User talk:Yellowstone6

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Re: your renaming of Pearl River, Wikipedia must follow observed English language customs and conventions. We can't simply choose new ones, no matter why we think we have a better reason. I didn't revert your change because I don't know what is proper convention in this case, but I just wanted to point out that promoting "cultural exchange" is not an accepted reason on this site for page moves and renames. Postdlf 01:49, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

I also notice that there was not one single article that linked to "Zhu Jiang", which suggests that the other editors on related topics do not recognize that as the proper name. I think you should reconsider your move, and that regardless you should fix the double redirects you created. Postdlf 01:53, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Response

Firstly, many of the articles that link to the Pearl River have Zhu Jiang right after it; clearly the comment that no pages link to Zhu Jiang is a little short-sighted. In addition, the name "Pearl River" is the imperial name given to it by the British during the early 19th century, a period when Europeans cared little about respecting other people's names or traditions. This problem of western names for native places has also not been entirely solved. I also would like to point out that the article on Burma is called Myanmar, the native name for the country as opposed to the imperial name for it, even though many other articles link to Burma. Futhermore, the titles for the articles about many of the cities in India are the new Indian names, not the old imperial ones (see Goa and Bombay). Finally, the main reason the article was originally titled "Pearl River" is because it was probably written by white Americans who are, on the whole, ignorant of cultures other than their own and are certainly insensitive in the extreme due to their own relatively painless colonial experience.

Once again, not a topic I'm specifically familiar with, but regardless of whether "Pearl River" is a name that comes from a history of cultural imperialism and insensitivity, if it's the name that is customary among English speakers, it's the one that we have to follow here. Language is one of those things that the historical winners have their way with...and a secondary source such as this just follows the norm rather than trying to be a well-intentioned trailblazer. However, I'll leave it up to those who are more involved in Chinese geography articles to either discuss it with you further or accept the change.

But one thing you should do is fix the double redirects your move left. Thanks, Postdlf 03:36, 21 March 2006 (UTC)