[WikiEN-l] Re: transliteration is stupider

[Toby Bartels]

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.

>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.

See <http://www.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2002-November/000069.html>.

>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.

See <http://www.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2002-November/000069.html>.

>3) How is it more NPOV when it shuns widest English usage for a minority
>naming scheme?

See this very post, of course.

>4) 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 at n 'fju S at s/), which as you can see in this example,
include both native and common English forms in most cases.

>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)?

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)]]).

>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."

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