we should refer to spacecraft from the USSR according to their Russian name-not according to the English name.
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Bridget [name omitted for privacy reasons] lapollutionestsimauvaise@yahoo.com wrote: we should refer to spacecraft from the USSR according to their Russian name-not according to the English name.
I read the argument on that issue. Meanwhile, I had a foolish thought.
Say, it is maybe not entirely clear in my mind...but is wikipedia intended only for those readers who are share english as their mother langage ?
Or what is not also meant to be a deep-broad-reliable-extensive-neutral-wonderful encyclopedia, which could be a great resource for the whole world (i.e., any person who could more or less read english well enough to benefit from that great tool) ?
If the latter, would not that make sense from time to time maybe, to actually use the most widely used name for an "object" which is not english, or the most widely used "name" for a non-english person, rather than the name which is most widely known by native-english-people ?
Er, well, *cough*, *cough*, just a target audience issue stepping in again. Oups.
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On Mon, 2002-11-18 at 00:18, Anthere wrote:
Bridget [name omitted for privacy reasons] lapollutionestsimauvaise@yahoo.com wrote: we should refer to spacecraft from the USSR according to their Russian name-not according to the English name.
I read the argument on that issue. Meanwhile, I had a foolish thought.
Say, it is maybe not entirely clear in my mind...but is wikipedia intended only for those readers who are share english as their mother langage ?
Or what is not also meant to be a deep-broad-reliable-extensive-neutral-wonderful encyclopedia, which could be a great resource for the whole world (i.e., any person who could more or less read english well enough to benefit from that great tool) ?
Wikipedia in every language is intended for everyone who can understand that language. Or are you planning to kick me off the French wiki? ;)
If the latter, would not that make sense from time to time maybe, to actually use the most widely used name for an "object" which is not english, or the most widely used "name" for a non-english person, rather than the name which is most widely known by native-english-people ?
In general we should use the form that's most widely used in the language we're writing in; that's just plain sensible. Where alternate forms exist (eg the form in the language(s) native to or used by or in or near or with or in conjunction with the person, place or thing described), they can and should be noted (and usually are!), and if possible available as redirects.
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
Brion Vibber brion@pobox.com wrote: On Mon, 2002-11-18 at 00:18, Anthere wrote:
Bridget [name omitted for privacy reasons] wrote: we should refer to spacecraft from the USSR according to their Russian name-not according to the English name.
I read the argument on that issue. Meanwhile, I had a foolish thought.
Say, it is maybe not entirely clear in my mind...but is wikipedia intended only for those readers who are share english as their mother langage ?
Or what is not also meant to be a deep-broad-reliable-extensive-neutral-wonderful encyclopedia, which could be a great resource for the whole world (i.e., any person who could more or less read english well enough to benefit from that great tool) ?
Wikipedia in every language is intended for everyone who can understand that language.
Oh, but will we ever be as deep-broad-reliable-extensive-neutral-wonderful an encyclopedia than the english one ??? It is probable only english and maybe spanish language can reach the neutrality through multiple points of views from all over the world.
Or are you planning to kick me off the French wiki? ;)
Never never never never never never never never, Brion friend ;-) True for anybody who should come and participate in a constructive way.
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Brion Vibber wrote:
On Mon, 2002-11-18 at 00:18, Anthere wrote:
If the latter, would not that make sense from time to time maybe, to actually use the most widely used name for an "object" which is not english, or the most widely used "name" for a non-english person, rather than the name which is most widely known by native-english-people ?
In general we should use the form that's most widely used in the language we're writing in; that's just plain sensible. Where alternate forms exist (eg the form in the language(s) native to or used by or in or near or with or in conjunction with the person, place or thing described), they can and should be noted (and usually are!), and if possible available as redirects.
The biggest fallacy with this is what we mean by "most widely used". Some are fairly obvious. No-one would reasonably that an article in English about Rome, Italy should appear under "Roma". Still, the entire set of these obvious cases is only a small subset of the entire body of articles that could have this problem.
When you try to translate everything the very real risk is that you end up using a form that nobody recognizes. If a name is not widely known, we should be favouring the original language form, with standard transliterations when that is applicable. With novels and movies we should be favouring the original language title; there is no way that we should be attempting the translation of titles that have never been produced in English translations. Whether the title of Camus's novel "L'Étranger" should be the literal "The Stranger" or the metaphorical "The Outsider" is a matter of literary debate that is well beyond the scope of this encyclopaedia. Using the original title for the main entry avoids that problem completely.
I use the word "favour" carefully since a one rule fits all policy will never work. Nobody has ever used the English title for "La Dolce Vita" while the movie "Wo hu cang long" is only known by its English name.
Eclecticology
We've had this discussion concerning foreign language movies. Some movies are known in English only in their English name -- "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", for one. But others are known in both languages -- "Life is Beautiful" vs. "La vita e bella", for example. And then there's "La Dolce Vita", which is known only in its native language (most commonly). We need to call these articles by the name that most English speakers expect to find. Zoe Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:Brion Vibber wrote:
I use the word "favour" carefully since a one rule fits all policy will never work. Nobody has ever used the English title for "La Dolce Vita" while the movie "Wo hu cang long" is only known by its English name.
Eclecticology
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Zoe wrote:
We've had this discussion concerning foreign language movies. Some movies are known in English only in their English name -- "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", for one. But others are known in both languages -- "Life is Beautiful" vs. "La vita e bella", for example. And then there's "La Dolce Vita", which is known only in its native language (most commonly). We need to call these articles by the name that most English speakers expect to find.
Yes, we did have the discussion in the narrower context of movies, and agreed to proceed with respect while we waited for the issue to sort itself out. The problem is in your last sentence. How can we presume to know what "most English speakers expect to find"? Some movies have been released with different titles in the UK and US. Which is right?
I think we also need a way to develop for convergence in a multilingual environment. Original language is likely to remain constant across Wikipedias. A reference to "La vita è bella" will be the same in the German or Polish Wikipedia. The texts may be different, but it will be clear that we are talking about the same thing.
Eclecticology
This is not a multilanguage environment. This is the English wikipedia. Call it whatever you want in the French wiki. Zoe Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:Zoe wrote:
We've had this discussion concerning foreign language movies. Some movies are known in English only in their English name -- "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", for one. But others are known in both languages -- "Life is Beautiful" vs. "La vita e bella", for example. And then there's "La Dolce Vita", which is known only in its native language (most commonly). We need to call these articles by the name that most English speakers expect to find.
Yes, we did have the discussion in the narrower context of movies, and agreed to proceed with respect while we waited for the issue to sort itself out. The problem is in your last sentence. How can we presume to know what "most English speakers expect to find"? Some movies have been released with different titles in the UK and US. Which is right?
I think we also need a way to develop for convergence in a multilingual environment. Original language is likely to remain constant across Wikipedias. A reference to "La vita � bella" will be the same in the German or Polish Wikipedia. The texts may be different, but it will be clear that we are talking about the same thing.
Eclecticology
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--- Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
When you try to translate everything the very real risk is that you end up using a form that nobody recognizes. If a name is not widely known, we should be favouring the original language form, with standard transliterations when that is applicable. With novels and movies we should be favouring the original language title; there is no way that we should be attempting the translation of titles that have never been produced in English translations. Whether the title of Camus's novel "L'Étranger" should be the literal "The Stranger" or the metaphorical "The Outsider" is a matter of literary debate that is well beyond the scope of this encyclopaedia. Using the original title for the main entry avoids that problem completely.
Beyond the scope of the encyclop�die Eclecticology, translation of "l'�tranger" in "the stranger" would be a disastrous one. Just as, if I ever write an entry for "stranger in a strange land" (un p�ch� personnel), I will keep the real english title and not try to translate it. ;-))
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Anthere wrote:
--- Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Whether the title of Camus's novel "L'Étranger" should be the literal "The Stranger" or the metaphorical "The Outsider" is a matter of literary debate that is well beyond the scope of this encyclopaedia. Using the original title for the main entry avoids that problem completely.
Beyond the scope of the encyclopédie Eclecticology, translation of "l'étranger" in "the stranger" would be a disastrous one. Just as, if I ever write an entry for "stranger in a strange land" (un péché personnel), I will keep the real english title and not try to translate it. ;-))
The fact is that both titles have been used for different translations of "L'Étranger".
The Heinlein novel has been published in French as "En terre étrangère", but that's wimpy, does not seem to do it justice, and could be translated back as "In a Foreign Land". It's certainly different from "En pays étrange" :-) I could have fantastic mischief with your example.
Here in English Canada we have a very popular comedy group, "The Royal Canadian Air Farce" that at times do skits based on mistranslations. Some of these have been hilarious and have depended on really twisted translations of speeches by politicians. If I can find an audio clip, I'd be glad to pass it on.
Eclecticology
Stranger in a Strange Land, is, of course, from the Book of Exodus in the Old Testament, and should only be rendered in ancient Hebrew.
Ortolan88 wrote:
Stranger in a Strange Land, is, of course, from the Book of Exodus in the Old Testament, and should only be rendered in ancient Hebrew.
I'll pretend that you're serious for a moment to make a point.
If we have an article about the phrase from Exodus, which discusses the uses that this phrase has been put to over the millennia (in any language, variously translated), then it should have a Hebrew title.
If we have an article about the phrase in the King James Bible, which discusses the uses that this phrasing has been put to over the centuries (in English, using King James' words), then it should be at [[Stranger in a strange land]].
But our article about Heinlein's book should be at [[Stranger in a Strange Land]], the title that he originally gave it.
All of these examples follow the same sort of logic, once you get used to it.
-- Toby
--- Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Anthere wrote:
--- Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
The Heinlein novel has been published in French as "En terre étrangère", but that's wimpy, does not seem to do it justice, and could be translated back as "In a Foreign Land". It's certainly different from "En pays étrange" :-) I could have fantastic mischief with your example.
Yup. En terre �trang�re, bah. I don't know Eclecticology, if you read some of Heinlein french translated books. He is the perfect example of an author who should be read only in english (or maybe hebrew ?). None of the translations are at the level of the original books. Which is probably why he is very little known in France.
Here in English Canada we have a very popular comedy group, "The Royal Canadian Air Farce" that at times do skits based on mistranslations. Some of these have been hilarious and have depended on really twisted translations of speeches by politicians. If I can find an audio clip, I'd be glad to pass it on.
Eclecticology
I would appreciate; Thanks ;-)
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When you try to translate everything the very real risk is that you end up using a form that nobody recognizes. If a name is not widely known, we should be favouring the original language form, with standard transliterations when that is applicable. With novels and movies we should be favouring the original language title; there is no way that we should be attempting the translation of titles that have never been produced in English translations. Whether the title of Camus's novel "L'Étranger" should be the literal "The Stranger" or the metaphorical "The Outsider" is a matter of literary debate that is well beyond the scope of this encyclopaedia. Using the original title for the main entry avoids that problem completely.
So the title that what decided was [[The Stranger]] in the end.
Please, let me rephrase your comment then
"The Outsider" is a matter of literary debate that is well beyond the scope of this encyclopaedia. Using the original title for the main entry *could avoid that problem completely, if it were the option chosen*.
There are some evenings, I feel very very very tired.
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Bridget [name omitted for privacy reasons] wrote:
we should refer to spacecraft from the USSR according to their Russian name-not according to the English name.
But the English wikipedia has agreed on using English names. For the title of the article, that is. The "native" name can be prominently mentioned in the opening paragraph.
I agree that it sometimes feels funny when I follow a link to some place I never heard of before, and it turns out to be a major city or region here in Germany ;-) but it seems to be the best solution. And, we can always redirect the native name to the English one.
Magnus
Magnus Manske wrote:
Bridget [name omitted for privacy reasons] wrote:
we should refer to spacecraft from the USSR according to their Russian name-not according to the English name.
But the English wikipedia has agreed on using English names. For the title of the article, that is. The "native" name can be prominently mentioned in the opening paragraph.
I've only been on Wikipedia since February, but these "rules" were in place before I got here. Nevertheless I share the concerns which Oliver and Bridget have raised, but I've not had the energy for a lonely fight against the forces of anglocentrism. I'll save my comments about this particular rule for another posting; this one is about the rule making procedures, with that rule being only one example.
People become comfortable with their rules, even wrong rules. The fact is that it is likely that a majority of today's Wikipedians were not around when these rules were established. If today's Wikipedian perceives that he can have no influence on rules that were established before he came on board, he will soon develop the impression that there is a class structure based on seniority.
One highly respected Wikipedian replied to my suggestion of giving letter codes to each article with a comment to the effect that with nearly 100,000 articles in our encyclopedia it was too big to effect those changes. A similar argument can be made about "correct" names; we have so many articles that changing a rule is impossible. It doesn't matter if the old rule was seriously flawed, or the new rule would provide a useful tool for coping with an ever larger corpus of knowledge.
A broadly applicable new or revised rule must deal with transitional compatibility problems. That is easy to understand. Colour television was an obvious technical improvement over the old black-and-white system, but its introduction had to take into account the fact that there were a lot of black-and-white TVs out there, and that people could not be expected to throw out their old sets just because they had suddenly become obsolete.
My conclusion: most of our "rules" should be subject to periodic review. If an old rule, including a well established rule, can be improved or no longer seves its original purpose, or fails to cope with newer needs it should be changed. Of course, in making changes, compatibility issues must be considered.
Eclecticology
Oh, good, I like that. Let's change all the rules intermittantly, thus requiring someone to go back to all of the articles that were created under the old rules and have to change all of them. That makes a lot of sense. What people of baby Lir's ilk keep trying to ignore is that the rules are being applied to an English-language encyclopedia. We are writing articles about things as they are in the English language, not as (some of us) wish they were. Let's call things by what people who speak English expect to find Zoe Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:Magnus Manske wrote:
Bridget [name omitted for privacy reasons] wrote:
we should refer to spacecraft from the USSR according to their Russian name-not according to the English name.
But the English wikipedia has agreed on using English names. For the title of the article, that is. The "native" name can be prominently mentioned in the opening paragraph.
I've only been on Wikipedia since February, but these "rules" were in place before I got here. Nevertheless I share the concerns which Oliver and Bridget have raised, but I've not had the energy for a lonely fight against the forces of anglocentrism. I'll save my comments about this particular rule for another posting; this one is about the rule making procedures, with that rule being only one example.
People become comfortable with their rules, even wrong rules. The fact is that it is likely that a majority of today's Wikipedians were not around when these rules were established. If today's Wikipedian perceives that he can have no influence on rules that were established before he came on board, he will soon develop the impression that there is a class structure based on seniority.
One highly respected Wikipedian replied to my suggestion of giving letter codes to each article with a comment to the effect that with nearly 100,000 articles in our encyclopedia it was too big to effect those changes. A similar argument can be made about "correct" names; we have so many articles that changing a rule is impossible. It doesn't matter if the old rule was seriously flawed, or the new rule would provide a useful tool for coping with an ever larger corpus of knowledge.
A broadly applicable new or revised rule must deal with transitional compatibility problems. That is easy to understand. Colour television was an obvious technical improvement over the old black-and-white system, but its introduction had to take into account the fact that there were a lot of black-and-white TVs out there, and that people could not be expected to throw out their old sets just because they had suddenly become obsolete.
My conclusion: most of our "rules" should be subject to periodic review. If an old rule, including a well established rule, can be improved or no longer seves its original purpose, or fails to cope with newer needs it should be changed. Of course, in making changes, compatibility issues must be considered.
Eclecticology
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Zoe wrote (sarcastically):
Oh, good, I like that. Let's change all the rules intermittantly, thus requiring someone to go back to all of the articles that were created under the old rules and have to change all of them. That makes a lot of sense.
I'd propose that those that were the primary supporters of such a change be the ones required to go over and change things. That's only fair.
-- Toby
Toby Bartels wrote:
Zoe wrote (sarcastically):
Oh, good, I like that. Let's change all the rules intermittantly, thus requiring someone to go back to all of the articles that were created under the old rules and have to change all of them. That makes a lot of sense.
I'd propose that those that were the primary supporters of such a change be the ones required to go over and change things. That's only fair.
I have no objection to that, either in this issue or any other that can have an impact on a large number of articles. In practical terms, the important thing becomes maintaining compatibility during transition.. I wouldn't expect that the people who might object to such a change would be too keen to work at it.
Eclecticology
Bridget [name omitted for privacy reasons] wrote:
we should refer to spacecraft from the USSR according to their Russian name-not according to the English name.
Is this an obvious fact, or your own point of view? Shouldn't Wikipedia (NPOV) explain that both names have been used?
During WWII, the German V2 rockets were called V2 by the German political propaganda and by the British, but the German engineers called them A4. Obviously, both names are correct in their context.
There seems to be a trend lately, that the native spelling of foreign names is introduced in English, rather than using old Anglicisms. For example, the country where Minsk is capital is now called Belarus. In older English texts, you can find the names Byelorussia (an English spelling of Belarus) or "White Russia" (an English translation of the name). But Germany is still called "Germany", not "Deutschland".
This can not be explained by English politeness towards Belarus or widespread admiration of Belarus culture or language, but because Belarus is so remote and unimportant that giving up the old English names is an acceptable loss. The word "Germany" would be a greater loss to English language, so it still lives on in daily use.
Hello,
I've just joined this list (two weeks after discovering the Wikipedia), and I thought I'd leap into this argument straight away with a controversial view, just as my way of saying hello. :)
As far as I can tell, traditional paper-based encyclopaedias had articles under common names simply so that people could find them easily. If every common name just said "see [less common name]", the readers would become annoyed, and reject the encyclopaedia.
With the Wikipedia's automatic redirection scheme, this constraint has disappeared. Anyone can look up any article in the Wikipedia under any name they want, and be redirected to the article in the blink of an eye. (Assuming the redirects have all been put in, of course.) So the traditional reason for putting everything under its most common name has disappeared.
It seems to me that experts on a topic often want the title of the article to be "correct" - whether this means having a book's full and unabbreviated title, a person's full name in their original language, or whatever. Whereas people with less knowledge just want to be able to find it or link to it using the name they know best.
With the redirection scheme in place, can't we have our cake and eat it? The experts can put the "correct" name as the title, and make redirection pages for all the different abbreviations, translations, colloquial variations, and so on. (They would also put these abbreviations, translations, colloquial variations in the introductory paragraph of the article itself, for reference purposes.) Everyone else can then freely use the common names and let the redirection direct them to the "correct" name.
Wouldn't that please everybody?
Oliver
+-------------------------------------------+ | Oliver Pereira | | Dept. of Electronics and Computer Science | | University of Southampton | | omp199@ecs.soton.ac.uk | +-------------------------------------------+
On Mon, 18 Nov 2002, Oliver Pereira wrote:
Hello,
I've just joined this list (two weeks after discovering the Wikipedia), and I thought I'd leap into this argument straight away with a controversial view, just as my way of saying hello. :)
As far as I can tell, traditional paper-based encyclopaedias had articles under common names simply so that people could find them easily. If every common name just said "see [less common name]", the readers would become annoyed, and reject the encyclopaedia.
With the Wikipedia's automatic redirection scheme, this constraint has disappeared. Anyone can look up any article in the Wikipedia under any name they want, and be redirected to the article in the blink of an eye. (Assuming the redirects have all been put in, of course.) So the traditional reason for putting everything under its most common name has disappeared.
It seems to me that experts on a topic often want the title of the article to be "correct" - whether this means having a book's full and unabbreviated title, a person's full name in their original language, or whatever. Whereas people with less knowledge just want to be able to find it or link to it using the name they know best.
With the redirection scheme in place, can't we have our cake and eat it? The experts can put the "correct" name as the title, and make redirection pages for all the different abbreviations, translations, colloquial variations, and so on. (They would also put these abbreviations, translations, colloquial variations in the introductory paragraph of the article itself, for reference purposes.) Everyone else can then freely use the common names and let the redirection direct them to the "correct" name.
Wouldn't that please everybody?
No, because the point of contention is that people disagree on what is the "correct" name.
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
Oliver Pereira wrote:
With the redirection scheme in place, can't we have our cake and eat it? The experts can put the "correct" name as the title, and make redirection pages for all the different abbreviations, translations, colloquial variations, and so on. (They would also put these abbreviations, translations, colloquial variations in the introductory paragraph of the article itself, for reference purposes.) Everyone else can then freely use the common names and let the redirection direct them to the "correct" name.
Wouldn't that please everybody?
Brion Vibber replied:
No, because the point of contention is that people disagree on what is the "correct" name.
No, the point of contention is that the current policy is designed to perpetuate names which *everyone* agrees are incorrect.
I gave some examples of what I meant by "correct" in my message: unabbreviated book titles, and original names of people. For the purposes of this discussion, let's look at one fairly straightforward example: Confucius. *Everyone* agrees that he was never called that in his lifteime, and yet that is the version used in the Wikipedia, because it is the name most commonly used by English-speaking people.
A lot of garbled anglicisations and abbreviations came about because people didn't have the education (or linguistic skills, or patience, or whatever else) to use the original names. An encyclopaedia is supposed to be an educational tool. I see no reason why the Wikipedia should perpetuate garbled versions of names if it can educate people as to what the original versions were! It does this anyway (or should do) by giving the original name in the introductory paragraph, so it would just be a matter of swapping one name for another in the article title.
Of course there would be disagreement on what to adopt as the "correct" names. But the fact that people would disagree on *how* to implement a proposed policy is not sufficient reason not to implement a new policy at all, especially given that everyone already disagrees on how to implement the current one! Everyone would learn a lot from the arguments on what to adopt as the "correct" name, and that, in my opinion, would be a good thing.
Oliver
+-------------------------------------------+ | Oliver Pereira | | Dept. of Electronics and Computer Science | | University of Southampton | | omp199@ecs.soton.ac.uk | +-------------------------------------------+
Well, no, I disagree that "*everyone* agrees" the names are incorrect. In your example of Confucius, should we use the old-style Chinese transliteration or the new version? Should we not transliterate at all but force those who only know the Latin alphabet to try to figure out his REAL name by only being able to look it up in Chinese ideographs? An encyclopedia has to be usable. If a person ONLY knows Confucius by that name, what purpose does it serve to force them not to be able to find his name because we, in our elititst "we know best and you're only idiots who can't be bothered to learn to speak Chinese" decided that his name would ONLY be in Chinese? Zoe Oliver Pereira omp199@ecs.soton.ac.uk wrote:Oliver Pereira wrote:
With the redirection scheme in place, can't we have our cake and eat it? The experts can put the "correct" name as the title, and make redirection pages for all the different abbreviations, translations, colloquial variations, and so on. (They would also put these abbreviations, translations, colloquial variations in the introductory paragraph of the article itself, for reference purposes.) Everyone else can then freely use the common names and let the redirection direct them to the "correct" name.
Wouldn't that please everybody?
Brion Vibber replied:
No, because the point of contention is that people disagree on what is the "correct" name.
No, the point of contention is that the current policy is designed to perpetuate names which *everyone* agrees are incorrect.
I gave some examples of what I meant by "correct" in my message: unabbreviated book titles, and original names of people. For the purposes of this discussion, let's look at one fairly straightforward example: Confucius. *Everyone* agrees that he was never called that in his lifteime, and yet that is the version used in the Wikipedia, because it is the name most commonly used by English-speaking people.
A lot of garbled anglicisations and abbreviations came about because people didn't have the education (or linguistic skills, or patience, or whatever else) to use the original names. An encyclopaedia is supposed to be an educational tool. I see no reason why the Wikipedia should perpetuate garbled versions of names if it can educate people as to what the original versions were! It does this anyway (or should do) by giving the original name in the introductory paragraph, so it would just be a matter of swapping one name for another in the article title.
Of course there would be disagreement on what to adopt as the "correct" names. But the fact that people would disagree on *how* to implement a proposed policy is not sufficient reason not to implement a new policy at all, especially given that everyone already disagrees on how to implement the current one! Everyone would learn a lot from the arguments on what to adopt as the "correct" name, and that, in my opinion, would be a good thing.
Oliver
+-------------------------------------------+ | Oliver Pereira | | Dept. of Electronics and Computer Science | | University of Southampton | | omp199@ecs.soton.ac.uk | +-------------------------------------------+
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Confucius says, "Better to be found by the wrong name than lost by the right name."
Zoe wrote in part:
Well, no, I disagree that "*everyone* agrees" the names are incorrect. In your example of Confucius, should we use the old-style Chinese transliteration or the new version?
This isn't an argument that "Confucius" is incorrect, but rather that it's not quite clear what *is* correct instead. If any Chinese version is *more* correct than "Confucius" (a point that I admit that many here would deny), then any Chinese version would be an improvement, even if still not perfect.
Should we not transliterate at all but force those who only know the Latin alphabet to try to figure out his REAL name by only being able to look it up in Chinese ideographs?
Nobody will be *forcing* any user to do anything of the sort. Every article should have all common spellings (English and original) in boldface in the first paragraph (we do this now if we know enough to), and they should have redirects from all of these that are in Latin-1 (we do this now too if we know enough to). Searching will work; linking will work -- no matter who wins.
decided that his name would ONLY be in Chinese?
Nobody is proposing this, any more than anybody is proposing that his name should be given ONLY in English. Rather, the question is which form is to be *preferred*, in particular which form is to be the article title. Every form will be (and is currently, when set up correctly) *supported*.
-- Toby
Oliver Pereira wrote:
For the purposes of this discussion, let's look at one fairly straightforward example: Confucius. *Everyone* agrees that he was never called that in his lifteime, and yet that is the version used in the Wikipedia, because it is the name most commonly used by English-speaking people.
Confucius is not a good example for this debate. This name has in fact become very well established in English usage whether I like it or not. It is very much an exception among Chinese names. The derivitive adjective, "confucian", has also become part of English usage. Although I strongly support original language titles, an exception here is warranted.
Eclecticology
Lir wrote:
we should refer to spacecraft from the USSR according to their Russian name-not according to the English name.
As it happens, Lir, I agree with you. English corruptions suck. (And while we're at it, that's "SSSR", not "the USSR" ^_^.) But the Wikipedia standard for a rather long time (as long as *I*'ve been here, at any rate) has been to use the most common name used in English. Now, if you want to change that, then this is the place to make your arguments. But if you just move articles now, then you're only going to make people mad at you. You *first* have to convince the rest of them to agree with you, and *then* you and I (and anybody else that cares about it) can start moving articles over to their new names.
This might, of course, never happen. You might never manage to convince the other people. If I had to guess, I'd guess that it will never happen, although I might be wrong, so you should present your arguments. But please don't try to force your opinion on Wikipedia now. People will just change it back, and they'll start to hate you, and then they'll ban you (some are trying to do this already), and then you won't be able to do anything on Wikipedia ever again. *I* don't think that that would be a very good outcome. We all need to work *together*, and that means compromises sometimes.
-- Toby
PS: Have you signed up for the new English mailing list <wikiEN-l>? You can go to http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l if you want to subscribe to it; else you might miss some responses.
You'll find it's CCCP in Cyrillic, Toby.... :-)
----- Original Message ----- From: "Toby Bartels" toby+wikipedia@math.ucr.edu To: wikipedia-l@wikipedia.org; wikiEN-l@wikipedia.org Sent: Monday, November 18, 2002 10:29 PM Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] anglicization is stupid
Lir wrote:
we should refer to spacecraft from the USSR according to their Russian
name-not
according to the English name.
As it happens, Lir, I agree with you. English corruptions suck. (And while we're at it, that's "SSSR", not "the USSR" ^_^.) But the Wikipedia standard for a rather long time (as long as *I*'ve been here, at any rate) has been to use the most common name used in English. Now, if you want to change that, then this is the place to make your arguments. But if you just move articles now, then you're only going to make people mad at you. You *first* have to convince the rest of them to agree with you, and *then* you and I (and anybody else that cares about it) can start moving articles over to their new names.
This might, of course, never happen. You might never manage to convince the other people. If I had to guess, I'd guess that it will never happen, although I might be wrong, so you should present your arguments. But please don't try to force your opinion on Wikipedia now. People will just change it back, and they'll start to hate you, and then they'll ban you (some are trying to do this already), and then you won't be able to do anything on Wikipedia ever again. *I* don't think that that would be a very good outcome. We all need to work *together*, and that means compromises sometimes.
-- Toby
PS: Have you signed up for the new English mailing list <wikiEN-l>? You can go to http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l if you want to subscribe to it; else you might miss some responses. _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@wikipedia.org http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Steve Callaway wrote:
You'll find it's CCCP in Cyrillic, Toby.... :-)
No, I'll find it's "����" in Cyrillic. Which *looks* like "CCCP", but that's merely an illusion. -_^
-- Toby
PS: I wrote "SSSR" in my last post because it was in Latin-1, so I did a transcription, less evil than a translation. This post is in iso-8859-5 -- I hope.
Toby Bartels wrote:
Lir wrote:
we should refer to spacecraft from the USSR according to their Russian name-not according to the English name.
As it happens, Lir, I agree with you. English corruptions suck. But the Wikipedia standard for a rather long time (as long as *I*'ve been here, at any rate) has been to use the most common name used in English. Now, if you want to change that, then this is the place to make your arguments. But if you just move articles now, then you're only going to make people mad at you. You *first* have to convince the rest of them to agree with you, and *then* you and I (and anybody else that cares about it) can start moving articles over to their new names.
Count me among the people who care about it. Even if we get a broad understanding on this the forces of dumbing down will continue to give us flak.
This might, of course, never happen. You might never manage to convince the other people. If I had to guess, I'd guess that it will never happen, although I might be wrong, so you should present your arguments. But please don't try to force your opinion on Wikipedia now. People will just change it back, and they'll start to hate you, and then they'll ban you (some are trying to do this already), and then you won't be able to do anything on Wikipedia ever again. *I* don't think that that would be a very good outcome. We all need to work *together*, and that means compromises sometimes.
Regretably, though I have noted Lir's efforts to address some of the complaints about her eccentric usages, some others are not so forgiving. I just find that she has a wicked sense of humour, and that is very hard on those who take themselves too seriously. People who take themselves too seriously often lead campaigns "to preserve our bodily humors".
PS: Have you signed up for the new English mailing list <wikiEN-l>? You can go to http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l if you want to subscribe to it; else you might miss some responses.
Another mailing list!!!!!!! I'm already getting 100 e-mails a day. Should I want more?
Eclecticology
Ray Saintonge wrote:
Toby Bartels wrote (to Lir):
Have you signed up for the new English mailing list <wikiEN-l>? You can go to http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l if you want to subscribe to it; else you might miss some responses.
Another mailing list!!!!!!! I'm already getting 100 e-mails a day. Should I want more?
Except for some crossposting while we make the transition, I don't think that you'll get more email, just email with a different little blurb in the bracket at the front of the Subject.
So it's "dumbing down" to speak English? How very European of you. Zoe Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:Toby Bartels wrote:
Lir wrote:
we should refer to spacecraft from the USSR according to their Russian name-not according to the English name.
As it happens, Lir, I agree with you. English corruptions suck. But the Wikipedia standard for a rather long time (as long as *I*'ve been here, at any rate) has been to use the most common name used in English. Now, if you want to change that, then this is the place to make your arguments. But if you just move articles now, then you're only going to make people mad at you. You *first* have to convince the rest of them to agree with you, and *then* you and I (and anybody else that cares about it) can start moving articles over to their new names.
Count me among the people who care about it. Even if we get a broad understanding on this the forces of dumbing down will continue to give us flak.
This might, of course, never happen. You might never manage to convince the other people. If I had to guess, I'd guess that it will never happen, although I might be wrong, so you should present your arguments. But please don't try to force your opinion on Wikipedia now. People will just change it back, and they'll start to hate you, and then they'll ban you (some are trying to do this already), and then you won't be able to do anything on Wikipedia ever again. *I* don't think that that would be a very good outcome. We all need to work *together*, and that means compromises sometimes.
Regretably, though I have noted Lir's efforts to address some of the complaints about her eccentric usages, some others are not so forgiving. I just find that she has a wicked sense of humour, and that is very hard on those who take themselves too seriously. People who take themselves too seriously often lead campaigns "to preserve our bodily humors".
PS: Have you signed up for the new English mailing list ? You can go to if you want to subscribe to it; else you might miss some responses.
Another mailing list!!!!!!! I'm already getting 100 e-mails a day. Should I want more?
Eclecticology
_______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@wikipedia.org http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
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Eclecticology wrote:
Toby Bartels wrote (to Lir):
Have you signed up for the new English mailing list <wikiEN-l>? You can go to http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l if you want to subscribe to it; else you might miss some responses.
Another mailing list!!!!!!! I'm already getting 100 e-mails a day. Should I want more?
Except for some crossposting while we make the transition, I don't think that you'll get more email, just email with a different little blurb in the bracket at the front of the Subject.
wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org