Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Proper names

Resolving placename disputes

Text moved in from Wikipedia:Village_Pump:

One more thing, can someone add something on ways to resolve disputes over placenames? Thanks. -- Viajero 15:32, 10 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I'd work on this request. I looked about for a proper place to put it and came up somewhat empty. I suppose under the "Style" or "Edit" pages maybe? - Marshman 23:27, 10 Dec 2003 (UTC) OK, I started a "Style" page for Proper names at Wikipedia:Proper_names. I'll work on it for awhile - fair bit of ground to cover - and others can, of course add ideas as they see fit - Marshman

See also Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(places) and its Talk page. Chris Jefferies 11:59, 12 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Alta Mexico

An article about Junipero Serra should say he lived in Alta Mexico not the U.S. state of California because the latter entity did not exist at the time of Junipero Serra Um? Maybe not the STATE, but certainly the Mexican possession of California. What the heck is Alta Mexico? Maybe Alta California, anyway. RickK 04:54, 12 Dec 2003 (UTC)

The point is: there is a correct historical name and it is not the U.S. State of California. You could edit it to the correct term, and that should not give rise to any disputes (one would hope ;o) - Marshman 17:20, 12 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Proper names of "things"

Proper names of people, places, and species are taken care of, but that leaves any thing (as in "person, place, or thing") that has a proper name. For example, there is an ongoing debate about the name of the French national flag, which is known variously as "the tricolor", "the Tricolour", "(le) tricolore", etc. We could use some guidelines on "things" as well. -- Jeff Q 22:09, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Things are no different in this regard than "places" (which are in effect "things"). The French national flag would be "the Tricolor", as the term is referring to the name of a specific thing (like a specific person or place); "the tricolor" would be anything with three colors, as in "Gemany's flag, like most in Europe, is a tricolor". - Marshman 22:30, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

If "things" should be treated the same as "places" in this regard, the article shouldn't distinguish between "place names" and "personal names". A "place" may be a "thing", but there are many "things" that aren't "places". Perhaps it should say "Names of people" and "Names of things", or "Names of other things" (the latter version following the species section)? Also, my research (see the above-mentioned French flag debate) suggests (but doesn't verify) that formal English usage has no officially-preferred term like "the Tricolor", although some Americans feel it should, just as some Britons feel that "the Tricolour" is the official English term. -- Jeff Q 00:45, 8 Jul 2004 (UTC)

The operative word is "names" not persons, places, or things. I am not going to disagree with you; there is plenty of need for improvement in the article (when I get time, I'll attend to it if someone else does not first), but the rule is: whatever the noun is (and people, places, and things comes from the definition of a noun), it will take first letter capitalization if it is a proper noun—the name of something or someone. I have no idea what an "officially-preferred" term would be (in general, language does not work that way, although there might be official listings of geographical names), and yes Tricolor vs Triclour relates to American vs. Brit usage of English; but both start with uppercase 'T'. At Wikipedia (English Edition) both would be correct and may simply depend upon who wrote the article. The rule there is not to bother to change to your preferred spelling - Marshman 01:43, 8 Jul 2004 (UTC)

What I mean by "offically-preferred" is cited in a respected reference work, which I consider better than general guidelines that are often ill-recalled and frequently flouted in practice. (Consider the Wikipedia "article titles should be all lowercase except..." policy as an excellent example of an institutionalized flouting of standard practice, which is, incidentally, okay by me.) As an example, Merriam-Webster Online cites, among its entries for federal:

3 capitalized : advocating or friendly to the principle of a federal government with strong centralized powers; especially : of or relating to the American Federalists

4 often capitalized : of, relating to, or loyal to the federal government or the Union armies of the U.S. in the American Civil War

5 capitalized : being or belonging to a style of architecture and decoration current in the U.S. following the Revolution

This strikes me as a carefully-researched official statement on when to capitalize "federal". I made a modest search for such a reference for "Tricolore" but found only the lowercase version, with no explicit statement about its capitalization. Obviously, this is not definitive, but neither is any Wikipedia article, for that matter. Therefore, I edited the article to reflect the research I had done, which appears to have been more substantial, with respect to the spelling and capitalization of "tricolore", than other contributions to that article thus far.

By the way, I didn't mean to impune your efforts to date on this article. I just thought it'd be a good idea not to leave people hanging when they come looking for rules on something like "tricolore" or "the Federal Government", which are not people's names, place names, or biological designations. Please take whatever time you need to make any changes you think are advisable. If I really have a problem with it, I can and should do it myself, eh? ☺ -- Jeff Q 04:55, 8 Jul 2004 (UTC)

No problem. I'm happy ;) or 8^0 . You explained things better this time. I think by "official" you really mean "authoritative". I'd regard Miriam-Webster as authoritative (providing an opinion based upon experience and research) but not "official", the latter implying establishing rules or providing opinion based upon granted authority ("I'm right because I'm the government"). I think it should be "Tricolor" just as one would say "Old Glory" and not "old glory" in referring to our flag. But maybe I'm old fashioned. I find "errors" in Webster's Dictionary on occasion. - Marshman 05:45, 8 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Hey, "new-fashioned" is often overrated. ☺ If I find an authoritative source that cites a use of "Tricolor" or "Tricolour" in the same proper-name fashion of "Old Glory", I'll capitalize them in a minute. -- Jeff Q 07:02, 8 Jul 2004 (UTC)

official administrative territorial divisions

i don't think there might be any divergence of opinnions on how a country names its administrative divisions. - there is that "non interference in internal affairs or something" that i think renders the name of an administrative unit immune to "neighbouring state version of a sovereign state's internal affairs or something" -- Criztu 28 June 2005 13:41 (UTC)

ß and Þ

I removed the ß-directions. I feel somewhat bad about this since they were actually quite well written. But I don't see any discussion or vote establishing a consensus for this and opinions are clearly split, see Talk:Großglockner for example. Also note that the same logic could be used to legislate Þ out of Wikipedia - even though the consensus among those editing articles on Icelandic topics seems to be to use it. I would actually support Philip's recent note on including alternative ascii-versions but I think we should discuss it before we insert it into the guide. It was reverted where he inserted it on WP:UE. Paragraphs inserted on WP:UE and WP:MOS to ban ß, Ð and Þ have also been reverted (by myself and others). I would have reverted this incarnation of the ban earlier if I had noticed it. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 21:22, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

We actually had a pretty good consensus in the Manual of Style when I added that and still have a substantial majority, but German-lovers (non-Swiss, anyway), Icelandics (who, you can bet, don't allow foreign letters in their wiki), and a few others continue to treat English Wikipedia as an international wiki. Perhaps one day I'll join them in pretending that the English alphabet encompasses the entire Latin-1 character set and name my first-born child Æþöñéß. --Tysto 00:58, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

I am cool with the removal of the ß directions. I wrote them, actually, after Tysto brought the subject up and I saw myself in the minority. (I like ß, too!) However, since then there has been a lot more discussion and today I would be somewhat more of an ß-advocate, so I actually regret having done such a good job formulating a policy that I am not quite comfortable with. Thanks for removing my contribution! Incidentally, at the video store I saw an English DVD with music by Johann II Strauß that used the ß on the cover. If it's good enough for a mass-marked DVD then it's good enough for WP! Arbor 07:23, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

There is currently a proposal to make a Wikipedia naming convention about the "Thorn" (Þ} character, at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (thorn). Interested parties are invited to comment. Elonka 02:54, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Currencies

I like Æþöñéß, incidentally ;), and support the use of ß and similar Latin alphabet characters. I'm here on a different note, though: Whether currencies (euro, Japanese yen, ...) are proper names or not. This should be discussed and implemented into this page. My take is that they most clearly aren't. —Nightstallion (?) 08:44, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Using diacritics (or national alphabet) in the name of the article

The discussion below has been copied from Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Using diacritics (or national alphabet) in the name of the article - 07:41, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

I came to the problem with national alphabet letters in article name. They are commonly used but I have found no mention about them in naming coventions (WP:NAME). The only convention related is to use English name, but it probable does not apply to the names of people. National alphabet is widely used in wikipedia. Examples are Luís de Camões Auguste and Louis Lumière or Karel Čapek. There are redirects from english spelling (Camoes, Lumiere, Capek).

On the other hand, wikiproject ice hockey WP:HOCKEY states rule for ice hockey players that their names should be written in English spelling. Currently some articles are being moved from Czech spelling to the english spelling (for example Patrik Eliáš to Patrick Elias). I object to this as I do not see genaral consensus and it will only lead to moving back and forth. WP:HOCKEY is not wikipedia policy nor guideline. In addition I do not see any reason why ice hockey players should be treated differently than other people.

There is a mention about using the most recognized name in the naming conventions policy. But this does not help in the case of many ice hockey players. It is very likely that for American and Canadian NHL fans the most recognised versions are Jagr, Hasek or Patrick ELias. But these people also played for the Czech republic in the Olympics and there they are known like Jágr, Hašek or Patrik Eliáš.

I would like to find out what is the current consensus about this. -- Jan Smolik 18:53, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

The only convention related is to use English name, but it probable does not apply to the names of people - incorrect. "Use the most common name of a person or thing that does not conflict with the names of other people or things" - Wikipedia:Naming :conventions (common names). Raul654 18:54, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I mentioned this in the third article but it does not solve the problem. Americans are familiar with different spelling than Czechs. --Jan Smolik 19:11, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, since this is the English Wikipedia, really we should use the name most familiar to English speakers. The policy doesn't say this explicitly, but I believe this is how it's usually interpreted. This is the form that English speakers will recognize most easily. Deco 19:02, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Well it is wikipedia in English but it is read and edited by people from the whole world. --Jan Smolik 19:11, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

There was a straw poll about this with regard to place names: Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (use English)/Archive 3#Proposal and straw poll regarding place names with diacritical marks. The proposal was that "whenever the most common English spelling is simply the native spelling with diacritical marks omitted, the native spelling should be used". It was close, but those who supported the proposal had more votes. Since, articles like Yaoundé have remained in place with no uproar. I would support a similar convention with regard to personal names. — BrianSmithson 19:17, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm the user who initiated the WP:HOCKEY-based renaming with Alf. The project Player Pages Format Talk page has the discussion we had along with my reasoning, pasted below:

OK, team, it's simple. This is en-wiki. We don't have non-English characters on our keyboards, and people likely to come to en-wiki are mostly going to have ISO-EN keyboards, whether they're US, UK, or Aussie (to name a few) it doesn't matter. I set up a page at User:RasputinAXP/DMRwT for double move redirects with twist and started in on the Czech players that need to be reanglicized.

Myself and others interpret the policy just the same as Deco and BrianSmithson do: the familiar form in English is Jaromir Jagr, not Jaromír Jágr; we can't even type that. Attempting to avoid redirects is pretty tough as well. Is there a better way to build consensus regarding this? RasputinAXP _{talk contribs} 19:36, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I think you misread my statement above. My stance is that if the native spelling of the name varies from the English spelling only in the use of diacritics, use the native spelling. Thus, the article title should be Yaoundé and not Yaounde. Likewise, use Jōchō, not Jocho. Redirection makes any arguments about accessibility moot, and not using the diacritics makes us look lazy or ignorant. — BrianSmithson 16:34, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Tentative overview (no cut-and-paste solutions, however):

• Article names for names of people: wikipedia:naming conventions (people) - there's nothing specific about diacritics there (just mentioning this guideline because it is a naming conventions guideline, while there are no "hockey" naming conventions mentioned at wikipedia:naming conventions).
• wikipedia:naming conventions (names and titles) is about royal & noble people: this is guideline, and *explicitly* mentions that wikipedia:naming conventions (common names) does NOT apply for these kind of people. But makes no difference: doesn't mention anything about diacritics.
• Wikipedia talk:naming conventions (Polish rulers): here we're trying to solve the issue for Polish monarchs (some of which have diacritics in their Polish name): but don't expect to find answers there yet, talks are still going on. Anyway we need to come to a conclusion there too, hopefully soon (but not rushing).
• Wikipedia:Naming conventions (standard letters with diacritics), early stages of a guideline proposal, I started this on a "blue monday" about a week ago. No guideline yet: the page contains merely a "scope" definition, and a tentative "rationale" section. What the basic principles of the guideline proposal will become I don't know yet (sort of waiting till after the "Polish rulers" issue gets sorted out I suppose...). But if any of you feel like being able to contribute, ultimately it will answer Jan Smolik's question (but I'd definitely advise not to hold your breath on it yet).
• Other:
  • Some people articles with and without diacritics are mentioned at wikipedia talk:naming conventions (use English)#Diacritics, South Slavic languages - some of these after undergoing a WP:RM, but note that isolated examples are *not* the same as a guideline... (if I'd know a formulation of a guideline proposal that could be agreeable to the large majority of Wikipedians, I'd have written it down already...)
  • Talking about Lumiere/Lumière: there's a planet with that name: at a certain moment a few months ago it seemed as if the issue was settled to use the name with accent, but I don't know how that ended, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Astronomical objects, Andrewa said she was going to take the issue there. Didn't check whether they have a final conclusion yet.

Well, that's all I know about (unless you also want to involve non-standard characters, then there's still the wikipedia:naming conventions (þ) guideline proposal) --Francis Schonken 19:58, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Note that I do not believe no En article should contain diacritics in its title. There are topics for which most English speakers are used to names containing diacritics, such as El Niño. Then there are topics for which the name without diacritics is widely disseminated throughout the English speaking world, like Celine Dion (most English speakers would be confused or surprised to see the proper "Céline Dion"). (Ironically enough, the articles for these don't support my point very well.) Deco 20:42, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Sticking diacritics, particularly the Polish Ł is highly annoying, esp. when applied to Polish monarchs. It just gives editors much more work, and unless you're in Poland or know the code, you will be unable to type the name in the article. - Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) File:UW Logo-secondary.gif 20:45, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Redirects make the issue of difficulty in visiting or linking to the article immaterial (I know we like to skip redirects, but as long as you watch out for double redirects you're fine). The limitations of our keyboards are not, by themselves, a good reason to exclude any article title. Deco 20:50, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Deco, I should rephrase what I said. I agree with you that some English articles do require diacritics, like El Niño. Articles like Jaromir Jagr that are lacking diacritics in their English spellings should remain without diacritics because you're only going to find the name printed in any English-speaking paper without diacritics. RasputinAXP _{talk contribs} 21:20, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I checked articles about Czech people and in 90 % of cases (rough guess) they are with diacritics in the name of the article. This includes soccer players playing in England (like Vladimír Šmicer, Petr Čech, Milan Baroš). And no one actualy complains. So this seems to be a consensus. The only exception are extremely short stubs that did not receive much input. Articles with Czech diacritics are readable in English, you only need a redirect becouse of problems with typing. This is an international project written in English. It should not fulfill only needs of native English speakers but of all people of the world. --Jan Smolik 22:33, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Very many names need diacritics to make sense. Petr Cech instead of Petr Čech makes a different impression as a name, does not look half as Czech and is much more likely to be totally mispronounced when you see it. Names with diacritics are also not IMHO such a big problem to use for editors because you can usually go through the redirect in an extra tab and cut and paste the correct title. I also don't see a problem at all in linking through redirects (that's part of what they are there for). Leaving out diacritics only where they are "not particularly useful" would be rather inconsequent. Kusma (討論) 22:48, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

As a matter of fact, "Petr Sykora" and "Jaromir Jagr" are not alternate spellings; they are incorrect ones which are only used for technical reasons. Since all other articles about Czech people use proper Czech diacritics, I don't know of any justification for making an exception in case of hockey players. - Mike Rosoft 01:13, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Man, I feel like the bottom man in a dogpile. Reviewing Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names), there'sWhat word would the average user of the Wikipedia put into the search engine? Making the name of the article include diacritics goes against the Use English guideline. The most common input into the search box over here onthe left, for en-wiki, is going to be Jaromir Jagr. Yes, we're supposed to avoid redirects. Yes, in Czech it's not correct. In English, it is correct. I guess I'm done with the discussion. There's no consensus in either direction, but it's going to be pushed back to the diacritic version anyhow. Go ahead and switch them back. I'mnot dead-set against it, but I was trying to follow guidelines. RasputinAXP _{talk contribs} 15:48, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

There are many names, and even words, in dominant English usage that use diacritics. Whether or not these will ever be typed in a search engine, they're still the proper title. However, if English language media presentations of a topic overwhelmingly omit diacritics, then clearly English speakers would be most familiar with the form without diacritics and it should be used as the title on this Wikipedia. This is just common sense, even if it goes against the ad hoc conventions that have arisen. Deco 18:30, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Czech names: almost all names with diacritics use it also in the title (and all of them have redirect). Adding missing diacritics is automatic behavior of Czech editors when they spot it. So for all practical purposes the policy is set de-facto (for Cz names) and you can't change it. Pavel Vozenilek 03:18, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Naming policy (Czech) --Francis Schonken 11:01, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

and: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (hockey) --Francis Schonken 17:41, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

There are those among us trying to pull the ignorant North American card. I mentioned the following over at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ice Hockey/Player pages format...

Here's the Czech hockey team in English compliments of the Torino Italy Olympic Committee [1] Here they are in Italian: [2], French: [3]. Here are the rosters from the IIHF (INTERNATIONAL Ice Hockey Federation) based in Switzerland: [4].'

Those examples are straight from 2 international organizations (one based in Italy, one in Switzerland). I'm hard pressed to find any english publication that uses diacritics in hockey player names. I don't see why en.wiki should be setting a precedent otherwise. ccwaters 02:19, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Over at WP:HOCKEY we have/had 3 forces promoting non-English characters in en.wiki hockey articles: native Finns demanding native spellings of Finnish players, native Czechs demanding native spellings of Czech players, and American stalkers of certain Finnish goaltenders. I did a little research and here are my findings:

Here's a Finnish site profiling NHL players. Here's an "incorrectly" spelt Jagr, but the Finnish and German alphabets both happen to have umlauts so here's a "correct" Olaf Kölzig. Who is Aleksei Jashin?

Here's a Czech article about the recent Montreal-Philadelphia game [5] Good luck finding any Finnish players names spelt "correctly"... here's a snippet from the MON-PHI article:

Flyers však do utkání nastoupili značně oslabeni. K zraněným oporám Peteru Forsbergovi, Keithu Primeauovi, Ericu Desjardinsovi a Kimu Johnssonovi totiž po posledním zápase přibyli také Petr Nedvěd a zadák Chris Therrien.

Well...I recognize Petr Nedvěd, he was born in Czechoslovakia. Who did the Flyers have in goal??? Oh its the Finnish guy, "Antero Niitymakiho".

My point? Different languages spell name differently. I found those sites just by searching yahoo in the respective languages. I admit I don't speak either and therefore I couldn't search thoroughly. If someone with backgrounds in either language can demonstrate patterns of Finnish publications acknowledging Czech characters and visa versa than I may change my stance. ccwaters 03:45, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

I support every word Ccwater said, albeit with not as much conviction. There is a reason why we have Wikipedia in different languages, and although there are few instances in the English uses some sort of extra-curricular lettering (i.e. café), most English speaking people do not use those. Croat Canuck 04:25, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

I must make a strong point that seems to be over-looked: this is not the international English language wikipedia. It is the English language wikipedia. It just so happens that the international communty contributes. There is a reason that there are other language sections to wikipedia, and this is one of them. The finnish section of wikipedia should spell names the Finnish way and the English wikipedia should spell names the English way. The vast majority of english publications drop the foreign characters and diacritics. Why? because they aren't part of the English language, hence the term "foreign characters". Masterhatch 04:32, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree in every particular with Masterhatch. The NHL's own website and publications do not use diacriticals, nor does any other known English-language source. The absurdity of the racist card is breathtaking: in the same fashion as the Finnish and Czech language Wikipedias follow their own national conventions for nomenclature (the name of the country in which I live is called the "United States" on neither ... should I feel insulted?), the English language Wikipedia reflects the conventions of the various English-speaking nations. In none are diacriticals commonly used. I imagine the natives of the Finnish or Czech language Wikipedias would go berserk if some peeved Anglos barge in and demand they change their customary linguistic usages. I see no reason to change the English language to suit in a similar situation. RGTraynor 06:46, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

People like Jagr, Rucinsky or Elias are not only NHL players but also members of Czech team for winter olympics. Therefore I do not see any reason why spelling of their name in NHL publications should be prioritized. I intentionaly wrote the names without diacritics. I accept the fact that foreigners do that because they cannot write those letters properly and use them correctly. There are also technical restrictions. I also accepted fact that my US social security card bears name Jan Smolik instead of Jan Smolík. I do not have problem with this. I even sign my posts Jan Smolik. But Wikipedia does not have technical restrictions. I can even type wierd letters as Æ. And it has plenty of editors who are able to write names with diacritics correctly. The name without diacritics is sufficient for normal information but I still think it is wrong. I think that removing diacritics is a step back. Anyway it is true that I am not able to use diacritics in Finish names. But somebody can fix that for me.

I do not care which version will win. But I just felt there was not a clear consensus for the non-diacritics side and this discussion has proven me to be right. As for the notice of Czechs writing names incorectly. We use Inflection of names so that makes writing even more dificult (my name is Smolík but when you want to say we gave it to Smolík you will use form we gave it Smolíkovi). One last argument for diacritics, before I retire from this discussion as I think I said all I wanted to say. Without diacritics you cannot distinguish some names. For example Czech surnames Čapek and Cápek are both Capek. Anyway we also have language purists in the Czech republic. I am not one of them. --Jan Smolik 19:11, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

People like Jagr, Rucinsky or Elias are not only NHL players but also members of Czech team for winter olympics. Therefore I do not see any reason why spelling of their name in NHL publications should be prioritized -Fine we'll use the spellings used by the IIHF, IOC, NHLPA, AHL, OHL, WHL, ESPN, TSN, The Hockey News, Sports Illustrated, etc, etc, etc.

This isn't about laziness. Its about using the alphabet afforded to the respective language. We don't refer to Алексей Яшин because the English language doesn't use the Cyrillic alphabet. So why should we subject language A to the version of the Latin alphabet used by language B? Especially when B modifies proper names from languages C & D.

My main beef here is that that the use of such characters in en.wiki is a precedent, and not a common practice. If you think the English hockey world should start spelling Czech names natively, than start a campaign amongst Czech hockey players demanding so. It may work: languages constantly infiltrate and influence each other. Wikipedia should take a passive role in such things, and not be an active forum for them. ccwaters 20:09, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

People like Jagr, Rucinsky or Elias are not only NHL players but also members of Czech team for winter olympics. Therefore I do not see any reason why spelling of their name in NHL publications should be prioritized Great, in which case for Czech Olympic pages, especially on the Czech Wikipedia, spell them as they are done in the Czech Republic. Meanwhile, in the NHL-related articles, we'll spell them as per customary English-language usage. RGTraynor 08:05, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

I wish I understood why User:ccwaters has to be rude in his posts on this subject. "Stalkers of Finnish goaltenders" isn't the way I'd describe a Wikipedia contributor. Also, since you asked, Aleksei Jashin is the Finnish translitteration of Alexei Yashin. Russian transliterates differently into Finnish than into English. Of course you must know this, since you have such a habit of lecturing to us on languages. As for diacritics, I object to the idea of dumbing down Wikipedia. There are no technical limitations that stop us from writing Antero Niittymäki instead of Antero Niittymaki. The reason so many hockey publications all over the world don't use Finnish-Scandinavian letters or diacritics is simple laziness, and Wikipedia can do much better. Besides, it isn't accepted translation practice to change the spelling of proper names if they can be easily reproduced and understood, so in my opinion it's simply wrong to do so. Since it seems to be obvious there isn't a consensus on this matter, I think a vote would be in order. Elrith 16:40, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Alas, a Finnish guy lecturing native English speakers on how they have to write Czech names in English (not to mention the lecturing regarding the laziness) is but a variation on the same theme of rudishness.

So, Elrith, or whomever reads this, if the lecturing is finished, could you maybe devote some attention to the Dvořák/Dvorak problem I mentioned below? I mean, whomever one asks this would not be problematic - but nobody volunteered thus far to get it solved. Am I the only one who experiences this as problematic inconsistency? --Francis Schonken 21:05, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

So is "Jagr" the Finnish transliteration of "Jágr"??? On that note, the Finnish "Ä" is not an "A" with "funny things" on top (that's an umlaut), its a completely separate letter nonexistent in the English language and is translated to "Æ". "Niittymaki" would be the English transliteration. "Nittymeki" or (more traditionally "Nittymӕki") would be the English transcription.

In the past I've said our friend's contributions were "thorough." I'll leave it at that. There will be nothing else about it from me unless asked. ccwaters 21:02, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

My opinion on the Dvořák/Dvorak issue is that his name is spelled Dvořák, and that's how the articles should be titled, along with redirects from Dvorak. Similarly, the article on Antero Niittymäki should be called just that, with a redirect from Niittymaki. You're right that it is a problematic inconsistency, and it needs to be fixed.

The only reason I may sound like I'm lecturing is that there are several people contributing to these discussions who don't understand the subject at all. Ccwaters's remarks on transliteration are

one example. It isn't customary or even acceptable to transliterate or transcribe Finnish letters into English; the accepted translation practice is to reproduce them, which is perfectly possible, for example, in Wikipedia. Niittymaki or anything else that isn't Niittymäki isn't a technically correct "translation". The reason North American, or for that matter, Finnish, hockey publications write Jagr instead of Jágr is ignorance and/or laziness. Wikipedia can do better that that.

However, since this discussion has, at least to me, established that there is no consensus on Wikipedia on diacritics and national letters, apart from a previous vote on diacritics, I'm going to continue my hockey edits and use Finnish/Scandinavian letters unless the matter is otherwise resolved. Elrith 04:32, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Hi Elrith, your new batch of patronising declarations simply doesn't work. Your insights in language (and how language works) seem very limited, resuming all what you don't like about a language to "laziness" and "ignorance".

Seems like we might need an RfC on you, if you continue to oracle like this, especially when your technique seems to consist in calling anyone who doesn't agree with you incompetent.

Re. consensus, I think you would be surprised to see how much things have evolved since the archived poll you speak about. --Francis Schonken 23:14, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

My 2 cents:

1) This should NOT be setteld as a local consensus for hockey players, this is about how we name persons in the english wikipedia. It is wrong to have a local consensus for hockey players only.

2) I have tried to do some findings on how names are represented, it is wrong to say that since these names are spelled like this normally they should be spelled like this, many wrongs does not make it right. So I did a few checks,

If I look at the online version of Encyclopædia Britannica I get a hit on both Björn Borg and Bjorn Borg, but in the article it is spelled with swedish characters, same for Selma Lagerlöf and Dag Hammarskjöld, I could not find any more swedes in EB :-) (I did not check all..)

I also check for as many swedes as I could think of in wikipedia to see how it is done for none hockey swedes, I found the following swedes by looking at list of swedish ... and adding a few more that I could think of, ALL had their articles spelled with the swedish characters (I'm sure you can find a few that is spelled without the swedish characters but the majority for sure seams to be spelled the same way as in their births certificates). So IF you are proposing that we should 'rename' the swedish hockey players I think we must rename all other swedes also. Do we really think that is correct? I can not check this as easily for other countries but I would guess that it is the same.

Dag Hammarskjöld, Björn Borg, Annika Sörenstam, Björn Ulvaeus, Agnetha Fältskog, Selma Lagerlöf, Stellan Skarsgård,Gunnar Ekelöf, Gustaf Fröding, Pär Lagerkvist, Håkan Nesser, Bruno K. Öijer, Björn Ranelid, Fredrik Ström, Edith Södergran, Hjalmar Söderberg, Per Wahlöö, Gunnar Ekelöf, Gustaf Fröding, Pär Lagerkvist, Maj Sjöwall, Per Wästberg, Isaac Hirsche Grünewald, Tage Åsén, Gösta Bohman, Göran Persson, Björn von Sydow, Lasse Åberg, Helena Bergström, Victor Sjöström, Gunder Hägg, Sigfrid Edström, Anders Gärderud, Henrik Sjöberg, Patrik Sjöberg, Tore Sjöstrand, Arne Åhman, so there seams to be a consensus for non hockey playing swedes? Stefan 13:33, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

I also checked encarta for Björn Borg and Dag Hammarskjöld both have the Swedish characters as the main name of the articles, Selma Lagerlöf is not avaliable unless you pay so I can not check. I'm sure you can find example of the 'wrong' way also, but we can not say that there is consensus in the encyclopedic area of respelling foreign names the 'correct' english way. Stefan 14:16, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

This seems like a very constructive step to me. So I'll do the same as I did for Czech, i.e.:

1. start Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Swedish) as a proposal, starting off with the content you bring in here.
2. list that page in Wikipedia:Naming conventions#Conventions under consideration
3. also list it on wikipedia:current surveys#Discussions
4. list it in the guideline proposal Wikipedia:Naming conventions (standard letters with diacritics)#Specifics_according_to_language_of_origin

OK to work from there? --Francis Schonken 15:22, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Works for me :-) Stefan 00:26, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Tx for finetuning Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Swedish). I also contributed to further finetuning, but add a small note here to clarify what I did: page names in English wikipedia are in English per WP:UE. Making a Swedish name like Björn Borg English, means that the ö ("character" in Swedish language) is turned into an "o" character with a precombined diacritic mark (unicode: U+00F6, which is the same character used to write the last name of Johann Friedrich Böttger – note that böttger ware, named after this person, uses the same ö according to Webster's, and in that dictionary is sorted between "bottery tree" and "bottine"). Of course (in English!) the discussion whether it is a separate character or an "o" with a diacritic is rather futile *except* for alphabetical ordering: for alphabetical ordering in English wikipedia the ö is treated as if it were an o, hence the remark about the "category sort key" I added to the intro of the "Swedish NC" guideline proposal. In other words, you can't expect English wikipedians who try to find something in an alphabetic list to know in advance (a) what is the language or origin of a word, and (b) if any "special rules" for alphabetical ordering are applicable in that language. That would be putting things on their head. "Bö..." will always be sorted in the same way, whatever the language of origin.

What I mean is that "Björn Borg" (in Swedish) is transcribed/translated/transliterated to "Björn Borg" in English, the only (invisible!) difference being that in Swedish ö is a character, and in English ö is a letter o with a diacritic.

Or (still the same in other words): Ö is always treated the same as "O" in alphabetical ordering, whether it's a letter of Ötzi or of Öijer--Francis Schonken 10:56, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

For consistency with the rest of Wikipedia, hockey player articles should use non-English alphabet characters if the native spelling uses a Latin-based alphabet (with the exception of naturalized players like Petr Nedved). Why should Dominik Hasek be treated differently than Jaroslav Hašek? Olessi 20:48, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

If we are using other encyclopedias as litmus tests, we don't we look at a few hockey players: Dominik Hasek at Encarta Dominik Hasek at Britannica Jaromir Jagr at Encarta Teemu Selanne in Encarta list of top scorers

Last argument: We use the names that these players are overwhelming known as in the English language. We speak of Bobby Orr, not Robert Orr. Scotty Bowman, not William Scott Bowman. Ken Dryden not Kenneth Dryden. Tony Esposito, not Anthony Esposito. Gordie Howe not Gordon Howe... etc etc, etc. The NHL/NHLPA/media call these players by what they request to be called. Vyacheslav Kozlov used to go by Slava Kozlov. Evgeni Nabokov "americanized" himself for a season as "John Nabokov" but changed his mind again.

ccwaters 22:54, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Dvořák

Could someone clean this up:

Article/category name without diacritics

Category:Compositions by Antonin Dvorak

Category:Operas by Antonin Dvorak

Cello Concerto (Dvorak)

String Quartet No. 11 (Dvorak)

String Quartet No. 12 (Dvorak)

Symphony No. 6 (Dvorak)

Symphony No. 8 (Dvorak)

Symphony No. 9 (Dvorak)

Violin Concerto (Dvorak)

Page name with diacritics

Antonín Dvořák

List of compositions by Antonín Dvořák

Symphony No. 7 (Dvořák)

I'd do it myself if I only knew which way the wikipedia community wants it... --Francis Schonken 10:53, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

I've been bold and renamed the articles to use diacritics in the title, since they already use them in the text. I've also slapped {{categoryredirect}} tags on the two categories: a bot should be along shortly to complete the job. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 14:54, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Tx!!! - I'll remove Dvořák as an exception from Wikipedia:Naming policy (Czech)#Exceptions --Francis Schonken 15:22, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Surnames including prepositions?

I noticed that in Alain de Cadenet, the source includes [[Category:1945 births|Cadenet, Alain de]].

I think that should be [[Category:1945 births|de Cadenet, Alain]].

A survey of the category, looking for similar names, suggests some people agree with me, but others do not. I have not yet found something to indicate which is preferred. Can someone point me to such, or should it perhaps be added here?

An idea I had was that names such as "de Cadenet" should be placed by the categorizer under both "C" and "D", and in the case of variants of "de", (d', di, du, etc) perhaps all those should be grouped in a special section before "D". Even leaving aside that that may not be theoretically (editorically) correct, it would involve some work, likely a lot . . . --SportWagon 16:53, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Okay, a few partial answers to my own question. It turns out "De Cadenet" would be classified under "D", but "de Cadenet" gets classified under "d", in a category on the last page, containing only the single entry. That seems wrong. The Categorizer is using an inappropriate collating sequence. Before verifying that, I tried adding both variants, and the entry under "C" disappeared, and I found none under "D" (obviously, now). But during that test I did not look for the "d" heading. And I don't want to muddle the history further right now just to verify what actually happens(ed).--SportWagon 17:10, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Wait, no. I can say [[Category:1945 births|De Cadenet, Alain]] to force the alphabetization, but the entry title will be used in the Category listing, I believe. An example doing that is [[Category:1945 births|Du Pré, Jacqueline]] in Jacqueline du Pré--SportWagon 17:15, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Now I see Wikipedia:Categorization_of_people might be closer to where this information should be?--SportWagon 17:23, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Complete answer for me is now in Wikipedia:Categorization#Category_sorting.--SportWagon 18:42, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

This is an issue that librarians and archivists have clarified and refined since the invention of library catalogues. There is a good discussion at Authority control. The authoritative source on the standard form for proper names in English is at the US Library of Congress (which is also followed by the British Library and most other English language libraries. Returning to the question at hand, the LOC gives the Established Heading as "De Cadenet, Alain" and lists "Cadenet, Alain de" as an alternative (not the Established Heading). To be honest, I was surprised by the result, but it's a good idea to follow a conventional authority in lists and article titles. --SteveMcCluskey 14:09, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

That answer doesn't surprise me. Well, it surprises me a little that "Cadenet, Alain de" is given as an alternative. (I.e. at all)--SportWagon 16:27, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_(proper_names)#Alphabetizing.2C_or_What_Is_The_Surname.3F below regarding a proposal for alphabetizing surnames with particles. kcylsnavS{^screech_harrass} 14:43, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

First letter capitalization

A person where I work spells the surname as deRose. And since this person is an attorney, there are legal court papers file as deRose. Perhaps there should be indications that there are exception to the first letter is capitalized rule. --NYC 23:11, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree, there are other people who spell their names like that. -Pgan002 01:30, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Also consider bell hooks and danah boyd. Both spell their names with no capital letters, yet the bell hooks article has survived years with no capital letters in her name, and editors refuse to allow even any mention in the (incorrectly titled) Danah Boyd article that her legal name has no capital letters (anytime this information is put in it is quickly reverted). I think there needs to be a policy specifically allowing idiosyncratic capitalization of at the very least personal names and pseudonyms. There was a stalled discussion of this on the WP:MOSCL talk page. —pfahlstrom 22:17, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Related poll on diacritics

A more focused poll on diacritics has been started, to address the very specific issue of whether or not diacritics should be used in the article titles of Polish monarchs. Interested editors are invited to participate, at: Talk:List of Polish monarchs#Poll: article names of Polish monarchs, diacritics accepted or not. --Elonka 17:40, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Proposal for a renaming

I propose to change this article to Wikipedia:Manual of Style (proper names). Any comments/objections? jguk 12:31, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Makes sense. This isn't linked to from the Wikipedia:Naming conventions page either. Nor does it have a "naming conventions" template. I don't know the group of pages well enough to determine whether it's redundant or seperate or what, though. --Quiddity 21:27, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Proposed convention

The proposed guideline Wikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic names) is up for acceptance or amendment. Your voices would be welcome.

It makes suggestions on the treatment of alternate names in text which are more detailed than the section on Place names here (especially the case of multiple local names) but are not inconsistent with this page. A cross-link may be in order. Septentrionalis 18:52, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Lowercase names

Is there any consensus on what to do when the person goes by a lower case name? Does it matter if it is their legal name? I'm thinking specifically of an issue at Danah Boyd, but there are other examples. There is also a mention of this above, but no response. - cohesion 00:24, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't see evidence of a consensus, though the bell hooks article has survived non-capitalized for years, which may be evidence. —pfahlstrom 22:26, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Though one has to consider that regular contributors to an article are usually somewhat invested into the subject at hand, hence they are more likely to give preference to typesetting eccentricities, rather than subjecting them style guidelines. It's hardly ideal, but regrettably happens quite a lot. There appear to be no past requested moves at Talk:Bell hooks (and its archives), so while the article is often cited in similar discussions, it probably never had one with broad input of the community (through Wikipedia:Requested moves or an RfC) of its own.- Cyrus XIII 23:01, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

There may be no past move requests, but this absence of move requests has been preceded by much discussion of the capitalization, as you can see. If it ain't broke, don't fix it—when an article about a notable subject does just fine for multiple years without having a prescriptive guideline applied, that's evidence that the guideline is not considered applicable. Now, I agree that it is a general rule in English that personal names are capitalized. But this guideline here does not even address the standard variations that allow for names such as L. Sprague de Camp—and if those variations are allowed, why should others not be? It's a question of markedness—names that have initial capitals are unmarked; they're what people expect. But sometimes the use of historically unmarked terms in place of marked terms can be controversial, such as with sexist language. If someone specifically marks their name by decapitalizing one or more letters that would traditionally be marked, re-unmarking the name could be seen as discriminatory.

Anyway, my point is that this guideline seems just to be saying to capitalize proper names, just as any student learns in elementary school. It does not seem to be saying to capitalize proper names even of those people who prefer that all or part of their names not be capitalized. —pfahlstrom 05:40, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

I support following what the subject of the article calls him/herself, per BLP. Kyaa the Catlord 22:16, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

My own opinion is that it's not about how they refer to themselves, but about how they are best known in major reliable sources. --Elonka 23:16, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Reliable sources has to do with factual information, not style decisions. Whether we capitalize someone's name as they choose is a style decision. We don't follow the New York Time's manual of style just because it's a reliable source. The two issues are not the same. - cohesion 00:44, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, it could be interpreted to be a question of fact rather than style—if the capitalization is considered as essential as what letters are used to spell their name (and with the subjects in question, this is indeed the case), then that's a question of accuracy. In the case of danah boyd there are reliable sources for both capped and uncapped forms, and when there are reliable sources for both sides, should Wikipedia go with the one that outnumbers the other, or the one that is actually correct? —pfahlstrom 02:29, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia should follow the conventions of English, in order to distinguish proper nouns in text and make it accurate and readable. Even if someone refers to himself or herself by lowercase names, those should be capitalized on Wikipedia. Unlike "danah boyd" and "bell hooks", which are lowercased by perhaps only hundreds of people, names like "Sprague de Camp" are not exceptions. They are whole classes of names that follow a rule used for centuries and accepted for all names by virtually all speakers of English. Such names come from a foreign language (in this case, French) in which "de" means "of" and, as in English titles, is not capitalized. We follow the convention of capitalization by capitalizing the translated names from languages that do not have capital letters, such as Mandarin. Unlike derogatory language, such as "fag", capitalizing a name is not meant to be offensive. Unlike sexist language, such as "house maid" or "air hostess", there is no underlying association with a particular group of people or stereotypes; on the contrary, the rule treats everyone equally. If a dozen people in the world prefer to be referred to by a lowercase name, this is just a whim in spite of society at large. There is no good reason for society to honor that whim. Distinguishing proper names makes text much less ambiguous and more effective. Conversely, any English speaker would be slightly confused at reading two words that appear to function as a proper name but are in lowercase. Names that function as common nouns, like "bell hooks", are even more confusing. I agree that the Manual of Style is not definitive about capitalizing proper names, but I think the above are compelling arguments for capitalizing names. -Pgan002 23:33, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

I'd like to revive this discussion and make a proposal to change the MoS, because the "Danah Boyd" article remains an extremely problematic case, and it seems unlikely that the continuing controversy over it will be resolved with anything other than a change to MoS to accommodate people who are known by lower-case names.

Reasoning for the general case:

While not common, there are notable individuals who are known by names which are presented entirely in lower-case. Currently, MoS contradicts itself by advocating following "common usage" in one place, and imposing capitalization in another. Allowing lower-case names for articles about/referencing these individuals would resolve this contradiction. It would also maintain a principle of "least surprise" for readers familiar with the subjects of those articles, and as a by-product probably reduce the number of ongoing debates concerning the presentation of names in those articles. Additionally, allowing properly-referenced use of lower-case names would remove a potential avenue through which NPOV and BLP could be violated (by removing an implied view of what is and is not a "proper" name for a person, and a means by which content disrespectful of a living person might otherwise be permitted on Wikipedia).

Proposed change to policy:

This paragraph:

Personal names are the names given to people, but can be used as well for some animals (like race horses) and natural or man-made inanimate objects (like ships and geological formations). As proper nouns these names are always first-letter capitalized, and transliterated into English spelling but generally not Anglicized or translated between languages.

Should change to the following:

Personal names are the names given to people, but can be used as well for some animals (like race horses) and natural or man-made inanimate objects (like ships and geological formations). As proper nouns these names are usually first-letter capitalized, and transliterated into English spelling but generally not Anglicized or translated between languages. When a person is commonly known by a name which is not first-letter capitalized, and multiple reliable sources verify the non-capitalized usage, do not capitalize the name.

Possible objections and replies:

Objection: Some organizations (e.g., newspapers) have style guides which impose capitalization in the same way as the current MoS; these are reliable sources on Wikipedia, and their usage should be taken into account.

Reply: Their usage should be taken into account, but "reliable" should not be confused with "authoritative". Just as other sources are preferable to newspaper articles in other fields (e.g., if several peer-reviewed scientific journals contained information about a science-related topic which contradicted an article in the New York Times, the information in the peer-reviewed journals would be used by Wikipedia in preference to the newspaper article), great care should be taken in reviewing available sources.

Objection: Given the above, it's impossible to reliably determine which sources to follow.

Reply: It's hard in some cases, but not necessarily impossible. As in the example above of peer-reviewed journals conflicting with a newspaper article, it is often possible and, in fact, easy to render a judgment between sources (e.g., a secondary source is to be preferred to a tertiary source, and a source with authority in a specific field is to be preferred, within that field, to a source with only general authority). In cases where the correct usage is ambiguous or contentious, an RFC should be used to establish consensus for Wikipedia's usage.

So. Thoughts? Ubernostrum 10:06, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it would be appropriate for participants of the Boyd mediation to pursue any guideline changes that may apply to the scenario that is still being mediated on. - Cyrus XIII 13:16, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't see anything inappropriate in my comments above; the endless nature of the debates (which seem to pop up pretty reliably at regular intervals), and now the mediation, over that article seem to point out pretty clearly that the MoS has problems with lower-case names, and changing the MoS is not in any way within the scope of that mediation, so why wouldn't it be appropriate to point out the problem with MoS and propose a remedy? Ubernostrum 14:22, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Also, note that pfahlstrom's example of bell hooks lends some precedent to this notion; in that case, the use of a lower-case name on Wikipedia flatly contradicts the MoS guideline, but appeals to reliable sources (no less than the Chicago Manual of Style, allegedly on hooks' insistence, recognized her name as lower-case) have so far carried the debate. Accommodating the occasional person who is verifiably known by a lower-case name (see also the lower-case title, but not lede -- a contradiction which could be resolved by this change -- on k.d. lang) in the MoS would seem to be a logical step from there. Ubernostrum 04:17, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

I think the wording of Ubernostrum's proposed revision to this guideline is a good start and agree with the underlying reasoning as he has expressed it, in addition to my previous arguments. I also reiterate that the current guideline is silent even on common lowercased name particles; this (as well as CamelCase names involving particles such as in LaKisha) should be addressed in any revision. I write this while recognizing that my opinion may carry little weight since I am currently unwilling to back it up by active participation in the process, due to my reasons expressed in my latest comments on the danah boyd talk page. Best wishes. —pfahlstrom 22:47, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

A bit more explanation

After spending a while away from the Boyd article and thinking about this more in depth as a general problem, I think it reduces as follows.

The prescription that personal names "are always first-letter capitalized" creates an unresolvable tension between WP:MOSPN and other Wikipedia policies, leading to unnecessary arguments and edit wars:

• When a person is verifiably commonly known by a name which is, in whole or in part, not first-letter capitalized, a tension exists between WP:MOSPN and WP:COMMONNAME; MOSPN says to capitalize, while COMMONNAME says to use "the most common name".
• When reliable sources identify a person using a name which is, in whole or in part, not first-letter capitalized, a tension exists between WP:MOSPN and the paired policies WP:V and WP:RS; MOSPN says to capitalize, while V and RS say to follow verifiable, reliable sources.
• When a living person is known by a name which is, in whole or in part, not first-letter capitalized, a tension exists between WP:MOSPN and WP:BLP; MOSPN says to capitalize, while BLP says to "get the article right".

The result of this is that articles about such persons can and do easily devolve into perpetual edit wars (Danah Boyd would be the canonical example here); when there is tension or contradiction between policies, multiple conflicting arguments can be made, and the very real possibility is introduced that an article will never stabilize on one usage, instead being tugged back and forth according to which choice of policy backing is favored by a majority of editors at a given moment, or remain a hotbed of controversy as different editors argue positions which are, though contradictory, perfectly justifiable according to the particular policies to which they choose to give greater weight.

To prevent these problems, some form of resolution to this intra-policy tension is necessary. MOSPN seems the most appropriate candidate for change:

• Altering WP:V or WP:RS to, in effect, allow for non-verifiable information or the ignoring of reliable sources would fundamentally change the operation of Wikipedia and open up a very tangible slippery slope to less-verifiable or unsourced information, hence these policies should remain as they are.
• Altering WP:BLP to, in effect, allow "getting the article wrong" would, again, be a fundamental change, and would, again, open up a slippery slope, this time to articles disrespectful of living subjects; hence this policy should remain as it is.
• Altering WP:COMMONNAME would resolve the tension between that specific policy and MOSPN, but would not resolve the tension between MOSPN and other policies; hence this policy is not the most appropriate candidate for a change.

This leaves MOSPN as the best candidate to be altered: amending MOSPN to allow personal names to omit capitalization -- when such omission can be properly verified and sourced according to other Wikipedia policies -- would resolve all of the above tensions with the least impact on Wikipedia itself. The change to the policy's wording proposed above seems to me to be the minimal change necessary to effect this resolution, but I'm not in any way wedded to that particular wording.

Does anyone have strong arguments for/against this proposal? I'd like to get it to the stage of asking for actual votes one way or another, but getting arguments out in the open for discussion is a necessary first step. Ubernostrum 01:40, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree that amending MOSPN seems to be the best alternative, for the reasons you give above. If there are numerous reliable sources that give someone's name in a non-standard style, and the person has declared for a particular style, BLP and COMMONNAME are pretty clear, leaving MOSPN as the one that needs to be changes. WP needs to reflect reality, not dictate it.--SarekOfVulcan 13:50, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

There is no need for an amendment, as WP:BLP/WP:COMMONNAME and the Manual of Style deal with different things, which are content and formatting respectively. Hence no scope for any sort of "reality" distortion, especially when stylistic quirks are still mentioned/described in the respective articles (i.e. in the lead). - Cyrus XIII 19:19, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Cyrus, by that argument you really ought to be over at MOSTM arguing for "Ipod", "Itunes", "Ebay", etc.; given your logic, there's no reason for MOSTM to have the specific exception for their capitalization, since "Ipod" and "iPod" are the same thing and a note in the lede about the "stylistic quirks" would do just as well ;)

Or maybe -- just maybe -- there's some precedent for the idea that an absolute "always first-letter capitalize" guideline can be problematic? ;) Ubernostrum 05:52, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

I support Ubernostrum's proposal above. I agree that there is a conflict between the referenced policies and I agree that adjusting MOSPN is the most practical, reasonable, and compassionate solution of which I am aware. —Ka-Ping Yee (talk) 06:29, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Agreed with Ubernostrum's proposal as well, for all the reasons stated above. --Charles (Kznf) (talk) 13:10, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

I see no reason that the current guidelines need to be changed. Ubernostrum's proposal was mainly to deal with one article, that of Danah Boyd. Changing guidelines because of one user's interest in one article, is not a good idea. We should stick with Wikipedia's current policy, which is that Wikipedia follows the lead of outside sources. --Elonka 16:04, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree whole-heartedly! The problem is that although that is what you added to the styleguide, that has since been edited out (without any consensus) by Cyrus XIII, in this edit[6] and then tightened even further in this edit[7]. I definitely support a reversion (to your version) of the policy to include an emphasis on reliable sources. --Charles (Kznf) (talk) 17:05, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

"Without any consensus" is somewhat misleading. I proposed said change on the guideline talk page, yet without any replies for weeks. Maybe editors who would have been likely to comment felt that they had already discussed the issue ad nauseum at the mediation Elonka mentioned, I don't know. In order to get at least some additional input on the matter I nudged an editor with whom I share an agreement to keep each other posted on stylistic matters to offer his two cents, which he did. A full month after the initial proposal, I applied the change, which to me still only smoothed out a minor inconsistency among our many many style guides. – Cyrus XIII ^(talk) 11:18, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Related move discussion

There is currently a discussion about whether the page at Vossstrasse should be moved to Voßstraße. Interested editors are invited to participate in the discussion at Talk:Vossstrasse#Page name. --Elonka 00:33, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

"biblical" or "Biblical"?

Should the existing guidelines cover capitalization of forms of the word "Bible", which generally is capitalized when referring to the Judeo-Christian scripute, or not? John Carter 18:25, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

The capitalization of scriptures is already covered in Wikipedia:Manual of Style (capital letters)#Religions, deities, philosophies, doctrines and their adherents, so it's safe to assume that any words derived from their titles are to be capitalized as well. Has there been any discussion on this elsewhere? - Cyrus XIII 19:00, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

The current discussion is at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Bible#Specific policy needed on capitalisation. John Carter 19:07, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Foreign-language name scripts: Limit?

If the subject of a biographical article is of a non-English or non-British background, it is often the convention that their name in the article is followed by a foreign-language script which spells their name in order to reflect their ethnic background. Examples of this would include Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (first note), Ariel Sharon and so on.

There is an issue at Shilpa Shetty where various editors feel that her name should be translated according to the Hindi script which reflects the country in which she lives, as well as the language she is most known for speaking in her movies. This is opposition to the current usage of the Tulu transliteration of her name, which other editors feel should remain as Tulu is her mother-tongue. A proposed compromise to include both transliterations has been rejected because apparently it is the 'English' Wikipedia and only one foreign-language script should remain. This cannot be true in the case of the Mahmoud Ahmadinejad article. Also, the editors apparently cite Wikipedia "convention" that subject's names can be transliterated only in the language of their mother-tongue: is this true?

What are the current conventions in matters such as these? Is it appropriate to compromise and include both transliterations? Would it also be ok to include IPA and ITRANS transliterations, etc? Thanks, Ekantik ^talk 18:13, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

It's so redunant loading the article with so many scripts. It is the English Wikipedia. Her mother tongue is Tulu, so that's exactly what we should mention.

You say, "...the Hindi script which reflects the country in which she lives, as well as the language she is most known for speaking in her movies."

• A) "Reflects the country in which she lives"? Who determines that? According to whom? She speaks nearly 10 different Indian languages which reflect the country in which she lives. So what? Should we mention all of them there?
• B) "The language she is most known for speaking in her movies."? - first of all, the foreign script has nothing to do with her profession, but her identity and particular native language. As for her films, she has acted in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu and Kannada language films, so here comes the same question: Should we mention all of them there?

The answer is definitely no. Her mother-tongue is Tulu, and that's what counts and that's what matters, according to me. Comments?

Best regards, Shahid • ^Talk2me 23:57, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Shahid, this is about forming a consensus to setting a standard for Bio articles across all of Wikipedia. Please address your arguments accordingly, not frame them according to the scope of one article. Your first sentence betrays your lack of knowledge in how bio articles are written in Wikipedia; on the contrary there are many articles that present several transliterations of the subject's name. You have not addressed the point about several well-known bio articles including of various scripts (example: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad), and your point about this being the English Wikipedia is redundant. Your argument about mother-tongues are also redundant, because perhaps it has no consensus? Where is the consensus that foreign scripts of subject names should only be in the subject's mother-tongue? What are the currentc conventions observed in Wikipedia?

• A) This is obviously silly. Nobody is advocating for a complete list of languages to reflect the country which she lives. Please stop producing strawman arguments. As far as I am aware, it is the convention to include foreign scripts based on the general nationality of the subject. In this particular case since Shetty is Indian and the national language of India is Hindi, the script should naturally be Hindi.
• B) Again a redundant argument. That was an ancillary point brought up for discussion.

So far your responses have not been impressive nor have they addressed the subject of my query, neither have you commented about any possible compromises. Again, this is not about what you want or what you think. This is a page meant to discuss the standards across all of Wikipedia. Please discuss accordingly and refrain from modifying arguments to suit your specifications for only one bio article. Your idea(s) will only apply if you have a WP:CON. Currently you do not have that. Regards, Ekantik ^talk 23:55, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Nor do you have. Laughable, you are criticising me, as if you are here to decide on these points. So let me quote you, and tell you that: this is not about what you want or what you think. While I'm also not a big fan of your work on here, I respect you, so please show respect too.

"In this particular case since Shetty is Indian and the national language of India is Hindi, the script should naturally be Hindi." - again, laughable... There are tons of Indians who don't even speak Hindi. I come originally from India, there I graduated from school, but I don't speak Hindi (I do understand though).

Your points are not valid, and the fact that you are throwing different Wikilinks of different policies doesn't impress me either. Shahid • ^Talk2me 17:57, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

How About Name of Major Streets and Squares in the cities ?

Shall we also name them according to English naming? F.e. what to do here : Tavisuplebis Moedani, Tbilisi, shall we better use Freedom Square, Tbilisi ? Steelmate (talk) 22:07, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

I think this is already covered in the section on place names. 217.28.2.84 (talk) 05:07, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Listing of multiple proper nouns

Alone, Washington County would have the "county" capitalized since it is part of the proper noun. But what about Washington, Lincoln and Smith Counties? Should "counties" be capitalized? --Holderca1 ^talk 19:29, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:27, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

certain special things

Are names of military operations considered proper names? What happens if the name is different in the original language to the one used in English?--mrg3105 (comms) ♠♥♦♣ 00:12, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

It looks like you're in WP:MILHIST; those guys are usually the ones I would ask. They're very good with language. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 00:20, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

The convention there is "An article should generally be placed at the most common name used to refer to the event". However, the most common name is not always the correct name, usually because the common name was coined, often by media, before the correct name of the operation in its country of origin was known, i.e. it is literally improper--mrg3105 (comms) ♠♥♦♣ 00:39, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Capitalization discussion at the manual of style

For all interested parties, there is a discussion going on right now at the Manual of Style about whether or not to capitalize people's names against their wishes (like bell hooks and danah boyd, for example). -- Irn (talk) 17:25, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

lowercase personal names

Per the recent changes at MOSCAP regarding the use of lowercase personal names, I think we should look into revising this line: "As proper nouns these names are always first-letter capitalized". I would recommend simply addding an exception like "except when individuals does not want their personal names capitalized and the lower case variant has received regular and established use in reliable third party sources." Or something to that effect. -- Irn (talk) 02:19, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Since no one is responding (and a notice was posted here about the discussion at MOSCAP [and in light of the above discussions]), I'm going to assume that no one objects. If no one has raised any objections in a week, I'll just go ahead and change the page to reflect the changes made at MOSCAP. -- Irn (talk) 01:35, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Foreign personal names

Personal names are transliterated into English spelling but generally not Anglicized or translated between languages.

Aleksandr Sergeyevich Pushkin (Алексáндр Серге́евич Пу́шкин) was a …

Canute (sometimes Cnut; Danish Knud) is the …

To cite from the Wikipedia article on Proper nouns:

The meaning of a proper noun, outside of what it references, is frequently arbitrary or irrelevant (for example, someone might be named Tiger Smith despite being neither a smith nor tiger-like). Because of this, they are often not translated between languages, although they may be transliterated—for example, the German surname Knödel becomes Knodel or Knoedel in English, not Dumpling.

Two changes proposed:

1. The Knodel/Knoedel/Knödel example points to article space. It is not a good idea to have guidelines point to article space, because the article can change at any time. In addition, if a notable German politician, say, were called Knödel, then we should actually write Knödel in their BLP, and not Knodel or Knoedel. I propose we delete this paragraph, retaining at most the bit about not translating foreign names.

2. Do we have a guideline for when to give names of biography subjects in foreign scripts? I can't find one. If we don't have one, I suggest it would make sense to give the name in the foreign script (in the lead, in brackets and after the Romanised spelling), whenever the subject was born in the country that uses the foreign script. For example, in the BLP of Vijay Amritraj, his name appears first in Roman letters, and then in the script of his region of birth. Today, the man lives in America. In the BLP for his son Prakash Amritraj, who was born in California, we don't give the name in foreign script. This may be due to the article being less well developed, but it also makes some sort of sense. Prakash Amritraj is still a recognizably Indian name, but as he was born in the US, his name would have been recorded in Roman letters on his birth certificate. In such cases, editors should still have the option of giving the name in foreign script as well, but I'd suggest this should only be done if the subject has strong links to his family's country of origin and his name is frequently seen there, written in the foreign script. It obviously would not make sense, for example, to give the name of a third-generation Russian American who does not even speak Russian himself any more in Cyrillic script in his BLP.

Does the above make sense, and would there be any objections to updating the guideline text accordingly? Jayen466 17:57, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable. But many people leave their country of birth as a result of persecution and don't want to be associated with it or are persecuted in their own country. Hebrew is the official language of Israel, would we therefore translate the names of Muslims living or born in Israel into Hebrew?Momento (talk) 22:00, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't think we would. Note though that Arabic has official status in Israel. Jayen466 09:35, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

I guess we'd have to word it in such a way that in countries with multiple official languages we use the script of the ethnic group, or region, that the subject was born in. Jayen466 09:38, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

As for cases where someone grew up as a member of an oppressed minority, I can see that using the script of the oppressors, for want of a better word, might be considered offensive, especially in a BLP. Should we include a sentence to that effect? Jayen466 09:46, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

How would we establish this oppression - by comments made by bio subjects? Hating or fearing an oppressive government is not the same as hating the script used in that country. Are there any instances of this that we can point to, or is this just a guess about a hypothetical situation?   Will Beback  talk  10:15, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

• Background - the issue of non-latin script came up today in regard to Prem Rawat, who was born in India and has a large following there, but who now lives in the US and is a US citizen. He has been known by several Indian names or titles in his life. The discussion there is at Talk:Prem Rawat#प्रेम पाल सिंह रावत and Talk:Prem Rawat#Balyogeshwar RfC   Will Beback  talk  23:05, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

What is your view on the matter, Will? Jayen466 09:35, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Jayen is making two proposals. Regarding the first one, I think that the quotation is clear, but possibly unnecessary. As for the underlying principle, oftentimes a foreign name is simplified in common usage by removing accents. It's not our job to "fix" common usage, but just to reflect it. Regarding the second issue, I think Jayen makes a good case for a general principle. Basically, if someone is born in a country that uses a non-latin script, and has a name native to that language, then we should include the name in its original script. While I agree with Rumiton, below, that veribiability could be a problem in some cases, there are so many editors familiar with foreign languages that in practice I don't see a significant problem. A benefit would be to aid in transwiki linking, as it'll be clearer which individual is being discussed. Regarding Momento's issue about refugees from oppression, that doesn't seem like a common issue. This is just a guideline and if an individual found the language or script of their birth country to be repugnant then it could be removed from their article. We don't need to draft guidelines that cover every possible permutation.   Will Beback  talk  20:36, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Seems to me that Wikipedia works because of the number of editors who can read the articles and spot the errors and POVs as they creep in. Allowing foreign script in an English language article reduces the number of editors. I can see cases where misleading script could stay for months before being picked up. Rumiton (talk) 11:03, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

We do have editors that know the languages concerned. Giving Cyrillic transliterations for notable Russians is pretty standard in WP, same with Chinese proper names etc. Jayen466 14:34, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Re the first case, note our article on Gerhard Schröder (thus spelt) and note google news, which shows that many quality media publications, including the Times, the Financial Times, the New York Times, the Guardian, the Independent, the International Herald Tribune use the original spelling with the umlaut at least half the time, or even exclusively (at least in this small sample). We have to remember that we are an encyclopedia and therefore should commit to the most educated usage, which is to include accents on French names, umlauts on German etc. The variant spellings ("Gerhard Schroder", "Gerhard Schroeder" etc.) can be set up as redirects, so users will see the most correct spelling. I think that is current practice anyway; it would be hard to argue the principle that we should have a redirect from a correct spelling to a wrong spelling. Agreed? Jayen466 23:27, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

The issue of accents is slightly different than the issue of scripts. These should probably be two separate threads. Anyway, this is the English Wikipedia, so whichever spelling is most common in English should be used. Cologne is the name in English, but Köln is the "proper" spelling of the name. If it's a close case, such as the Schröder example abovce, then we should retain the accents. However there is also a problem with folks adding accents where they don't belong. Here are two examples that I've dealt with in the past. Richard Ramirez never spent a day of his life in Mexico, though he is of Mexican descent, and never spelled his name with an accent. Despite that, some editors were moving the article to "Ramírez". They believe that is the "correct" spelling in Spanish, even though it isn't used by the subject. Likewise with Roman Polanski. He hasn't lived in Poland since he was a young man, and in his films and printed matter he spells his name without an accent. Yet editors insist that it should be spelled "Polański" because that is how it is spelled in Poland. So this is a delicate matter. We need to both honor the most common usage and the usage preferred by the subject, while also keeping in mind the most correct version when one is known.   Will Beback  talk  00:24, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Regarding the naming of articles, Wikipedia:Naming convention is the main guideline. It says:

• Use English words
• ... The choice between anglicized and native spellings should follow English usage (e.g., Besançon, Søren Kierkegaard and Göttingen, but Nuremberg, delicatessen, and Florence). Often this will be the local version, as with Madrid. Sometimes the usual English version will differ somewhat from the local form as in Franz Josef Strauss; ...

So if a name has become common in English without accents, then it seems consistent to use that version.   Will Beback  talk  06:02, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Well done. There is also WP:UE, which is linked from Wikipedia:Naming convention. I never cease to be amazed at how it's always possible to come across another guideline page that one has never heard of. I note that WP:UE mentions that "The native spelling of a name should generally be included in the first line of the article". I'll get back to you when I've had time to read through these pages. Jayen466 21:44, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes, there's always one more guideline. I see that WP:UE says:

• The body of each article, preferably in its first paragraph, should list all common names by which its subject is known. When the native name is written in a non-Latin alphabet this representation should be included along with Latin alphabet transliteration. For example, the Beijing article should mention that the city is also known as Peking, and that both names derive from the Chinese name 北京.

That seems to address this exact issue.   Will Beback  talk  21:56, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Re the second case, I think you are right; this is a guideline, it is not cast in stone, and the rest should be left to editors' discretion and WP:BLP. Jayen466 23:28, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Actually, the verifiability of foreign scripts can be a significant problem in real life: [8] A tragic case. Jayen466 23:33, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Luckily, WP articles are easier to change than tatoos.   Will Beback  talk  00:26, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

People known only by initials plus surname

Is there a guideline on how to present these? Should it be A. R. Rahman, A.R. Rahman, AR Rahman, A R Rahman, or something else entirely.....? -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 13:21, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

I think Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(people)#Middle_names_and_abbreviated_names applies. It seems A. R. Rahman is the preferred spelling. Jayen466 22:56, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Luxembourg example

The Luxembourg example doesn't really work any more, because the article on Luxembourg has changed since this was written. (Yet another reason why linking to article space from guidelines is not such a great idea ...) I've reinserted the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg in bold in the Luxembourg lede the way it was half a year ago, but that still does not match our description of the article here. Will adust the wording here to match Luxembourg, but unless someone is prepared to keep an eye on this, we should consider our options. Jayen466 22:42, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

The Knoedel example

We started discussing several issues above. Perhaps it will be easier to take these on one at a time. The following passage:

To cite from the Wikipedia article on Proper nouns:

The meaning of a proper noun, outside of what it references, is frequently arbitrary or irrelevant (for example, someone might be named Tiger Smith despite being neither a smith nor tiger-like). Because of this, they are often not translated between languages, although they may be transliterated—for example, the German surname Knödel becomes Knodel or Knoedel in English, not Dumpling.

has several problems:

1. It links to article space.
2. Knoedel does not (necessarily) become Knodel or Knoedel in English, as the example of Gerhard Schröder illustrates.
3. Whatever else it says is really common-sense.

Would we lose anything of value if we deleted this part of the guideline? Jayen466 22:52, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

One reason to have policies is to have a brickbat for the Wikipedians without common sense. Although substituting an example without diacritic would be simpler. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:56, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Members

If an article is about an entity that has other places as members (see Council of Europe, for example), the listing of those places (that is, the members) should follow the official English version of the listing provided by the umbrella organization, whether politically correct or not. These would, of course, link to the article name used at Wikipedia.

Is this desirable? It comes close to requiring official names, and (as the example should make clear) one purpose of this is the campaign to say FYR of Macedonia as often as possible. This page should not assist ethnic point-scoring. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:05, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Lowercase names still capitalized at the beginning of a sentence

I made this bold edit. Your feedback welcome. Mike R (talk) 21:47, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Stage name/real name

I see in some articles the article will lead with the real name followed by the stage name, and others will start with the stage name followed by the real name. Does the MOS say which should be used ? I see notes about the most common known but Ringo Starr article starts with his real name but obviously his stage name is the best known. --Cameron Scott (talk) 23:45, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Middle names in article text

When someone is most commonly known without their middle name, would it not be proper to use and/or link the commonly known name and not the full name? The Wikipedia:Proper_names#Personal_names seems to apply here though it only refers to article titles, not in the text of articles.

However, if the person is conventionally known by only their first and last names and disambiguation is not required, any middle names should be omitted from the article title (emphasis mine).

The question arose when reviewing Order_of_Nova_Scotia#Inductees, especially Sidney Crosby and Anne Murray, though I have seen it in various other places including references to Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger, aka Arnold Schwarzenegger. Seems like unneeded confusion to me. — MrDolomite • Talk 15:13, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

The link text doesn't have to be the article title; that's what masking is for. But since the indicated section is citing some notable inductees, not quoting the whole roll, I would use the recognizable form. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:32, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

MoS naming style

There is currently an ongoing discussion about the future of this and others MoS naming style. Please consider the issues raised in the discussion and vote if you wish GnevinAWB (talk) 21:00, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

The vote appears to have ended; in any case the link to vote above no longer links to any section titled #Vote. kcylsnavS{^screech_harrass} 14:38, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Alphabetizing, or What Is The Surname?

I dunno where to put this, but I wish to suggest the following policy regarding alphabetization of lists of people. I didn't want to re-invent the wheel but couldn't find anything on enwiki that provided this info. If it's already here please let me know. I also didn't want to re-invent the wheel when perfectly good wheels are already working so I've followed the recommendations of the Chicago Manual of Style - because if they don't know how to do it, no body does.

The suggested policy is at User:Svanslyck/Surnames but let's have the discussion here (or wherever this topic get moved to). Thanks for listening. kcylsnavS{^screech_harrass} 23:43, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Ethnic names

At Wikipedia:Naming conventions (languages), it is suggested that the name common to a people and their language should be used whenever practical. The current wording is,

Tswana
Person	Motswana
People	Batswana
Language	Setswana
Country	Botswana

Where a common name exists in English for both a people and their language, that term is preferred, especially when borrowed native forms involve different prefixes or are otherwise not transparently related. For example, Germans and German language, with redirects at Deutsch and Deutsche; also Tswana people and Tswana language, with redirects placed at Batswana and Setswana. The template {{Infobox NC name}} may be used to list the various affixed forms, as at right for Tswana.

Since this affects more than just languages (though, in general, languages are named after peoples or places rather than vice versa), IMO a redirect to the language conventions should be included here. Perhaps s.t. like,

Peoples and their languages

Main page: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (languages)

Where a common name exists in English for both a people and their language, that term is preferred, as in Swahili people and Swahili language rather than Waswahili and Kiswahili.

Any objections? — kwami (talk) 21:29, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

A couple days now and no objections, so I'll add the line. — kwami (talk) 20:00, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Largely redundant, except for the link, but harmless. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:29, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

referring to people with widespread use of stage names within the article

I am not sure this is the right place, but what is the practice for referring to people with stage names such as Muddy Waters or Brotha Lynch Hung or DJ Premier within the article itself? Where we would normally use a surname "Bush did X" to maintain professional writing, it is certainly not appropriate application to write "Premier did X" or "Hung did X", is it? Active Banana (^bananaphone 20:24, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

RFC: restructuring of the Manual of Style

Editors may be interested in this RFC, along with the discussion of its implementation:

Should all subsidiary pages of the Manual of Style be made subpages of WP:MOS?

It's big; and it promises huge improvements. Great if everyone can be involved. Noetica^Tea? 00:50, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

new addition in the middle of a content dispute

I am removing a new section added by Dicklyon, per WP:BRD. While he asked for opinions in the "capital letters" guideline, he not received yet any reply, and he is neglected to mention and the changes would allow him to win a content dispute in which he is involved.

==Compounds with proper names== Proper names are often compounded with generic terms to make phrases that may be interpreted as referring to a specific object or concept – for example, Labrador retriever (a specific dog breed), Murphy's law (a specific adage), Halley's comet (a specific celestial body), Venturi effect (a specific scientific effect), Gouraud shading (a specific algorithm), Morse code (a specific encoding), Cairo ring road (a specific road). Do not over-capitalize – it is Wikipedia style to treat the entire phrase as a proper name only if it is almost always so treated in high-quality sources. (Such compounds are often found with the generic term capitalized, as if the entire phrase is a proper name, in publications of specialist groups that tend to name and organize their topics. In writings of and for the general public, on the other hand, more often only the name part is capitalized, and the phrases are treated as descriptive.)

This section is hand-tailored to help Dickylon win a content dispute in Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style#comet_names.

The examples are at odds with the cited articles: our article Labrador Retriever has always been capitalized. Halley's Comet has always been capitalized, even when it was called Comet Halley. Dickylon is currently trying to move it to Halley's comet, so that it will his example. This looks too much like a half-baked text thrown together in order to win an ongoing content dispute. --Enric Naval (talk) 21:08, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Actually, I wrote the section first, and asked for comments on the talk page WT:Manual of Style (capital letters) before choosing Halley's comet as the first test case to try to get some comments and discussion. I said all that there. I have no particular interest in winning at Halley's comet, and it's not a content dispute. It's a style matter. Let's discuss it civilly, as I've trying to do, OK? Dicklyon (talk) 21:18, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

OK, see why the examples are wrong.

"Murphy's law" is a bad example because most books capitalize it by a wide margin [9], which a simple google book search can confirm[10]. Looking at the 25th anniversary edition of the original Murphy's Law, you can see that it was coined and intended to be used as a proper noun.[11] You opened a few days ago a move request in Talk:Sturgeon's_Law#Requested_move, which probably gave you the idea to insert this example. However, all sources capitalize that law, giving a perfect counterexample of what you were proposing.

"Cairo ring road" doesn't show in ngrams. It has about 50/50 usage in books, and there are very few books[12]. And it was originally capitalized, but you moved it 14 minutes before inserting it as an example in the guideline, saying "commonly lower-case in sources". (I think that you are not conscious of how bad this looks to other people). The main problem is that it contradicts Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(U.S._state_and_territory_highways), which says that all US highways names have to be capitalized (treats them like proper names, apparently). Anyways, this was a tricky one, turns out that the road's official name is "Ring Road". I made a request to move it to "Cairo's Ring Road" Talk:Cairo_ring_road#requested_move.

The examples that agree with with the majority of books are

"Morse code"[13]

"Gouraud shading"[14]

"Venturi effect" [15].

I suggest building a text from these valid examples. --Enric Naval (talk) 19:15, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Personal names in prose and lists

We have the articles "Martin Luther King, Jr." (as I expected), "Babe Zaharias" (a surprise to me, perhaps a mistake) and "Mary Decker" (no expectation). Suppose that they are adequately titled and that their lead sentences provide more complete information.

Is it sometimes right to use "King, Jr." alone in prose or in a list? Or is "Jr." used only when "Martin Luther" is used?

In prose and in lists, should (Didriksen) Zaharias be piped [[Babe Zaharias |Babe Didriksen]] regarding achievements under that use name, such as athletic competition at the 1932 Summer Olympic Games?

Should Decker (Slaney) be piped [[Mary Decker |Mary Decker Slaney]] where listed as a winner of some event late in her career? Should her biography read "In June 1997, the IAAF banned Decker ...
Throughout her later career, Slaney had suffered ...".

If the USATF Hall of Fame officially lists her as Mary Slaney (Decker) —better, if we knew that she was inducted under that name eight years ago— should explicit discussion of that membership say, for example "The first women in the Hall of Fame were ..., ..., and [[Mary Decker |Mary Slaney (Decker)]]"? What if the Hall of Fame inducts (I don't know) or lists (it's true) under a more formal name such as "Mildred (Babe) Didriksen Zaharias"? If we list women in the Hall of Fame, should it be under that name?

P.S. Some reference material, moving from print to digital media, has imposed unique names for people who were once listed under multiple names. It may be nothing but a quick & dirty way to manage all with one database management program, nothing but in the sense that they will gradually restore multiple names.

--P64 (talk) 20:40, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Standards for handling publisher location in citations

FYI

 – Pointer to a relevant discussion on another talk page.

I've proposed a consistent WP:CITE standard for how to specify the publisher location in citations, at Wikipedia talk:Citing sources#Standards for handling publisher location. It takes better account of the WP:systemic bias problem than the practices recommended by the Chicago Manual of Style, and other style guides, which seem to always assume that the reader is a well-educated Westerner very familiar with American and European geography. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 21:42, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

Concerns over "proper nouns": changing the lead at WP:MOSCAPS

Colleagues, please take note of this new section at WT:MOSCAPS:

"Proper nouns", "proper names", and other concerns: amending the lead

Your contributions to discussion would be appreciated.

Noetica^Tea? 00:32, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Place names with multiple spellings

[16]

What should be done with place names that are having more than one common spellings, such as Macau/Macao? Does Wikipedia have any policy to standardize it with either spelling? Or would the same rule for color/colour apply? (In the case of Macau, the FCO,[17][18][19] the Macau Government[20][21] and the Hong Kong Government[22][23] spell it as Macao in English.) 116.48.165.183 (talk) 12:15, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

responded here Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_(geographic_names)#Place_names_with_multiple_spellings. Please don't start multiple forked discussions. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)

Different guidelines may have different policies. It's neccesary to find this out at different talk pages as long as the guidelines are relevant. 110.4.16.158 (talk) 13:39, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Diacritics

WP:DIACRITICS says "follow the general usage in reliable sources that are written in the English language." If we followed that language literally, there would be a whole lot fewer diacritics in titles than there are now. In contrast, this page says, "Wikipedia normally retains these special characters, except where there is a well-established English spelling that replaces them with English standard letters." The WP:Naming conventions (use English) page is obviously the better established guideline, so this one should be revised to conform. Kauffner (talk) 04:50, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

This guideline is in line with policy and practice; we use established anglicized spellings like Aragon, but not mere common (mis)spellings of non-anglicized names like Paul Erdős. The rewrite of WP:DIACRITICS is highly disputed, having been opposed by most users that have commented on it. Prolog (talk) 17:19, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Then perhaps you can propose a change over at WP:Naming conventions (use English). That convention is specifically about article titles. The fact that WP:DIACRITICS sends you there rather than here is another cue as to which guideline should take priority. A change was agreed to, and it should done consistently through the guidelines. You must know that we had a big vote on this subject. The guideline here is more pro-diacritic than the proposal that was rejected. The Paul Erdős example shows nothing. We have 4 million titles on Wiki. You can find an example of whatever you want. Kauffner (talk) 17:53, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

What "change was agreed to"? The rewrite was done without consensus by a now topic-banned user who was at the time heavily involved in a diacritic-related RM. The two subsequent RFCs showed that this view is supported only by a (significant) minority of editors. The problem is there, not here, and the spelling of Erdős's name exemplifies the rule, not the exception. Prolog (talk) 19:31, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Whatever you think of WP:DIACRITICS, WP:UE says basically the same thing: "The choice between anglicized and local spellings should follow English-language usage". That's policy. This page is only a guideline. Kauffner (talk) 11:18, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

WP:UE is correct, but your interpretation of it is not; the idea that all common spellings of foreign names are anglicizations is contrary to the practices of authoritative dictionaries and encyclopedias, and is not supported by a single style guide. Prolog (talk) 13:45, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

There are also other guidelines that confirm WP:UE. For example WP:LEAD has a section about Non-English titles saying: "Although Wikipedia's naming convention guidelines recommend the use of English, there are instances where the subject of an article is best known in English-speaking sources by its non-English name. In this case, the non-English title may be appropriate for the article." So, the non-English title may be appropriate when it is best known by its non-English name in English-speaking sources. That wording of this paragraph strongly suggests this is meant to be the exception, only used when the non-English name or spelling has taken over in English-language usage.

The prevalence in English-language sources is to be our first consideration.

But, I notice that some editors are turning this around and want to use the native spelling and anglicization rules as the prime criterion, trying to brush away any anglicization that is not according to certain rules as "errors". At the same time trying to make prevalence in English-language sources a secondary consideration, only agreeing to a common name without diacritics if it is very prevalent and about a person or place that almost everybody knows.

Authoritative dictionaries and encyclopedias are good as far as they go, but they are built on a different model than WP. WP strongly relies on sources (all reliable sources , including reliable media sources), so the prevalence of certain names (or spelling of them) in those sources is what decides (not the 'rules' that other encyclopedias apply). MakeSense64 (talk) 09:35, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Which brings us back to the verifiability but NOT truth debate. Just because something can be cited to a source it does not be true especially if a source is known for certain limitations. For example a Mexican driverslicence only allows for one middle name. Can we use that as prove that the person only has one middle name? A technical disability of a souce does not make the resulting name a English name more is involved than that. Agathoclea (talk) 12:00, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Ah yes. The famous "ignore all sources" rule. Do you really not know that this a style issue as well? It has become much easier to use diacritics in the last few years, but published sources have not gone Unicode crazy the way Wikipedia has. Kauffner (talk) 21:40, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

The reliability of a source depends on the context (WP:SOURCES). We can and should be picky. Reputable reference works are pretty much "Unicode crazy", so our current house style suits our project. Prolog (talk) 22:40, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

The use of diacritics in names that appear more frequently in reference works and scholarly sources makes more sense than using them in names that only rarely appear in such sources. That is the case with most names from sports for example. Sports articles largely depend on news media coverage, which typically does not use the diacritics in the names. The prevalence in English-language sources is then heavily in favor of the non-diacritics spelling. Editors who don't like that are trying to put it away as spelling errors, or mistakes from limitations like in the Mexican drivers license example. But that doesn't really matter, if it is the prevalent name in English-language usage then that's how it is. WP is molded according to the prevalence in the sources we have, not according to the approach that is used in some other reference works. MakeSense64 (talk) 05:36, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

The point again is that WP doesn't have "WP:RS sources" for stubs on Czech or Croatian junior tennis players who have maybe played one international tennis match in Austria. A skimpy website index card like this or this is not a reliable source for a lede like: Filip Horanský (born January 7, 1993) and known professionally as Filip Horansky, is a tennis player from Slovakia. Filip, with partner Jiří Veselý, won the 2011... " when the Slovak language press-sources in the article shows the player playing professionally under his correctly spelled name. Filip Horanský at www.talenty-info.sk "Filip Horanský je najlepším juniorským tenistom u nás." A scholarly English Book The socio economic impact of sports in Slovakia would be a source, but even then with BLPs in Latin alphabet WP spells fully in lede. In ictu oculi (talk) 19:50, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

"WP doesn't have 'WP:RS sources' for stubs on Czech or Croatian" in which case this is covered in Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English)#No established usage in English-language sources. Whether a "A skimpy website index card" constitutes established usage for the naming of an article is something that can be debated on the talk page of the article. What is not needed is a content guideline giving contrary advise to that of the WP:AT policy and its guidelines, which covers the article title. -- PBS (talk) 10:19, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

What seems to be the major problem here is that the guidance given here is mixing up guidance given in the MOS which is about content with the guidance given in the Article Title policy and its guidelines (called naming conventions) such as Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English). What to do is already described in MOS:FOREIGN:

The use of diacritics (such as accent marks) for foreign words is neither encouraged nor discouraged; their usage depends on whether they appear in verifiable reliable sources in English and on the constraints imposed by specialized Wikipedia guidelines.
...
Spell a name consistently in the title and the text of an article. See relevant policy at Article titles; see also Naming conventions (use English). For foreign names, phrases, and words generally, adopt the spellings most commonly used in English-language references for the article, unless those spellings are idiosyncratic or obsolete. If a foreign term does not appear in the article's references, adopt the spelling most commonly used in other verifiable reliable sources (for example other English-language dictionaries and encyclopedias).

The wording in WP:AT mentioned in MOS:FOREIGN is under WP:UE and it says:

if there are too few reliable English-language sources to constitute an established usage, follow the conventions of the language appropriate to the subject (German for German politicians, Portuguese for Brazilian towns, and so on).

A more detailed explanation can be found in the WP:AT guideline (naming convention as such guidelines are termed) Naming conventions (use English). So why repeat it here in slightly different wording (which causes confusion)? I suggest that all of the text is replaced with:

The use of diacritics (such as accent marks) for foreign words is neither encouraged nor discouraged, for details of how decide on the appropriate usage see the section Foreign terms in the MOS.

As far as I can tell this should not be a controversial change because it is clear that the current wording should not be controversial but a summation of the main MOS page. That it is being misunderstood suggests that the current wording is not correct. -- PBS (talk) 10:19, 20 April 2012 (UTC)