Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (use English)

Template:Rfcid I am seeking a consensus on if the policies of WP:UCN and WP:EN continues to be working policies for naming biographical articles, or if such policies have been replaced by a new status quo. This discussion is on-going at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (use English). Dolovis (talk) 16:38, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

References works @ modified letters

It reads in the section that under certain conditions further research will be necessary, however, this seems vague as a policy pronouncement so I think some kind of example of what this might entail might be useful. I suggest something along the lines of

...for example, the consultation of general or niche reference works such as dictionaries and encyclopedias

Any other suggestions/comments?--Hodgson-Burnett's Secret Garden (talk) 15:51, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

OK, I see now that a review of a number of news/mag articles was not mentioned as a specific criterion. My suggestion thus is to substitute it for other encyclopedias in the "three criteria" pgraf and then use other encyclopedias as the possible tie breaker. I believe this correct because the likelihood is great for such reference works to favor foreign usages, and thus to be out of kilter with the other three. Whereas, reference works often err on the side of presenting as much detailed information in as short a form as possible, Wikipedia's purpose is somewhat different in that WP endeavors to utilize English usage but to put variant forms toward the top of the lede: as the title of this page says, "Use English."--Hodgson-Burnett's Secret Garden (talk) 16:45, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Seems noone want to discuss this.--Hodgson-Burnett's Secret Garden (talk) 15:10, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

I think "investigation" should not be further qualified. This is to cover exceptions, where the nature of the sources will vary. Giving examples, by implication, puts unwanted limits on the investigation. For instance: for some topics, official databases might be appropriate and magazine articles might be totally inappropriate. Mentioning one but not the other might give undue weight. --Boson (talk) 22:48, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

An exception to the rule?

Please read carefully before making a comment. Hello, everyone. I've found an interesting and unusual situation related to naming conventions. There is a Portuguese monarch called "João VI" (it spells like the French "Jean") who has an article about him under the title John VI of Portugal.

I have noticed at Google books that specialized works written in English (João VI's, Pedro I's, Pedro II's biographies, books about the history of Portugal, or Brazil, etc...) prefer (if not always) to use the name "João VI". On the other hand, more generalist books (books about the history of Europe, Napoleonic wars, etc...) prefer to use the name "John VI".

According to the Manual of Style, we need to follow two rules: use the widely known name ("Queen Victoria" instead of "Victoria of the United Kingdom") and/or anglicize the name whenever it's possible ("Ferdinand Magellan" instead of "Fernão de Magalhães"). The goal of both rules is to make the life of the reader easier.

The problem is that "John" VI is the son and successor of Queen Maria II (not "Mary") and father of both Emperor Pedro I of Brazil (not "Peter") and King Miguel of Portugal (not "Michael"). He is also the paternal grandfather of Emperor Pedro II of Brazil (not "Peter II") and of Queen Maria II of Portugal (not "Mary").

As anyone can see, it is quite odd to write or read about a Portuguese monarch who has his name anglicized while everyone else in his immediate family have their names kept in Portuguese. It gets worse once you read his article where there are also other Portuguese or Brazilian historical characters like José Bonifácio de Andrada, for example.

The point is: shouldn't exist an exception for both rules mentioned above? For cases like this one, for example? My opinion is that:

1)In exceptional cases such as this one, the name should be kept in its original form. I repeat: exceptional only. A simple note explaining the pronunciation would be added ("João" is supposed to be pronunced as in the French "Jean", for example) .

2) In his article, or aticles closely related to the subject, his name would be spelled in its original form. In the case of João, for example, his article, as well as in articles related to Brazilian/Portuguese history his name would be spelled "João".

3) In articles which focus in more generalist subjects (for example: history of Europe, Napoleonic wars, list of European monarchs, list of monarchs who were murdered, etc...) the name should be anglicized and redirectioned to its proper aticle.

4) The rule for cases such as this one would be that the preferable name for an article is supposed to be the one widely used by specialized works (when I says, "specialized", I'm not talking about books for specialists only, but that are focused on the subject mentioned), not generalist works.

I believe my suggestion is fair and could be implemented. Nonetheless, the present situation can not be maintained. An article about a monarch who has his name anglcized when the previous monarch and the monarchs after him have their original names is awkward at best. Regards to all, --Lecen (talk) 21:53, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Comment: As more scholars abandon the anglicization of names for most modern-period monarchs (and some ancient monarchs and other personanges as well), this becomes more irritating and inconsistent. João VI is a good example, and most references I have consulted use the João/Joao form of the name. Interestingly, Encylopaedia Britannica also used João in older editions, though they eventually made the "improvement" to anglicize all instances of Portuguese monarchs named "João" to "John". Recent sources use "João", and I agree that it is confusing for both editiors and readers to jump back and forth between anglicized and non-anglicized forms, sometimes within the same dynasty or article where some names are anglicized and others are not. • Astynax ^talk 09:34, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

"Demonstrate a clear prevalence in English usage, and that will resolve the issue. On the other hand, where there is genuine usage, as with the present King of Spain (who is not John Charles I, although his ancestor is, as usage makes him, Charles V), there is usually no issue. Many of these, as with the section below, are artificial issues produced by nationalists. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:00, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Conflict between usage and policy wording

It is a fact that - at least, as far as Polish people or placenames are concerned - we use diacritics. There are very few exceptions to that, either people who have emigrated and changed their name, or few individuals like Casimir Pulaski whose name is changed to a degree real first name (Kazimierz) is almost universally translated into the English usage (but those cases are rare, somewhat controversial, and often discussed to proverbial horse's death on their talk pages).

However, when I read the "Modified letters" section, the above would not be obvious. First:

The use of modified letters (such as accents or other diacritics) in article titles is neither encouraged nor discouraged

This is neutral, but is it really true? We don't really encourage or discourage diacritics, but in many cases (like Polish people or placenames) we use them. If a rare undiacriticized Polish bio or place pops up on our radar, we (members of WikiProject Poland) diacriticize it, and this has been an uncontroversial approach of ours for years, since this issue was discussed long, long time ago (early 2000s) and consensus for use of diacritics have emerged.

As such, the above phrase is misleading, as in places like Poland-topics we don't really encourage the use of diacritics - we treat it as given, as it is not only common, it is the unwritten rule of what to do. This raises the question of "is WikiProject Poland" the exception? As far as I know, we are not. Diacritics are used throughout other Latin-alphabet Slavic languages (Czech, Slovak), I've seen them in Nordic languages, German, French... as such I strongly believe that the above sentence needs change, either to encouraged, or at least, to mention that diacritic use is much more common then non-use. In fact I think this policy needs a rewrite to the extent is makes it clear that the use of diacritics is common and encouraged, but with a special section on "exceptions" - rare cases where we do not use diacritics. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 18:06, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I keep making this point - but this guideline seems to be under the control of people who have an aversion to diacritics that isn't shared by the Wikipedia community in general, hence it doesn't reflect actual practice very accurately. --Kotniski (talk) 18:11, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

I've not been active here before, but if this is indeed a case, the usual solution to break a WP:OWN hold on a policy is proper and wide canvassing. An RfC, plus a note on VP:POLICY and various WikiProjects/Regional Noticeboards to attract editors who actively edit articles with diacritics should be enough to counter any bias. I've announced this discussion at WT:POLAND, since I mention this project as an example, would you care to announce it more widely? The more editors that would be aware of this discussion, the better. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 18:15, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

The policy statement mentioned above is too vague and does not reflect the Wikipedia reality. As Kotniski mentions, the guideline is there for some reason. The question is if the guideline should reflect the reality, I think it should. - Darwinek (talk) 08:01, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

IMO, the first best solution is to just embrace diacritics. If the policy cannot be written to support that because of WP:OWN issues with this page, then a bit of federalism would be a good thing - by that I mean letting individual projects decide on best practice.Volunteer Marek (talk) 14:54, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

All the latest English-language scholarly sources (any Roman alphabet language) use diacritics. I believe therefore that diacritics should be encouraged, not discouraged. It's not the days of typesetting with hot lead where there was a limit to how many special character molds you could put on a Linotype. Earlier common English language usage was bound by technology, not just Anglo-centric laziness when it came to ornamenting characters. PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 15:06, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

If its true that "All the latest English-language scholarly sources use" diacritics then the the wording of this guideline will be biased in favour of diacritics as it says use reliable sources as a guide. -- PBS (talk) 15:25, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

I guess that the reason why Polish editors who contribute to the English Wikipeida use diacritics is because words with which they are familiar without diacritics look odd to them and makes them want to change them to the "correct" usage in Polish. However for monoglot English readers to see words that do not usually have diacritics on them having them is equally distracting. As this is a matter of taste the simplest thing to do is to appeal to sources, because while editors may not agree on which looks better, they can agree on which on the usage in reliable English language sources. I find it baffling why editors who are usually quite happy to agree on content using reliable sources, wish to ignore that usage for the spelling of words, simply because common English language usage does not suit their tastes. I think it is long past time that Polish editors should embrace the advise in this guideline and choose the spelling of a name like "Lech Walesa" the way it is commonly spelt in reliable English language sources. -- PBS (talk) 15:25, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

The monoglots amongst us have seen diacritics in common French and Spanish words forever. Where it is an issue of not only diacritics but a complete change of name or alternate spelling, there a preponderance of particular English language use should hold sway over scholarly. Where the only issue is the addition of diacritics, e.g., "Pēters Jānis Vecrumba" versus "Peters Janis Vecrumba", diacritics certainly are not that strange, and in my case serve as notification that my middle name is a boy's, not girl's, name.

It's not about Polish, it's about every Roman alphabet language between Western Europe and Russia and (per the Portuguese example above) beyond. Our standard is to be a scholarly encyclopedia, not a daily newspaper. PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 16:21, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

I merely used Polish as an example because that was what was mentioned above. Your point with French and Spanish is more complicated because an educated English person is meant to be familiar with French (in the UK) and Spanish (in the US) and possibly Portuguese, German and Italian. This is for example reflected in "Accents" in the Style Guide issued by the Economist. However as this is a POV view (an one for which we would never get agreement), but we can do the same thing by using a simpler rule, the usage in reliable sources (if it is a general assumption) will reflect it. -- PBS (talk) 12:36, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Indeed. Anyway, as it seems that given the choice of diacritics or not, our normal procedure, in most cases is to use them, I see no reason why this shouldn't be clarified in the policy (again, there are exceptions to this rule, such as common English names for placenames covered by NCGN, and that should be clarified here as well). The primary problem is that the current policy is confusing and does not represent our regular naming policies, and this needs to be changed. PS. And of course this is hardly Polish-only issue, Lech Wałęsa is no different than François Mitterrand or all things named Blücher. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 09:14, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

It is different with names like Lech Walesa, and the simplest formula is to copy what is used in reliable sources, if we do that then we will be in sync of what is used in reliable English language source. -- PBS (talk) 12:36, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Different how? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 17:53, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Usage in reliable English language sources. The most common usage for Blücher is the general who commanded the Prussians at Waterloo, if Blucher is more common than Blücher the biography on that man should be changed just as should the article on Lech Walesa. -- PBS (talk) 20:27, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

With this edit last year I added a paragraph which I would have thought correctly describes our actual practices in this area. It was pretty quickly removed by someone who clearly doesn't like those practices - but perhaps we could consider readding it (or something like it)? (The wording, added after the paragraph about non-Latin alphabets, said: Names which are originally written in a Latin alphabet, and which have no particularly well-established English name, are normally written in their native form, even if that contains diacritics or letters that do not normally appear in English, as in Strübbel, Łopuchówko and Reyðarfjörður. However, when there is a well-established English form, such as Aragon (for Aragón) or Napoleon (for Napoléon), that is used instead.)--Kotniski (talk) 11:51, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

• What does "well-established English name" mean?
• "even if that contains diacritics or letters that do not normally appear in English" We already do that by the usage in reliable English language sources.

I don't see what the advantage of that wording is over the current wording which says something similar, in simpler language. Can you explain the nuisances of how it differs, from the current wording. An example or two would help, and how would it support the spelling of "Lech Wałęsa" instead of "Lech Walesa"? -- PBS (talk) 12:47, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Well established needs clarification indeed. And I am not sure if most common spelling is useful, seeing how often for ease of print diacritics are omitted from (particularly older) publications. I'd support use of diacritics if they are used by minority of English publications, but would have doubts if they are used by none (assuming they object in question is mentioned at least in some other English sources, of course). Wałęsa, for example, seems to have his diacritics used in less than half of English sources, nonetheless, his name is spelled correctly often, even in book titles ([1], [2], [3] and so on). Second, there is clearly no support for moving Lech Wałęsa to Lech Walesa, per various arguments used during the RM request, and as such, this policy should reflect this (and we should recognize this is a common situation, not an exception to a rule). PS. I note, PBS, that in this discussion, you were in the minority. Just like it appears you are here, in arguing against diacritics. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 17:53, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

"You were in a minority" 11/10! The page did not move because there was not a consensus to move. If the page had been at Lech Walesa it would not have been moved to "Lech Wałęsa". Not quite the small minority your comment "you were in the minority" implied. -- PBS (talk) 20:38, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Well then, splitting the hair, you were not in majority big enough to justify the move. Which only proves my point that established procedure on Wikipedia is to use diacritics. This is what we do through titles and text, unless there are specific exceptions (Warsaw, Casimir Pulawski, etc). Those are exceptions and this naming convention should make it clear. As it is, it implies some sort of, cough, "equivalency", cough, between using and not using diacritics, which is quite FALSE, as in practice, we almost always use diacritics. Policies should reflect common application. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 18:06, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

What does "correct" mean? Surly "correct" is usage in reliable English Language sources and the vast majority of reliable English language sources use "Lech Walesa" which makes it correct as far a the verification is concerned. -- PBS (talk) 20:27, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

I think we should deliberately use an ambiguous term like "well-established", since there clearly isn't any consensus (or even possibility of precise definition) as to exactly where the line is to be drawn. The standard is not, however, what the majority of English sources do (and what counts as a "reliable" source in this context is similarly undefined), so we shouldn't keep implying we do that - instead we should explain our practices accurately - namely that in typical (i.e. relatively obscure) cases we use the diacritics and modified letters; in cases like Napoleon we follow established English; somewhere in the middle runs an imperfectly defined boundary between the two treatments. (It should perhaps also be pointed out that we are more likely to diverge from the native spelling where it impairs recognizability, as we have done with the better-known Djokovics.) --Kotniski (talk) 16:52, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Kotniski in the last move debate in Talk:Lech Wałęsa you ignored the advise you are giving here and wrote "Oppose, serves no purpose except to 'dumb down' ", yet one could equally argue "to use modified letters when most English language sources do not, is laziness for not bothering to verify usage in reliable sources, and a form of 'dumbing down' ", they are two sides of the same coin. It is much better to go with the usages in reliable English language sources because apart from anything else it reduces the differences between content and article name -- unless one is going to ignore WP:V not only for the article title but also content. -- PBS (talk) 20:27, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Not really - our practice is to use diacritics both in content and in article names, except in clear cases like Napoleon. That's another thing I keep saying about this guideline - it's titled and phrased as if it's about article titles, but there's no reason for it to be so restricted - the principles set out here (particularly the eponymous "Use English" dictum) apply to all aspects of Wikipedia content (or would do, if we wrote them to properly reflect actual accepted practice). (And we're not "ignoring WP:V" by using diacritics - that policy doesn't say anything to the effect that we have to present information in the same way that a majority of sources present it.)--Kotniski (talk) 11:07, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Of course it does say that -- we present information in the same way that a majority of sources present it, that is why names like the "Boston Massacre" are used rather than a NPOV name! You have been arguing so strongly for the abandonment of rule based article naming in the area of WP:NCROY, (For example you initiated a move for Queen Anne based on common usage.) So why not in this area as well? Personally I was very pleased when usage in reliable sources (as opposed to usage in all sources) was introduced in to the policy because it simplified the policy and removed the need for rule based guidance in lots of areas and it allowed us a clear formula that ties into the content polices in a simple and elegant way. -- PBS (talk) 12:18, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Where does WP:V say anything like that? But the difference between the cases of Anne and Lech is that adding the diacritics doesn't make "Wałęsa" any less recognizable to those who are used to seeing it as "Walesa" (and everyone will readily understand why the diacritics are there and what they need to do to write it without diacritics); whereas calling someone as well-known as Queen Anne by an unfamiliar and largely invented title may well cause people not to realize who the article is about, or mislead them as to how the person is normally referred to. Diacritics are a win-win feature for an encyclopedia - they add information (our overriding goal) without harming recognizability or conciseness. And this is clearly the view that Wikipedia has taken. Whether Wałęsa falls into the Napoleon category can be left as a matter for individual discussion (I would say not, partly because we don't pronounce him "wails-a"), but we should certainly try to document truthfully how we treat the vast majority of names of this type.--Kotniski (talk) 14:04, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Your argument that it is a "win-win feature for an encyclopedia" looks wrong to me because you have misspelt "encyclopaedia". The reason why we do not insist on unformed spelling is because to use British spelling in American centric articles looks odd, as does American spelling in British centric articles, to those used to seeing either usual national spellings. Just as I do not think one can argue that that theatre is right and theater is wrong, neither can one say that "Wałęsa" or "Walesa" is correct, but one can say that it looks wrong or right depending on personal preference. I do not think it is insignificant that it is often native speakers who are most vociferous in insisting that Anglicised words are "wrong" (Ie look wrong to them as they are used to seeing the words with diacritics. It is for them like "colour" is to an American).

Your argument that it "add information (our overriding goal) without harming recognizability or conciseness" is in my opinion just one point of view. For example how is Moscow pronounced (differently in London and Washington as are many words other foreign place names (How do Americans pronounce Worcestershire when asking for the source?). How is Zurich pronounced in Washington or London? Not the same ways as it is pronounced in Zürich! "Recognizability or conciseness" are not harmed by spelling color "colour", but people object to the "wrong" spelling because it hampers their enjoyment of reading of an article as it niggles (just as a piece of food stuck between teeth tends to distract from the enjoyment of a meal while not altering the taste of the meal).

It can also be argued that by following the spelling usually used in reliable English language sources, we are informing our reads as to the commonly used form of the word. After all if the word is placed under its usual English spelling if that differers from the native spelling that can always be placed next to the common English in brackets with the language spelling in italics, which give the reader a lot more information than just placing the article at the native spelling eg Zurich:

• Before the move back to Zurich: "Zürich or Zurich (see Name below) is.." [4]
• Now: "Zurich (German: Zürich, Swiss German: Züri) is..."

It seems to me that the latter is more informative than the former, rather disproving the argument about article titles using native spellings "add information (our overriding goal) without harming recognizability or conciseness" . -- PBS (talk) 13:02, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Discussing Zurich is a bit of a dead horse, as it is already well covered at WP:NCGN. What is more of a problem is dealing with biographies. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 16:49, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes, Zurich is hardly a pertinent example, as it would fall into the Napoleon/Aragon category. What we're talking about is the tens of thousands of article subjects that don't have any well-established English name like Rome, Moscow, Zurich or Napoleon. In these cases the established Wikipedia practice is to use a standard transliteration if the original name is not written in a Latin alphabet, but to use the original name - including modified letters - if it is written in a Latin alphabet. The first part of that practice is documented on this page; the second part should be too. (Though obviously with a clear exception for cases that are determined to fall in the Napoleon category.)--Kotniski (talk) 16:43, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Again, this is part of NCGN. If a village is never mentioned in English sources, we of course use its local name, with diactrics. A case of Łódź could be more interesting, and Kraków has been causing some controversies, but it is noteworthy that in both examples the consensus has been to use diacritics. Indeed, the point here is that with few relatively famous EXCEPTIONS, as far as nameplaces are concerned, diacritics use is a common procedure. The same seems to be true for biographies. This should be reflected in the policy here, so that when editors ask "do we use diacritics or not" we can point to the policy that reflects established usage and say "mostly, we do, but check the exception section" (which obviously needs creation, too). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 22:10, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

• Not using Cracow has not been the result of this page, or of any page; Professional Poles (most of them less than perfectly fluent in English) have insisted on the local spelling on the grounds that it is official usage (which it is consensus to ignore, unless it has affected independent sources). Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:10, 12 May 2011 (UTC)
  • Not sure what you mean, exactly, but will you agree when I say that past discussions resulted in the name Kraków being preferred over Cracow? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 17:13, 12 May 2011 (UTC)
    • I am genuinely sorry not to be able to; but I cannot agree even to that. This appears to be the first discussion, and it seems to have been Kraków then; the discussion is the usual no consensus/you can't make me business all too common in defending the "correct" forms some non-native speaker is used to in his language against English idiom. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:10, 12 May 2011 (UTC)
      • No consensus to move is still important. Would you prefer to say that "Kraków is used on Wikipedia, and there has been no consensus to use Cracow instead"? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 18:36, 12 May 2011 (UTC)
        • I see no reason to mention the city at all, especially while it has no consensus; this page is for the principles (on which we may hope to agree) by which consensus ought to be reached. I believe we disagree on why it has not been reached, but I see no reason to mention that either. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:00, 12 May 2011 (UTC)
        • I would support adding some such sentence as "Roma is correct Italian; that does not make it "correct" English." And any argument that would lead to using Roma for the capital of Italy, or Warszawa for the capital of Poland, is harmful to the primary purpose of the encyclopedia: to communicate. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:19, 12 May 2011 (UTC)
          • This is both covered by WP:NCGN and off-topic to this thread (I see no diacritics in Roma or Warszawa...). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 16:47, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Question/proposal re translation of names of things

I had a question (and a proposal, I guess) regarding the translation of the names of things, such as the names of buildings and organizations. It impinges somewhat on this guideline, so I point to it here: Wikipedia talk:Article titles#Titles of things should be translated, yes? Herostratus (talk) 18:40, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Use of diacritics in biographical article titles

I am seeking a consensus on if the policies of WP:UCN and WP:EN continues to be working policies for naming biographical articles, or if such policies have been replaced by a new status quo.

I have been strongly warned that the above policies are no longer in force, [5] and further, have even been threatened with a block [6] for attempting to invoke the Wikipedia:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle for several articles that were moved without discussion to non-verifiable, non-English forms (with diacritics) as its article title.

It is my belief that wiki-policy dictates that this is the English Wikipedia, and according to the policy of WP:COMMONNAME and Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English), a biographical article does not use the subject's name as it might be spelled in Czech or Slovakian (with diacritics) as its article title, nor does it use the person's legal name as it might appear on a birth certificate or passport; it instead uses the name that is most frequently used to refer to the subject in English-language reliable sources. For example, in the case of Marek Židlický, all sources within the article verify the spelling as Marek Zidlicky (with not a single source to verify the spelling with diacritics), yet the ice hockey project supports the use of the non-verified, non-English spelling. See also Category:Czech ice hockey players and Category:Slovak ice hockey players for many more similar examples. There is a small group of editors within the ice hockey project who have been very forceful with their POV to use diacritics, and as a result the policies of WP:UCN and WP:EN are now wilfully violated. Dolovis (talk) 04:57, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

No you have been pointed that the ice hockey naming conventions page no longer is in effect. Which is very different from being told that UCN and EN are not in effect. Please don't misrepresent what was said. You were also warned for making pointy moves which you knew were controversial and for trying to trick admins into making the moves for you by trying to speedy articles and then recreate them at your desired location. And by listing them at the uncontroversial page move requests list when you knew them to be controversial moves. As for envoking the BRD cycle, if you keep having the discussion part of the BRD cycle confirm that consensus is to keep the diacritics and then you keep trying to invoke the BRD cycle over and over again that is called disrupting the wiki to make a point. Because you already know the consensus of the discussion that will happen and all you are doing is wasting editors time. The warning was less about what you were changing and more about how you were trying to change them. You've also been pointed in the past to a wikipedia guideline that neither encourages or discourages diacritics and that specifically says you shouldn't over dramatize the situation. I think the two ANI reports you have made which went against you and the community discussion at the hockey project that went against you were clear indications that you are over dramatizing and that there is different way of interpretting UCN than you have interpreted it. As as been mentioned a large portion of editors think names with and without diacritics are still the common name when it comes to UCN. I would also note EN is a guideline not a policy, as such it is only a recommendation not an absolute requirement so it can't be "wilfully violated". -DJSasso (talk) 11:51, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

It is common to use diacritics in biographies. See also discussion above. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 16:49, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

IMHO, diacritics should be deleted from all article titles on English languague Wikipedia, as they're 'non-english' symbols. That's all I've got to say. GoodDay (talk) 23:39, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

This may be an English language encyclopædia, but it covers foreign subjects too. (the clue is in the word "encyclopædia"). Sometimes those foreign subjects use foreign languages, or at least diacritical marks. If foreign content offends you, the best option may be to create a fork, call it anglopedia, and delete all the foreign articles.bobrayner (talk) 21:51, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

As already discussed, Wikipedia's practice is to use diacritics and other modified letters in most cases where the name is "originally" written in a Latin alphabet, and to apply a standard transliteration system from non-Latin alphabets. Exceptions are made when there is some clearly established usage in English (as with Zurich, Napoleon and Tchaikovsky), and in some other cases where some particular issue arises (as with "Djokovic" for recognizability, or e.g. where a person has become a naturalized American and started spelling their name differently). I see no reason to change any of this (though I'm not too keen on these Croatian and Icelandic letters that impair recognizability) - it seems to be the right approach for an encyclopedia to take - we don't have to follow the style used by a majority of sources, when the minority style better serves our purposes (which is this case is to convey information). Neither is right or wrong, English or un-English - there is just a choice of styles, and I think overall we've made a good choice.

About this page, I think it should be edited (as I've attempted to do in the past) to more clearly and accurately describe how we actually do things as regards modified letters; and more globablly, the page should also be renamed to simply "WP:Use English", and be refactored so as not to concentrate on article titles, since the principles it expounds are not specific to titles.--Kotniski (talk) 10:27, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia's practice is to use diacritics and other modified letters in most cases where the name is "originally" written in a Latin alphabet, and to apply a standard transliteration system from non-Latin alphabets. No, it isn't. That is the practice of certain nationalists, who are uncomfortable with the idea that English may spell Foolander names differently than English does.

But when seriously considered, our practice is much simpler: do what reliable sources on the subject in English do. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:13, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

I think we should look at Britannica as a model for this case. It uses diacritics in the title (and first sentence) when it's useful (for example for pages about middle east and Asia). Alefbe (talk) 05:50, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Again, not really. That applies when reliable English sources clearly do do something (i.e. in the Napoleon-type cases I mentioned). But in the (numerically) vast majority of cases, English has no established practice one way or the other, and in those cases what we do ("nationalist" or otherwise) is what I described. Just as it makes sense to use one transliteration system consistently for Russian or Chinese (except for names like Tchaikovsky where a particular English usage has become established), it makes sense to be consistent in the way we represent Latin-alphabet names, and the way we do it (not for nationalist reasons, but - I assume - for encyclopedic reasons) is to preserve the modified letters. --Kotniski (talk) 06:20, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

No, it is a practice of the vast majority of editors, whereas a small minority of purists argues against them. Which is proven by the fact that vast majority of articles that could use diacrticis uses them. Unless you will argue that suddenly, Wikipedia consensus fails on diacritics, or that most editors are "nationalists", it is obvious that for majority, diacritics are fine. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 16:02, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

No, it is the practice of a small, but dedicated, segment of editors: those who are not native speakers of English but of two or three European languages (if Iceland is now part of Europe); whenever a wider pool of editors has been appealled to, these efforts have failed. We do not speak translationese; we adapt names as English has in fact adapted them. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:05, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Can I just point out that calling us "nationalists" and demonstrating plain geographic ignorance isn't really constructive. We're supposed to be writing an encyclopedia of human knowledge, including topics outside of the English speaking world and that which lies within the interests of the average American or Brit (English is, after all, an international language spoken by one and a half billion non-native speakers as well as us natives). - filelakeshoe 20:14, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

No, you may not.

There is a Wikipedia for non-fluent readers of English; there is also a Wikipedia for each of the European languages concerned; there is no other Wikipedia for anglophones. Those who prefer to write in Foolander instead of English should go edit one of them. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:09, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

A self-assured and self-referencing statement about "what English is", but until such time as serious English sources stop using diacritics (and it looks like they don't intend to, as repeatedly noted), or English gets itself a regulating body that says "don't use diacritics", the claim is, well, bogus. It only tries to legitimize a frivolous diacritics-hurt-my-eyes claim - mirroring the inflammatory insinuation above, I urge any such users who prefer uncomplicated spellings of neologisms to "go and edit" the Simple English Wikipedia (which, btw, is the other wikipedia for anglophones). Dahn (talk) 21:34, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Okay then, let's go and delete Polish language. That article is full of "Foolander", and seems to be impossible to rewrite without it. That kind of foreign gibberish has no place on the English Wikipedia. - filelakeshoe 21:38, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

"That is the practice of certain nationalists" – an interesting theory. I was unaware that Timothy Snyder, who writes "Radziwiłł", is a Polish nationalist. That Michael Beckermann, who writes "Dvořák", is a Czech nationalist. That Peter Siani-Davies, who writes "Mănescu", is a Romanian nationalist. That Marcel Cornis-Pope and John Neubauer, who write "Tuđman", are Croatian nationalists. That Kevin O'Connor, who writes "Kārlis Ulmanis", is a Latvian nationalist. That Alan Axelrod, who writes "Mátyás Rákosi", is a Hungarian nationalist. Very enlightening indeed. - Biruitorul ^Talk 23:04, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

You realize Dolovis that you are now violating WP:CANVASS by only inviting people who edited this page and might agree with you right? Would be fine if you were inviting both sides of the discussion but it appears you are skipping people who are not likely to agree with yourself. -DJSasso (talk) 17:11, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Not if he invites everybody. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:05, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Which is why I said if he invited both sides of the discussion it wouldn't be an issue. But when I wrote this he had skipped over a few recent editors who clearly looked like they had no problem with them. When I last looked he still hadn't notified them. However, its not worth arguing about I was just letting him know. -DJSasso (talk) 11:41, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Djsasso is simply wrong on his point. I skipped over no one. Every editor who had contributed to Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (use English)‎ was given the appropriate notification of this discussion. Dolovis (talk) 00:57, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Did you miss the point where I said "when I wrote this". You since went on to invite the ones you had skipped. -DJSasso (talk) 01:55, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

---

I was asked to add my opinion to this discussion by Dolovis, but I'm not sure I agree with their interpretation.

What I understand from reading the project page is that our procedure is this:

• If the title has been "imported" into English as evidenced by reliable English-language sources using a modified spelling (e.g. dropping diacritics), follow the spelling in those sources (which will usually be diacritic-free).
• If the title has not been "imported" into English because it is not discussed in reliable English-language sources, use the spelling of the original language (or the closest transliteration in Latin script, including diacritics)
• Make a redirect from the spelling without diacritics to the one with diacritics, if necessary.

We never strip diacritics on our own initiative with the rationale that English doesn't have them. I agree with that idea, that we are simply using correctly-spelled words from other languages when there is no English word, proper noun or otherwise. That follows common usage, while still allowing people who don't input diacritics to find the article they are looking for through a redirect. We don't use non-Latin scripts because that's just too bonkers for English speakers to mentally pronounce, and we have a good alternative in transliteration. -- Beland (talk) 17:23, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Bravo. Precisely so. I would only add that the second case, where there is no English usage at all, is less often true of actually notable subjects; we should not have auto-generated articles on every obscure hamlet in Fooland in the first place. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:05, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

---

• This was brought up years ago, and for the love of me I don't understand what the point is, and why it itches so much to overturn consensus on something that touches millions of pages by now. Seriously: while one may argue that the diactricized names of people from the Anglosphere are irrelevant, on a case by case basis (though I don't ever see the same point being made about Frenchmen naturalized in England, with their acute accents, and Poles in America with their Ł), it is utterly irrelevant to the wider world. And, no, it doesn't follow that the consistent failure to add diacritics in print in many imperfect and inconsistent American media sources is the established "English usage". It merely speaks volumes about the fact that mediocrity in information will produce mediocrity in culture - something that wikipedia should preferably stay away from. Just what is the concern here? That readers will actually learn something, even though they might not want to? Pass. Dahn (talk) 17:31, 19 May 2011 (UTC)
  • Well said. Particularly in the old sources, diacritics were omitted because they were hard to insert into regular typewriters and printing presses. Wikipedia is a 21st century publication, and there is no reason for us not to give the most correct information (correct names with diacritics, accents, and so on). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 17:49, 19 May 2011 (UTC)
    • I don't know about your keyboard, but mine has exactly 26 letters on it. I wouldn't know how to type some random foreign squiggle, or even what it was called so I could look it up. Gigs (talk) 17:59, 19 May 2011 (UTC)
      • Which would be why at the top of the edit box of a page there is a link called special characters if you are someone who can't add them or doesn't know how to add them you still can. As for people searching for the information, that is why we redirect from the opposite version. -DJSasso (talk) 18:04, 19 May 2011 (UTC)
      • I come from a culture which makes heavy use of diacritics, and I edit heavily in fields related to that culture. Yet I never did install me the necessary keyboard: I have the same "26 letters on it", and, on wikipedia, I always use the special characters set from the edit window. Give it a try, it won't kill you. Dahn (talk) 18:08, 19 May 2011 (UTC)
      • You don't have to use the diacritics. Redirects will take you where you want to be, and others will add them to your texts if you don't care for copy/paste, characters or alt software keyboards settings. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 17:17, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

---

First, I am simply appalled that DJSasso used up so much space attacking an editor instead of responding to the question. That said, I must side with those who feel that diacritical marks have no place in an English encyclopedia. I have seen common American family names like Hernandez spelled with an accent, even though accents are not used in the United States. I imagine the same convention exists in Commonwealth countries. These accents cluttering up WP articles are simply added by people who read a foreign language and who think that a word looks odd or peculiar without the diacritics. Well, to an English-reader, the word looks weird and absolutely wrong when it DOES have diacritics. I don't blame the Slovaks for thinking a name looks really funny without the marks, but, honestly, it looks even odder WITH them to the vast majority of readers of this encyclopedia. That's why we have a rule, or anyway a policy, that requires article titles to be in English — a policy that is sadly often not being followed. Sincerely, your friend, GeorgeLouis (talk) 17:44, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Actually I was responding to an attack on me. His post was indicating he was told things he was not told and was phrased in a way as to attack me. In order to present both sides of the discussion he is referencing I provided the other side of the situation. In no way was what I wrote an attack. -DJSasso (talk) 17:50, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

• My own opinion is that this is the English Wikipedia, and that our articles should be titled with the most common spelling that is used in English sources. Especially when it comes to German or Icelandic characters that are unrecognizable to most English speakers, it's very important to stick with recognizable English characters. This is in accordance with what sources use, and makes searching and linking more convenient for everyone. --Elonka 17:48, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Presumably, Encyclopedia Britannica is also an English language (well, British, I guess) encyclopedia and it has no problem with diacritics, uses them frequently, and I suspect is not written by "nationalists" (so let's drop that red herring/ad hominem right away).Volunteer Marek (talk) 17:52, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Britannica, for the record, can be confusing. The entry on Lech Wałęsa uses diacritics in title and in the article, but not in the page heading. Same with Józef Piłsudski. Note that this affects google results - if you google for britannica + wałesa / piłsudski Google will suggest Britannica DOES NOT use diacritics, which is INCORRECT (vide - those pages). For Hugo Kołłątaj, it is the same, note that 1911 version not only did not use diacritics, it used a grammatically incorrect way to spell his second name... (wikisource:1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Vol 15:14). For Słowacki, diacritic is used in modern edition, 1911 mispells his first name (and ignores the diacritic: wikisource:1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Poland). Some poor page building aside, it is obvious that Britannica supports diacritics. There is an advantage, occasionally, to being written by academics - people who get use to seeing diacritics, and don't treat them as "OMG I don't see them on my TV!" problem... (sigh - in the end not using diacritics always comes back to the dumbing down problem... Wikipedia should not be dumbed down, if you don't like diacritics, go to Simple Wikipedia). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 18:16, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

I think it is somewhat misleading to call Julius a "misspelling" of Juliusz. I would rather call this an anglicisation. JoergenB (talk) 19:30, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

• I was solicited to comment here, but I don't particularly remember what my previous involvement was with this. This guideline is still in force, and Dolovis is essentially right. It's not mediocrity to transliterate characters that don't mean anything to English speakers into Latin characters, it's a normal and expected practice. This is the English Wikipedia, if you want to use non-English characters, go somewhere else. Gigs (talk) 17:57, 19 May 2011 (UTC)
• I like to listen to Motörhead as well as Frédéric Chopin. Marie Curie (née Maria Skłodowska) was a great scientist. I'd like to visit Ü eventually. And I think the claim that English or this encyclopædia does not use funky characters is at least naïve. Yes, many, even usually reliable sources drop diacritics. But very often the best and most scholarly sources keep them. Unless there is an strongly established usage in a particular case, I'd stick with the original spelling. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 18:05, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

---

I was asked for my opinion by Dolovis, so here's what I think should be the policy:

• About diacritics on foreign names, I agree with Kotniski. If the title was originally written in a Latin alphabet, then keep the diacritics. English borrowed lots of words keeping their diacritics, like naïve, résumé, führer, etc.
• Every article should be written in the Latin alphabet, which means that .срб, .рф should be moved to the transliterations; there are also plenty other like (ε, δ)-definition of limit
• There should *always* be a redirect from a title that can be written by a normal English keyboard. If I see somewhere printed (−2,3,7) pretzel knot and I try (−2,3,7)_pretzel_knot, I won't get to the article)

bogdan (talk) 17:59, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

---

Here is the article I referred to above. The politician normally spells his name without he accent. Mike Hernández. Yours, GeorgeLouis (talk) 18:10, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Case by case basis, George. I can see how an American politician who did not use diacritics in his own name shouldn't have them in his name. But consider that non-English people use them. Why should the name of Józef Piłsudski be "dumbed down" to Jozef Pilsudski? It's not like we don't have technical means to display the diacritics, or create redirects. And there are plenty of English language publications who use diacritics (in the context of this person), up to and including Britannica. Nobody is saying "we should always use diacritics". What I am saying, is that we should use them, unless there are good reasons for them not too (like, in the case you mention, subject not using them). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 18:21, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

• Yes, WP:EN and WP:UCN are still in force, but neither of them ever says "don't use diacritics". That would be stupid. The rule is to use common English names when they exist – and this rule works great for the names of countries, cities, books, and movies that may have a common English name that's distinct from their local/native name. But with people it's different. People don't have different names in English than in their native language (with the exception of the Pope and some historical monarchs like the various Kings John of Portugal or Philip of Spain - note that the modern monarch of Spain is called Juan Carlos in English, not John Charles). So, since there is no such thing as an English "translation" of a name, we use the spelling that the person uses him/herself (or a romanization of it, since articles are always written in the Latin alphabet). Some people may drop their diacritics when they move to an English-speaking country (like all the Americans named Gonzalez, not González) and that's fine, but people who do use their diacritics should not be deprived of them in their Wikipedia article. (The same also applies to Latin-alphabet letters not found in English, like ß, ð, þ, and ə.) There is absolutely no reason Wikipedia article names should be constrained by the decades-old limitations of the ASCII character set or old typewriters, or by the narrow-mindedness of xenophobes who freak out whenever they see a "funny foreign squiggle" at English Wikipedia. —Angr (talk) 18:13, 19 May 2011 (UTC)
• What Angr said. — kwami (talk) 18:24, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

(ec) The thing I find most disdainful about this discussion is that you anti-diacriticists actually seem to think removing diacritics from someone's name makes it English. It doesn't! There is no English form of Marek Židlický, the English form of Marek Židlický, if there must be one, is "Mark Fork". Language doesn't work like that, English imports words and names from other languages all the time and if it becomes common enough use, then the form changes, e.g. with delicatessen. It even happens with people too, like for instance Nicholas Sarkozy or Andy Warhol. When writing about people who are exclusively notable for actions in Slovakia, the chances are there isn't an English form of their name.. there might have been in the 18th century if word of them somehow made it across the channel, but as the world becomes more globalised names are far less commonly translated.

With regards to the "use what English sources use" argument, the problem is that these hockey players whose names Dolovis keeps trying to "anglicise" aren't being written about in encyclopedias. They're being written about in news sites, which would never check something so trivial as this, and hockey fan sites, which are great reliable sources for statistics, but not for how to spell someone's name properly. If we're going to go so far as to suggest that what the media say is always correct, then why the hell stop at renaming Tomáš Ujfaluši to get rid of those offensive diacritics, we can also add that his name is actually pronounced /ʊdʒ.fə.lu:si:/ since that's how John Motson says it, therefore that's "English". According to Dolovis' argument.

I also love how "readers of foreign languages" are getting sniped at. Obviously, people with knowledge irrelevant to the average American aren't welcome to push their fringe POV here. I would love to know, aside from making people who've never learned another language in their life twitch and go "zomg wut is this foreign squiggle?!!!!", what purpose on Earth does leaving diacritics out of someone's name achieve? - filelakeshoe 18:27, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

• • See Henry Fuseli, George Frideric Handel, Martin Van Buren or (more recently) Stanislaw Ulam [sic]. It would be nice if the diacritics enthusiasts would occasionally bother to look at what happens in English. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:36, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Most of those titles show what once happened in English, as in most European languages, back in the days of dominant cultures, little alphabetization, typographical restrictions, institutionalized xenophobia and charming quirks. As for Ulam: the article could just as well be moved to the "with diacritic" variant, since the current title is arguably erroneous; in any case, it is not a global pattern, nor a global decision. Dahn (talk) 21:58, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Fuseli and Handel used anglicized forms of their name in their lifetime. None of the two simply dropped the diacritics. I don't know what Van Buren is doing there - isn't this a Dutch name that was always spelled this way? --Stephan Schulz (talk) 22:06, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

The spelling in the Netherlands would be Martin(us) van Buren. What both extremes in this discussion fail to recognize is that this guideline is opposed to both global patterns; saying that reality fits no global pattern is true, and supports our present practice: see what the sources do in each case. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:18, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

If your answer is specifically directed at me: I have begun by saying that there is no global pattern, in my first post on this thread; but I also feel that to claim "English doesn't use diacritics" based on sources which discard them because they just don't use diacritics at all (for practicalities that needn't concern us), when the most professional sources do, is a point that discredits itself. I also don't think that invoking willing, crude, and ancient, Anglicizations of names that relate to practices from another era (the same era when, for instance, French Francized all neologisms, some of which have stuck as such), counts as a practical solution. Forget ancient names and folkloric spellings, let's talk modern. In modern spellings, the vast majority of them, there is absolutely no reason to discard the diacritics, even if most sources may; we care about the sources that are either most professional or closest to the subject. In the case of hockey players, we may have neither, but, at the very least, if one or the other is shown to exist, or if the names with diacritics are shown to exist in at least one independent source, the natural assumption is that the sources not using diacritics simply don't use them out of ignorance or indifference. Either way, using diacritics on wikipedia, wherever diacritics are the natural or presumed grammatical choice, should be the absolute rule, not the absolute exception. Dahn (talk) 22:47, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

---

My opinion, for what it is worth:

• The discussion supra is slightly confusing two subjects. The initial discussion was about ice hockey player names. For these, there has existed a policy/guideline/proposal page, which was degraded to "historical". The main arguments (from both sides) are about general usage of diacritics, and of "commonly used" spellings versus "correct" ones. Here, there are very clearly marked policies, WP:AT and WP:EN, which by no means are history marked. The writers concerned with the article titles in general should relate to these policies, e.g., by suggesting changes, if they think that they are not in accordance with actual standard usage.
• I think it is artificial to distinguish between common usage of letters and common usage of diacritics. Besides, the "diacritical" signs actually often distinguishes separate letters in other languages. As far as I understood the argument, some users think that lots of appearences without diacritics could motivate that we write the article name with "the same letters, but including the diacritics". However, e.g., Zurich is not "the same spelling as Zürich, but without the diacritics".
• Another argument I don't like is the pedagogical one. We should not use diacritics, just in order to teach our readers the proper way to do things. Actually, I think that this idea partly has to do with a misunderstanding. There are numerous people who believe that "you never, never 'translate' proper names", and therefore think that they encounter mistakes whenever they become aware of exonyms.
• I think that the "least surprise" principle is a good general policy, and that it should be retained also as concerns diacritics. There are sometimes good reasons to deviate from this policy; in particular, for consistency. Thus, when an authoritive body has decided on a certain naming convention for a natural category of objects, and in most cases this convention coincide with the most common usage, then one could well decide to follow the convention consistently. C.f. the Aluminum versus Aluminium discussions. We could very well decide on (or respect an erlier decision on) using the native spelling for all hockey players, if the convention in itself is less surprising than sometimes using diacritics, and sometimes not.
• However, my principal opinion is that the applications of the "least surprise" principle is more easy for native English speakers, and others with a long permanent recidence in the English speaking world. JoergenB (talk) 19:09, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

• We should follow the common usage of English-language sources. Editors who wish to work in Polish, Czech, &c. should please do so in the Wikipedias for those languages. The sidebar links for those other languages will then provide the usage of those languages for those that want them. Colonel Warden (talk) 19:12, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

• Can I just point out that if you're seriously suggesting journalists are reliable sources for how someone's name is spelt, there's quite a strong case to move a certain article to Obama Bin Laden right now. - filelakeshoe 19:30, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

• Common usage in English may or may not include the diacritic. If anyone wants to ban diacritics altogether, I say No way José. Aymatth2 (talk) 19:54, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

• Dahn and Angr said it all. Timbouctou (talk) 20:14, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

English has a strong, established tradition of using diacritics in handwriting and competent typesetting, and of dropping them as an expedient, whether out of economy, technical deficiency, or ignorance. Certainly denying that they are a part of the language is either ignorant or obstinate (viz. rose/rosé, lame/lamé, resume/resumé, pate/pâté, and especially maté, a loanword made English by adding a diacritic). Saying that an e is no longer an e when an accent is drawn over it is playing word games.

And drop all the diacritics if you like, but you still won't convince me that Antonín Dvořák is an English name. Like it or not, when you write about the world you must use words and names from the world. —Michael Z. 2011-05-19 20:45 z

Is Prague an English word? Is Antonin Dvorak lived in Prague an English sentence? It's the same question.

Now in that case, Antonín Dvořák lived in Prague has become relatively more common, sufficiently so that we have moved the article; as we have moved to Johann von Goethe, with a lower-case v. But nobody who wrote to be understood, instead of showing off, would write Antonín Dvořák lived in Praha - and we write to be understood. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:04, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Prague is an English name. Dvorak (pron. “dvore-zhack”) is a Czech name, regardless of the orthography (although [August] Dvorak is arguably English). In English, we use a mixture English and foreign diacritics, letters, words, and names. Fie on misguided aspirations to cleanse the language. —Michael Z. 2011-05-19 21:36 z

So all this depends on a metaphysical distinction between the director of the National Conservatory in New York, and the educational psychologist in Wisconsin.

But it is not those of us who wish to follow English who want to cleanse her; that we leave to those who wish to ignore her, either to impose diacritics where she does not use them, or to omit them where she does. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:43, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

No metaphysics; usage. The difference depends on how the names entered and have been used in English. And the English, she gonna be jus' fine, with or without us. It's editors muddying the discussion with untruths that bugs me. —Michael Z. 2011-05-19 21:52 z

That is what the guideline says. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:18, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

I have the impression that modern English book sources are more likely to use a diacritical spelling such as "Józef Piłsudski" than older ones. What is "most common" in English sources may thus be subject to drift. Regardless of what our current policy states, my preference for biographical articles is for them to have the same spelling as how the subjects themselves wrote their names at the end of the period for which they are known, provided that spelling uses a Latin alphabet. That would mean Józef Rotblat, but vanilla-Latin Stanislaw Ulam. For some languages the undiacritical version of a name, is turned into an annoying vulgarism, like for Turkish that of poor Mr. Ahmet Şık.  --Lambiam 23:04, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I believe that we should have a policy that diacritics are simply omitted from article titles. It would cut out so much wasted time on WP:RM and similar forums, and I can see no downside. Andrewa (talk) 00:00, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

• But what about Häagen-Dazs or Touché? Touché! Aymatth2 (talk) 01:30, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
  • I see little benefit in having the diacritics on even these article titles. There is no possibility of confusion or ambiguity if they are omitted, it is perfectly valid and clear English. On the other hand, if we have them, we continue the endless unproductive discussions on where to draw the line. Been there, done that. Let's cut our losses and simply abandon diacritics in article titles. They ain't worth it. Andrewa (talk) 03:13, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

    So you'd rename Öre, Øre, Pâté and Rosé to what? —Michael Z. 2011-05-20 05:50 z

    With the Ore articles either a merge, disambiguation or an exception would be necessary, any of them acceptable. With the others, just drop the diacritics in the fullness of time. No great urgency. Andrewa (talk) 12:55, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

    You do realise rose has a different meaning to rosé, right? - filelakeshoe 13:28, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

    Yes, see below. Andrewa (talk) 15:49, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

• You can see no downside to eliminating diacritics? Really? What about accuracy? Why should we write about Lodz and Poznan and Elblag when their correct spelling is, in fact, Łódź and Poznań and Elbląg? Sure, there may be discussions from time to time over precisely what articles get accents, but overwhelming consensus favors their retention. Any respected newspaper uses diacritics for French or German nowadays, so dropping them would dumb us down to a striking degree. As for more "exotic" languages like Albanian or Lithuanian, diacritics for words in those languages are also becoming more common in scholarly publications as well. If we're slightly ahead of the curve now, we'd be totally behind after implementing this idea.
  • Wikipedia is not a crystal ball. At present, the undiacriticised versions are quite normal in English. Disagree that it would dumb us down even slightly. And our policies are actually to be behind the curve, rather than in front of it. Andrewa (talk) 12:55, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
    • What does this have to do with WP:CRYSTAL? Diacritics have been used in foreign alphabets since their standardization (often at least 150 years ago), and have become increasingly standard practice in rendering foreign names in English in the last 20 years or so. We're not predicting Prešov will have a diacritic; we're reflecting the fact.
    • It depends on what you mean by "quite normal". Take for instance the French Prime Minister. You'll note that the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Telegraph, Guardian, Independent, Economist and Irish Times all use the cedilla in his name.
    • For more "exotic" languages like Czech or Polish, diacritics are becoming quite standard in professional publications. So yes, it would dumb us down to deliberately eliminate a correct orthographical feature and one in widespread English usage. If this were 1960, when the only diacritics you'd see in English publications were é, è, á, â, î, ç, ñ, ö and ü, you might have a point. But usage in general has shifted to a more diacritics-inclusive stance. - Biruitorul ^Talk 16:36, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
• What about diacritics' use as a pronunciation guide? If you know the basics of a foreign language's phonetics (not a requirement for reading en.wiki, but many of our readers will know them), diacritics can be vital. Take Hungarian, where á and a sound quite different. If you see Salgotarjan or Hajdunanas or Bacsalmas, you may have no clue what kind of as are involved. But Salgótarján, Hajdúnánás and Bácsalmás make it all clear. Or what about Godollo? Without diacritics, there could be about nine ways of pronouncing that; knowing it's Gödöllő gives vital information.
  • Thanks for raising this. Pronunciation belongs in the article text, not the title. Andrewa (talk) 12:55, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
    • Let's not split hairs here. Of course IPA pronunciation belongs in the text. But diacritics are part of a subject's name, and have the additional function of aiding in pronunciation. There's no plausible reason for deliberately misspelling a name in the title (and yes, omitting diacritics is a form of misspelling) but going on to give the correct spelling in the lead. (Well, there may be occasional exceptions like Zbigniew Brzezinski, a naturalized US citizen who doesn't use the diacritic in his public life, but they're few and far between.) - Biruitorul ^Talk 16:36, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
      • I'm not intending to split any hairs. Omitting the diacritic is not a mispelling, and that's a very important point IMO. It is a valid orthography, and correct within itself. The question is, would Wikipedia be improved by adopting it? And I think we need to consider very carefully the possibility that it would be. Agree that particularly with regard to living people we need to consider their wishes, but I think that if the article lead gives their preferred version of the name that should be sufficient. We don't automatically follow the capitalisation of band names and trademarks, so why not adopt a similar policy with regard to diacritics on personal names? Andrewa (talk) 18:38, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
• And even as a native speaker of Romanian, I wouldn't know how to pronounce the names of certain places not known to me. I'd know Niculesti is really Niculeşti because I know of the -eşti suffix (not that anglophone monoglots would have a clue), but what about Cosesti? Is it Coşeşti or Coseşti? Both are plausible; the former happens to be correct. Then again, what about the other Cosesti? Is it Coşeşti too or is it Coseşti? It's Coseşti this time around. Or Posesti: it could be Poşeşti or Poseşti; it's the latter, but I wouldn't have known that without diacritics. Then there's Darabani: the natural tendency is to say Dărăbani, and one might well do that in the total absence of diacritics, but knowing they'd be there if correct ensures no such mistake is made. "No possibility of confusion or ambiguity"? Think again. - Biruitorul ^Talk 06:00, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
  • See above. Andrewa (talk) 12:55, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
• That's a bit destructive. The point of this discussion is to resolve the issue which is cluttering up RM. - filelakeshoe 09:43, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
  • Disagree it's destructive. Rather, it's taking a view that this policy would save a lot of work in the long run. It would effect a great many articles, and create a great many redirects which should be there anyway. In fact I think the work would be done very quickly, but I don't think it matters whether it is or not. Andrewa (talk) 12:55, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
    • Let's look into the issue a bit: as a hypothetical user, you don't (don't know how to) create an article under a name with diacritics, so in the worst case scenario you create it under a title of your liking, and someone moves it, slowly and patiently - as things tend to happen already. You are left with the following choices: a) ignore that this happened, since it cannot really be conceived as a move for the worse; b) actually learn how to do it yourself, and no real time will get wasted; c) resist the change for some obscure and contrived reason, and actually make everyone lose time over trumped up notions about how "English doesn't use diacritics". To accept diacritics as a rule cannot harm anyone; to propose mass moves of articles on a fancy, and arbitrarily turn the proper titles into redirects (reverting the practice that we used for years), does. The claim, that "it saves a lot of work in the long run" is a misleading hypothesis: the only work it saves is minor, and is performed by those who actually care about diacritics usage, i.e. the very people whose work you want to see questioned and overturned. You don't want them yourself? Fine, don't use them. But should you ever start an article on a topic with diacritics and for some reason can't copy-paste letters not on your default keyboard, someone will still move it to its proper title. It is what happens all the time. Someone resisting the changes in the name of "less work" is not an everyday occurrence, thank God: we'd all be wasting our editing lives on discussing that "less work". Dahn (talk) 13:36, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

• By the way, Andrewa, what would you do about (for example) American politicians who use diacritics in their names? I'm thinking of Raúl Labrador, John Pérez, Raúl Grijalva, Ben R. Luján, Nydia Velázquez, all of whom use diacritics at their official sites. Let's not forget John C. Frémont, either. - Biruitorul ^Talk 16:36, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
  • I'd drop the diacritics in the article title (but not the lead). I thought that was clear. There would of course be redirect(s) from the official name(s). Clear now? Andrewa (talk) 15:47, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

It's all really simple: if the most common spelling in English uses diacritics, then the wikipedia article should too. if the most common spelling in English doesn't use diacritics, then Wikipedia shouldn't either. really, quite simple. Masterhatch (talk) 03:36, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

It's not really simple, because there's essentially a dispute about what constitutes a reliable source and how we measure the most "common spelling". If a hundred fan sites and newspapers spell a name without diacritics, for the likely reason that they don't have them on their keyboards or a special characters box like we do, but the person's official website and his hockey club's website spell it with diacritics, what's the common spelling? - filelakeshoe 09:43, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Actually, it is really simple. The most common spelling is a case by case thing. And most common spelling can be found in published texts, both on and off the Internet. It is not laziness or lack of keyboards that publishers don't use diacritics, it is because that is the way it is done and has been done in Engilsh for a long, long time. Using diacritics looks just as foreign to most native speakers as not using them does to most non-native speakers. As for "his personal page", he could write anything he wants. he could write that the world is going to end in 2012! but that doesn't make it fact. I don't consider blogs or other "personal pages" to be reliable sources. Masterhatch (talk) 11:37, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

That's wrong on several points. English tends to drop diacritics in loanwords where possible, but many of them have stood the test of time. Cafe (“keyf?”), for example, just looks wrong, and resumé without diacritics is another word, with only two syllables. Poor-quality publishers who don't care to bother with correctness, hurried journalists, and commercial advertisers appealing to the indifferently-literate, are most likely to let proper orthography slip routinely. —Michael Z. 2011-05-20 16:54 z

Actually self identification is what we are supposed to follow on wikipedia for religion and nationality and the like. I don't see why it would be different when it comes to how they spell their name. Which to me is just as big a deal to a person as the other two. But yes for the most part it is laziness or lack of keyboards that cause publishers to not use diacritics if the publishers I have asked in the past are any indication. Most of them say it just takes too long to figure out the ALT codes to the different characters and english speakers don't seem to care if the names aren't quite correct. So to me that seems to sum up that it is a combination of lack of easy keys to push and a laziness of them to learn the codes to use them since there are no easy keys to push. Now of course this is an unscientific sample and was only a few I have talked to in the past but I think it sums up the issue pretty well. As for English doing it for a long time, well that is certainly a technological issue as it cost too much to have that many keys in printing presses for the various diacritics. -DJSasso (talk) 11:46, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

This misunderstanding of RS really bugs me. It's not as black and white as "X is or is not a reliable source" or "X is or is not a reliable source for article Z", it's rather "X is or is not a reliable source for statement Y in article Z". Yes, someone's personal page is not a reliable source for the date of the apocalypse, but it's a pretty reliable for what their name is and, similarly, how to pronounce it. Take Chuck Palahniuk and Bob Moog, whose names are more often than not pronounced differently to how they should be. That doesn't make the mispronunciation "common English usage" that we should document in an encyclopedia. In both these articles we source the pronunciation from self-published sources, because in this case, they are reliable. If you're really suggesting what the majority of newspapers write is always correct, then we really could have moved Osama bin Laden to Obama Bin Laden a few weeks ago. - filelakeshoe 13:26, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm with what Stephan Schuld said above: I'd go with the most correct spelling if the only or major difference lies in leaving diacritics off the names. Only if even scholarly sources drop the diacritics, then Wikipedia should also use that name. (Disclaimer: I've never been too fond of WP:CN; I think "correct names" are more important than "common names".) —Nightstallion 07:07, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Also, I agree with what Angr and Dahn said. —Nightstallion 07:10, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Angr, Dahn, Kotniski and others said it perfectly. If the English Wikipedia has to be a modern encyclopedia of the 21st century, it has to use diacritics. Each day dozens of unrelated editors create hundreds of articles with diacritics. In that situation, screaming angrily about "pure" English Wikipedia without "foreign interference" is just a dying man's wish. - Darwinek (talk) 08:21, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

There seem to be three principal possibilities:

1. We never use diacritics in names of persons.
2. We always use diacritics in names of persons.
3. We employ the presently existing policy of naming the articles in such a manner that as causing as small surprise as possible, also for biographical articles.

(With each principle, there is of course room for singular exceptions, due to other overriding concerns in a few cases.)

Some of you argue as if only the two first possibilities exist. Since I support the third principle, I really don't want you to forget the existing general policy.

As for arguments: The long term trend in English seems to yse less and less of exonyms and translations of names, and more and more of the exact original name forms. Wikipedia should observe the trend and adjust to actual changes "out there", but not lead or initiate the changes.

Another thing: I repeatedly see reflects of the idea that you don't translate names. Traditionally, proper names were almost always translated. This is still the cases in some instances.

For example, As to the Dvorac in Praha example supra, Pmanderson argues in a wikipedia manner, reasoning about most common usage and least astonishment. On the other hand, Mzajac is convinced that Check and English personal names are completely different objects. From the older point of view, Mzajak's opinion is completely wrong. The old ways still apply for popes, and to a lesser extent for royality; but in older texts, they were ubiquitous.

Mzajak, is your opinion that "Jan Pavel" is a Check name that cannot be translated; "John Paul" an English name without any translation to other languages, "Giovanni Paolo" an Italian proper name, and thus untranslatable? Or are you of the opinion that the articles cz:Jan Pavel II, Pope John Paul II, it:Papa Giovanni Paolo II all should be renamed Ioannes Paulus II, since this is the only official Latin name of the late pope, and 'proper names never are translated'?

If this is your beliefe, then you are not alone in your misunderstanding. To-day, quite a lot of people seem to agree that Karel is (inter alia) a Check name, Charles a different Englisn name, Karl a different Swedish name, and Carlos a different Spanish name; and they don't understand why a Swedish king, who signed his name Carl in Swedish documents, and Carolus in Latin ones, is called Karl XII in Swedish, Charles XII in English, Karel XII. in Checkish, and Carlos XII in Spanish. I notice that your articles cz:Karel XII. and cz:Karel II. Stuart do not even mention that the names kings in question was written in another manner in their original languages. However, at that time, it was as natural to translate proper names, as to translate concepts like "chair" or "king".

We are maneuvering in a situation, where there are older and newer conventions floating around. Most of us no longer believe that there is some kind of affiliation between people who happen to have the same first names; therefore, many people do not consider Marek and Marcus or Maria, Mary, and Miriam as translations of the same name. We look at the name as a more or less arbitrary label, and think that if the labels appear different, then they are different. Others have a more historical view. This is a matter of taste, not of right or wrong; whence dominating actual usage should be our principal guide in naming biographical articles. JoergenB (talk) 10:51, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

(That's “Mzajac.”) I don't think they called the composer “Tony Dvoh-rack,” even in the old days, so perhaps the way names are used is not so simplistic. —Michael Z. 2011-05-20 16:54 z

---

I've found a note on my talk page asking my opinion on this subject, so here it is:

• Whenever one (possibly non-native) orthography is dominant throughout the English-speaking world, use that. For instance: Dublin, not Baile Átha Cliath; Moscow, not Moskva and not Москва; Prague, not Praha; Warsaw, not Warszawa; Lisbon, not Lisbõa; Copenhague, not København; Munich, not München; Geneva, not Genève and not Genf; Brussels, not Bruxelles, Brussel or Brüssel.
• Whatever orthography is used for the title of the main article, all other known spellings (most especially including, if different, the native spelling) should redirect to it.
• In some cases there are different spellings; then use your best judgment: Dvorak or Dvořak? Or the former for computer keyboards and the latter for music? — Peking or Beijing? — Burma or Myanmar? — Białystok or Bialystok? — Milosevic or Milošević?
  In any case, be aware that the convention may be different in English-speaking countries other than yours (or, if English is not your native language, than the one closer to you).
• If there is no overwhelmingly majoritarian spelling used throughout the English-speaking world, then no flame wars please: leave the article where its creator put it unless the spelling (s)he chose is really outlandish, not only in your opinion, but also according to the customs of English-spelling nations other than yours.
• If there is no received English name and the native spelling doesn't use the Latin alphabet, then a Latin transliteration should be used. Which transliteration? Here again, use your best judgment.
• The lead paragraph of the article should mention the English name (if any), the local name, other names (if any) in different languages (if any) of the same country, probably even, for former colonies, the name(s) (if any) in the former colonial language(s). All these with diacritics if any.

Tonymec (talk) 10:10, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm tired of English Wikipedia being treated as World Wikipedia. The use of diacritical marks is to provide clarity, but we cannot expect speakers of English to be familiar with the use of diacritical marks in all languages. To say that a certain spelling (Łódź and Poznań and Elbląg) is "correct" is only to say that it is correct in its native language. This is not different from using Japanese characters to spell Japanese names because it is "correct". These spellings are impenetrable to the vast majority of English speakers and therefore entirely unhelpful, which is the opposite of their purpose. English publishers traditionally allow only a handful of European diacriticals, particularly those found in Häagen-Dazs and Touché. That's all English Wikipedia should allow in article titles or bodies. But I'm all for showing the source language spelling in parentheses at the beginning. --Tysto (talk) 14:15, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Tough. English Wikipedia is very much the international Wikipedia, written and read by many who are not English native speakers. While we of course should strive for best English prose, it is high time to realize that this is no longer the 19th or 20th century, where diacritics were too difficult to use because of typetting. Wikipedia is 21st century, we have redirects, and we can use the correct spellings of words from languages other than English, be it café, Düsseldorf or Wałęsa. This is what others encyclopedia do (ex. Düsseldorf in Columbia, Encarta or Britannica). I'd really love it if somebody would tell me why they are "incorrect"... --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 17:31, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Those who want a World Wikipedia should go ask Wikimedia for an encyclopedia in pidgin English; in the mean time, this encyclopedia is supposed to be in actual literate English. This entire thread is as destructive of that end as it would be if anglophones were to insist that the Czech and Polish and German wikipedias use Prague and Warsaw and California "because the world does". Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:28, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Bydgoszcz, Brno, Grzesik and Cvrk are all probably "impenetrable" to the vast majority of English speakers too. What are the English forms of those? - filelakeshoe 14:59, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Szczebrzeszyn... --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 17:31, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Now if that were a Czech city it would probably be named Štěbřešín, and according to some in this discussion massively offensive! I'd be interested to see which out of that and the Polish is easier for an English monoglot to read. - filelakeshoe 21:05, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

They're not more opaque than trough, tough, though, thought, through, thorough, bough, and hiccough. Although English has a tendency to drop unnecessary diacritics (as in hôtel, coöperation), it also has a counter, etymological tendency to retain orthography, whether it “makes sense” or not. So it's easy to read douche and touché, rose and rosé, waif and naïf, chafe and café.

Those calling for eliminating English diacritics are being selective in their desire for orthographic reform. —Michael Z. 2011-05-20 18:21 z

And what about “foreign” English names, like Emily Brontë, Seán Cullen, Sinéad O'Connor, Zoë Wanamaker, and Renée Zellweger? —Michael Z. 2011-05-20 19:19 z

Easily changed to Emily Bronte, Sean Cullen, Sinead O'Connor, Zoe Wanamaker and Renee Zellweger. GoodDay (talk) 20:25, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

GoodDay, I don't think you got the point. We are sitting here debating how using diacritics is supposedly not backed by English sources - an idea which has now been refuted a number of times around; the reductio ad absurdum shows that even established English names, originating in English usage, are known to have used diacritics. There is no question of changing these articles titles, particularly since this how the people in question chose to spell their names, without asking wikipedia users if they were right to do so, or if it was good English to do so. It is irrelevant whether changing these titles is "easy" (it isn't even that, btw), since it is also pointless, whimsical, carried by circular argumentation, and anomalous.

Now, what the Luddites were doing was also remarkably easy, but I don't think that was ever a good reason to become a Luddite. Dahn (talk) 20:40, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, GoodDay, the discussion is about changing non-English names. Why are you suggesting changing English names? —Michael Z. 2011-05-21 02:49 z

I don't think the contribution in question misses the point at all.

But more to the point, there is a serious proposal here to drop all diacritics from article titles. It may or may not get sufficient support. It's up for discussion. Andrewa (talk) 16:01, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

I can't take this proposal seriously until someone clearly articulates it, and sets forth some reasonable justification for it. There seem to be more editors blindly, and incorrectly, arguing that all diacritics are “non-English,” and all should be removed, but I think that the original proposal seemed to be restricted to diacritics in “non-English forms,” which is a different thing. The proposal seems to be lost in a lot of noise generated by people who think they're in favour of it. —Michael Z. 2011-05-22 21:53 z

An uncomfortable gap

• For article content, en.wikipedia makes no distinction between sources written in English and those written in other languages. (And a good thing too; otherwise our systemic bias would be far worse).
• For notability, en.wikipedia uses sources in a slightly different way, but again there is no distinction between sources written in English and those written in other languages. Again, this is a Good Thing.
• For article names, however, we currently have an intermittently-observed rule that the spelling in English sources is all that counts; even if there are other spellings elsewhere. This is an aberration; it is difficult to reconcile with the two policies above, and it can be difficult to reconcile with our quest to write an accurate encyclopædia, rather than one which repeats common misspellings of foreign subjects. The English-sources-only policy as it stands also leaves an awkward gap - it simply doesn't work when we write about subjects which have no english language sources (and there are plenty notable subjects out there which have been widely documented but not yet in the anglosphere).

There are many anglophone sources which do not exactly replicate the spelling of non-english subjects, especially the diacritics - that's exactly why we have controversies like these. We should not automatically adopt a poor spelling from English sources if we know that there is a more accurate spelling in other sources. Right now, if you wrote an article on some (say) eastern-European subject, and had a hundred reliable sources which used č in the name but the only anglophone source uses c, then our existing policy requires us to use the c regardless of that source's quality. Such institutionalised distortion is absurd. This is an encyclopædia; surely accuracy is important. bobrayner (talk) 21:36, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Your assumptions are false; see Wikipedia:V#Non-English_sources.

Your conclusion is harmful to the encyclopedia. By the same logic, we would write like the report in A Tramp Abroad.

About 7 o'clock in the morning, with perfectly fine weather, we started from Hospenthal, and arrived at the maison on the Furka in a little under quatre hours. The want of variety in the scenery from Hospenthal made the kahkahponeeka wearisome; but let none be discouraged: no one can fail to be completely recompensee for his fatigue, when he sees, for the first time, the monarch of the Oberland, the tremendous Finsteraarhorn. A moment before all was dulness, but a pas further has placed us on the summit of the Furka; and exactly in front of us, at a hopow of only fifteen miles, this magnificent mountain lifts its snowwreathed precipices into the deep blue sky. The inferior mountains on each side of the pass form a sort of frame for the picture of their dread lord, and close in the view so completely that no other prominent feature in the Oberland is visible from this bong-abong; nothing withdraws the attention from the solitary grandeur of the Finsteraarhorn and the dependent spurs which form the abutments of the central peak. (The whole passage should be read; about five pages.)

We are written in English; we do what English does with foreign words. If not, why not use bahnhof for "railway station" and hopow for "distance"? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:35, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

There's no need for such bizarre strawmen; I'm not asking for any such thing. I do not know whether you deliberately distorted my point, or whether you actually believe that I want such absurdity, but either way, your point can safely be ignored. This was a discussion on diacritics, not on throwing random foreign words into English text in the body of an article. bobrayner (talk) 08:43, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Funny you should mention "bahnhof", we do have an article on Berlin Hauptbahnhof, which I find to be perfectly reasonable considering that's what you'd find on any map or travel guide... - filelakeshoe 09:40, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

As WP:NCGN says, maps and travel guides are not particularly good guides to English usage. Unlike our articles, their principal purpose is to show you what's on the local street signs. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:01, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Dropping the diacritics can be seen as a change of article title, but it can alternatively be seen as a mere change of the orthography used to represent the existing titles. True, this does introduce a few ambiguities, such as rose and rosé, and ore, öre and øre. These can be dealt with in several acceptable ways, and IMO this is a small price to pay for the elimination of one of Wikipedia's biggest time-wasters and a frequent cause of friction and ill will, some of which can be seen above. Andrewa (talk) 02:52, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

I do not find the 'gap' (that is, the apparent difference in policy) uncomfortable. For article content and notability it would be a serious mistake to treat reliable sources in different languages as having different degrees of weight. What matters about the sources for those purposes is simply whether they are reliable. However, when it comes to naming, it is necessary to differentiate between how our own language uses a name and how others do. If we did not do so, then we should need to have our articles on Germany and Albania at Deutschland and Shqipëria: most reliable sources to do with those topics are sure to be in their own languages.

On the specific matter of diacritics, they are mostly left out of the orthography of encyclopedias, apart from French names and a few others, but I do not think that has anything to do with the practicality of typefaces. Old-fashioned hot-metal type is not used at all in modern mass printing. The reason for the omission is surely that for the vast majority of English-speaking readers the diacritics in most foreign languages, including all Slavonic languages, simply add nothing useful to the spelling. Most educated people understand, more or less, the accents used in French and Spanish, while well under half of us understand the German-language umlaut, but I do not suppose more than one in a hundred English speakers has any real grasp of the diacritics used in the Slavonic languages, Turkish, or Hungarian. That may be a painful reality to those who do understand them and who find names spelt without them ugly, but it was always thus, nothing has changed. For the vast majority of our readers, these unknown diacritics are at best a puzzle and at worst an irritation. Moonraker2 (talk) 15:04, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

That raises some wider issues, but the specific issue here is orthography, not typeface, and use in article titles, not text. Andrewa (talk) 15:38, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

The issue you're raising is in article titles, but the original issue was to remove diacritics from peoples' names altogether because they're "not English". For the record, I don't think banning them from titles would cut out any drama. The drama would simply shift to whether an article should start Antonin Dvorak (Czech: Antonín Dvořák)... or Antonín Dvořák... if you look at the articles OP Dolovis has been protecting from diacritics you'll see he's been protecting the main article text from them too (Mitja Sivic, Ziga Pance, Matej Hocevar...) - filelakeshoe 20:06, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes, the issue I am attempting to discuss here at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (use English)#Use of diacritics in biographical article titles is the use of diacritics in article titles. Yes, it's possible that The drama would simply shift to whether an article should start.... But I don't think it would. People just aren't that logical! And where there are variations, these can and should all be given in the lead, so the text is not as contentious as the title. Andrewa (talk) 03:35, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Well I'm not sure what the actual issue we're debating is. We're not all discussing the same thing. We have various "problems" being put forward by different editors all of which result in the same thing, removing diacritics from article titles.

• Dolovis, the OP, wishes to write foreign names without diacritics when the majority of sources (I'm not going to say reliable sources, see below) do so. By the looks of his edits, he would not even put the diacritics in article text under this rationale.
• GoodYear moves to ban diacritics from all article titles because he believes they're "not English".
• Andrewa moves to ban diacritics from all article titles to "save drama at WP:RM".

Sorry if this seems like an assumption of bad faith, but to me this just looks like a group of people with sensory issues with diacritics fishing for some rationale or other to ban them. Dolovis' argument is the more sensible imho, but we need a clear cut definition of what constitutes a reliable source for how to spell someone's name. News sources, fan sites, official site of person/club he belongs to, encyclopedias, ?? And the native name with diacritics should always be in the article text, even if the person's name is written in another alphabet. If we banned diacritics simply because they cause drama, this "English usage" issue would still stand. It seems defeatist to me and we're ignoring the reason there is drama in the first place. - filelakeshoe 12:38, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Well, since you refer to me specifically, I think I should respond that I do find this an uncalled-for departure from WP:AGF, and an excellent example of the main reason that I suggested simply dropping diacritics from article titles. I don't think that you bear me any malice, it's just where the argument naturally led, and often leads. Andrewa (talk) 19:45, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

I must respond because I have also been mentioned in the above comment and my position has been misstated. To be clear, it is my opinion is that the current policy of WP:COMMONNAME and Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English) stipulates that a biographical article does not use the subject's name as it might be spelled in Czech or Slovenian (with diacritics) as its article title, nor does it use the person's legal name as it might appear on a birth certificate or passport; it instead uses the name that is most frequently used to refer to the subject in English-language reliable sources. An article title should only use diacritics if that form of spelling is the most commonly used form of the name as verified by sources used within the article. Unfortunately, there is a group of editors who are moving articles to their non-English forms even when the article contains no sources to verify that form. For example, in Jakub Kovář, all of the sources within the article (NHL.com, Hockeydb.com, and Eliteprospects.com) read “Jakub Kovar” yet the article has been moved to the non-verified form of spelling with diacritics. The same is true for the vast majority of the hockey-bio articles which use diacritics. I believe that using a form of spelling that is not supported by verifiable sources should not be condoned. Dolovis (talk) 02:13, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Not more than one of in a hundred English speakers has any real grasp of familiar letters used in Slavonic languages either. I think the average English speaker is more likely to guess that Š = shirt and Č = chocolate than that J = Yes or C = Bits. If you want to make Slavonic names "penetrable" for English speakers we need to invent a transliteration system, whereby Marek Židlický would be Marek Zhidlitsky (as if he were Russian). And doing that is not at all in the spirit of Wikipedia. We can have soundbites and pronunciations in the article text to show how unfamiliar spellings are pronounced. I really think this "English speakers don't know how to read diacritics" argument is bogus. We're not talking about, for example, ß here.. letters with diacritics still have a familiar latin letter in them. - filelakeshoe 19:52, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

There are some fallacious arguments being put forward.

• Diacritics are “non-English.”

This is just false. Diacritics are often dropped or considered optional, but continue to be used in English. Diacritics appear in naturalized English words and names of English origin, and this usage is documented in many current descriptive dictionaries and style guides. Just because someone can't type them with their crappy Windows keyboard driver, doesn't mean that they aren't used and expected by literate anglophones around the world.

• Diacritics should be dropped because these discussions waste too much time.

This is contrary to our principles, and holds no water here. Wikipedia favours the interests of readers over those of editors. It doesn't matter if we have to hash this over another hundred times, we should use the right English orthography for an article title, whether it includes a diacritic or not. —Michael Z. 2011-05-22 22:03 z

• This is all very confusing. I just started Malmö Konsthall, with the diacritic because the parent article Malmö has it and it seemed best to be consistent. De-orphaning it, I found 15 articles that used the form with the diacritic and one that did not. Of the inbound link article names, diacritics were contained in Malmö (a town in Sweden) Kutluğ Ataman (a Turkish artist) and Clémentine Deliss. The last article was the one that did not use the diacritic but referred to Malmo Konsthall. Possibly this is because Clémentine Deliss is British-born. I have a feeling none of this is very helpful. Aymatth2 (talk) 01:56, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
  • My mistake. List of exhibitions by Ólafur Elíasson also has diacritics. So 25% of the articles referring to Malmö Konsthall also had diacritics in their name. This would be because the article is about an un-English subject, and apart from Clémentine the referencing articles are too. Perhaps that is the root cause of the problem. Aymatth2 (talk) 02:23, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Agree that diacritics are part of English, and the argument that they are not is therefore invalid.

Agree Wikipedia favours the interests of readers over those of editors (your emphasis). Disagree however that This is contrary to our principles, and holds no water here and It doesn't matter if we have to hash this over another hundred times. It does matter. It discourages editors and wastes their time, and neither of these is in the interests of readers.

Agree that we should use the right English orthography for an article title, except for one very important logical point... saying the right orthography is a bit like saying the present King of France or the road to Rome. There is no single right orthography, many different orthographies exist. The question is, which is best for us? And I'm seriously suggesting that despite a lot of well-intentioned work on diacritics in article titles, the time has come to cut our losses. It has had unforseen effects that outweigh its benefits.

I think the question of whether there is a single correct orthography is very important here. Nearly all, perhaps all, of the arguments in favour of using diacritics presuppose that there is. Evidence? Andrewa (talk) 19:23, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

A basic principle in Wikipedia is to favor "generally accepted" over "correct". In the articles we try to present what is commonly thought about the subject, backed up by citations to reliable independent sources, whether or not this is the truth. The same applies to diacritics. There is no morally right or wrong usage. We should follow the most common usage in English-language sources, indicating alternate usages where relevant. Ise Ekiti is more common than Ìṣẹ̀-Èkìtì in English-language sources, so the form without diacritics should be used as the article title. Malmö is more common than Malmo in English-language sources, so that is the form to be used as a title. There will always be borderline cases open to argument, but the more heated the argument the less likely it matters much: the "correct" usage is not clear. Redirects can always solve the problem.

"Use no diacritics" will never be accepted. "For a non-English word, use diacritics as used in the native language" will not be accepted either. "Use the form most commonly found in English sources" leaves some room for interpretation, but is surely the simplest and most in line with general WP principles. Aymatth2 (talk) 01:26, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

• I note that Touché, which I used as an example in a comment here on 20 May 2011, was redirected to Fencing#Terminology on 21 May 2011, apparently without discussion. Some relevant content was dropped in the process. Aymatth2 (talk) 01:47, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

You may well be right that "Use no diacritics" (in article titles) will never be accepted, but to me it's such an obvious solution to such a needless and recurring problem that, asked for an opinion, I gave it. Nothing said since has changed it.

I have no particular axe to grind on this, despite the allegation to the contrary above. No national loyalty to Polish, Russian, Swedish or Norsk, no membership of the Alliance française although I do love to speak French, nor of any asteroid's fan club although I am considering forming FOPP the Friends of the Planet Pluto (Save the Planet Pluto), I'm just a medium to (sometimes) hard working admin who sees a lot of heat over issues that seem to benefit Wikipedia's mission by exactly 0%. But the suggestion just generated more heat. Perhaps that is in hindsight predictable. Andrewa (talk) 03:48, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm not going to restate everything but I agree with just about every argument in favor of diacritics used above. I'd also like to say that it would have been nice of Dolovis to notify me since I'm the one who told him five times in the past two weeks to start a centralized discussion on the topic. Pichpich (talk) 15:59, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

The question to be answered

My question for this discussion, which can be answered with a simple “In force” or “Not in force”, is as follows: Are the wiki-policies of WP:COMMONNAME and Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English) in force or not? Dolovis (talk) 02:19, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

• In Force: The policies of WP:COMMONNAME and Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English) are current and remain as the proper policy to follow when naming biographical articles. That is, biographical articles should use the name that is most frequently used to refer to the subject in English-language reliable sources. Dolovis (talk) 02:23, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

  I think the problem you are having is that you are seeking an answer to a question that isn't really what the problem is about. No one is suggesting the policies are not in force. What they are suggesting is that they can be interpreted differently than the narrow view you have put forward. As you can see above the wiki is quite divided on the interpretation of the policy which is why some projects including but not limited to the hockey project have come to a standardized way of dealing with the situation so we don't have different articles using different methods and to avoid having the heated time wasting debates alluded to by others above.. -DJSasso (talk) 02:26, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

With respect, I think that this entire issue has arisen because some editors have taken the position that the policy of WP:ENGLISH has changed and that diacritics are the preferred form of spelling for non-North American hockey players. I have been told (falsely) several times that the consensus is that Wikipedia uses diacritics for Czech, Slovakian, and Slovenian, and other non-North American hockey players; but no editor can show me that consensus. There is no discussion or written policy which supports the use of diacritics when no sources verify that form of spelling, yet several editors have been pushing their point of view that diacritics are required even in situations where no sources are shown to verify that diacritics are used. Some editors have stated that diacritics should be used, even against reliable English-language sources. Their logic is that those sources are wrong, and so therefore, they are not reliable. Well, the threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth, (unless the policy of WP:ENGLISH has been changed or is no longer in force). So yes, I am seeking to answer the question: Are we going to enforce the current policy and require that names be verified by reliable English Sources, or not? Dolovis (talk) 02:51, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes, and verifiability means you need sources to be reliable. Newspapers spell peoples' names wrong all the time. Like Obama Bin Laden. - filelakeshoe 09:45, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

I think Filelakeshoe has hit the nail on the head. Many people believe most Newspapers etc to not be reliable for the spelling of a name when they incorrectly do so many times. The wiki is mostly divided on how to deal with the situation as you can see above. The whole reason the guideline specifically says it does not prefer either version and that you shouldn't make it a bigger deal than it needs to be is because the wiki has never been able as a whole to come to consensus on the situation in either direction. So smaller parts of the wiki have have come to a consensus for the articles under their scope to at least provide some sort of consistency. I would also note that WP:ENGLISH is a guideline not a policy. -DJSasso (talk) 10:37, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

The sources that are used in the articles under question include NHL.com, Hockeydb.com, Eurohockey.net, Eliteprospects.com, ESPN.com, TSN.com, Hockeyfutures.com, Legendsofhockey.com, and other sources who have made it there business to accurately record names and statistics of hockey players. I would be not raise an issue for any specific player if Filelakeshoe would cite even a single example of his preferred form of spelling from any English-language source. If Filelakeshoe and Djsasso thinks that the "newspaper" has misspelled the name, then produce a source that spells it right before you move the articles away from its commonly used English form. Dolovis (talk) 14:12, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Right those sources might be accurate for statistics or whatever and not be accurate for names. Sources can be reliable for one set of information and then not reliable for others. As has been shown to you by others above, sources often leave off diacritics in their pages for a number of reasons even though it is wrong and the correct way would be to leave them. The minute they do that, the source becomes unreliable because they have not taken the time to properly list the name. One of the key components to be considered a reliable source is careful fact checking. Such careful fact checking would lead a reliable source to properly writing their name, so without doing such careful fact checking the source is no longer reliable in this particular subject matter. As you can see above the majority of the people responding to your question have said using the diacritics are not an issue in most cases. -DJSasso (talk) 15:51, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

I have asked you to provide a reliable source that supports the use diacritics where they used as an articles title. Will you do that? Dolovis (talk) 16:03, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

And can you provide a reliable source that doesn't use them? If you can't the policy you have quoted indicates we should use official spelling. -DJSasso (talk) 16:07, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

You are proving my point that sources do not exist to verify that diacritics are required. I have provided reliable sources. All of the articles of concern do have reliable sources showing the non-use of diacritics (see again NHL.com, Hockeydb.com, Eurohockey.net, Eliteprospects.com, ESPN.com, TSN.com, Hockeyfutures.com, Legendsofhockey.com, ect.), but you have failed time and time again to show any sources of any kind to verify your position that diacritics are required, but you continue to claim that they should be used. Dolovis (talk) 04:22, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

I think you are missing the point, yes I can find sources for various players as has been done in numerous past discussions on the topic. Can I find them for all no probably not. As for reliable sources no you don't have any. As mentioned all of those sources you mention are spelling the name incorrectly (for whatever reason) thus they are not reliable sources in terms of spelling of names. Atleast one player has spoken out about the topic in the past as well in regards to nhl.com atleast. Welcome to the issue of diacritics and why a compromise was worked out in various locations. Please read the discussion above where most people support the use of them as still complying with the policies/guidelines you quote. Instead of just repeating the same thing over and over. -DJSasso (talk) 19:24, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

If there is no source to verify the spelling, then it should not be used in the article. To suggest otherwise goes against the basic policies of Wikipedia. (i.e. No Original Research and Verifiability). Dolovis (talk) 20:11, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

In agreement. GoodDay (talk) 03:54, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Strawman warning! The policies are of course in force, but the use of diacritics are supported by them. Dolovis, would you please drop the stick and move away from that dead horse's carcass? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 20:19, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

The use of diacritics must be supported by reliable sources. If you can point to where the policy says otherwise, then show it to us. Dolovis (talk) 20:29, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Ah, but they are. In most cases, I am sure there are exceptions that need to be discussed on a case by case basis. But that's all there is to this story. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 20:48, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

• In force. Absolutely. Biographical articles should use the name that is most frequently used to refer to the subject in English-language reliable sources. No question at all about that. "Generally accepted" is fundamental to Wikipedia as a way to avoid endless arguments about "right" and "wrong". For example, Ademar José Gevaerd always has the diacritic in English-language reliable sources while George Bush never has it. Aymatth2 (talk) 01:49, 29 May 2011 (UTC)
• Wrong question. The policy and the guideline are not supposed to be "in force", but represent editors' ongoing best attempt to describe accepted Wikipedia practice. Like any policy or guideline, they do so imperfectly. Generally speaking these two do a pretty good job, but on the question of diacritics, they could do better, since they don't make it clear just how consistently we do in fact use them. (My main criticism of this guideline is unrelated to that point - it ought to be called simply "WP:Use English" and not restrict its scope unencessarily to just article titles.)--Kotniski (talk) 06:31, 29 May 2011 (UTC)
• What a silly way to try and win an argument... Are we going to start hiring lawyers next? Guidelines should be descriptive, not prescriptive and in any case, the current wishy-washy phrasing of the guideline is not entirely reflective of the current (longstanding) situation. Pichpich (talk) 21:45, 29 May 2011 (UTC)
• This is the English language Wikipedia, not the Multiple language Wikipedia. The pushing of usage of non-english symbols by editors is frustrating, particularly when you don't see them on the english alphabet. GoodDay (talk) 03:58, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Symbols which are not part of the "English alphabet" (26 letters) are still frequently used in good English writing, so I don't really see what this argument is based on.--Kotniski (talk) 10:44, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

I don't understand where this argument is placed in reality either. If English dictionaries contain these words, then there's no reason why it shouldn't leave non-English names in the latin alphabet as they are. - filelakeshoe 12:04, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Those non-english symbols have little to no meaning for an english reader. There place is on the French Wikipedia, Slovak Wikipedia, Czech Wikipedia, Swedish Wikipedia etc etc. GoodDay (talk) 12:45, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, those stupid foreigners can have their own damn wiki. Speaking of the French Wikipedia (and the German, Spanish and Italian ones to name those I'm familiar with): fr.wiki also use diacritics for, say, Czech names despite the fact that the Czech diacritics are not used in French (or German, Spanish or, Italian). Pichpich (talk) 14:37, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Again, "non-English symbols have little meaning for an English reader" is just false. Many English readers (particularly those who will be reading the articles in question) will understand the significance of those symbols; and those who don't will not have their understanding impaired by seeing them. This really does seem to me to be a campaign of "dumbing down" - making things harder for the knowledgeable just in order to soothe the feelings of the ignorant.--Kotniski (talk) 16:28, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

This argument reminds me of far-right politics. Nuff said. - filelakeshoe 17:28, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

No one has disagreed that the wiki-policies of WP:COMMONNAME and Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English) remain in force, but those editors who support the use of diacritics within article title's suggest that I am asking the wrong question. So, now that we have a consensus that WP:COMMONNAME and WP:EN remain as valid policy for all of Wikipedia, then let's conclude this discussion with a follow-up question. Dolovis (talk) 12:53, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

What?? Several people have said that these things are not "in force" - Wikipedia does not have laws or rules that are "in force" (at least, not in this area), so it really doesn't make sense to argue in this way.--Kotniski (talk) 16:17, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Dolovis I still think you're missing the point of these "policies" (Naming conventions, by the way, is not a policy, but part of the guidelines that make up the manual of style). If you read the little boxes at the top of them you'll notice they advise use of common sense, and that there will be exceptions. I wouldn't want to describe these guidelines and policies as "in force", they're simply generally accepted conventions which are supposed to help people write articles. Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy. - filelakeshoe 17:28, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Follow-up question to be answered

When a person's name is the article's title, must that form of name be supported within the article by verifiable sources, or may any editor correct the form of name by moving/changing the article's title without providing sources? Acceptable answers are: Sources that support article's title must be present; or Sources are not required when correcting names. Dolovis (talk) 12:53, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

There ought to be sources, certainly. Though the questions that arise are (1) whether those sources should be in English, and (2) whether we necessarily have to follow the majority of English sources. To those questions I would answer (1) not necessarily, if there are too few English sources for us to conclude anything about English usage; and (2) no.--Kotniski (talk) 16:22, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

And I would add for (2) that "majority of English sources" is an ill-defined concept anyways. Putting scholarly work and Ghits on an equal footing is a sure recipe for the dumbing down of the project. Pichpich (talk) 19:13, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

The english alphabet, is the core of the english language. Last time I checked, there were no diacritics in the english alphabet. GoodDay (talk) 20:23, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

That would rather be English orthography, which is a very complex and deep set of rules governing how English words are spelled (and since English is a living breathing language, are often broken anyway). The reason your argument is fallacious is because it's not just rare cases of diacritics which break the rules of English orthography. Neither Szczebrzeszyn nor Brno nor Holešovice is an "English" name, and all three break the rules of English orthography, since as well as not allowing for /š/, it wouldn't allow for /szcz/ or initial /brn/ either. None of these names are English and all of them break the rules, but since there are no English names, we use them.

Regardless, diacritics are used in English. Check the section "diacritics" in the article English orthography and the article linked. - filelakeshoe 20:41, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

It's not as if anyone is advocating writing Robert Johnson as Ròbéřt Jøhnšöñ just for added kicks. We're talking about foreign names which are written in Latin-based alphabets that any English speaker will be able to read with or without diacritics. Proper pronunciation is of course a different matter and at least readers familiar with diacritics get that info (yes, many English speakers also speak these weird diacritic-filled foreign languages). When we get the chance to be precise, we're precise. Pichpich (talk) 22:07, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

It might help a little if the guideline explicitly distinguished between

• using English words or names (e.g. Munich, the Luther Bible) where they exist and are the most commonly used names
• (not) using an "English" (i.e. diacritic-free) spelling of foreign names (e.g. Munchen, Dusseldorf, Hitler und die Endlosung).

The current wording may conflate the two, very different, concepts. --Boson (talk) 00:13, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

There would hardly be an 'English' spelling of München, as we use the exonym Munich. When it comes to the 'English' spelling of most words which in German have an umlaut, the diacritic-free approach is to use an -e- after the vowel instead: Duesseldorf, Fuehrer, Bluecher. These are also alternative spellings in writing German. Moonraker (talk) 04:09, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I deliberately used the example of Munchen (Muenchen would also serve) to highlight the difference between the correct use of established exonyms and the use of purported English spellings of non-English words. I am aware of a German convention of replacing "ü" by "ue", etc. when the correct characters are not available (see, for instance Duden Rechtschreibung, Hinweise für das Maschinenschreiben, Fehlende Zeichen) , but I am not sure how familiar most non-German-speakers are with this convention. I suspect more are familiar with the convention of just dropping the diacritics (possibly out of ignorance). Some American publishers might also adopt the German convention of using ue for ü, etc. where it causes typesetting problems, for instance, but off-hand, I can't think of a reliable source that describes this as a convention of English spelling.--Boson (talk) 20:12, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

So we are agreed that an article must include a verifiable source to show the form of spelling (with or without diacritics) as used in the article's title. If no source is shown to support the article's title, then the title will be changed to conform to the sources used within the article. Dolovis (talk) 04:39, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

For the purpose of determining the name to be used in the title, English language reliable sources are needed, as English may have a different form of the name from one or more other languages. Also, on "the title will be changed to conform to the sources used within the article", the title may not need to be changed, and (once again) in such an exercise English language reliable sources should have priority over others. Moonraker (talk) 09:52, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

No, we are not agreed. Reliable sources for a particular spelling are required only when deviating from the language in which the topic is most often talked about (often the local language). See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English)#No established usage. When deviating from this, we need reliable sources to show that the deviant English spelling is established (as encyclopaedic usage). --Boson (talk) 10:45, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Quite so. Accents should be used if appropriate, unless common English non-accented usage is established. The Guardian style guide says on accents "Use on French, German, Portuguese, Spanish and Irish Gaelic words (but not anglicised French words such as cafe, apart from exposé, lamé, résumé, roué). People's names, in whatever language, should also be given appropriate accents where known. Thus: "Arsène Wenger was on holiday in Bogotá with Rafa Benítez"" There is no reason not to adopt a similar stance here. Daicaregos (talk) 11:40, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

English language reliable sources use diacritics when appropriate. I do not agree with "unless common English non-accented usage is established". It is very common for English to have a "non-accented usage", but if reliable sources (such as other encyclopedias and specialist academic studies) don't use that, it should be avoided here. Moonraker (talk) 13:06, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Is Boson and Daicaregos saying that they can use a non-English form of a person's name as the article's title even when there are no sources to support that use? That is unacceptable. There must be a source. Dolovis (talk) 13:13, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

I think we can all agree that aligning ourselves with other encyclopedias or scholarly work makes more sense than aligning ourselves with an Internet database. However, we're unlikely to ever find an entry for František Kaberle in Britannica. This doesn't change the fact that scholarly studies and encyclopedias use diacritic marks and that we should too. Pichpich (talk) 13:32, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I am saying that no English sources are required. It is not only acceptable but current consensus:

"It can happen that an otherwise notable topic has not yet received much attention in the English-speaking world, so that there are too few English sources to constitute an established usage. . . . 'If this happens, follow the conventions of the language in which this entity is most often talked about (German for German politicians, Turkish for Turkish rivers, Portuguese for Brazilian towns etc.)."

This rule is appropriate because not all notable subjects are sufficiently notable in the English-speaking world to have an established English name. --Boson (talk) 16:17, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

@ Dolovis: No, I am not saying that a non-English form of a person's name can be used as the article's title even when there are no sources to support that use. How could we know that non-English form without sources? I don't propose they should simply be made up. Of course reliable sources are needed for a person's name. They need not be English language sources though. The point here is that the default position should be the person's correct name in their own language, even when that name uses accents; as suggested by the Guardian style guide above, unless common English non-accented usage is established. Daicaregos (talk) 20:47, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

The catalyst of this discussion are the mass article moves currently being performed by User:Darwinek and others, without any sources at all to verify the non-English form of spelling (with only the edit summary saying "correct name"). The practice of moving articles to names that may very well "simply be made up" is rampant and on-going, and that is why I started this discussion. Dolovis (talk) 05:48, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Are you really saying that your concern is that these names are fake or made up for lolz? We don't usually source information which is unlikely to be challenged but if all you care about is a source for the diacritics, let me know of any that you find suspect and I'll fix it for you. Pichpich (talk) 12:51, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

The "mass article moves" is your paranoia, Dolovis. Members of various WikiProjects, like WPP Poland are constantly watching new articles and if diacritics are missing in the article title, they move them. This is a standard practice for many years, there is no sudden "mass moving" going on. If you need confirmation of usage of those names, just use Google or ask members of given WikiProjects for help. - Darwinek (talk) 22:39, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Seconded, on behalf of the WP:POLAND. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 23:38, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

I generally prefer to stay away from "dead horses" but my two cents: yes, the burden of proof should be on an editor who proposes changing a name either way. Spend time adding information to articles instead of moving back and forth with no improvement to the articles. Reach a consensus before making wholesale changes is better than "bold, revert" in my (perhaps minority?) opinion. The argument I keep refuting is that removing diacritics somehow converts a name from another language into English: it does not! The case I dealt with is the Hawaiian language. In that case (similar to other non-European languages, especially of indigenous people with mainly oral cultures), the orthography was entirely constructed by English speakers, with the diacritics specifically to help English speakers pronounce the words. So the "English" spelling is the one with diacritics; locals usually do not bother since they already know how to pronounce the words. That is why I prefer to use diacritics, except for words like "Hawaiian" where it is so English that it gets English word endings. Let me add we found out the US 2010 census will use diacritics in the official place names for the first time, and that Geographic Names Information System has mostly adopted them already. Modern scientific journals now use them. So the trend is clear, do not be stuck in the past. And do not underestimate readers: it seems obvious that dropping the diacritics in Latin alphabets at least, is a simplification, and thus reduces information. That is why I hate wording like "Waikīkī, also known as Waikiki"... since it is so obvious to be patronizing. W Nowicki (talk) 16:58, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Some very good points here. What a contrast to the general tone of discussion above. But despite the possibility that English is increasingly using diacritics, and therefore older sources are less relevant, I remain of the view that at this time the best solution (possibly the only solution) is to drop diacritics from article names and to retain them in text where appropriate.

But no consensus seems likely on anything here at present. Andrewa (talk) 20:45, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

For what its worth, that comes close to the compromise I proposed for the Hawaiian articles. We kept the non-diacritic article names for places, while the person names with diacritics are generally kept where they are, some in titles, some not, but generally tried to keep the diacritics in the body. The minor downside of this policy is all the piped links, but that is only a minor inconvenience to the editor, not the reader. To clarify, I never said "English" is using diacritics, what I tied to say is that English language encyclopedic quality sources tend to have typesetting support now to handle diacritics, so use them on words in other languages to help English speakers know how to pronounce them. And readers are not surprised by them. Article titles are less critical to readers than editors think. W Nowicki (talk) 21:23, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Amen to that last point.

In a way I don't care at all whether the article title has the diacritics or not. In either case there should IMO be a redirect from the other version. To suggest that Wikipedia is in any way dumbed down by what should be a pragmatic choice as to whether to use or not to use diacritics in what is merely a database handle is ludicrous. And yet it is repeatedly and passionately argued, as is the equally ludicrous opposite view.

So I simply say, this discussion isn't part of Wikipedia's mission at all. Both viewpoints are WP:SOAP. And there's only one way I can see to get rid of it, but that solution is simple, obvious and without any relevant downside. Andrewa (talk) 01:41, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Andrewa, concerning those names that use diacritics in their originating countries (such as Slovenia, Slovakia, and Czech Republic), do you have any comments on the repeatedly made claims that WP:COMMONNAME and WP:VERIFY do not apply for such names? Dolovis (talk) 02:07, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

No one said they didn't apply. You keep going back to that. What has been said is that common name is being interpreted differently than you interpret it. Secondly no one said verify doesn't apply, what has been said is that verification doesn't require an english source, which is stated right on the wp:verify itself. -DJSasso (talk) 02:33, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

My view is that these questions are off-topic on this particular talk page. Happy to discuss on my own talk page, and resigned to watching them discussed at length on other talk pages. Andrewa (talk) 03:15, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

DJSasso, you just moved 16 articles from English to to non-English form with diacritics.[7] None of those articles have any sources to verify the name is used with diacritics, and none meet the policy of WP:COMMONNAME. So obviously you are saying, with your actions if not your words, that those policies do not apply. Dolovis (talk) 03:31, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

DJSasso is right. Several other users were correcting your disrupting revert moves or intentional creations without diacritics. Dozens users here disagree with you, and still you are the one pursuing your POV despite general consensus and practice. Dolovis, you are simply not right, and you should deal with the pure fact that diacritics ARE used throughout Wikipedia and nothing's gonna change that. - Darwinek (talk) 09:40, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

You keep on track, Dolovis. Those non-english symbols are annoying, almost as annoying as the push to keep them. It has to be respected that this is the English language Wikipedia, not the Multiple language Wikipedia. For those who prefer dios usage? we've got the French Wikipedia & all those Eastern European Wikipedia's for you (plural) to build. GoodDay (talk) 11:15, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

No what I told you about those moves was that I was fixing copy paste moves that someone else moved, that I was putting them back where they were moving them to. I also told you that you are free to object to their moves. Secondly as it says in verify, you don't need to put a source in for everything, and we generally don't source the spelling of names on any article, but with that being said it still needs to be verifiable and those wishing to do so can easy verify them with a search in the subjects native language google. I would also mention that you keep calling the diacritic version non-English when you have been shown by nearly everyone above in this discussion that calling it non-English is incorrect because diacritics are used in English. -DJSasso (talk) 12:30, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

DJSasso, you are supporting and performing out-of-process moves. Process is important, and it should be unacceptable for an Administrator to encourage out-of-process edits. Dolovis (talk) 12:50, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

No I am not encouraging out of process actions. The process is Bold-Revert-Discuss. He boldly moved them. If you disagree you revert the moves. Then you discuss them via a request for move if the original mover decides to pursue the matter. Where am I encouraging out of process moves. And even if I were, I would point you to Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy which is an actual policy versus the essay about process you linked to which is one (or more) persons opinion. -DJSasso (talk) 12:59, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

I thought from an outsider

Two questions

Why do we use diacritics but not non-Latin alphabets?

What purpose do diacritics serve in an English encyclopedia? Martin Hogbin (talk) 11:24, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

There's a significant difference between recognizable Latin symbols with a diacritic mark and non-recognizable symbols. Transliterating names in, say, Cyrillic alphabets is pretty essential since most readers won't be able to visually match the name to something they've seen elsewhere. On the other hand, readers unfamiliar with diacritics have no problems identifying Jönsson and Par-Gunnar Jonsson, Václav Havel and Vaclav Havel or Agnès Jaoui and Agnes Jaoui. Scholarly publications usually do the same: for instance, every math journal I know transliterates author names over non-Latin alphabets but keeps diacritics over Latin alphabets. As has been pointed out above, this is also the rule of thumb used by Britannica. It's about being precise when we can be. Pichpich (talk) 13:48, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

It seems just a bit parochial. We can cope with a slight variation in the Latin alphabet but not with this foreign stuff. Martin Hogbin (talk) 17:03, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Dropping diacritics as if English speakers shouldn't be bothered with foreign stuff sounds pretty parochial to me. Pichpich (talk) 17:24, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

BUt why draw a line at Latin plus diacritics? There is no logic to this. Just the symbols used in English is one obvious option, the other, if we want to be truly international, is to use the correct national symbols. Martin Hogbin (talk) 18:17, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

If we use Cyrillic as an example, one immediate reason is that virtually all scholarly sources in English use transliterations. This practice certainly has roots in typographical limitations but there's also the more fundamental problem that Вале́рия Ильи́нична Новодво́рская is not only hard to pronounce, it's also practically impossible to remember if you're unfamiliar with Cyrillic. Note by the way that the English language does contain words with diacritics and that diacritics use for Latin-alphabet foreign names of people and places is common place in reference works. Pichpich (talk) 18:55, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

I was just trying to get you to think about this subject from a more fundamental perspective. I do agree that WP should not set trends but should reflect current good practice but every now and then we should ask whether we could do things better. I will leave you to it now. Martin Hogbin (talk) 22:21, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

How very generous of you. All that conversation above and it never once occurred to me to give the issue any thought. :-) Pichpich (talk) 23:20, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

I was going to leave but comments like that make me want to stay and argue the case more. Martin Hogbin (talk) 21:25, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

I think Pichpich explained it quite well, it is simply "common sense". Few people will not understand the function of ł, ó or ę , but Д or ๘ are much less clear. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 18:48, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

You are joking of course, ' Few people will not understand the function of ł, ó or ę'. I do not even know in which language they might be used? Martin Hogbin (talk) 21:25, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

I think he meant few people would fail to recognise ł as an l with a diacritic, ó as o etc., whereas far fewer would recognise Д as D. Anyway, as for what purpose diacritics serve, they serve the purpose of us being accurate and spelling things right. I'm a native English speaker. I can't speak Polish, but I live next door and I know what an Ł is. If I went to look up information on the town of Kłodzko and found it spelled "Klodzko" throughout the article, I would be none the wiser about how to spell it properly. Just because you don't know doesn't mean nobody does. - filelakeshoe 22:37, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

I have no objection whatever to giving the national spelling in an appropriate alphabet of any foreign word in a WP article, along with the IPA pronunciation. What has still not been made clear is why we should have Kłodzko as an English word but not Αθήνα. Martin Hogbin (talk) 08:11, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

The reason is that one is in a Latin script and the other is not. Whether you accept that reason is a different matter. You may wish to draw the line elsewhere.

But I notice that you use the term "English word". Proper names of foreign entities, however spelled, cannot simply be classified as English words in the normal sense, unless an exonym (like Munich), a translation (like the Luther Bible), or an equivalent English name (like Henry IV) has become established. In other words, neither Kłodzko or Klodzko are normal English words. When there is no established English name, the foreign name is normally used, unless it is normally written in a non-Latin character set. When a foreign name contains occasional letters from an extended Latin character set, some publishers have a convention of replacing them with "standard" Latin characters without diacritics, thus using an "English" spelling of foreign words.--Boson (talk) 09:35, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Yes! And to answer your second question, one good reason I gave above. The diacritics are useful to English speakers to let them know how to pronounce the word, and a clue to its meaning. Locals already know how to pronounce it, so in reality the diacritics are more "English" than the dumbed-down writings. But I do agree than moving articles back and forth is a waste and should be discouraged. Content matters. W Nowicki (talk) 16:54, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

They only give a guide to pronunciation with some effort. First you have to identify the language then determine what the diacritics mean. For example, I have no idea how to pronounce Pär-Gunnar or Václav. We already give the IPA pronunciation. Martin Hogbin (talk) 17:03, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

It's not really that hard and it's certainly easier to remember than IPA which uses plenty of non-Latin symbols. There's plenty of information on Wikipedia that's directly meaningful to a minority but accessible to all who put in some effort (IPA for instance). There's nothing wrong with that. Pichpich (talk) 17:24, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

No, diacritics have completely different effects in different languages. You first have to determine the language then find out what the mark means in that language. We already have IPA pronunciation. Martin Hogbin (talk) 18:17, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

"Diacritics" aren't, and are necessary for disambiguation purposes

I'll drop in to say the things I've said several times over the years when this topic comes up:

• Once again, diacritics and letters containing diacritics are being confused. The two are different; the ´ in José is a diacritic, while the "dot" over Ståhlberg isn't.

• The notion that, say, Jaromir Jagr is "Jaromír Jágr in English" is ridiculous, as anyone with any experience in translation knows. I wish this canard would stop being bandied about in these discussions, as well as the ludicrous idea that English doesn't have diacritics.

• Having said that, it is necessary to distinguish between the "diacritical-containing" and "non-diacritical-containing" letters, for instance a and ä, for disambiguation purposes. To take an example that springs to mind, the Finnish painter Johan Backman and academic Johan Bäckman are two different people with different names.

For what it's worth, in my opinion this crusade against "diacriticals" is driven by rather poor motives. User GoodDay said above: "Those non-english symbols are annoying", and to this date this seems to me to be the only motivation for trying to exclude them from Wikipedia. I firmly oppose deliberately misspelling names and inventing bogus "English spellings" of foreign names just because some editors find them "annoying". Elrith (talk) 23:47, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

• Comment: Because, of course, WP:COMMONNAME and WP:ENGVAR don't count as "real" motivations? That being said, when the non-English Wikis start using standard English proper names with standard English spellings instead of their own national variations, I'll think better of European language warriors coming over to demand that the English Wikipedia conform to theirs.  Ravenswing  03:54, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

• Not sure what you mean there, I don't see any article on pl.wikipedia about Wince Cable or on cs.wikipedia about Kvincy Jones just because Polish and Czech don't use the letters V and Q respectively. We have Warsaw and Prague and they have Londýn, obviously... - filelakeshoe 09:30, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
• To be fair most other language wikis do use the proper English names when no translated/transliterated name exists. Which is exactly what people are stating in the above discussion that we also do. People mistake removing diacritics as translating when it is not. Removing them is neither proper English or proper native language. This is where the issue is. Its just wrong whatever way you look at it. -DJSasso (talk) 11:24, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Yes, both "zealots" are not improving the content: mass moving either direction should be discouraged. And to save the time of constantly repeating this, can we please add some text to this policy to clearly state one of the major issues: "Removing accents or diacritics does not convert a word into English." Maybe a linguist can phrase it more precisely. W Nowicki (talk) 16:03, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Second, and support further clarification: English words use diacritics, so neither WP:COMMONNAME and WP:ENGVAR can be invoked in a crusade against diacritics. Here's a written, reliable source that supports this assertion: "For foreign words that have become common in English, no simple rules can be given for when to retain an accent, or diacritic, and when to drop it. The language is in flux. ... Accents and diacritics should be retained in foreign place names (such as São Paulo, Göttingen, and Córdoba) and personal names (such as Salvador Dalí, Molière, and Karel Čapek).". QED.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 16:21, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

It's not English you are talking about, but proper names. We don't invent verbs or adjectives with foreign characters. The conventions used to produce a suitable English version of a foreign name mostly translate to removal of foreign characters and foreign accents. There is no benefit to using foreign characters 'because we can' on Wikipedia, when readers don't see them, don't speak them and are not trained in them. So, we translate to the combination of characters that sound as much as possible as the original. There is no -need- for special dispensation for languages similar to English, as opposed to cyrillic or asian languages. If we find in the media of a whole continent or english media milieu that ö (for example) is not used, then we have a de facto translation method. ʘ alaney2k ʘ (talk) 18:09, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

That is sort of the point. The removal of the diacritics isn't changing them to the letter that sounds the closest. Diacritics on a character completely change the sound of a letter so that it often doesn't sound anything like the letter without the diacritic. Which is why above it was described by someone above in the discussion that the addition of the diacritics is actually more to help English speakers than for the sake of the native speakers who probably already know how it is pronounced. This is why removing them isn't a translation at all. A translation would involve switching the characters from the diacritic version to the closest sounding alternative which would be completely different characters alot of the time which is done in some words but not usually in names. Its actually the case that proper names rarely have the diacritics removed, in academic sources at least. -DJSasso (talk) 18:16, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

An academic work Wikipedia is not. If we are trained with them, then I could see your analogy. But, the normal convention in the media is to simply remove them. Whether or not that constitutes an accurate translation is somewhat moot. That would be for the non-anglos to decide. Often an athlete provides a better translation. But should we simply adopt the spelling used in Europe? I don't think we are anyway near going that way in North America. Correct or not to a European, it is simply not friendly or usable for North American readers. ʘ alaney2k ʘ (talk) 18:27, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

No but we are an encyclopedia who strives to have correct information, and we strive to be like the Encyclopedia Britannica which uses them . We are doing a disservice to the reader if we do not include someones actual name. In most cases with diacritics someone who doesn't have any training in them can still read them just as easy as if they weren't there. I believe you once said you just ignore them. Well then there is no issue if they can be ignored? Now in the cases of the really strange diacritics like Д there is usually an actual translation of the name and I 100% agree that we should use that as its a translation and the original form would be unreadable to someone not in the know. But in the case of a é â ö or the like. I think we are doing a disservice to the read to remove them incorrectly. -DJSasso (talk) 18:38, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

I find it hard to argue in favour of something if it is to be ignored. :-) Like I said, the argument to me is not about the correctness either way. Staying in context is most appropriate. I doubt that all US or Canadian professors mark down a paper over an umlaut. We have a lovely mechanism of directing someone to the birth spelling of a name in the article. The foreign spelling shows in the popup. That's enough. I think of it as a spectrum. You've got extremes, such as Ozolinsh, where the birth spelling is just completely foreign, or Selanne, where it's a minor difference. I don't believe it is an egregious offence to omit them, like some do. I don't advocate being lazy, but I don't advocate going beyond the common usage much. Count me out (in). I think that I will always argue in support of not mandating them in common usage. Sometimes you've just to admit that something is foreign. You can work on specific rules, and I see that it's necessary; but a common start is to omit them. And that should be okay in context. ʘ alaney2k ʘ (talk) 19:09, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

This project is suppose to be for the laymen. An english-only reading laymen, sees these non-english wiggly sqigglies as at best, a distraction. GoodDay (talk) 00:09, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

I thought that's why we developed the Simple Wikipedia... no diacritics there. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 04:07, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

An "English-only reading laymen" (sic) should go and read Simple Wikipedia. No diacritics, IPA, complex mathematical code, or anything else that might make your head hurt. I use Simple Wikipedia for maths articles because the code here along with the pretext that the reader understands it does my head in, but you don't see me arguing to ban that. I'll repeat. Just because you don't know doesn't mean nobody does. - filelakeshoe 07:12, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Those who want dios, should read French Wikipedia & the Eastern European Wikipedias, instead of forcing their preffered non-english accents & symbols on English Wikipedia. Editors like me are not simple minded, we just happen recognize bs, when we see it. GoodDay (talk) 13:09, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Sure, sure. <sarcasm> Curse all those academics who use those weird "dios". They should take all of their weird "science" mumbojumbo and go somewhere else, preferably to France and East Europe. We need no science here... Glory to Wikipedia, the first encyclopedia to fight against "dios", where the dinosaurs of Britannica and Columbia still use them. By popular vote (or, vocal demand of a tiny minority...) we will defend the "pure English language" (and woe to those academics who argue for diacritics - those eggheads in the ivory towers surely don't know what language they speak, even.). </sarcasm> Seriously, please, don't stop others from using proper English, and contribute to the encyclopedia using proper names and nameplaces; and pretty please, don't accuse us of "bs". I'll finish by pointing out that neither "dios" nor "bs" are really a part of an English language, but usage of such slang simplifications is certainly indicative. Of what, I will not say, per WP:NPA. So please, keep it cool, focus on arguments, and don't accuse others of various attitudes. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 18:24, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Once again, per endless earlier discussions, certainly all recently published scholarly sources I've run across regarding Eastern Europe observe the "squigglies." We are, first and foremost, an encyclopedia, after all. Once we've observed common English language "non-squiggly" usage where there is a preponderance thereof, there's no impediment to using the "squigglies." On the related, I don't think the average (mono-lingual English with smatterings of some other European language in school) reader cares whether the additional decorations modify a letter or create a completely different letter. PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 02:24, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

I agree about the last point. The discussion is complicated enough as it is. Not even Unicode differentiates between ö in German (an umlaut, i.e. a letter different from o, historically derived from oe via an e written over the o, and therefore traditionally transliterated as oe where no ö is available), ö in Finnish, Hungarian or Turkish (also a letter different from o, but not an umlaut although borrowed from German; cannot be transliterated as oe) and ö in coördination. Some comments about the core of the matter:

• To the limited extent that the average name of a person or entity can be said to be part of the English language at all, it is part of the English language both with and without the diacritics. Some sources such as international sports associations use ASCII characters exclusively and broadcast their versions widely. Other sources, such as virtually all academic sources, use the accented versions almost exclusively. E.g., if you search for "Gödel's theorem" on Google Books, you will find more than twice as many (English) publications than when you search for "Goedel's theorem". Closer inspection shows that those using the ö spelling are generally of a higher overall quality and more on-topic. They are generally written by people who have English-sounding names, and appeared with English-language academic publishers such as A K Peters, Routledge, Springer (a huge publisher that started in Germany but has had an international scope and been focused on English for a long time), Blackwell, Wiley etc. There are even more hits with the misspelling "Godel's theorem", but almost all of these are due to OCR errors where the original actually used the umlaut.
• In our globalised age, people don't just read and write about foreign places and people, they also visit them and get exposed to the original versions of their names in the original linguistic context. As a result, the English language is moving away even from the most established English versions of such names and is gradually replacing them with the original versions. Examples include Lyon which used to be spelled Lyons in English but is now more commonly found without the s, Beijing and Kolkata, which used to be referred to by their traditional English names Peking and Calcutta. Presumably by the same mechanism, it is moving towards the original spellings including diacritics. You can see this at work with Google Books searches for Heinrich Brüning: For books until 1950 the ratio "chancellor Brüning":"chancellor Bruening" is 280:1110. For books since 1971 it is 641:278. The ratio "chancellor Schröder":"chancellor Schroeder" is 4090:1730. (The same tendencies can be observed in German, where people increasingly say and write Nijmegen not Nimwegen, Ústí nad Labem not Aussig, Tallinn not Reval, Győr not Raab, 's-Hertogenbosch not Herzogenbusch etc. No doubt other languages are going through the same evolution.)
• WP:COMMONNAME does not speak about spellings. It speaks about fundamentally different names such as Nazi Party vs. de:Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei. Spelling with or without diacritics is not the kind of question that should routinely be answered by inspecting usage in English sources for each individual topic. For relatively obscure topics we might as well read tea leaves. This is the kind of thing that is addressed by style guides, and our relevant style guide for article titles is WP:DIACRITICS a section of WP:ENGLISH. It says that by default (no consensus of sources), spelling with or without diacritics is both acceptable. But our policies and guidelines are supposed to be descriptive not prescriptive, and actual usage in Wikipedia is that where English sources use the original name with or without diacritics, we almost always use it with diacritics. This is firmly within the normal range of style guides for English publications, and we are following the trend. [8] [9]
• It makes sense to standardise use or non-use of diacritics, because otherwise we are facing categories in which spellings with diacritics are mixed randomly with spellings without them. We will never be able to get rid of them completely, as there are examples in which diacritics are the most natural way of disambiguation, and since academic works and serious encyclopedias such as Britannica use them in titles (they didn't used to use them – another example that the language is in flux). So the most natural solution is to always use them, as we are already doing.
• Names in Cyrillic or Chinese letters or any other non-Latin writing system are of course a different matter. Most readers of English texts cannot parse them at all, cannot even form conjectures as to the corresponding pronunciations, and would need a lot of effort to compare two such words just to see if it's the same word. That's why we are not using them but use transliterations or transcriptions into the Latin alphabet instead (where there is no English alternative). And guess what, some of the commonly used transliteration/transcription systems use diacritics and other modified Latin letters. This way English even acquired some words with diacritics such as the one for the (Tibetan) Bön religion. There are some fine distinctions to be made here. E.g. Pinyin, the standard system for transcription of Chinese, uses diacritics. But we don't, following a common practice in China and among academics publishing in English.

While it would be nice if this little exposé on háčeks and similar phenomena that I am throwing into the mêlée would give the coup de grâce to this attempted coup d'état, I am aware that, not being an Übermensch, nor a Führer who cannot be ignored, I may be evoking TLDR reactions in some. In that case, take it as a smörgåsbord from which you can pick a few canapés while drinking a Gewürztraminer. (I suggest that you help yourself to an apéritif first, and then start with the crudités. And do try the crêpes and the crème brûlée.) Sorry if there are too many cases of déjà vu on the menu. I hope you won't mistake my arguments for papier-mâché tigers.

So much for my 5 øre. Hans Adler né Scheuermann. 06:23, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

All those words are commonly spelled without the diacritics. We don't all write for the OED. ʘ alaney2k ʘ (talk) 14:46, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

As Google Books searches with these words show, usage is actually mixed. It is of course wron to write exposé without the accent because that can only lead to confusion. (A Google books search for "write an expose" has a lot of hits, but they are overwhelmingly OCR errors with exposé in the original. Incidentally, preventing confusion between words that are otherwise spelled equally is one of the reasons for accents in French.) I wouldn't know how to verify this, but I am pretty sure that the English word né cannot be spelled ne. In contrast to the (also somewhat odd) spelling nee for née, nobody would know what is meant. And I refuse to use nee with reference to myself because I don't want anyone to believe I was born female. At the other extreme there is smörgåsbord, which is almost always spelled without the accents. But in any case the spellings with accents are correct variant spellings of the respective English words in the same way that colour and color are both correct variant spellings. Hans Adler 15:53, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

• Please, tell me someone, how could using the diacritic in foreign proper names damage or threaten the purity of the English language? What have the Czech, Slovak or Swedish proper names to do with the English language? A name is just a name. If a person has a name that contains the "wiggly sqigglies" and the person is verifiably known under that name, a really good encyclopedic project should respect that, because it is the correct version, no more and no less. Wikipedia should strive for accuracy. That's my only conclusion. Of course, transliteration is a different matter, but I'm talking about the proper names written in languages which use the Latin alphabet. Do you want to save the English language by deforming the names? --Vejvančický (talk | contribs) 09:55, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
  • No one is arguing for or against the English language purity. What we are talking about is not enforcing the foreign spellings when we have lots of English usage without the character modifiers. I disagree that those diacritics are part of the same alphabet. The letters are rendered using a separate code. Correctness also is not the issue. Correctness is subjective in this instance. For example, the Latvian hockey player who is commonly known as Sandis Ozolinsh has a birth name of Sandis Ozoliņš. Those two diacritics are -unknown- in common usage. The question is really, where do you draw the line? To a regular reader, unknown modifiers give no information to the reader as to the pronunciation. As per WP:COMMONNAME, Sandis is better known as Ozolinsh, as he played the majority of his career in North America. He might have never been notable otherwise. To enforce the use of modifiers would be appropriate if Wikipedia were an academic publication, but it is certainly not. Frankly, I am okay with either spelling for article titles, (leaning slightly to common spelling without) but if a person's common spelling is without diacritics, then it is not appropriate to enforce them in articles where the person is mentioned. As I've said elsewhere, I see no point in arguing for something that will be ignored. ʘ alaney2k ʘ (talk) 14:46, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
    • Thanks for your observations, alaney. The anlicized version of the name of Sandis Ozolinsh follows, at least a bit, the sound and the pronunciation of his name. But what about Jan Srdinko, Roman Kadera, Matus Vizvary, Ivo Kotaska, Vladimir Buril and other players known solely for their careers in European hockey leagues? (This RfC was started mainly as a reaction to the situation at Talk:Vladimir Buril) The names are cut off like a tree stumps. I'm well aware that the diacritic can hardly help an average English reader to better understand the pronunciation, however, I believe it is more encyclopedic than the nonsensical current state. The current state is a result of missing code on major ice hockey websites. Wikipedia should do better, as this project has the technical tool and the international editorship capable of far more accurate work. --Vejvančický (talk | contribs) 16:03, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
      • Thanks for pointing those out. I was unaware of the origin. If this discussion was to eliminate the use of diacritics completely, I don't support that. Those persons have no 'common' English spellings, as far as I can tell. No 'English' name, if you will. I think those articles will be moved to the native spellings. ʘ alaney2k ʘ (talk) 17:04, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
    • Sandis Ozolinsh is a transliteration. This does happen sometimes with names in the Latin alphabet, viz Franz Josef Strauss and Bronislava Nijinska. But it doesn't happen all the time, and one doesn't transliterate by removing diacritics. - filelakeshoe 16:36, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
      • Ozolinsh has no diacritics. I think you mean it is not simply the removal of diacritics that makes it English. There must be a variation of opinion on the acceptability of transliteration. Because the article on Ozolinsh is under his birth spelling. ʘ alaney2k ʘ (talk) 17:04, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
        • Ozolinsh is most likely where it is because of how frustrated most people got with these discussions a few years back and everything was pushed as far as possible in both directions. We should probably move him back. Its the absolute wiping out of diacritics that is currently the issue. Currently the originator of this thread has been trying to wipe them off every article that uses them, consensus on the issue be dammed. -DJSasso (talk) 17:08, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
• On a side note, Czech Wikipedia attempted to resolve a similar problem, using the feminin surname suffix -ová (a standard component/suffix of female surnames in the Czech language) in foreign female names. The debate was creative, editors defended all possible stances.[10] The Institute of the Czech Language of the Academy of Sciences CR even issued a special statement, defending the Czech language as a naturally inflective language. However, the statement included the following recommendation: "In an encyclopedia, it is appropriate for users to get information about the original form of a proper name".[11] But it is Czech language, a different venue, a different problem. Vejvančický (talk | contribs) 09:55, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

We cannot present material that would expose the ignorant, for that would fail to provide balance between knowledge and ignorance. As an encyclopedia we need to strive for balance. The goal must therefore be the LCD. — kwami (talk) 11:38, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

@Vejvančický, Agreed, the feminine surname suffix should be observed, that English does not decline its nouns does not mean we force the masculine form of a surname.

Vejvančický was making an analogy to a similar issue on Czech Wikipedia, not an issue whether we should spell Martina Navratilová as Martina Navratil, but whether on cs.wiki they should spell J.K. Rowling as J.K. Rowlingová. It's quite a similar issue to this diacritics thing. I guess in the same way Czech is a naturally inflective language, English is a naturally xenophobic language. - filelakeshoe 15:28, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification, Filelakeshoe. --Vejvančický (talk | contribs) 16:03, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

@Kwamikagami, I am sorry, I cannot agree with "lowest common denominator." "Balance" means we write in accessible language, not that we dumb down proper names. You should have more faith in the intellectual capacity of the average reader. PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 12:58, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

I am relatively sure that Kwamikagami was making a joke. Of course in the context of this insane debate the usual assumption that anything that is too outrageously stupid to be possibly a serious statement must be a joke doesn't make much sense, so I am not totally sure. Hans Adler 15:23, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

I'd hope so, but in case it was semi-serious, I'll once again point to Simple English Wikipedia, where editors scared of diacritics, too long words, technical jargon, and such, can find safe refuge. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 17:38, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

As an admin there I would point out we tend to use them there ironically. -DJSasso (talk) 17:41, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Excuse me, but editors who wish dios to go away, are not dummies. Therefore, please stop characterizing them directly or indirectly as such. GoodDay (talk) 17:46, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

As opposed to you who has been over and over assuming bad faith of anyone from a country whose primary language isn't English? -DJSasso (talk) 17:47, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Calling editors like me 'dummies', is just another example of the pro-diacritics crowd's arrogance about their precious wiggly sqigglies. GoodDay (talk) 17:49, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

No one called you a dummy. This is just another example of your assuming bad faith of everyone who disagrees with you. -DJSasso (talk) 17:51, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

"I'll once again point to Simple English Wikipedia, where editors scared of diacritics, too long words, technical jargon, and such, can find safe refuge" by Piotrus. That's a poor choice of wording. GoodDay (talk) 17:54, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

And how is that different than you pointing people to the Czech wiki for example? Most of the people who have argued against diacritics have done so stating they are too complex. So it is perfectly valid to point to a the simple english version of wikipedia where things aren't too complex. Although he was incorrect because they actually use diacritics. -DJSasso (talk) 17:58, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

As an administrator, you should be advising both sides to use moderation, not just the side you're against. GoodDay (talk) 18:03, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

I am not acting as an administrator since I am actively involved in this topic. I am acting as any regular editor. If you want an uninvolved admin to decide if you or both of you are out of order I can certainly go ask for one. I am just pointing out that you are making this discussion far too personal. Step back and be objective. -DJSasso (talk) 18:06, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

I'm merely stating, if the otherside knocks off the 'intellectual put downs', I'll stay away from the 'linguistic pride' accusations. GoodDay (talk) 18:10, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

What pride? I am not "proud" that Polish has diacritics. This is just a fact of life, just like English has letters we don't use (q, x and v) - but we will use them on Polish Wikipedia in relevant topics (pl:Quebec, pl:Vincent van Gogh, pl:Xanadu (oprogramowanie)). And of course we accept diacritics that don't exist in Polish (pl:Würzburg). It is just surprising to me that a few people who are supposed to write an encyclopedia, a work of reference, by default discussing many subjects unknown to most, would argue that we should dumb down articles on foreign subjects. IF this was a common rule in English publications and encyclopedias, it is one thing. But as have been shown, English works are split on the use, and other encyclopedias simply use them without any arguments. This makes it clear that the argument "diacritics are not used in English" is false, leaving only the "diacritics are unknown to most and confusing." Well, though, this is an encyclopedia, and it covers many subject that are unknown to one. The solution is hardly to remove the topics - or dumb down the articles by removing things like diacritics. I am sure we could find people who are confused by graphs, headings, edit buttons, hyperlinks, footnotes, templates... but we don't pander to them. I see no reason why our treatment of diacritics should be any different. So if there is any "pride", I think it is some misguided pride of the part of English language purists, who don't want to see signs they consider non-English; pride that is obviously misguided, as many modern English-language books and encyclopedias illustrate quite clearly. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 19:18, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

I really think this round in circles stuff needs to stop, GoodDay has already expressed on his talk page that nothing is going to make him "change his opinions". We might as well be trying to convince a brick wall that diacritics are used in English. - filelakeshoe 19:27, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

True, this (including some comments of mine, perhaps) was getting a bit repetitive, and thus, annoyingly unhelpful. In that case, I'd suggest we move on to discussing how the wording could be changed, see if a change would be acceptable (stable), and if there is still a dissenting group (individual...) who would revert such a change, hold a straw poll to determine consensus (majority's opinion). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 19:30, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Basically I think the problem here lies not solely with diacritics, it lies with the "common name" policy being followed absolutely to the letter based on slack research such as "number of google hits" or "a quick look at google news results". As I just said today on Talk:Slavia Prague, following "use the most common name used by English speakers" is insane (read my comments in the discussion), there has to be some kind of balance between common names and correct names, so sure, Caffeine and not 1,3,7-trimethyl-1H-purine-2,6(3H,7H)-dione, but Fellatio rather than Blowjob, Manchester United F.C. rather than Man United and Cattle rather than Cow. By this token it follows that we should use Vladimír Búřil, because it's verifiable and clear that his name is Vladimír Búřil. This "xxx google hits say this name is more common" argument should be used with more caution. - filelakeshoe 19:42, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Especially when WP:DIACRITICS specifically mentions that google hits are an unreliable method for judgment because optical character recognition errors often miss diacritics thus deflating the numbers. Clearly consensus here is to rewrite to make clear that diacritics are valid but the question is how to do that in an efficient way. -DJSasso (talk) 19:47, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

I think it would be better to get an uninvolved admin or two in to judge consensus, as I know I've been getting a bit worked up with all the linguistic misconceptions and such... - filelakeshoe 19:50, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

The entire "uninvolved admin" concepts is scary; how can we be sure that the admin has no - subcontious, even - take on that? I'd rather see proposals (one or more) for modification, one for keeping the policy as it is, and see some votes. This will much more clearly show where the consensus lies. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 20:20, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

That would work - a "users who endorse this view" style RfC. I don't know enough about the relevant processes to know how to properly go about this.. - filelakeshoe 20:27, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

I wonder if an administrator ruling can be applied? Perhaps, the best course is to merely take things one RM at a time. GoodDay (talk) 20:24, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Oh of course. I just meant that out of about 30 editors in the discussion only 4 were outright against using them and one said he had no problem with them in titles but not in the rest of the article. So it seemed pretty clear cut. Of course an outsider would have to make the final call. I just meant we should come up with some options for how to word it since we seem to be headed that way. -DJSasso (talk) 20:26, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Replying to both of you, RM is the reason we are discussing this here. It is my understanding that RMs commonly succeed in moving articles from diacritic-less titles to ones with diacritic, and this RfC was started by a user who was unhappy with this, seeing the RMs as going against our policy. We can just close this discussion and do nothing, but I think it would be better if we just faced the facts (and the consensus of majority), and clarified the rules that diacritics are accepted, to prevent some users being confused and claiming that "diacritics have no place on Wikipedia". It is clear, from common use on Wikipedia, that they do have such a place. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 21:26, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

We should go by the RM route. GoodDay (talk) 21:57, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

The RM route is ongoing all the time. We need to go beyond it, and improve it by updating policy to prevent false arguments from being used in RMs. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 22:38, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Everyone has a different view on what's 'false arguments', though. GoodDay (talk) 22:43, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Well that is the point of this discussion, we are coming to a consensus of what that is. -DJSasso (talk) 23:18, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

That's quite likely an impossibility. GoodDay (talk) 23:51, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Consensus is not unanimity. There is no liberum veto on Wikipedia - so I think we will reach an agreement... --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 00:41, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Maybe. GoodDay (talk) 01:11, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Hans argumentation above, DJSasso make that 31 v 4. --Stefan ^talk 01:38, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

This entire argument is tl;dr. I weighed in a couple weeks ago, I think, but just don't have time to follow all the bickering. To reiterate my own position: Article titles should reflect common English usage, as indicated in the majority of English-language sources. Speaking as someone who does a lot of work with disambiguation pages, I would also say that diacritics are often a pain in the you-know-what. I can type about 130 wpm, but when I run into a diacritic, it slows me down to a snail's pace as I have to squint at the hundreds of possible choices and track down the correct one, or switch to copy/pasting rather than typing. Given a choice, I prefer non-diacritic titles. However, if a name is routinely spelled with diacritics in English-language sources, I can, and do, adapt. I do not, however, support the idea of spelling names in a native language just because "that's the way it's supposed to be spelled". What's next, changing all the names of the Chinese biography articles to native Chinese? That would make searching, linking, categorizing, and navigation a nightmare. In any case, moving forward on this discussion, perhaps a straw poll would be a good idea, to make sure we're getting opinions from lots of editors, and not just those that have the time to engage in these endless discussions? --Elonka 15:44, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

"Straw poll" on what exactly? I mean, what would editors have to decide between? - filelakeshoe 15:54, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

It's best to go the RM route. An overall ruling across English Wikipedia, would likely be un-accepted, no matter what the result. GoodDay (talk) 16:01, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Yes, Elonka I realized you did. You were one of the ones I counted as not liking them. Diacritics and Chinese characters are two very different situations. One uses a different alphabet/character set whereas in the case being discussed they are using the same alphabet. Is still readable to everyone, doesn't lose any information, makes the wiki more accurate. I fail to see where causing an editor to slow from 130 wpm to a snails pace is an actual problem. Our standard is to be the best possible wiki for the readers, not the editors. So slowing down an editor in my view isn't a problem at all if it helps the reader which I think adding relevant information does. -DJSasso (talk) 16:15, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

There's no diacritics in the english alphabet. GoodDay (talk) 16:17, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

There are no diacritics in any alphabet. As has been mentioned to you time and again diacritics are part of the orthography of a language. Most of the languages we are talking about all use the same Latin Alphabet. A few of them add a few letters or remove a few letters. But the diacritics come from the orthography, so every time you say there is no diacritics in the english alphabet you make yourself look like a fool. -DJSasso (talk) 16:20, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Let the other alphabets worry about diacritics, I'm concerned with the english alphabet. Meanwhile, the RM route is our best choice. Either that or English Wikipedia should be split in two -- English Wikipedia (New World) -i.e no dios & English Wikipedia (Old World) - ie. dios. GoodDay (talk) 16:25, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

There is no such thing as the English alphabet as its own entity, it is just the Latin Alphabet. It would help that if you are going to be so anti-diacritics that you atleast learn about the topic you are so vigorously fighting. -DJSasso (talk) 16:27, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

There's no & never will be a consensus on this topic across the entire English Wikipedia. The RM route, though time consuming, is the best route. Arbitrary page moves by either side is disruptive by its arrogant nature & should be discouraged. GoodDay (talk) 16:37, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Repeating your opinion dozens of times without actually providing any arguments, as soon as you realise that you may be on the losing side, is a bad and disruptive habit. Please drop it. What you are proposing is a huge waste of time, simply for the purpose of pushing through your desired change to some extent locally when there is clearly no general consensus for it. Hans Adler 18:20, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Please follow Elonka's advise. GoodDay (talk) 18:52, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Please follow the many (I am sure its got to be closing in on 100 now) editors that have told you not to repeat one liners like this over and over and over again. We heard you the first time. If you don't have any new arguments to provide just stop writing. Or heck any arguments period other than I don't like them. -DJSasso (talk) 18:59, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Ease off the harrassing. GoodDay (talk) 19:08, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Can we please try to keep comments focused on the topic, and not on other editors. Saying "you look like a fool" is not helpful to this discussion. As for the comment about "best possible wiki", we are not talking about removing diacritics from the wiki as a whole, we are just talking about article titles. If someone has a name with diacritics (or Chinese, or Arabic), we can and should put that information in the lead paragraph of the article. It's just the title that should stick with "common English" spelling, as defined by majority usage in English-language sources. --Elonka 16:42, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

I don't mind dios in the lead paragraph, if the article title is devoid of dios. That's assuming having it english in the lead with the dios version next to it in brackets is rejected. GoodDay (talk) 16:49, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

It's not the majority of English sources that matters for us. Quality matters more than quantity. The lower segment of newspapers such as the Daily Mail seems to drop accents and replace any 'un-English' or 'un-American' letters consistently. Quality newspapers such as the New York Times or the Guardian do it sometimes but not consistently. As I have shown, the Chicago Manual of Style does not recommend doing it. (I don't have access to the book itself; maybe someone can look up whether it says something helpful about the matter.) And serious encyclopedias such as Britannica consistently use proper names from Latin-based languages in their original form and use romanizations involving diacritics, where appropriate, as in Brāhmī. (With some exceptions. Britannica replaces ß by ss, for example, as is done routinely even by German speakers in Switzerland, and it replaces þ by th. But it dinstinguishes correctly between the first names of Thorbjørn Egner and Thorbjörn Fälldin, for example.) Given that English dictionaries list words such as exposé with an accent, I simply won't buy that Britannica is in error when it uses diacritics in titles. Hans Adler 18:20, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Hans, can you point me to where you've shown that CMoS supports diacritics? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 18:58, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

It was in two links to "Chicago Style Q&A" in my longest post. To quote from them: "In any case, it is not true that English is without accents. I would guess that accents were often dropped in published material many years ago because of the extra difficulty of typesetting them—especially in the case of a word like façade (Webster’s prefers facade but allows façade; American Heritage prefers façade but allows facade). On that basis, I would guess that in the future, accents will become more rather than less common in English." [12] "Assuming that the readers are to be primarily English-speaking, I’ll follow Webster’s 11th Collegiate Dictionary, which lists Iguaçú first (though Iguazú is listed also, as an equal variant; Chicago usually picks the first-listed term and sticks with it)." [13] Hans Adler 19:11, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Meanwhile I actually found a way to access the Chicago Manual of Style from home.

• Some example sentences speak for themselves: "He is a member of the Société d'entraide des membres de l'ordre national de la Légion d'honneur."
• But it gets more explicit elsewhere: "Any foreign words, phrases or titles that occur in an English-language work should be checked for special characters -- that is, letters with accents [...], diphthongs, ligatures, and other alphabetical forms that do not normally occur in English. Most accented letters used in European languages [...] can easily be reproduced in print from an author's software and need no coding. [...] If type is to be set from an author's hard copy, marginal clarifications may be needed for handwritten accents or special characters (e.g., 'oh with grave accent' or 'Polish crossed el'). If a file is being prepared for an automated typesetting system or for presentation in electronic form (or both), special characters must exist or be 'enabled' in the typesetting and conversion programs, and output must be carefully checked to ensure that the characters appear correctly."
• The following on typesetting French is particularly interesting: "Although French publishers often omit accents on capital letters [...] they should appear where needed in English works, especially in works whose readers may not be familiar with French typographic usage." (My italics.)
• And on romanization: "Nearly all systems of transliteration require diacritics [...]. Except in linguistic studies or other highly specialized works, a system using as few diacritics as are needed to aid pronunciation is easier to readers, publisher, and author. [e.g. Shiva not Śiva, Vishnu not Viṣṇu] Transliterated forms without diacritics that are listed in any of the Merriam-Webster dictionaries are acceptable in most contexts."

Unfortunately I am afraid we will still continue to read that using diacritics in English text is just plain wrong... Hans Adler 22:26, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

The question is: are there non-diacritics versions of these diacritized names, being used in english. The answer is yes, so use the non-diacritized version. This is how non-english names should be adopted to English Wikipedia. GoodDay (talk) 18:44, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

And can you prove to me that this simplified English is the correct English? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 18:59, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Can you proove to me that diacritics usage is best? GoodDay (talk) 19:08, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

It's the status quo and it's what the other encyclopedias do. You will have to prove that not using them is best, if you want to change the practice. Hans Adler 19:13, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

"...it's what the other wikipedias do", is not a good argument. I tried that argument with Infobox headings & it was rejected. GoodDay (talk) 19:35, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

He didn't say what other wikipedias do. He said what other encyclopedias do. The two are very different things. -DJSasso (talk) 19:43, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

(ec) To you? No you have already said you refuse to accept any evidence shown to you no matter what. There is a tonne of evidence given down below and above in the discussion. Rational open minded people would look at that and probably draw the conclusion that it is a good thing or at least be open to the fact that it might be. You however, have declared numerous times that no matter how much proof you are given that your mind won't change. -DJSasso (talk) 19:14, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

If an RM ends in favour of dios, I would respect the result (even though I wouldn't like it). I haven't been reverting any pro-dios page movements which were done arbitrarily. I'm not known as a page-move warrior. Anyways, If ya'll try and force something across the entire English Wikipedia, it'll be a recipe for disaster. GoodDay (talk) 19:20, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

No one is forcing anything. This is a discussion. This is how things work on the wiki. This is how change happens. And as you can see from the large discussion above this is already common practice on the wiki, so really I would doubt there would be much disaster since its already what happens the majority of the time. -DJSasso (talk) 19:23, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

I hope you're right. GoodDay (talk) 19:25, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Specific proposals to change the wording of the policy

I agree that this discussion is tl;dr, and likely going in circles. Some have asked "what can we do?"; well, if you scroll up, up and up to my mid-April post (#Conflict between usage and policy wording), you see my proposed wording change. I'd like to suggest that we move to discussing the specific wording change(s), in proposal's like my new one below. Let's not vote yet, let's see if we can hash out one (or more) wordings that have some support, then we can put them up for a straw poll. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 18:58, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Proposal 1 (Piotrus)

Current wording reads:

The use of modified letters (such as accents or other diacritics) in article titles is neither encouraged nor discouraged

I am proposing a change to:

The use of modified letters (such as accents or other diacritics) in article titles is common, and thus encouraged.

Note that this by no means overrules WP:NCGN (I thought I should state the obvious).

Brief summary of the rationale for that change:

• arguments that diacritics are "confusing" are personal, and there is no proof that diacritics are confusing any more than footnotes, hyperlinks, categories, images, and other elements seen on Wikipedia;
• usage of diacritics is inconsistent in the outside-Wikipedia English publications. Linguistic publications on the English language and diacritics show no consensus, neither. To repeat a quote from a reliable, lingustic source: "For foreign words that have become common in English, no simple rules can be given for when to retain an accent, or diacritic, and when to drop it. The language is in flux. ... Accents and diacritics should be retained in foreign place names (such as São Paulo, Göttingen, and Córdoba) and personal names (such as Salvador Dalí, Molière, and Karel Čapek).". At the very least, this proves that there is no consensus in English language practitioners on the use of diacritics. Hence, argument that "English doesn't have diacritics" is false (just as, to be fair, "English has diacritics" would be);
• usage of diacritics is, however, the rule in other English-language encyclopedias (Britannica, Columbia, Encarta);
• usage of diacritics is easily found in English-language newspapers (Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Telegraph, Guardian, Independent, Economist and Irish Times), academic works (Changing the Perception of the Post-Socialist City: Place Promotion and Imagery in Łódź, Poland) and books (Ghettostadt: Łódź and the making of a Nazi city)
• usage of diacritics is also increasingly common in those works;
• finally, usage of diacritics is established practice on Wikipedia;

Therefore, I believe it is time to recognize the trends in - so we may as well make it officially sanctioned by the policy (just look at Category:Polish people stubs or Category:Villages in Lower Saxony or many others).

Perhaps, the above rationale could be included in the article, too, although it would be nice to see some more proof for some of those claims.

This clarification is needed to stop time waste (WP:DEADHORSE...) that occurs when some editors try to move a an article or a small group from a title with diacritics to one without, or object to a move in the opposite direction. Such objection happens to a few new articles, as all established articles have been moved to a diacritic-using name long ago.

Please note that this is a thread to refine the proposed wording change and arguments behind it, so let's keep "I don't like dios" "arguments" out of it. Thoughts? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 18:58, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Oppose We should stick with the RM route, even though it's time consuming. I wish to point out that as far as diacritics go, I haven't been moving pages & am quite capable of accepting an RM ruling, even when it favour dios. GoodDay (talk) 19:04, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Support I support this proposal. It describes current practice through most of the wiki and I agree with most of the reasoning you list in your various links. Guidelines/Policy are supposed to describe practice not prescribe practice so the guideline clearly needs to be fixed to reflex what actually happens on the wiki. It would definitely help stop a very large time sink. -DJSasso (talk) 19:20, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Comment The following clause in the sentence in question currently reads "when deciding between versions of a name which differ in the use or non-use of modified letters, follow the general usage in English reliable sources (for example other encyclopedias and reference works)." To encourage the use of a specific spelling and immediately afterwards refer to general usage is somewhat contradictory in the case where general usage does not follow that spelling (and if general usage does use the spelling with modified letters, then the proposed changes are redundant). Regarding the broader point, I think it is important to keep in mind that if there is evidence that the subject has adopted a different spelling of its name, then it is appropriate to adopt this spelling, regardless of how the name is spelled in its original language. The proposed change does not take this into account. isaacl (talk) 20:31, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

This seems like something that is too detailed for this policy and should be added to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (biographies). I do agree that if we can show that the subject has dropped diacritics from their name, we should use the version preferred by the subject. Although this may be better discussed elsewhere; subject's preferences are not always taken into account (consider Casimir Pulaski). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 21:09, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

It goes beyond people names; for example, I don't know if NASA gave official translations of the term "space shuttle", but if it did, then they should be given precedence. I don't believe this policy should provide a blanket encouragement of a specific form of spelling, as each case has its own set of circumstances. It would be better to provide guidance on how to weigh if sources are reliably reporting the spelling of a subject in English. (Unfortunately, this is a pretty difficult task to do in general.) isaacl (talk) 21:34, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Right, but this discussion is about people. A name for a person is very much a different thing than a term used for an object or company. And object/company won't for example be insulted by an incorrect spelling of their name. Which is one of the issues people have with the removal of diacritics when it comes to BLPs. There will be exceptions as mentioned where a person goes by a different name, and that can be dealt with on a case by case basis. However, we should be encouraging the name in its proper form for atleast the title in the case of people unless there is a common form. (different from just removing the diacritics) I would note we aren't actually talking about the translations of names, pretty much everyone agrees if there is a translated name then we use that. This change is meant to make it clear that removing diacritics isn't a translation. -DJSasso (talk) 21:49, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

"removing diacritics isn't a translation". You hit the nail on its head. This should be added to the policy, too. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 22:00, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

I was replying to Piotrus who was indicating that the proposed changes went beyond just people's names. You and I know the intent is not to cover cases where someone has translated their name (whether or not the translation involves a dropping of diacritics or something more elaborate), but the proposed change does not make this clear. Wikipedia editors shouldn't be translating names on their own without reference to reliable sources, period, so I suggest that be made clear. isaacl (talk) 22:05, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

I certainly have no problem rewording the proposal if you can think of a better way to word it. But I do think this general change needs to be made. -DJSasso (talk) 22:08, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Addressing the original question for this section, I suggest making it clear that the policy on common names does not prohibit the use of modified letters:

Wikipedia policy is neutral on using modified letters (such as accents or other diacritics) in article titles; when deciding between versions of a name which differ in the use or non-use of modified letters, in accordance with Wikipedia's policy on using common names, follow the general usage in English reliable sources (for example other encyclopedias and reference works). The policy on using common names does not prohibit the use of modified letters, if they are used in the common name.

isaacl (talk) 23:00, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

I think of it not as a change but as a codification of what we have been doing for years. And of course it applies to all proper names, not just people's names. All style guides that I have seen treat personal names, geographic names, titles of books etc. in the same way. Except that for personal names the Economist style guide says one should use the version preferred by the person, if the person gives any guidance. Hans Adler 22:31, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

I do not support the proposed codification, to use your term, that appears in its current form to unconditionally favour the use of diacritics, since errors can happen both ways. For example, I believe there are articles on Major League Baseball players who have had diacritics added in error to their names. I can imagine there could be cases where Spanish language newspapers would have spelled these names incorrectly, so there would be (otherwise) reliable sources with the wrong spelling. Editors should be seeking clarification in all cases, not assuming that the spelling with diacritics is always correct. isaacl (talk) 22:45, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

We already have policy for that its WP:V. No one is saying anything has to be assumed. You still have to have sources that show you their name is spelled with them. Nowhere in the change are we suggesting otherwise. All that is changing is the reliance only on English sources which are often wrong. There are always errors in some sources, but it isn't up to this policy to solve that issue, that is what WP:RS is for. This is purely a naming convention page. -DJSasso (talk) 22:51, 11 June 2011 (UTC)