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• Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (hockey)/Archive 1

Contents 1 Templates for Missing Player Information 1.1 More info on players 1.2 Update of stat table format (removal of redundant tags) 1.3 Players that continue as staff 1.4 non english diacritics 1.4.1 My proposal 1.4.1.1 Teemu Selanne 1.4.1.1.1 Comparing diacritics to metric units 1.4.1.1.2 isn't it funny 1.4.2 English wikipedia vs. international Wikipedia in English 1.5 Diacritics and non-English characters 1.6 Using diacritics (or national alphabet) in the name of the article 1.7 Minor format proposals 1.8 Naming Conflicts: What to put in the brackets 1.9 European league abbreviations 1.10 Goalie Stat Tables 1.10.1 Goalie stats revisited 1.11 Naming conventions 1.12 Player Infobox Template Suggestion 1.13 Billy Boucher example article 1.14 Finnish hockey team names 1.15 Finnish proper names 1.16 Diacritics

moved from page:

[edit] Templates for Missing Player Information

There are hundreds of ice hockey player pages that do not conform to this standard. In order to track these pages, please add the following appropriate templates to player article talk pages (does anyone think these should go on the article pages instead of talk pages?):

• {{Hockey player missing awards}}
• {{Hockey player missing intl play}}
• {{Hockey player missing stats}}
• {{Hockey player missing records}} - not yet implemented (8/28/04)
• {{Hockey player missing playing career}} - not yet implemented (8/28/04)

If the article is not formatted at all according to this standard, place the following directly on the article page (where you would normally put a sub notice):

• {{Hockey player not formatted}}

The template will provide information on what sections are missing, and will add the talk page to the sub categories of Category:Ice_hockey_player_to_do.

end moved section

These templates violate Wikipedia rules gainst having material created for editors in the article namespace. It would be much better to have a list of List of unformatted ice hockey players, or if templates must be used the they should be placed on the talk page. - SimonP 21:43, Nov 25, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] More info on players

A nice format and all, but wouldn't it help a little if it included such vital information like height, weight, shoots/catches, and possibly even their number? Until theirs a defined place, I'm including it in the opening paragraph. Kaiser Matias 09:29 19 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Update of stat table format (removal of redundant tags)

One can save some work by removing the following tags:

• ALIGN="center" on <td> elements when the <tr> element already includes it.
• ALIGN="center" on <th> elements.

I suggest to update Wikipedia:WikiProject_Ice_Hockey/Player_pages_format#Career_statistics_2 accordingly. -- User:Docu

[edit] Players that continue as staff

Is there any good standard on how to format players turned coaches (or other staff)?

Should it be split as 'playing career' and 'coaching career'?

Hdw 12:01, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] non english diacritics

Those non english accents are driving me nuts. For the most part, i have been ignoring them when people use them but i want to make myself heard. I know it is cute to use them, but this is the english section of wikipedia and in english it is very rare that we use accents on our letters. What made me decide to comment about this was today someone changed Thomas Pock to Thomas Pöck on the list of new york rangers players. This is the English language section and in english, we don't use ö. So, I am recommending that player pages be changed to the standard use of english without accents. I know this will anger some people who want ot be as accurate as possible, but this is the english language section and to be honest in engish Thomas Pock is more accurate than Thomas Pöck. Let me know your thoughts on this matter. Masterhatch 03:55, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you Masterhatch, I rarely see english hockey publications producing accents on players, and most of them I've never seen before. Leave that for the other Wikipedias. Croat Canuck 18:34, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

to get other people involved in this discussion, i moved Markus Näslund to Markus Naslund a few mintues ago. I will make a reference on the talk page pointing here. Masterhatch 18:47, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

I did the same with Jaromir Jagr and Robert Svehla, that should be enough to let people know that this discussion is occuring. Croat Canuck 05:28, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

I too agree, these European players names should be in English form, as this is the English Language section of Wikipedia. GoodDay 14:20, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

I strongly disagree. Spelling a name wrong on purpose make Wikipedia unencylopedia. Any encylopedia pusblished in book form would never do this. The names should be spelled with diacritics and have a redirect page without leading to them. Travelbird 22:29, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

so, you are calling viturally every single publisher in the english language wrong? very few publishers use the diacritics and wikipeida is all about the layman and the most common usage in english. Masterhatch 22:33, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] My proposal

My proposal is to avoid the use of Diacritics for hockey player names in the titles and in articles because the most common usage in English does not use diacritics. I also propose this because right now there is no standard usage in Wikipedia hockey (or wikipedia as a whole for that matter). Some players use them and some players don't. Some article that mention Markus Naslund use the diacritics and some don't. What we have is a complete mixed usage. For simplicity's sake, I suggest standardising it for hockey wikipedia and leave out diacritics.

The MoS basically states that most common English name be used in titles, but of course there are always exceptions. This article talks about this very dispute we are having here on hockey wikipedia. They were unable to come up with a definate solution for all of wikipedia, but i think we can come up with a definate set of rules for the hockey section. Basically, since it is more common to avoid the use of diacritics in English when writing about hockey players, I suggest the same for hockey Wikipedia.

Here are my suggestions:

1. All article titles in hockey wikipedia should avoid the use of diacritics.
2. diacritics are to be used at the start of an article in the first sentence. Have a look at the Markus Naslund article. The first sentence uses the diacritics and that should be the only place in the article. The other usages should be without diacritics. Basically first mentioning should be the only place that non-English diacritics be used.
3. When linking to articles, such as Markus Naslund on the List of Vancouver Canucks players, diacritics should be avoided.
4. The one exception should be when the most common English spelling of a player or article uses diacritics. Off hand i cannot think of any player or article that fits this exception.

This is my proposal. Any thoughts? Masterhatch 19:45, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

I completely disagree. By removing diacritics, you are misspelling a player's name. Especially with German names, if a player has umlaut on their names, the proper English spelling is ü = ue, etc (like Goethe). If a player is from another country, in their country's news releases their names is spelled correctly. Just because we are American does not give us the right to say our alphabet is better than other country's. Germany also has spelling rules as to when they should use the ß (ss), and there is a difference - so we are not observing foreign spelling rules and thus are insulting the country since we are better than using their spelling rules on their own players' names.

I personally think the NHL should make an effort to allow diacritics on jerseys and on team sites as well. I would be offended if I were a player to have my name blatantly spelled wrong. It is one thing for someone to not use the diacritics when they are unaware of them; it is another for someone to knowingly omit them. Another thing is that in Spanish, diacritics/accents affect pronunciation and meaning, and I am sure this is the case in other countries and languages. Therefore it is not just omission, but an error - this is an encyclopedia and should conform to a higher standard of accuracy.

In effect what you are suggesting is that when Word corrects naïve, on Wikipedia it should be spelled naive, and café should not be an alternate spelling for cafe, at least on Wikipedia. I think a lot of people would disagree with that, which are the implications of removing diacritics from the English version of Wikipedia. Also, if we do not use diacritics, why does Wikipedia provide all of the "Latin/Roman" diacritics for easy insertion into articles if they should not be used?

Oh, I'd just like to add that I got some of my Antero Niittymäki stuff signed, and when I pointed out the diacritics, he was pretty happy that someone had spelled his name right. So I am not pulling this out of nowhere. It is a matter of respect to the players and the countries.

Hazelorb 18:50, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

If you read the Wikipedia article on diacritics, which you linked, you'll find that a number of you are operating under a totally false assumption. The letters ä, å and ö in Finnish and the Scandinavian languages are not diacritics. They are separate letters of the alphabet from a and o. So, technically, the ä in Niittymäki is not a diacritic, it is a letter. Also, Markus Näslund's name is Markus Näslund, not Markus Naslund with optional diacritics. Quite simply, Markus Naslund is a mis-spelling of the player's real name.

Basically I agree with your proposal to not use diacritics in hockey player names. However, the Finnish and Scandinavian letters å, ä and ö are not diacritics. If you want to suggest we stop using those letters in Wikipedia, that's another discussion entirely. Elrith 17:00, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

In Czech we usualy consider letters žščřďťňě and also "ch" (prononced like spanish x in Mexico) while "long" letters áéíóúůíý to be only letters with diacritics. Thus Czech alphabet has 36 letters. --Jan Smolik 11:31, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

A second note: On reading this talk page over again after writing my reply, I found user Masterhatch's opening line "These non english accents are driving me nuts", and surprised myself by actually being offended. On behalf of the Finnish people, to whom I technically belong, I would like to take this opportunity to apologize if our language and alphabet are offensive to you. Whether that's a valid reason to go moving articles and starting a discussion toward removing those letters from Wikipedia is another thing entirely.

I wouldn't have gone through all the trouble of saying this if this wasn't the first time I've been genuinely offended on Wikipedia. None of you have even looked at the linked "diacritics" article before deciding that these silly foreign accents have to go, and have actually started moving pages to misspelled forms of player names. I'm astounded by the approach those of you active on this issue have taken. Elrith 17:16, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply Elrith. I must clarify what i meant by "These non english accents are driving me nuts." Quite simply, it isn't the diacritics that are driving me nuts, it's when wikipedians make a change to a hockey article and the only change is to add the diacritics (or whatever they may be called) to the page. Also it's the inconsistancy in their use. If you go to "what links here" usually the non-English spelling is the minority of the links, but the main article title uses the non English spelling. The letters or diacritics themselves don't bother me as i know other languages are different than English (I am a student of the Korean language). I also am not proposing a total ban on their use. I am simply saying that the article titles should avoid the use of non-English characters and the links going to the articles also avoid the use of non Engish characters, in most cases, of course, as there are always exceptions where the use of non-English characters are necessary. For example, at the beginning of the Markus Naslund article where it gives his name and birth place, there is nothing wrong with showing his native spelling (Markus Näslund). Once the native spelling is known, the rest of the article should use English characters.

The reason I moved a few pages was to let people know about this discussion. Most hockey wikipedians don't have this page on their watchlist, so buy moving a couple of well known hockey articles, it draws attention to this article and this discussion. Masterhatch 21:55, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I made such a change to the Teemu Selänne article, and for a simple reason. Teemu's name is not Teemu Selanne, it's Teemu Selänne. Basically, you're proposing we start systematically mis-spelling the names of players, and I can't accept that. And I'm working toward less inconsistency exactly by making edits like the one I made to Teemu's article. The only reason there is inconsistency in the use of these characters is that names are being spelled wrongly. I also create redirects that point pages with Scandinavian/Finnish characters in the title, for example Timo Parssinen for Timo Pärssinen. I don't think it's acceptable to argue that Wikipedia needs to start mis-spelling names. I think your suggestion, or at the very least the way you present it is practically POV. Elrith 19:13, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Personaly, I think its good to have the diacritics in the name. It is supposed to give the name of the player, and most Europeans have diacritics with it. If it says Markus Näslund on his birth certificate, I think it should say Markus Näslund on here. Of course, alternatively, it is uncommon in North America. But Remember that Wikipedia is read internationaly. We can't just cater to the people of North America. It could almost be seen as a point of view. To give a direct answer, I think that it needs to have diacritics somehwer in the name of the player in the article. Kaiser Matias 01:52 17 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Teemu Selanne

Elrith, in English, Teemu Selanne is the correct way to spell his name. In his native language, it is incorrect, but in English, it is correct. If you hadn't noticed, English loves to change the spellings of words and names. Let's take an example such as Vienna. In English, it is Vienna. In the German language it is Wien. So, is Vienna spelt wrong? no. That is just the English way of spelling that city. Is Teemu Selanne spelt wrong in English? no, that is just how English spells that name. Whether you like it or not, Diacritics are very rarely used in English and in 99% of cases where English borrows words with diacritics (and other characters), the spellings are changed. That is just how English is. Anyways, my point is, this is the English section of wikipedia, not the international section nor the German section nor the Scandinavian section. Some words borrowed from other languages retain diacritics, such as café, but most of the time, the foreign characters and diacritics are dropped.

Now, since this is the English language section of Wikipedia and since the MoS likes to use the most common form in English, I can't see how it is POV to remove the diacritics, as you suggest it is POV. The vast majority of English publications omit the diacritics and foreign characters. Why should wikipedia go against the grain and include something that very few other English publications are including? Wikipedia is not a medium for change. These sites tsn.ca, hockeyDB.com, espn.com, legends of hockey.net, SI.com, mightyducks.com, sportsline.com, yahoosports, and NHL.com all don't use the foreign characters or diacritics and those are pretty respectable sites. Notice that the foreign characters are also not used on the players' sweaters. I also checked my local media, the Nanaimo Daily News, Vancouver Province, and Vancouver Sun. They too omited foreign characters from their publications. This site NHLPA.com has the main article titled without the non-English character but at the first mentioning of his name in the article itself, the non-English character is included. This is exactly what i am proposing for hockey Wikipedia.

Have a look at the Richard Park article. According to what you are saying, it is incorrect to use english characters to represent his last name and we should use the korean characters. You may think that this example is extreme, but it is exactly the same with only one difference: the Finish foreign character is easier to read because it is somewhat similar to English. In articles about Richard Park in English, English spellings are used. Same with Selanne in the vast majority of English publications. Masterhatch 20:18, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Do not compare Wien and Vienna with Selanne and Selänne. The first is a translation, the second a translitteration - and a bad transcription it is. -130.232.129.242 20:44, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Firstly, the claim you make in the first paragraph is wrong. Teemu Selanne is not the correct way to spell Teemu Selänne's name in English. I hold university credits in translation from Finnish to English, and on strength of this I can say that your claim is simply not correct. It is not acceptable to change the characters å, ä and ö to a and o, respectively, while it is actually required by Wikipedia's Manual of Style to transliterate Korean characters. Therefore your Richard Park example does not apply, either.

The fact that you can find several media that make this mistake doesn't surprise me at all, and does not, in my opinion, reinforce your proposal at all. Hockeydb.com, for example, wrongly changes these characters to a and o, but hockeydb.com also consistently misnames European teams and leagues. These publications are not adhering to a rule of the English language, they are committing a mistake.

In short, your proposal amounts to a proposal to start misspelling European personal names in Wikipedia articles, and I totally disagree with it. If you're not willing to take my word for it, then I'd simply like to record my vote against this proposal. Elrith 22:20, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

No, we are not willing to take your word for it, because regardless of what university credits you hold, diacriticals are not generally used in North American English. If I crack open THN, I won't find diacriticals on the players' names, and I won't find them in the NHL Official Guide, and I won't find them on the team websites, and I won't find them in newspapers, and I'm at a loss to think about where except for the foreign-language press or articles written by Europeans or pedants I would find them. That there is no hard and fast rule forbidding the use of diacriticals in English isn't the point; that common English practice doesn't employ them is. I agree with the proposal. RGTraynor 00:50, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

For the umpteenth time, the letters ä, å and ö are not diacriticals. Please read the Wikipedia article Diacritical. Any practices on the use of diacriticals do not apply to a discussion that is not about the use of diacriticals. Also, many of the ice hockey articles on Wikipedia are written by Europeans such as myself. I'm amazed by this idea that Wikipedia is somehow a North American native English speaker Wikipedia. Elrith 00:54, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

First off, if you hadn't noticed this is the English section of Wikipeida. As for your reference to "American" English, the British English follows the same practices as the Americans in removing and replacing diacritics and non-English characters. So what if many of the hockey articles are written by Europeans. The Europeans writing this should realise that this is the English section of wikipedia and avoid naming articles with characters that are foreign to English. Secondly, you know what RGTaynor meant when he called those characters Diacriticals, so stop splitting hairs over that. Oh, by the way, this "proposal" of mine includes diacriticals and other characters foreign to English for the hockey section of wikipedia. Honestly, i think your beef is that English itself removes foreign characters. Wikipedia is just reflecting the way the English language is. Wikipedia is not a medium for change and if you don't like the fact the English removes and replaces all those characters, well Wikipedia is not the place for you to make your protest. Also, if you don't like the fact that English "changes" (not "misspells" as you keep insisting) European names, then don't contribute to English Wikipedia. I do have a question for you Elrith. Not to be picky, but why would you support the removal of diacritics but not characters foreign to English like the ones found in the Finnish language? One more thing, i don't want to turn this into a revert war, but please refrain from changing any more articles until this dispute is resolved as English spellings are not "misspellings" just different spellings. Masterhatch 04:29, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Agreed; you're pushing the pedantry rather hard, Elrith -- you know full well (or should) what I mean by diacriticals. You should also know that this is the English-language Wikipedia, and it follows that articles written here go by English-language grammar, spelling and typography rules, based on English-language common usage, as illustrated in English-language books, dictionaries, websites, newspapers and other such media. Regardless of your personal preferences, the English-speaking world is no more likely to adopt your way of doing things than Finland is about to start spelling things our way just because we want them to do so. (Say, while we're on that subject, isn't it true that the Finnish word for the country "Yhdysvallat" is nowhere remotely close to what its own citizens really call it?) RGTraynor 06:34, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm supposed to be on a Wikibreak but I just had to jump into this argument. Elrith, this is not North American ignorance, this is just one of the many proper spelling discussions that are to be had. In fact, us North American hockey editors can't even agree as to when to use Canadian spelling or American spelling. I have not seen once (and I have read many hockey websites and texts) the use of extra characters to letters. It is also very confusing too, as most people who are native speakers of English have no idea how to put in those things, because they are not proponents of the English language. Now I'm not a cunning linguist by any stretch of the imagination, however by using these, it brings a lot more confusion than is necessary. If you make a reply to this comment, make note that I probably will not answer right away because of my aforementioned wiki-break. Croat Canuck 15:12, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

My last name would be pronounced "Hogän" in Finland, but they wouldn't SPELL it that way. Just because the a makes the sound their ä makes... And to quote my friend. "I don't really think it matters." To us, sure. To the mass majority of people, no. To people who know the ä/ö/etc goes there, they might wonder why an encyclopedia spells a person's name wrong. Also, wasn't the decision on the Canadian spelling to let it stay if the player was Canadian? Maybe I made that up. Hazelorb 22:36, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I see from the tone this discussion has taken that I should never have said anything in the first place. I apologize for starting all this, and have withdrawn from this project and will now withdraw from this discussion. It's impossible for me to understand both the stance and the attitude that several of you have taken in this discussion, and I find all of this unpleasant and highly stressful. I'll be taking a lenghty Wikibreak from now on because fights like these simply aren't the reason I try to contribute here. I've taken my name off the project participant list and will stop reading these pages, so any replies you want to make will have to be on my talk page, if you really need to say something further. Again, I find your attitudes inexplicable, and since it feels obvious to me that I'm arguing in vain, I'll let you decide what to do. I want to finish off by apologizing if I've offended someone; I never meant to. Elrith 00:13, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

The "stance" we have taken is that in English writing and other media, diacritical marks are not generally used. The "tone" with which we present this is that we not only believe our stance to be correct, but await any evidence you might present to the contrary. Our "attitude" is that we disagree with your position. Wikipedia has a collegial atmosphere and works by consensus, and if you both find people disagreeing with you unpleasant and stressful and are disinclined to provide the evidence to get them to change their minds, it only makes sense for you take a break. We have not been offended. RGTraynor 17:59, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Well said. Masterhatch 20:38, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

The way you treat foreign languages makes me ashamed to be a native speaker. Such little respect is disgusting. 64.9.15.172 16:43, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

The way we are treating foreign languages? please clarify. We aren't "treating" foreign languages any way; we are merely reflecting how the English language deals with foreign characters. It is extremely uncommmon for an English publication to use diacritics and foreign characters and since the is the English section of Wikipedia, we are merely reflecting that. If the tide ever changes and the use of diacritics and other foreign characters becomes the norm in English, then wikipedia will reflect that. Masterhatch 18:23, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Equally well said. Wikipedia is not a collection of street gangs obsessing over "dissing" and "getting respect." It is about fact, and the fact of the matter is that the national Wikipedias follow the conventions of their own languages. For instance, the Finnish Wikipedia's article on the United States follows Finnish convention as to the name of the country (the aforementioned "Yhdysvallat") rather than respecting the way Americans call and spell it. I presume the anonymous poster has cussed them out over there for their lack of respect for Americans? RGTraynor 18:38, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Basically, this is the English language version of wiki and it uses English spellings. Diacritics DO NOT exist in the English version of the alphabet. (If I'm mistaken someone should inform Sesame Street). Therefore we shouldn't be using diacritics. Go to United_States and check out all the other languages' translation of the country name along the side: They are all different, but are any of them wrong? No. Do the same at Finland, Germany, Russia... How about names of people: Vladimir Putin, Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden... look at all those articles "direspecting" heads of states. ccwaters 19:06, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Another example... as some may have guessed from my username: my surname is the plural form of one of the most abundant substances on Earth. I wouldn't be suprised if my name got translated elsewhere: fi:Vesi. Hell , I moved to Philly over a year ago and I haven't heard my name pronounced correctly since ("wooders"?). I'm not losing any sleep over it. ccwaters 19:31, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Well I'm back, like everybody said this is the english language, no diacratics used in the language, not disrespecting other languages but this is Wikipedia English etc... same old rant, just supporting it. Croat Canuck 23:45, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Since we don't use metric in the United States, does that mean all articles should be in lbs/ft? Originally I had articles in lbs/ft and it was changed to metric. Does that apply to this discussion, too?

Also about the original discussion. I think since you are doing articles on players, you should ask them which way they would like their names spelled. I doubt any of them would WANT their name spelled incorrectly. Remember, these are articles about PEOPLE.

The name Zoë, with the ë, is common in English speaking countries, as shown by the article on Zoë Ball. Are you saying HER page should be changed, too? I just don't understand this discussion. Hazelorb 14:28, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Metric vs English in articles: That would depend on the context. Yes, English units are more common in everyday life in the states. However, in many cases both sets of units are used. Furthermore, the scientific community uses metric almost(?) exclusively. So it really depends on what you are discussing. I might go so far as including both in some situations. I'm sure that has been previously discussed elsewhere at wiki.

Like I pointed out earlier... different languages have different alphabets and different ways to spell names. It doesn't mean they are wrong. We are not setting a precedent here. We are following convention used by the vast msjority of english speaking hockey organizations/media outlets.

Finding one example of "Zoë" doesn't make it "common". "Zoe" is greek in origin, with doesn't have "ë". What you got here is a made up stage name akin to preteen girls spelling thier names with "i"s instead of "y"s. We might as well be arguing over Prince's old symbol name . ccwaters 15:39, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

My point with the metric was that even though we don't use metric here, it should be included in articles. Hrm, sounds like the opposite of the diacritics opinion you all seem to hold... And Zoë is not a random stage name, it is the way that name is spelled. "Zoey" would be the way of changing it to i. My point is diacritics are not strangers to English, which is your main argument.

Oh, speaking of the Prince symbol, it's funny how the proposal in this discussion says the name should be mentioned once and then the version without "diacritics" should be used, but in the Prince article, the symbol is used exclusively while that was Prince's name...

I'm pretty sick of arguing over this. I will continue to spell Niittymäki's name with the ä, simply because, like I said, when I had stuff autographed he appreciated that his name was spelled right. As for other players, I will spell their names they way those players would sign or write them... With "diacritics." These articles are about real people... Unless Wikipedia decides to remove them (and from the page linked it was a majority that voted to keep them) then the "proposal" has no validity, anyways. People who believe in using the diacritics will just remove themselves from this project, like Elrith. Hazelorb 17:23, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough. You do what you feel you have to do. Meantime, we will continue to work through consensus and convention, regardless about irrelevancies as to whether the articles to which we apply them are about "real people" or anything else at all. RGTraynor 02:40, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

1) To say we don't use metric in the States is naive. Its all around. 2) There's more to the English speaking world then the States. 3) I said the use depends on the context. Don't warp what I have said.

On "Zoë": Yeah, its a stage name... here's a page from the website that represents her father: http://www.johnnyball.co.uk/AboutJBpage.htm Its "Zoe", made to look cool. Her husband's name isn't really Fatboy Slim either. If your trying to find examples please stay out of La-la land. That's why I compared her to Prince nee "The Artist Formerly Known as Prince". You found one made up example of "Zoë", yet completely ignored the vastly more common "Zoe".

What was voted on??? And Where? Thanks in advance. ccwooders 00:41, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Comparing diacritics to metric units

comparing diacritics and their use to metric units and their use is like comparing apples and oranges. This is the English language section of wikipedia, not the American language section and in English the metric system is very widely used around the English speaking world It is even widely used in the United states. Diacritics are very rarely used in English, whether it is American English or Commonwealth English. There just is no comparison. English Wikipedia reflects the way the English language is being used around the entire English speaking world. Omitting diacritics is just something that the English language does. There are words and people in which it is more common to keep the diacritics in English and for those words and people, there is no reason to remove the diacritics on English Wikipedia (as that reflects mainstream English). If you don't like the fact that English removes diacritics, well...I just don't know what to say. Personally, i don't care one way or the other but for the purpose of Wikipedia, I must take a NPOV and realise that diacritics are just not used for hockey players by the vast majority of English publications. Masterhatch 18:44, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Interesting discussion. I didn't know that when writing English, you shouldn't use ä or ö. So I thought that there must be some information about that in the web. Well, after about 30 minutes of googling, I could not find a single page that recommended dropping the letters. In fact, all relevant pages I found supported keeping them. [1], [2]. I admit that those sources are not good enough to warrant renaming pages. But if anyone has a decent English style guide, please check what it says about Scandinavian letters. One funny fact is that at the moment, all other Finnish bios are using Scandinavian letters in their names. If somebody finds a solid source that the letters should be dropped, this policy must definately be expanded to all articles, not just ice hockey players. --Jannex 20:24, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your interest in this subject. The first web page that you pointed to is a "Style guide" when writing in Scandinavian, not English, so that doesn't apply here. The second article you pointed to refers to a particular publisher's own style of writing. There are far more publishers whose style is to drop non-English characters than keep them. I had listed nine reputable publishers about half way up the page who drop the "foreign" characters. The agreement we came to here on hockey wikipedia allows for the first mention of a player's name in an article to keep the native spelling (for informative reasons) and in cases where the most common form of spelling in English uses the foreign characters, the foreign characters (and diacritics) are to be kept in the article's title and throughout. Off hand, I can't think of any players who fit this. Masterhatch 20:48, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Your argument is reasonable. If it is more common to write the names without Scandinavian letters, then the article names should be the same. Of course, it would be good to find a relevant guideline in some respected style guide, which would prove that dropping the characters is not because of laziness, ignorance or technical problems. Another problem is inconsistency with other Wikipedia articles. It may be that non-hockey publishers use different style than hockey publishers, but I'd still prefer that the naming would consistent in the whole Wikipedia. Anyway, I accept the current situation for now, but I'll keep looking into it. This may well be a problem with no correct answer. --Jannex 21:10, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

We can not have a separate rule for the titles of articles about hockey players, another for classical composers and a third for politicians... if anything, the issue should be settled language-wise not field-wise. Personally I do not see why not having the article under the spelling with diacrite, with a redirect from the non-diacrite version, should make most people satisfied. // Habj 10:11, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

funny thing is, there aren't separate rules... most people just don't follow the main rule found here Wikipedia:Naming conventions (standard letters with diacritics). Basically, in a nutshell, that says only use diacritics in the title if it is most common in English to use the diacritics. The hockey naming convention follows this to a tee. A lot of people add the diacritics because they think it is spelt wrong without them. Well, in English it is spelt wrong with them (in most cases). Masterhatch 19:16, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

If something is preferred by "most people" in Wikipedia, as Masterhatch has observed, than the rule should follow it. Jan.Kamenicek 20:45, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a democracy. And i should correct myself. I don't know if "most" people prefer diacritics. But i can say that there people who are vocal about getting diacritics in there. There are also peole who prefer the native (or local) spelling of city names over the English ones (example Pilsen), but that doesn't make it right. Wikipedia is clear that the most common form in English (for whatever it is) is to be used. Also, "diacritic fans" have gone and moved hundreds of articles from the original English spelling to the local spelling and then said "see, most articles use diacritics. user:travelbird was moving dozens of articles around wikipedia. When i showed him this naming convention, he balked at it and said that he didn't agree with it, so he continued to move articles against the closest thing to an agreement wikipedia had. Look, wikipedia is clear, follow the English language and the most common usage of words' spellings. Diacritics are not common in English. They aren't even close to being common in English. Masterhatch 21:00, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

I definitely prefer "Pilsen" in English to "Plzeň", because it is a completely different "English" version of the name, not just omitting the diacritics. But if somebody wrote that "Pilsen is another name for Plzen" I would add the diacritics to the second one.

I strongly disagree with anybody, who is shown a rule, and simply refuses to follow it. S/he should discuss the rule instead, of course.

There are so many articles with diacritics in the title that it cannot be work of a small group of "diacritics fans". I think it is much more than "hundreds of articles". And "dozens" definitely do not change the proportion very much. Jaromír Jágr was renamed many times and mostly by different people. Jan.Kamenicek 22:21, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] isn't it funny

I have noticed that the group of people that seem to want the diacritics in there more than any other group are not native speakers of English. Masterhatch 21:04, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Does it matter? Jan.Kamenicek 21:34, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

I think in a way it does because of POV issues: a minority group of editors pushing their pov spellings on the English language trying to pass off the English way as "spelt wrong". Masterhatch 21:41, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

People with diacritics in their names come from non-English speaking countries. No wonder that non-native English speakers are interested in their articles.

Another reason. You and others have correctly pointed out several times that many native English speakers do not have the diacritics on their keyboards. Then, of course, they do not use it and nobody wants them to do so. Just do not revert people who have it and use it.

I cannot consider the diacritics wrong, because it does exist in English (although rarely used besides names) and many people use it. The number of people using English far exceeds the number of people living in the so called English speaking countries. And if they know there is a diacritics in a name, they often use it (and nobody tells them they are wrong), if they do not, they omit it. Jan.Kamenicek 21:55, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, we don't have diacritics on our keyboards, but also, we don't use them when we write with a pen either. And if you want to write in English and use diacritics in your own personal life, that is your perogative and you can do whatever you want. And, like i have said elsewhere, this isn't the international english language section, it is the english language section and it should reflect how people (media, reference books, encyclopaedias, and the common layman) write in English in English speaking countries. There is a reason why we have different language sections in wikipedia. Masterhatch 22:06, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Which rule does state, what sort of English is this section? I do not know about any English-by-non-native-English-speaking-people section, so their opinion should count here. (Now I am not speaking about myself, I personally stopped rewriting the names with diacritics, when I saw it is a matter of discussion.) Jan.Kamenicek 22:19, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Speaking about the pen-writing, I have completely different experience. I have met so many native-English speaking people who used diacritics when writing with pen (and even on computers with diacritical keyboards) that I was really surprised when I found out it is seriously discussed here. The only reason probably was that they travelled a lot and therefore they knew many names including the diacritics. As I have written above, nobody wants you to know it. Just let use it to people, who do. Jan.Kamenicek 22:31, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

I am very pleased that non-native speakers of English contribute to wikipedia. They can often provide an insight that native speakers can't. But if non-native speakers are to contribute, they must realise that they shouldn't impose their language on English. It isn't just diacritics, it is also place names, such as Pilsen being called Plzeň or Sea of Japan being called East Sea. One of the problems with English being the Lingua Franca, is that people do their best to influence English to their own liking from their own languages. Diacritics in the first sentence of the first paragraph can show the average reader the native spelling of the name. Beyond that, English should be used in the article's title and throughout the article. In the vast majority of cases, diacritics are not involved in the English language. I wouldn't have had such a problem with this issue if people weren't going around moving all the articles to include diacritics and then saying that the English spelling is "wrong". It is an insult to hear that the way English speakers spell something is "wrong" when it is just the way English is! If someone (i am not going to name names) didn't go around moving every article he/she saw to include diacritics and just left it to the way that each orginal author wrote it, then we wouldn't be having this discussion. I wouldn't care if a few articles used diacritics but what i care about is when the diacritics are forced onto english wikipedia. I guess you can say that my biggest beef is that i don't want diacritics forced down my throat when English rarely uses them and then told that English spelling is wrong.

[edit] English wikipedia vs. international Wikipedia in English

I would like to point out one fact. This is not an English wikipedia intended only for English people. This is an internationla project with international editors that should be worthy for all people of the world. So habits usual in England (or in USA) made out of comfort should not be taken as the only correct way of doing things. Actually this is NPOV issue. --Jan Smolik 11:26, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Here's the Czech hockey team in English compliments of the Torino Italy Olympic Committee [3] Here they are in Italian: [4], French: [5]. Here are the rosters from the IIHF (INTERNATIONAL Ice Hockey Federation) based in Switzerland: [6]. ccwaters 21:24, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Umm, Jan, this is the English section of wikipedia, not the international english section of wikipedia. That is why they have wikipedia in other languages! If wikipedia only came in english, then you might have a case about it being the "international" english section. But, alas, there are other language sections. the english section follows the POV of the English language and other language sections follow the POV of their own language. Masterhatch 21:08, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

The English Wikipedia should follow common English usage. The Czech should follow Czech. The Swahili should follow Swahili. Period. BoojiBoy 00:06, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

I read the discussion here and it's funny that Selänne is used. I don't think I would care much if the english spelling of Selänne was Selenne nut it isn't, it's Selanne. Selanne doesn't sound anything like it sounds in finnish. The Ä sounds more like an E then an A. I would describe his name as Sell-eeh-nn-eh. And I think that it's important that the Å, Ä and Ö is used in the headers for the article so that people atleast understand that it is pronounced differently. But that doesn't mean that the must know how too pronounce the name correctly.

Here is another example. Martin Plüss is a swiss hockey player. Without all the å, ä, ö, ü and whatelese here on wp he would be known as Martin Pluss. Which is wrong, since it's pronounced more like Plyss then Pluss, the best way is too use the Ü. And many people who speaks english as their mother language knows how too pronounce the letter Ü. --Krm500 16:15, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Diacritics and non-English characters

OK, team, it's simple. This is en-wiki. We don't have non-English characters on our keyboards, and people likely to come to en-wiki are mostly going to have ISO-EN keyboards, whether they're US, UK, or Aussie (to name a few) it doesn't matter. I set up a page at User:RasputinAXP/DMRwT for double move redirects with twist and started in on the Czech players that need to be reanglicized. There's a justification on that page, but to repeat:

DMRwT is the term I use to describe when a page has been redirected and has a history on both the redirecting and redirected page. As an example, Petr Prucha started there, was moved to Petr Průcha, causing a redirect at Petr Prucha; after reviewing WP:HOCKEY policy (specifically use of diacritics and non-English), the article needed to be moved back to Petr Prucha with a redirect at Petr Průcha but couldn't because both the article and redirect were extant.

I asked User:Wiki_alf to help me out, as many of the Czech players have been shuffled around and he obliged me by performing a Double Move-Redirect with Twist on Petr Prucha.

As such, this is a fluid list of NHL players that need to be juggled as above. Please add players to the "needing" list as you see fit.

Thanks, and PLAY ON! RasputinAXP _{talk contribs} 15:36, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

I object to this conclusion. Previous debate clearly proved, that there is no clear consensus about using or not using diacritics. You should not be doing any mass renaming and mass moving. At this moment both variants are considered to be right by wikipedians (or both wrong - depending whether you are optimist ore pessimist). --Jan Smolik 11:18, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Jan, I understand you're upset. Let's settle things on the Village Pump before you go changing WP:HOCKEY policy. If both variants are considered right, and there's no clear consensus, then we have the right to go about doing things based on how our consensus has been reached in our particular project. RasputinAXP _{talk contribs} 15:39, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

RasputinAPX, I am not upset. I just see that WP:HOCKEY policy does not reflect clear consensus so I just want to fix it so that does not confuse anyone. Simply, it is POV. For example admin User:Wiki_alf took it as a clear guideline for renaming. I will not do any other editing of the policy today, but tomorrow I will add following warning to the start of the section: "This section does not reflect a clear consensus. Before applying these recommendations, please see objections on the talk page". I think it is neutral. You can improve this warning if you want to.

The diacritics section of WP:HOCKEY was added by Masterhatch on 19 January 2006. It is quite new and it should not be treated as set-in-stone rules. Anyway prior this additions users Hazelorb on January 15and Elrith January 16 objected to not using diacritics. On January 24 you summarized the discussion with words "OK, team, it's simple". Again not reflecting the objections and asked User:Wiki_alf to change naming based on the project policy. You did not add the "policy" is 5 days old and that there were objections to it.

I would not say a world if using diacritics on Wikipedia was not common or was forbidden. Czech people are quite used not to use it on Internet or in SMS messages as for a long time there was no single encoding table for Czech characters. But when I arrived to Wikipedia, I saw that diacritics is commonly used and thus I am also using it. Most names of Czech people is written with diacritics. I see it as a consensus.

I am glad you were bold and went on with proposal you thought is right. But as there are clearly expressed objections to this proposal you should not start edit war with mass renaming. For my person I can promise you I will not go to the ice hockey articles only for reason of renaming players. But if I write hockey article or add substantial part to it I will probably use diacritics as it is normal on Wikipedia. In the conclusion I repeat this is international project written in English and not project of Britons and Americans. --Jan Smolik 20:31, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm not touching another hockey article until this is over, and I'm not edit warring over it; We let the proposal sit for a while before we did it, and now that there's something to deal with we've stopped. I'm goign to stick to turning Wayne Gretzky into a FAC and then I'll probably leave WP:HOCKEY; I'll keep an eyeball on New York Rangers and their players and leave it at that. RasputinAXP _{talk contribs} 21:10, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Whatever happens though, it should be important that the non-diacratical version gets redirected into the diacratical version of the article. That is my only objection either way... the version many people are used to, myself included, has to redirect into the actual name (with diacratics, accents or whatever). This was not happening in a few cases which amounted to confusion. Croat Canuck 03:12, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

That is for sure. --Jan Smolik 12:06, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

More discussion here: Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Using diacritics (or national alphabet) in the name of the article. ccwaters 03:56, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Alright Jan, I've been watching the olympics and noticed that the Czech and Slovak uniforms drop the diacritics on the back of the jerseys. ccwaters 17:10, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

It was mentioned earlier that oficial IIHF documents do not use diacritics and jerseys only reflect that. But it does not mean that it is the correct spelling. I personally think that avoiding of diacritics is historicaly done from technical reasons. With Unicode these reasons are not valid anymore. On the other hand I also drop diacritics from my Wikipedia signiture (it should state Smolík). So I am not completely against avoiding diacritics, especially when the first line includes original spelling. But troughout WP I saw many articles that use diacritics even in the title. And they were in more important languages than in Czech. However, I feel that for encyclopedia it is more acurate to use diacritics. But there was an important argument (I think it was yours) that we should follow habits in the real world, rather than coining new ways of doing thinkgs. BTW: I checked Czech encyclopedias and they generaly try to use diacritics (non-czech one) but are very inconsistent.

Today I added "No consensus warning" to the diacritics section of Wikiproject Ice-Hockey. It is not to fight but to say that anybody using this policy will soon run into dispute. --Jan Smolik 17:53, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

That's only fair; plainly it's a contentious subject and likely to remain so. RGTraynor 21:01, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

So let's start moving the featured articles Karl Dönitz, IFK Göteborg and Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius to "Karl Donitz", "IFK Goteborg" and "Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius", eh? Might as well move Åland to "Aland". Once we're at it, we could translate Antero Niitymäki into "Andrew Fieldhill" (compare Wien->Vienna, United States->Yhdysvallat, Sverige->Sweden). Just "kidding". Anyway, my point is, that we should try to continue using the style that most similar articles use in Wikipedia.

To me, the most commonly used style appears to be using ä, ö and ü in the article name. However, I only say this after looking around at categories about Finnish, Swedish, German, etc people, so I might not be entirely correct. Here's a few examples: Eemil Nestor Setälä, Anneli Jäätteenmäki, Kyösti Kallio, Kaarlo Juho Ståhlberg, Franz Gürtner, Andreas von Bülow, Melanie Oßwald, István Széchenyi, Zoltán Böszörmény, Leni Björklund (OK, enough, I think you can see the point...).

I think that the dots on 'em letters should be present in either all wikipedia biograpical articles or none (at present, both styles are used, which makes things even more confusing). Anyway, if it is decided that the ä's and ö's should go, then put the 'official' (ie passport) way of spelling the name in brackets in the first sentence. If, in turn, the 'real' (with ä, ö, ü) way of spelling is chosen, then have the 'American' spelling (ie Teemu Selanne way) redirect into the 'correctly' spelled article (ie Teemu Selänne). --HJV 03:02, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree. I have just received a "No consensus warning" so I have stopped rewriting hockey players' names into their correct diacritical forms, but I do not understand the point. I was doing so for the same reason, which was already mentioned above: Non-hockey articles usually respect the diacritical spelling of personal names (places, cities ...). Why should names of hockey players be treated differently, especially when redirects solve the problem in a very simple way which can be acceptable for everybody, no matter what sort of keyboards they use? Nobody has answered this question. And if somebody wants to start a new article and they do not want to bother with the diacritics, they can omit it. If the diacritics needs correction, somebody will do it.

I do not think that writing "Rucinsky" instead of "Ručínský" is an "English spelling" of his name, it is just omitting the diacritics in his Czech name. Despite the fact that non-Czech speaking people won't know how to pronounce his name correctly written both with or without diacritics, unless they have already heard it, for people who know the Czech alfabet it makes a difference.

Omitting the diacritics in the Slovak name "Šatan" may cause some amusement, but an encyclopedia should prefer accuracy. English ommitting the diacritics in the name of Croatian football player "Dado Pršo" used to cause even more amusement to Czech people, as the result meant "a tit" in Czech language (and, as far as I know, the same Croatian word is spelled also very similar). By the way, Dado Pršo is spelled correctly in Wikipedia, using the non-diacritical spelling as a redirect.

The fact, that players themselves drop the diacritics on their jerseys, is not an argument. They play hockey, that is what matters to them, they do not bother about spelling accuracy. But we write encyclopedia. Jan.Kamenicek 22:54, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

yes, we are writing an encyclopaedia, but guess what! this encyclopaedia reflects the current, most common forms of the English language. in english media and other publications, the removal of diacritics is the most common way of writing. Masterhatch 02:15, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Its "Jagr" and "Hasek" in worldbook.com, encarta.msn.com, and britannica.com. That's the 3 currently produced encyclopedias that I know of. I'm not sure why a Croatian surname translating to "tit" in Czech is any concern for an English publication?. There's Fucking, Austria, Nevermind the natively named Dick Trickle. ccwaters 02:41, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

You are right, Dado Pršo was not a good example, because the Czech connotation has nothing in common with what is written in an English text. However, I insist on the example of Šatan compared to Satan. The connotation of the name changes and it is because of the change in spelling (while the connotation of the Austrian settlement is amusing in English without any change in spelling, and in such a case there is of course nothing to do).

I do not know much about Worldbook, but Encarta and Britannica often use diacritics in foreign names: see also my comment below. Jan.Kamenicek 23:22, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

I've decided to anglicize the names in the articles I've put together or made significant contributions to, something I now realize I should've done in the first place. The thought came to me recently when someone replaced "Selanne" with "Selänne" in the 1992-93 NHL season article. That gave me the idea to search for "Selanne" in the article, which returned zero results. And that tells me that the article is broken.

Wikipedia is an electronic resource, and one of the major benefits of that is that it is searchable. And if I'm prevented from finding any instances of a name I'm looking for because I didn't use characters my keyboard doesn't have, the article is broken. I don't care what the "ä" in his name is, because whether it's an a with an umlaut or a completely separate character, my keyboard doesn't have it, and nor do the keyboards of the overwhelming majority of native english speakers. And I can't be expected to remember every single diacritic/non-latin character in every language out there just so I can locate info at an english encyclopedia.

The place for "Selänne" is fi.wikipedia.org. Here, we speak and type in english. Aottley 01:58, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

So why should Selänne be treated differently from Gerhard Schröder who has his name spelled correctly in Wikipedia? You might wanna look at Category:Finnish_people, Category:German_people, Category:Swedish_people, Category:Estonian_people, for a start. If you do, you'll notice that pretty much 99% have their named spelled properly, as they are spelled in their passport. I bet if you counted, a large majority would have their names written with the ä's and the ö's (I did mention this up there already). Try searching for, say "Gerhard Schroder". It'll take you to the article, even though you replaced the ö with an o. The same goes for all the other similar articles, as long as there's a redirect from the umlautless version to the actual article. Therefore your argument that, say, Selänne couldn't be found by searching for "Selanne" is false. I repeat, you can find the article using search regardless of what characters your keyboard has as long as a redirect spelled without the umlauts exists (assuming your keyboard is not chinese or something). Type in Selanne in the box to the left and press search. His article is the first result on that page.

Some people say we need to misspell the names because that's how other publications spell them. If the common belief in the world was that the earth is flat, should we write that in wikipedia, even if we know that it's not flat but round. No, we should write that the world is round. One reason to the very existance of encyclopedias is to broaden people's view of the world. Not to narrow it, which we would be doing by telling them to spell the name in an incorrect way. --HJV 04:47, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

You clearly misunderstand what I mean by search. I mean search within the page using a browser's text search, i.e. ctrl-f. In fact, I made that quite clear by using the words "in the article". If someone is at the 1983 NHL Entry Draft article, knowing that Dominik Hasek was drafted that year and wants to know which selection Hasek was, he might press ctrl-f and type "Hasek" into the text box that appears. As the article is now, those perfectly logical steps would result in him successfully finding the info he wanted. But if the article spelled his name "Hašek", the find would be unsuccessful and the person would be left mistakenly believing that either he was wrong about Hasek's draft year or that the article was incomplete or incorrect, all because of a diacritic that isn't on his keyboard and that he probably has never even heard of.

So no, my argument is not at all false. The diacritics and non-english characters in the article titles are less concerning to me what with redirects and all, but those in the article bodies themselves are an impediment to text searching for people whose keyboards lack those letters. That so many articles have them is irrelevant. It doesn't necessarily make them right. And what's that about broadening people's views? There's nothing wrong with having the person's native spelling pointed out right at the beginning of a person's article (see Sergei Fedorov for one of a great many examples), so there's your broadening right there. But once every instance of a name everywhere on wikipedia gets replaced with something I can't easily type, then wikipedia articles become more difficult for me to search and therefore less useful.

Oh, and who are you to say that the names are being misspelled? By all means, show me some reference of authority that says that "Selänne" is the proper english spelling of his name. By the way, I don't see any explanation of "Antero Niitymakiho" as mentioned above. It's not exactly as his name is spelled in Finnish, so it must be incorrect, right? Someone misspelled Владисла́в Алекса́ндрович Третья́к as "Vladislav Tretiak". Should something be done about that? I eagerly await your answer.

Stop with this "incorrect" nonsense. Finnish is not English is not Czech is not Russian and so on, and peoples' names often look different between different languages. Aottley 07:17, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Explanation of "Antero Niitymakiho": Nouns in the Czech language have inflections, which change according to the grammatical case used, a bit similarly as English nouns change from singular to plural (dog - dogs). Thus, the word "man", in Czech "muž" changes in different sentences: I can see "muže", I gave it to "muži", I saw her with "mužem" ... That is why the Finnish hockey player's name may end with -ho. I think nobody would object, if an English journalist wrote about e.g. "Niitymäki`s shot", in Czech "Niitymäkiho střela". It has got nothing to do with spelling. However, it is true that the author dropped the diacritics, either because he did not know it (maybe the message was taken over from some English source) or did not want to bother with it. On the other hand, many Czech journalists use foreign diacritics properly, as both Niitymäki and Selänne are used in this article in the most read Czech news portal.

That is the answer to the question, but Czech attitude to foreign diacritics might not have much common with English, because the languages are obviously different.

People often use Britannica as an argument: Jágr is spelt there without diacritics. Well, that is true, but I have noticed that Britannica tends to change this attitude: see for example "Jaroslav Hašek" or "Karel Hynek Mácha". They are not always really correct, as for example in the article "Havlícek Borovský, Karel" instead of "Havlíček Borovský, Karel", but we can see that they try to use it. Their problem is that, unlike in Wikipedia, there is nobody to fix the mistake.

Look also at the List of English words with diacritics. I think names have even bigger right to use diacritics than these plain words. Jan.Kamenicek 23:22, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Using diacritics (or national alphabet) in the name of the article

[edit] Minor format proposals

Here are some of my proposals to standardise how we present the statistics and the international play:

In the statistics table, use the name of the city (in the North America kind of name, i.e. Calgary Flames would shorten to Calgary, as would Calgary Hitmen, and Belfast Giants would shorten to Belfast) or an abbreviated, commonly used name for the team (such as HC Lugano for Hockey Club Lugano or from football, Man City for Manchester City, Man Utd for Manchester United)

Of course, there is the possibility of confusion. Depending on the year Atlanta (NHL) could be either the Flames or the Thrashers. So the first time the team name appears, it should be wikified to the full team article. Thus the Atl Flames and the Thrashers would be differentiaed this way:

Atlanta Atlanta

and you could hover your mouse over it to see the full name very easily. This is just my opinion, but it looks better than spelling out the entire name and keeps things nice, sleek and compact.

Likewise, the first time the league name appears it should point to the league article:

NHL QMJHL Swiss A SM-l

and of course please always point to Western Hockey League rather than just WHL, as has been discussed previously.

(this of course also brings up a need to standardise abbreviations for the European leagues, but that's a battle I'll tackle another time)

As for international play sections, perhaps it should be changed to

Played for Canada in:

• 1996 World Cup of Hockey
• 1997 Ice Hockey World Championships
• 2004 World Cup of Hockey (gold medal)
• 2005 World Championships (gold medal)
• 2006 Winter Olympics

with the membership of a top 3 team being noted as above, linked to the appropriate page for the competition. The name of the country should point to the team's page, again as above. I think we should also explicitly standardise that the international statistics should be listed in international play and NOT incorporated into the player's club career as I've seen quite a few recently. The Olympic medal template which has popped up all over should also be shifted into this section, especially since it really interferes with the other goodies we've got on the top of the pages.

Thoughts?

--Legalizeit 01:46, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

I personally am a fan of using the full team names, not especially for the benefit of the NHL teams, but for junior and minor league teams. Both of those change so much in cities and in team name (example, Owen Sound Platers becoming Owen Sound Attack). Also if you mention the full name one then the next line just the city name, I don't think it looks any better than having the full name spelled out. I know there are others that agree with me on it, and some who don't, but I don't know how many people keep track of this talk page, so there might not be too many comments. Croat Canuck 04:02, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

However, you could see the full name just by hovering your mouse over the link in most browsers, including IE, Firefox and Opera. What I'm proposing can be seen in many player pages already, I'd just like to see it made an official standard or guideline, at least in this project. What I'm suggesting looks like this (from Joe Sakic)

				Regular season						Playoffs
Season	Team	League		GP	G	A	Pts	PIM		GP	G	A	Pts	PIM
1985-86	Lethbridge	WHL		3	0	0	0	0		--	--	--	--	--
1986-87	Swift Current	WHL		72	60	73	133	31		--	--	--	--	--
1987-88	Swift Current	WHL		64	78	82	160	64		10	11	13	24	12
1988-89	Quebec	NHL		70	23	39	62	24		--	--	--	--	--
1995-96	Colorado	NHL		82	51	69	120	44		22	18	16	34	14

I just prefer that because I like to read it like that. In any case what I'm saying is everyone should wikify the first instance of the team and the league.

--Legalizeit 07:21, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

I got some objections to the city name proposal. Minor/juniors/european hockey franchises are much more volatile than NHL teams. Binghamton has had 4 teams with 6 names playing in 3 leagues. That clarification shouldn't be hidden, especially if someone wants to print them out. Then there's Philadelphia with the Flyers/Phantoms relationship. ccwaters 15:02, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

I hadn't thought of printouts. I'm think I'm in favour of the full names now. However the city name only is still the "standard" on the actual format page. Perhaps we should change this?

And what about my proposal for listing international play? A good example of how it would work is in my recent edit to Darius Kasparaitis - two countries and all the major competitions in the list.

--Legalizeit 04:44, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm cool with everything else you else you proposed. Abbreviations of euro leagues is going to cause trouble though :) I've been there before. ccwaters 11:48, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

If there's no further discussion on the int'l play format, I'm going to consider it consensus and change the page accordingly tomorrow. --Legalizeit 13:33, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Likewise with player stats... if no objections I'll change it tomorrow.

				Regular season						Playoffs
Season	Team	League		GP	G	A	Pts	PIM		GP	G	A	Pts	PIM
1985-86	Lethbridge Broncos	WHL		3	0	0	0	0		--	--	--	--	--
1986-87	Swift Current Broncos	WHL		72	60	73	133	31		--	--	--	--	--
1987-88	Swift Current Broncos	WHL		64	78	82	160	64		10	11	13	24	12
1988-89	Quebec Nordiques	NHL		70	23	39	62	24		--	--	--	--	--
1995-96	Colorado Avalanche	NHL		82	51	69	120	44		22	18	16	34	14

--Legalizeit 08:03, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Naming Conflicts: What to put in the brackets

After a thorough discussion with Jerzy, he showed me the importance of having brevity in the brackets when name conflicts occur such as Scott Walker. I had been following the rule to put Scott Walker (hockey player), but he told me the problems with that, as its much too specific and extends beyond the bracket's purpose. What's inside the brackets should only be meant to distinguish the difference between people of the same name, so thus, Scott Walker (hockey) is the best to use. Now many of the hockey bio articles have (hockey player) as it stands now, including a few I made into (hockey player) a few days ago before I was convinced why it was the wrong way of doing things. I myself am going to chip away and try to standardize those articles into (hockey), and I wouldn't mind some help. If you would like to help me, let me know that you wish to help on my talk page so that I know I have some help. An advantage is that if you have editcountinitis, this is a great way to boost your edit count, just to add some incentive. Croat Canuck 03:15, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] European league abbreviations

Suggestions for standard European league abbreviations in player stats:

SM-liiga - SM-l

Elitserien - Elit

Swiss Nationalliga A - SwissA for A division, SwissB for B division, Swiss1, etc.

Deutsche Eishockey-Liga - DEL

Czech Extraliga - CzEx

Slovak Extraliga - SvEx

British Elite Ice Hockey League - EIHL

Russian Hockey Super League - Rus

The main complication I can think of is that some leagues have several divisions with relegation/promotion systems which might differ, and there are different names for some of them, like the Swiss league or Suomi-sarja. While SM-liiga may be closed now at some point in the past some teams may have been in the 2nd division at some time and at another time in SM-liiga.

Also the Russian league has had some different names over the years from USSR to CIS to Russia, all of which I'm not too clear on. If the Russian also has multiple divisions the main page should be "Russian Pro Hockey League" or whatever the full name of it is, and not "Russian Hockey Super League" which would be only a division in the league. I don't have the knowledge of European hockey for all this, so for now I suggest "Rus" be the abbreviation for all the incarnations of the Soviet/Russian league. --Legalizeit 07:38, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Sami Kapanen and KalPa are a good example of the Finnish league issues... ccwaters 11:53, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Precisely the problem I was having in mind... But since we know the league division the team was in, it's no biggie. Mestis can easily become "Mes", Sarja can be "Sar" or "Srj", though I'd prefer something that signified its status as one division below SM-liiga, it isn't really a big deal since the article explains it and it's preferable to something like "Fin-2" or "Fin-3". It's only a potential problem when you go further back and don't know when the team was in a particular division. --Legalizeit 13:13, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

The Elitserien's abbreviations is and should be SEL - Swedish Elite League. --Krm500 16:19, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Is that the official abbreviation? --Legalizeit 07:53, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Goalie Stat Tables

What's the reasoning behind splitting regular season and playoff goalie stats into 2 tables? I'd imagine we could squeeze it all into one row if we didn't commit so much space to the season/team/league columns. I suspect this came about from copying the nhl.com stat format. ccwaters 15:55, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

My suggestion (Using Antero Niittymaki):

				Regular season											Playoffs
Season	Team	League		GP	W	L	T	MIN	GA	SA	SO	GAA	SV%		GP	W	L	T	MIN	GA	SOG	SA	GAA	SV%
1999-00	TPS Turku	SM-l		32	23	6	2	1899	68	971	3	2.15	.930		8	6	2	-	453	13	232	0	1.72	.944
2000-01	TPS Turku	SM-l		21	10	6	1	1113	46	495	2	2.48	.907		-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
2001-02	TPS Turku	SM-l		27	16	8	1	1498	46	730	3	1.84	.937		4	2	2	-	295	11	151	0	2.23	.926
2002-03	Philadelphia Phantoms	AHL		40	14	21	2	2283	98	1011	0	2.58	.903		-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
2003-04	Philadelphia Phantoms	AHL		49	24	13	6	2728	92	1205	7	2.02	.924		12	6	6	-	796	24	325	0	1.81	.926
2003-04	Philadelphia Flyers	NHL		3	3	0	0	179	3	77	0	1.00	.961		-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
2004-05	Philadelphia Phantoms	AHL		58	33	21	-	3452	119	1573	6	2.07	.924		21	15	5	-	1269	37	648	3	1.75	.943
2005-06	Philadelphia Flyers	NHL		34	18	10	-	2014	99	948	2	2.95	.896		-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
SM-liiga totals				80	49	20	4	4509	160	2196	8	2.13	.927		12	8	4	-	748	24	383	0	1.92	.937
American Hockey League totals				148	71	55	12	8465	309	3789	13	2.19	.918		33	21	11	-	2065	61	973	3	1.77	.937
National Hockey League totals				37	21	10	0	2194	102	1025	2	2.79	.900		-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-

Stats as of February 12, 2006.

I noticed we don't have Save Percentage which in my opinion is the most important goalie stat. I added that plus the related SA (Shots Against). On a related note: we might want to consider adding +/- to the skater stats. I also experimented with using the real estate in the totals rows to spell out the league. I figure that might quiet down any objection to the proposed abbreviations listed above. Any thoughts? I don't see any problems at 1024x798. 800x600 is bad but anything is bad at that resolution. ccwaters 19:48, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

That really doesn't look good squished into 2 lines. We need to split it if we're going to include SA and SV% in there. Also plus minus can be quite a misleading stat unless properly interpreted with the team's performance so I personally don't like it. Also not all leagues track it so it may often be unavailable or difficult to find (hockeydb.com also doesn't show it and it's possibly the best stats source given its breath and general comprehensiveness). --Legalizeit 07:02, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, Shots Against isn't needed. that's just the natural compliment to SV%. I just find trying to corelate between 2 seperate tables confusing, especially when non-playoff seasons are omitted in one. Feel free to experiment here: User_talk:Ccwaters/Sandbox ccwaters 17:40, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Personally I use 1024x768 resolution, but usually have my browser in 800x600 size. The table makes the page scroll sideways now... All of my school computers still use 800x600. So unless you can make it fit in 800x600 then that's why it's split. I like adding sv%, I second your motion to add it. A high GAA can be forgiven/explained by a high sv%. BTW: I don't think the other league totals are needed, kinda cluttery.Hazelorb 21:56, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

(Edit) Also what is the policy on ties/shootout losses/OTL/etc?

I can't see how anyone can work at 800x600. Sorry to hear that. Leave the T column in for historical purposes if that is what you are asking. Leagues treat the OTL/SOL stats differently, I not sure what to do there. ccwaters 23:00, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I just meant how are we recording OTL/SOL? I wish all the leagues just made it the same in their stats. Even the AHL/NHL shows them differently! The AHL puts them into the losses column, but this is misleading because you still get a point for them. The NHL just does not put them anywhere. We should come up with some kind of system. Anything we come up with has to be better than those two systems. How do we record OTL currently? The NHL has had OTL for a long time... Hazelorb 00:26, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

The way I see it, and this is just my opinion, but they should have it structured so that shootout losses are considered the same as ties (to keep some consistency in historical statistics) and have overtime losses just as ordinary losses like they always have had. You know what, I might write The Hockey News about it, perhaps I should... Eh, maybe later. As it is now though, it is quite confusing and inconsistent. Croat Canuck 03:23, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

None of the stat table headers are centered... I use Internet Explorer (yea, lame, I know...). Hazelorb 19:50, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't like the way those tables appear on the pages (my opinion). The names get squished and the columns distort. I'd rather they look like the back of a hockey card...they are more box like and much easier to read. League stats should be separated. AHL in it's own table.. juniors, Europe.... etc... instead of being clumped into one giant compilation. People researching certain league stats would probably benefit as well since the only totals most of the standard tables provide are the NHL final totals.-Rainman71 21:27, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Goalie stats revisited

Sample, using stats from Miikka Kiprusoff. The idea of having regular season and playoffs stats together is a good one and makes more sense, even if we can't fit in SA and SV%. Any consensus on making this the standard?

				Regular season									Playoffs
Season	Team	League		GP	W	L	T	MIN	GA	SO	GAA		GP	W	L	MIN	GA	SO	GAA
1994-95	TPS	SM-l		4	?	?	?	240	12	0	3.00		2	?	?	120	7	?	3.50
1995-96	TPS	SM-l		12	?	?	?	550	38	0	4.14		3	?	?	114	4	?	2.10
1996-97	AIK Solna	Elit		42	?	?	?	2466	104	3	2.53		7	?	?	420	23	?	3.28
1997-98	AIK Solna	Elit		42	?	?	?	2457	110	0	2.69		5	?	?	300	8	?	1.60
1998-99	TPS	SM-l		39	26	6	6	2260	70	4	1.85		10	9	1	580	15	3	1.55
1999-00	Kentucky Thoroughblades	AHL		47	23	19	4	2759	144	3	2.48		5	1	3	239	13	0	3.27
2000-01	Kentucky Thoroughblades	AHL		36	19	9	6	2038	76	2	2.24		--	--	--	--	--	--	--
2000-01	San Jose Sharks	NHL		5	2	1	0	154	5	0	1.95		3	1	1	149	5	0	2.01
2001-02	Cleveland Barons	AHL		4	4	0	0	242	7	0	1.73		--	--	--	--	--	--	--
2001-02	San Jose Sharks	NHL		20	7	6	3	1041	43	2	2.48		1	0	0	7	0	0	0.00
2002-03	San Jose Sharks	NHL		22	5	14	0	1199	65	1	3.25		--	--	--	--	--	--	--
2003-04	Calgary Flames	NHL		38	24	10	4	2300	65	4	1.69		26	15	11	1655	51	5	1.85
2004-05	Timrå IK	Elit		46	?	?	?	2719	97	5	2.14		--	--	--	--	--	--	--
2005-06	Calgary Flames	NHL		74	42	20	0	4379	151	10	2.07		7	3	4	428	16	0	2.24
SM-liiga Totals				55				3049	120	4	2.36		15			814	26		1.91
Elitserien Totals				130				7642	311	8	2.44		13			776	36	0	2.78
AHL Totals				87	46	28	10	5039	227	5	2.70		5	1	3	239	13	0	3.27
NHL Totals				159	80	51	7	9070	329	17	2.18		37	19	16	2240	72	5	1.92

--Legalizeit 08:03, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

I started working on a stats table for Nikolai Khabibulin, and when I went to the Patrick Roy page to grab the stats table there as a template, I didn't like how the regular season and playoff stats were separated. I preferred the look of the skater stats, with regular season and playoff stats all on one line. So I just created the table without using a template (can be seen here), and then I came over to the WikiProject Ice Hockey to make the recommendation that all goalie stats be that way. Now see there's been discussion on it, but why was no consensus reached? The Player pages format page still shows the separated stats, and it appears that most editors want them combined. I don't know if we need more discussion, a vote, or whatever, but this issue appears to have been brought up, but never closed. Can we reach a consensus so this issue can be put to rest? Also, I notice that the second table seen here has removed the "Ties" column from the playoff stats, which is the same thing I did when making the Khabibulin table. I don't know of any league where ties exist in the playoffs, so I don't see any point in having them. --Muéro 19:17, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

I encountered another problem when working on Khabibulin's stats: ties and overtime losses. TSN.ca and HockeyDB.com incorrectly list overtime losses in the ties column, and add them up with the ties in the total, which obviously is not accurate. NHL.com does not list the overtime losses anywhere, which leaves quite a few games unaccounted for in goaltender's stats. Prior to 2005-06, overtime losses were included in the "losses" column of goaltender's statistics, even though the team got a point, so changing the policy now that ties no longer exist, as Hazelorb suggested, does not make sense. I see no reason why overtime losses should not be included in the losses column, just like before 2005-06. --Muéro 02:19, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Naming conventions

See: Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Wikipedia:Naming conventions (hockey) - Should Wikipedia:Naming conventions (hockey) become a naming conventions guideline? --Francis Schonken 15:58, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Player Infobox Template Suggestion

Greetings, I've been editing quite a few of the NHL player articles to bring them up to the said standard. However, in looking over the many players who aren't on the "plyers needed to be formatted" or however its dubbed, Tie Domi for example, gives a brief spiel of his hegiht, weight, is he left or right shot etc... might I propose, that in addition to the specs already laid out to create an NHL player article, we design a template info box quick facts with picture.. any thoughts? Boort 09:39, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

See Template:Infobox Ice Hockey Player. Jaskaramdeep 16:15, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Billy Boucher example article

Billy Boucher is listed at the top of this page as an example of a good article for a player that was a bit less notable (whereas Gretsky was very notable). Unfortunately, most of the Boucher article appears to have been copied from the Hockey Hall of Fame "Legends of Hockey" site. It's now a candidate for deletion. I've started a new stub to replace the old article, but it needs to be fleshed out, OR a different example of a good article needs to be put on this page. I'll also mention this on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ice Hockey
ColtsScore 08:34, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Finnish hockey team names

A note on Finnish ice hockey team names: Finnish teams don't generally use the location-name format that North American teams do; since hockeydb.com apparently has hardwired two-word names for teams they've come up with names like TPS Turku and Jokerit Helsinki to fit their format. These names are technically incorrect; most blatantly in cases like TPS Turku, where TPS stands for "Turun Palloseura" (roughly Turku Ball Club), so TPS Turku is like saying Toronto Toronto Maple Leafs. I run into this a lot on Wikipedia, and I wanted to drop a note here that I think Wikipedia articles should conform to this. The one-word names of the teams are all listed in the SM-liiga article. Elrith 16:50, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

If that's how the SM-liiga refers to its own teams, it only makes sense to do so here. RGTraynor 17:06, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

I probably inadvertently propagated some of these issues myself. I was wondering why we had the inconsistency. I'll fix what I see over time. -- JamesTeterenko 17:20, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Wait a sec... in TPS (ice hockey) it states, "Today, the full name of the club that owns the ice hockey team is HC TPS Turku Oy." The team name does include "TPS Turku". Is that correct? -- JamesTeterenko 17:23, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

According to the TPS website it is. [12] RGTraynor 02:29, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

So, the team itself uses the combination, which means that it is not as incorrect as indicated by Elrith. If the we want to use a standard shortform of "TPS", that is fine with me. I just want to make sure we are doing so with our eyes open. -- JamesTeterenko 17:33, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

No, the Wikipedia article is actually incorrect. The name of the company that owns the team is HC TPS Turku Oy; the name of the hockey team is TPS. The team is always referred to as TPS, by the league and by the official website which I'm afraid you've misquoted. The sections referring to HC TPS Turku Oy are the ones dealing with the company that owns the team; the "Oy" in the name is short for OSakeyhtiö, meaning corporation. The team is most definitely called TPS. I can't imagine why they wanted to name their company TPS Turku, since, as I've said, the name is senseless because it repeats the name of the city. Elrith 10:34, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Finnish proper names

I've now created a policy proposal for Finnish proper names at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Finnish). Please comment on it! Elrith 14:41, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Diacritics

I thought a lot about the diacritics issue we had in January. I came to a following conclussion: I think there is a big difference between Europe and USA. In Europe the name of the person is what is written in birth registry. So we cannot accept that Jaromir Jagr without diacritics is actually a name. It is how he writes his name in american environment but it is not his name. In US tradition name of the person is how this person calls himself. So your former president can be called Bill Clinton. Americans would mostly agree this is his name. Europeans would say no this is just how he calls himself. That is why there is a problem with Czech ice hockey players in the USA but not with Czech footballers in England. Check Petr Čech.--Jan.Smolik 20:39, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

No one denies the concept that foreign languages have different rules for how spelling and orthography are rendered from the English language. What I question is the presumption that only Americans fail to use diacriticals. For instance, since you raise the subject, kindly show us where on the Chelsea FC website Petr Cech's name is rendered with diacriticals? RGTraynor 03:59, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

My point is that by European understanding of things you cannot have something as most common English name of person. Either it is name of person or not. Petr Cech is not his name. It is written as such for simplicity reasons. But it is rather a nickname. I am not pushing diacritics into american ice hockey articles. I am just trying to find out why our oppinions are so different. So use Jaromir Jagr if you want to, but do not call it as his most common name. This is most common way how people write his name once they do not have í and á on they keyboard. BTW.: If I were you I would not use argument: "we do it this way". Many people see this as a very offensive thing and ... uhm ... very American. I lived in the US for long enough to learn to like the country, but this is why so many people in Europe, Asia and probably everywhere else do not like Americans. --Jan.Smolik 16:31, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

And we English-speakers, Britons, Canadiens and Americans alike, share a certain trait: we find it very offensive when outsiders tell us what rules our language are and are not allowed to use. Throughout this painfully long debate, your side has tacitly pushed the notion that there is a "European" style of English (hitherto unknown to linguistics experts) which uses diacriticals. Unfortunately, you've as yet failed to provide any English or Irish sources for the same. There is no national variant of English in which diacriticals are used, and that is the point: this is the English Wikipedia, and should follow the standard rules of English. RGTraynor 17:45, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

I find it so funny that "diacritic supporters" (for a lack of a better term) have yet to show any sources for their arguments. There is a signed Naslund sweater for sale in my hometown and the funny thing is, there are no diacritics used in his name in his own signature. Masterhatch 01:46, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

I will say my views again. If a player has diacritics in his name, they should be somewhere in the article. Looking at other pages on Wikipedia, I think that it should just go at the start of the article. Give a player's full, proper name, and after that, just use their conventional (read NHL/N. American) name. That way, it provides the players legal name, which in an encyclopedia should be there, and his common name, which is also important. Kaiser matias 20:33, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

I believe that appropriate diacriticals are acceptable in the player article alone. I do not believe that they're acceptable in other articles referencing the player. RGTraynor 04:39, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, RGTraynor, I totally agree with you. And Kaiser matias, you just reiterated what I have been saying all along. Use the most common spelling in English for the article title and show the native spelling in full on the first line. Beyond that, revert back to the most common spellig in English. Masterhatch 19:02, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Just curious, do the European Wikipedias (ie. Finnish, Swedish, Czech etc) have the diacritics removed from Anglophone names? GoodDay 21:00, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

I know the French Wikipedia doesn't add diacritcs to Anglophone names. GoodDay 21:06, 7 December 2006 (UTC)