500 Google hits yet we persist in using Francis Joseph pretending that it is most recognizable by English speakers
Eclecticology
Doing a vanilla Google search is useless because it also searches non-English pages. But I did redo the search only looking at English language pages and I confirmed you results.
So what is the problem then? I'm not insisting that we should have an article at [[Francis Joseph of Austria]]. In this case the article, per the Anglicization and Names and Titles conventions, should be at [[Franz Josef of Austria]].
I think the much of the problem that many people have about the Anglicization convention is that they HAVEN'T READ THE DAMN THING IN CONTEXT WITH THE OVERRIDING CONVENTION EXPRESSED IN THE GENERAL STATEMENT. Please do so now;
Anglicization convention:
Convention: Name your pages in English and place the native transliteration on the first line of the article unless the native form is almost always used in English.
Notice: "...unless the native form is almost always used in English."
I am all for making that sound even more permissive (and a better reflection of the current practice I understand and help enforce) to read;
"... unless the native form or transliteration is used by English speakers more often than the Anglicized or English translation."
General statement:
Generally, article naming should give priority to what the majority of English speakers would most easily recognize with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature.
Notice: "....article naming should give priority to what the majority of English speakers would most easily recognize..."
I am also all for making this even more clear to reflect my longstanding interpretation and enforcement criteria: "....article naming should give priority to what the majority of English speakers at all familiar with the subject would most easily recognize and likely to use...."
Notice the addition of: "at all familiar with the subject" (this includes all interested English speaking parties, not just the experts).
We should use what most English speakers who are aware of the subject would most easily recognize with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity (with at least a slight preference for English to decide toss-ups). Whether or not that is an English translation, a transliteration, native form or is Anglicized is really immaterial.
Like I already said in a previous post, subjects like Mein Kampf, Les Miserables and Sinn Fein should be at these titles because few people would recognize "My Struggle", "Poor Wretches" or "Ourselves Alone" as the correct subjects.
-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
Payment for this post: http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_the_Kid (In progress)
Daniel Mayer wrote:
I think the much of the problem that many people have about the Anglicization convention is that they HAVEN'T READ THE DAMN THING IN CONTEXT WITH THE OVERRIDING CONVENTION EXPRESSED IN THE GENERAL STATEMENT. Please do so now;
We have to recognise that underlying this problem is a change in attitudes:
In previous centuries, foreign names were anglicized (likewise in other languages). So we have Columbus, we have Charles of Spain, Munich, etc. (placenames have also acquired several names in Europe because of shifting boundaries)
Nowadays, we don't. We refer to foreign people by their names as in their language (or best approximation, Boris Yeltsin is called "Eltsine" in French) So we some foreign names anglicized and some not. To thicken the plot, some names are being *unanglicized* -- I would agree that Franz Josef is called thus in English
Key thing to bear in mind: this mixup is not our fault! :-)
Daniel Mayer wrote:
I think the much of the problem that many people have about the Anglicization convention is that they HAVEN'T READ THE DAMN THING IN CONTEXT WITH THE OVERRIDING CONVENTION EXPRESSED IN THE GENERAL STATEMENT. Please do so now;
Anglicization convention:
Convention: Name your pages in English and place the native transliteration on the first line of the article unless the native form is almost always used in English.
Notice: "...unless the native form is almost always used in English."
It seems that Mav doesn't hasn't even read his own policy. Before responding I just made a point of reading it at [[Wikipedia:Naming conventions (anglicization)]]. Even the qualification that he emphasizes is simply NOT THERE. Admittedly, even that qualification is better than nothing.
I am all for making that sound even more permissive (and a better reflection of the current practice I understand and help enforce) to read;
"... unless the native form or transliteration is used by English speakers more often than the Anglicized or English translation."
General statement:
Generally, article naming should give priority to what the majority of English speakers would most easily recognize with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature.
Notice: "....article naming should give priority to what the majority of English speakers would most easily recognize..."
Who determines that majority?
I am also all for making this even more clear to reflect my longstanding interpretation and enforcement criteria: "....article naming should give priority to what the majority of English speakers at all familiar with the subject would most easily recognize and likely to use...."
Notice the addition of: "at all familiar with the subject" (this includes all interested English speaking parties, not just the experts).
"at all familiar" is a step in the right direction.
We should use what most English speakers who are aware of the subject would most easily recognize with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity (with at least a slight preference for English to decide toss-ups). Whether or not that is an English translation, a transliteration, native form or is Anglicized is really immaterial.
I would give preference to the native form in a toss-up, with a wide attitude about what we mean by "toss-up". But even better, a flexible attitude that does not insist that a borderline case has to be in either form will turn down the heat on this subject.
We don't need for people to be self-appointed enforcers except in the most egregious cases; enforcement actions only irritate people. If any kind of enforcement is appropriate on borderline cases it is to ensure that there is a redirect from the alternate form to the one actually used in whatever direction is needed.
Like I already said in a previous post, subjects like Mein Kampf, Les Miserables and Sinn Fein should be at these titles because few people would recognize "My Struggle", "Poor Wretches" or "Ourselves Alone" as the correct subjects.
Although I have argued, with apparent success, for [[Franz Josef of Austria]] you may remain confident that I do NOT support the format [[Franz Josef von Österreich]].
I have another example from German where the zeal for correction actually creates a more surprising result for English speakers: the artist, Albrecht Dürer. (Fortunately nobody is trying to call him Albert) I know very well that "ü" may be treated as equivalent to "ue", but do most English speakers know that? Without knowing that, how likely is it that they will look for "Duerer" where the article currently is. From what I've seen English speakers tend to be blind to diacritics. They will see "Dürer" as "Durer".
I would thus favour that when the difference between the native form and the usual English form is a matter only of diacritics that are a part of ISO 8859-1 the standard form should be the one with full ISO 8859-1 diacritics. The search function should include a provision that allows the plain character to be treated as equivalent to the one with diacritics.
This may not be possible with terms that include non 8859-1 characters, in which case the standard form should have the characters without diacritics.
In consideration of the "payment" for posts provision, I undertake to sort out the Franz Josef articles. Eclecticology
At 12:11 28/11/02 -0800, Ray Saintonge wrote:
It seems that Mav doesn't hasn't even read his own policy. Before responding I just made a point of reading it at [[Wikipedia:Naming conventions (anglicization)]]. Even the qualification that he emphasizes is simply NOT THERE.
It's at [[Wikipedia:Naming conventions]], under "Use English words".
Rob ([[Paddington station]] - new article)
Eclecticology wrote in small part:
The search function should include a provision that allows the plain character to be treated as equivalent to the one with diacritics.
This is a good idea regardless of anything else that we discuss here. It's much like the case insensitivity of our searches.
-- Toby