Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Norse mythology)

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[edit] Moving "addendum" proposal to talk page for discussion prior to implementation

Proposed by Haukurth:

[edit] Addendum - Common Names

After this convention had been written and put to a vote it was pointed out that it was based very heavily on the Use English guideline and seemed to ignore the equally important Common Names guideline. This section is a small attempt to remedy this.

The part of the Common Names guideline most relevant to this guideline is this:

Many wikipedia naming conventions guidelines contain implicit or explicit exceptions to the "common names" principle. Some of these exceptions are due to technical limitations, for example "C Plus Plus" while "C++" is technically not possible as a page name.

This is quite true for this guideline. In particular the recommendation to use 'ö' instead of 'ǫ' is based on technical considerations. The guideline continues:

Other guidelines try to give recommendations for enhanced precision, cleaner disambiguation and/or solution of naming conflicts, which might lead to article names that are rather "the most obvious" than strictly spoken "the most used", for example Laurent-Désiré Kabila and not Laurent-Desire Kabila (which is more used on the Internet).

These are important points for the present guideline. In particular:

  • Enhanced precision is achieved by using diacritics when appropriate.
  • Cleaner disambiguation is sometimes achieved for the same reason. For example by using Máni rather than Mani (god).
  • The guideline does not recommend frequency searches on the Internet as a guide for choosing names.

Well, this is a deformation of an interpretation of the common names principle: it would be fairer to say, that you don't care about it, in other words: that this guideline is a plain exception - without trying to elaborate a quirky justification. It's not the only guideline that steered for exception in this sense "successfully" - wikipedia:Naming conventions (names and titles) does the same, and it is a known fact that I think that one of the worst wikipedia guidelines. At least the proponents of that guideline don't indulge in lame excuses.

In detail:

  • The use of diacritics is in no way a contribution to the principles laid down in wikipedia:Naming conventions (precision) - for Nidhogg you listed 4 or 5 variants using diacritics, none of them being more "precise" than another, or even more precise than "Nidhogg" or "Nydhogg" or "Nydhoggr". There's no ambiguity it's all about the same dragon.
  • "Mani (god)" is perfect for disambiguation, that's why it is used at the Mani disambiguation page. I'm not even sure there's none of the other Mani's mentioned on that disambig page wouldn't be with an accent on the a in its native language. "Mani (god)" is perfectly unambiguous.
  • The "common names" guideline links to Wikipedia:Naming conflict, that other guideline that's constantly forgotten by those who wish to forget about the "common names" principle (that really goes hand in hand). The "Naming conflict" guideline effectively treats frequency searches on the internet.

--Francis Schonken 17:14, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

You are already on record as firmly opposing this convention, Francis. The part I added is entirely in keeping with the rest of the guideline and doesn't add anything which I think would have changed anyone's mind in the vote. I don't feel it's quite appropriate that you should remove it. You might as well remove some other part of the guideline - you don't like any of it. - Haukur 17:18, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

As for your material points:

  • It is, in my opinion, more accurate and more precise to use diacritics than to omit them. Many people feel the same way even though you don't.
  • Mani (god) is a bad location for the page since Máni is never referred to as a god in the primary sources. We could have Mani (Norse mythology) but that's annoyingly cumbersome. It's much cleaner to use Máni. If other Mánis turn up then we will, indeed, be back to using some disambiguation within parenthesis but that doesn't detract from the general point.
  • You've now introduced two more guidelines ("Precision" and "Naming conflict") which you want me to pay attention to. I'll try but the time I can spend on our forest of naming convention guidelines is limited. I'm currently, as you know, trying to do something for "Common Names". I see the "Precision" one is very incomplete and needs a lot of work. - Haukur 17:25, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

As for "lame excuses" I'm making no secret of the fact that this naming convention does not use "most common in popular sources" or "most common in Google searches" as its highest principle. The only reason I added the quotes from the Exceptions section of the Common Names naming convention was that you wanted me to take that convention into account. That convention explicitly stipulates that more specific conventions may form exceptions to it and suggests a few reasons why. I felt that this was exactly the case here so I quoted that part. Including this paragraph is not a big deal for me and I'm not going to fight over it. I'm reasonably happy with the convention as it is.

Far from being the outlandish extremist you paint me as I'm in the position of trying to reign in those who want to see Old Norse forms everywhere and Anglicized forms nowhere. On numerous occasions I have changed "Þórr" to "Thor" and just today I've been re-adding Anglicizations which had been removed or characterized as "misspellings". [1] [2] - Haukur 19:10, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Althought you are outlandish (Iceland is far away from anywhere English speaking), I do not think you are an extremist. In this case I support Francis, I do not think guideline need this extra section. --Philip Baird Shearer 22:13, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. I, too, am fine with the guideline as it is. One thing I find outlandish about living in London is how warm and bright the winter is. I've never seen green grass during winter before. - Haukur 22:43, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mediate?

This debate about whether to use ligatures in article titles is the best example of a long-running unresolved debate I've seen anywhere on Wikipedia. Why don't you take it to mediation? --James S. 09:51, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Dispute notice

Apart from previous discussions above (and in the archives), see User talk:Haukurth#What changed --Francis Schonken 22:00, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

It is well documented that Francis doesn't like this convention. Still the strawpoll showed considerable support for it but also that not everyone likes it. It therefore falls into the category of convention. It is no less or more disputed than before so I am removing the new tag. Stefán Ingi 23:48, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] more disputes

may I direct someone's attention to Talk:Ragnarök where the rant-first-ask-questions-later-(if-at-all) du jour is going on? I am tired of these aggressive article-by-article style warriors. dab (ᛏ) 19:08, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

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