Talk:John Scolvus

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[edit] Name

"John of Kolno" -wikipedia -wiki +Denmark -Scolnus -Scolvus (English pages only): 102 hits
"Johannes Scolvus" -wikipedia -wiki (English pages only): 286 hits
  • Jan z Kolna (English pages only): 352 hits
"Jan z Kolna" -wikipedia -"Rising Knights" (English pages only): 10 hits

We should use the more common name. Both Polish and English translation are popular and acceptable, latin is not popular and should be reserved for Latin Wikipedia.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  11:55, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Piotrus, Polish POV "is not popular and should be reserved for", well, not even Polish Wiki. It is obvious that "Jan z Kolna" and its translation "John of Kolno" stem from Lelewel's patriotism, and many of the Google hits from this article which was created by User:Halibutt about 3 years ago. I am surprised that you try to play the Google game once again even though it has backfired against Polish POV many times before, e.g. when names of hotels and streets were counted. As you see above, "Johannes Scolvus" is the favourite when criteria are altered. Its easy to show that the "Jan z Kolna" hits come from a group of "Rising Knights". Many "John of Kolno" hits are from pages that use Wikipedia content or simply neglect to mention Denmark and the sourced Scolnus/Scolvus names, so hardly a serious discussion of the matter. Among the remaining hits are totally unrelated hit-fishing sites like the esoteric Global Oneness or Arthritis Pain Relief, and some with Polish POV, like "Harmony Polish Folk Ensemble", Father Jankowski's Sermon At the junction of Piastowskie Waly and John of Kolno Street, "Dziennik Zwiazkowy - Online Edition" and, first instead of least, the bold claim "The Poles may be considered to have a hereditary right in America, since it is stated on credible authority that a Pole, John of Kolno...". Other sites with Polish POV, like PolishRoots®, Polish American and Poles.org treat the matter in a rather neutral way and introduce John Scolvus first before mentioning the Polish Jan z Kolno hypothesis. Well, there are even Scolvus Jachts sailing on the Oder.
What counts is not Google noise, but the use among scholars, e.g. in papers hosted on .edu domains or on jstor.org. Looking for kolno site:.jstor.org yields only 8 results, most of them not relating to the sailor, and the interesting "JSTOR: The Postwar Polish Historical Novel - F. Fenikowski's The Ring with the Swan (1952), for example, based on the life of Jan of Kolno, a Pole who supposedly discovered America before Columbus ...". Some papers are downloadable as PDF, eg. Early Portuguese voyages and one by Dr. Thomas L. Hughes.
"John of Kolno" is not acceptable as article name, this name has no support among scholars, and most don't even bother to mention the old (and present) attempts to paint the figure Polish with the use of this name. Piotrus, move the article back to John Scolvus. -- Matthead discuß!     O       09:42, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
No sources given for the Polish claims, so restoring to sourced NPOV and moving back to John Scolvus. -- Matthead discuß!     O       01:00, 19 September 2007 (UTC)