[WikiEN-l] Re: Anglicization convention

[Daniel Mayer]

On Friday 29 November 2002 04:00 am, 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.  Admittedly, even that qualification is
> better than nothing.

It is on the actual naming convention page. The parenthetical subpages are for  
"Rationale and specifics" and are not the actual conventions (the conventions 
are restated for convenience though.. that is where the trouble lies). Alas I 
did not copy over the convention correctly when I moved the detailed 
explanation off the main naming conventions page. I have already fixed my 
blunder.  

>Who determines that majority?

The involved parties doing research and practicing common sense. Just as you, 
me and Ortolan did with the Franz Josef. Google was a useful tool but not the 
last word.

> >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.

Then if nobody objects I will make this change to the general statement on the 
main naming conventions page. Also if nobody objects I will add "... unless 
the native form or transliteration is used by English speakers more often 
than the Anglicized or English translation." to the actual Anglicization 
convention on the main naming convention page and its re-statement on the 
"Rationale and specifics" subpage.

> 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.

I think you are reading too much into the word "enforcer." Moving a page is 
analogous to fixing many bad spellings, or wikifing and reformatting a page 
so that it follows our style guide. So that makes Ortolan a style enforcer, 
Axel a spelling enforcer, me a naming convention enforcer and everybody here 
'add useful content' enforcers. All these things aim to improve the articles, 
not punish the original author.

> 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 is where we differ. I am content with the current preference for English 
in the English language Wikipedia in toss-ups. The use of diacritics is a bit 
more problematic - if and when a non-diacritic form is in very wide used, we 
should prefer to use that form. But you will notice I haven't been moving 
other cases from their diacritical forms and have simply been making 
redirects for the (vast majority) of English speaking netcitizens that don't 
know how to create diacritics with their keyboards. 

--Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


Payment for this post:

Several more paras to the Billy the Kid article;
http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Billy_the_Kid&diff=450052&oldid=450047

Creation of a stub for a recent celebrity death;
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verne_Winchell