Hi!
There's currently a vote underway at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_(Norse_mythol...)
The proposal under consideration is, basically, to use common English names - like Thor, Odin and Valhalla - where those exist (as per "Use English") and to use the original Old Norse forms where no common English name exists (as per "Use English"). There are also some specific recommendations regarding representation of alternative forms and some thoughts on what the "native spelling" should be considered in this case.
Last time around those of us most heavily involved in editing the Norse mythology articles (Wiglaf and myself) agreed on a convention and slowly worked according to it for several months. Then this fact suddenly came to the attention of people who criticized us for not having publicized our proposal outside of Norse mythology pages and naming convention pages. So, this time I'm posting notices hither and yon and this is one of them.
What grates me a bit is that there has been very little material discussion on Old Norse names. Many of those expressing their opinions simply have a blanket opinion against all non-English characters in article titles.
So we have oppose votes like these:
"I do not think that article names in an English language encyclopedia should ever use non-English letters."
"Strongly Oppose the use of exotic non-English characters as if they were a normal part of the alphabet"
This is, of course, an entirely legitimate opinion but I just wonder if the larger issue of non-English characters couldn't be settled one way or another somewhere else.
Anyhow, if you have opinions on the matter - or, *sigh*, if you want to use this vote as a proxy to express your blanket opposition to non-English characters in article titles - here's the location again:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_(Norse_mythol...)
Regards, Haukur Þorgeirsson
Just make sure there's redirects from titles without diacratic (non English) marks on the letters, so people who can't write them can still link to them and find the articles without problems.
Mgm
On 11/20/05, Haukur Þorgeirsson haukurth@hi.is wrote:
Hi!
There's currently a vote underway at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_(Norse_mythol...)
The proposal under consideration is, basically, to use common English names - like Thor, Odin and Valhalla - where those exist (as per "Use English") and to use the original Old Norse forms where no common English name exists (as per "Use English"). There are also some specific recommendations regarding representation of alternative forms and some thoughts on what the "native spelling" should be considered in this case.
Last time around those of us most heavily involved in editing the Norse mythology articles (Wiglaf and myself) agreed on a convention and slowly worked according to it for several months. Then this fact suddenly came to the attention of people who criticized us for not having publicized our proposal outside of Norse mythology pages and naming convention pages. So, this time I'm posting notices hither and yon and this is one of them.
What grates me a bit is that there has been very little material discussion on Old Norse names. Many of those expressing their opinions simply have a blanket opinion against all non-English characters in article titles.
So we have oppose votes like these:
"I do not think that article names in an English language encyclopedia should ever use non-English letters."
"Strongly Oppose the use of exotic non-English characters as if they were a normal part of the alphabet"
This is, of course, an entirely legitimate opinion but I just wonder if the larger issue of non-English characters couldn't be settled one way or another somewhere else.
Anyhow, if you have opinions on the matter - or, *sigh*, if you want to use this vote as a proxy to express your blanket opposition to non-English characters in article titles - here's the location again:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_(Norse_mythol...)
Regards, Haukur Þorgeirsson
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Haukur Þorgeirsson wrote:
Anyhow, if you have opinions on the matter - or, *sigh*, if you want to use this vote as a proxy to express your blanket opposition to non-English characters in article titles - here's the location again:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_(Norse_mythol...)
Thanks for pointing this out---it's sort of a tricky edge case. In the extremes it's obvious what we should do: If there's a common English name, it goes there, and if the name is *obviously* in a foreign alphabet, then it gets transliterated one way or another (nobody supports having even obscure Greek cities on the English Wikipedia having titles in the Greek alphabet).
With alphabets that are mostly like the one used in English but with a few different characters it's more tricky---is an alphabet with a thorn or an eszet "close enough" to keep as is, or more like a completely foreign letter that should be transliterated like Greek (or Chinese)? I would probably lean towards transliterating---thorn and eszet and whatnot aren't really characters used in English any more than beta or gamma are. It does introduce some ambiguity (is the 'th' a thorn or something else?), but that always happens---nearly every Greek name has 2-3 different ways to write it ([[Veria]], Veroia, Beroea, Berea), but that's not a good reason to use [[Βέροια]], even if that would be nicer from the point of view of anyone who knows the Greek alphabet.
-Mark
On 21/11/05, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
It does introduce some ambiguity (is the 'th' a thorn or something else?), but that always happens---nearly every Greek name has 2-3 different ways to write it ([[Veria]], Veroia, Beroea, Berea), but that's not a good reason to use [[Βέροια]], even if that would be nicer from the point of view of anyone who knows the Greek alphabet.
Of course, there's no reason not to have a redirect at Βέροια - I would guess there's nothing more infuriating to a native Greek speaker to have to plough through half a dozen different transliterations in order to find the English page he wants...
-- - Andrew Gray andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk