Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (geographic names)/Archive 1

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Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Moved the discussion from the project page:

This is yet another attempt to work out a simple policy for geographic names. It started as a Central/Eastern Europe regional proposal but should likely be applicable to the entire world. The basic assumptions for the policy are:

  1. it should be simple, easy to understand and to follow
  2. it does not have to be perfect, some controversies will not be avoided

(No voting yet. Let's try to work on several reasonable proposals first (the less the better ;-) )

Contents

Proposal B

The widely accepted English name or in absence thereof, the current local official name is to be used. When mentioned in a historical context, the current local official name can be additionally accompanied by the appropriate historical name in parentheses, where reasonable. This applies to articles' contents. Only the widely accepted English name or in absence thereof, the current local official name is to be used in titles. Historical names are to be listed in the first line of the article. A historical name can be used in title of an article about a place only in case of a redirect to the appropriate article titled with the official name.

Suggested modification by Irpen

  1. The widely accepted English name or in absence thereof, the current local official name is to be used for the article titles (comment: this is tautologous since already prescribed by policy but worth a mention, criteria of establishing the accpeted English usage to be discussed separately)
  2. When mentioned in a historical context, the accepted name in modern academic literature devoted to the topic is preferred (e.g. "Rumania" in WW2 articles, "Lwow" in biographies of Poles of PLC time, "Chernigov" in topics about Rurikids and Rus, etc). This is largely left to the authors who write the articles since they are more likely to research literature than causial readers who might still have strong political preferences. If the current local official name is different from such an accepted usage in a particular historical context, the modern name may be added in parentheses, where reasonable. This applies to articles' contents.
  3. Other names are to be listed in the first line of the article only if they have any modern English usage. Otherwise, while not listed in the first line, they still may be used within text as context prescribes. Example: there is no English modern usage of Kaniow (Kaniv, Ukraine), hence Kaniow not to be listed in the first line. It still may be used within text when saying how the coty was granted Magdeburg rights within PLC (details of the a similar issue here.)
1. OK. This is addressed in B2 below.
2. Two problems here: 1. what is "modern" ? what is "academic" ? 2. what if multiple names are used in literature ? We've seen this problem with Danzig/Gdańsk that you surely are aware of. Using the official name has the advantage of being well defined. On the other hand I can think of counterexamples, like the Battle of Stalingrad. Historical context is the tough part of this.
3. This is disputable, I think. Why would you not want to see "Kaniów" in the first line ? It seems informative and harmless. Do you find it offensive ? Using other names within the body of the article can be confusing to an unaware reader. --Lysy (talk)
2. How to establish what's modern academic usage is a separate issue that also needs discussed. However, I was recently in a bookstore where I looked at a WW2 history book just published and it had Rumania. Battle of Stalingrad is really not applicable since the city was renamed unlike Romania or Chernihiv. Still, in historical literature, the name changes are made much more conservatively thani the news articles and there are reasons for that. Or would you write that king Stanislaus I Leszczyński was born in "Lviv". Even if the latter is OK with you personally, there is no way it is going to be accepted by the Polish WP community fom what I can tell
I can buy that "Stanislaus I Leszczyński was born in Lviv and Emilia Plater in Vilnius". I see nothing wrong with that. History sections in the respective city articles will explain the issue for those unsatisfied. Space Cadet 22:38, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
As you expected, I don't see anything wrong with Leszczyński being born in Lviv as long as everyone follows these rules. Maybe I'm too optimistic, but I believe most of the Polish editors would accept it. --Lysy (talk) 23:10, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
3. I don't find it offensive. I linked to the expanation at talk:Kiev but I can quote from there:
For some cities, their Polish name is so important that it may be found in English texts even nowadays (Lviv/Lwow/Lvov/Lemberg). For such cities it needs to be placed in the very first line of the article, except perhaps when the article has a name etymology piece close to the top where similar names are listed and explained (current solution at Kamianets-Podilskyi). In such articles all names except native are given within etymology discussion.
For some cities, while much of the Polish history still applies to them, they are never, or almost never, called nowadays by their Polish names in English language texts. Examples are Kiev/Kyiv/Kijow, Chernihiv/Chernigov/Czernihow, Kaniv/Kanev/Kaniow, etc. Polish name should be used for such cities in the history sections (like Voivodship name) but not in the first line, because otherwise (like for Kiev) any name of any country that ever conquered it (Lithuanian, German, Crimean Tatarian, Swedish, whatever was the Khazar language, Cuman, etc.) deserves the place in the first line. Similarly, Варшава, Белосток, Краков, at times conquered and controlled by Russia, by this token would need to be mentioned in the first lines of the respective articles (and I know some of our Polish friends will not take it lightly). This would be clutter and/or bad blood. We have a separate list article called Names of European cities in different languages for this information.
I hope I answered some of your conserns. --Irpen 22:26, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
As I say below, this proposal is completely unworkable. It basically says that historical names are not to be used to refer to cities at the times when they were known by this historical name. Not only has this approach been repeatedly rejected for Central European cities in votes (c.f., for instance, the vote regarding usage of Gdansk, which demonstrated massive majorities in favor of using Danzig for the period from 1793 to 1945), but this approach explicitly states that cities whose names have been officially changed, like Istanbul or Kaliningrad, should always be referred to by their current names, except in parentheses. I'm sorry, but this is just totally unacceptable. john k 22:55, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
John, I am all confused. Which of the proposals is totally unacceptable. Mine? I thought it exactly takes care of the issue. The problem with Gdansk/Danzig was not the resultrs of the vote but the lack of common sense in their application. When people were adding Danzig to an article on modern polish soccer club it backtfired and caused quiet some bad blood. But this should not have been done at the first place? What's your take then? --
Also, it is nice to know that Space Cadet won't have a problem with king Stanislaus I Leszczyński being born in Lviv. I strongly doubt that it would still be OK with too many Polish editors. As well as Варшава and Краков in the first lines of respective articles. --Irpen 23:04, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
Irpen, your proposal is fine with me. I was referring to Lysy's proposal as being unacceptable. Sorry for the confusion. In terms of Gdansk/Danzig, I agree with you that there's no need to refer to the name Danzig in references to the city since 1945, and that it was stupid that people tried to do this. My only concern is with pre-1945, where I think "Danzig" is the most common name used to refer to it from at least the 14th century on. john k 23:20, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Proposal B version 2

Slightly rephrased:

The title: The widely accepted English name or in absence thereof, the current local official name is to be used. A historical or foreign language name can be used in the title of an article about a place only in case of a redirect to the appropriate article titled according to the above rule.

The contents: The widely accepted English name or in absence thereof, the current local official name is to be used. Historical names, including other languages where appropriate, are to be listed in the first line of the article's contents. When mentioned in a historical context, the current local official name can be additionally accompanied by the appropriate historical name in parentheses, where reasonable.

  • Support--AndriyK 21:08, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Support-- with an obvious exception to cities that had their names changed, like Königsberg etc. Space Cadet 21:12, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
Good point about the exception for the changed names. Maybe that's the key ? --Lysy (talk) 22:17, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Strongly Oppose. I much prefer Irpen's modifications, which adhere much more closely to current usage, and to the preferences demonstrated by wikipedians in numerous votes on individual articles. This proposal is particularly bad, as it indicates that we should say that the capital of the Byzantine Empire was Istanbul, that the Germans besieged St. Petersburg for 900 days during World War II, that the Viceroy of India was stationed at Kolkata prior to 1911, and so on and so forth. Votes on the Gdansk issue, and others, have shown clearly that most wikipedians believe that the "appropriate historical name" ought to be used in historical contexts. john k 21:51, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
Look at B3 below then. I'm sure you know that the Gdansk voting was not only controversial but had many serious flaws. --Lysy (talk) 22:12, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
Some parts may have been problematic. Nevertheless, an enormous majority said that it should be called "Danzig" from 1793 to 1945. john k 23:12, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
JK, please can you not bring the Gdansk issue here. I know we could discuss this for ages and I have my arguments that I do not want to bring up now. One of the reasons of having good rules is to avoid cases like Gdansk, that did more harm than good. If you want to hear why I consider the Gdansk vote faulty, you're welcome to my talk page. --Lysy (talk) 23:20, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
Lysy - I am not referring to the controversial parts of the vote on Gdansk. I am referring to the utterly uncontroversial fact that 61 people voted to use "Danzig" from 1793 to 1945, and 10 people voted to use "Gdansk". Until you opened this discussion, nobody has ever suggested that this part of the vote was faulty, or in need of revision, although various anons (and occasionally Space Cadet) have tried to unilaterally change various individual articles. As I said, any attempt to codify a policy (a general idea which I support), should take into account that this is an overwhelming consensus - any general rule which we should devise should be one which accommodates using "Danzig" for this period. As to not bringing up the Danzig issue, please. Issues relating to the naming of cities like Danzig are clearly what is at the center of this proposal, which in its original form was so clearly geared towards these names that it would have mandated talking about the Fourth Crusade's sack of Istanbul in 1204. john k 00:17, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Proposal B version 3

"The Battle of Stalingrad" case taken care of:

The title: The widely accepted English name or in absence thereof, the current local official name is to be used. A historical or foreign language name can be used in the title of an article about a place only in case of a redirect to the appropriate article titled according to the above rule.

The contents: The widely accepted English name or in absence thereof, the current local official name is to be used. Historical names, including other languages where appropriate, are to be listed in the first line of the article's contents. When mentioned in a historical context, the widely accepted English historical name can be used where there's no doubt about the usage. Otherwise, the current local official name can be additionally accompanied by the appropriate historical name in parentheses, where reasonable.

How about this now then ? --Lysy (talk) 22:12, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

No, because some users have no doubt, some others do. Stalingrad, Kaliningrad etc. should not be covered by this proposal. Space Cadet 22:15, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Well, as it says, if there is any doubt, use the current official name instead. --Lysy (talk) 22:26, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Proposal B version 4

The "name change" case taken care of:

The title: The widely accepted English name or in absence thereof, the current local official name is to be used. A historical or foreign language name can be used in the title of an article about a place only in case of a redirect to the appropriate article titled according to the above rule.

The contents: The widely accepted English name or in absence thereof, the current local official name is to be used. Historical names, including other languages where appropriate, are to be listed in the first line of the article's contents if they are in English usage. When mentioned in a historical context, the current local official name can be additionally accompanied by the appropriate historical (foreign language) name in parentheses, where reasonable. Only for the names that were changed (not merely translated), the historical name can be used in appropriate historical context instead.

Hopefully this addresses the concerns of Irpen, John K and Space Cadet ? --Lysy (talk) 22:37, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

This most certainly does not address my concerns. Look, a vast majority of people think Gdansk should be called Danzig between 1793 and 1945. This was demonstrated in a vote with a very high turn out, and many Polish contributors voted for this solution (perhaps disingenuously?). The results on pre-1793 were considerably more ambiguous, but any responsible proposal should take into account that there is strong consensus for having an article on the Free City of Danzig and not on the Free City of Gdansk, and for discussion of the city in the 19th century to refer to "Danzig," and so forth. Otherwise, this proposal is clearly just an end run around consensus. john k 23:17, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
As I said, I don't want to go into detail on if the vote was valid or not, as it's not our goal here. this said, the Free City of Danzig is an article about a historic state, not about a place, therefore our rules here do not apply for this particular article's title. But I see your point. --Lysy (talk) 00:03, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Proposal C

Per Irpen:

The title: The widely accepted English name or in absence thereof, the current local official name is to be used

The contents: When mentioned in a historical context, the accepted name in modern academic literature devoted to the topic is preferred. This is largely left to the authors who write the articles since they are more likely to research literature than casual readers who might still have strong political preferences. If the current local official name is different from such an accepted usage in a particular historical context, the modern name may be added in parentheses, where reasonable. Other names are to be listed in the first line of the article only if they have any modern English usage. Otherwise, while not listed in the first line, they still may be used within text as context prescribes.

I am much happier with this proposal. I would suggest however, that we do split issues in three rather than in two parts:

  1. article titles
  2. names in context
  3. names that qualify for the first line

It's just that these are three issues and three reasons for edit wars. Agreed? --Irpen 00:20, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

This proposal seems like the best one so far, and I think Irpen's proposed revisions make sense. john k 00:22, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Proposal C version 2

  1. The title: The widely accepted English name or in absence thereof, the current local official name is to be used
  2. The contents: The same as the title, unless mentioned in a historical context, when the widely accepted name in modern English language academic literature devoted to the topic is preferred. This is largely left to the authors who write the articles since they are more likely to research literature than casual readers who might still have strong political preferences. If the current local official name is different from such an accepted usage in a particular historical context, the modern name may be added in parentheses, where reasonable.
  3. The first line: Other names are to be listed in the first line of the article only if they have any modern English usage. Otherwise, while not listed in the first line, they still may be used within text as context prescribes.
I would add examples to each section:
Title:Moscow (different from local name because there is an common English name), but Dnipropetrovsk (local name) because Dnepropetrovsk is not a currently used city name in the media anymore, as can be easily checked
Context: Kijow Voivodship within History of Kiev despite Kijow is not used in modern English ever. Battle of Kharkov while the city article is still called Kharkiv.
First line: "Lviv, Lwów, Lemberg, Lvov" or "Chernivtsi, Cernăuţi, Czernowitz" (Czerniowce ?) but not Kaniów or Kijów, while these two names may still be used within texts.
--Irpen 00:44, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

And a separate issue (not necessarily a part of this proposal) would be that we would have to agree on how we establish the criteria of sufficient English usage. I propose the following:

  1. check other respected encyclopedia such as Britannica, Columbia Encyclopedia, Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia, Encyclopedia Americana, Microsoft Encarta. What names they mention early on?
  2. Check the current media usage. Search engines are LexisNexis, Google News, maybe others...
  3. An good old google test but only among English language web-pages.

Does the list seem objective and unbiased? --Irpen 01:38, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Textual. Just to make the policy more readable, it may be better to state it in an enumerated list and shorter sentences. "If, then, else" pattern is first what comes to mind, but, please, avoid nested if-thens. Since the policy is likely to be widely applied in the future, a simpler statement in terms of wording (but not in terms of content) is important.
Content. After the definition of the policy, need to give explanations for "the widely accepted English name" and "the current local official name". To a large extent, this was done for "the widely accepted English name", but I don't quite see what is exactly "the current local official name". For instance, in the case of Ukraine, the only official name is the name in Ukrainian (i.e., with Cyrillic letters). So, the policy should say explicitly how transliteration is handled.
Extra. The policy should say something about dispute resolution or refer to other policies in this regard. Sashazlv 03:36, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
But, in principle, I have no objections to this version. Sashazlv 03:50, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
I agree about transliteration. This can become especially problematic for some scripts, like Arabic, which, so far as I can tell, has no agreed upon transliteration at all. john k 06:24, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
So far we don't have Arabic in Europe :-) and cyrillic seems to be relatively easy to transliterate. But I agree this needs to be augmented by the supporting definitions as per Irpen and Sasha. We're just in the beginning. My idea is to work on the proposal that we can accept and then seek support and wider consensus. So, how about version C3 with the shorter sentences anyone ? (Sashazlv ?) --Lysy (talk) 09:04, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Transliteration of cyrillic is easier than of arabic but it is not deovid ov problems. There is no universal transliteration. There are such things as "official transliteration tables" that countries use to transliterate named for travel passports but even within this scope there are ambiguous precedents. Just a small example is the Russian letter "ё" whose usage isn't mandatory. So, the common Russian last name Фёдоров may end up being tranliterated as Fyoderov, Fioderov, Feodorov (this is rare because archaic) and Fedorov. A similar caviat in Ukrainian is introduced by the fact that Ukrainian letter "И" which is pronounced differently from Russian "И" but rather like Russian "Ы" is tranliterated usually into "Y". At the same time "Й" is transliterated as either "Y" or "I" or sometimes even "J". Ukrainian last name "Кловський" as such may be transliterated as "Klovsky", "Klovskyy", "Klovskyi", "Klovskyj" and all the same with "'" after "s" to reflect "ь" (the soft sign sometimes is and sometimes isn't ommitted in transliteration. Additionally, if the person is of the Russian heritage, he may also be called in Cyrillic as "Кловский" but he would than be either Klovskii, or Klovskiy, or Klovsky, etc.

I might have confused everyone here, but the good news is that disagreements over tranliterations are less fevent than those over the language of the original version. If we just decide about the language issue, we will do a lot of good just by that. --Irpen 23:46, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

I see. Can we agree, that transliteration is a separate issue and is out of the scope of our little project ? Better stay focused. Better stay focused for now, and as you show with your examples, transliteration is not an issue limited to geographic names only. --Lysy (talk) 09:22, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

Supporting definitions

The weakness of version C versus B is that it is more vague and much more relying on supporting definitons. The challenge then is to provide these definition and keep it simple at the same time. I think this is doable, but has to be approached carefully. I'd not be abandoning version B altogether for now, though (even being aware of its "Gdańsk" weakness). As for C2, here's what needs to be clarified:

  1. widely accepted English name - definition needed
  2. current local official name - definintion needed
  3. modern English language academic literature devoted to the topic - define "modern". "Academic" and "devoted" also seem a bit vague.
    Academic seems fairly clear to me - "written by people with PhD's in the requisite field, and/or published by an academic press or in an academic journal." "devoted to the topic" is relatively vague, but I see no problem with it being vague. I'd say that "modern" should also remain vague, but the last 25 years or so would seem about right. john k 00:03, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
  4. authors who write the articles - this I think cannot stay, as it seems to contradict the wiki spirit. Everyone is or can be the co-author.
    I think what is meant here is simply that discretion is being left to the editors on the individual page, rather than to a the central guidelines. john k 00:03, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
  5. modern English usage - again, what is "modern" ? (and why do we want to limit ourselves to modern usage only in the first place ?)
    Well, English usage before the 18th century or so is essentially not notable, simply because orthography was not standardized until the 18th century. Beyond this, we include names becausewe want to include names somebody might come across. A name used by Englishmen in the 16th century for Warsaw is highly unlikely to actually be encountered by a reader, so it just clutters up the page to include it in the first line. john k 00:03, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

--Lysy (talk) 09:27, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Of the three issues (title name, name in context and names in the first line) only the first and the last one are policy definable, I think. As for the context name, we can't have more than a guideline here. As for the Lysy's list above, I have put down some ideas earlier at this page. Maybe JohnK, who us a professional historian and a native speaker, can help in polishing the formulations. As for the proposal B, I think that we can't ever achieve the prefect guideline/policy on the issue. But proposal C is much better to what's being mostly implied now anyway. Please believe that I favor C not because it is closer to my proposal. I carefully considered these issues for a very long time

On the side note, not a policy and not even a guideline, but just as a suggestion to stress for established users could be found at Wikipedia:Eastern_European_Wikipedians'_notice_board#Games_with_names and discussed at its talk. Could we add a word or two along these lines? Thanks, --Irpen 16:42, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

To the side note: I think it's not practical :-( --Lysy (talk) 09:32, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

As for the agreed criteria of the usage, in addition to what's said by JohnK, another place to check are other modern Encyclopedia and reference books. It's not just Britannica, other ref books also exist. We may even agree on the list, but it seems excessive. Modern general usage is best checked by the media analysis. Google news is less useful since it includes sites without established editiorial policies. My favorite tool for this, is the LexisNexis major papers search which checks 50 mainstream English papers from many countries. --Irpen 00:14, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

What happens if the name is not present in modern English usage or is used very scarcely ? --Lysy (talk) 10:07, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

Why I don't like the word "academic" is that it does not really solve the problem, just shifts it elsewhere. It would be naive to hope that all academic literature uses the same naming convention. It greatly depends on the author, the journal, publisher etc.

Why I don't like the word modern "modern": firstly it opens field to discussion what is modern and what is not. Secondly, using old names could be also useful sometimes, if only for reference purposes.

Similarly, I don't see why should we be limiting ourselves to the sources "devoted" to the subject. And again it would only open space to speculations whether the source is devoted enough or not. It does not provide any added value. --Lysy (talk) 10:07, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

After checking a couple of examples, I have to admit that the meaning of "historical context" is also not clear :-( --Lysy (talk) 14:12, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

Names in the first line

The proposal above seems quite reasonable to me. However, I'd think a tad more on the first line names. The way it is now, we're planning to cut out all the alternative names, even those that are used later in the text in historical context. Stalingrad hasn't any modern English usage and is used in historical context mostly. Yet, I doubt there is a significant faction of people who know how Stalingrad is called nowadays.

I always tried to keep the matter of first line names in accordance with common sense rather than a strict set of rules. While in some cases the list gets a tad long (Chernivtsy, for instance), it's still much better than listing one name only. After all even if the name itself is not used in English any more, one might find it on a map or in a history book. Halibutt 20:31, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

OK, what is the purpose of the alternative/foreign/historic names in the first line in the first place ? I always thought there are two main purposes: Firstly, if someone gets redirected to an article with a different name, he could quickly see why. Secondly, having the origin of alternative names explained in the lead allows to avoid confusion when they are referenced later in the text. Any other significant reasons ? --Lysy (talk) 21:54, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

Those that are widely used, even if only in a particulal contexts, are worth a mention in the first line, I think. Chornobyl but Chernobyl accident, makes sure that Chernobyl needs mentioned in the first line. OTOH, there is too little of "Varshava", or "Warshawa" or "Kaniow" for that matter. I agree that "widely used" is not a very specific term. However, this isn't math and there is no hope to ever achieve a completely unambigous set of rules. Let's just see what we can realistically do. --Irpen 22:01, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

How about: the alternative name is given in the first name if this name is further used in the body of the article ? --Lysy (talk) 22:20, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

I don't think it will be accepted since it will be too many names. That would, for example, require "Варшава" in Warsaw article's first line. Let's just stick with a broader rule about modern English usage. BTW, I checked EB, and it seems to me that this is exactly what it is doing. There are Lwow, Lvov and Lemberg in Lviv's 1st line, but no Kijow or Varshava in respective 1st lines on the other hand. --Irpen 22:35, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

No, it would not allow or require "Варшава" in Warsaw article's first line, as "Варшава" is not used in the body. Neither does "Kijów". [Oops, not anymore, --Lysy (talk) 23:52, 5 November 2005 (UTC)] I agree it's not mathematics, but as I stated before, these rules will need to be both simple and easy to follow. Otherwise we'll end up with similar mess like after the Danzig vote. --Lysy (talk) 22:40, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
Kijow is in the body of the History of Kiev article and it was in Kiev article too until Sashazlv and myself spun off the history into a separate article. However, Kijow in the first line is a dead idea as the consensus have shown. And the very reason why it is a dead idea is that there is no modern English usage of Kijow. Exact same logic explains why there should not be Varshava in the first line. --Irpen 23:27, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
We have no other option but to be as strict as possible. Otherwise we'll end up with a set of rules as ambiguous as the Talk:Gdansk/Vote, where the shared history is defined in a zillion of ways, depending on what one wants to prove. Lysy's proposal above seems reasonable, though Irpen is also right that it's still a tad too general. After all Варшава could be included in the article as it was the official name used by the state authorities in late 19th century. Any other ideas on how to make Lysy's idea a tad more specific?
As to reasons for including the alternative names in the first line, I would add the former name (for instance the case of Lwów or Stalingrad, where hardly anyone called the city by its modern name before certain date). Halibutt 22:45, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
Yes, but would a "former name" not be mentioned somewhere in the body of the article ? Like in the history section ? I think that's the same. The other rule (#2 in our proposal) would define when the name is allowed in the body of the article. Rule #3 would then say, that it's allowe in the first line only if it is usedin the body in this form. This would also mean that if someone wants his favourite alternative name in the header, he has to write the history section first, which nicely coincides with Irpen's other proposal (that name change has to be accompanied by some other significant edit). Why is it too general ? I don't see... --Lysy (talk) 22:54, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

As for the "former names", while Stalingrad was a former name of Volgograd, Lwow and Lvov are not former names of Lviv, it is the same name in differet languages. There is no doubt that former names (Slalingrad) should always be included. The problem is, what foreign versions of same names to include and the natural answer is to include the those names that are used in English too. More, at talk:Kiev. --Irpen 23:27, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes, but what I propose is to incude these foreing versions that are used in the text. Otherwise we should not be using foreign names in the text as well, as it would only be confusing. --Lysy (talk) 23:52, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

I don't think there should be a connection and I don't see a confusion. We can leave the usage of the foreign names in the text up to the editors but having too many first line names is confusion and clutter. Sometimes we have to have many (like Lviv), but these are few exceptional cases. My view is that we should be least restrictive when dealing with context usage but we should be restrictive re first line because the latter is both clutter and the favorite thing of trouble makers, like... (no need to say names, everyone knows them). --00:08, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

We differ here. I think the rules for usage in text are critical and most difficult, and the title and first line will be easy once we have it defined. I've seen far too many revert wars on the city names in text. I would also be reluctant to rely on EB or other similar traditional sources. They are often conservative and/or outdated. Wikipedia need to be better than this :-) Otherwise why do we need it if we have EB ? --Lysy (talk) 00:17, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

I agree with the problems you outlined, let's just think over the best solutions. A recent rv war over the names in the text of Chernihiv raged because there was no clearly stated permissive policy regarding the context usage which allowed AndriyK and Andrew Alexander to claim that Chernihiv should be used for the Rurikids time (a total nonsense).

As for checking EB, there is nothing wrong with that as long as we agree that EB is not a sole source but just one of several, albeit an important one.

You made a very good point that the rule may encourage people like AndriyK or Witkacy to actually write something for the appropriate sections of the articles, if they want to see their favorite names used (the thing I haven't seen them doing yet). But still, a mere mention in the text should not be sufficient to qualify for the first line (clutter). Besides, we have a very complete Names of European cities in different languages to avoid confusion of any kind. --Irpen 00:32, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Hmm, maybe ... we don't need to mention the foreign names in the first line at all ? In the meantime I've repaired proposal B to take care of the Stalingrad/Volgograd case. --Lysy (talk) 00:37, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
As per Irpen's while Stalingrad was a former name of Volgograd, Lwow and Lvov are not former names of Lviv, it is the same name in differet languages - quite disputable. I thought your idea was to refer to English usage only. If so, then Lviv is the new name of the city, as I doubt there were any instances of its usage in English prior to, let's say, 1945 (if not 1991).
In short, I believe the alternative names should be listed in the first line not only in the case where the name was used by, say, British press, but also in the cases where the name was not prominent in the English language, but somehow is notable. A good example would be some obscure town in modern western Poland with a German name used by its inhabitants before WWII, yet with no mentions of it whatsoever in any English source. The German name would belong to the first line, regardless of the lack of sources to use it in English, IMO. Same goes for tiny towns in what is now western Ukraine. Halibutt 13:52, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
That's fine with me as long as we are able to explain what "somehow notable" could mean. Seems a bit dangerous. --Lysy (talk) 14:06, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
That sounds like a good common sense solution, Halibutt. I personally am most familiar with German names and often add them to articles about locations within the confines of the HRE, the Kingdom of Hungary, Livonia, and the Kingdom of Prussia (outside of the 1795-1807 period). To me, most places in those regions seem like they would have had either substantial German populations (thereby fulfilling "somehow is notable") or were important enough to have had their German names used in the British press because of their German administration, even though German was not necessarily the majority ethnicity. I see no need to list alternative names created during the Nazi regime in the first line; that should be mentioned in the history body, if at all. To me, those guidelines seem to be common sense, but I certainly share Lysy's concern. Olessi 05:49, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
BTW, just to refresh this discussion, how about changing the example of Lwów/Lvov/Lviv/whatever to some other town where the first line names are in place? For instance I believe that the Ukrainian name belongs to the article on Przemyśl, eventhough the town has never been a part of Ukraine, not even geographically. Halibutt 11:11, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

I think, we should just check whether Peremyshl has any modern usage in English language be it in media or in historic literature. If it does, it belongs there, silimarly to Lwow in Lviv. --Irpen 04:30, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

And for me the fact whether it has any modern English usage or not is completely irrelevant here. There is some Ukrainian minority there, the town is present in Ukrainian history and as such might be significant under its Ukrainian name, which is enough for me to use the name in the first line. Note that the Ukrainian name is there since times immemorial and nobody ever planned to remove it, unlike Polish or German names from other articles. Halibu[[User talk:Halibutt|tt]] 05:08, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

As I said, we need to avoid a too liberal rule for the first line which must be much more limited then possible usage in the context. I explained why above at Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions/Geographic_names#Suggested_modification_by_Irpen. Also, the Ukrainian name was added to the aticle not in the times immemorial but in June 2005, while the article exists since 2003. Not much like a times immemorial. My feeling is that Ukrainian name belongs there rightfully, but I would have never added it without checking for the current usage. Reasons above. In fact, I would have never added a name to an article without editing/adding something else to it. This is my self-imposed rule that I kept calling more volunteers to join (I still revert name changes/additions/removals if I see them inappropriate even when I have nothing else to edit at the moment). --Irpen 05:40, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Historical context

Here is the problem that I have with the "historical context" idea. Try to answer these questions:

  1. Archbishop of what city was Jan Długosz ? Lwów ?
  2. Where did Bohdan Khmelnytsky go to school ? Lviv ?
  3. Where was Kazimierz Bartel born ?
  4. And Stanisław Ulam ?
  5. And where was Stanisław Lem born ?
  6. In September 1939, whas it really the battle of Lwów ?
  7. But where did Stefan Banach die ?

See what I mean ? --Lysy (talk) 22:36, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

I think Khmelnytsky went to school in Lwow (Lviv) and most of the others were related to just "Lwow". While the rules for aticle's 1st line and the title need to be more sort of restrictive than permissive, the rules for the text usage should be more flexible and left up to editors to a larger degree. We might otherwise end up with totally anachronistic usages, like Grand Principality of Chernihiv or Chernihiv Voivodship. --Irpen 22:44, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

How about giving modern name in parentheses then in the text, like Lwów (Lviv) ? --Lysy (talk) 23:46, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
Only at the first instance, I think. john k 00:56, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
First instance, all right. Then we maybe don't need to have it in the first line as well, what troubled Irpen. --Lysy (talk) 01:25, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

But that's already included in proposal as it says so "where reasonable". --Irpen 01:12, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes, but I think it's better to be straightforward with the rules where it's possible. Otherwise we could have one general rule "be reasonable" but everyone would undestand it differently ... --Lysy (talk) 01:24, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

No objection, but maybe "once" is better than the first instance. In some case the very first instance may not be a good idea for purely stillistical reasons. Is "once" ok? --Irpen 01:30, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

"At least once" is fine with me. Can be repeated with no harm if the style or other reasons dictate it. --Lysy (talk) 02:06, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
Then we maybe don't need to have it in the first line as well, what troubled Irpen.
I find this a great idea. As you can see, my inclination, in general, is flexibility in the text and strictness with titles (obvious reason) and first line (possible endless expansion and clutter). English usage is a good way to curb some nationalists. OTOH, in the text, there is less need to be too strict IMO. --Irpen 01:33, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
The problem with English usage is that it also changes with history. Gdańsk/Danzig would be a good example here. Both are purely 20th century for English as it was Dantsic before. Similar usage transformation will probably now apply to Ukrainian names. We need to take care not to be backward where this is not necessary. --Lysy (talk) 02:06, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes, we should restrict the English usage to a reasonably modern one. That would leave Lwow and Lemberg for Lviv in but would leave Kijow and Kiew for Kiev/Kyiv out. And for these cities we will end up with the list of names in the first line that the consensus have decided anyway. Of course there will be lunatics on ocasion who will be playing games but with the rule, but it would be harder for them to wage edit wars. --Irpen 02:18, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Unlike you, I'm much more concerned with the text then the first line of the article. Now, that we are close to finished with the title and the first line, can we try to see what can be done in the text ? --Lysy (talk) 02:52, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Text of the Article

I think that as far as the text goes, we need to allow editors to use the names they find in the historical literature devoted to the time they are writing about. Otherwise, we will get AndriyK's making changes in the texts like "Grand Principality of Chernihiv" claiming it is correct. As I said earlier, I checked out recently a new book in a bookstore about the air warfare in WW2. The book is just published but it used "Rumania" for Romania despite the country name didn't change, only the English usage did. Still, the author used the name that already established itself in the WW2 literature, due to its being largely based on war memoirs and books written in the past. For exact same reason, Chernigov is used for Rurikid's time and we have to allow that as well as "Dantsic". --Irpen 07:01, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Can we somehow require that if a historical/foreign name is used, a modern English language academic source is provided (maybe on request ?) that uses this name in this context ? Example of the problem that I'd like to avoid is what happened after the infamous Gdansk voting, where some German editors started to almost automatically change each name of a town or village in pre-1945 period to German, even if they never ever existed in English language. --Lysy (talk) 09:56, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
Dear Irpen, could you please tell the truth next time. In fact, you can find both Chernihiv and Chernigov in creadible English language sources. As I said you, there is no reason to lie, if everibody can check.
Chernihiv was first mentioned in 907. It was one of the chief towns of Kievan Rus and the centre of a princedom. Its Spassky Cathedral dates from 1024. Chernihiv lost importance after the Tatar invasion…
Isn't it exactly about the Rurikid's time? Here are several more examples [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6].
If try to push the idea of using historical names, please explain what it is. It looks like your intention is to make the convention as complicated and as ambigous as possible, and then you are going to manipulate it as you want.--AndriyK 19:47, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

AndriyK, too bad that when you decided to join the discussion, your input is mainly a twist and a personal attack.

As for the links you posted, several are just WP mirrors that prove nothing. Link to Encartha is a dead link and I can't check it. PDF file from fco.gov.uk indeed uses Chernihiv for historic times, but it is hardly an academic publication and more like a CIA fact book (still notable but would be more important if it was a book by a historian). Your link to Britannica disproves your point more than it proves it. Yes, EB uses Chernihiv in Chernihiv article but, as I have shown at Talk:Chernihiv#Britannica.27s_use_in_historical_context, EB uses Chernigov in the articles of every historical person (and there are several articles like that).

The whole point about the text usage, is not about manipulating, but about writing articles. I wrote the Chernihiv article and you came in and the only thing you did was name manipulation. That's why a proposed an additional ethics rule at EE portal but too bad you don't support that because otherwise you would have to write things in order to see your favorite names, much harder than edit warring. You started to write an article about the principality and you started to use Chernihiv there. Too bad you abandoned that. The flexible rule might have allowed you to keep it but I guess writing articles is just too hard and not very interesting. --Irpen 01:36, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Proposal D

I have merged proposals B and C into D, which hopefully is a compromise that will be easier accepted by everyone. Any comments --Lysy (talk) 11:23, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Looks good to me, but I'd like to have some possible problems ironed out first:
1 The title: The 'current local official' name is not totally inclusive. What about a historic entity that never had an English name and no longer exists, thus having only a historical name and no 'current local official' name either?
2 The title 2: If the entity has no English names, but there are several competing foreign names, how to chose the one for the title?
3 The title 3: What about an entity that has 2 (or more) widely accepted English names? The infamous Gdansk Vote comes to mind. The compromise achieved in this case suggested to use the 'current local official' for the title. Thus this is why Stalingrad redirects to Volgograd, but I like that the first line of the article, even before the leads, mentions that Stalingrad redirects here. Further, I think that various names should be explained either in the lead or in the section below it, and that this section be linked with a footnote to the lead (or redirect note).
4 First line: order. If different names will be mentioned, the alphabetical order seems like a neutral idea, but - the order of languages or names?
5 Body: What to do if more then one historical name can be used in the given context (Gdansk Vote casus again)? Deciding that the English name should be used and the historical names should follow in parenthesis (otherwise we will have rev wars with people switching the historical names) is not enough if 'The Title 3' problem (more then one English-historical names) exists. In the Gdansk Vote it was decided to use the historical name most relevant to a given period, however, determining the relvancy has been done by vote. If similar disputes arise in other articles, how should we deal with them? Vote? Or perhaps we may develop a rule that would make the vote not needed (and, tiny hope, even superseed/clarified the Gdansk Vote?).
6 Body 2: I'd define 'the first occurence' as 'the first occurence in a given section'.

This proposal is about geographic names. Perhaps we can extend our compromise to institutions, people, events and such? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 16:07, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Good points. Addressing them one by one:
1 The title: A historical or foreign language name can be used in the title of an article about a place only in case of a redirect to the appropriate article titled according to the above rule. I thought this would mean that articles about history (and not about a place) can use historical names. This would cover your example then (as well as Freie Stadt Danzig). But probably you're right and this is not quite clear and needs some rewording.
2 The title 2: I'm not sure if I get it here. You mean several competing "official" names ? Can you think of an example ? One that comes to my mind Komárno and Komárom is solved by having two separate articles as these are indeed two separate administrative units as probably is the case with all border towns. Hm, what about border rivers that don't have English name ?
I was thinking of the countries with more then two official languages. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 19:22, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
Right, I missed this indeed. Maybe our Belarusian friends have a solution ? I've asked a couple of Belarusian editors to help us. --Lysy (talk) 08:40, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
Another, silly example that I can think of would be Sněžka/Śnieżka :-( --Lysy (talk) 23:27, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
3 The title 3: Yes, I like that, too.
4 First line: order. Alphabetical order of names can be a problem in a mixed alphabet environment. What comes first: "Ś" or "Š" ? I think alphabetical order of languages would be more practical (even if Ukrainian would be the last in most cases then).
Agreed, this is what I have been doing myself. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 19:22, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
5 Body: I don't know. For now I propose "when in doubt fallback to title". I would be happy to develop a more acceptable rule, though. Any ideas ?
This needs to be solved before we have the rule, John has a good point below. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 19:22, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
6 Body 2: That's fine with me.
As to extending to cover people etc. I'd rather try to find an acceptable compromise for geographic names first and then see if and how this can be extended. Otherwise we may neve come to the conclusion, which seems close already now. --Lysy (talk) 17:21, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Proposal D would be acceptable to me, but just barely. I particularly don't like "If in doubt, fall back on the current name." What does this mean? This seems like it could be used by anyone objecting to a particular historical name (*cough* German names for Central European cities *cough*) could use this formula as a way to try to force usage of the current name. I would say that the default should be the name most commonly used in major sources to describe the place during the time in question. Obviously, there is often variation in how this is done, and different sources have different standards. But that's something that can be hashed out on individual talk pages. I still prefer the flexibility of Proposal C to this one. john k 16:20, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

What's exactly better in C then in D? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 19:22, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
Well, that's what a compromise is about - nobody is fully satisfied ;-) As to your "fallback" objection, actually this was my intention: No German names for CE cities unless they happen to have well established usage in English (as Danzig does). A very recent example: Someone tried to change the name of birthplace of Erika Steinbach from Rumia to Rahmel only because Germans changed the name when they occupied Poland in 1939. Is Rahmel a well established English name for Rumia ? I don't think so. In my opinion this goes too far and I would like to see the rule to prevent such ideas. This is why I'm against the flexible approach that you and Irpen are advocating. I would like to see clear rules here. I'm open to other suggestions than "fallback to the title name". As for "the name most commonly used in major sources" what would it be for Rumia and why ? And what about smaller villages that may not even exist in English sources ? Like "Marcinkańce" for example ? --Lysy (talk) 17:43, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
Yes. IMHO The main problem with Gdansk Vote is that it is too ambiguous - too flexible - with definitions like 'clearly German/Polish person' (what is clearly? what is not clear and what to do then) and even more weasel wordy 'share a history' (is occupation during the Second World War 'sharing a history'? what about having a minority living there?). I would like very much to avoid such disputes in the future - I wouldn't object to adopting more flexible wording IF and ONLY IF it is defined properly with no room for national POV pushing. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 19:27, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
Rumia/Rahmel at Erika Steinbach is not that recent an example, if you'be been here long enough - Nico and the Polish user with many names (most recently Emax, but perhaps someone else by now) were fighting about that one years ago. I take your point about small villages, though. It can become quite difficult when there really isn't very much English language literature on the subject. On the other hand, in some circumstances, it seems like we should use the German name, regardless. Using Polish names for small places in Pomerania or Lower Silesia or East Prussia during the period when they were in Germany just seems wrong, for instance. It seems similarly wrong, to take a less intensely felt issue, to use French names for villages in Alsace before the 17th century, and so forth. On the other hand, I'm completely at a loss as to how to deal with, say, cities in Greater Hungary. Cities like Clup-Napoca, Timisoara, Kosice, and so forth, are so rarely discussed in English at all, and the linguistic situation in Hungary was so complicated, that it becomes hard to know what name should be used. As such, the "fall back to the current name" position makes some sense - at least it allows us a clear way out when the usage is so minimal as to make it nearly impossible to determine things otherwise.
Anyway, I think I would be fine with D if it indicated a bit more strongly that we should use historical names when there is a clear one to use. To respond to Piotrus, I disagree that the problem with the Gdansk vote was that it was "too flexible." I do think that the problem is that it was "too ambiguous," but I don't think those are the same thing at all. What we need to do is to be clear about what the policies are, and to use clear, accurate language to describe what we are doing. That does not mean that we have to adopt inflexible policies. Ideally, what we should end up with out of this is a clear, unambiguous policy which leaves room for flexibility in decision-making on individual articles when appropriate (which is much of the time). john k 22:22, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Proposal D version 2

I've included the easier suggestions of Piotrus in D version 2. It's still pretty hollow where there are more than one official names for whatever reason (e.g. Sněžka/Śnieżka) or more than one names in English usage. I would say use google then ? As to John's suggestion to use historical names I find it quite difficult. Let me try to explain why. Firstly this is really a sensitive issue. Secondly "historical name" is intrinsically ambiguous, as it greatly depends on tho wrote the history. The towns in Vilnius region before WW2 might be a good example. As you know The area was controlled by Poland then and from Polish perspective these were Polish towns, with most of the population being Polish (or Jewish) and with Polish names. From the Lithuanian perspective however this looked totally differently as they have seen the territory as being occupied by Poland, and Vilnius as their capital. This is why they still don't take it lightly if someone uses Polish names for Lithuanian towns. It is also why I have chosen Marcinkańce as an example. It is quite small, yet it was one of the major townships in the Dzukija region, then controlled by Poland. Today it is a Lithuanian town of Marcinkonys. I sincerely doubt if any English language literature cared about the historical name.

Now excuse me, but let me make a small comment regarding the Danzig vote here. No doubt there are many more Polish editors than Lithuanians on English wiki and the Lithuanian editors would be easily outnumbered in any vote. Do you think it would be a good solution to vote on it and then claim that the consesnus was reached ? I hope you don't. This would mean lack of basic historical and social sensitivity and complete lack of respect to Lithuanian history and their national feelings. Similarly, the Poles have been taught at schools that the territory of Poland has been occupied during 19th centuries. This has been confirmed by all the Polish national uprisings. And then reinforced again by German/Soviet occupation in WW2. What did the occupants do ? They've immediately changed the names into their language. Therefore we've had Litzmannstadt and then Stalinogród after WW2 (you know which town was named Stalinogród, don't you ?). Anyway, what I'm trying to explain is that the result of Danzig vote was no consensus at all. Simply there are more German editors than Polish editors. Had the proportions been reversed the result would be opposite. This is hardly a consensus, when one party is not happy with the outcome. In fact this was against the basic Wikipedia is not a democracy rule.

So, do you think that using "historical" names is the right thing to do ? Whose version of history would you chose ? Polish or Lithuanian ? So where was Erika Steinbach born ? --Lysy (talk) 00:11, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

In terms of the Gdansk/Danzig vote, I will once again note that the vote to use Danzig between 1793 and 1945 was 60 to 10, and that many Polish users voted to use Danzig in this period. I am not even especially aware that German wikipedia users played a numerically significant role in that vote - there were certainly a lot more Polish users voting than German users. The bias, if there is one, doesn't come from a greater number of Polish than German wikipedians. It comes from the fact that in English, the German name tended to be used for many Central European cities up through the Second World War (and later). john k 02:50, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
John, as one of the Polish editors who voted for Danzig between 1793 and 1945 but are disappointed with the result, I will explain this here: we are not dissapointed with the post-1793, but with the result for 1308 - 1793 (or as far as my personal axe to grind goes, 1466 to 1793, where the result was 46:47, adjusted to 36:46). Leaving aside the adjustment, with the spirit of which I do agree, I still think that the result int his part was unclear and confusing, as Gdańsk (Danzig...) was then a part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. I don't want to restart this argument here, let me just summarize it for those who don't know/care about the specifics of Gdańsk/Danzig history: from 1466 to 1793 it was a city in the country were German was not an official language, but the German language was used by a significant portion (majority even?) of the city's inhabitants. In such a borderline case, what are we supposed to do? There is no easy solution, and valid arguments can be made for both sides (otherwise the vote wouldn't be so close). The fact is that both names are just as good - none is better. I think that we should have a rule dealing with such cases, where there are two (or more) names. Voting, as Lysy pointed out, is ultimatly biased in nationalities issues: Germany is larger then Poland, not to mention richer (thus more people can afford Internet) - so I really would not be suprised if we ever did an academic study of Gdansk vote to find out that there were more German voters then Polish and that there was a correlation to nationality and votes (duh). And let's not even mention that any online votes is fairly easy to rig, and wiki was not designed for secure voting. I'd thus suggest creating the following rule: "When there are two or more valid English names that can be used for a given entity, or where there is no English name and there are two or more valid non-English names that can be used for this entity, both names should be used in all occurences, with the order determined by alphabetical order and other names given in parenthesis after the first name. Note that this may be applicable only to specific time periods, and the usage may vary depending on context. In those cases, the period and usage should be clarified on relevant article's discussion page. An English name is considered valid if it is used in at least 25% of relevant publications (Google English page search is sufficient, if the keywords are suffient to eliminate pages with other context, otherwise, a sample of 100 top hits will be sufficient). In case of non-English name, it is considered valid if it is used by majority of publications in the given non-English language." Uff, that was a bit long, but I hope we can streamline this. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 00:13, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
In terms of Danzig before 1793, I think it's fairly clear that the ruling classes of the city were entirely German. Seeing as the city had substantial autonomy within the PLC, it makes sense to use this name. Beyond this, as I tried to point out, "Danzig" is much more commonly used in historical works written in English that mention the city in this period. To get past that, I think you guys, in discussing the Germany larger than Poland issue, are missing the much bigger cause of bias, which is that English language usage is biased towards German names for Central European cities. We don't call it Danzig because there's more German people than Polish people. We call it that because Germans and the German language have always been more familiar to the English-speaking world than Poles and the Polish language, and because at the time when European historiography was becoming standardized (the 19th century) Germans, either in their Prussian or Austrian forms (or, in the Baltics, in their socially dominant landlord form), dominated most of central Europe. The bias towards German names in historical works is much more deeply grounded than you would have it. I suppose that this could be made into an argument for not using the German names - use of German names represents a survival of German oppression of central European peoples. But I don't think that's really tenable, at least not for cities like Danzig or Breslau or Stettin which were largely inhabited by Germans. In terms of alphabetical order, I think that's a terrible idea - I don't think we should simply invent some arbitrary rule like that. As I've said before, I think with smaller places it's much more difficult. But I think the basic resolution is cite sources. If various academic works in English use an alternate name for a historical place, and no examples in the other direction can be found, we use the alternate name. The default position should be to use the current official name (or whatever), but in individual cases people should be able to show why an alternate name should be used. For larger cities (your Danzig/Gdansks, Breslau/Wroclaws, Stettin/Szczecins, Pressburg/Pozsony/Bratislavas, Laibach/Ljubljanas, Fiume/Rijekas, Helsingfors/Helsinkis and so forth), it should be easy to show that the German or Italian or Swedish name was predominant before World War II (or whenever). For smaller cities, this'll be much harder (unless they were the locations of battles, like Austerlitz/Slavkov u Brna; or, I dunno, death camps, like Auschwitz/Oswiecim - BTW, the Oświęcim very elegantly slides between usage of Auschwitz and Oswiecim.) john k 00:47, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes. John, I've tried to explain this, but apparently failed :-( or ... are you not reading what I'm trying to say ? :-) For some reason in all that I've written you've only noticed Danzig. I'm certainly of Polish bias but still I would vote for "Danzig" for 1793-1945 as you did. That's not the point. What I was referring to was the damage that was caused by non-specific terms like "other locations that share history" and that in general in many there may be no such thing as uncontroversial "historical name". Of course in most cases this will would not be the problem but these are the difficult cases that we're trying to deal with, otherwise our effort it just a waste. I take your point that often German names tend to be used for many CE cities in English. "Danzig" made it very well into English language history and there is no problem about it. OTOH "Marcinkańce" or "locations that share history" did not and there is no obvious reason why we should assume that Polish or Lithuanian name should take precedent as a "historical name". I am assuming your good will and therefore, no offence intended, I would suggest that you read more carefully the paragraph that I've written above. I know my command of English may be poor, but could you make a bit more effort in trying to understand my general message and not be so focused on Danzig (on which we agree). Please :-) --Lysy (talk) 09:08, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Hi Lysy - perhaps we've been talking past each other a bit, then. I agree with you that there were some very vague formulations and much else that didn't work in the Gdansk poll. I think it's good that we try to work out a system that is sensible and rigorous. My only purpose in mentioning Gdansk has been the general principle that we should use "Danzig" for the period when it was part of Germany and when it was a German-speaking free city. I am concerned that the ultimate policy which results from what we are doing would sanction such a result. I think that proposal B and, to a lesser extent, proposal D, have been formulated in a way that does not necessarily indicate that we should ever call it "Danzig". Perhaps a discussion of Bombay/Mumbai would have been less inflammatory in this context, although some of the issues there are, I think, different. At any rate, I am certainly not defending the Gdansk/Danzig vote in its entirety, and I don't believe I have ever stated that I was. All I have been trying to do is to be sure that the proposals here do not violate the uncontroversial part of the Gdansk/Danzig vote. john k 00:53, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

John, Piotrus - after reading your above comments I tend to agree with both of you. Probably it means that I did not undestand what you were saying ;-). I agree that with larger cities on general it's easier. No problem with Breslau or Stettin. I also agree that sources are a good indicator, but only where avaialble in largrer numbers. For smaller loactions or the ones that were out of general interest of English-language historiography there may be not many sources or there may be none. A single or two sources only are not good enough for me to claim the established English usage of a name. I understand the bias towards German names in English in historical context. However I doubt if the historical names are used in today's parlance, even concerning the historical events. Would a British person say: "When Pozsony was the capital of Hungary ..." ? I doubt this. He would rather say "When Bratislava was the capital of Hungary". I say we should follow the true English usage. Respect the historical names but not abuse them. And do not invent artificial rules. Of course in an article about e.g. Hungary in 17th century I could use the Pozsony name. But not in a general article about Bratislava (neither in its history section). This would be applying the good rule in the wrong place. I think that using both names, like "Bratislava (called then Pozsony)" would be far more acceptable and in fact it would neatly fit all the cases. I like Piotrus' suggestion to use google in the few rare cases where there neither English nor single official local name. As for Danzig, I think point 3 of proposal D2 includes it, as long as we have "well established English usage" defined. From your explanation above, Danzig would clearly fit such definition. The first occurence would be Danzig (today's Gdańsk). --Lysy (talk) 09:27, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
Lysy - re:Bratislava, I think historical works would just say things like, "the Hungarian parliament was then meeting in Pressburg" (Pozsony as a name only comes into use at all in the 19th century, and even then I think Pressburg remained the dominant usage in English - 1911 Britannica calls it Pressburg, for instance. I think in conversation, one might say something like "When Bratislava, then Pressburg, was capital of Hungary." And using Bratislava for the older period seems definitely wrong - Bratislava is essentially a name change - so far as I can tell, the name "Bratislava" appears only in 1919. But I think it would be fine in some contexts to use the "Bratislava (then Pressburg)" format. In other contexts, I think it would be better to use "in Pressburg (now Bratislava)". It would depend on the context. I'd generally prefer "in Pressburg (now Bratislava)" or "in Pressburg (Bratislava)" in historical articles. I will say, though, that "Pressburg" is very much the dominant English usage to refer to the city pre-1919. For instance, the treaty ending the War of the Third Coalition in 1805 is the Treaty of Pressburg always, never the "Treaty of Bratislava" or the "Treaty of Pozsony." Of course, Pressburg is the German name of a city which was never part of Germany, and always part of Hungary before 1918. But I don't know that this matters. We call Köln "Cologne," which is the French name, even though the city was only part of France for about 20 years. In instances like this, it seems as though the German name is, more or less, also a "common English name" for the city, in the same sense that Cologne, the French name, is the "common English name" for Köln, or Bruges, the French name, is the "common English name" for Brugge. In 1919, the name was changed to Bratislava, and that name was adopted in English (where the Hungarian Pozsony never had been). The old English name "Pressburg," though, nevertheless remains used in historical contexts - although a few modern historians use Pozsony, especially for post-1867. I would compare use of "Pozsony" for Bratislava in the 19th century to use of "Gdansk" for that city before 1793 - not the most common usage, but out there. Anyway, I seem to have gotten lost somewhere. I agree that one or two sources is generally not enough, although there may be exceptions for particularly authoritative sources. Anyway, we seem to be making progress. john k 18:16, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Let me try to summarise this so far. I think we have all agreed, that the primary key would be English usage (defined by referenced sources) for a given historical period. For historical names that changed it would be nice to have the modern name also quoted like "Pressburg (now Bratislava)" at first occurences. Where it's getting more difficult is when there's no well established English name for the period. Imagine there was no "Pressburg" name and English sources never mentioned the city before 1919. Then when we would not want to refer to the city in 19th century, we'd say "Bratislava (then Pozsony)". Whould this be acceptable ? I'm not sure if I'm being clear with this example. Let me know if I'm not and I'll try to think of something else (Danzig and Pressburg or Cologne are a bit misleading, as they are known to English). --Lysy (talk) 21:57, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

widely accepted English name ?

What is your definition of widely accepted English name? Sashazlv 01:07, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Proposals C and D are getting close and I am happy about it. In fact, there are almost never disputes about the article titles. The first line and context usage are the only ones that are tricky. In addition to what's said, we could add that if the article has a paragraph devoted to etymology of the name and the paragraph is close enough to the top of the text, foreign names can be written there, rather than the first line. It would just be styllictically nicer. This is currently implemented at Kamianets-Podilskyi. There is little doubt about true former name (Stalingrad, Voroshilovgrad, Yuzovka, Stalislawow, etc.) since they will be in the first line for sure. --Irpen 01:45, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Good. I've included this into D2 now. --Lysy (talk) 08:34, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Another question: do we want this as a WP genral policy (would be more difficult to push through) or just as a guideline agreed to be applied for the Eastern and Central European topics. In the latter case, it would be much easier to come up with the final version. Also, many of the interested parties, EE editors, have already seen it or are now participating in writing it up. We can be sure that our final text will be less butchered by people with no clue if we limit this to a family. I understand the problems with enforecement in latter case, but with an overwhelming community support, even the hardest nutcases would be easily corrected. Please think about it before rejecting this outright. --Irpen 01:51, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

My intention would be to "start small, grow later, maybe". So I would also prefer to limit it to CE/EE for now. For two reasons at least: it's easier to reach a consensus in a smaller group and I personally believe I have better understanding of this part of the world than e.g. Far East Asia. OTOH, I believe that these issues are much more difficult in EE than in the rest of Europe because of the history, boders shifting relatively often, various language issues and the fact that generally people in EE tend to be more nationalisticaly inclined (or patriotic if you prefer) than in the West. So maybe if we have a good version to cover CE/EE issues it could be then realitively easily extended to the rest of Europe ? So far I'd prefer to stay focused and not hurry too much. --Lysy (talk) 08:34, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

For it to be a policy, it must give a clear definition of key terms (widely used English name and local official name) and specify how transliteration is dealt with for Cyrillic. Otherwise, the policy may create even more trouble. Sashazlv 02:27, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
Certainly. Take a look at the #Supporting definitions section above. I'm open to your suggestions. --Lysy (talk) 08:45, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

I agree, let's keep it in the family for now. We would then have a weaker position to use it to crack down on the persistent nationalist name changers, but with a wide local community support, the accepted guideline should be sufficient for most cases. OTOH, if presented to the entire WP as a global policy change, we may end up with a total impossibility to agree on the final version. Yet, OTOH, if we present it later as somethin that was tried and worked in EE, we would be in a better position to convince everyone that this is good a policy. --Irpen 08:43, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

I would like to see this proposal becoming a policy and even fixing the Gdansk Vote issues - but let's start small, and find a solution acceptable for CE/EE editors. Then, when we have something that is working, we can suggest expanding it. And Sashazlv makes a good point: what is a widely used English name? It is a weasel word, that what it is. We need a clear operational definition. I gave my try above in my responce to john: a name used by 25% of Googlable English sources (i.e. if the most widely commonly used name in English sources is ABC and it Google has x hits for English language pages search for it, then any name used by English sources x/4 times or more is also valid and 'widely used'). I hope this is not confusing - and this is just my suggestion, feel free to pick it apart and suggest something better. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 00:23, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Google is not the best way to establish the correct English usage. Even if you seach over English language pages, type -wikipedia etc. A greate part of the sites you find are the sites of variuos Eastern/Central European organizations, firmas, universities, i.e. they are most likely created not by native English speakers.
I would propose to adopt a list of creadible English-language sources whose editorial boards consist predominantly of native English speakers, for instance Britannica, Encarta, The Columbia Encyclopedia, etc. Then use very simple algorithm: if all these sources use the same name for the entity then this is well established English name. If different sources use different names or the entity is not mentioned in the sources at all, then there is no well established English spelling.--AndriyK 08:14, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
From the practical point of view, this might be difficult, as you'd need to have a fixed set of reference sources defined, including their specific editions etc. I would not also discard google that easily. Face it - contemporary English usage is primarily shaped by non-native speakers. English is today's lingua franca, is evolving very quickly and one of the major factors is the Internet. I would even dare say, that Internet may be a better source of contemporary language usage than encyclopedic sources. Even if not now, it will be tomorrow. It also may be worth noting that the majority of English speakers are not native speakers (depending on the definition). --Lysy (talk) 08:44, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
You make good point about -wikipedia. There is a plugin for firefox, discussed at Wikipedia:Tools, that also removes all wiki forks and mirrors during the search. Your proposal to switch Google to encyclopedias is interesting, but should be discussed more. There is also a potential compromise in using Google Scholar and Google Print instead, or perhaps some kind of weighed score from all 4 (or more?) suggestions? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 16:53, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Proposal D version 3

I added "if they or their derivatives are or have been in English usage". (See also my proposal concerning "well established English spelling" a few lines above).--AndriyK 08:23, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Well, what are "their derivatives" then ? Would this be clear ? --Lysy (talk) 08:36, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
The derivative is a coomon linguistic term. Let's find a more clear formulation. I cannot propose a better formulation at the moment. I'll think.--AndriyK 09:07, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
I have to admit that the intention of this change is not quite clear to me. Maybe you could give an example or two that would better explain why it would be good to have "or their derivatives" there ? --Lysy (talk) 09:30, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
If "Kijów Voivodship" is used in English language literature, then "Kijów" should be present in the list of alternative spellings in the first line(s) of the article.
I know, Irpen 'll protest. But I do not see why one more alternative names of the city is so desturbing for some people. It takes 10 to 20 symbols or so. Why not to add it?
Several month ago, (before the feverish activity of Irpen and alike, I suppose) Polish an Yiddish names were in the first lines on the articles about Ukrainian cities an towns. And I liked it. It reflected the history of these places. ::Still, if most of users are against it, I would not insist.--AndriyK 09:44, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
Irpen does not seem to like having foreign names in the first like. His counter-example is that we would need to have Варшава for Warsaw when it was occupied by Russians or Moskwa for Moscow when it was occupied by Poles. I'm not sure if these are good examples, as the are pure transliterations of the local names. I would say that if a name has been used in English language literature, then it can make it to the first line, just for clarity). I doubt if "Варшава" or "Moskwa" were ever used in English. --Lysy (talk) 10:16, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

There is one more point, concerning the official name in the original language. For instance Moscow Oblast (Russian: Моско́вская о́бласть). What would our convention say about it? What about names in other languages? (I do not mean other English spellings derived from other languages. This point is more or less clear.)--AndriyK 09:44, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

AndriyK, you lost me. Sorry. Give me an example of the name and its derivative so that I can understand it better please. --Lysy (talk) 22:07, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
I gave it above. If "Kijów Voivodship" is used in English language literature, then "Kijów" should be present in the list of alternative spellings in the first line(s) of the article. --AndriyK 08:38, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

There is no need to hypothesise what Irpen likes and what Irpen doesn't like. I explained very clearly that what I like is consistency and good style. And the first line rule should be such as to accommodate these two requirements and prevent certain editors roaming from article to article adding/removing names or changing their order.

I was prompted to seriously think about this by the edit war started by several editors at Kamianets-Podilskyi. Witkacy and Voevoda were adding/removing names and even switching their order (which goes first, which goes second) and I ended up writing an etymology paragraph where I moved all names to calm this down.

I never insisted on Russian name for Warsaw or a Ukrainian name for Bieszczady to be in the first line as well as in the article at all, for that matter. Two edit wars over Kijow in Kiev in the last year were about adding the name that was not there (and not removed by me) rather than removing the name which was there. You can check the edit histories and talks to see that there was an overwhelming majority that Kijow belongs to the history section and not to the first line. When Piotrus expanded the history section, the first war ended. The second minor attempt to return the name by Space Cadet was similarly against an overwhelming majority.

We should give editors a chance to use the historic names within the text and if this is the only way to get some editors into writing something, we will help articles by a permissive rule. OTOH, the first line is a more sensitive issue as many editors think along the lines "if Russian, than Polish too", "Oh and then Romanian too", and then start switching the order. The presence or lack of modern English usage of the name is a reasonable and natural restriction to keep revert warriors at bay. --Irpen 19:48, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes, but then the purpose of having the alternative names in the first line is defeated. How about "modern or historical English usage" instead ? Then for our Bratislava example, we would have only "Pressburg". The other option would be to have all the official names listed, as long as they were differetn names, not mere translations. Then we would have both Pressburg and Pozsony (and Prešporok ?). --Lysy (talk) 22:07, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
I would rather say modern English usage in current or historical context. What I mean by modern usage in historical context is that the literature that uses an archaic or foreign name in connection to a certain period of history has to be modern.
That is calling the city Kiovia by the English traveller Joseph Marshall in his book published in London in 1772 does not qualify Kiovia to the first line of Kiev. The 2004 Britannica's using Chernigov in "Vladimir II Monomakh", "John II Casimir Vasa", "Sergey Ivanovich Muravyov-Apostol", "Pavel Borisovich Akselrod", "History of Russia", "Igor Svyatoslavich", etc, does qualify Chernigov for the first line of Chernihiv article. I am not yet talking about inside the article usage where the flexibility is a different issue. I am only talking about the first line now. --Irpen 23:20, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
Why not historical English usage as long as it was widespread ? --Lysy (talk) 23:58, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Irpen (a few days late, I guess). The important thing is modern English usage, whether it is in a current or historical context. For Bratislava, I think one can almost certainly find modern English usages of Bratislava, Pressburg, and Pozsony. john k 05:56, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes, but *why* do you consider historical usage not relevant ? Books that were written some time ago did not disappear even if they do not use modern English. --Lysy (talk) 08:48, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
This is true. 19th century usage, in particular, might be considered. I will suggest, though, that cities which were called by a particular name in the 19th century tend to still frequently be called by that name in certain contemproary usages. On the other hand, before the mid-18th century or so, the English language did not have standardized spelling. As such, it would quickly become ridiculous to try to include every spelling variant which was used by 17th century Englishmen for a place in central Europe. I would be happy to consider 19th century usage, though, since that is much more standardized. This would require, for instance, that we include the German name for Buda, Ofen, even though it is almost never used in English any longer, because it was used in the 19th century as the standard name (for instance, the English translation of Ranke's history of Germany in the Age of the Reformation refers to Hungary's capital as Ofen). john k 20:57, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
I notice that Ofen is given in the Buda article. Other examples of such would be the French names Mayence for [Mainz]] and Ratisbon for Regensburg. Neither is used very commonly in recent sources, but both were used into the twentieth century in English language sources. I believe both are listed at the beginning of the current articles. So I think I agree with you that names which have seen significant use in English since the standardization of English orthography ought to be given. Older names, though, would rapidly become problematic. john k 21:03, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
This is what I had in mind, exactly. I agree that earlier usage would make not much sense as long as it's incidental only, but historical standardised usage should not be neglected. Therefore I'd oppose to limiting it to modern usage only. I believe we agree on this now. --Lysy (talk) 21:14, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
It would seem so. john k 21:26, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

General comments

Wow, I'm impressed with how well you folks are tackling a hairy topic. I would have thought a guideline on something so potentially fraught with difficulties would be impossible, but you seem to be working out all the kinks. Since this is so generally applicable, will you expand the scope of the RfC once there's a draft of the guideline?

Comments:

  1. Perhaps "first line" should be changed to "lead paragraph". In some cases where a place has a very long list of English and other-language names, Cyrillic, and transliteration, I have moved the entire list in parentheses to the bottom of the lead paragraph. This avoids breaking up a short lead sentence with a very long list, is still easy to find, and it still seems to be obvious what it is. It does reduce the prominence of alternate names a bit, so it may not always be acceptable. In some cases the nomenclature goes into a separate paragraph; see my clean-up of Crimea.
  2. Although it should be self-evident about all style guidelines, since this is so detailed I would still add a note that says these are just suggestions, and exceptions are acceptable. Sooner or later we'll find that 'unique' situation where the guideline's not quite right, and I'd hate to have someone slavishly quoting it at me.
  3. Transliteration, etc. Not core to the discussion here, but some points to keep in mind, and perhaps issues to be resolved elsewhere:
    1. The difference between English/anglicized names and transliterations: Kiev Oblast, Kyivs’ka oblast’.
    2. The difference between common transcriptions and precise transliteration: Zaporizhia, Zaporizhzhia; Khmelnytsky, Khmel’nyts’kyi
    3. I've found it useful to use a conventional loose transcription in article titles and bold name, but a more precise letter-for-letter transliteration next to a Cyrillic name. Sometimes they may seem redundant or differ only by an apostrophe, but this makes clear the difference between the two, and makes clear what the native names are (because most English-language readers can't read Cyrillics).
    4. It would be nice to choose a common system for transliterating all Cyrillic languages, for the academic transliterations. It should be a disciplined system that indicates both Cyrillic spelling and speech.
    5. And if we did that, then in many cases Cyrillic would be redundant, and could be left out.

—Michael Z. 2005-11-8 17:16 Z

As for me, I totally agree with the "lead paragraph" or "lead section", and that these are just guidelines. Good to follow, but there may be exceptions, where justified. As for the transliteration, no doubt it's an issue, but personally, I would prefer to keep it out of scope here for now, as it may be quite difficult to stay focused. --Lysy (talk) 21:39, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Just a word of warning: note about an exception may become a double edged sword, used to start revert wars or arguments. Rather, I'd say that this rule may be modified with exceptions, but after a discussion and consensus on this talk page. Then if sb thinks he has found an exception, he lists it here with the relevant rule change, we agree (or not), and the rule is appended (or not), becoming an even better rule :) --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 17:00, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

I think it is time for a new proposal. Is sb going to draft it?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 16:20, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Guys, I'm sorry, I'm busy this and the next week, almost on a wikibreak. I would appreciate if someone would take it over now. Otherwise I'll be able to get back to it only later ... --Lysy (talk) 19:11, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

It's nice to see this going on. I have yet to actually thoroughly read and understand the proposals. I will do so shortly. mno 01:23, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Proposal E

I have posted my revised proposal as the Proposal E, I tried to incorporate comments from the last round (do let me know if I missed something) and clarify some parts, especially on how to resolve disputes (move them to talk, stop the revert wars). If Michael can work out the rules for transliteration, that would be a useful addition, but there are at lest two other issues that I think we need to iron out before this is ready. Both of them has been mentioned but no conclusion has been reached - and we need to reach it if this is to be any more useful then Gdansk Vote.

  1. define 'widely accepted English' (used in name section and text section). See #widely_accepted_English_name_.3F section. Basically the question is: if there is more then one 'widely accepted English' name (think Gdansk and Danzig), how should we decide which one is to be used?
  2. define 'historical context' (historical section). Note that if we can manage to reach a consensus on THAT we may want to apply it to the equally unclear 'sharing history' phrase that is causing so much problem for the Gdansk vote. See #Historical_context section. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 23:45, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

E-2

Proposal E-2 by AndriyK offers a pretty good answer to my concerns rised above, through the wording should be standarised with the regard to paragraph 3 and 'widely accepted historical English name' (this term is not used there, instead the text refers to 'in historical context a historical name (...with) widely accepted English usage. To avoid confusion we should take care to make the proposal English-friendly and as simple as possible (if you can think of any redundant words in the proposal, please remove them). And if we decide to go with a solution requiring some search and counting, perhaps some kind of a Wikipedia:Tools can be designed to ease the search. Some major points that I see now:

  • How to chose a name (in para 1) if there is no 'single widely accepted English name'? And by default this should also address the question if there is 'no single accepted English or foreign name'
  • If therre is no 'single widely accepted historical English name' to specific historical context, what should be done in these historical contexts? Either apply the solution we invent to answer my previous qustion or decide to use the article's name (be it modern English or other in lack of the modern English, as stipulated by our current rules).--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 16:37, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

A few comments to my proposal. In my opinion, the guidelines will be useless unless we establish a firm definition of "widelly accepted English usage". What I propose is not perfect, but this is a point to start with.

Frankly speaking, I do not like counting google hits as the way to clarify what is the most accepted English usage. As I explained above, even if you seach over English language pages, a greate part of the sites you find are the sites of variuos local organizations, firmas, universities, i.e. they are most likely created not by native English speakers. Therefore I would prefer to adopt a list of creadible English-language sources whose editorial boards consist predominantly of native English speakers, for instance Britannica, Encarta, The Columbia Encyclopedia, etc. and use these sources to clarify what the most accepted English usage is. But other people prefe google. Therefore I combined both ideas in my proposal.

There is one more subtle point not yet mentioned in the project. Suppose that a historical name of some small town is not used in English language sources. I think, it would be incorrect to use the current name, if the city was officially renamed in the past. For instance, I would write Nesterov (presently Zhovkva) if refered to the period of the Soviet occupation, even if no English language sources would mention the town under the name Nesterov.--AndriyK 17:47, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

That makes sence. If there is no (historical or not) 'widely accepted English usage' but there is a (historical or not) 'widely accepted foreign name usage', we should use the foreign name (with all the other rules, i.e. having it followed by current English names in parenthesis, just as you suggested in your example) - unless there is 'no widely accepted foreign name usage', in which case we should default to the article's name. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 18:19, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Concerning transliteration, there is official Ukrainian-English transliteration table. There should be something similar for other languages using non-latine alphabets.--AndriyK 17:47, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

A couple of issues:

  1. Any archaic usage names in the list, as well as names used before the standardization of English orthography should be clearly marked as such.
    I agree with the first part, but, as I said above, I don't think we should include names used before the standardization of English orthography. john k 02:43, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
  2. In case a historical name is used, it should be followed by the modern name in parentheses at least on one, preferably the first occurence in a given section.
    This is only necessary in other articles that mention the place. In the article about the place, it is completely silly to parenthesize the modern name - obviously they are the same. john k 02:43, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
    I can think of many examples where it is not obvious to someone who is not aware of the other names. --Lysy (talk) 21:56, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
  3. The geographic location is considered to have a historical name with widely accepted English usage if the following two conditions are satisfied simultaneously: The English-language encyclopedias (Encyclopedia Britannica, Columbia Encyclopedia, Encarta) consistently use this name in all articles when the corresponding location is mentioned in relation of some historical period.
    This is unacceptable. Britannica pretty much never uses historical names - it certainly never uses them consistently. john k 02:43, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

In fact, it does use historical names.

Sometimes, but rarely consistently. It calls Gdansk "Gdansk" for that entire article, for instance. john k 18:06, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

On the other hand, if other English language encyclopedias do not use some historical names, what is the reason to use them in Wikipedia?--AndriyK 09:12, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

True. Everything would so much simpler if we simply decided 'use the same name as in article's name, all throught article, no exceptions'. Any thoughts on that?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 15:50, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
This would be the most reasonable solution in most cases. But the ald names have to be used if the location was officially renamed, e.g Byzantium-Constantinople- Istanbul, Tsaritsyn-Stalingrad-Volgograd ("Battle of Volgograd" is hardly acceptable) etc., see also my example with Zhovkva.--AndriyK 17:17, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
I agree. If Britannica does it, why cannot we ? --Lysy (talk) 21:58, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
But what when it was officially renamed by a government considered to be an 'agressor' government by the people now inhabiting the country? For example, all of Poland and significant part of our eastern neighbours were renamed by Nazi Germany. How do we draw the line between reasonable Danzig and unreasonable Warschau? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 17:27, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
Warschau is not another name but the same name in a different language. I don't think it ever made it into English usage, anyway. --Lysy (talk) 21:56, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
Not exactly. While obviously I prefer Warsaw to Warshau, and I do agree that cases Danzig vs Gdansk and Warschau vs Warsaw are not similar, there are nonetheless some instances where Warschau may be used. Consider: Festung Warschau, also, see what pages use this term. Through this is a minor cases, it would be good to have a rule that clarifies this - to stop nationalist POV pushers start another revert war on such minor issues.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 22:42, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
That is a dumb idea, Piotrus.
It needlessly hides articles from search engines.
It needlessly keeps people from recognizing a place as being some place which they know under a different name. Suppose they got to that article by searching for some person or company or commodity associated with the place, for example, and not by looking for a place of that name, from which they might arrive there through redirects.
It is totally outside the scope of "Naming conventions" in any case. It is not an issue to be decided here. Gene Nygaard 17:42, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
I don't see how it would hide articles from search engines. On the contrary. It would have the names orderly listed. --Lysy (talk) 21:56, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
I am sorry for not making myself clear: I don't advocate removing alternative names completly, but it might be prudent to limit them only to 1) ethymology section in main article 2) first use, in parenthesis, in any other article if the context is relevant. I hope this clarifies my intention.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 19:53, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
A suggestion is to add an "Alternate names" section to an infobox, ala combining Template:Infobox Poland with the box at Shkodra. It wouldn't help for small towns which don't have infoboxes yet, but it would clear up space for larger towns with many names. Olessi 03:25, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
Actually, most of what is going on here falls more under "manual of style" than "naming conventions". At any rate, "how do we draw the line?" Through a process of discussion and consensus, just like we do for everything else in wikipedia. Reference to reputable outside sources, especially the works of recent academic historians, should provide a good guide to what English usage is. Warsaw (which, after all, has its own English name) is never called Warschau in English. Gdansk is very frequently called Danzig. I remain unclear about what is so difficult about this. Normally, reasonable wikipedians are able to agree about what any city should be called at any given time. There are only a very few exceptions to this - Gdansk before 1793, for instance, where we've had a devil of a time coming to any consensus. There are also trolls and POV pushers who try to mess with things. But rather than radically change rules just in order to come up with a situation that rarely ever comes up (legitimately - it comes up illegitimately a lot), why not just be reasonable people and come to reasonable agreements about when a name is used historically? Citation of the usage of reputable sources ought to be sufficient to determine things. john k 18:06, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
Andriy asks On the other hand, if other English language encyclopedias do not use some historical names, what is the reason to use them in Wikipedia? Firstly - the article as currently devised says that all English language encyclopedias must consistently use the historical name for wikipedia to use it. Most names I would want used use historical names sometimes, but not necessarily consistently. Very frequently there is a difference between usage in the article on the city itself, and usage in other articles. It is also to be noted that other English language encyclopedias generally tend to have much shorter articles than we do. At times, it is difficult to tell what name is being used, because for the whole historical section, pronouns are used. While I think encyclopedic usage is most relevant for article titles, imo recourse to English language scholarship is more appropriate for usage. john k 18:14, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
I'll try to explain my logic step-by-step.
  1. This is an English language encyclopedia and we have to use English words.
  2. Then the next question appears: what are the English names for geographic locations in other countries (in Central and Eastern Europe, for instance)? The obvious answer is: this is the name used in English language literature. If all English language sources use the same spelling then the situation is clear. We do not invent anything new comparing to the existing policies and conventions.
  3. What is not regulated by the existing policies is the following situation. What should we do if different names/spellings are used in English language literature when applied to the same location and the same historical period? Britannica uses different names in different articles sometimes, as you mentioned. If you switch to English language scholarship you will most likely find different authors using different names/spellings. We have to establish firm rules for such situations. If you do not like what we propose here, please propose your version of firm rules. But the rules have to be indeed firm. Otherwise the convention will be useless and edit wars will continue.
Your idea to recourse to English language scholarship is reasonable. But again we need firm rules, what kind of sources are acceptable. Otherwise discussion and edit wars will continue. Please propose how, in your opinion, the guidelines can be improved and become a usefull tool for resolving disputes.--AndriyK 19:02, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
Andriy, I understand your logic here. That being said, I don't think that I share your view that what is needed here are "firm rules." I think that trying to create firm rules will either result in bad rules or insanely complicated ones. My concern is that this aspect of things remain flexible. There is simply no good way to come up with firm rules, imo. This may mean that there is more conflict. But if everybody is reasonable and listens to one another, most instances should be easily resolvable. Those that aren't will have edit wars regardless of whether we have firm rules or not. john k 19:23, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes but the purpose of our effort here is to create reasonable rules that would help minimising editwarring on location names. --Lysy (talk) 22:49, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Exactly, since the alternative is wasting horrendous amounts on time on discussion, Gdansk-votes, or simply watching revert wars when two parties cannot agree on details. Of course, 'insanly comnplicated' rules are not the option, but I am sure we can work out something firm and reasonable. Our current E-level proposals are already fairly good, the main issue to resolve is what Andriy mentioned and me mentioned above: what to do if there are several recognized English names? On the encyclopedias issue: ff encyclopedias are not good enough for historical context, what do you think of using Google Scholar?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 23:41, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

I don't disagree that more specific standards than we currently have are in order. But I think that in instances where a city is known by various names over the course of its history, the issue is quite frequently way too complicated for us to be able to come up with any clear rule that will work. As to Google scholar - having tried it out, I'm not convinced of its quality, and I'd much prefer JSTOR searches of historical journals. But JSTOR, unfortunately is not accessible to all. I have access to JSTOR, as does pretty much anybody else in the US with some affiliation with a university, but I know that still excludes a lot of people. Anyway, my problem is not with the idea of using google, or encyclopedias, or whatever to determine if a name is used. My problem is that Clause 6 of the proposal is essentially worthless - almost no historical names would qualify under section 1; and I have no clear idea how section 2 would even be determined. As far as clear rules, I'm just not certain there's any reasonable way to do this. I think we should simply say that if scholarly sources mostly use a historical name, wikipedia should also use it. This is simple, and fits well with our broader "common use" policy. It is also considerably more specific than we have been before on this issue. It is not a hard and fast rule, and it is a rule which requires some consensus to decide.

But the Gdansk vote was clearly a highly anomalous situation. I spent months and months citing English language sources which called the city "Danzig" before 1793 (and, a long time before that, citing that no sources on JSTOR used "Gdansk" for the 1793-1945 period). I cited JSTOR, and also numerous books which I then had available to me. So far as I can recall, this was never really challenged - I remember Space Cadet at one point long ago tried to claim that English books now all use Gdansk, but he never provided any evidence of this, just a bald statement. The problem was not that anybody disputed that usage favored "Danzig" before 1793. The problem was that people were arguing for other criteria - specifically, some sort of national sovereignty criterion, which would say that "while it is part of Poland, we use Gdansk, while it is independent, part of Prussia, or part of Germany, we use Danzig." Obviously, if the criterion is usage, usage will have to be demonstrated, and there will be room for disagreement in some cases. This is bound to be the case. But what has caused serious problems in the past has not been simply the fact that there was dispute over what the dominant usage is. The problems arose out of the fact that there was no clear rule saying that the dominant usage is what should be followed in terms of how to refer to the city in different periods of time. I think that establishing "dominant usage" as the principal criterion would go a long way towards alleviating the problems we've had with articles like this in the past. It wouldn't create a rule for determining what common usage is, but I see no reason why we should need to create such a rule, or why it would even be desirable to do so. The important thing is not to decide the argument, but to decide the terms on which the argument is to be made. Does this make any sense? john k 07:18, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

And just to get back briefly to Piotrus's proposal that we not use alternate names in the main body, I will just have to object again. I thought we'd already been through this being a bad idea. Firstly, as noted, some historical names have to be used. I think everyone agrees that we can't talk about the Battle of Volgograd in 1942 or the siege of St. Petersburg at the same time. Nor can we say that the Crusaders sacked Istanbul in 1204. So there are clear instances when we must use alternate names. The whole "well, if the name officially changed" business is a dodge - it is quite frequently difficult to tell whether the name has officially changed, and doing it that way would result in weird discrepancies, I think. (Also, when does the name not officially change? The usual examples given are the cities which went from being German to being Polish after World War II. But this makes little sense. Official city documents and so forth called these places Danzig, Stettin, Breslau, and so forth before World War II; they called them Gdansk, Szczecin, Wroclaw, afterwards. I fail to see how this doesn't amount to an official name change, which means that just about every instance we're talking about would end up falling into that "exception"). There is no way to get around the fact that we have to use alternative names in the main body. Any proposal that suggested otherwise would be unacceptable to the vast majority of wikipedians, and with good reason. john k 07:30, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

This does make some sence - could you frame it into a full proposal? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 13:47, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Some general comments. As I said earlier, the rule of what should be used for the article title and what is allowed in the first line need to be very firm. However, I agree with JohnK that we need to allow flexibility for the inside of the articles usage. The latter issue, however, has two subissues: the usage in the article devoted to the place itself and the usage on the articles devoted to other topics. Let's take Chernihiv/Chernigov/Czernigow as an example. It is a good example because AndriyK picked this city for about 80 edit wars (maybe less now, didn't count). Britannica, in historical context, uses Chernigov in every article. However, it used Chernihiv indeed in the city article itself. Should the flexible rule be applicable to the article about the place itself. I say yes, so I differ from Britannica in this respect. AndriyK, OTOH, insists on using Chernihiv all over Wikipedia and differs from Britannica too. He insists on the strict usage of the modern name.

As for the criteria, I agree that other encyclopedia are very important ones as well as other reference books. But I would not discount the google test completely. True, it is subject to a statistical error, but if the google test gives an overwhelming advantage to one version over the other (say over a factor of 2), google test should be taken into account. The other important test, is media usage. Preferably, we should check the major media, since they have consistent policies and are staffed by editors who check for their observance. Google news is full of small news sites which lack editorial policies, so google news, same as google test, should be treated with the grain of salt. However, major papers and TV stations really tell us what the modern English usage is.

I would also request JohnK, as a professional historian, to draft the next version. --Irpen 04:27, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Personally, I think "official name" should factor in more prominently.. I still don't understand why Timor-Leste is at East Timor, when Timor-Leste is one of the two names commonly used in English and it is also the official name, while East Timor is only a colloquial name.
Apart from that, I prefer proposal E2 the most right now, because it settles down on the official name if there are two or more well-known English names. ナイトスタリオン ✉ 16:02, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Remember that our rule should allow for fast and easy decision making (KISS principle - let's avoid rule creep and/or creating rules that would require hours of research to be feasible). I know of no easy tool to search through other online encyclopedias and see what their usage is like, but there are other fairly respectable tools I know, mainly Google Scholar and Google Books. What do you think of using them instead? I'd define the usage as 'popular' if it has over 75% hits (books or articles for name, it may get slighty more difficult to count it for the given historical context). What do you think of such a solution?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 19:29, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Sounds tempting but 75% of what ? --Lysy (talk) 21:34, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
I mean if out of all possible names in a given category 75% or of the tested sources use onlu 1 name, then we agree it is "the single widely accepted name". Those categories, discussed by us, as I see, are 1) main/modern English name (like Gdańsk) 2) English historical name to be used for specific contexts (like Danzig) 3) foreign names when there is no English name.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 22:35, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
I think we would have to do some more testing of this on "difficult" cases. I'm also afraid it would give us less answer than the Google/encyclopedia solution proposed by Andriyk. I was inclined to believe that there are some reasons that prevent us from using modern name in historical context. But now that I've learnt that Britannica does all right with it ... hmm. Maybe we could follow this then and keep alternative names in the lead/special section only ? If they do it why can't we ? --Lysy (talk) 23:50, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
Sure, if someobody goes to the trouble and does encyclopedias analysis and backs his case with this, that would be valuable - but as I wrote, we need a bottom-line quick rule that can be used to solve 99% of cases, not a cumbersome research method that would be used for 1% of the cases.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 02:01, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

At least two encyclopedias are easy to search (probably it would be reasonable to limit the list to these two). Just go to Britannica and type the words in search field. The same with Encarta.
Certain problems may appear with google:

  • try the word "Severia". You'll see that most of hits have nothing to do with the historical region in nothern Ukraine. It could be difficult to separate the appropriate hits.
What about Severia+Ukraine?
  • If the number of Google hits small < 1000 or even < 10000. Is there reason to speak about "significant English usage"?--AndriyK 21:53, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
<10000, yes. <1000 - maybe. I'd still go with Scholar and Print/Books first. Whatever we decide, it would be useful if we can create a tool to make those calculations easier. Anybody here willing to write a script or some other kind of a tool for us?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 23:12, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

There is no reason to exclude ref sources only because they are not freely available to all. Many of the restricted sources are available to part of the wiki-community and people can check and present the results. Here is an example of the analysis I performed for the community. Earlier, I did a similar analysis for another naming discussion (that was a narrower one, about the article titles only). I agree that ref sources, like encyclopedia, dictionaries, reference portals (like Oxford portal) should be given a very high consideration to resolve the disputes.

Google hits: as I said earlier, while it should be taken with a grain of salt it should not be discounted. We should just make sure that we understand that Google test is a statistical test with a significant statistical error. So, it means anything only when it gives a clear advantage to one name over the other (say factor of two) and sampling is statistically significant (I would say about a hundred hits is needed)

Academic books is an extremely important factor. Google print is a good search engine for those but, of course, not an exclusive source.

Modern usage can be meaningfully extracted from the media analysis. Again, LexisNexis major papers search is much more important than overall "Google News" test.

And let's just not bring up again an obvious issue on what to do when the city was actually renamed. This is trivial. Suvorov visited Yekaterinoslav, the battle was of Stalingrad, etc. It is not worth wasting our time to bring this up here now and then. The problem here is with the names that are essencially the same names, just expressed in different languages. --Irpen 02:40, 30 November 2005 (UTC)


All right, where are we now ? Can we agree that we all support Proposal E so far, and only disagree on the supporting definitions (point 5 and 6 of E2) ? --Lysy (talk) 10:15, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

I support it, yeah. (E2 to be specific.) ナイトスタリオン ✉ 10:48, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

E-3

Good. I have archived all the old proposals, and left E-3 only so that we can focus on it. --Lysy (talk) 17:37, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Proposal F

Now I'm starting to think that the text of E-3 has grown too large (or has it not ?). Any idea on how to compact it back without sacrificing its completeness ? --Lysy (talk) 18:21, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Good point. I don't like the instruction creep and increasing officialize. I will attempt to summarize this into a new proposal.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 18:31, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
Done. I think this version is much easier to understand, and also has fewer logical errors :) --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 19:49, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
Proposal looks clear and balanced, very well Piotrus.Dirgela 04:28, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Hmm...

I see that Any archaic usage names in the list, as well as names used before the standardization of English orthography should be clearly marked as such is still in there. Would any object to removing mention of names used before the standardization of English orthography? It is my feeling that such names should never be included at the beginning of the article, because to do so would be to both severely escalate the number of names that need to be listed, and to drown out the actually significant names in a sea of spelling variants. john k 19:50, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Also still present: In case a historical name is used, it should be followed by the modern name in parentheses at least on one, preferably the first occurence in a given section. There is no reason to do this in the article about that place. That is to say, it is incredibly stupid for our article on Bratislava to say "Pressburg (Bratislava) was the capital of Hungary from the 16th to the 18th century." Because it is an article about Bratislava. Parentheses only have a place in other articles. john k 19:53, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Possibly disregard these statements - i was looking at E3, not F - Let me look over the new person and return... john k 19:54, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Okay...looking it over, I still have serious issues. The definitions of swaen's and wahen's is absurdly limited, especially the latter. I'd prefer a much less rigid means of determining whether there's a widely accepted English historical name. Furthermore, I don't think that the current rules would actually allow for any WAHENs to exist. As currently stated, all the Encyclopedias have to consistently use the name for it to be a WAHEN. But as I noted before, Britannica never consistently uses any name - in the article about a city, it always uses the current name, but it uses the historical name in other articles that mention the city. Which means that, for instance, by the current definition, "Danzig" is not a WAHEN (Britannica talks about the Free City of Gdansk). Neither is "Pressburg" (Britannica talks about Maria Theresa's flight to Bratislava in 1741). Even ignoring the completely unworkable nature of the first criterion for WAHENs, the second criterion is almost unworkable - how are we to actually conduct such a search. I once did a JSTOR search for Gdansk, and that was an incredible amount of work, since I had to look at each reference and see what the context was. And I didn't even bother to do the same with Danzig, which would be necessary to establish Danzig as a WAHEN. Basically, the method of determining what is a WAHEN seems rigged to prevent there from being WAHENs. Personally, I think the WAHEN should be determined in a much looser way. The problem in these discussions has not usually been determining what the WAHEN is. The problem has usually arisen because people don't think we should use the WAHEN. Nobody ever seriously tried to argue that Danzig wasn't the WAHEN for 1793-1945, and I don't think there was ever much of a case that it wasn't the WAHEN before 1793, either. The argument was, essentially, that determining the most widely used name for that particular time period wasn't the criteria we should be using. I don't see why we need such a rigid way to figure out what the WAHEN is - citations from historical sources can be provided. If someone feels that these are being quoted misleadingly or selectively, they can present counterevidence, and one can have a normal debate to determine what the more used name is. The problem with these issues has never been that people argue about what the most common usage is. It has always been that people were never agreed on what the criteria should be for determining what name should be used. So long as we are clear that it is the WAHEN which is to be used in historical context, the debate will have to be narrow and focused. I'm sure there will still be debates, but just saying "the WAHEN is the name to be used" will clear up a lot of the arguments on this issue.

The definition of SWAEN is also problematic. If all other encyclopedias use Cologne rather than Köln, why should anybody need to do a Google Scholar or Google Books search on the subject. I think the SWAEN is almost always pretty self-evident - Cologne, Rome, Vienna, Bucharest, Moscow, Warsaw, Brussels, Antwerp, Jerusalem, Damascus, Cairo, Alexandria, Beirut, Tyre, Sidon, Baghdad, Saint Petersburg, Athens, Venice, Milan, Naples, Florence, Seville, Copenhagen, The Hague...the only instances of conflict that I can think of are in the "familiar Indian cities whose names have recently been changed" department, with Chennai/Madras, Mumbai/Bombay, Kolkata/Calcutta. And I think it's been generally established that that the issue there is more of a name change than it is an issue of the English name as opposed to the local name, since India is an English-speaking country. There's a few other cases where a French name was once used in English, but isn't anymore - Mayence/Mainz and Ratisbon/Regensburg in Germany; various cities in the Low Countries. But in those cases I'm quite certain that one won't find encyclopedias agreeing on using those archaic names, so I see no particular reason to worry about it. I'd suggest, at the very least, that we change the criteria here so that the SWAEN must fulfill either point one or point two, but not necessarily both.

As I said above, I still don't like the idea that archaic names used in English in the seventeenth century can be included in the first line of an article, even if they are marked as such. I also note that English usage seems to have been completely lost from the first line criteria - one of the better parts of the older proposals was that they said that names (other than the current local name, obviously) should only be mentioned in the first line if there is some significant English usage of them.

Also, the examples currently have several mistakes. Notably, Constantinople is the principal name in use until 1930, when the name was officially changed to Istanbul. Some historians, I think, have started to use Istanbul for the 1453-1930 period, but this is still not standard. As for Vilnius/Wilno, I think that "Wilno" is almost never used in English. The WAHEN of Vilnius is "Vilna," the Russian name. See, for instance, the 1911 Britannica, which lists the city under Vilna, although the name Wilno is mentioned in the title ("VILNA or WILNO"). As usual, the Polish name gets screwed, but I'm not sure what can be done about it. john k 20:21, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Only for the record: I think "Vilna" was a Jewish, not Russian name. --Lysy (talk) 20:30, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
Many good points - could you make your own version of the proposal, so we can compare how it works in practice? I wouldn't mind droping the encyclopedia's count (technical problem) and settling only on Google Scholar or Books. For example, Google Books for Vilno/Vilnius/Wilno shows quickly that there is little difference between Vilno/Vilnius (about 14k hits each), so that Vilnius should be used as SWAEN (cause it is also the modern local official name), while Wilno (2k) has a good case for Poland-related contexts. Usage of Gdansk and Danzig is made clear by comparing Gdansk+Solidarity vs. Danzig+Solidairyt (10:1 for Gdansk for modern era) and Bismarck for partitions (1:15 for Danzig for that period). Two other tests I tried were Mieszko (1:1) and PLC (2:1 for Danzig), so they would require some more digging, but would probably give us in few minutes the same results that the several week long Gdansk Vote did. As for the examples in general, I just listed some of the first things I thought about - and I am pretty sure other experts can add new and fix the old.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 21:01, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Hey Piotrus - the google books search examples you give sound surprisingly good, so I'll partially withdraw my opposition on that front. I'll try to make up a revised version of proposal F. john k 21:50, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

I was suprised myself the results fit so well. But then, from time to time, some things in life just work as they are supposed to :) And after our, our 'common sense' is shaped by the books and arrticle we read, so there may be something to it.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 22:13, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Poetic license

The city of Danzig once lay
In the north near the Vistula bay
But there was a war
That the Germans verlor
And the city's called Gdansk today.

My own view is that these places were known to most of the world by their German names for a long time, which should be explained where RELEVANT, i.e. in any historical section. This is especially true of Danzig/Gdansk, given its unique history in the interwar period and internationally high profile politically. A secondary point is that these places where known to their INHABITANTS by their German names before 1945.

There's nothing revanchist or revisionist in naming places with the names by which they were known to the world and to themselves during the historical periods involved. Indeed, it is linguistically revisionist to refer to Danzig (for example) as Gdansk when writing about the six centuries in which it was inhabited mainly by Germans (1308-1945).

I've argued all along that the Germans today, and English speakers, should refer to these places by their Polish names when referring to contemporary events – for the same reasons that they should be referred to by their German names when historical events are the issue.

Sca 19:58, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, but does the proposal here contradict what you just wrote ? I believe it follows the same lines. It could almost look like aprovocation of yours ;-) As I don't think we need the Danzig dispute here anymore, let me get back to you on your talk page. --Lysy (talk) 20:27, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
And what do you think about the current formulation of the text ("Proposal F") itself ?
I didn't comment directly on Proposal F because I'm having trouble understanding parts of it. I agree with the results of the vote on Danzig/Gdansk early this year. I can't figure out if Proposal F would change the principles enunciated as a result of that vote.
I've responded in more detail on your talk page. Czesc!
Sca 19:53, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

That it bad, as it was assumed to be easy to understand ;-) Could you help by pointing out which parts are difficult to follow and why ? --Lysy (talk) 22:53, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, if possible we would like to reduce officialese of it even further. Please tell us what is redundant or confusing.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 05:28, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

What next

It's so silent here. Do you think we're ready to move on towards making this into a policy already ? Or are there still issues to be solved before ? --Lysy (talk) 09:17, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

I will post my comments on the issue within few days. It takes some time to digest all the things discussed here before. --Ghirlandajo 09:25, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
Give me a couple of days too. --Irpen 07:31, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

So... any more comments? We are 'almost' ready, it would be nice if we could do the final push and finish this proposal.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 03:11, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

I concur. —Nightstallion (?) 07:24, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
If there are no significant comments over the next few days, what do you think about submitting what we have now for the general vote/RfC?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 17:29, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
I've looked over the page here, but there's so much information I can't really tell what's being discussed. Can you please point me at what the current consensus is? What are the most important arguments pro and con? Also, if this proposal passes, can you please give some specific examples of which article titles might be changed because of it, and how they would be changed? Elonka 17:46, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

I believe that (surprise!) the current consensus is that the version F of the proposal is the result of the collaborative work and kilobytes of discussions and everyone seems to be more or less happy with it. All major controversies have been addressed. There can be always space for improvement, though. --Lysytalk 21:17, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes. Some users promised expantions / additions / revisions, but didn't write them, and I think nobody opposed to the current proposal. I am not sure about article titles, as I wrote this with usage inside in article in mind, mostly, although I think some of our Russian editors were working on this to avoid renaming wars as well. But it would actually be a good idea to look at usage: anybody would like to write how would they apply this proposal?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 01:41, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
Maybe we should start listing names/articles that have been sources of trouble in the past and see how Proposal F would apply to them then. Olessi 04:27, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
Gdańsk/Danzig, Timor-Leste/East Timor and Côte d'Ivoire/Ivory Coast immediately come to my mind. —Nightstallion (?) 07:32, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
There are many talk pages that debate whether a traditional name should be exchanged with a non-English one (the local name) in the title. In my opinion, the only defensible cases are those when an exonym for a stateless ethnic group that has come to contain pejorative connotations is simply replaced with an approximation of the native self-designation as a gesture of good will symbolizing recognition and respect. I am aware of the official decrees by certain states that the native name must not be translated, but this is not uniformly followed, particularly when a nearby state has a long history of referring to such a country with their own name in culture and literature, either a cognate or a word of entirely different origin. Imagine replacing all instances of the adjective or noun French with the French word for French. ;] //Big Adamsky 09:43, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Interesting progress here. Just a question to throw out there. With resources such as encyclopedias and Google searches being consulted to determine the proper forms, what about gazetteers? (The old-fashioned book kind like the Columbia Gazetteer or its more extensive predecessors the Columbia-Lipincott Gazetteers available in most English-language libraries). Many encyclopdias don't have entries for more obscure region names and Google searches can be sketchy when dealing with small 'n'. LuiKhuntek 08:36, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

I've read the proposal several times now, but I have to say that I'm not comfortable with it. It is not "practical, simple, and easy to follow." I feel like I'm reading a legal document, complete with obscure acronyms and precise definitions. It's difficult to understand, and I'm worried that it's going to cause more problems than it's trying to address. For example, I routinely see "name police" scouring Wikipedia, demanding that article titles of perfectly understandable articles be changed to a different name. With the proposal as written, I am concerned that these name police are going to go researching through Google Scholar with a slide rule and calculator, checking to see if a name hits the "75%" rule, and if not, they will use that as justification to change the title since they'll argue that it doesn't meet the "widely accepted" guideline. Is this proposal supposed to be something that helps resolve the occasional dispute? Or is it intended as an excuse to go and change article titles that are probably fine as-is? Elonka 09:49, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
If the article's are 'fine as-it-is' they are unlikely to be involved in occasional disputes. If you can formulate a shorter, easier-to-understand and as efficient proposal, please go ahead.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 01:33, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
Any guideline or policy that tries to address most, if not all, cases will end up having some amount of complexity. The acronyms don't help much but perhaps they are better than the long long expressions they stand for. I had to read it twice and keep referring back up to make sure I read each acronym the way it is meant. In general, it seems to be a reasonable proposal, but I have two questions.
1. Is the ultimate agreed on guideline/policy going to apply only to European geography? That's what is stated in the page introduction. However, this wouldn't make sense (to me anyway). After all the effort that went into arriving at a consensus, it would deserve to be applicable to all places no matter where they are on this beautiful planet.
2. The process of determining what is widely used: Experience has taught that all is almost never true. As a matter of fact, one of the first things I learned in college was that answers to multiple-choice-questions containing all-or-nothing words like "all", "always", or "never" are almost always wrong. In the proposed process we would not only require one "all" condition but also that both conditions apply. This would mean in reality, if experience teaches anything at all, that there would almost never be a "widely accepted" anything. Change that word to "most" and I believe this could be a workable solution. --Mmounties 23:19, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
On first though changing "widely accepted" to "most accepted" would make sense to me. But then, hmmm, "widely" seems weaker than "most" ... --Lysytalk 22:06, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Scope

To address the concern about the scope of the policy. Central/Eastern Europe was primarily used as a difficult testcase for all the subsequent proposed versions of the policy. It was considered difficult, given all the historic changes of the region, still often existing nationalistic sympathies, all the language peculiarities, and the fact that many of the names in the region remain unknown to an average English speaker. Thesefore it was tested against the community of European editors, and a consensus version was reached in a result of a number of compromises. If this can be now applied to a wider scope, the better. --Lysytalk 22:01, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for all the effort. I agree that this can now be applied to a wider scope. It seems to be the answer to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (places)#General issues:

If the name of a place has changed over time, what name do we use to refer to that place? When places 'change ownership' during the course of time, what convention should be followed?

I request that this good, concise, final proposal be merged at that location.
--William Allen Simpson 09:11, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Please note that a partial reading of this proposal was being presented at Talk:Falkland Islands#Straw poll on foreign names. This is an equally sensitive area, the full guidance seems to cover the situation, though perhaps not to everyone's satisfaction. ...dave souza, talk 09:09, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Lead proposal: not very practical?

I don't think the proposed lead para guideline is very practical. In the case of a place with multiple foreign names (e.g. London), this could lead to a dozen or more names being listed. It doesn't seem to lend itself very well to the issue of places with multiple official names, like the Swiss capital Berne or the Belgian capital Brussels. I think it also begins to run up against the Wikipedia is not a dictionary directive, as we shouldn't be in the business of compiling lists of alternative names for places. Fortunately, Wiktionary provides a good way to list alternative names without cluttering up Wikipedia.

I'd like to propose the following alternative:

The lead: The title can be followed in the first line by a list of alternative official names in the local language or languages. In some cases, a place may have two or more official names; these should be listed in the alphabetical order of the languages (e.g. "Armenian: name1, Belarusian: name2, Czech: name3", etc). Foreign language names should not be added to the article, but should be added to a relevant Wiktionary entry and crosslinked from the article. For instance, Wiktionary:London is the appropriate place to list foreign names for London, as in this example: "London (see Wiktionary:London for the name in other languages) is the capital of the United Kingdom and England."

Also, I think this guideline needs to refer (and perhaps defer?) to the existing Wikipedia:Naming conflict guidelines. There's a good deal in there on disputed names, such as Gdansk/Danzig, which seems to be directly relevant to the subject matter of this guideline. -- ChrisO 00:12, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

-- ChrisO 00:12, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

I am not sure if this would be practical. Many non-English wikipedians are quite protective of their foreign names, and one of the reason this proposal is being drafted is to satisfy them with a win-win situation (you can have yours and I can have mine). Adopting your version, which would remove all foreign names, would be more of a lose-lose situtation. And while nationalistic feelings are unencyclopedic, the fact is that many (academic and otherwise) sources do use non-English names, so having them searchable and visible on Wiki is useful also from an encyclopedic viewpoint.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 21:04, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
I concur with Piotr on this. —Nightstallion (?) 21:42, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
See below.... .dave souza, talk 17:31, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
There are places like Nakhichevan that historically changed hands so many times that there are too many foreign names or renditions of the name to be included in the lead. Currently the name is listed in the lead in 4 different languages, and the list is not complete. The same is true for many other places in South Caucasus. I think there should be some comprehensive policy with regard to inclusion of foreign names. Grandmaster 09:25, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

What is a "foreign lanquage name"?

To progress towards consensus on whether there is a requirement for politically contentious foreign language names not used by the inhabitants to be stated as alternatives in the first line of an article without any explanation of the controversy, I have endeavoured to set out my understanding of the issues at Talk:Falkland Islands#Assessment and recommendation. It appears that this proposed guideline needs some clarification to have effect in any similar debates. ...dave souza, talk 17:31, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Ordering

While I have no intention of meddling in Eastern or Central Europe, the proposals for generalizing the proposal beyond its initial scope require me to comment. The ordering of the names by language name (in English, I assume) is counterintuitive for ancient sites. Chronologically would be the better choice for several reasons: 1. Cities were often renamed for an emperor or other luminary; and renamed by successors for themselves, often multiple times; 2. It's often impossible to tell whether a given name (in transliteration) is Greek or Latin; 3. Many areas fell were named in a native non-Greek; then in Greek (classical); anew in Greek (Hellenistic), then again in Latin (during the Empire), then yet again in Greek (under the Byzantine Empire), then in Arabic or Turkish, or both, then by Crusaders, then often in another language (often Modern Hebrew, French, Italian); what may be the "standard English" version attaches often to one of these, but not necessarily so (e.g., "Antioch" which differs from the Greek "Antiocheia" & Latin "Antiochia"); and for places in scripture, a Biblical name (often in Ancient Hebrew or Aramaic) is also in contention. So we should have:

  • English Name (Arabic: ----; French: ----; Greek: ----- and ----- (also Latin); Hebrew: ----- (Biblical) or ----- (Modern); Latin: ---- (also Greek) and -----; Turkish: ----)
  • when we find that the Biblical name dates from 1000 BCE; the Greek ones from 700 BCE & 300 BCE; the Latin one from 100 CE; the Arabic from 700 CE; the Turkish from 1200 CE; and the Modern Hebrew name from 1950. Is this far fetched? See Mopsuestia, Adana and Acre, Israel for different handling of similar situations.
  • Also, I assume by foreign language name it is meant that some language associated with the place or those who ruled, occupied, built, or had an important connection with the place. E.g., we wouldn't be putting the names of Athens, Rome, Paris in Indonesian, Estonian, Icelandic, etc., in the 1st paragraph. Right?

Carlossuarez46 21:51, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

St Mark's Square → Piazza San Marco

  • This group of editors may have an interest in a currently proposed move being discussed at Talk:St Mark's Square --Dystopos 13:29, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Administrative division of Poland

Three separate votes concerning the names connected with administrative division of Poland are ongoing at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Geography of Poland#Województwa vote, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Geography of Poland#Types of administrative districts, and [[Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Geography of Poland#Names of offices. Ausir Ausir 15:22, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Relevency of foreign language names

I think there should be a clarification on the relevency of foreign language name and when they should be used. Some may use such a policy to abuse. I don't think having the chinese term with chinese characters of Canada in the lead on the Canada article is relevent. The uses of foreign terms should be etymologicaly justifiable, if they are not, they should be justified by the notability of the term used during the period covered in the article. This is generally what is done in historical publications. Those should crealy be two conditions. Fad (ix) 04:55, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Good point. I would suggest we define a relevant foreign language name either 1) used by at least 10% of sources in English language 2) used by a group of people which used to inhabit this geographical place.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 19:21, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Straw poll?

Perhaps it is time to do a straw poll and see what the community thinks about our work so far?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 23:39, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure a straw poll is the right thing, but some way to revive discussion might be good. I'll start in the section below :-) Kusma (討論) 23:56, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Definitions using other encyclopedias and Google Search

I like the spirit of this proposal (use English name if there is one; when there isn't or when in doubt, use modern local name). Actually, I think the proposal is good, but we should get rid of the rigid definitions. For example, I don't like the way the proposal uses other encyclopedias (for example, a single mistake in any of them could make someone wikilawyer that a place doesn't have a swaEn). It is also impossible to determine the context of use in Google Scholar and Google Books articles by a simple search. Additionally, we don't really know how good the sample Google has is for determining modern usage. Something like "75% of relevant Google Scholar hits" also can't be tested unless you have an excellent library that gives you access to all of these indexed papers (remember, you have to check them all to determine the context).

The reliance on numbers and simple web searches looks easy due to "fixed rules", but life is too complicated for them to be applied. Common sense should be used instead of the Google test. Kusma (討論) 23:56, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

I am somewhat afraid of the common sense. The 'all encyclopedias' is perhaps too strict, a 75% of encyclopedias might be better. As for the common sense, it is already covered by WP:IAR - how would you incorporate it into the guidelines? I do agree that we should have a way to avoid those people who put the 'letter of the law' above the 'spirit of the law'.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus <;;;font color="green">Talk 17:35, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
And encyclopedias are not the ideal choice of reference in any case; encyclopedias (especially their article titles) are subject to the same forces of political correctness to lean over backwards to use local names, even when these are contrary to English usage. (Oddly, the translations of London suggest that only the English wikipedia has this problem.) Septentrionalis 14:43, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
Not only the English Wikipedia uses local names. The German Wikipedia uses Polish names for almost all cities in Poland, although most cities in Poland have German names, and many of them were indeed German cities until 1945. However, this reflects common usage by e.g. German news source, which tend to use local names with only few exceptions (like Warsaw). The use of German names for cities that once belonged to the German or Austrian Empire and now belong to other countries is not politically correct in Germany, and often considered nationalist or revanchist. Kusma (討論) 01:07, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
So are academic publications. I still think that we need rigid guidelines, just like the 60%+ in RM or 80%+ in RFA, otherwise some conflicts will not end, with people quarreling over what is majority or such. However I do agree that the swaEn might be to rigid: what about one of those changes: 1) lower encyclopedia to 75% 2) change 'If at least one of the two conditions is not satisfied' to 'If both of the two conditions...'.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 16:25, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Use of foreign names in the main text

I think the current version of the proposal F offers clear guidelines that can prevent time-consuming edit wars. But there is one ambiguous sentence, which can in fact lead to the same problems that we face nowadays for example in the articles about Central and Eastern Europe.

Article 3 states about the historic names used in the main body of an article: “Foreign names can be used only if there are no established English names.” Many locations in Central and Eastern Europe had several foreign names in the same time due to their multiethnic population (for example Bratislava had official names in Latin, German, Hungarian, and Slovak/Czech). Furthermore, the spelling of these names was usually not fixed and it can vary from one source to other, from one century to other. What is even more disturbing; even the later established official names could be changed five times in one century (as it happened to many geographic names in the former Kingdom of Hungary during the 19th and 20th centuries). I think the following quotation from an actual article illustrates some of the problems caused by the use of redundant foreign names in the historic context:

“Johann Andreas Segner (in Slovak: Ján Andrej Segner, in Hungarian: Segner János András, 9 October 1704, Bratislava (in German: Pressburg, in Hungarian: Pozsony), Kingdom of Hungary (today: Slovakia) – 5 October 1777, Halle) was…”

In my opinion, it would be definitely less confusing for the reader if only the same name as in the title or the widely accepted historical English name is used thorough the content of the article (and all articles using the name in question). According to the other parts of the Proposal F, foreign names should be included in a specific names section of the main article (or in its lead, if there is no names section) anyway, so the information value would not be lost. Tankred 10:36, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, I would think that the proposal does what you want it to: foreign names will be not be used if we have no applicable swaEn or wahEn. If that happens, it means there is no common English name, so we have to use the most popular and relevant foreign name, or we are stuck with no name :) --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 16:31, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
Thank you for your clarification. Well, I am concerned with the cases, when the swaEn or the modern local official name is used as the title (for example Bratislava). The article 3 lists the exceptions, when other names can be used in the content, in the historic context. Of course, the list includes the wahEn. But the present version of the proposal can be also interpreted in a way that foreign names can be used in the historic context if there is no wahEn. I am afraid that some users would think that they could pick up any foreign names and use them in the content in such cases. Following my example, they would write that "Johann Andreas Segner was born in Bratislava (in German: Pressburg, in Hungarian: Pozsony, Latin: Posonium...)". I think that this part should be clarified and the same name as in title should be used consistently throughout the article, with the only exception in case there is a wahEn. If there is no wahEn, the name from the title (and not loosely defined foreign names) should be used also in historic context. Are my worries now clearer? Tankred 17:23, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
Sort of :) I think I agree with you, but you see the problem more clearly: could you edit the proposal - or revise it into a new one you'd be comfortable with?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 01:02, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
I think this problem can be fixed by some very small changes. So, the artcle 3 of the proposal would be:
"The contents (this applies to all articles using the name in question): The same name as in title should be used consistently throughout the article. Exceptions are allowed only if there is a widely accepted historical English name[1] (wahEn) for a specific historical context. In cases when the wahEn is used, it should be followed by the modern English name (swaEn) in parentheses on the first occurrence of the wahEn in all applicable sections of the article i.e.: historical English name (modern name). If more than one wahEn is applicable for that historical context, those other names should be added after the modern English name, i.e.: historical name (modern English name, historical English names). Rationale for historical usage should be explained on the article's talk page and in the name's section of the article about the geographical place in question."
Tankred 12:27, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
One cross-reference per section is fair, I think. Concur with User:Tankred on that. Carlossuarez46 23:26, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
This is reasonable. If there are no objections, I think we can edit this into the current proposal.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 20:09, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Proposal F comments

Proposal F is getting closer but still suffers, IMHO, from a few inherited defeciencies of its predecessors: 1) need to clarify that local names for a tell or a pile of ruins of a well-known historical city is not a local name. I.e., use Ephesus, not Efes and use Troy not Hisarlık when talking about those cities as opposed to their remnants. Since local names take precedence under Prop. F over historic English names, the opposite results would obtain if one followed Prop. F and we can read about the siege of Hisarlık, the Hisarlıkian War, and the Council of Efes. 2) relevant foreign language names leads to some anomalies, too, as defined. If historical sources tell us that the city was conquered by Rome, given a Latin name, but cannot verifiably tell us what language the inhabitants spoke, I guess the latin name is out. Similarly, cities in the Russian, Polish, Lithuanian spheres that were 90%+ Jewish may end up with Yiddish as the only alternate name qualifying. Again, verification will be difficult, if not impossible, and lead to edit wars. 3) archaic names need to be treated more completely. By archaic are we just talking about pre-standard orthography? It appears not, so is Nieuw Amsterdam an archaic name of New York or does it fall into the 10% rule above? And as many names have morphed over the years, like London, Istanbul, when are alternate foreign names called out versus archaisms? Isn't that a POV battle? 4) Part 3, I would support if it were limited to the first use: e.g., In the Battle of Stalingrad (Volgograd) blah blah blah....When the forces in Stalingrad were blah blah... note no second parentheses. The reader has already been reminded of the equivalence and doesn't need to be force-fed it at every opportunity; it makes the reading much clearer too. Tankred's example should remind us of playing to the political correctness or lowest common denominator. 5) a missing point (pun intended :-)): diacritics. Diacritics are integral to many foreign language. Their omission is a misspelling. As an encyclopedia, we should strive not to misspell words even if they look unfamiliar and the spelling seems to make no difference to English-speakers' sensibilities. To every rule, an exception: diacritics may not be standard in differing transliterations of not Latin-alphabet originals; e.g., Greek ά may be transliterated as "a" or "á" depending on the scheme employed, and we should give deference to the choice an editor has made; just as we (ought) do in British vs. American spelling and wording conventions. Carlossuarez46 16:07, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

1) I think that local name take precedence over English names only if there is no English common equivalent. Look at part 1) first, we use modern English name, then if the place still exists but it has no English name, we use local name. If the place does not exist, we go with English name for whatever it was, and only if we cannot determine the English name again we go with local name for the pile of ruins :)
2) As for 'relevant foreign language name', you raise good points. How would you suggest we reformulate it? Instead of 'language of inhabitants' we can consider the 'official language of the state', but which should have precedence? I would think we need to go with the most popular academic name again...
3) I hope people who introduced the archaic issue in the first place will address it.
4) Well, the reader is reminded only in every section, but I would not mind if we limit it to just the first occurence in first section.
5) I certainly agree that we should use diactrics in foreign names. The only issue that's left is what to do if the only difference between English name and local are diactrics, for example: Krakow or Kraków? I'd vote diactrics, but... --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 16:41, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
4) I would support the first use in the article, too. Otherwise, the names would be somewhat redundant.
5) In such case, it would be perhaps better to use the diacritics, as a more "precise" form of the name. Anyway, there will be a redirect from the version without diacritics. Tankred 17:30, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
2)there is the following situation in Romania and Hungary. there is a river Mures(romanian)/Maros(hungarian) shared by both countries. and there is a Mureş County in Romania, and there was a Maros-Torda county in the Hungarian kgdom. so river Mures may and should have an alternate Maros name since it is physicaly shared by both RO and HU ; while Mures county may not have an alternate Maros county name since it is not shared physicaly by RO and HU. argument "Mures county is shared historicaly by Romania with Hungary" i regard as revisionism. so i would propose that "names of administrative divisions of a state dont have alternate names in "relevant foreign languages" unless the respective state employes such alternate "relevant foreign language" names. there were at least 3 states (Hungarian kgdom, Habsburg and Otoman Empires) that administrated parts of Romanian teritory, yet the names of the administrative divisions of the respective states, have no relevance for a modern/contemporary administrative division of Romania Criztu 12:31, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
That's an interesting refinement, however, I would slightly alter the proposal; sometimes an administrative (or regional) division of a state has an English name: Catalonia, Brittany, Lombardy, Bavaria, etc. Sometimes, there are locally accepted names that bear noting in the article: "Catalunya" (Catalan) and "Cataluña" (Spanish), and "Catalonha" (Aranese) for Catalonia; "Briezh" (Breton), "Bretagne" (French), and "Bertaèyn" (Gallo) for Brittany; etc... I don't see why if there is a name in a local language for the administrative or regional division of a state that it should not be included; this is especially true if the administrative or regional division of a state is named based on a physical feature (river, lake, mountain range, whatever) that has different name, or is named based on a historical region that has different names. I.e., if Romania chose to create a province called "Transylvania", I should expect to see "Erdély" and "Siebenbürgen" if those names are used by Hungarian and German speakers to refer to the newly-created province. Carlossuarez46 17:53, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
Catalonia has an autonomous status. Mures county has not. Criztu 19:09, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
Brittany doesn't either. "Autonomous status" should not control; what is "autonomy" in Spain is different from "autonomy" under different regimes. Carlossuarez46 19:17, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
as i stated in the alternative name article, employing a foreign language name for an administrative division of a national state as an alternatie for the official name may lead the reader of wikipedia into thinking that administrative division has an autonomous/multinational status. expecting to have a german and hungarian alternative name for places where hungarians and germans live, that will mean all romanian administrative divisions will have at least 2 alternative names besides the main one, since hungarians and germans live almost everywhere in Romania. why then not providing german and hungarian names for places all over the world, since germans and hungarians live allover the world, and they employ a german or hungarian name for many such locations. from my experience, editors who provide hungarian alternative names for romanian administrative divisions are limiting their edits to the teritory of Romania that was under Austro-Hungarian administration prior to WW1. this for me is an indication that they are pushing a revisionist POV. I am not expert in the status of Brittany, but i figure Brittany has a special status within France, since Britannica lists its alternative breton name. the Britannica reason for mentioning the breton name of Brittany that i can identify, is the lack of political conflict since there is no Breton State to claim Brittany, i think since there is a Hungarian state in existance, Britannica providing a hungarian alternative for a romanian administrative division would mean political conflict Criztu 20:32, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
take a look at the french wikipedia, see how administrative region of Brittany is treated as oposed to historical Brittany Criztu 09:52, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
2)there is also a city Targu Mures(Mures Marketplace) in Romania, inhabited by romanians and hungarians in almost 50% percent each (there are othe much less numerous ethnic minorities living in Targu Mures too). since there is an official administrative convention in favour of providing the name employed by the minorities making up for at least 20%(or 25% not sure) of the population living in a city/town/village of Romania on the panels marking the entry in that city, i would agree that the hungarian name Maros Vasarhely(Mures Marketplace) has a relevance and can/should be provided in the wikiarticle about the contemporary Targu Mures city Criztu 12:31, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
2)I deviced the article Wikipedia:Alternative name where i tried to present the implications of employing an alternative name in an encyclopedic article. Criztu 19:12, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
The article is a fork of this discussion, pushing your proposal; I have listed it under AfD. I don't think it's salvageable because Wiki policies, proposals even when adopted do not go to the main space. Carlossuarez46 19:27, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
I realise this Naming Convention may refer to the Title Name Convention, i am addressing the Alternative Names in the Lead Section Criztu 18:02, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
4) While mentioning it only once at the first occurence in the article might seem elegant, having it in each section has some advantages. From the editors' perspective, it simplifies possible forking of new articles from the sections without the need to verify if the name has been mentioned before or not. From the readers perspective it may be convenient, as the readers may not need to read the entire article but only a section and still follow it. The little extra redundancy does not seem to do much harm. --Lysytalk 20:43, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Thanks for all your thoughts.

1) "exists" to my mind can be ambiguous and I'm not trying to be esoteric here. Ephesus exists, Pompeii exists; they are major tourist destinations. They are not functioning cities by common definitions; they're ruins called Efes and Pompei as (potentially confusingly) are nearby later and populated functioning settlements. If I go down the list hierarchically until I find a name that works: is Ephesus considered the modern English name? or is it a historic one that we just use because its been frozen in the Bible or whatever? If it is considered the modern English name, then we're done and my comments are refuted and withdrawn. If it is considered a historical English name, however, the intervening local name comes at a higher point in the hierarchy, pointing toward Efes over Ephesus.

4)I wasn't thinking section by section, 1st use by section doesn't bother me and may be more elegant especially if the historical name differs by section. (I hadn't even thought that refinement through). Istanbul/Constantinople is an obvious example of that issue.

5)More on diacritics, I recall this in Gdańsk/Danzig debate that I at risk of rotten fruit being thrown this way could refer to as the Gdańsk/Gdansk/Danzig debate, but couldn't find where I think I remembered seeing it then. No matter: here goes: some diacritics are rarely used in whatever is either a modern English name or a historical one. In English, scholarship would routinely use "Gdańsk", most newspapers seem to use "Gdansk", a limitation on their word processing or printing, ease of use, or just to make it less of a tongue-twist to a wider audience. Who knows? Some earlier lack of use of diacritics no doubt comes from pre-unicode limitations on ASCII that basically supported French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and German diacritics to the exclusion of most or all others, yet one still sees "Wurttemberg" or "Zurich". I'll reiterate my bias: I prefer diacritics if that is standard in that language's orthography and not a transliteration style, and I would even lean toward their use even when their absence is the standard English version, so in the example posed by Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus, I would prefer "Kraków" over "Krakow" even if the latter were demonstrably more common. Googling "Zurich", limited to English-language web pages, generates 70,200,000 hits; "Zürich" generates 68,400,000. Nonscientific but just wanted to check.

On a side note, if anyone is interested the article Names of European cities in different languages, and Names of Asian cities in different languages and Names of African cities in different languages were deleted as not encyclopedic despite a 27-10 vote to keep them. (Before the deletion, I was expending some efforts toward putting citations for each language form so that verifiability was enhanced and maintained. But >poof< there they went into the bit-bin.) Toponymy, exonymy, and historical linguistics, history, geography, etc. were not the strong suit of the admin who deleted these articles, and the deletion is being appealed. Please let the reviewing admins know that these subjects are encyclopedic and that these articles which keep these parallellisms out of every single geographic article are useful for that reason alone, and are also useful cross-references, and certainly as encyclopedic as the articles about every Pokémon character or American Idol also-ran whose articles don't get deleted. Your voice is needed here. Carlossuarez46 21:49, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Problems with Proposal F

2)The lead. IMO this needs rethinking. It says that alternative names and foreign language names CAN follow the title, but it doesn't say when they SHOULD. Here there is a fine line to be drawn between including useful info and cluttering up the lead and making it difficult to read.

For example, the London entry doesn't currently include any alternative names after the title. Would the inclusion of Caer Troia, Trinovantum, Caer Ludein, Londinium, Caer Llundain, Lundencestir, Lundenwic, Lundenburh and Londres, which are relevant foriegn language names, in the first line be helpful, or turn the lead into an indigestible monster? I know what I think, but Proposal F isn't much help at resolving this.

Another example is the River Oder. Current lead sentence reads:

The Oder (Czech and Polish: Odra; German: Oder; Classical Latin: Viadrus, Viadua; Medieval Latin: Od(d)era) is a river in Central Europe.

I would strongly suggest that most of these names are irrelevant in English except in highly specialised historic or linguistic contexts, and that a better-flowing intro sentence would be

The Oder (sometimes Odra) is a river in Central Europe

-(with the foreign language names in a later names section). Both of these options seem acceptable under Proposal F. Any thoughts as to when foreign language names should be used? IMO a names section after the lead is a much better way of doing it, as the foreign language names will normally only be of interest to 0.0001% of readers, and the lead is meant as an intro for general readers.--Stonemad GB 12:54, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

This is a good point. I would be perhaps helpful if the proposal states that a separate names section should be created whenever there are more than two relevant foreign names (or something like that) and if this is the case, alternative names should not be mentioned in the lead. Tankred 13:58, 30 July 2006 (UTC)


Suggested alteration to Point 2:
2. The lead: The title should be followed in the first line by a list of relevant alternative names(ran) in parenthesis: {name1, name2, name3, etc.}. A ran means a) any wahEN not in the title b) current official names that are not in the title c)any name used in English language atlases and books printed since 1900. Any archaic wahENs should be placed in a separate names section, and should be clearly marked as such i.e.: (name1 arch.). If the list of rans is more than two names long, only category a) rans should be included in the first line, and the other rans should be placed in a separate names section immediately after the lead. Relevant foreign language names[3] , if there are any, should also be listed in a separate names section immediately after the lead, and all names in the names section should be listed in alphabetic order of their respective languages, i.e.: (Armenian: name1, Belarusian: name2, Czech: name3). --Stonemad GB 17:16, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

The archaic issue

A pet hate of mine is the needless revival of archaic English-language names to describe modern places. Some English names have dropped out of use during the last hundred years, and we should recognise the fact - for example, nobody speaks about Corunna when talking about the modern city of La Coruña.

The word Corunna was certainly used by 100% of British speakers for centuries. But not any more.

I would like the naming conventions to make it explicit that Corunna, etc, should never be used for the name of the article. Even though there are thousands of old texts that use the name Corunna. That modern English usage should take precedence, ie "if modern English sources tend to use the local name, that should be the page name, never the archaic English name". Jameswilson 01:29, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

You do know that the article is currently at the Galician name, A Coruña, right? I agree with the basic point, though. We shouldn't have articles at Ratisbon and Mayence. john k 22:09, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

"English understanding" vs. Precision in city/placename articles

I have seen this problem through quite a few articles. Twice this week have I heard someone cite the basic "English understanding" naming convention rule when discussion concerned the accuracy of an article title, and this with the purpose of accommodating a "general English understanding" of where a city/region's borders lie. This seems to me to be accommodating ignorance, not recognition.

For example: Were I to write an article titled "CityName", that article based on "CityName", would most likely contain info about the city beyond its official limits (as few city agglomerations end at these) but what about articles that lack this "about the city" context? If I were to start an "List of X in CityName", the list should contain only the X actually within the geographical/administrative "CityName" area, or it would be inaccurate. I have seen several articles that were precisely named in their own language become a completely inaccurate other when translated into English; the reason for this has always been the above-mentioned "general English understanding" of what "that city might be".

The above ambiguity is often pushed as far as it can go by those playing the 'big city' game. A few also have tried to bend local naming conventions to a "greater scheme" of conventions used in another country, and this using the same "English understanding" as an excuse.

I think it would be useful to accommodate this sort of situation in the geographical naming conventions page.

thepromenader 12:00, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Promenader - could you give some examples of this? I'm not sure exactly what you're arguing here. john k 15:08, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
Rereading, I think I get what you're saying. But I'm thinking it might be unavoidable in some cases. For instance, the central business district of Paris is not within the city limits of Paris. john k 15:10, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
Exactly. Well, it's not the central district, but the example is good. A monument in that business district, say the Grande Arche de la Défense, would be of course be mentioned in context in a general article on Paris, but were we to say that monument were "in Paris", this would be wrong. This district, when looked up under its own name in any reference, is indicated as being between three suburban locales: Nanterre, Courbevoie and Puteaux, but never as "in Paris".
This is exactly where I'm having the problem, actually - some are trying to push the line, and some are trying to draw it. The fact that there's no clear indication of how places should be named (geographically or 'vaguely') makes finding an equitable solution difficult.
Is my meaning really so garbled as that? Apologies. thepromenader 15:33, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps the thing to do would be to use a phrase like "in the Paris area" rather than "in Paris." john k 17:05, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
And I agree. Yet it would be helpful to stipulate somewhere that "English understanding" != "foreign ignorance". Like in any reference, placenames should be described/used accurately when possible. Although it would seem to be common sense, Wiki does not yet have any conventions/consensus on this sort of situation, and I do believe that if it did it would help settle many of the arguments I've seen. Am I in the right place for this? thepromenader 17:31, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
Common usage is about names, not about facts. john k 22:00, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
I think I again agree, but could you elaborate, please? thepromenader 22:04, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
I mean that we are supposed to use "common names" for places and people. But that doesn't excuse outright inaccuracy. The fact that people use terms incorrectly does not mean we have to use those incorrect terms in article titles, or what not, because that's crazy. john k 14:14, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

I have to say it's a relief to hear that said in so many words, because those are my thoughts exactly. I had to ask all the same in the most objective manner possible... because even I had begun to doubt. if you would like to see a mess caused by the above question, have a look at Talk:List of tallest buildings and structures in Paris - not only is it a 'big city' game, but a 'tallest erection' competition. Paris has a lot going against in it in this 'race', so all the more reason to bend the rules. The vagueness of those contesting did get to me at times, especially after a series of move-reverts, so you'll have to excuse my tone in places. I did do my best to consider all sides of the question though.

I still think it would be a help to have the above put into so many words in a convention somewhere, and the above can easily serve as proof why. First I must find a way of asking the question clearly, it would seem : ) Thanks for your answers, and if you have anything to add in the 'tallest structures' question, it will be much appreciated. Thanks again. thepromenader 15:34, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

PS: Just in case you're wondering, I've lived in this city (Paris) for over fifteen years now, so I have little cause to belittle it. It's only the fact of the matter that interests me - it seems silly to make assertations here that will be proven wrong elsewhere. Cheers. thepromenader 15:56, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Arch vs. archaic

I would rather see archaic spelled out, three extra characters for a clearer meaning. Rich Farmbrough 18:27 13 August 2006 (GMT).

Agree. --Lysytalk 19:44, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
Agree - "Arch." could also be taken to mean something else. -- mno 20:00, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Poll

I wonder whether the initiators of this discussion can summarize the proposed changes. The discussion itself is not very lively, so in my opinion, there is no reason to lose more time waiting for more comments. Clear naming guidelines are desperately needed, as can be documented by this recent edit war for instance. I think we should accelerate the whole thing a bit. Tankred 19:20, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

I think that we've in general come to a guideline that is acceptable for everyone. I think that we can move to wrap up discussion and put this forward as a policy/official guideline, or however it's called. -- mno 20:51, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
  • The term is 'naming convention', which is a kind of guideline. I would recommend copyediting this page to (1) remove cutesy acronyms, (2) remove excessive bolding and (3) move the footnotes into part of the maintext - all to improve legibility. Also, I'd recommend removing the exact percentages ("10% of sources" etc) per m:instruction creep. And finally, I recommend dropping a line at the Village Pump to see if anyone has serious objections. HTH! >Radiant< 21:16, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
I still feel that this guideline is very difficult to follow. The acronyms are difficult to understand, and though I've read the guideline several times, I still can't get enough of a sense of it to even try to rewrite it. It badly needs a very simple and clear summary at the top, written in simple non-acronym English. --Elonka 06:21, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
I think so too. Would you be able to draft such a summary ? Then I think it's time to seek wider acceptance as someone already tried to label the proposal as "inactive" recently. --Lysytalk 19:02, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
If you can help us draft such a summary it would be great. Please note that the policies itself often get rather technical, but their lead and 'nutshell' versions are important. The {{Naming convention in a nutshell}} template is very useful for that.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  20:45, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Lithuanian exception?

I did a brief review of how close various cities (mostly in Europe) follow this convention. Interestingly, with an exception of Lithuania (discussed here), most seem to be already following this procedure. A brief look at some Asian cities, however, showed me they rarely have other names (although the case I looked at, Korean cities and Japanese names, may be controversial for involved editors). Another issue to note is that virtually no capitals have names in different languages, but they often link to Names of European cities in different languages - perhaps we should mention this alternative solution and discuss if and when it is acceptable?-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  20:45, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Maybe when otherwise there would be more than 4 (?) alternative names in the lead in different languages ? --Lysytalk 20:55, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
Up to four names seems fine, if you asked me. Which you didn't :) Say, in a case of a town that is currently in Ukraine, but was primarily Polish and Jewish up to WWII I guess four names would apply: Polish, Yiddish, modern Ukrainian and perhaps Russian - or German if the town was a part of Austria-Hungary. The last case is by no means needed as there were three official languages of Galicia (Latin, Polish and German) and any of them would do. //Halibutt 10:24, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
I did ask (see the two question marks above ? the first one was for you ;-) Anyway, the suggestion is:
  1. up to 4 can be in the lead (including the original title ?)
  2. more then 4 means replace them with a link to Names of European cities in different languages
However, I can immediately foresee edit wars on the 4th "position" ... --Lysytalk 10:55, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
  • A few thoughts: (1) There are those who still have the Names of European cities in different languages article in their sights to delete, as it was once before and overturned on deletion review, so be careful in putting too many eggs in a vulnerable basket. (2) The list is somewhat unwieldy in size and may be broken up geographically. (3) that list was meant to be restricted to certain cities that have historical importance, although which those are is of course POV and we've had "importance creep", but it was never meant as a place where one's search for Paris or London, say, would be hindered by literally thousands of cities beginning with "P" or "L" that just happened to be in modern-day Poland, Lithuania, Romania, Hungary, Czech or Slovak Republics, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, etc., where 4 language names are easily available, although dividing by geography would ease this problem somewhat. Carlossuarez46 16:42, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
Indeed, a good point. On the other hand using it could be a good reason to protect the list against future deletion. --Lysytalk 23:07, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Nutshell proposal

I have suggested a nutshell wording, feel free to discuss it here and adjust it.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  20:54, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Very nice, IMHO. I'm only having problem understanding "should be avoided in titles unless no English version exists", probably because of the double negation. Could you elaborate on this here ? Maybe an example would suffice. --Lysytalk 09:57, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
Ah, double negation. I meant that non-English version can, obviously, be used, if there is no English version :) Perhaps that's not important - feel free to correct or remove it from the 'shell.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  12:53, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
No, it's fine. I don't see why I had problems with it before. Still, maybe a native speaker could have a look at it (with all respect to you and your English :-) ) --Lysytalk 15:10, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Clarification needed: archaic and historical

Isn't archaic name (mentioned in point 2) the same as 'widely accepted historical English name'? Archaic is not defined well, and it may lead to some confusion - I suggest we try to merge those two concepts, so we have one less term to worry about.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  20:54, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

I guess an archaic name is a tad too broad. One could argue that the name of Posna, which was in use up to WWI, yet is barely ever known by modern English speakers is archaic. Others could point out that the name of Vilna is archaic as well, since a majority of post-1990 writers use the name of Vilnius. This indeed needs to be put in a more precise way. //Halibutt 10:26, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
On the second thought we could dump the archaic name altogether, as it might become yet another problem, with people arguing whether the name is archaic or not. We could do fine with just the category of historically-used names. //Halibutt 18:49, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
I like the proposal but could you include an additional example demonstrating the archaic point more clearly. For example, in modern contexts, the modern local (Polish) name "Podlasie" should take precedence over the archaic English form "Podlachia" as that name is not used in modern English sources. Likewise "La Coruña" not "Corunna" or "Srem"/"Syrmia".

Please note that this is a separate question from spellings which originated from different local languages such as Saragossa/Zaragoza, where the English adopted one local name (Aragonese) and then switched to another local form (Castilian Spanish). I am referring only to (C18/C19?) English inventions which have since died out. The previous naming conventions didnt mention the archaic point and therefore were not robust enough to prevent people reinventing these obscure names for article names.

This is needed because even when it can be demonstrated that a Google search yields no UK/US references whatsoever to the archaic name in a modern context, eg for "Podlachian Voivodeship" (discounting mirror-sites), some people still refuse to abandon it, on the grounds that "English names take precedence". We do need to make clear that that doesnt include antiquated English names. Jameswilson 23:33, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm aware that this creates another potential point of contention, but still believe that is should be properly addressed. Only leave out archaic if we are unable to come up with a good definition. --Lysytalk 05:48, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Capital exception?

I have noticed that while majority of cities already follows this convention (more or less, see #Lithuanian exception? post), capitals seem to be almost always an exception (see Warsaw, Kiev, Moscow, Vilnius and others). Some of those have generated entire archives of discussion, with consensus usually being that foreign names should not be used in their lead - although as far as I can tell this was not because of encyclopedic reasons, but because some people felt that it is 'offensive' to have names of former conquerors/rulers/whatver in the name of their capital. The question to consider, therefore, is do we want to make an exception of capitals - to sooth the feelings of some of the more nationalist-minded editors - or are we going to enforce this, capital or no capital?-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  17:00, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't see the need for making exceptions for capitals. We are here to create an informative encyclopedia for English speakers, not to worry about offending sensitivities. There are some articles which discuss alternate names in a separate paragraph (such as Tallinn); I consider this acceptable, as long as it is near the lead. Still, I prefer having the most relevant names in the intro for consistency with other articles. What I disagree with completely is removing or burying historically relevant names (which I believe has currently been done at Vilnius). Olessi 17:42, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
See the note on the proposed use of Names of European cities in different languages in cases when the list in the lead would be too long, above at "Lithuanian exception". --Lysytalk 23:04, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Relevant foreign language name

The current version says that the relevant name is the name used in at least 10% of the sources, or by people lived in that place in the past. But what if there are two foreign names: one is Latin-based, and the other one is based on a non-Latin alphabet? Should each of them be treated separately?

Consider Ternopil (Ukrainian: Тернопiль), a city in Ukraine. There are two Russian names for the Ukrainian city, one is a Cyrillic-based name, Тернополь, and the other one is Latin-based Ternopol. The Latin-based name (Ternopol) may apply based on the 10% criterion. But the Cyrillic name (Тернополь) fails the 10% criterion, as Cyrillic alphabet is not used in English literature, and fails the second criterion, as the city has never been predominantly populated by Russians. Does it mean that the Cyrillic-based Russian name should not appear in the leading paragraph? That is, it should be Ternopil (Polish: Tarnopol, Russian: Ternopol). Or, should the policy be modified to let the Russian Cyrillic name to sneak in?

What if the same alternative name is used in more than one language? Consider the same example with Ternopil. Say, the alternative name, Ternopol is not only Russian name, but also Belarusian name. Then, should we say Russian: Ternopol, or Belarusian: Ternopol? How should we choose to which language an alternative name is attributed to? --KPbIC 23:56, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

"There are two Russian names for the Ukrainian city, one is a Cyrillic-based name, Тернополь, and the other one is Latin-based Ternopol." You are incorrect. There is only one Russian name for the city, that is Тернополь. The other one is the transliteration of one and the same name. This will apply not only for the Russian cyrillic to "sneak in", as you friendly put it.
A very similar issue is whether the first line of Przemyśl article should include "Ukrainian: Перемишль, Peremyshl" or only "Ukrainian: Peremyshl. I think it should include the alt name in cyrillic alphabet, both for Przemyśl and for Ternopil. It explains the origin of the second name. --Irpen 03:42, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
Irpen, thanks for the correction. We are talking about the different names of the same city, and as the policy is written now, there may be some room for Latin-based Ternopol, but as far as I can see there is nothing in the current version that supports the inclusion of Тернополь. And I don't quite see your argument of "the explanation of the origin". You assume that Cyrillic alphabet is the only alphabet that is capable of keeping "the origin", but this is a questionable statement. For example, the official Uzbek language was based on Arabic alphabet before 1920s, on Cyrillic alphabet in 1920-1990, and on Latin alphabet after 1990. Thus, the language and the alphabet should not be mixed. And as of now Cyrillic alphabet has no usage in English. Then, why should be put the Russian Cyrillic name in the very first line of the Ukrainian city article in this English wikipedia? --KPbIC 04:45, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
I won't mind Uzbek or Yiddish name, if its transliteration into latin satisfies the usage factor. Are you so eager to purge the Russian names from Ukrainian articles that you are even willing to sacrifice the historical Ukraine Peremyshl? Anyway, let's see what others say on that. Also, why would you leave the Cyrillic Ukrainian in, may I ask. What does it add to the English reader who can just click at Cities' alternative names article if he wants.
Also, as for non-English non-latin names I personally purged Yiddish from several articles for the very same reason. I have nothing against Yiddish. I actually like the way it sounds and I love Yiddish songs. However, as they don't match the usage in English sources, they are just clutter except for those who want to find out what the Yiddish name is. There are not only dictionaries to satisfy such curiousity, but also an extremely useful Cities' alternative names. --Irpen 05:14, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
I think it's really a matter of taste whether someone likes to see the names in other alphabets being mentioned or not. Personally, I'm happy to see Yiddish name of Poznań or Ukrainian name of Przemyśl as well as their transliterations, but to someone these might be just some incomprehensible symbols. As for the other issues mentioned above, I'd approach with caution the assumption that the Cyrillic form is always the original name, each case may differ, and sometimes it may not make sense to connect a specific alphabet with the original name. Another note on the "extremely useful Cities' alternative names": while I agree that this list is useful, it is not a stable article and is continually in threat of being deleted, limited or otherwise transformed. I'm afraid it's not stable enough to build a guideline upon it. E.g. see the recent Talk:Names_of_European_cities_in_different_languages#Requested_split_proposals. --Lysytalk 06:36, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

I have no problem with including the names in non-Latin alphabets, they also may be found in various academic publications and as such may be useful to some readers. Plus they look nice and help to drive the point that Latin alphabet and English language are not used by 100% of the worlds population :) -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  15:39, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Outside the scope of naming conventions

I have made this point before, though not necessarily in connection with the wording of the current proposal.

Wikipedia:Naming conventions deals with the allocation of the one slot available to use for an article's name: "Naming conventions is a list of guidelines on how to appropriately create and name pages."

It is a logical extension of that to deal with the other candidates for that slot, and to ensure that redirects are created from them and to deal with them being at least mentioned within the article itself. Doing so is also within the scope of our authority.

However, both paragraph 3 of this proposal, and paragraph 1 of the dispute resolution section, go far beyond our mandate and presume to make rules where "this applies to all articles using the name in question".

But we are acting outside our powers, taking on issues which we have no authority to decide, when we do this. This is a matter within the scope of Wikipedia:Manual of Style, and within the scope of various Wikipedia:WikiProjects, but it doesn't belong here. The discussion along those lines needs to be carried on in the open where people would expect that such discussion should take place, not in subpages dealing with the allocation of the slot available for an articles name; the redirects exist for a purpose, and using them is something to be decided elsewhere.

So I suggest striking that paragraph 3, and parts of the dispute resolution paragraph 1, from this proposal. It will be easier to arrive at consensus, if we limit ourselves to dealing with the things that are clearly our responsibilities. Gene Nygaard 00:10, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Gene, I havent read your previous comments on this and I dont really understand your point. Could you give an example where you think it is unreasonable for us to determine the "wiki-name" of a particular place? Where people working on spacific articles would feel justly aggrieved at having to abide by whatever is decided here? Jameswilson 00:46, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
It would apply to any case where this is presumed to be decided here. It is unreasonable for us to determine it, because Wikipedia editors in general do not have notice that we will be trying to usurp this power to ourselves, and therefore do not have reasonable opportunity to comment upon it. Naming conventions deals with the allocation of the slot available for an article's name. Not with determining some uniform name to be used in every article; if that were the case, we'd have little use for any gadgets such as redirects (and, we'd be even worse than we are now, and we are getting pretty bad in this regard, at hiding existing information so that it cannot be found in search engines and the like).
Note that there isn't even any need to "determine a 'wiki-name'", let alone any need nor even any authority for us, here at naming conventions, to do so even if there were such a need. In fact, we explicitly do not do so in the MoS for things such as petrol/gasoline and litre/liter, for just one example (just check out the what links here for those). It doesn't matter what the naming conventions or any other resolution of the issue results in for the slot allocated to the article name in these cases. But in any case, that is an issue to be decided in the MoS or other appropriate forum, not here. Furthermore, unlike the situation with only one slot being available for an articles name, the contents of an article itself are not so limited. Different considerations come into play because of that difference. Gene Nygaard 01:06, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Gene, I agree with you that it's better to separate the issues of naming from the issues of styling. But actually, as you pointed out "Naming conventions is a list of guidelines on how to appropriately create and name pages." Therefore, as the first step, the words "... create and ..." should probably be taken out of WP:NC, limiting the naming policy strictly to the naming issues. --KPbIC 00:59, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Good suggestion. It really doesn't have anything to do with creation of pages in general, other than the name under which it might be created—something that can also be changed later on, and to which naming conventions would apply every bit as much as the original creation. I'd guess that the wording there has as much to do with sloppy use of the word "and" as anything else, when "or" might better fit the actual intentions, but there isn't really any reason to create any distinction between the name given by the original creator of a page and what it might be changed to later on. Gene Nygaard 01:12, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Gene, some guidelines are desperately needed especially in the case that you pointed out: the use of geographic names outside the main article (ie. paragraph 3 of the proposal). As an editor active mainly in articles dealing with Central Europe, I have observed bitter edit wars, resulting in badly written constructions, such as the one I quoted above: “Johann Andreas Segner (in Slovak: Ján Andrej Segner, in Hungarian: Segner János András, 9 October 1704, Bratislava (in German: Pressburg, in Hungarian: Pozsony), Kingdom of Hungary (today: Slovakia) – 5 October 1777, Halle) was…” It is true that the city of Bratislava had distinct Latin, German, Hungarian, and Slovak names in 1704. But all of them can be found in the main article and there is no need to include them in every article mentioning Bratislava. I must say that this practice serves only few vociferous editors who are not satisfied until they put their language version of the concerned name in every article they are able to find. Would not be better for a reader to change my sentence into something more like “Johann Andreas Segner (9 October 1704, Bratislava - 5 October 1777, Halle) was..."? I think Wikipedia should primarilly serve its readers. It should not be a battlefield used by various nationalists to fight over ridiculous issues. I believe that many conflicts appeared in this area only because there were no clear rules (or at least guidelines). Absence of guidelines in this very particular case results in creation of unintelligible articles and unnecessary edit wars. Such a situation can both repel readers and discourage valuable editors (who do not want to waste their time protecting articles against various nationalist claims). Tankred 03:38, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Apparently you don't understand. Your examples deal with the use of the alternative candidates for the naming slot, in the very article whose name, to occupy one available slot, is being determined. That isn't what I'm saying is outside the scope of our authority.
I'd have no problem with us pointing out that there is no need to use every alternative in every article outside the one whose name is being considered. But what should be used there is outside the scope of our authority. The considerations are different when you are not necessarily limited to one possibility, and there are many situations when just one of the options other than the one chosen for the article name is appropriate, notwithstanding what paragraph 3 says. If you feel it is important, go discuss it at some appropriate place. That's something that needs to be agreed upon by, and monitored by, a broader range of people than those who follow every subpage of the naming conventions pages. That's how you limit edit wars in that regard.
Our job is to deal with the problems specifically relating to naming conventions, not to solve all the world's problems in one fell swoop. Gene Nygaard 14:47, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

More on proposal F

Modern local official name and modern local historical name

These two terms need to be defined. My specific concern is the case when cities or other localities have an official name spelled in Cyrillic or some other non-Latin-based alphabet. To put it simply, there are instances when the modern local official/historical name in English does not exist.

In fact, I raised this issue earlier in the context of transliteration. But it appears to have been forgotten. Sashazlv 03:19, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, if you could propose the solution to the transliteration issue, it would be best - I don't think we have yet thought of one.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  15:42, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Modification of SWAEN def

I think this should be reformulated. The NC should put an emphasis that the default name is the national name which (if non-Latin) is transliterated through an accepted wikiwide translit rule (which has to be agreed at WP:CYR for each language). Only when there is a provable SWAEN the latter takes precedence. Logically it would be one and the same thing as what the current text says, but this way it would emphasize, that the burden of proof for not using the modern national name is on those who advocate another name claiming its Englishness.

Besides, the definition of SWAEN ommits an important factor, that is "Modern Media Usage". The latter reflects the overall English usage much better than google books and google scholar which may include books published from dozens years ago. My guess is that google books will likely show Kharkov due to the importance of the city in the WW2; and going by that the article should sit at Kharkov. However, the modern English media usage firmly prefers Kharkiv by a wide margin (I made relevant searches a while ago). So, the media factor should be added. It is important, though, to make sure that only solid enough media is used, that is major newspapers and national TV's of the English-speaking countries, that is the media which are solid enough to have an editorial policy and editorial staff that checks journalists' submission for the compliance with the editorial style. Naturally, what The Economist or The New York Times uses is more important than what is used by some local town paper, while google news will count each hit equally. For that, I suggest to use my all time favorite Major Papers search of Lexis Nexis Academic. Lexis Nexis defines major papers as follows. "United States newspapers must be listed in the top 50 circulation in Editor & Publisher Year Book. Newspapers published outside the United States must be in English language and listed as a national newspaper in Benn's World Media Directory or one of the top 5% in circulation for the country." This search is subscription bases, by I volunteer to run it if asked.

So, I would modify the def of SWAEN as follows:

The geographic location is considered to have a single widely accepted English name in modern context (swaEn) if at least two out of the following three conditions are satisfied simultaneously:

  1. Out of three major English-language encyclopedias (Encyclopedia Britannica, Columbia Encyclopedia and Encarta) at least two consistently use this name for the article title or if such article does not exist in all other articles where the corresponding location is mentioned in modern context.
  2. This name obtains the largest number (75% or more of total hits considering all possible variants) of Google Scholar and Google Books hits (count only articles and books, not number of times the world is used in them) when searched over English language articles and books where the corresponding location is mentioned in modern context. If the name of the location coincides with the name of another entity, care should be taken to exclude inappropriate pages from the count.
  3. This name obtains the largest (66% or moreof total hits considering all possible variants in the Lexis Nexis academic "Major Paper" search, where the Major Papers (as per definition of Lexis Nexis[7] are defined as follows: "United States newspapers must be listed in the top 50 circulation in Editor & Publisher Year Book. Newspapers published outside the United States must be in English language and listed as a national newspaper in Benn's World Media Directory or one of the top 5% in circulation for the country."

--Irpen 04:00, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

The point of the "single widely accepted English name" criterion is that the name is in fact "widely accepted". If there are 3 criteria, and a name passes 2 and violates 1, then it's not widely accepted. If we go for 3 criteria, a trully "widely accepted" name should pass 3 out of 3. --KPbIC 04:54, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
I say two out of three would suffice. Actually, in all honesty, just Lexus Nexis alone is all we need to establish english usage. And all searches I've done in Lexis matched EB exactly every single time. But if people want to add others, fine. But we should not fall hostage to the marginal Encartha which, while an OK source, is incomparable with EB by authority. Is 2 out of three fine with others? Or everyone supports Krys on this? --Irpen 05:02, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
Sounds reasonable, but few minor modifications: 1) note modern context in N-L search, and 2) perhaps we should limit the sample in GP/GS/L-N to the first 10-20 - or otherwise we would have to force editors to look through hundreds of publications, if not more, in some cases, before they can present their case.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  15:46, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

More on proposal F -- (2)

Quality of online searches? Gazetteers?

As far as general principles go, F is fine but, except for the Britannica/Columbia test, there still seems to be a reliance on quantity (e.g. Google searches) over quality (i.e., more encyclopedic usage). For most cases, this poses no problem but for more obscure locations where there are few English references (i.e., a small 'n') the reliance on search engines does not reflect English usage. Many encyclopedias don't have entries for more obscure region names a few false positives in Google can obscure the better form. As I asked before, what about gazetteers? (The old-fashioned book kind like the Columbia Gazetteer or its more extensive predecessors, the Columbia-Lipincott Gazetteers, available in most English-language libraries)? Gazetteers and encyclopedias inject a degree of quality into determining English usage that Google does not possess.

Examples of my concerns can be seen in non-geographic terms such as catty and tael which are unknown to the vast majority of English speakers (even in the Orient) and would probably flunk Google tests but are nonetheless the correct terms.

A geographic example would be Budjak where non-English forms (e.g. Bugeac) show up in English Google results either as false positives (Romanian language pages) or in English articles that use the Romanian term because the knowledge of the region is obscure among English speakers.

Another example of problematic reliance on search results is Pomerelia. There are claims that his region should be properly called "Eastern Poemrania" in English (apparently a translation from Polish). A search of print materials on academic search engines such as JSTOR or ABC-Clio Historical Abstracts shows “eastern Pomerania” usually used as a descriptive (with a lower case “e”) while Pomerelia is used on several occasions to describe both the duchy and the region and is the term used in the translation of Polish and German article titles. In many cases “eastern Pomerania” does not refer to Pomerelia but to the eastern part of the Duchy of Pomerania (i.e., Farther Pomerania) an entirely different region. Google Books searches of Eastern Pomerania and Pomerelia reveal similar results.

Perhaps a greater reliance more quality sources such as gazetteers would help ameliorate some of these problems.

-  AjaxSmack  05:46, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Reliance on "Names of European cities in different languages" article

I oppose the reliance on Names of European cities in different languages article to provide major foreign language (FL) forms that would normally appear in the article text. (See Vilnius for example) The Names article is too fluid and has too many FL forms to substitute.

Also, I have also proposed limits/splits to that article so please check out Talk:Names of European cities in different languages.

One possible rule addition could be that if there are more than a certain number of FL forms (e.g. 2 or 3), then all of the FL forms would be required to be moved to a separate names section.

-  AjaxSmack  05:46, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Good idea, I think. --Lysytalk 07:29, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Well.

Sounds fine to me as it is. Let's make it a policy. :) —Nightstallion (?) 06:02, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

I also think it's fine. Grandmaster 06:27, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
You have my support. Let's fix this and move on. //Halibutt 09:25, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
I think the definitions of swaEn and wahEn are unworkable. We will end up with people counting Google hits and nobody will ever determine the context (historical or not?) of all those hits. Do not rely on numbers here. Kusma (討論) 09:30, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
I think the "numbers" are only meant for support in cases of doubt. What we need it a possibly precise definition to reduce the number of revert wars greatly. --Lysytalk 10:25, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
(Waving) Solution just below? THEPROMENADER 10:35, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
Didn't you mean above?-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  15:53, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
The actual examples demonstrate that this policy was drawn up with reasonable intentions, but the criteria for wide acceptance are far too narrow and much too rigid. Taking them literally, if the Britannica yields to political correctness and installs a non-English form in the header of its article, WP must too. Strongly oppose. Septentrionalis 13:23, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
Not sure if I understand what you are driving at, but note that Britannica is not the sole determining factor: we have 2 out of 3 major English-language encyclopedia, and even that as Irpen proposes would only be 1 of two needed factors. And if most sources yeld to political correctness or whatever, then so should we, as this will basically mean that a new name has become 'the name'.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  15:53, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
A secondary non-English form seems both logical and informative. Yet could this be implemented into the existing Wiki technology? Would it be cumbersome? It could appear as a sort of disambiguation - but this deserves some thought too. THEPROMENADER 13:39, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
I am absolutely opposed to including multiple names in article titles, along the lines of the Bozen-Bolzano nonsense (and that's a better case than most). Recognition of non-English names is achieved in two ways, both reflected in Rome: mention of Roma in the first line, and link to it:Roma. Septentrionalis 15:33, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
Certainly we don't want Vilnius-Wilno or Gdańsk (Danzig), if that's what you mean. This policy most certainly does not support such names.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  15:53, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
Septentrionalis, do you have a better idea how to determine what exactly is an English name? Tankred 13:38, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
I like the method we are (supposed to) use now:
  • Consult a pile of English-language reference works (not just three encyclopedias, but histories of the area in question, the Library of Congress country study, and so forth)
  • Appeal to the Sprachgefühl of English-speaking editors (this is what WP:RM is for)
  • Decide case by case, on the basis of these data. Septentrionalis 15:33, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
If English usage (in Britannica and major news sources) yields to political correctness, the politically correct name will become the widely accepted term, and we should use it. Kusma (討論) 13:43, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
That's too fast. Sometimes politically correct names can be imposed on this or that reference, but they still fail to become English usage; I think Timor-Leste is an example here, at least so far. If they do make it, we should switch, but we don't need an special standard for that: our normal standard of English usage will suffice. Septentrionalis 15:33, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
Note that the policy, as phrased, does not wait for general adoption by encyclopedias and news sources, but an adoption by one article in any encyclopedia or a minority of news sources. This is what is unacceptable. Septentrionalis 15:42, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
Umm, I am pretty sure you are mistaken here: one encyclopedia or minority of news sources would not allow the article to be renamed. Majority of encyclopedias or news sources would allow the inclusion of a foreign name, and of course if this would be an new English name, then just as you suggest above, Sprachgefühl in RM would lead to renaming anyway.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  15:55, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

If there's one thing that I'm wary of, it's naming because of the 'ignorant majority'. Here I'm thinking of Mumbai and Bombay - one and the same - yet although Mumbai seems to be the accepted version for the article today, Bombay would be much more widely recognised. Yet how did the decision to name the article Mumbai come about? THEPROMENADER 17:26, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Local Name vs. Historic name vs. English name

I do have one possible solution to this question. Since naming can be a touchy affair as far as international relations are concerned, I suggest you go straight to an international relations source: Government (and Embassy) English documentation. This would show the title of the place in question as the country itself would like a name translated for the world, and I think this modern context is important as well. THEPROMENADER 10:14, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

This is unacceptable. Wikipedia does not use "official" names except as a stopgap when English usage is undeterminable; I strongly oppose any effort to change that policy. Septentrionalis 13:15, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure what you mean by "official" names, but all I meant was the name used in press releases and the like - in information destined for the greater public. THEPROMENADER 13:36, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
We have considered a similar issue during the debates at Wikipedia:WikiProject Geography of Poland. The problems we run into included the facts that sometimes it's difficult to find what is the official name, especially in English, as 1) the official guideline may not be released 2) if released, it may not be respected even on the webpages of issuing body 3) often, it does not exist and various government bodies have their own different ideas how are they (or the cities, etc.) named in English...-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  15:57, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
Other possible problem is the case of Kiev. While Ukrainian authorities strongly support the name of Kyiv to be used in English, the name does not yet stick and most people still refer to the Ukrainian capital as Kiev instead (and so does Wikipedia). To some extent the same applies to the Czech Republic vs. Czechia phenomenon. //Halibutt 19:41, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
Precisely. These are not exceptions, nor is Prague (official Praha); these are policy. This proposal, until a few minutes ago, would overturn that policy. Septentrionalis 20:53, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
And, frankly speaking, good for us. I mean, while I fully agree that the Czech government has the full right to promote the name of Czechia, we're here not to report what governments state, but to report what is actually used. Hence IMO the article on Czech Republic should stay where it is, at least as long as people are using the "old" name. Or did I get you wrong? //Halibutt 06:34, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Encyclopedias

Just a minor point: the guidelines should explicitly state that only the recent issues of encyclopedias (let say, published after 1993) should be used. For example, Britannica from 1911 includes many geographic names that had not been used after the end of WWI. But some editors might argue that it is a relevant source to establish a swaEn. Many names were changed right after the end of WWI, WWII and Cold War. This fact should be reflected in the guidelines. Tankred 13:28, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Good point, feel free to ammend the policy. What about historical names: would historical editions of encyclopedias be useful there?-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  15:58, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

My 2 grosze's worth

It seems to me that there are two questions to be asked in determining appropriate names:

1. What was the place called by (a majority of) its inhabitants during the time period or historical era in question?
2. How was the place known in English during the time in question?

For places east of the eastern borders of present-day Poland and Slovakia, the first may be difficult to determine with clarity, in which case the second principle should be a guide.

For ex-German places in present-day Poland and the Czech Republic, there would seem to be little confusion, with a few exceptions.

In the case of Gdańsk, it seems clear that the city's inhabitants (or a majority thereof) knew it as Danzig (with early spelling vagaries) from the early 14th century until after WWII, when the surviving/remaining German population was expelled. It's particularly obvious in the case of Danzig due to the city's German-language publications, media and currency that have survived — and particularly important to readers in that "Danzig" appeared in countless publications and newspaper headlines during the interwar period.

The same criteria may be applied with little confusion to other ex-German places in Poland and the Czech Republic. Exceptions or confusion may arise in some areas, however: Poznań / Posen became fundamentally Polish sooner, after the border changes of 1919-20, and I leave it to others to determine when the originally Polish Poznań became fundamentally German (after the First Partition?). Some areas of Upper Silesia evidently were bilingual for a very long time, the Masurians were themselves bilingual, and Klaipėda/Memel was mixed. Such areas may present problems. However, the two principles above apply quite clearly to the most important locales in Silesia, Pomerania, the Gdańsk area and ex-East Prussia.

These principles cancel out any attempt to call a place by a particular name merely because it was politically part of a given country or enfeoffed to a particular royal house. This practice is not logical because the use of an other-than-native name ignores the fundamental nature of the place and its inhabitants. As has been said so many times, Danzig was, ethnically and culturally, fundamentally a German place even when it was part of Royal Prussia and linked politically (and economically) with the Kingdom of Poland.

Okay, it was maybe 50 groszy's worth. It's difficult to express these things succinctly.

Sca 15:21, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

I mostly agree. Do you think the current version of the proposal reflects this adequately ? --Lysytalk 16:13, 19 September 2006 (UTC)


If you're referring to Proposal F: More or less, I guess. However, in some cases I don't see the relevance of foreign-language names that never were in general use by local populations or in English. Example: the Polish and Lithuanian names for Königsberg — Królewiec and Karaliaučius — which from an English-speaking point of view merely create confusion. I see the current Kaliningrad entry lists them (and others that seem even more irrelvant) at the end as "historical names," which to me implies that at some point or points in its history from 1255 to 1945, Königsberg called itself by these names — which it did not.
Sca 22:24, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
Indeed. But I think that Królewiec and Karaliaučius in fact would have to go, according to the guideline (version F) as they would not meet the criteria of "relevant foreign language names". --Lysytalk 22:58, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
Not quite: note that both the proposal F and G allow 'A relevant foreign language name', capped currently at 10%. Consider Kaliningrad - 7k - and Królewiec - 1k. Królewiec would make it. Karaliaučius - 20 - would not.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  00:06, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

What the proposal now says

The geographic location is considered to have a single widely accepted English name in modern context (swaEn) if the following two conditions are satisfied simultaneously:

  1. The English-language encyclopedias (Encyclopedia Britannica, Columbia Encyclopedia and Encarta) consistently use this name in all articles where the corresponding location is mentioned in modern context.
  2. This name obtains the largest number (75% or more of total hits considering all possible variants) of Google Scholar and Google Books hits (count only articles and books, not number of times the world is used in them) when searched over English language articles and books where the corresponding location is mentioned in modern context. If the name of the location coincides with the name of another entity, care should be taken to exclude inappropriate pages from the count.
If at least one of the two conditions is not satisfied this location it is considered as not having a single widely accepted English name in modern context.

If this fails to exist, we go to the "official" name, whatever that is.

When does it fail to exist?

  • First of all, this is ambiguous. Is there a swaEn if one condition is satisfied and the other is not? The first sentence answers no; the last sentence answers yes.
  • But there certainly is no swaEn if neither is satisfied. What are the minimun requirements for this, as written?
    • One article in any of the three encyclopedias uses a different name in modern context; and
    • a quarter of the articles or books use some other name or names in modern context.

I gather this is not what Piotrus intends, but it is what the policy says, even leaning over backwards in favor of English. Septentrionalis 16:34, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Not at all, both the first and the last sentence clearly say there's no swaEn if one condition is satisfied and the other is not. You are however correct in your second point. That's indeed what the guideline says. And this is what was intended and agreed upon after the discussions that you can review above. --Lysytalk 16:48, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
If that is intended, the last sentence should be "if either condition is unsatisfied" and without a free-floating not. Such an intention would flatly violate the main WP:NC page, and is therefore unacceptable. Septentrionalis 18:58, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
Thanks, indeed this sentence was flawed. However the proposed guideline does not violate the WP:NC but in fact clarifies its application to the particular case. --Lysytalk 19:42, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
The minimum requirement is that; any one article in a modern context in any English language encyclopedia (not limited to the three listed as examples) means that the requirement is not met.
That is setting the bar far too high. Gene Nygaard 17:43, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
I think it was intended to be set high (because otherwise the official name prevails, which is the expected default). But I don't think it was intended to be applied to any encyclopedia, just the set of the three explicitly mentioned. Any idea how to reword it to make this clear ? --Lysytalk 17:53, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
Oh, it is clear enough that our naming policy is to be hostage only to EB, Collier's and the notorious Encarta; however, that is enough to make this a violation of actually established and agreed policy. The only wording change needed is in the next section.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Pmanderson (talk • contribs)
Gene: good catch. I actually missed the word 'all'; I don't think it was my orginal intention. I'd rather we remove it, and go with 'at least one'.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  19:31, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Please note that this issue is discussed at #Modification of SWAEN def, where a major change is proposed.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  19:29, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Contrary to policy

Now that Lysy has explained what the wording was intended to say: any name which is not used by every editor at three encyclopedias and an overwhelming majority of the press is to be thrown away. This is contrary to WP:NC#Use_English_words: Name your pages in English and place the native transliteration on the first line of the article unless the native form is more commonly used in English than the English form. which is policy. This is not. Septentrionalis 19:10, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

I suggest you consult the WP:UE more thoroughly: "If there is no commonly used English name, use an accepted transliteration of the name in the original language.". The definition that you are contesting is exactly an attempt to clarify what "commonly used English name" specifically means. Would you suggest changing it ? --Lysytalk 19:56, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
No, it is not; "commonly used" means commonly used, in the normal sense of those words. Lysy's proposal would alter this drastically. The proposed text would mean that a predominant English usage would be rejected if one encyclopedia article differed; that it would be rejected if it was only predominant by 3-1. Both these are drastic revisions to WP:NC and should be proposed there; and only made after clear consensus which you do not have. Septentrionalis 20:21, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
Dear Pmanderson, you seem to misunderstood the policy (and we have no liberum veto here, neither). This NC is supposed to expand and clarify the fragment of the NC(UE) policy you quote, and is most certainly not supposed to contradict them. I see no contradiction between our policy and NC(UE), on the other hand I see much need for clarification of how do we determine whether something is more commonly used, and what to do if more then one variant is more commonly used. Rest assured that the gist of NC(UE) will not be changed by this policy: articles will be named in English, and popular native transliterations will be placed in the first line of the lead, as they should be. However as details of that have caused many, many discussions, we need a more detailed policy then one sentence in NC(UE), to put an end to hours wasted when editors try to interpret the general sentence you quote to discuss various practical details.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  19:21, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
I believe Piotrus believes this. But this is not what the proposal says; and therefore it is not what the results will be. Septentrionalis 20:21, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
The fundamental problem, however, is here, in Irpen's:
I think this should be reformulated. The NC should put an emphasis that the default name is the national name which (if non-Latin) is transliterated through an accepted wikiwide translit rule (which has to be agreed at WP:CYR for each language). Only when there is a provable SWAEN the latter takes precedence. Logically it would be one and the same thing as what the current text says, but this way it would emphasize, that the burden of proof for not using the modern national name is on those who advocate another name claiming its Englishness.
WP:NC denies this. The default name is whatever name is used in English. (This frequently is the local name.) When English has no clear usage, there are secondary defaults. Septentrionalis 20:27, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

I do not believe in deleting proposals; but I will make an exception for this object if necessary. Septentrionalis 19:15, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

You seem to be joking, I assume?-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  19:21, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
Not at all. The present text has a snowball's chance of surviving WP:MfD without deletion or rejection; and it will go there if it ever reappears.
However, since large parts of this essay are worth saving, and the results on Danzig and Stalingrad are the proper ones, it is worth having an effort to save this first. Septentrionalis 20:21, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
Care to suggest a better definition of SWAEN instead ? --Lysytalk 20:59, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
Look at the project page, where you will find one, based on present practice, especially Elonka's Septentrionalis 21:02, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
Can you be more specific, please ? --Lysytalk 21:06, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
Which project page? Which Elonka's proposal? While I fully support you if you wish to propose a better formulation of this proposal, you should archive the old version properly, your current edit produced a messeed-up version ([8]), with an empty footnote, editor-only visible text and other problems. I am restoring the old one and renaming your as G, feel free to improve it and then we can discuss if it is any better. PS. As I said, Wikipedia is not run by a liberum veto: read up on WP:CON and why a single person should not 'reject' a proposal they don't like. On that note I think there is a snowball change in hell WP:MfD would delete a proposal page, even rejected ones are archived.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  21:12, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
I would be happy with a merge; the mechanics of the footnotes are my objection to Version F, as comparison will show. I've been thinking about liberum veto: there is a distinction: Every Polish noble could vote; here we are a committee of half-a-dozen. One deprecates Version F; others are plainly less than happy with it. This in itself is evidence of the lack of "general agreement", which is what {{Guideline}} claims for guidelines. If there were other evidence of wider agreement, it might make a difference, but no such has been posted. Septentrionalis 20:12, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Proposal G

I have taken the liberty to rename the new version of the proposal after major edits by Pmanderson to G. I hope Pmanderson will describe his changes here when his version is complete (especially how it differs from the F version we have been discussing above), currently it appears to need some fixes (for example, it has a nonworking footnote).-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  21:20, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm now reasonably satisfied with G. The changes are two: a minor tweak to avoid putting local official name above wahEn for places that no longer exist (I don't want to have to worry about Turkish official names for the site of Miletus or Troy). If it becomes sole version, I might rename them waEn, with modern or historical as adjectives, but that's another tweak. More importantly, G identifies a set of conditions any one of which is sufficient to identify a widely accepted name; the point of WP:UE is that a widely accepted name is default, and usually exists. (It is also often identical with a local name, or one of them.)
The set of conditions can be tweaked; but I think these are reasonably close to what move discussions actually do. (For Elonka's approach to names, see Talk:Boleslaw I of Poland; that's not a geographic name, but the approach is useful.) Septentrionalis 22:21, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
The proposal seems reasonable, and I think you have managed to phrase some issues more simply and clearly, which is great. Few points: 1) I see you dislike the footnotes and references. This is mostly a style issue, I'd prefer to have footnotes immediatly reffering users to the definitions of the stranger terms we use 2) out of 'Cambridge histories' we have currently an article only about one (The Cambridge History of English and American Literature), maybe it should be linked as an example 3) Irpen's Lexis-Nexis seems like a very good idea to add to the conditions 4) I see you prefer to avoid strict numerical definitons in the form of out of x conditions, no less then y must be satisfied. All things considered, I guesss if majority prefers less strict conditions, we can go with them and see if they work, if not, we may revisit this proposal and discuss a more restritcitve version. I believe there are also some other minor issues to work out (transliteration, archaic, etc.) discussed above, but I am glad we seem to have reached an agreement here.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  23:59, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
I don't mind the footnote style; but they were much easier to rewrite using plain text, and since the conditions of G are still in flux, I left them that way. Feel free to revise G; I don't in any way claim ownership. Septentrionalis 05:49, 20 September 2006 (UTC)


Although Proposal F is perhaps too strict (and I believe that we could improve it), Proposal G may easily fail to prevent edit wars over geographic names - the very reason why we need the guidelines. For example, the paragraphs 5 and 6 of Septentrionalis' "recommendations" are extremely vague and can be interpreted too broadly. The number 4 is irrelevant to most of the cases covered by these guidelines because historical names will be mainly used within the existing articles anyway. On the other hand, it can be useful in the case of real moves. There is a problem who should define what the "standard histories and scientific studies of the area in question" are (paragraph 3). Does this ambivalent group include only works written by English native speakers? Or all works written in English (some of them using historical foreign names because of the bias of their authors)? What about books published in English say fifty years ago that used contemporary official names in historical context? Septentrionalis "recommends" three prominent sources, but other editors might argue that their sources are equally relevant. I am fine with relaxing the strict rules of Proposal F in a way that EITHER major encyclopedias OR major academic papers should be sufficient to declare a widely used English name. I would also support a conservative expansion of the list of sources (ie. inclusion of Oxford dictionaries, Cambridge histories and Lexis' major papers in the same category as Google Scholar and Google Books). But I have definitely a problem with the vague points 5-6. Tankred 00:21, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Is there any real question what the standard English histories of Poland are, for example? If there is, look at a well-sourced article on the same country, and see what it uses.
  • If #4 is used, it will be consensus; but I don't want someone appealling to this guideline to overturn a consensus decision reached on the grounds that X is the English name because it is what ten editors actually call the subject X.
  • #5 and #6 intentionally say "probably widely accepted". Whether the case for a given name is made out is a matter for the editors and the closing admin to decide. No guideline can remove this burden. Septentrionalis 05:49, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
To be honest, I do not believe that the guidelines as vague as the ones you have proposed can make our work more efficient. The strategy of the original proposal(s), i.e. the use of clear quantitative criteria, was a real breakthrough and we could refine it. Proposal G does not bring much new into the current system. Tankred 23:44, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
The quantitative measures are still there; the change is their effect. Septentrionalis 22:42, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

What exactly is the "modern local historical name"? I guess you wrote it by mistake. Tankred 23:53, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

It was in Version F; it seems perfectly clear. If there is no modern name, in either English or the local language, and no English decision on the historical name, use the historical name now used in the local language, rather than worrying about 15-th century spelling. Septentrionalis 03:51, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Comment

I was asked on my talk page to comment on this so here goes... I'm a bit confused by what is being proposed here. Is it version F or version G, or a hybrid, or a discussion between the two? The differences between the two aren't really clear to anyone who wasn't involved in the prior discussion of (assumedly) versions A through E. I think the boldfaced parts of sentences make the guideline hard to read, and I would prefer to do without the terms "swaEn" and such since they have the potential to be highly confusing to people unfamiliar with them. In my opinion it is more important for a guideline to be easily understood, than to be technically correct in the smallest details. In practice every guideline has a few exceptions anyway, so you don't need to document too many single cases. >Radiant< 16:03, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

The discussion above began when Version F was the only version, as it was for some time. Version G arose in the middle of it, since I think the severe requirements of the present Version F contrary to WP:NC, which is policy. (This page will, at best, be a guideline). I don't insist on either version, myself; while a good version of this page would be helpful, nationalist trolls will ignore it, as they do other WP pracitices. Septentrionalis 19:35, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
But with this we will be able to control them more easily; especially that branch of the troll family who specialized in long and pointless talk discussions, and removing any mention of foreign names from articles, or adding them where uneeded :) I look forward towards the days when instead of spending hours repeating the same arguments over and over again, we will be able to point to this convention and end the discussion (after all, this is what naming conventions are for, to make our life easier and our articles more standarized :) ).-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  23:16, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
Septentrionalis, we're not writing this for the nationalist trolls, but rather for the rest of our community, for all those who moderate'em. //Halibutt 07:31, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Foreign names

I suggest to change the sentence "Foreign names can be used only if there are no established English names." of the paragraph 3 into "Foreign names can be used only if there are no established English names or an official local name." The proposal in fact distinguishes a local official name from foreign names and foreign names should not replace local official names. This is the case of geographic places, where it is not possible to find any widely accepted English name because of their little significance. But the guidelines should cover also such cases. Tankred 23:50, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

What do you mean by "foreign"? Local names are foreign, except in English-speaking countries. We should avoid setting up definitions of common words which are contrary to common usage (as opposed to more precise than common usage). Septentrionalis 03:44, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
I perfectly see your point and I apologize for not being clear. The problem is that the foreign names proper are defined by the guidelines as the names "used by at least 10% of sources in the English language or used by a group of people which used to inhabit this geographical place". If we leave the sentence mentioned in my preceeding comment in its present version, it may open a window of opportunity for edit wars in the articles about places without a widely accepted English name. Let say there is a mountain in the Czech Republic a no widely accepted English name can be identified. The territory used to be inhabited by Germans and that is why the mountain has a different name on German maps. In other words, the place in the Czech Republic has a Czech name on the Czech maps, a German name on the German maps and people in the English-speaking world so not care. The present version of the guidelines can be interpreted in a way that both a Czech name and a German name can be used in the content of Wikipedia articles. I propose to delete the sentence "Foreign names can be used only if there are no established English names." from the paragraph 3. As a result, only the same name as in title or a widely accepted historic English name for a specific historical context will be used in the content of articles. Foreign names will have their place in the lead of the main article, but they will not be used in other articles. Is it clearer now? Tankred 16:09, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
Hmm,I think your first suggestion, recommending the use of official local name because historical foreign one was better, otherwise it may not be clear what to do if there is no English name. We may also note that the local official name will likely be the name of the article in question and so redirects should be avoided.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  00:21, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

English orthography and usage

Names that are manifestly not English words should not be used when there is a reasonable and reasonably-common alternative that is manifestly English. Especially, words that are impossible in modern English orthography should not be used when there is a reasonable alternative that can be more naturally rendered. Many readers tend to "hear" words as they are being read, and this is especially true when running across an unfamiliar one. This makes a word that looks unpronouncable jarring. This applies with less force when the foreign-language spelling (and some approximation of its pronunciation) have wide currency. While we certainly want to include the official name, (and the name commonly used by the locals, if different) as a means of informing readers, it seems natural that the title and the word ordinarily used for a place should make sense in the language of the particular Wikipedia: English in this instance.

It makes no sense to defer our stylistic judgments to another tertiary source, such as Britannica, that is not bound by our NPOV or NOR policies, and where content wars are not even a possibility.

To take some examples:

  • "Plzen" is the offical and local name, and clearly should be used in the Czech Wikipedia, but there is no obvious way to pronounce that word in English. If anything, "Plizen" is a more natural assumption than "Pilzen". In contrast, there is a reasonably-common alternative, "Pilsen", that is pronounceable in English, and that can be manipulated in natural ways to make other parts of speech. Therefore, "Pilsen", even if old-fashioned, should be preferrred.
  • "Gökçeada" is the official name, and the one used by the Turkish-speaking inhabitants of the island classically known as "Imbros" in English. The Turkish name contains diacritics and it has no natural pronunciation to a monophone English-speaker. On the other hand, because Greek has greatly influenced English, the name "Imbros" looks natural and can be pronounced readily. It is also reasonably common in texts intended for an English-speaking audience, so it should be preferred as the ordinary name for the title and most uses.
  • "Gdansk" has no natural pronunciation in English, and if we were writing the 1965 edition of Wikipedia, I would argue for "Danzig", but we aren't. The Polish name was sufficiently commonly used during news stories of the 1980's that usage changed, and "Gdansk" is now perfectly proper for ordinary contexts.

This is not, of course, a complete guideline, and the principle cannot avoid all arguments, I think that this is the core intention of "Use English", and that we could eliminate a lot of silliness if we kept to this rule. Robert A.West (Talk) 15:47, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

What you are suggesting is outside the scope of this naming convention; instead, it should be discussed at the page of another proposed naming convention, namely Wikipedia:Naming conventions (standard letters with diacritics).-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  00:25, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
It is certainly relevant to this discussion, and there is no certainty that there will be any policy or guideline coming out of the other discussion. Moreover, as the Plzen/Pilsen case shows, there are instances not involving diacritics that come under this rubric.Robert A.West (Talk) 11:26, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
Well, the case you have mentioned in fact involves diacritics. The Czech name is Plzeň and the English name Pilsen. The same is true for your second case - Gdańsk. Anyway, both proposals F and G prefer English names. But I think that we should real English names (if they exist) and invent English-like neologisms when real English names do not exist. Tankred 15:19, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Diacritics are a part of language; perhaps not the English language, but where there is no regular English name other than perhaps the official name without its diacritics, the foreign should be prefered as more accurate. Robert West's proposal puts the en wikipedia on the same level as the simple one; not scholarly, just easier to read. Carlossuarez46 00:29, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
    • True. I think we should use diactrics: redirects are easy to create, and English literature uses them (ex. Gdańsk, Plzeň).-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  15:59, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
      • We should use diacritics when English does, and not otherwise. I think Plzeň is such a case, if (as I also think, but there is consensus the other way) Plzen, however spelt, is more used than Pilsen. Septentrionalis 22:51, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
        • Agreed. If there is an English name different from the official name or local name, we should use it even if it is the same as the official or local name just without diacritics: Istanbul over İstanbul, but with a redirect at the latter of course. Where there is no real English name, we use the official or local name (the debate which if they differ is another matter) with all its diacritics if in Latin letters and Romanize them if not: Besançon, not Besancon; Zürich not Zurich; again with redirects, in the case of German umlauts a further redirect at their proper compositional spellings (e.g., a redirect at Zuerich). All of which seems to be the norm at WP and no real strong argument made to change course. Carlossuarez46 16:02, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

I've added a version of this to the proposal. Is it worth adding the main point here: that names not readily pronouncable in English are less likely to be English usage? Septentrionalis 14:24, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Comments about current version (as of 10 Oct)

Since the discussion died down again, unless there are any SIGNIFICANT objections, I'd like to suggest we proceed to make it a Naming Convention. I am not entirely sure how we should do so...comments?-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  20:37, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Which version? I continue to object to Version F; as others have. Septentrionalis 19:58, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
G, of course.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  21:49, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
Much obliged. A straw poll, widely advertised, would probably be best; mention it at Requested Surveys and Village pump (policy) and the other major Naming convention pages. Septentrionalis 02:44, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
  • I also support Version G, the 7-point, long version, and strongly object to Version F, the 2-point version. (PS. I'm only entering this discussion after having been recommended to do so in connection with a poll about a suggested name change, from Skåne (Scania in English) to Scania (Skåne in Swedish), which someone suggested should be held up while we wait for a decision here as to which version will be the recommended one.) Scania is a pretty unique case so I don't know if it should be used as an example, but if you have the time and want to study a practical example of how these recommendations can come to play out in "real Wiki-life" ;), please feel free to stop by [9]). Best, Pia 06:51, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
    • I wouldn't wait; although if the issues there are interesting, I will report. Septentrionalis 02:44, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
      • This does suggest some refinements of Version G. Is there present consensus to file Version F? If we are going to ask approval, it must be clear what we are asking approval for. Septentrionalis 19:31, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

I was one of those who initially opposed the version G. But I really liked its recent refiniment by Pmanderson. Moreover, two parallel versions are confusing for new people entering this discussion. It would be better to delete the version F as soon as possible. I will be happy to support the version G, but I still think that the point 7 of the "Recommendations" is too vague. Do you think it could be more precise or dropped without any harm? I am afraid that some editors could abuse the point 7, using obscure websites as an evidence proving that "their" local name is in fact a widely accepted English name. Before it is too late, I would like also to raise another issue: It would make sense if any discussion about what is and what is not a widely accepted English name goes on on the main article's talk page and not on the talk pages of other articles (where the geographic name in question is used). This should be perhaps explicitly included in the guidelines. Otherwise, several redundant discussions may appear. What is even worse, some editors may decide to fight against the consensus in dozens of articles. I have already seen this type of nationalists, who, unable to change the content of the well-protected main article, are at least changing the geographic name in other articles, in which the geographic name is mentioned. Tankred 04:26, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

The point of clause 7 is that names can be widely accepted but only come close to meeting any of the first six criteria; if, say, the Britannica (only) has a spasm of political correctness about the local name, google is 2.5:1, and so on. Does Tankred (or anyone) disagree? In other words, is this a question of phrasing, or is there substantive disagreement here? Septentrionalis 00:00, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
It is a question of phrasing. I think it should be clarified that the point 7 cannot be used as the main criterion (comparable to encyclopedias and academic journals). Tankred 02:26, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
I've taken it out of the numbered list and made clearer that it is intended for borderline cases, in the spirit of WP:PR. Septentrionalis 14:03, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
I agree with Tankred's other point, and hope he will add a more explicit phrasing to Version G. Septentrionalis 00:02, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
My suggestion is to add one sentence into the Paragraph 1 of "Dispute resolution": Avoid revert wars: If there is a dispute regarding the naming convention in the contents of the article, to prevent revert wars the name from the title of the relevant article should be used in all occurrences until a consensus is reached on the relevant talk page. If the dispute is affecting more than one article, it should be discussed on the talk page of the main article about the place in question. In order to pull all the disputants into one talk page a template may be created. See Template:Gdansk-Vote-Notice for an example of such a notice. Tankred 02:33, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
Done; and archived F. If anybody feels like bringing F back, fine. Septentrionalis 14:03, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
I like the idea of talk page template for this NC for articles that are affected by edit wars - would you create one?-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  20:06, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

The nutshell

I believe the 'nutshell' could be expressed just a little more clear - without changing the meaning. I suspect that the present wording could confuse other users than Robert A West for more than his 2 minutes :-). At least, I needed longer time than that to grasp it. However, I don't want to provoke more discussion. If anyone thinks the change to the following text would either change the meaning, or fail to make the meaning at least marginally easier to grasp, I'll skip this. Proposed changes in boldface.

Use modern English names for titles and in articles. Historical names or names in other languages can be used in lead if they are popular and important enough for being valuable to readers, but they should be avoided in titles unless no English version exists, and should be used in articles with caution.

JoergenB 21:11, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Umm, you changed 'frequently used' to popular (I am ok with that), but I don't think adding 'for being' improves the nutshell (is it even correct gramatically?). Adding 'they' after 'but' seems like an ok change, too. I will go ahead and implement the two we agree on, they are cosmetic anyway. PS. 'and important enough to be valuable to readers' seems akward - what about replacing this with either 'important' or 'notable'?-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  20:06, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
For being is not idiomatic; and I'm not sure popular and frequently used are the same thing. Septentrionalis 01:04, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
I think "frequently used" is a more precise summary of the guideline than the more vague current formulation "popular". Tankred 16:36, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
Sofixit. Septentrionalis 00:31, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Two clarifications: First, I have not edited the text in the article; I've suggested changes supra. Since Pmanderson acted thus on my suggestion, and I thought this was a sufficient clarification, I left matters as they were. Second, at the time I made the suggestion, the nutshell text was as follows:

Use modern English names for titles and in articles. Historical names or names in other languages can be used in lead if popular and important enough that they are valuable to readers, should be avoided in titles unless no English version exists, and should be used in articles with caution.

There may have been some earlier changes you have not been aware of; if so, you may consult the history in order to find out whodunnit and hopefully why. I don't think I have further comment s of value to add to this. Best,--JoergenB 18:16, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Italics

Shall the guideline explain which names in the lead are bolded, and which are in italics ? --Lysytalk 20:12, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

It should; my experience is that names frequently used in English are bolded, foreign names are italicized if in Roman script, and that Greek or Cyrillic names are neither (because they are distinguishable from running text anyway). Is this controversial? Septentrionalis 21:31, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
Yes, it can be. I just found it should be better defined one way or another, to avoid lame revert wars on this (i.e. if a name is "foreign" and should be italicized or "synonym" and should be bolded). I know this seems silly but that's what the guideline is for. --Lysytalk 22:05, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

A Guideline ?

Isn't it time to make it into a guideline now ? --Lysytalk 08:54, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

I think it is. Tankred 05:54, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
I just wanted to ask the same thing :) I will drop a note at WP:NC for a final round of comments, barring any significant objections (everyone is free to do minor rewording or such they think is needed), this will finally become a 'job well done' :) -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  20:01, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
Should we tell Village Pump and RfC too? or people will complain they've been blindsided. But I think it's what we actually do, as a guideline ought to be. Septentrionalis 01:06, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
Sure, the more the merrier :) -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  03:13, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Annouced at Talk:NC, RfC/Policies and VP(Policy). Hopefully the end is near.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  18:51, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

  • Looks good to me. (Radiant) 09:33, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Guidebooks and roadmaps

Are primarily interested in local usage, for obvious reasons; many of them use München or Venezia, where we do not. This does come up in naming discussions; is a remark on it controversial among us?—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Pmanderson (talk • contribs) .

I am afraid you lost me here, could you elaborate?-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  21:02, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

I think he is referring to the usage of guidebooks and road maps to determine if a name is "English" or not; since these publications often use local spelling with English text ("take the AXX Autobahn from München to Nürnberg"), they therefore should not necessarily be considered criteria for determing English usage. Is this correct, Septentrionalis? Olessi 19:28, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Quite right; I believe there is even an English guidebook to Munich entitled München. This is not English usage; this is a display of local knowledge. (On similar grounds, I would add a caution about municipal websites; many of them are translated by someone who doesn't know English very well, and most of them are testimony to the official name, not English or local usage.) Septentrionalis 23:01, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Exceptions

I wonder if the (in)famous Gdansk vote is an exception to that naming convention, or is the convetion compatibile with it? And if not, should we make a note that (presumably) Gdańsk vote (and other such similar rulings if there are any) take precedence over it?-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  18:45, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Voting is evil. No amount of voting may overrule policy. --Ghirla -трёп- 18:52, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

And as long as we are on the topic of exceptions, see #Capital exception? and #Lithuanian exception?. Partucularly - should we mention as an alternative to adding names to lead, that it is acceptable to mention alternative names can be found at Names of European cities in different languages (or similar lists for other continents)?-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  19:39, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

I first encountered the inclusion of the Alternate Names link when editing Pomeranian cities, which usually had only Polish, Pomeranian/Kashubian, and German names. Usually the Pomeranian name would be listed in the intro, with the German one on the other page (possibly out of political concerns). The majority of localities usually only have one or two historically relevant alternate names, so I see little reason to send the reader to a completely separate page only to find out one or two names. My first preference is having alternate/historical names mentioned in the lead, while including the names in a paragraph near the beginning is also acceptable. I think the latter should only be done when the quantity of names makes listing them in the intro unwieldy or if there is sufficient information to fill a paragraph about the etymology. I am opposed to making exceptions for one country and not another. Olessi 19:56, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
I agree with Olessi that the policy should be general enough to be applied on a wide range of cases. A separate short "names" section after a lead would not harm any article, including capitals. And in most cases, there are only 1-2 relevant alternative names that can be put into the lead. Tankred 23:07, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Double naming

Regarding the method of mentioning both historical and current names, I like the style that Space Cadet began using a few weeks back. He/she lists the historical name first, followed by the current name in parentheses, all within wikilinks. An example would be [[Malbork|Marienburg (Malbork)]]. For instance, "The burgher Johann invited his good buddy Jan, the royal chronicler from Kraków, to share a drink at the tavern of Marienburg (Malbork) in 1312".

Also, I originally touched on this elsewhere, but should the usage of when to use double naming be set in stone? For instance, if the subject of the article is of a language/ethnicity different from the current locality, double naming should be used, but if the subject is of the same language/ethnicity as the location there would be no need to include other names. For example, "In 1567 Kovács went to Kolozsvár (Cluj-Napoca)", or "In 1835 Schmidt went to Kronstadt (Braşov)" (since the Hungarian and German names have been superceded by the Romanian names), but have "In 1739 Ionescu went to Alba Iulia" (no need to have Gyulafehérvár or Karlsburg since Ionescu was a Romanian). Just adding some food for thought... Olessi 19:46, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Our current proposal touches upon that issue as well: In cases when a historic name is used, it should be followed by the modern English name in parentheses on the first occurrence of the name in applicable sections of the article in the format: historical name (modern name). I basically agree with your thoughts above; do you think they should be reflected in this proposal? If so, in what format?-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  21:01, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
It is not so easy in many cases to determine which two names should be used and in what sequence. For example, the official language of the Kingdom of Hungary was Latin and so one would expect that the Latin name of a city should be chosen, followed by a modern name in parentheses. But, in fact, many cities in Slovakia used their local names (i.e. the German and less frequently the Slovak and Hungarian ones) also in official documents. In other words, we have usually four historical names used simultaneously in the same period. According to the proposed policy, this case does not allow identification of a widely accepted English historical name, so the modern English name should be used thorough the article (and all four local historical names should be mentioned in the lead or in a separate "names" section just after the lead). I think such a solution is one of the most important advantages of the proposal because it will prevent edit wars (should a name be written as Latin (Modern), German (Modern), Slovak (Modern), Hungarian (Modern)?) and inconsistent apparition of assorted names (Latin/German/Slovak/Hungarian/Modern) in various articles. The context of the sentence, as proposed by Olessi ("Ionescu went to Alba Iulia"), is not always helpful since (1) it is often difficult to classify people born before the 18th century according the modern ethnic categories and (2) it would be messy if there are three different people mentioned in an article as going to three distinct towns though it was just one town having three different names. To sum up, I think the proposal is quite clear and practical in this regard. Tankred 23:04, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
The only solution not implying any problems whatsoever is to use only current names in an article text and to mention all the variants in the text dealing with the town/object. The reason is, besides the obvious comfort for the reader, the fact that unless the object has been officially renamed to a totaly different name ( which is a relatively rare case), it is not clear what the correct historical name is (for several reasons). I am saying this as a result of several years of experience both with this wikipedia and with historical toponyms. We have wasted huge amounts of time with quarreling about what "historical" names should be used for Central Europe, although a the simple rule I mention above would solve this once for all (if applied consistently). And as a matter of fact, except for a few well known towns, there are no "correct" English historical toponyms for Europe. Juro 02:42, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Clarification needed

  • It seems that this proposal is only for localities, as opposed to additionally covering geographic regions or landforms, but this is not specified in the proposal as far as I can tell. I inquire because some landforms like populated mountains might fit these proposed guidelines.
  • The proposal says to include relevant foreign-language names in alphabetical order by language, but this could use some further clarification. If the "official" local name differs from a widely accepted English name, I think that should be listed immediately following the bolded title. For instance: "Warsaw (Polish: Warszawa; Czech: Varšava; Estonian: Varssavi; Romanian: Varşovia)" instead of "Warsaw (Czech: Varšava; Estonian: Varssavi; Polish: Warszawa; Romanian: Varşovia)".

The following are situations where I can see potential exceptions over naming order being sought and I think they should be cleared up here first.

  • Should current local dialects take precedence over historical/foreign names or be alphabetized normally? For instance: "Szczecin (Kashubian: Sztetëno; German: Stettin)" (local Kashubian dialect first) or "Szczecin (German: Stettin; Kashubian: Sztetëno)" (regular alphabetical order).
  • If a locality was once part of a different country or has a significant minority, should the name of the former country or of the minority take precedence over other foreign language names? For instance: "Oradea (Hungarian: Nagyvárad; German: Großwardein)" (Hungarian minority) or "Oradea (German: Großwardein; Hungarian: Nagyvárad) (regular alphabetical order). Alternately, "Trnava (Hungarian: Nagyszombat; German: Tyrnau)" (formerly part of the Kingdom of Hungary) or "Trnava (German: Tyrnau; Hungarian: Nagyszombat)" (regular alphabetical order).

I prefer simple alphabetical order (which would not require a change from the current proposal). This is because there localities have often been part of multiple states- which should take precedence after Vyborg, the Finnish Viipuri or the Swedish Viborg? Similarly for the minority suggestion, demographics can change and we should avoid "favoring" one minority over another (what should follow Chernivtsi, the Russian name or Romanian name?). Olessi 18:43, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

This would be the glorius solution for the case, Olessi! No need to put a line like this:German: Großwardein; Hungarian: Nagyvárad into a separated ==names== section, totally needless and pointless. It is like putting for ex Leonardo da Vinci's professions -was an Italian polymath: architect, anatomist, sculptor, engineer, inventor, mathematician, musician, and painter - into a separated ==(his) professions== section. Pointless and needless, and it will never ever expand. So, by my view: the good is this form: Oradea; German: Großwardein; Hungarian: Nagyvárad).
  • I support the alphabetical order. --Vince hey, yo! :-) 14:07, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Seems like a lot of good ideas - be bold and update the proposal with them. The proposal was started with the localities in C/E Europe in mind, but seems to have matured to be applicable both to other regions and other types of geographical landmarks, indeed.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  17:02, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
I support both of Olessi's suggestions: the geographic extension of this proposal and the alphabetic order of foreign and historical names, which can prevent edit wars over which name should be listed first. On the other hand, I am not sure if VinceB's understood well the role of the "names" section. In many cases, such a section is unnecessary. But it can make a lead more intelligible in case of five foreign names and it also allows us to discuss etymology. Moreover, I do not think that editors of the articles like London would like to see Londres and Londonium in the lead, though these names are completely relevant. But their inclusion in the names section should be less painful. Tankred 18:12, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Since just about any order we can think of is arbitrary, alphabetical sounds like the simplest idea. (Radiant) 12:34, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
Should this suggestion to expand the proposal then be mentioned at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)? Olessi 21:20, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
  • support alphabetical order, but in the case of someplace with a lot of names like Pressburg/Pozsony/Bratislava I think there should also be at least a short paragraph about the different names and who ruled where when. :) K. Lástocska 03:02, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
    • The proposal recommends creation of a separate paragraph devoted to the alternative names in the case of Bratislava (because there are certainly more than 2 relevant names). Tankred 04:21, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Lead vs. Names section

There has been recently a heated dispute between User:PANONIAN and User:VinceB over the inclusion of alternative names in the lead. It became really nasty and the conflict resulted in a departure of a valuable editor. In order to prevent such ridiculous disputes in the future, the guideline should be more explicit in this regard. My idea is to list the cases in which alternative names have to be included in the lead or in a separate "names" section. I think the official local name should be always included in the lead if it differs from the name used in the title (Warsaw, Warszawa). It would be also better to include all alternative names in the lead if there are less than three of them. In case there are three or more alternative names, a separate section placed just after the lead should be created to make the lead more intelligible. If there is a separate section discussing etymology of the name (or alternative names), all alternative names should be put there. What do you think about this? Tankred 19:04, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

That valuable editor sent me death threats, and a checkuser is going on for sock puppeting and abusive editing. In fact, I just supported what is the common way in this case on enwiki. I do not see this a huge problem. I really like for ex. Pécs's article abt names. Someone hates, that's ok, untill he does not want to kill everybody, who disagrees with him. That's the point.

My point is that all alternatives should be put in ( )'s in the first line. (This is also the "less-work-solution", by checking articles). "Names" section in fact almost exclusivly only history - when was it mentioned, and the various names it was mentioned throughout the times. These kind of names should be kept there, not the current ones. + Etimology is also one line. So I'm not still convinced why is it necessary to put now not one, but two very short lines into a separate "names" section. --Vince hey, yo! :-) 00:45, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

I really think it would be hard to sell the "lead-only" idea to editors of London and other articles about capitals. Anyway, I think a lead should not be flooded by a list of names, but it should be a well-written summary of an article. Look at the leads of all featured articles for instance. I do not think that a special names section placed just after the lead harms an article in any way. If I can use my pet project, Banská Bystrica, a separate section (9 lines in this case) allowed me not only to list all alternative names, but also to discuss them in detail. On the other hand, I completely agree that there is no reason to create such a section if the etymology is not described of if there is just one or two alternative names that can be easily put into the first sentence of the lead. That is why I merely proposed to distinguish between the cases, in which inclusion in the lead is superior to inclusion in the names section and vice-versa. Tankred 04:56, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
I like Banská Bystrica; the separate paragraph gives room to discuss meanings and dates (and, where necessary, shifts of location). Is Zvolen meanngful in any of the languages concerned? I'm not sure we need to do anything for Londres; that's one of the advantages of linking to fr:Londres. Septentrionalis 23:13, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Although not exactly a geograhical name, the same logic (i.e. sometimes splitting of names into a separate para or section) worked well for the Polish-Soviet War. If there is some interesting/controvesial issue related to names, instead of trying to confine it to lead where it may generate revert wars because some side thinks it's not explained properly (or because it is not, the other fails to see the importance of partial inclusion), havig a separate para often addressed all concerns (and is in line with NPOV - show all important POVs).-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  17:30, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Tankred's suggestions and rationale. Olessi 21:20, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

I would add that names frequently used in English belong in the lead. The example I'm thinking of is Frankfurt (Oder), which is presently under a name almost unattested in English. In addition to the traditional German name Frankfurt an der Oder or a. d. Oder , it is quite frequently called Frankfurt-on-Oder. There are some variants (lik leaving out the hyphens) that seem to be Anglo-American dialect differences. Septentrionalis 23:01, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

"Former" names

A few weeks ago 81.210.11.114 (talk • contribs • info • WHOIS) began removing German names of places in Central and Eastern Europe. I suggested the usage of the word "former" as a compromise to prevent the removal of the names; the IP user found this acceptable.

I don't really like using that term, however. Besides being ambiguous, determining if a name is a "former name" or not is controversial and seems like original research to me (when Google is the determinant). Previous arguments over the usage of "former" that I am aware of are at Talk:Piła, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Cities/Names issues, and Wikipedia:WikiProject Cities/German names. What do y'all think? Olessi 21:20, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

If "former" is used in the sense of "Tczew was formerly officially known by the German name Dirschau" (as opposed to implying that "Dirschau" is no longer used in German), then I can understand clarifying that in a Names/Etymology section, although most articles with such sections already seem to discuss the whens and whys of alternate name usage. If no Names section is included in the article, however, simply listing "Tczew (former German: Dirschau)" seems too ambiguous for me. Olessi 22:13, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
And this has the additional problem that, quite often, German sources will still call it Dirschau; what's changed is whether the name is official and what name is used in English. Septentrionalis 22:55, 29 November 2006 (UTC)