Talk:Oder River/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.

I reverted the redirects as explained on the very top of the Talk:Odra page. That is, there is an official English name for the river. Apologies to Taw, WOjpob, SC, et. al., but it doesn't matter why English speakers call things by their German, rather than Slavic, names (except that English-speakers have traditionally had more to do with Germans, and they speak a Germanic language). It only matters for ease of use that they do. The article as it is now makes it clear that the duality of names is becoming more common, but it is doubtful that this is something that will be replaced entirely -- or at least not for several generations.

This is markedly different rom cases like Gdansk, where many know that I fought long and hard to keep the article from being Danzig. In that case, the official English language (or at least American English -- don't go there) is Gdansk -- because the city is presently located in Poland. The Oder or Odra is not. It runs through several countries. Context is important. JHK

Makes sense.
Space Cadet 15:34 18 Jun 2003 (UTC)

It does run through several countries, but none of these countries is Germany or otherwise German-speaking. It only runs a few tens of kilometers along Germany border. I don't think this explains using German name; it should be Czech or Polish name, as the river runs through these two countries.
Rafal Rzepecki Sun Dec 7 20:45:39 CET 2003

Vote

Vote with ~~~, please place comments below. The vote options are alphabetically ordered.

Nope, consensus is the method used by wikipedia last time I checked, not voting. It does seem that the consensus favours Oder-Neisse, because of it being the standard usage amongst english speakers. It just seems that one particular person won't abide by the consensus decision. --snoyes 19:49, 7 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Voting has nothing to do with it. We can't vote on what English-speakers call the river. It's what it's called, period. Should the Warsaw page be at Warszawa? RickK 20:27, 7 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Warsaw is an English name so this is a bad example here -- CC, 21:58, 7 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Voting is a Good Thing. It's a way to find out where people stand on an issue, without having to read a lot of text. When a discussion comes down to what (merely) personal choices on something are, it's time to vote. Since it's only enforcable by consensus, it's not in breach of wikipedia spirit. It's more of an opinion poll really: How many people think that "Oder" is the most common English name for Odra. Zocky

The problem is that there seems to be no real english name for this river. There seems to be 1:1.5 ratio of Odra/Oder usage on internet now, the trend being in favor of Odra. I am against voting and for consensus. Matusz 20:37, 7 Dec 2003 (UTC)

There is no English name for the rivers. Oder-Neisse are the German names. Odra-Nisa the Czech names, and Odra-Nysa the Polish names. Odra/Oder lies mostly in the Czech Rep. and Poland and is only a border river in Germany so the Polish-Czech name should be used in English, Neisse/Nisa/Nysa is a border river between Poland and Germany so there is no simple solution -- CC, 21:56, 7 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I think prevailing English usage should be our main guide. In this particular case, it seems clear that the term Oder-Neisse line is so well-known in English as to dominate any other usage. --Delirium 21:58, Dec 7, 2003 (UTC)

This discussion is not new. We had the same discussion in the beginning of this year, and ended up with a compromise (see Talk:Odra). Unfortunatley it did not last long, but probably it would be best, if people engaged here could consider returning to this. Most important statements from that page:

  • Acknowledge the _existence_ of alternate names.
  • Avoid any pronouncement that either alternative is the "right" one.

This should be common sense, but obviously it is not accepted by all parties. -- Baldhur 00:31, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I read that, but there doesn't really seem to be any agreement or compromise accepted by a majority. Just some rejoicing that Odra was used by a few Polish users and some mild notes that Oder is, in fact, the name typically used in English. Anyway, nobody is proposing we not note the Polish name or the German name. The disagreement is whether we should not use the common English name on the English Wikipedia. Nobody is disputing (or can reasonably dispute) that most English speakers use "Oder-Neisse". Daniel Quinlan 02:48, Dec 8, 2003 (UTC)
Well, I referred to Taw's statements that I read in the recent changes: "This river is called Odra, not Oder" - "There is only one true name of this river, and it is Odra." I wonder, what he wants to achieve with such nonsense. -- Baldhur 11:55, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)

But what happened to this article? I remember it said the both Odra and Oder are used in English, that Oder is the German name, and Odra is the Polish/Czech name. Can we have this information back, regardless what is the name of the article? -- CC, 05:51, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I tried to keep it a bit less wordy than that, but I readded some of that information. Current intro (as of right now) reads:
The Oder or Odra River (German: Oder; Polish: Odra) flows...
Is that closer to an acceptable compromise? --Delirium 10:49, Dec 8, 2003 (UTC)
That sounds fine to me. If it is so overly important to some parties, then we should agree to state both names in every article where this river occurs. -- Baldhur 11:55, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)
We should use the English name at the English Wikipedia. If foreign (Polish) names should be mentioned together with English names whenever the English name is the German , why not also mention German names whenever we mention a Polish name commonly used in English, e.g. "Szczecin or Stettin (Polish Szczecin, German Stettin)"  ? -- Nico 12:01, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Nico, the difference is, that the Oder River is running through several countries, while that city is entirely in Poland. So in the river case we have two valid names today, while in the city case we have one name valid today and one name previously valid. I think, this is a notable difference. -- Baldhur 12:06, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)
I disagree, since we in English not necessarily use the local names, but the names with a tradition in English, and you may certainly argue that many or at least some English-speaking people still use Stettin when dealing with the present-day city, just like some English-speaking people use Odra. Nico 12:11, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I don't care what you native speakers use as names, as long as the info provided in the article is correct and without major omissions. But to give you something to think about:

  • Try to guess just why is it called Oder by most of you?
  • Can you remember the circumstances under which the river became mostly a polish one?
  • Can you trace back the events that have led to our current political situation in Europe?

I know that warm feeling, when you revert someones changes and everybody seems to back you up. I used to do that myself. I didn't bother to stop and think, just why that person was making changes the way they did. All I was thinking about was that I am right so they cannot be. I am ashamed now.
Matusz 11:11, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I can't believe this discussion is still going on. The whole thing is ridiculous. There's already Warsaw, Belgrade, Drave etc as examples of how this should be done. Oder just happens to be the name most commonly used in English. Nothing you can do about it. Please note that I'm from Slovenia, say Odra in my native language, and am generally inclined to support Slavic interests. But you people are overdoing it. The result of this all is that the article is now just a listing of some facts, most of them not really interesting. A typical reader won't care much about which voivodships the river runs through, but wil want to read on some history, which is now simply ignored (oh yeah, there's a non-descript link in see also). Also, it simply doesn't look like a wikipedia article. IMO, it should say:

Oder (Polish and Czech Odra) is a river in Europe.

And work on from there.

Zocky 14:25, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I fully agree with that. I would also write Odra (German Oder) is..., or if people like to call the river Honkyponky, I might do that as well. These tiring naming disputes are mainly for people, who have nothing else to say. Currently it is almost impossible to edit an article of this entire Western Polish region without upsetting anyone for tiny reasons. Noone was able to explain, why a name is so extremely important. Noone was able to explain, how a river can have an "original" or "true" name. Up to now I thought, that a river is not man-made and therefore can hardly have an original or true name. After one year of discussing the same issue without any progress perhaps someone should start writing about hydrology, tributaries, cities on its banks etc. etc. I would appreciate that. -- Baldhur 14:48, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I can do nothing but agree. But if both of you have written as much in the article as in discussion it would be much better. Matusz 16:09, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)

You are probably right, Matusz. Thanks a lot for your improvements. -- Baldhur 17:07, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I tried wikifying and NPOVing it. There are still some issues left, though:

  • I removed length and drainage basin data for Poland. Add for all countries or none.
  • Are the names of tributaries the most commonly used ones in English?
  • The name of the bay: see below

Zocky 16:46, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Hi Zocky. I haven't checked all the tributaries. The Nysa Lozycka is the river known as Neisse, which is part of the Oder-Neisse or Odra-Nysa line. As for the bay: try a Google search for Szczecin Lagoon: 375 results. That is the name, we should use IMO. -- Baldhur 17:06, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)
The delete was accidental, of course. Sorry. Zocky 17:24, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I'm glad to see that this article is finally moving forward. And yes, Szczecin lagoon seems to be the right name. Nice find. Zocky 18:20, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)

"Szczecin Bay" is about as common as "Szczecin Lagoon" according to Google. You were searching for a misspelling, which is why you only got two hits. (By the way, both English-language atlases that I looked at list it as "Stettiner Haff", but Google only gets about 200 hits for this when restricted to English pages.) --Zundark 19:50, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Britannica has the "lagoon" variant (actually it has Szczecinski Lagoon, but that is less common than Szczecin Lagoon). In addition I think, that lagoon is a more appropriate translation of the word "Haff". I can't say anything about the Polish word "Zalew". How can it be translated? -- Baldhur 21:39, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Another thing: the list of cities and tributaries is much too long now - it's a couple of screens long. One thing that probably should be done, is to include major cities and tributaries in the text. Then we should either

  • delete the other links - I don't like the idea. It provides useful info, plus it's a nice wish list.
  • restructure the others into "navigation bars" (see below), but this has been frowned on by some as "ugly"
cities on Oder: Ostrava | Raciborz | Kedzierzyn-Kozle | Krapkowice | Opole | Brzeg | Olawa | Jelcz-Laskowice | Wroclaw | Brzeg Dolny | Scinawa | Szlichtyngowa...
  • something else ?

Zocky 18:41, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)


For place names that refer to cities or regions entirely in Poland, the Polish names should be used. I would suggest to always add the German name in parentheses, but that is just my opinion and far from being policy. It would be desirable to have a policy here, since it is a very common contentious point. -- Baldhur 21:39, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Anonymous user 82.82.129.186 wrote: Uznam? The name is Usedom in English (as in German). The island is located in Germany.
You are mistaken. The island is not entirely located in Germany, it is partially German and partially Polish (see Usedom). Mentioning the Polish name should be okay and does not need to be deleted. -- Baldhur 21:47, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)

How about this:

  • Establish the English name using the naming convention
  • Use the English name for the article title
  • Provide appropriate redirects from names in other languages
  • Provide names in other relevant languages in the opening of the article
  • After that, always use the English name unless superfluous or expressly inappropriate in the context.
  • In a relevant context (discussion of multi-linguality of a region, names themselves, etc) and if appropriate, also use clearly marked names in alternative languages.
  • If listing places or landmarks in officially multilingual territories, list all official names in a clear way
  • Otherwise, always use the English name and put alternative names in the articles on landmarks themselves

Or, to keep it short

  • Use English names, unless inappropriate
  • Use names in other languages only if appropriate

Rationale: Using alternative names for all places/persons/etc in an article (even if just at the first mention) is too cluttering. It stops the flow of text. Consider that some things have many names. Are we to give every name of Danube in all articles where it is mentioned? Short version with slashes (Oder/Odra, Uznam/Usedom) is not acceptable - it's nearly as cluttering and confusing - how is a reader to tell which name is in which language? And the whole thing is supposed to be in English, anyway.

Zocky 21:06, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Makes 100% sense to me. In fact, I thought that was already the policy, but then I also would argue that many of the edits on these articles are definitively going against both policy and common sense. Daniel Quinlan 22:47, Dec 9, 2003 (UTC)

I think it is easy with the Danube having a exlusively English name, so nobody is offended by using this name. It is not the case with a river like Oder/Odra. The first name is German, and the second name is Polish/Czech. There's no an English name for the river so the English speakers have to use the native one: sound simple, but which is the native one. Poland nad Czech republic suffered hundreds of years of Germanising policies and using the German names for Czech/Polish cities or rivers is felt as an offensive practise. On the other hand the Germans feel that's nothing wrong with using the German name. There's no problem for rivers that lie entirely in one country, but what to do with the international rivers like Oder/Odra? I can see no simple solution. -- CC, 22:59, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)

first archive ends here