Talk:Iao Valley

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was PAGE MOVED per discussion below. While it seems that the rendering with diacritics is more correct in the Hawaiian language, it is in keeping with our naming conventions to base our titles on the most common rendering in English language sources. There seems to be broad consensus for such naming; even our main article on Hawaiʻi lacks diacritics in the title. -GTBacchus^(talk) 01:23, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

I'd like to move this article to Iao Valley, where it resided until recently moved. The reason for this proposal is that "Iao Valley" arguably the rendering most commonly used by the general English speaking community--texts aimed at this broad community usually use Iao instead of ʻIao.

For instance:

• A New York Times travel article from 2006 used the Iao Valley instead of ‘Īao Valley [1]
• Encyclopedia Britannica uses Iao Valley instead of ‘Īao Valley [2]
• Press releases for Daniel Inouye, current US Senator from Hawaii, use Iao Valley [3], [4], [5]
• An expansive scientific report (availible at hi.water.usgs.gov/publications/pubs/wri/wri00-4223.pdf) for the USGS on the "Iao Aquifer" does not use the ʻ while Iao Valley is used in recent EPA accounting documents as well [6]

The chief argument against all this is that for the local community, a stylized rendering is sometimes used. Thus some variant of ʻIao Valley or 'Iao Valley does appear in local media and, most importantly, in the government state parks site. [7] (It might be noted that ‘Īao Valley, which is the current title of this article, appears almost nowhere). However, even locally, this usage is by no means monolithic, as other locally-based government documents (such as a definition of precinct boundaries [8], local civil defense plans [9], and acts of legislation [10] etc.) use the non-ornamented version. In addition, local media also uses "Iao Valley" [11], [12]

In sum, I would argue that Iao Valley is the most common usage for the general community, and that ʻIao Valley is a local, Hawaiian language variant (which of course should be noted in the body of the article). For the sake of readability and intelligibilty, which really add up to openness, I think this article should be moved. Erudy 12:21, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

• Support, with qualifications. I agree that the article should be titled "Iao Valley" (even though I was the one who put it in the current spelling), but mainly because I think titles should avoid accents or diacritical marks that create nonsense in a web browser's address bar and can't be entered in the search window. This is what I've done for other Hawaiian articles that I've worked on. However, your argument that this is a "local stylized rendering" is nonsense. Macrons and okinas are considered to be an integral part of the spelling of Hawaiian, just as é and á are in French. ʻĪao is the proper rendering of the name (see [13]), and that's how it should be throughout the text of the article. Many references leave out diacritical marks because they can't print them (or can't be bothered to look words up to get them right), which is somewhat acceptable. However, since Wikipedia can do it right, I think it should. FWIW, using ʻIao is worse, because with no diacritics it's clear that they're left out; when only okinas are included it makes it look like the words are properly rendered when they're not (ʻiao is a fish). Just because the state park people do things wrong doesn't mean Wikipedia should too. Also, please sign your comments. KarlM 15:42, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose Hawaiian okina and macrons are perfectly acceptable to include in English usage of Hawaiian words. Avoidance of diacritics because they "create nonsense in a web browser's address bar and can't be entered in the search window" is totally unreasonable (we have redirects operating for a any search not including diacritics) and promotes inaccuracy. Húsönd 16:59, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
• Support. Iao Valley is clearly the most common name used. Vegaswikian 18:57, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
• Support per ample evidence above. Okinas and macrons may be "appropriate" but are not English or common. There are many similar cases that should be addressed at a more macro level, maybe at the discussion here. — AjaxSmack 02:16, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
• Support. WP:NAME and WP:UE emphasize using the most commonly used English version of the name, which is demonstrated to be "Iao," while noting alternatives, like the current spelling, in the first paragraph of the article. Mac OS X 19:35, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.