[WikiEN-l] Naming convention: popularity vs. correctness
Erik Moeller
erik_moeller at gmx.de
Sun Feb 9 21:47:00 UTC 2003
I think we need to change our naming convention to use the more correct
article title if everybody who knows the history of the term in question
agrees that it is correct; that is, if everybody who has a coherent POV on
the matter shares the same opinion. In other words, we should use
academically correct titles, not those which Google prefers.
Examples:
1) Ockham's Razor should not reside at Occam's Razor (Occam is the
latinization of the town name Ockham; the town still exists today).
2) Pennsylvania Dutch should be at Pennsylvania German (it is not Dutch at
all; the word is merely a corruption of "Deutsch" or "Dütsch").
As I wrote on [[Talk:Pennsylvania Dutch]]:
Regarding the title, I agree this should be under Pennsylvania German.
This is a case where a redirect makes perfect sense. I support anglicized
article titles, but I do not support using an obviously inccorect title
because it is more popular among the uninformed. It is not POV for us to
assert that "Pennsylvania German" is correct if there's nobody who
disagrees, based on factual arguments and not mere habit, with that
statement. This "Dutch" has nothing to do with Dutch.
[...]
Linkability is not an argument: People are already linking to this article
using [[Pennsylvania German|Pennsylvania Dutch]], because obviously they
do not want to use the corrupt form. Searchability is neither, since
redirects show up in searches. Google-ability is only slightly reduced,
since "Pennsylvania Dutch" would still be mentioned in the article body.
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