Talk:Bali Sea

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[edit] Name of article

I researched this issue (which came up at Talk:Battle of Makassar Strait) before I started this article. "Bali Sea" appears to be simply an anglicisation of the Dutch Balizee. "Laut Bali" appears to be a more common name in English language texts. Wikipedia policy is that we use common names, especially when it is also the local name. Grant | Talk 16:33, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough - there are regular issues with odd out of indonesian context nomenclature issues which get imposed upon on the Indonesian project - where possible we try to sustain a consistency across the project - at times we are stuck with some conundrums and strange campaigns - viz borneo/kalimantan - as long as there are a clear disambig and redirest structure in place - I accept the reasoning with partial support - but to establish as to what constitutes common names in the indonesian project area - aarrgghhh - the indonesian project noticeboard is the place for that issue SatuSuro 16:46, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
Google is our standard? See Category:Seas of Indonesia and we see an oddity there. There's no anglicisation of translating "Laut" in Indonesian to "Sea" in English. It just now becomes so inconsistent here. — Indon (reply) — 00:58, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
From my talk page, you said: "If you do a Google search, you will find that "Bali Sea" is almost unknown, with Laut Bali qualifying as the common name in English." I was a bit curious and to list what our "knowledge of expert" is saying, Google says:
  • "Bali Sea" (32,700 hits) is mentioned by USGS, the Australian's ACICIS, NY Times and numerous travel sites.
  • "Laut Bali" (528 hits) is coming from wrong translation of wiki fork sites, Indonesian nautical charts, Indonesian tourists and other websites.
Now, do you still think that "Laut Bali" is a common name for the sea? — Indon (reply) — 01:51, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
And to counter about the anglicisation reason, please see nl:Categorie:Zee in Indonesië. The map there is so beautiful to understand about the Dutch language. — Indon (reply) — 02:04, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
I've moved the article to Bali Sea. I think given Indon's evidence, and some of my own searches on Google Books, that Bali Sea is the more common term for English speakers. (Caniago 11:57, 8 October 2007 (UTC))
Thank you Caniago, though Grant65 insists he has lower hits on "laut bali". See User talk:Indon#Laut Bali ("Bali Sea"). — Indon (reply) — 12:24, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

As I said to you there, I also don't understand your point about anglicisation. I suggested that "Bali Sea" is an anglicisation of the Dutch name, not the Indonesian name.

I don't get significantly "lower hits on laut bali", as you suggest above. And clearly a very large proportion of the "Bali Sea" hits relate to things which have nothing to do with the body of water. As I have also said to you before, Google results can vary depending on location (i.e. some parts of the web are not "visible" from particular IPs at particular points in time.

Anyway, I will defer to the project on this matter, as SatuSuro has suggested. Grant | Talk 06:10, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Try the same search on http://books.google.com/ . Bali Sea is far more common there, without the noise from other contexts. (Caniago 06:53, 9 October 2007 (UTC))

I don't think it is clear from google that "Bali Sea" is a common name - look closely, the term is rarely used as a proper name in the google searches, for example "BALI SEA GRASS". However, the same can be said for "Laut Bali". However, simply because it is an Anglicised name, it is a better choice but only marginally. In fact, the whole concept of a "Bali Sea" seems a bit dubious to me. --Merbabu 08:45, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

(to Grant and Merbabu) Now, I don't also understand of your search result, but mine has more reliable sources for "bali sea" than "laut bali". Grant, if you said that Google has different search result from different location, so why do you use google search result as a standard to name an article? Let me spell down more reliable evidences if you still don't believe it:
  1. From NOAA nautical charts: [1] mentioning "bali sea".
  2. From "Glossary of Oceanography and the Related Geosciences with References" by Steven K. Baum from Texas A&M University: [2] (look under Ba-Bm section). (Actually it is very good source that I'll update this article later.)
  3. From the NGDC's tsunami event records: [3] you can see "bali sea" since 1815 (Oh wow! This is actually the 1815 Tambora's eruption.) has been listed as a tsunami source location.
Do you need more ? — Indon (reply) — 08:56, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
Not to mention all the English language books from the Google Book search I mentioned, such as: (1997) Merriam-Webster's Geographical Dictionary. Merriam-Webster. ISBN 0877795460.  (Caniago 09:13, 9 October 2007 (UTC))
INdon, no i don't need more but i want more - I'm greedy. he he - just kidding, I'm satisfied. :-) --Merbabu 09:18, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
Sincere apologies to our eminent military historian (and admin) friend Grant - what we see is the part remains of the Indonesian project sorting out loud thinking through their crib sheets, and probably forgetting their Project noticeboard where they should have posted more of this as it is in indeed part of the problem of the project - being very clear as to what consititutes an adequate source - in most case they are choosing onlne USA documentation which I would never touch with a prahu bow myself as they get Indonesian things wrong so often :( - I have not had the opportunity to check the written sources that I possess - the big problem with this remnants of the project - they forget how we used to do the centralised project discusiion in the old days :) SatuSuro 09:31, 9 October 2007 (UTC)


Furthermore - Centralised discussion

Could we please re-establish and confirm that issues central to an issue such as sources - and the issues arising from them is in a centralised place - the Bali Sea talk page is an example where any sense of credibility this project has has had a bit of a bump? - It would be appreciated if we realise that projects do have leigitmacy problems - and when outsider editors and admins come in and find discussions like that - they might wonder whether kalau semua orang disini gila or worse :) - cheers

  • It is very important that we are not seen as over reliant upon third rate american based sources - this is the indonesian project?

SatuSuro 09:42, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

As a sum up, let's take a bright side, guys. This article is now uplifted from stub to start and thanks to Grant for asking more reliable evidences. Case closed. :-) — Indon (reply) — 10:00, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
I have often argued for the use of common English language geographical names (e.g. Guernica and River Plate) over local names which are not common in English, sometimes without success, so I don't mind if I am proved wrong in this case. And I think we have all learnt a valuable lesson about Google :-) Grant | Talk 12:16, 9 October 2007 (UTC)