Talk:Franz Josef Strauß

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Contents

[edit] Not neutral

This article is not neutral because it expresses the POV that the symbol ß should be added to the English alphabet. Chicheley 14:10, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Move

Shouldn't this be att "Strauß"? I believe "ß" is allowed in article titles. WhisperToMe 02:45, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Shouldn't this be at "Strauss"? That's how his name is typically spelled in English-language texts. I mean, we don't have Munich at München, or Deng Xiaoping at 邓小平. --Delirium 08:01, May 10, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Requested move

I know this debatte about using the "ß" can be tiring. However his name was written with an "ß" and not "ss". This does make a difference in Germany, as there are family-names written with an "ß", but not "ss". Same thing goes for Umlaute, but that is another topic. Gryffindor

This is not the German Wikipedia, so it should not be written in German. CalJW 21:57, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

Add *Support or *Oppose followed by an optional one sentence explanation, then sign your vote with ~~~~
  • Support, see above. Gryffindor 23:01, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep with ssWahoofive (talk) 02:39, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose. – Axman () 06:47, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Support. Transliteration is not necessary for names written with the Latin alphabet.- Haukur Þorgeirsson 10:53, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
  • "ß" is not of the Latin alphabet, nor even part of the English alphabet, as I have pointed out many times. OPPOSE. Quintusdecimus
  • Oppose the creeping expansion of non-English characters in the English Wikipedia.
    So what? Does it bother you to have correctly written names in an encyclopedia? --C.Löser 23:24, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
    No, what bothers me is to see names that have a correct english-language spelling highjacked by foreign-language fetishists and presented in a manner that is unintelligible to the majority of average English-language readers. olderwiser 01:58, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
    "unintelligible to the majority of average English-language readers" the pronunciation could be easily explained in the article itself. other than that there is nothing to misunderstand in my eyes. --C.Löser 10:16, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
    btw: what about Motörhead or my surname? Am i C. Loser now just because you guys don't know the "ö"? ;-)
    No offense, but yes, for most average English-readers, your name would be read as "Loser", regardless of whatever pronunciation guidance you might present. If you expect average English readers to be able to pronounce a name that in any way approximates the original, it needs a transliteration. So if you really wanted average English readers to know that your name is pronounced as something other than "Loser" you would need to spell it in English as something like "Loeser". As for Motörhead, that is an example of the Heavy metal umlaut which has no real meaning other than marketing and vanity. 192.77.198.12 13:30, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose and move for policy debate at Wikipedia talk:naming conventions. This applies to a number of articles and we might as well settle whether we use ß or ss. (Given that it means 99.999% of searches will go via the redirect, there is a server load issue as well as the perennial correctness-vs-usage issue.) Rd232 talk 17:44, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Support. We should use all of the Latin alphabet. The server-load should be a very minor issue, but of course we should make sure that all links direct to wherever the article is. Edinborgarstefan 18:05, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Support --Schubbay 18:49, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Support no question. Darkone 20:31, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Strongly oppose: current name is most common in English. Jonathunder 06:02, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Support; therfore UTF-8 was introduced ...Sicherlich talk 08:46, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Support. "Use English" does not mean "misspell foreign names". --Angr/tɔk tə mi 09:17, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Support as Sicherlich wrote: Therefore we have UTF-8, and therefore we have Redirects (BTW: Páll Guðmundson, Lech Wałęsa - indeed: why should Strauß be handled different!?) --Reinhard 10:03, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Keep it at the English version of the name. Tree&Leaf 16:59, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
  • OPPOSE Not English, if someone who only knew conventional English alphabet were to encounter ß, they would not know what to do with it except maybe turn it into a "B", if they knew β at all. So it's German, so what? Next we should be using Greek or Russian for proper naming, because they have the same base alphabet in their historical roots or some such nonsense. 132.205.45.148 19:50, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
That's what Redirects are for, nobody needs to know what an "ß" is - and, please: you should also change all the Icelandic, Polish, Hungarian names (if you know how - "Páll Guðmundson" is definitely not "Pall Gudmundson"!) --Reinhard 20:21, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
in case of Russian transliterations are common. Transliterations are not common in latin alphabets. Stern 21:19, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
ß is not latin, not even latin modified by accents. Transliterations are common, since anything you can't type on a standard ASCII keyboard is transliterated. Names are commonly transliterated, because North Americans are not European, and a Mr. Stauß who emigrates to say the USA, will be called Strauss in his employment records. In any case, if we accept to keep non-English characters, it is patently unfair to not use proper Arabic or Russian, or Korean in the naming of people articles. 132.205.45.148 17:18, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Support, since the name is Strauß and proper names do not have English translations. Stern 21:17, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
    • Every single Chinese, Arabic, Japanese etc name is translated. CalJW 21:53, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Strongly and permanently oppose as contrary to policy and nonsense. He is always called Strauss in English. Septentrionalis 23:20, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
    • Often? Yes. Always? No. I get around 15,000 English Google hits for the ß-spelling. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 08:04, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose Strauss in English --Henrygb 23:56, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Support Strauß is his name, Strauss is different and wrong. --Denniss 10:35, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Support. Ack Stern. -- Carbidfischer 14:39, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Support move. He had no English name. Tupsharru 09:59, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Strongly and permanently oppose nonsensical arguments which are contrary to policy. He is widely known as Strauss in English, that makes it his English name. CDThieme 17:57, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Vehemently Oppose I have been following the comments, and I am unpersuaded by those favoring the change. This is an English-language encyclopedia, all of which that I have surveyed spell it "Strauss". Unschool 05:11, 29 October 2005 (UTC). If the English Wik yields to this silliness, next we'll have to stop calling the language spoken in Berlin "German", and be forced to call it "Deutsch", because "that's what the name of the language is, and that's just a 'fact'". And, truth be told, I'd have far less objection to that than I do to this Strauß nonsense, because at least in English we have all the letters needed to write "Deutsch". So, Loser, is that your ultimate objective? If not, why not? Unschool 00:29, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose. In general, adding diacritics to a name when it is not normally done in English is no problem as long as the letter is still recognizable, as people who don't know the diacritic can easily ignore it. In this case, someone who does not speak German (after all, it's not the German wikipedia here) will probably read this name as Straub. Eugene van der Pijll 18:46, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose. It is not incorrect in English, I think. Via Egnatia
    Quote: "It is not incorrect in English" you should vote for support, then. --C.Löser 23:24, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Support. His name ist Strauß, not Strauss. You may like that or not, but it's a fact. --C.Löser 23:24, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
Yes, that's a fact, and one that no one here, as far as I can see has contested. But that's not the point being discussed here. What's being contested is how his name should be listed in an English language encyclopedia. More comments below. Unschool 02:33, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
So you are saying just because some people do not know the "ß" it would be wrong to redirect to the correctly spelled article and easily explain the pronunciation there and rather have a misspelled article about a person ("Franz Josef Strauss") that never existed? --C.Löser 10:16, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
I find your attempts to stop use of Franz Josef Strauss as a "person that never existed" amusing. In any volume written in English, Franz Josef Strauß is a name that has never existed, because "ß" does not exist in English, and does not belong in any English work. Again, this is a matter for native speakers of English. You obviously believe that we don't get it, but it doesn't matter, because this is our turf. I promise never to tell the German Wikipediasts what to do with their encyclopedia.Unschool 00:26, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose This is the English language wikipedia. We do not write Russian names in Cyrllic. CalJW 03:27, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
    You can't compare that. Cyrilic letters are transliterated. For "ß" there is no transliteration. --C.Löser 10:16, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
That is simply untrue. If you don't like the transliteration which is used that's just tough. CalJW 21:51, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
  • btw: what about Motörhead or my surname? Am i C. Loser now just because you guys don't know the "ö"? ;-)
  • Oppose. Franz Josef StrauB is not English. Longboat
  • Keep with ss. No Account 23:21, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Support: this is a German name, not an English one. (By the way, I'm not German, but Italian.) If there were an English adaptation, all right: but Strauss is NOT an English adapted form, it's a spelling mistake.
  • Support This is the English Wikipedia and the Germans have no right to try to amend the English language. How many native speakers of English are there on the academy that controls the German language? If the Germans are going to manipulate things like this, I suggest that people with German ISP addresses should be banned from editing the English language Wikipedia. Chicheley 14:08, 25 June 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Discussion

Add any additional comments

While I'm all for using ß I'm not sure listing a bunch of Straußes and Gaußes at WP:RM is the right way to go here :) It would be better to establish some sort of general policy, especially since WP:RM can feel a bit invasive to the people actually editing the article. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 00:12, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

  • My preference is to keep it "Strauss". This is the English Wikipedia, and "ß" is not an English character. Most English speakers cannot even type it. Unschool 05:11, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
However, if it is changed, is it safe to say that a redirect would take the people typing "Strauss" straight to the correct page? Unschool 04:25, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
Of course this is the English WP but a German name. I've just tested Andre Malraux and Hors d'oeuvre. Both redirects to the correct writing. Regards, Rainer Zenz (de.wikipedia) 18:23, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
They shouldn't be as they aren't written in English. I strongly object to this distortion of the English language by non-native speakers. CalJW 21:55, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
There's no question about it that spelling Strauß with "ß" is the correct way of spelling it. So where's the problem using a redirect? BTW: Did you ever see incorrectly spelled articles in an encyclopedia? No. So what do you want to create here? shaking the head, --84.169.62.75 18:58, 23 October 2005 (UTC) (de:Benutzer:King)
What sort of encyclopedias would spell the name "Strauss" rather than "Strauß"? How about Encyclopedia Britannica, The Columbia Encyclopedia, or Encarta? Not that WP should feel obligated to follow their lead, but you seemed to imply that respected encyclopedias would not do such a thing and that is simply false. Using "ß" may be correct spelling in the German language, but this is the English language Wikipedia. It is sufficient to provide the German-language gloss in the first sentence of the article. olderwiser 19:22, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
Franz Josef Strauß is the correct german language Name. Look: http://www.munich-airport.de or Biography here: http://www.dhm.de/lemo/html/biografien/StraussFranzJosef/ or here the Franz Josef Strauß Award of the Hans-Seidel Stiftung: http://www.hss.de/1759.shtml. But i can accept Franz Josef Strauß with a redirect to Franz Josef Strauss for the english wikipedia, because the Hans-Seidel-Stiftung use the in the english version the name Franz Josef Strauss Award, http://www.hss.de/4544.shtml. But not forget the original name "Franz Josef Strauß" in the article.(de:Benutzer:St.Krekeler)
it´s a bit a strange discussion; due to the chances of UTF-8 a lot of moving was done to put persons, cities ... under theire correct name e.g. for polish cities it´s often with ł ó ę ą for germans with ö ü. ä ... so why is Strauß that special? ...Sicherlich talk 08:44, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

For anyone in doubt about the "ß" in his name, look at the picture with his signature. It's a bit difficult to discern, but that is an "ß" not "ss" that he signed with. Gryffindor 11:13, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

There is little doubt that "ß" is correct for the German language. But this is the English-language Wikipedia. There is no need to have the article title use non-English characters or to have the readability of the article destroyed by using non-English glyphs throughout. It is sufficient to note the German-language spelling in the first sentence. 192.77.198.12 12:16, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

The spelling with "ss" is definitely wrong in German as Lech Kaczyński with n instead of ń is wrong in polish. Since Wikipedia uses UTF-8, there is no need to use this archaic transcription of the ß. In languages using latin lettres they should be used, although they are not common in English. The pronunciation of ß and ss differs in German in many cases. I wouldn't say, that Strauss is the English spelling of German Strauß, since Strauß is a proper name that cannot be translated. Stern 12:43, 24 October 2005 (UTC) (from Germany :-)

... and another Hun, who is really anal about that ß-shit: Also Lech Wałęsa is listed under his proper name in the en.wikipedia. You won't find George W. Bush as de:George W. Busch in the German Wikipedia, although we always create the sound sh with the letters sch. It is not a big harm for English speakers to learn, additionally to reading this article, something about the German language. Writing it Strauss could lead to confusion with people called Strauss (not Strauß) - maybe not so much in that case but in others, if you should decide to change the whole name policy. It is necessary of course to mention how to pronounce the name but that is done in one sentence. ß is indeed a Latin letter – that doesn’t change only because the English don’t use it. de:Benutzer:Hoheit (writing this with my non-German, ß-leß ;-) keyboard)

This is the English-language Wikipedia, not the Latin alphabet Wikipedia. In English the name is nearly ALWAYS spelled Strauss. The German language may make some finer distinctions in pronunciation, but that is a German-language matter--NOT anything of concern to most English readers. We can best encourage people to learn about the German language spelling by providing a clear gloss in the first sentence, not by making the article unintelligible and off-puttting to average English readers. olderwiser 01:35, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
so do you want to change similar cases (e.g. Wałęsa) aswell?--81.218.230.234 10:24, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
dont forget the polish cities, writer, musiacans .. oh and please have a look on all other slavik nations! ... dont forget the french with the é and ... guys ... it is a name... there is no english name; he has one name and as he is german it is not a surprise that it is a german one ...Sicherlich talk 10:41, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
Personally, I would not care a bit if all such diacritics were disallowed from article titles and were only allowed in foreign language glosses in the first sentence (or in parenthetical glosses as needed in context). However, there are differences. For something like Wałęsa or é or other such characters, most average English readers will simply ignore the squiggles and parse the names as having the English letter that looks most similar, so Wałęsa would be read as Walesa. However, I think the use of ß, and other such non-English glyphs beyond isolated glosses makes the text unrecognizable and rather offputting to average English readers. It also has connotations of elitism and intellectual pedantry which I think runs counter to the aims of a general purpose encyclopedia. 192.77.198.12 12:33, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Of course it has to be Strauß for the article’s name. Or why on earth do you find Seyðisfjörður at its present location? What difference is there between the—to English eyes—illegible Icelandic ð and þ, and the equally illegible German ß? I hate it, when two similar things are treated extremely differently as in this case. By the way: This is not a possiblility offered by UTF-8, but one existing already during the preceding ISO 8859-1, which included both ß and the two Icelandic glyphs. – Another potty German user, who’s to lazy to start an en:-account 84.150.234.5 13:11, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

The distinction is that there is no established English form of Seyðisfjörður, not even Seydisfjord. The Strausses are consistently so spelled, including the English plural. Septentrionalis 04:26, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Article titles should be restricted to ASCII only in the English Wikipedia. The correct original language spelling should be glossed over in the article, or even used in the article, with an explaination in the first paragraph. 132.205.45.148 17:24, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

In an informal survey of English lanugage natives around me, most said that this is "StrauB"/"Straub", or "Strau-Beta". 132.205.45.148 17:26, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
Diacritic/accent marks don't really make English only latin alphabet readers unable to read things, since they usually just drop the marks and read it without them 132.205.45.148 17:30, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
Which in most cases is as wrong as reading Strau-beta. Müller is not Muller, and Seyðisfjörður is not Seydisfjordur. I'm strongly for a move to Franz Josef Strauß, allowing Franz Josef Strauss to be a redirection to that page (and not the other way round). Cf. also Gerhard Schröder. And the article could explain that Strauß is Strau-ss and not Strau-beta where it says "German: Strauß" at the moment. -- till we | Talk 14:26, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
Look, regardless of the intentions of the Germanophiles posting here, the objection raised by Eugene van der Pijll and others above is the key one: English speakers will read "Strauß" as "Straub". Is this what you want? Because what you would win would essentially be a Phyrric victory.Unschool 19:13, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
Just because someone knows English doesn't mean that she can't possibly know other languages :) I'm fine with those unfamiliar with German identifying ß as a form of b. Those who aren't familiar with a language will indeed hopelessly mangle the pronunciation of names from those languages. That's not a problem we can somehow define away. And in German words written with 'ß' and with 'ss' in many cases have different pronunciation. And there have been Germans named Strauß and Germans named Strauss. Rendering both names identically destroys information. Accuracy comes before accessibility.
I'm not saying we should use Chinese characters for article titles but for Latin alphabet languages like German we can tolerate a couple of unfamiliar characters that appear to be variants of familiar characters (even when they aren't really).
As far as I can see we currently use ß in many German names. We use þ in all Icelandic names where it belongs. So there's ample precedent. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 19:31, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Despite your excellent language skills, Loser, you are nonetheless a native speaker of German. While this grants you a great deal of expertise in what is "correct", it also means that you lack the perspective that is needed here. Frankly, while the comments of Germanophones are critically important here, the ultimate decision needs to be made by the Anglophones.
Look, like any language, English changes. The very word "encyclopedia" used to be spelled "encyclopædia". Well, now it's not, because convention has limited what characters we use in English. And that, quite frankly, is the business of those of us who speak English as our native or primary language. People from other countries may deem it ignorant; indeed, it is their right to do so. But just as we are not obligated to introduce Korean or Sanskrit graphemes into our language, neither are we obliged to use "ß", regardless of its origin or current usage. As much as I get a laugh out of the French trying to expunge English-origin terms from their language, at least they don't walk around telling me that I as an English speaker need to place an acute accent on "cliche/cliché".
At the risk of being accused of being a xenophobe (which I am not), let me just ask that non-English speakers allow us to make decisions about our own language. Some of us are on your side, some of us are not. But it is our discussion. Unschool 02:33, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
I need to clarify some of Unschool's comments. With regards to the word "encyclopedia", nearly all non-American (Commonwealth) English speakers will spell it with either the ligature <æ> or the two separated letters <ae>. The latter is by far the most popular vesion used, so Commonwealth English speakers will spell the word as encyclopaedia, whilst a minority will spell it encyclopædia, but hardly anyone will spell it encyclopedia. Regarding the word "cliche", the majority of English speakers (American or Commonwealth) will spell it without an accent, but a minority will spell it with one. Mark 04:41, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
Yet another example of how we are two peoples "separated by a common language". Thanks for the clarification. Unschool 02:10, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Denniss, thank you for preserving my comments, even as you edited my improper multiple voting. That was very gentlemanly of you. I had mistakenly believed that I had seen others doing the same. Now I realize what is happening is that people (including myself) have been abusing the voting section by placing their diatribes there, instead of here. I propose that everyone clean up their contributions accordingly. Unschool 20:49, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Request not fulfilled due to lack of consensus. Rob Church Talk 19:30, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] recount the vote

I have been informed that apparently User:CDThieme has chosen to "overrepresent" himself in the voting procedure, please refer to Wikipedia:ANI#CDThieme_sockpuppetry. Gryffindor 18:54, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

The article was moved from its original name by User:Arbor at 10:23, August 30, 2005 without prior discussion (see history). I have reverted this move, also in light of the manipulated voting that took place above. Gryffindor 19:46, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
Gryffindor, even if what you are saying is true (and it may well be; I have no idea what your sources are), that does not give you a right to unilaterally change the title or text of this article. Consensus for change needs to be exist before we can change. I am no sock puppet,and I resent your inference that everyone who opposed the change was. I have perfectly valid and sincere reasons for opposing the change, just as you have for supporting the change. I have many times in my short time (four months) editing Wikipedia resisted the urge to make unilateral change. You have been around long enough to realize that you have no right to do this, no matter how strongly you feel, since it is absolutely clear that there is NOT a consensus for change. The one time that an admin weighed in on this, it was to deny change. Now if you feel the matter needs to be reopened, fine. But you do so starting with the status quo, not with the World According to Gryffindor. Unschool 04:24, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
Well, obviously I'm out of my league here; I've never "moved"/retitled an article before, so I can't undo Gryffindor's unilateral change. But I wish that someone else would. Unschool 04:38, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
If you discount the sockpuppets in the vote above then a 60% majority emerges for using the 'ß'. That's Gryffindor's reasoning. That you disagree about the spelling does not, of course, make you a sockpuppet :) - Haukur Þorgeirsson 09:02, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
Hello Unschool. I have reverted a move by Arbor that was done without prior discussion. Again, please refer to the history of the article the link of which I have provided above already see history. Insofar I don't see how any rules were broken from my side if all I did was to revert an undiscussed move. Gryffindor 18:33, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
When I came in, the article was already "Strauss", so my presumption was that the debate was about whether to change it from "Strauss" to "Strauß". It was on that that I based my comments. In any event, could you clarify for me how it was ascertained (or where I can learn about) the exposure of the sock puppets? I am ignorant of these things. Unschool 06:49, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
The relevant link is here WP:ANI#CDThieme_sockpuppetry. It was discovered using something called checkuser (which I think exposes the IP addresses behind edits). It is used very sparingly, only very few have access to it. It was used to check on the impersonator Jguk. (note the dot) and the whole mess came down with that. David Gerard is an expert in identifing IP addresses and their uses, I couldn't tell you how he does that, but I believe he does a good job. Stefán Ingi 14:03, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
Wow, I've looked at the link, read the discussion, and am totally dismayed. First of all, I am upset because it does make everyone suspect everyone (though I guess I would be naive not to have anticipated that); and secondly, because now I've LOST this argument and you guys on the StrauB side are so completely and totally wrong and now I'm stuck with a non-English title in an English-language encyclopedia! Arrggghhhhh! :)
Someday, when I have time, I will spread the gospel of Anglicization and we shall take on this issue again! (I just hope I don't find myself grouped in with the rednecks and xenophobes.) Okay, now I have to go lick my wounds. Unschool 05:42, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
Very gracious - not to mention funny :D - Haukur 09:26, 15 December 2005 (UTC)