Talk:List of European regions with alternative names

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[edit] Something is wrong

90% of the entries are not "alternative names", but rather alternative spellings or slight differences in pronunciation. So following the current habit this list may contain vast majority European toponyms. Therefore I suggest to make one of the changes:

  1. Rename into Alternative spellings for European regions
  2. Leave here only places with truly alternative names, moving nonnotable spelling differences into wiktionary, where they truly belong. See, e.g., wikt:Poland or wikt:England.

mikka (t) 18:31, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

I completely disagree. These differences are not at all just a matter of spelling. This List of European regions with alternative names resembles in format and concept a number of other very successful pages (e.g. List of European cities with alternative names, List of European rivers with alternative names, List of country names in various languages, and others). I strongly recommend against any of mikka's suggestions. Pasquale 19:06, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Pasquale's comments. Olessi 19:19, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

You both miss my second point. The place of these entries (and all articles you mentioned) is in wiktionary, and each individual place article must have a link to the wiktionary, where the named in all languages will be present. It this way the information will be more visible and hence better maintainable. Currently it strikes as undermaintained. mikka (t) 19:31, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

I still completely disagree. The wiktionary has a completely different function than a list. There are lots of such lists in the Wikipedia and I completely fail to understand why mikka should pick on this one list. In particular, I find this List of European regions with alternative names very useful, as I am sure dozens of other Wikipedia users and contributors do as well. If mikka has no use for it, he can simply ignore it and leave it alone. Pasquale 17:21, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Guyenne

Guyenne has a separate entry in this list. At the same time it is merely a redirect to Aquitaine, where it is listed as a historical name. Something does not play here.

  • Either the line for "Guienne" in this list must redirect to the "Aquitaine" entry, for a full list of synonyms.
  • Or there is another Guyenne, then Guyenne must provide dismbiguation, rather than to be a redirect, and a separate line (or, rather, two lines: Guienne 1 and Guienne 2) in this list is fully justified.
  • Or Guyenne is not the same or not exactly the same as Aquitaine (I mean a significant difference, rather some variations in borders), then this must be commented as well.

Since, I have no idea about the region, I am leaving this to exterts for proper handling. mikka (t) 20:28, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Clarifications

Since I believe I am responsible for adding most of these regions' names, I would like to say that my policy has always been to have the current best-known name in English match the title of the corresponding Wikipedia article. I added all the Swedish regions in July 2004. At that time, the names did match the titles of the corresponding articles. All the articles on the Swedish regions used to have titles with English names identical to their Latin names (this may in fact be the official Swedish government policy). However, recently, some user decided that the articles' titles should all be changed to the Swedish names. But since it may be the case that the official Swedish policy is to encourage an English usage that matches the Latin names, no one has bothered to alter the listings in this List of European regions with alternative names. Of course, they all get redirected.

As for the Aquitaine/Guyenne problem, I originally added that region in August 2004, and put the Guyenne forms under the same heading as Aquitaine, precisely because, in the Wikipedia, Guyenne is redirected to Aquitaine. Then in October 2004, Slawojarek added a separate listing for Guyenne, but left the Guyenne doublets under Aquitaine as well. That's the way it stayed until today. Today, Aldux (and not I, as some who like to engage in futile sarcasm seem to think, without actually checking the history) removed the Guyenne-type forms from Aquitaine. When I noticed the removal, I immediately restored them, but then I realized the Guyenne-type forms were listed under a separate entry, and so I undid my restore. The name Guyenne is historically the same as Aquitaine, as both are derived from Latin Aquitania, however, it has had a somewhat different usage in history, meaning that at times in history the two terms applied to the same region, and at other times to adjacent but different regions. There are other such complex cases, e.g. Pomerania/Pomerellia, Saxony/Lower Saxony, and several more. (In any case, I fail to see why this problem should so preoccupy someone who's advocating for this article's deletion.) Pasquale 21:12, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

I am preoccupied with order and consistency. The problem with Aquitaine/Guyenne is precisely of the same character as with list vs. wiktionary case: you allow two places for the same thing, and information will inevitably begin to diverge and even contradict to each other, unless you sit day and night to syncronize random additions to one or another page. If Gyenne is the same as Aquitaine, then one of them must redirect to another one, rather than to have a piece here and a piece there. mikka (t) 23:56, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] On the usefulness and purpose of this article

I have posted an extensive Explanation about the usefulness and purpose of this article on Mikkalai's talk page, should anyone be interested. Pasquale 00:40, 15 November 2005 (UTC)