Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Scouting/Translations mediation

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Scouting Wiki Project WikipediaWikiProject Scouting/Translations mediation is part of the Scouting WikiProject, an effort to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to Scouting and Guiding on the Wikipedia. This includes but is not limited to boy and girl organizations, WAGGGS and WOSM organizations as well as those not so affiliated, country and region-specific topics, and anything else related to Scouting. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.
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Contents

[edit] Mediation Case: Naming Scouting organisations in non-English countries

[edit] Request Information

Where is the issue taking place?
Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Scouting/Translations
Who's involved?
Cpt. Morgan (Reinoutr), Evrik and Jergen
Chris asked to be transcluded and thus was approved.
What's going on?
The issue is about whether the names of Scout organizations in non-english speaking countries should be translated into English and, if so, how to determine what translation to use. This of course relates to the naming of the article on the organization.
Relevent is Wikipedia:WikiProject Scouting/RulesStandards#Article names which is the decision of the Wikipedia:WikiProject Scouting to date, and Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English), the WP guideline.
Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (use English) and several archives show others have had a problem.
Various sources for translations have been proposed:-
Short responses from the editors involved on what the issue is and what the solution should be.

Although I do understand the wish to use as many English on this site as possible, I do not favor the translation of names of organizations, except when they have a self-declared (or at least self-used) English name. The relevant Wikipedia guideline is WP:UE, but this only speaks about cases where a well-known, commonly used, English name is available (and thus preferred). In WP:UE, there are three comments that might apply:

  1. The first is ...only use the native spelling as an article title if it is more commonly used in English than the anglicized form, which appears to suggest that in cases where there is no commonly used English spelling, it is perfectly allright to use the native spelling.
  2. The second one is ...Latin-alphabet languages, like Spanish or French, should need no transliteration..., although we are not speaking about transliterations, it appears to suggest that we should not force an English variant if the current one is in (readable) Latin-alphabet characters.
  3. Finally, the document says ...use the most commonly used English version of the name for the article... This makes it easy to find,..', but creating English redirects (in several variants), rather than renaming the article, makes it similary (or even more) easy to find the article.

A lot of national scout organizations do not have an official English name and in many cases multiple translations are possible. By choosing one, we are performing original research by giving an organization a new name (I consider a name to be untranslatable, in contrast to a description of an organization, which can usually be translated; such a view has also been put forward by other users in related discussions, see for example:[1]).

With regard to claiming WOSM as reliable enough to use as a single source for these translations, I want to emphasize that WOSM is not the deciding body on the names of the national organizations. For example WAGGGS (an organization with just as much authority in Scouting), does not translate these names [2].

As explained above, I have no objections to creating all the redirects possible, but feel that we should respect the organizations' original names as the official names of the articles.

Finally, during this dispute, I also presented an alternative proposal to circumvent the difficulty in translating the names of organizations: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Scouting/Translations#Alternative proposal, which at least was noted by Evrik (he moved it [3]), but was further ignored by most parties.

We should also remember the Wikipedia policy concerning organizational names at Wikipedia:Naming conventions#Organizations (such as political parties). According to it non-English article titles are welcomed in some cases. WP:UE is only an explanation of Wikipedia's name convention.
Main questions:
  1. In my eyes the first main problem is the definition of "common use" and how the usage can be checked.
  2. A second major problem is the reliability of sources (non-literal and incoherent translations, different translations used by the same source, translations difering by far from the translation used by the respective organization itself etc.). This was discussed mainly concerning the reliabilty of the WOSM translations but could also cover other sources.
  3. My third concern is the correct procedure when moving pages. In the past both User:Evrik and User:English Subtitle moved pages without changing the lead of the article, fixing the categories, etc.
  4. The naming should - at least - be coherent within the ScoutingWikiProject; IMO the result of this mediation must also apply to articles in Category:WAGGGS member organizations as well es to other articles on organizations (including international organizations).
My main aim is to avoid ambiguities when naming an article. IMO in most cases this is better reached by not translating organizations' names (most countries have multiple Scouting/Guiding organizations, translations differ between sources etc.).
This seems also to be kind of a cultural problem: As you can read at Talk:Médecins Sans Frontières (North) American English seems to use far more translations than other variants of English. We can't (and shouldn't) decide which variant to prefer but we should bear in mind that some of the possible translanstion can be really surprising for some users. --jergen 18:32, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
I would make the same basic points as Jergen. I have multiple copies of the standard for world Scouting information-from 1957, 1975, 1979 and 1990. In each of these official publications from WOSM, the native name is most often used, and when it is not, the translation is into either English (as the East Asian organizations) or into French (as many Arab organizations). Further it is the same standard when used by Eurofax and at World Conference documents. WOSM uses the names the organizations themselves use. The website that has been cited is an English language website, so it is going to use English equivalents, but those are not the names recognized by WOSM. My preference is that we create redirect pages at possible English keyword sets-like "Scouts of X", "Scout Association of X", "Scouting in X", "X Scouting". Or they could look them up on the WOSM membership chart as everyone does now. Chris 07:01, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
I fully support the suggestion by Chris to create redirects like that, as I proposed the same in original discussion (see also my statement above). --Cpt. Morgan (Reinoutr) 11:32, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

This is the English-language Wikipedia-- not Wikipédia, or “Википедии.” The purpose of the English language wiki is to present information to an English speaking constituency. English language users would not say Hitachdut Hatsofim Ve Hatsofot Be Israel, but would say Israel Boy and Girl Scouts Federation. I strongly believe that an organizations name should be presented in its original format at the top of each article, but since the articles are in English, and whenever possible, English should be used for the title.

The relevant Wikipedia guideline are WikiProject Scouting - Rules Standards, Article names and Wikipedia:Naming conventions and Wikipedia:Naming conventions

Convention: For articles on organizations (like political parties) the general rule applies. That means: Name your pages with the English translation and place the original native name on the first line of the article unless the native form is more commonly used in English than the English form. Examples of the last are names of organizations in India, Ireland, Israel, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Quebec, Sri Lanka (English is or was an official language in most of these countries, which led to the general use of the native name) as well as some in Spain (Batasuna), Indonesia (Golkar), Russia (Yabloko and Rodina), Republic of China (Taiwan) (Kuomintang) and Cambodia (Khmer Rouge).

Rationale and specifics: See: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English)

Addressing some of the points brought up earlier:

  1. The first is ...only use the native spelling as an article title if it is more commonly used in English than the anglicized form, an example of this would be Coup d'état, or schadenfreude in lieu of epicaricacy. English is a flexible language and its history is that of assimilation - this is not one of those cases.
  2. The second is ...Latin-alphabet languages, like Spanish or French, should need no transliteration... we are not speaking of transliterations, so this point is moot.
  3. Finally, ...use the most commonly used English version of the name for the article... This makes it easy to find,.. I have no problem with redirects, but feel that redirects (with variants) should be in the foreign language pointing to the English article.

Other comments

  1. Some organizations have an official English name ( Suomen Partiolaiset and The Guides and Scouts of Finland [4] ) and should be listed here in English.
  2. Some organizations have an English name listed on the WOSM page. [5] There has been some debate as to whether the WOSM is an authoritative source – I believe it is simply because they don’t list all the organizations in English, only those that have a clear name.
  3. Some organizations do not have an official English name, but have a commonly used English name: Scouts Musulmans Algériens and Algerian Muslim Scouts (used by the NDI [6] and UNICEF [7]).
  4. In the cases where a national scout organization does not have an official English name and if multiple translations are possible: Association of Catholic Guides and Scouts of Italy versus Associazione Guide e Scouts Cattolici Italiani, we should build a consensus on one name – and not become a debate between which is better, the The Judean People's Front or the The People's Front of Judea. Names are translatable even countries ... Doctors Without Borders versus Médecins Sans Frontières and no, this isn’t original research – it is common sense.

Tiered solution

  1. Those organizations where there is an official translation – we translate.
  2. Those organizations that have a translation that is listed on the WOSM page or have a translation that passes the google test – we translate.
  3. Those that are easily translatable – we translate.
  4. Those organizations that don’t fit any of the above – we reassess after the rest are done.

--evrik (talk) 21:50, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Mediator (Bduke) response

Thanks to Jergen and Cpt. Morgan (Reinoutr) for their responses. I would ask everyone, other than Evrik, to hold back from adding further comment until Evrik has responded, as he says above, later in the week. Thanks, Evrik, later in the week in fine. We want to do this right. We do not have to do it in a rush. --Bduke 20:57, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
Thanks, Evrik. We now have all the comments from the three people originally involved. I will make some comments and questions myself in about 9 hours. I have some issues in real life. My wife is recovering form surgery in hospital and I have to spend the day with her. Please be patient and wait until I have done so. Then everyone can join in and comment on my comments and questions and on the statements made above. --Bduke 22:20, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Let me start by saying something about where I come from in this matter. I do not have a fixed view of how this issue should be solved. Before I was asked to act as a mediator, I had not really thought about it. I am extremely bad at learning languages. After five years of French at school I can just about make myself understood and can read simple French with difficulty. After 2 years of German, I used to be able to read scientific German, but my spoken skills were poor and have now gone. In the 40 odd years of my career as a academic scientist the need to read papers in languages other than English has essentially disappeared. My Scouting experience has been in two countries that have a single Scout Association (plus Guides). In the late 1950s and early 1960s I had considerable experience of meeting Scouts from all over Western Europe. That experience convinced me of the complexity of the Scout organisations in much of Europe and a realisation that coming from a country with just one organisation made one rather blind to that diversity and gave one a simplistic view of Scouting

I want to start with a few comments and questions. First, I think we all share Evrik's wish to have english titles on the English Wikipedia, if "satisfactory titles can be obtained". I put that phrase in quotes because we are really looking to see whether satisfactory titles can or do exist. Evrik raises many points. Let me pick up just one at this point. Suomen Partiolaiset has a redirect from The Guides and Scouts of Finland and the latter appears after the former name at the beginning of the article. I think this is quite wrong. If "The Guides and Scouts of Finland" is an official translation of the Finish title from the Finish organisation itself, then the english title should be used for the article. I think we have consensus to use any unique english name used by the organisation itself. If it is not the official english name used, it should appear as "roughly translated as 'The Guides and Scouts of Finland'". I had spotted this some time ago and was trying to recollect which article it was.

I am impressed by Jergen's knowledge of the complexity I mention above. He knows more about the situation, particularly in Europe, and it is there where many of our problems are.

Cpt. Morgan makes reference to his suggestion at [8]. This proposal does not solve our problem and it is somewhat outside the issue, but I would suggest that it might ease our problem and also have a wider applicability. The essential idea is that for all countries "XXX", Scouting in XXX should lead to somewhere meaningfull. Scouting in the United States is usefull because not everybody, particularly outside the USA, knows that the name of the organisation for boys is the Boy Scouts of America. Similarly why should everybody know that the organisation in Australia is "Scouts Australia" and in UK "The Scout Association"? These are english speaking countries. How much more usefull could these be for non-english speaking countries? The basis idea was for a redirect or a disambiguation page. I suggest it could be extended in some cases to an article. For example, Category:Scouting in Sweden contains 6 articles all with Swedish names. These were created by Jergen fairly recently and are for 5 Scout organisations in Sweden and the Council that the five belong to for registration with WOSM. Rather than having a disambiguation page Scouting in Sweden (it does not exist), why not have an article that explains why there are five Scout organisations and how they came together to form a Council to register with WOSM? The article would link to the six articles. Why not go further and merge the six articles into this article as all five organisation articles are short stubs? The Swedish names and translations would both appear, either as links to the articles or, if they are merged in, as headings. Of course if any section grows too large in future, a separate article could be forked off.

Question to Jergen - are the English names used in these Swedish articles names used by the organisations themself? If so, why can they not be used as the article names?

At the opposite end, we have countries with one Scout organisation. Why can not the article be called Scouting in XXX and start with "Scouting in XXX is represented by 'name in local language(s)'". An example here might be Scouting in Algeria with the name given in both French and Arabic. We avoid having to name the article with the name of the organisation.

My first proposal is:-

  1. that for all countries "XXX", Scouting in XXX should exist and point somewhere usefull as a redirect, a disambiguation page or an article.
  2. For countries were the term Guides is used, this article might be called Scouting and Guiding in XXX or there might be two - Scouting in XXX and Guiding in XXX.

Point 2 can be sorted out later. Question to all. Is this basic proposal (1) acceptable? Does it help?

Now to address some of the points made that directly address the problem we have.

I think I share in part the concern expressed by Jergen about using the names on the WOSM web site. One concern is that our problems are often with individual organisations in a country, like Sweden discussed above, where there are several organisations and a Council. WOSM does not deal with the individual organisations but with the Council and probably knows little of them and has no need to translate the title. A second concern is that this excludes WAGGGS organisations and organisations not affiliated with either WOSM or WAGGGS. A third concern is the suggestion that different translations are used by WOSM in different places. Question to Jergen - I think you raised this last point. Could you give examples?

I have a concern that organisation titles can not be well translated. For example in France we have Scouts et Guides de France and Eclaireuses et Eclaireurs de France. Is the order deliberate to give us "Scouts and Guides of France" and "Guides and Scouts of France" respectively. Or is my French as bad as ever? If my translations are accurate, they still totally miss the different nuances that the terms "Scouts" and "Eclaireurs" have in France. In other cases we appear to have terms that do not accurately translate into "association" or "organisation".

I have another concern about doing a translation ourselves with consensus. Evrik may be right that this is not "original research" but it is certainly close to it. However the greater concern is that we must use a title that is verifiably one that describes the content of the article on which the title appears. In Evrik's tiered solution, he uses the term "we translate". I'm sure he really meant "we use a translation". The last thing we should be doing is translating. We should be using a translation that is verifiable as above.

I have said nothing about articles such as Wikipedia:Naming conventions. This is because I do not find them helpfull. If they were, we would not have the problem we clearly do have. The problem is with the glib "Name your pages with the English translation and place the original native name on the first line of the article". We can only proceed if we very clearly know what the "English translation" actually is.

I would really like everybody (and that includes people other than the three who were originally involved) to comment on what I have said above and avoid making an authoritative conclusion. However I feel I should indicate my feelings about where a solution might lie. That would be something like:-

  1. Take a pragmatic approach. A uniform approach may be not possible.
  2. Implement the Cpt. Morgan "Scouting in XXX" proposal as extended by me above.
  3. Use an english name if the organisation itself verifiably and uniquely uses an english name in its own documents.
  4. Otherwise use the official non-english name.
  5. Be extremely liberal in the use of redirects both to the "Scouting in XXX" articles (e.g. "Scouting in USA") and to the individual articles of organisations (almost any plausible translation - redirects are cheap).

We would need all 5. The rigour of 3 and 4 is assisted by 2 and 5, minimising the use of non-english naes by readers.

These are tentative. I want more feedback that really explores the weaknesses and strengths of the proposals raised by everybody, including me.

Answering your questions:
  • Sweden:
    I didn't created the articles on the federation's members, I just wikified them.
    The translations on Svenska Scoutrådet are those of the federation. Of the five associations only two have English content on their websites, one using the same translation (NSF), the other one uses two differing translations (SMU Scout).
    Conclusion: I'm not sure if these are official translations.
  • Different translations by WOSM:
    see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Scouting/Translations#Angola sourcing three different translations for Associação de Escuteiros de Angola; the German Ring deutscher Pfadfinderverbände is translated as Scout Federation of Germany on scout.org, the 1990 edition of Scouting 'round the World (AFAIK the last avalaible; published by WOSM) gives German Scout Federation
  • France:
    Your translations are correct.
Hope this addresses all questions. --jergen 11:35, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, Jergen.

I should have added above that any moving of articles should be done properly and that the lead should reflect the name of the article. --Bduke 21:03, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion

Dear Bduke, thanks for your elaborate explanation of your suggestions. For now, my answer will be quite short, but we will see where the discussion takes us. Your suggestions are very helpful in my opinion and I would have no objections to implementing the naming of Scouting articles as you suggest. One thing, however, is still not clear to me from your proposal. If we have a Scouting organization without an official English name, do you suggest we use Scouting in XXX as the official pagename (with a redirect from the organization's name) or the other way round? Both solutions seem to be suggested throughout your proposal. Can you elaborate on that a bit maybe? --Cpt. Morgan (Reinoutr) 08:42, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
I did indeed suggest both solutions. In most cases the article on the organisation is OK. For example, Scouts Australia. Scouting in Australia would be a redirect there or possably a disamb page to include the Guides article. In many cases with non-english names that would also apply. I was merely suggesting that in some cases, where there is only one organisation, that using Scouting in XXX as the article might solve the problem. Algeria and possibly Angola might be examples. It is a fairly new idea I had and I'm warming to it more as I think it through. It might even be better to rename Scouts Australia to Scouting in Australia and start it off "Scouting in Australia is represented by Scouts Australia which is the only Scout organisation in Australia affiliated to WOSM (spelt out of course)". Would the US accept BSA redirecting to Scouting in the United States? I do not know. More tomorrow. I'm rather exhausted and need an early night's sleep. I may be less than coherent. --Bduke 10:50, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
Your first point was to take a pragmatic approach and allow differences in naming between countries and organizations, so I advise against simply moving all pages to Scouting in XXX. Surely the BSA should stay at their own page for 3 reasons: 1. the name is English; 2. there are more scouting organizations than just the BSA in the US; 3. remain pragmatic and avoid discussions on that topic (because there definately will be a lot of discussion about that one). --Cpt. Morgan (Reinoutr) 13:30, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
I don't like the idea of generally redirect Scouting in XXX to the national WOSM member organization:
  • Many languages don't differentiate between Scouts and Guides. Even advanced speakers of English use only Scout when adressing Guides and Scouts.
  • Many countries have more than one Scout organization (not mentioning the Guides) - nearly all American and European countries.
  • Articles should be under a correct title. If we put the BSA under Scouting in the US this is an invitation to move the article.
The idea of disambiguation covers our problem better. But this needs some work: I started this week to fill Category:Scouting by country. AFAIK all countries with only one known organization are categorized; the countries with more organizations will follow in the next days. --jergen 20:12, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Some comments to Cpt. Morgan and Jergen. Ok, lets forget about making Scouting in XXX be the article on the national organisation, and leave BSA alone. However, I never intended that Scouting in XXX should redirect to the national WOSM member organisation or that as an article it would only talk about the national WOSM member organisation. If there are other organisations in the country, they should be mentioned. This cuts out a redirect. It should be either a simple disambiguation page or a brief article that says something like "The largest Scouting organisation in XXX is YYY, the national WOSM member organisation. There is also ZZZ and WWW", but with a bit more detail, that is more than a disambiguation page. I hope this is clear, Jergen, as I think you were misunderstanding me.

Where there are more than one organisation then I think the proposal I made about Sweden should apply. Scouting in Sweden should lead people to find all the organisations (and why there are many) and through the Category:Scouting in Sweden any articles on Scouting personalities or other aspects. I do not think this is disambiguation, at least not simple disambiguation, but maybe it is matter of interpretation. Jergen, why not write Scouting in Sweden and then we can debate improving it? The Categories by country are important as they list all articles from a country related to Scouting, but I think there should be an easier way into the organisations.

Of course, I agree that "Articles should be under a correct title", but I remain unconvinced that the title should be always the title of the organisation. People want to know about Scouting in a particular country. They either do not know, or do not care about, the name of the organisation. I think we would save ourselves a lot of argument if, for example, Scouting in Angola or Scouting in Algeria described all the Scouting organisations in those countries, or if only one, that organisation. The wording in the article about the title of organisations in the native languages can be much more acceptable than as the title of the article itself and it can also be a redirect. The argument about these two countries went on and on with no resolution and a lot of ill-feeling. That is just for countries starting with A. I think my idea would cut right through that. I agree we should not do this for countries where there are editors from inside the country, but it seems an ideal solution while it is being edited by outsiders. Do we want to go through massive arguments about lots of countries starting from B to Z where none of us come from that country, and where as a consequence we find it difficult to verify that a translated english name is used by a particular organisation? What are the objections to this proposal? --Bduke 21:03, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

If it wasn't clear, I want to state that I totally agree that in the case of more than one organization on Scouting (including Guiding), a page like Scouting in XXX should be a disambiguation page (and Guiding in XXX should be created as well then). Only in the case when there truely is only one national organization, that covers both Scouting and Guiding (e.g. the Netherlands), we can make it a direct redirect to the organization. --Cpt. Morgan (Reinoutr) 20:40, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
Had an edit conflict here. I agree about redirect if there only one organisation, but where there are many I ask you to think about an article that explains why there are many rather than just be a disambiguation. --Bduke 21:03, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
Yes, ofcourse a dab page can be expanded to that where applicable. --Cpt. Morgan (Reinoutr) 21:08, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
  • I'm trying to digest all of this. I will respond. --evrik (talk) 16:08, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
  • @BDuke: I am still a bit puzzled with what you are suggesting. Your 5 points above state:
3. Use an english name if the organisation itself verifiably and uniquely uses an english name in its own documents.
4. Otherwise use the official non-english name.
Yet, in your last addition you state that you "remain unconvinced that the title should be always the title of the organisation". I can agree with both suggestions, but I think it is important that you make clear which one is part of the compromise you are suggesting, or that the issue is still open for you. Can you please explain? --Cpt. Morgan (Reinoutr) 21:30, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
I am trying to be pragmatic. If points 3 and 4 are causing a big debate, perhaps because people can not agree that the english name is verifiable and unique, then maybe a usefull compromise is to avoid using the name of the organisation all together and put the details in Scouting in XXX. Related to this is what is perhaps a side issue. Does every organisation in a country need a separate article? In some cases, I think the answer is not and we should group the information about several organisations together under Scouting in XXX. Let me put it this way. Use point 3 if it applies and if the organisation deserves a separate article. Use point 4 if it is not controversial and if it deserves its own article. Otherwise avoid having an organisation name as the title of the article about it. I'm trying to avoid controversy. I'm not trying to get a totally consistent naming regulation. Scouting across the world has enormous variety. I see no reason why we have to put ourselves in a straight jacket about naming articles. I'm not suggesting a compromise that fits all. I'm suggesting something that might help in some cases. This suggestion, plus redirects from translations and using Scouting in XXX redirects or disambiguation pages, all help to soften the effect of many articles named under point 4 that english speakers can often not translate and thus can not use to find what they want. Put it this way - we should use as much english as we possibly can without misnaming any article. --Bduke 22:04, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
Thanks, that clears it up for me. --Cpt. Morgan (Reinoutr) 07:09, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
I think I understand now the idea of Scouting in XXX. Could you check the following examples if I'm right?
For which level we should aim in a first step? It is quite clear that we should have something like Scouting in Russia for all countries, but this will take lots of time. --jergen 11:17, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Response to Jergen:- These examples cover Cpt. Morgan's proposal and some of my additions. I like the Russian article, but I do not think "It is quite clear that we should have something like Scouting in Russia for all countries". I do not agree that we must move to "one size fits all". The US one needs a little expansion. The UK one can be equally small, as can the Australian one. Some can be just redirects.

What you are not addressing is the proposal I made that the Scouting in XXX might be the actual article. Algeria is a good example. You want Scouting in Algeria to redirect to Scouts Musulmans Algériens. I suggested that Scouts Musulmans Algériens should redirect to Scouting in Algeria. The latter should then start something like:-

Scouting in Algeria is represented by Scouts Musulmans Algériens (SMA, Arabic: الكشافة الاسلامية الجزائرية‎, (roughly translated into English as Algerian Muslim Scouts)) which is the national Scouting association in Algeria.

The purpose of this is an attempt to take the heat out of the disagreement whether this article's title should be French or English. Evrik sees the english translation as straight forward. You do not and insist on the French title. The debate has raged for weeks with no resolution. I am not going to join in. I suggest that my proposal side steps this disagreement. To reinforce my point, I noted a few minutes ago when I went to copy the lead, that a revert war is going on right now by an anon and another user who is reverting back to the French title. My philosophy is that if there is a strong disagreement with neither side backing down, to seek to alter the battle ground. Jergen, what do you think of this suggestion? Do you disagree and if so, why.

Another example is Sweden. I asked you to write Scouting in Sweden but you did not do so. There is going to be a disagreement about the titles of all six Swedish Scout articles. I have written Scouting in Sweden. I am not prejudging the outcome. My suggestion would be to progress this further by making the six articles redirects to Scouting in Sweden and adding something about why there are 5 Scout organisations and not one. The current articles are small stubs and could always be forked off again if the section in Scouting in Sweden gets large. If we do not agree to this, we simply par Scouting in Sweden back a bit to a disambiguation page and expand the six articles. If my suggestion is accepted, we need to alter the Sweden link in the European template. Again, I think my suggestion would take the heat out of the debate, and I am sure there will be a debate. What are your views on this?

As I responded to Cpt. Morgan I think my proposal is particularly suitable where we do not have editors from the countries concerned. --Bduke 22:15, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

As said above, I do not like the way you proposed for Algeria and started for Sweden:
  1. This does not help us to solve the problem of naming articles; it's just a little workaround, that moves the article naming question in the future.
    • Example 1: Your proposal on Scouting in Algeria. If a second organization was founded in Algeria we had to move the content to an other place. The discussion on naming would arise anew.
    • Example 2: Scouting in Sweden - as you wrote it - is not about Scouting in Sweden, it's about the Svenska Scoutrådet (and it is even incorrect). To my knowledge there are other organizations active in Sweden, but I did not have enough time to research on this. So as soon as I include this informations in Scouting in Sweden most of the content should be moved back to Svenska Scoutrådet. This does not solve the problem.
  2. If I understand Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names) and Wikipedia:Naming conventions (precision) right, article titles should be as exact as possible. This is not the case if we name something Scouting in XXX and describe only one variation of it.
  3. My third concern is the categorization: Scounting in XX should not be categorized in Category:WOSM member organizations and Category:WAGGGS member organizations. It is unsystematic to include Scouting in XXX articles in this category, they are part of Category:Scouting by country. So we have either to categorize redirects on the organizations' names (which one? Central question arises anew) or to live with a partly unusable categorization system.
So here are my proposals concerning Scouting in XXX:
  1. If there is only one known Scouting/Guiding organization in a country, Scouting in XXX redirects to that organization.
  2. If there are two ore more distinct Scouting/Guiding organizations, Scouting in XXX comes as disambiguation.
  3. If the WAGGGS member organization uses (Girl) Guide to name its members, Guiding in XXX redirects either to the organization (case 1) or to the disambiguation page (case 2).
Could I propose that we also move on the central question? We are just discussing workarounds but not the real conflict. --jergen 09:29, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion 2

This new header is not meant to disrupt the flow, but the section is getting rather large and this header will make editing easier.

You are probably right about moving to the central question, but before doing so, I would like to make a few points:

  1. I am indeed looking at a work around. We do not have to solve all problems now. If there is a complete difference of opinion and I think there is, then trying to find a work around, or to put it colloquially, alter the rules or move the playing field, is often a good strategy. Leaving things for the future is not necessarilly a bad idea. We might have more collective wisdom then.
  2. My ideas about Scouting in XXX for Algeria were put forward in this spirit. As mediator I think that is my role.
  3. If you do not accept them, that is fair enough, although I would like the opinion of others and I think you misunderstand me somewhat as I will discuss in the next two sections.
  4. Algeria: (1) if we postpone the problem, that is perhaps no bad thing as I suggest above, but (2) if a new organisation is started or we find out about one we do not now know about, we could rewrite the article to include it.
  5. Sweden: much the same. I took the section on Svenska Scoutrådet from that article. If it is wrong, then we correct it. I agree that are likely other organisations in Sweden. We can just add them. I do not see why adding that information means other information needs to be moved back. I agree about the category - it should just be Category:Scouting by country.
  6. "article titles should be as exact as possible". Agreed. The problem is in identifying what is exact. I do not edit Scouts Australia because I want people to know about that organisation. I edit it because I think readers want to learn about how Scouting operates in Australia. "Scouting in Australia" is just as exact as "Scouts Australia". I think this also illustrates why WP rules about corporate organisations are not helping us too much. Also "Scouting in XXX" should not be describing just one variation of it. All variations should be included in it whether it is a disambiguation page or an article, and it should be a redirect only if there is only one variation.

OK, the central question. I would very much like Evrik to respond. The debate raged for weeks and still keeps surfacing, as it did today with an admin reverting back to the English title on the Algeria article (sorry, I had that wrong above - I said it was the anon editor). If I could put your respective positions in a negative way, Evril seems strongly resistant to having any article title in a language other than English, and you, Jergen, seem strongly resistant to having any title that is other than the one used by the organisation concerned. OK, both of these are perhaps a bit extreme. You will accept a very clear English translation used by the organisation concerned, but there are far too many cases where there is no such translation. My suggestions, way up above, basically used two principles:

  1. We must use names that are verifiable, if refering to the name of the organisation (or as in the "Scouting in XXX" cases, are deliberately not referring to the name of the organisation); and
  2. We must use as much English as we can to assist the readers.

Where does that leave you all. Is anyone prepared to put forward a compromise of some kind? If neither Jergen or Evrik are prepared to shift, then we can not resolve the problem. It was with that in mind that I tried to shift the argument. As a start, what objections do you all have to the 5 points I made in the mediator section:

  1. Take a pragmatic approach. A uniform approach may be not possible.
  2. Implement the Cpt. Morgan "Scouting in XXX" proposal as extended by me above.
  3. Use an english name if the organisation itself verifiably and uniquely uses an english name in its own documents.
  4. Otherwise use the official non-english name.
  5. Be extremely liberal in the use of redirects both to the "Scouting in XXX" articles (e.g. "Scouting in USA") and to the individual articles of organisations (almost any plausible translation - redirects are cheap).

We already have Jergen's view on item 2, and I think that does move the resolution on. What about the other 4? I'm going to shut up for a while now and give time for others to comment. --Bduke 11:17, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

I have moved the compromise section down below to draw attention to it while fixing a minor format problem. --Bduke 11:29, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

  • I have printed out this page and gone over it. I am very confused. :-(
--evrik (talk) 17:53, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
My comments on all five proposals:
  1. Pragmatic approach:
    I'm not completely happy with this because it could lead to new discussions, but it's acceptable.
  2. "Scouting in XXX" proposal:
    Accept. I'm working my way through it, but this will take some time: There are (according to WOSM) 216 countries and territories.
  3. English name if the organisation uses itself verifiably and uniquely:
    Accept; even if we remove uniquely. If an organisation uses a translation of its own name, this name is acceptable for me as article title, it need not to be used uniquely.
  4. Otherwise use the official non-english name:
    Accept.
  5. Redirects:
    Accept.
Hope this helps to move on. --jergen 09:49, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Indeed it does. On (3), I added unique because if an organisation uses more than one translation, how do we decide which one to use and why. I have heard from Evrik. He will be responding. Please all be patient. --Bduke 10:20, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I understand; can we rephrase the sentence to Use an english name if the organisation itself verifiably uses an unique english name in its own documents. This seems clearer to me. --jergen 10:53, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
That certainly is a clearer representation of my intent with that. --Bduke 11:28, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Scouting by country is done. Category:Scouting by country now includes 227 territories and countries. --jergen 11:48, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Wow. Nice going there. --Cpt. Morgan (Reinoutr) 11:53, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
Indeed, looks a very impressive effort. I will try to progress the mediation later today or tomorrow. --Bduke 21:12, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Evrik. I think we are looking for your views on how we progress this debate to get agreed guidelines for determining the name of articles. More specifically, we need to know whether you accept the summary I made above. I will slightly modify it. I will remove #1 about being pragmatic because I intended that for the debate not the guidelines. I am using Jergen's wording about unique. I have also both expanded and simplified. I'll add a new heading.

I have been reading this and following this all along. I was not really ready to invest myself in this process when it started - for a lot of reasons, but I said i would comment. First of all, i think that as many of the articles as possible should have English titles. i have done enough work on the dewiki, frwiki and eswiki to know that they don't look highly upon the use of English title on thos e pages, so i find it ironic that the English wiki isn't given the same consideration. I think I've hardened my positions because of Jergens intransegience (sp).

  1. Take a pragmatic approach. A uniform approach may be not possible.
  2. Implement the Cpt. Morgan "Scouting in XXX" proposal as extended by me above.
  3. Use an english name if the organisation itself verifiably and uniquely uses an english name in its own documents.
  4. Otherwise use the official non-english name.
  5. Be extremely liberal in the use of redirects both to the "Scouting in XXX" articles (e.g. "Scouting in USA") and to the individual articles of organisations (almost any plausible translation - redirects are cheap).
  • I agree with the taking a pragmatic approach ... but that means opening up the discussion on on all the article titles.
  • I'm not really thrilled with the "Scouting in XXX" proposal, but think that many of thr artilces can now be merged into those articles.
  • Disagree, I think that many of the names can be adequately translated. We should also make some outreach to these organizations to see what they say about how their names should be listed
  • Disagree
  • Agree.

That's all for now. I promised to get a response in. I'll try to write more later. --evrik (talk) 04:38, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion 3

So the points (now just three) are:

  1. For naming articles on Scout organisations/associations, we use an english name if the organisation itself verifiably uses an unique english name in its own documents, or otherwise use the official non-english name.
  2. We use the now completed "Scouting in XXX" proposal to give english names for readers to find articles about Scouting in all countries, whether English speaking or not, and without having to know the name of the Scout organisation in the country.
  3. We will be extremely liberal in the use of redirects both to the "Scouting in XXX" articles (e.g. "Scouting in USA") and to the individual articles of organisations (almost any plausible translation - redirects are cheap).

Can all three of you accept this simple guideline? If not, please be clear what you can not accept and why. Must rush. --Bduke 00:38, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Accept all. --jergen 11:03, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
Agreed --Cpt. Morgan (Reinoutr) 20:56, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

The "Scouting in XXX" proposal was ludicrious. What a wasted effort. All of that work to avoid changing the names of the articles to what they should be: English. --English Subtitle 20:50, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

I disagree. It is usefull also for countries such as the US, UK or Australia, by giving a link into all organisations of Scouting (and Guiding) in a country. When you say "changing the names of the articles to what they should be: English", you miss the point. We all would agree with you if we have a name in English which is verified as being used by the organisation and thus meets WP guidelines. The problem is how to translate a name in a way that is acceptable to everybody. Do you have suggestions for that given it has proved impossible in the discussions going back to late last year? --Bduke 22:03, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, we now have Evrik's opinion, up above under the Discussion 2" header. I would like to concentrate on two of his responses:

  1. I'm not really thrilled with the "Scouting in XXX" proposal, but think that many of the articles can now be merged into those articles.
  2. Disagree, I think that many of the names can be adequately translated. We should also make some outreach to these organizations to see what they say about how their names should be listed

The second part of the first point is essentially the point I made earlier, where I suggested for example that "Scouting in Algeria" could have the full content of the current article, and "Scouting in Sweden" could have the full content of 6 current articles (5 associations and the Council that affiliates to WOSM). This was objected to by Jergen. I take his point about non-WOSM organisations in Sweden and possibly other Scout organisations in Algeria, but these could just be added to the articles. It all depends on the wording. I still think this is a usefull compromise. As I said then, readers do not look for the name of the organisation. They want to know about Scouting in a given country. Why can we not consider this further?

The second part of Evrik's second point is a good one. We should be approaching the organisations to see if they have an english translation, but it will have to be sourced otherwise we might get three different names from three different people in one country. His first part hinges around "adequately translated". I remain unconvinced that this can be done in an acceptable manner. Different people will translate a name differently. We may end up having two organisations with the same translated name. It is original research.

Jergen, how do you respond to Evrik's point "I have done enough work on the dewiki, frwiki and eswiki to know that they don't look highly upon the use of English titles on those pages, so I find it ironic that the English wiki isn't given the same consideration."?

So there is still disagreement. We have made some small progress. Multiple redirects and the use of the "Scouting in X" links, means that english can be used more easily to find articles. However, we have made little progress on the names of the articles themselves.

I am going to now ask on the Scouting Project page for wider input on where we are and wider views on everything that has been discussed. You will see I have merged "Discussion 4" in with "Discussion 3" and I propose the wider debate takes place below the new header below. It will take me a while to ask for this debate as I have to go out for an hour or so now. --Bduke 05:47, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Broader Scouting community views

I never thought that this would be so complicated an issue (I don't think I even appreciated that the discussion was taking place)... I can understand both sides of the argument here, but i do think that there is a way forward - although there may be a small number who disagree (or a large number).

  • Scouting by Country

This is certainly a step forward - as Evrik points out, even countries like the UK need this because there is The Scout Association and Girlguiding UK, the WOSM and WAGGGS organisations, and also other Scouting organisations like the Baden-Powell Scouts... I have a couple of comments about this:

This should be extended to Guiding by Country, with redirects to the related Scouting article...
Some countries have complex political divisions - I am pleased to see Taiwan is included (although it is also called the Republic of China, which isn't), especially given the People's Republic of China claim to the island. My point is that the people looking for Scouting in the UK could also look for Scouting in England, Scouting in Wales, Scouting in Scotland and Scouting in Northern Ireland.

Using redirects from Scouting by Country should be avoided - the majority of countries have both a WOSM and WAGGGS organisation, and many also have non-WOSM and non-WAGGGS organisations.

  • English name if the organisation uses itself verifiably and uniquely
  • Otherwise use the official non-english name

This will be very difficult to achieve - as has been shown with some organisations already in this discussion, even the NSO may not use a unique translation of their own name... In general, I have found English speakers to simply talk about the Scout Association of XXX, or the XXXish Scout Association - which also does away with the nuance of the fact that many NSOs recognised by WOSM and WAGGGS are actually federations of Scout associations and movements.
Publications at The Scout Association do offer an English translation when disussing non-English speaking NSOs, but the continue to refer to them using the official non-English name or abbreviation. This would indicate that the translation is in no way an official one, and is simply there to provide help to English speaking people reading the article.
Further to this - an English speaker may actually have heard of an NSO from a native speaker of that NSO, and will want to search for that name itself.
Conclusion I think we should implement the following:

  • Use Scouting by Country and extend it to Guiding by Country, and include all Scouting and Guiding organisations in the list. I have created a couple of examples:
  • NSO articles should be named using the official non-English - where translations can be found in publications from WOSM, the NSO in question, and possibly other NSOs, we should create an article with that translation and redirect to the NSO article.

That's my tuppeny-worth, anyway -- Horus Kol Talk 12:42, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

I see your point and largely agree, with one exception. If there really is only 1 national scouting organization, we should redirect Scouting in XXX to that particular article. --Cpt. Morgan (Reinoutr) 13:39, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
As I said, I think we'd be hard pressed to find a nation with only one organisation, but I agree that in this rather rare case, we should redirect... Horus Kol Talk 16:25, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
  • comment I am pleased to see that Captain Morgan, Jergen and BDuke have come to several reasonable, workable solutions and you've all put in a lot of hard work to come to a fix this is both elegant and now functional, as I have tested it several times from different angles. It doesn't matter what the Frenchipedia or the Germanopedia or the Swahilopedia does, what matters is what is correct and fair by the Scout organizations we serve and are trying to document. The very nature of our Project means we have to set standards and definitions unique to us, like capitalization of Scout and so on. Good job, fellows! Chris 18:59, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Just a few early Sunday morning comments:

  1. I thought "Guiding in XXX" for countries that had Guides, not Girl Scouts, had been agreed and done, but I can only find Guiding in Australia and I wrote that redirect.
  2. I thought there was a "Scouting in UK" but can not find it. Jergen, am I missing it?
  3. "Scouting in England", "Scouting in Wales", etc., as redirects, are all covered by the clause about liberal use of redirects - we use anything we think a reader might type in looking for, in this case, the Scout Association.
  4. A minor point, but it was I, not Evrik, who suggested that "Scouting in XXX" was usefull for non-english speaking countries.
  5. For the next few days, I plan to only add comments of fact, not opinion, or questions to clarify what people have proposed. I hope this will encourage further debate. --Bduke 22:48, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Bduke - sorry for misattributing the credit... Also, could you clear up the point about "liberal" redirects - should we be doing this or not? Horus Kol Talk 23:54, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

It is point 5 in "Discussion 2" above. The 5 points are listed several times. The main point of this is to have English redirects to articles with non-English names and I think that should be left until the names are settled. Redirects to "Scouting in XXX", such as Scouting in the US to Scouting in the United States are fine. In fact that ones needs other redirects such as "Scouting in the United States of America", "Scouting in USA", "Scouting in the USA", "Scouting in US", and maybe others. Does that give you the idea? --Bduke 00:52, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
Thanks - I did read through the whole of the discussion, but somehow didn't pick up on that... Horus Kol Talk 11:04, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Does anyone else have anyhting to add? --Bduke 06:02, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

It looks like we all agree, but we haven't heard from Evrik here a lot, while he was the one who had the most objections. Can you maybe contact him? --Cpt. Morgan (Reinoutr) 10:58, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion 4 - an attempt to bring it all together

At present we are at this position. I proposed, as a summary:

  1. For naming articles on Scout organisations/associations, we use an English name if the organisation itself verifiably uses an unique English name in its own documents, or otherwise use the official non-English name.
  2. We use the now completed "Scouting in XXX" proposal to give English names for readers to find articles about Scouting in all countries, whether English speaking or not, and without having to know the name of the Scout organisation in the country.
  3. We will be extremely liberal in the use of redirects both to the "Scouting in XXX" articles (e.g. "Scouting in USA") and to the individual articles of organisations (almost any plausible translation - redirects are cheap).

jergen and Cpt. Morgan (Reinoutr) agreed with these on 23 February 2007. English Subtitle and evrik disagreed. Evrik suggested that we approach the organisations about whether they use an English name. I agree with that, so let us rewrite point 1 to give (subject to possible rewording of the addition):

  1. For naming articles on Scout organisations/associations, we use an English name if the organisation itself verifiably uses an unique English name in its own documents (if we can not find such a name, we ask the organisation for a name and a source for its use), or otherwise use the official non-English name.

I am unconvinced by the arguments put forward by English Subtitle and evrik. They fail to address the real difficulties of obtaining an English name if the organisation itself does not use one. Also, Evrik's comments, after such enthusiastic arguments last year for English names, seems to not have his heart in it.

I am therefore strongly tempted to just put forward the three points and let the Project Coordinator decide whether to accept them. However, I am going to resist that temptation. The difficulty is that we have to convince the wider Wikipedian community, not just the Scouting project participants. Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English) does suggest that an English name should be used, but it does not address the difficulties we have encountered. That project does not seem to be active. I raised our issues at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (use English)#Naming of organisations but there has been no response. However, the wider community is still involved.

A case in point is noted below under "News" where the Honduras article has been renamed to Association of Scouts in Honduras by an editor who appears to be not involved in Scouting and not concerned about the general issue or renaming other articles. He is an English expatriate interested in Honduras, who appears to live there or at least in Central America. Such changes will continue. We have to convince the wider community if we want to get such changes reverted. The bottom line is that we should be having many fewer articles with non-English titles, to convince people

I am therefore asking you all to seriously consider adding two points to the three above:

  1. In difficult cases we consider using the Scouting in XXX article to include everything about Scouting in that country, with no sub-articles, as I suggested previously. Jergen raised two objections if I understand him correctly. First, that we are talking about an article on the WOSM organisation, and second that as the article grows we are only putting off the problem. On the first, I repeat what I said earlier that the reader is not interested in a specific organisation, but wants to know about Scouting in country XXX. I am suggested that the article on an organisation is rewritten to cover everything we know about Scouting in XXX. On the second, I would say as I did earlier that putting off the decision allows us to move forward. Also, given the spread of English as a the main second language around the world, it is more than likely that when it does arise in the future, the organisation will have an official translation of its name if it does not have one now. An example is Scouting in Algeria which currently redirects to Algerian Muslim Scouts which was called Scouts Musulmans Algériens. It would need only minor changes in wording to making it read sensibly, leaving open the possibility of adding something about Guides/Girl Scouts or non-WOSM/WAGGGS organisation.
  2. We consider whether in cases where there clear consensus for a translated name, we use that. OK, this is pragmatic, but surely not every non-English name can be translated in many different ways. Even if one can, does it really matter. For example, the Honduras article could be translated, I think, as "Association of Scouts in Honduras", "Association of Scouts of Honduras", "Scout Association of Honduras", "Scout Association in Honduras" or "Honduras Scout Association". Does it really matter if we can agree on one of them? Is there a real principle involved here? Is it showing disrespect to our Scouting brothers and sisters in Honduras? Can we really convince the wider WP community to go back to the Spanish title, from the current translation or any of these? Let me however be clear that I do think there are more complicated translations where this approach should not be followed.

Obviously these paragraphs are not drafts of what should finally be stated. They are explanations and arguments for two alternative approaches. If you support either of these additions, please try to draft the proposal in a more official way.

Please let me have your views below. This of course is open to all to express their views, but I particularly want to know the views of the three original participants. --Bduke 00:08, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

As your 3 points above are in contradiction with the second point below, I honestly have no idea what exactly you are suggesting we do from here. To be honest, I would like to see you come up with just one proposal for how we continue. I appreciate the effort, but presenting several different proposals like this is quite confusion to me, let alone to outsiders who you want to comment here. --Cpt. Morgan (Reinoutr) 00:27, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
  • FYI--evrik is on vacation right now and doesn't have computer access. He should be back at the end of the week.Rlevse 00:47, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

To Cpt. Morgan (Reinoutr), I am sorry if my thoughts are not clear to you. Of course there is a contradiction. I wanted discussion on my two new points, followed by drafting of proposals which clearly would have involved editing of the original three points. Anyway, since you asked, here is a possible combined draft, but please do not get worked up on the details at this stage. Discuss the principles. The details can be corrected later.

[edit] Proposed policy

  1. For naming articles on Scout organisations/associations, we use an English name if the organisation itself verifiably uses an unique English name in its own documents (if we can not find such a name, we ask the organisation for a name and a source for its use).
  2. If no official English name becomes available, we seek consensus on whether there is one clear translation to English of the organisation's name and use that. If there are several translations that differ only trivially, we seek consensus on whether one of them can be used. By trivial, we mean different prepositions (e.g. "in" or "of") or word order ("Scout Association" or "Association of Scouts")
  3. If no consensus is reached on point (2), we seek consensus whether the "Scouting in XXX" proposal (see below) can be used to write a complete article on all aspects of Scouting in a particular country to replace the article with a contentious title.
  4. Failing resolution of an Egglish name from points (1) - (3), we use the official non-English name.

Separate from these key proposals we note:

  1. We use the now completed "Scouting in XXX" proposal to give English names for readers to find articles about Scouting in all countries, whether English speaking or not, and without having to know the name of the Scout organisation in the country. These can be redirects, disambiguation pages or articles.
In some cases we should also create "Guiding in XXX" or "Scouting and Guiding in XXX" links in the same way as above. (Addition added:- 21:29, 15 March 2007 (UTC))
  1. We will be extremely liberal in the use of redirects both to the "Scouting in XXX" articles (e.g. "Scouting in USA") and to the individual articles of organisations (almost any plausible translation - redirects are cheap). --Bduke 01:20, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Comments on above draft or general comments about material in this section "Discussion 4".

I have added the two sub-headings to make it clear where the proposal starts and ends. Please comment either in particular or in general, below. Please read my proposal in the light of the longer discussion with examples that I gave further up. --Bduke 01:20, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Dear Bduke, thanks for combining them all together. When I first read your previous explanation, I was not sure whether the additional points were meant to replace others, or be used in addition to them. The only part I personally not agree with is seeking consensus when multiple translations are possible. We should keep in mind that these are names of organizations. Your name is "Brian Salter Duke". Do you consider for example ""Brian Duke Salter" or "Duke Salter Brian" trivial variations on your name? Probably not. But, for the sake of compromise, I will accept also that part of your proposal as we have to find a way to deal with these names in a fashion that everybody agree with. In addition, the Scouting in XXX should probably be extended to Guiding in XXX or even Scouting and Guiding in XXX were applicable. --Cpt. Morgan (Reinoutr) 08:50, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
I think you misunderstand me. Your example is changing a name. We are talking about translation. However, I need advice from someone who is a much better linguist than I am. My understanding is, to continue with the Honduras example above, that "Asociación de Scouts de Honduras" could equally well be translated as "Association of Scouts in Honduras", "Association of Scouts of Honduras", "Scout Association of Honduras", "Scout Association in Honduras" or "Honduras Scout Association". All five English names when translated back into Spanish would give "Asociación de Scouts de Honduras". Am I correct on this? If I am, this is an example of a translation that is trivial. Using any one of the five is not going to offend our brother and sister Scouts in Honduras, as the name we have selected translates back to their name uniquely. A non-trivial example would be something like this. "Scouts de France" can be translated to "Scouts of France" or "French Scouts". "Eclaireurs de France" can be translated to "Scouts of France" or "French Scouts". Therefore it is obvious that the two English names can not be translated back into the names of the French Associations (former Associations actually, but it simplifies the point). In the French case I would argue strongly for the French names to be used. Translation there is not trivial. --Bduke 21:29, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
On the "Guiding in XXX" or "Scouting and Guiding in XXX" links, I agree. I thought that was agreed after Horus raised it above. I have added an addition to the proposal above. We should not let this distract us from the main problem. --Bduke 21:29, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
I removed a large reply here, because it slightly missed the point. Again, I agree to your proposal, now lets see what the others have to say. --Cpt. Morgan (Reinoutr) 09:57, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
Thank you. I have been through the history of your edits and I think I understand your thought process. I was probably less than clear. The problem with the French example is that "Scouts" and "Eclaireurs" both translate to "Scout". We have nothing in English which reflects the big diiference of understanding in French between these two terms. I have understood this since meeting Scouts from these organisations in the 1950s and 1960s. A back translation is not possible. You are quite right to point out that the Spanish Honduras title can be translated into even more English terms, but I think they all translate back to the same Spanish name. My concept of trivial and non-trivial needs more work, but I think there is a real distinction here somewhere that we can use. Let us see what Jergen and Evrik think about this. --Bduke 11:23, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
  • I could live with this, if everyone works together in the Scout Spirit. --evrik (talk) 17:35, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] News

The article on the Association of Scouts in Honduras has been moved from a Spanish title to an English title. The author seems to live in Honduras or at least close to it and is interested in it. I have had a discussion with him and hope he can let us know whether the Association uses an official English name. Please leave it alone until the mediation is over, as I suggested earlier for other articles. --Bduke 06:02, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

The above highlights that we have to have wider consensus outside the Scouting Project. I have therefore asked for advice at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (use English)#Naming of organisations. Perhaps we should have done this earlier. I will wait for that advice before trying to close this mediation. In the meantime, I welcome further comment, from the three main participants and others. --Bduke 22:09, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

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