Talk:Polish Biographical Dictionary/Archive 1

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Page move proposal

I believe that this page title should be its "most common English name" of Polish Biographical Dictionary, and then the redirect set up from the Polish name, instead of the other way around as it is now. Elonka 16:52, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

OK, just do a comaprison of G/GS/GP of Polish and English term in English sources, and if English term is the most common, we will move it.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 17:42, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
It seems fairly obvious that "Polish Biographical Dictionary" is English, while "Polski Słownik Biograficzny" is not. In any case, Google confirms that the English term is more common. Elonka 17:55, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
Commons sense is not always the rule here. In the future, if you do the G searches, please provide links here. My search shows the Polish version with 178 hits, English with 208 hits, so the difference is mariginal at about 10%. I don't mind the article being there or there, but I'd like to have some guidelines about this - shoudl we also rename Wielka Encyklopedia PWN? Ok, and Conversations-Lexikon? And Encyclopédie française? Fa yüan chu lin? There is about 10 or more so articles about encyclopedias with non-English name. I'd support a proposal to move all of those into English names, but doing only this is rather pointless.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 01:58, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
Thanks, I have made it so.  :) Elonka 03:24, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
Are we sure that this is an actual name for this work in the English language, as opposed to a translation into English of the Polish title? — Matt Crypto 16:53, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
There is also a different work called the "Polish Biographical Dictionary"[1] — this seems to be colouring the Google results. — Matt Crypto 16:54, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't suppose it matters a great deal, but it makes much more sense that a Polish language work should reside at it's Polish language name. — Matt Crypto 16:48, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

My own feeling is that any article title in the English-language wikipedia should have a name that "most English speakers" can find, understand, pronounce, type, remember, and easily communicate to other people in a verbal discussion. With "Polski Słownik Biograficzny", even for me, with a fair familiarity with Polish language and spelling, I have trouble remembering how to spell it, I am still not certain how to pronounce it, and if I were trying to verbally describe to someone what page they should link to, it would be very difficult with the Polish title (unless of course they spoke Polish <grin>). For example, if someone were looking for something like this by browsing a category (thanks for pointing out Category:Biographical dictionaries, by the way), they might be able to pick out the "Polski" part, but "Słownik" would not be immediately obvious to any non-Polish speaker as something that was a guide, directory, or encyclopedia. Though I agree that the Polish name is more specific, the English name is definitely more understandable, and is what should be used as an article title. Elonka 17:07, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
Well, there are a lot of Polish names/places/things that are difficult to pronounce, yet have no dominant translation into English. I think that in those cases we should keep the article under original Polish title, as redirects will take care of providing the 'pipes' for those who cannot learn the Polish names. You do make a good point that having non-English names in categories is problematic, and I'll support your proposal (which I hope is coming!) to move all the non-English named dictionaries from that category into a relevant category (note that this is why I insited of translating the nicknames of the Polish kings into English - so the readers can understand their nickname). Nonetheless, perhaps in the future you can wait with moving the page till there is a consensus (or at least, a majority) supporting the move?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 17:12, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
Having had a look through the Google results, it seems that "Polish Biographical Dictionary" is only used for Sokol's book, or as a translation from the Polish, written after the Polish language title in brackets. It seems that the most common name in English would be "Polski Słownik Biograficzny". Personally, I don't think it matters much where articles reside, but these things do upset certain sorts of Wikipedians greatly (Gdansk *cough*), so I'd recommend against any widespread changes of this nature. An argument against this title is that it's the actual English name of a different work (Sokol's 1992 book), which makes it somewhat confusing. — Matt Crypto 17:28, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

User:Elonka has also proposed moving the Swedish Svenskt biografiskt handlexikon to an English title (see talkpage). I am absolutely opposed to moving books in other languages to English titles they have never had. It's fine with books which actually have an official title in more than one language (which some modern academic reference works do), but never otherwise. Could you imagine the Library of Congress cataloguing their foreign books under home-made English titles? u p p l a n d 20:49, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Amen. logologist|Talk 23:28, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
One good argument Elonka makes is about foreign titles in what is supposed to be English-language categories. What do you think about adding categories to English redirects in this case? Could this allow us to 'eat the cake and have the cake'?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 00:21, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
That's certainly a better alternative, but on Talk:Svenskt biografiskt handlexikon, I suggested creating lists of encyclopedias/biographical dictionaries (or other books with foreign titles), sorted according to language/country, to get an alternative way to look for things. That will create an alternative way to find the publications and will also allow for some annotation. Nothing stops us from doing both. u p p l a n d 00:36, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
I agree; categories are only a secondary feature on Wikipedia. I don't think we can really argue for the measure of unnaturally naming articles simply in order to make categories more useable. Lists will probably do fine for a browsing reader; for example, the list at biographical dictionary. — Matt Crypto 01:00, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
I like Piotrus' idea of adding categories to redirects. Or as another alternative, how about naming the article, exactly the way that it shows up in the bibliographies? Polski Słownik Biograficzny (Polish Biographical Dictionary). That way the English shows up for category browsing. Elonka 12:06, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
Book titles are proper nouns. Let's keep clear distinction between what actually is the title of a published work and what is just an explanation/translation of the title. I don't know Polish, but if I would search for Polski Słownik Biograficzny on Google, I would certainly search using the Polish title to be sure I got the right work, as that is the title I would find in my library catalogue or in references in other publications. (OK, I would probably be lazy and type Polski Slownik Biograficzny, where there should be a redirect, and which Google should find for me anyway.) I would be happy to find an English webpage about this particular dictionary of biography, but it would not improve my chances of finding the right publication if the article title was already one of perhaps a few possible translations of the Polish title. Why "Polish Biographical Dictionary", rather than, say, "Polish Dictionary of Biography"? With other reference works with longer or more difficult-to-translate titles, the number of possible translations may be even more numerous. Using the original title is precise and will still lead the English-reading inquirer to an English-language webpage about the dictionary.
A list, unlike the category, allows for all kinds of systematic sorting, according to language, nationality, scope of the publication, publications year(s), place of publication etc (whatever is most useful). And it can be linked from the category page. Anyone not immediately recognizing the right title in the category can go to the list and find the item there. I'm fine with having categorized redirects, too. u p p l a n d 13:03, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
For the purpose of comparison: The Encyclopaedia Britannica (ouch, isn't that a difficult non-English title!) obviously has fewer articles on publications of any sort, but searching for a few words common in journal titles, I find articles on La Nouvelle Revue française and Revue des Deux Mondes under those titles. It doesn't even translate the titles to explain their meaning for its readers. u p p l a n d 14:43, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
P.S. The EB also has an article on the Encyclopédie (the 18th century thing by d'Alembert and those guys) and La Grande Encyclopédie (a modern encyclopedia), both under their French titles. In the latter case, the introduction of the article translates the title only to explain it:
(French: "The Great Encyclopaedia"), French general encyclopaedia, lavishly illustrated in 21 volumes and published in Paris (1971–78).
I know enough French to know what La Grande Encyclopédie means, but if I was looking for La Grande Encyclopédie and saw "The Great Encyclopaedia" in one of our categories, among dozens or hundreds of other encyclopaedias (some of which may have titles which would also become "The Great Encyclopaedia" or something very similar in English), I wouldn't even recognize it as the French work I was looking for. And to consistently translate all titles of non-English reference works, journals and other publications into more or less arbitrary English forms would create an awful confusion. There is a considerable difference between using an English title for an article, when one is available, and starting to invent English titles that have never been used anywhere else. u p p l a n d 15:03, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
Thank you for the beautiful explication above. I hope everybody reads and considers it carefully. Two additional brief points. There may be titles that, due to incorporated allusions, may be untranslatable (a lengthy commentary may be required to explain them). An additional drawback of translating is that it may leave casual readers with the misapprehension that the work in question is actually written in English. logologist|Talk 15:29, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
A technical point: In Polish book titles, only initial words and proper nouns are capitalized. Thus it's not Polski Słownik Biograficzny but Polski słownik biograficzny. "Polski" ("Polish"), being an adjective, would not be capitalized if it were not the initial word in the title. logologist|Talk 15:45, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
In response to the argument about proper names not being changed: There are plenty of examples of proper names (even of people), being changed to something that is more recognizable to the audience of another language. For example, the city of "Washington" in the Polish wikipedia, is listed as "Waszyngton." "South Carolina" becomes "Karolina Południowa." Which I think is fine, since it makes those pages easier to understand for the Polish readers.
In response to the Encyclopedia Britannica listing certain titles in foreign languages. For those examples, yes, but I can also point out plenty of other examples of the EB not doing that, especially with Polish. For example, "Polska Akademia Nauk" is redirected to "Polish Academy of Sciences," both in the EB, and also here in the English wikipedia. That, too, is a redirect that I support, for similar reasons as with this directory: That the primary article for a page in the English-language Wikipedia, must be a name that most English speakers can understand.
Lastly, in opposition to the Google test, what about the "TV test"? If there were a documentary on American television, such as the Discover Channel or the History Channel, which name do you think they would use? Would the commentator say "Polski Slownik Biograficzny"? I don't think so. They'd either say, "Polish Biographical Dictionary", or they'd have somebody speaking in Polish, and they'd overlay an English translation on top, saying, "Polish Biographical Dictionary". Elonka 18:59, 12 January 2006 (UTC)


Nothing of that is relevant. I am fine with using English forms for names of places, where such forms are well-established. That is not an issue here. As for the Polish Academy of Science, it has an official English name, clearly written out on its website. You also won't have the same problem with ambiguity in such a case. But can you cite any good academic reference source - not some imaginary American TV speaker - using translated names for reference works like this one? We are talking about titles of publications here, nothing else. Would you also suggest moving Le Monde to The World, La Stampa to The Press, Die Zeit to The Time, and Pravda to The Truth? (Oops, it appear all those titles were already taken...)
Face it, there is no custom to translate titles of publications, and it is not our business to start inventing English names for non-English publications which never had an English name to begin with. It doesn't help anyone. It will on the contrary create new problems with recognition and finding things. In addition, there is, as I have already pointed out, a much simpler way to solve the problem you think exist here: by making a list, which you can sort in any way you feel is most appropriate and which can include any explanatory notes you feel are necessary to make clear what kind of publication it is. I am sure such a list would be useful for other reasons as well. u p p l a n d 20:02, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

"Who's Who directory"

As I write, the current revision of this article mischaracterizes Polski słownik biograficzny as "a Polish-language... Who's Who directory, containing an alphabetical list of... notable Poles and foreigners who have been active in Poland..."

PSB is not a "Who's Who directory," but an alphabetically ordered compilation of authoritative biographies of varying lengths, but certainly more substantial than Who's Who. It in fact more nearly resembles Britain's Dictionary of National Biography, on which it was modeled.

logologist|Talk 09:37, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
I've replaced it with a reference to the biographical dictionary article. — Matt Crypto 16:48, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

RfC: Request for Comment

To make sure that others who might be interested in this discussion, are aware of it, I went ahead and posted a message on the "Request for Comment" page, in the "Language and Linguistics" category (though I'm not certain if that's the correct place to put it), with the question: Should the article title be "Polish Biographical Dictionary", or "Polski Słownik Biograficzny"?. Elonka 12:37, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

I am not aware of a policy for this type of problem. A similar conflict generated pages of discussion and was finally settled by voting - see Talk:Côte d'Ivoire/Archive1. If you cannot reach consensus, and it certainly looks like it, this is where you may end up. FWIW, although I would be in favor of the Polish title with a redirect from Polish Biographical Dictionary, I would not find it worth the trouble to go through the voting process.
You may also want to consider this argument: Since there is another work with the same English name, Polish Biographical Dictionary, someone may decide to do an article on that book. This means that Polish Biographical Dictionary will probably be turned into a disambiguation page sooner or later. If you have the article under its translated English title, this change will cause some inconvenience (e.g. regarding existing links to that title). But the main thing is that it might make this entire conflict moot.
I hope this helps a bit. AvB ÷ talk 18:00, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
Addendum - found a policy for you to consider: WP:UE. AvB ÷ talk 18:08, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

I favor using the English name in the title and making the Polish name a redirect. Durova 00:19, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

There is no "English name" of this publication. It has a Polish name. The "English name" is a home-made translation Elonka just invented the other day. To quote the "Use English" guideline:
If you are talking about a person, country, town, movie or book, use the most commonly used English version of the name for the article, as you would find it in other encyclopedias and reference works. This makes it easy to find, and easy to compare information with other sources. For example, Christopher Columbus, Venice.
If there is no commonly used English name, use an accepted transliteration of the name in the original language. Latin-alphabet languages, like Spanish or French, should need no transliteration, but Chinese names can use Pinyin, for example.
In other words, if this had been some work generally known to English-speakers under an English title (like, say, a fairy-tale such as Sleeping Beauty), Wikipedia guidelines tell us to use that English title. This work is not already generally known under an English title. Anyone citing PSB in another publication would do so using the original title. This case falls under the "no commonly used English name" clause, and since Polish is written with a variant of the Latin alphabet, what the Wikipedia guidelines tell us is to use the original name, actually the real and only name of the publication. If anyone is going to appeal to WP:UE, you really need to read beyond the title of the page. WP:UE does not tell us to go around inventing previously unheard translations of titles. u p p l a n d 07:29, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
Yup, that's what I mean. Most articles of this type would redirect from the original language to an English transliteration, then offer the original in bold in the introduction. Durova 20:33, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
Uppland, I most definitely did not "invent" the English title for this book. It's the most commonly-used English title of the work. A simple Google search [2] should tell you that. Elonka 13:14, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
That a translation of the title is used to explain or describe the character of the work is not unexpected but is not the same thing as it being appropriate as an actual alternative title of the same work. Even then (when removing Wikipedia and its mirrors) your search only get 44 Google hits [3], which is not particularly impressive. u p p l a n d 13:24, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

With the The Polish Biographical Dictionary now created, I think we should make this page a disambig and move the content to the older Polish names. By the way, in your searched, did you guys ensure that TPBD is not skewing the results? Btw, a Google Print search indicates that Elonka translation is correct - this title is also used by others, however often it is used in brackets following the Polish term. However note that this search nets only 8 book results, one of which refers to the TPBD instead of PSB. A search for the Polish term gives us 10 books using the Polish term. Thus Google Print search indicates that Polish term is more widely used in English then the English translation.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 15:50, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. The existence of The Polish Biographical Dictionary makes me think this is worthwhile. — Matt Crypto 15:58, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
Concur regarding use of the authentic Polish name for this Polish reference work. logologist|Talk 22:50, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
Agree with Uppland and with Piotr's suggestions. Olessi 02:22, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
Concur. --Lysytalk 00:13, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
I cannot agree that "Polski Slownik Biograficzny" is the best title, because it is not English. It is not understandable. Having a foreign-language title in an English-language wikipedia, makes the article more difficult to find, more difficult to remember, more difficult to comprehend, and more difficult to type. The wikipedia guideline is to use English. "Polski Slownik Biographiczny" is not English. There is a clear, easy to understand, and commonly-used English version of the title, which is "Polish Biographical Dictionary". I understand that this guideline upsets those Polish nationals who feel strongly that anything Polish must have an article under its original Polish name, regardless of which language wikipedia that it appears in. But I feel strongly that it is more important that an article have a title which is understandable to non-Polish readers. "Polski Slownik Biograficzny" is neither understandable nor even pronounceable to the average English reader. Elonka 23:22, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
I believe that Piotrus' concept of making it a disamb page addresses most of these concerns and then having the original name as the title of the article would be most appropriate. --Lysytalk 00:17, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

See also Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (use English)#Article titles for books in foreign languages. I disagree that "Polski Slownik Biograficzny" would make a better wikipedia page name in English wikipedia, but I'm not going to repeat my reasons here: see the link above where I explain. Note that I found external references referring to this multi-volume dictionary by the English name according to the present page name. 'The "English name" is a home-made translation Elonka just invented the other day' is obviously nonsense --Francis Schonken 18:32, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

This is the English Language encyclopedia, we should use English not Polish. How many English speakers call it the "Polski Slownik Biograficzny" rather than "Polish Biographical Dictionary"? I think you'll find that most English speakers use the english name. We call it War and Peace not Война и мир, we call it 120 Days of Sodom not 120 journées de Sodome, Algorithm not Al-Khwarizmi, Kama Sutra not Kamasutram, Rigveda not ऋग्वेद. --Victim of signature fascism | help remove electoral corruption 12:48, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Bulgarian page: vote requested

This is unrelated to the current discussion, but I'm posting it here as the contributors here might be interested in voting on this page title dispute: Talk:Bulgarian vocabulary. Also, is there some other particular place on wikipedia where such "vote" announcements are placed? Elonka 18:59, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

See Category:Wikipedia dispute resolution & Wikipedia:Current_surveys. Please note however that Canvassing on unrelated talk pages is usually frowned upon and may lead to problems.  AvB ÷ talk 19:24, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
Thanks.  :) Elonka 19:28, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

How many entries?

Are any figures available for how many entries have been included to date (or even at past dates)? Matt Crypto 16:20, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Someone's added it, thanks. — Matt Crypto 18:53, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Copies outside Poland

An issue unrelated to the naming. Why have a section on copies outside Poland? I would find such a section very reasonable if it had been some rare 15th century book only known in a handful of copies, or if there there was something unique about each listed copy, but standard works like this are regularly subscribed to by libraries over the whole world. You'll get a large number of hits from all over Europe searching the KVK[4] It is available in at least five libraries in Sweden alone. u p p l a n d 16:43, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Do you know of a comparable way of locating copies outside Europe, particularly in the Anglosphere? logologist|Talk 17:06, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
KVK searches a few libraries in the US, UK and Australia. It includes the British Copac catalogue, which on its own searches 24 different libraries in the UK and Ireland.[5] As for the US, I guess searching each of the most likely libraries seems the best solution, and not insurmountable now when everything is online. u p p l a n d 18:08, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
Speaking for myself, I live in St. Louis, Missouri. It's a major metropolitan area with several major universities, but to my knowledge there is not a single library here that has the work. If anyone can find a local university or library that has a copy, I would be very interested, as there are several names I would like to look up, including that of my great-grandfather, Rodryg Dunin. Elonka 23:29, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

How to add categories to a redirect page

Found here. I've added categories to Polski Słownik Biograficzny as an example. AvB ÷ talk 20:44, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Unauthorized change of title

User:Francis Schonken has moved this article, without consensus or logic, from Polski słownik biograficzny, the authentic title of this 42-volume POLISH-language reference work, to Polish Biographical Dictionary, which is the title of an existing American one-volume ENGLISH-language dictionary. This has previously proven confusing to readers, such as User:Ril, who mistook the Polish-language work for an English-language one. This article on a Polish biographical dictionary should appear under the work's authentic Polish name. logologist|Talk 01:07, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Not to mention that it has been discussed already (see above) and majority supported the Polish title.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 03:08, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
A small majority. There was never a clear consensus, and per WP:UE, I still feel that it is clear that the article should remain under the "most commonly-used English name". But how about putting both names in the title? Specifically: Polish Biographical Dictionary (Polski slownik biograficzny). Would that satisfy everyone? --Elonka 08:24, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
The preponderance of informed opinion was overwhelmingly for the authentic Polish title. It was no contest. Polski słownik biograficzny is that reference work's only title; and it was the title of the article itself, until you unilaterally changed it, in disregard of the deliberate counsel of everyone who had given any real thought to the question. logologist|Talk 09:27, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Please proceed with a WP:RM if you think this should be moved to another name. According to normal rules of page moves there was no consensus to move to Polski slownik biograficzny or any other page. The "disambiguation page" suggestion was not thoroughly discussed either (so there was no consensus on that either).

Further, the page was moved on 30 January, that's 5 days after Wikipedia:Naming conventions (books) became effective. At Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (use English)#Article titles for books in foreign languages (linked above) I notified about the provisions about book title translations that would be included in the new "books" NC. --Francis Schonken 09:48, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree that RM seems like the best option, the decision reached there should put the end to this squabble.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 17:40, 28 February 2006 (UTC)