[WikiEN-l] Naming convention: popularity vs. correctness

[M Carling]

Good idea.  I agree completely.

M Carling

On 9 Feb 2003, Erik Moeller wrote:

> 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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