Wikipedia:Requested moves/Tennis

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This is a subpage of Wikipedia:Requested moves, from which a set of proposals and long discussion on them have been moved in order to reduce traffic on that page.
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

The result of this discussion was do not move. Gwen Gale (talk) 00:24, 8 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Tennis-player-related proposals[edit]

  • Françoise Durr → Francoise Durr —(Discuss)— The name of this article should be changed to "Francoise Durr" because that is the name used on the English-language websites of the official governing bodies of tennis, the Women's Tennis Association and the International Tennis Federation. That also is the name used on the English-language websites of the International Tennis Hall of Fame and Fed Cup. That is the name used in Hollander, Zander; Collins, Bud (1994). Bud Collins' Modern Encyclopedia of Tennis. Detroit, MI: Visible Ink Press. p. 468. ISBN 0-8103-9443-X. Finally, that is the name used on the English-language website of the US Open: women's doubles, mixed doubles. See current English-language Wikipedia policy (WP:UE). --Tennis expert (talk) 05:24, 5 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion[edit]

Please read User talk:Tennis expert#Mass page moves before even starting to deal with these. Squash Racket (talk) 10:54, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Please also read Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Massive tennis page moves. Thank you. Squash Racket (talk) 11:16, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Can Tennis expert point to examples on the websites mentioned above where diacritics are used? Angus McLellan (Talk) 23:07, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
With respect to any person listed above, I am not aware of any source listed for that person as having used diacritics when referring to that person. Tennis expert (talk) 02:36, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
That wasn't what I asked. The answer, it seems, is "no, the sites do not use diacritics". So they aren't much use in determining whether we should use diacritics. Mark me down as oppose as we have no reason not to write peoples' names correctly and you have no real evidence that diacritics are not used. Such evidence would require that the sites in question did, sometimes, write names correctly. But they never do it seems. Angus McLellan (Talk) 11:12, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose This will be long - sadly, it'll be my only opportunity to contribute, as I have exams for three days. These are part of a WikiProject's attempt (Tennis, I believe) to move away from well-established norms in the use of diacritics. Part of, as over the last 2 weeks, 82 of them were renamed unexpectedly - 68 of them in one day alone a few days ago. I and other admins saw these and reverted them accordingly. I am curious to know if the nominator intends to create sections for all of the others, and if so, why it cannot be addressed as a group nomination - if there's one thing this debate doesn't need more of, it's fragmentation.
These articles had been named accordingly either for about 2 years in most instances, and most of them (especially those of French and Spanish origin, which have contained common diacritics) have never even been controversial. The unexpected mass page moves caused some disquiet, especially since discussion which has proceeded for some eight months (and got absolutely nowhere, as each side is resolute in their views) has been fragmented on the topic and this particular discussion, which resulted in a "consensus" to move, was in contradiction to other discussions where this was the view only of a loud minority, and none of them were informed of this one until the mass move began.
Much of it rests on an overenthusiastic interpretation of WP:UE, which is a style guideline and not policy, and ignores the need to establish a widespread consensus on a topic, and also ignores the fact we are an international community and our first aim should be to be correct wherever possible. In conversations with non-English-native editors, particularly from Eastern Europe, some months ago I came to the conclusion that there is an ethnocentric streak to the moves - every one of the current names is the correct name of the players, there is no controversy as to that, just that some argue we should be using the ATP site to determine "correct". In many cases, the diacritics mark pronunciation, and the so-called "correct" ATP versions (which are from any linguistic sense totally incorrect as a result) are a large part of the reason for mispronunciation of tennis players' names in the media. For example "STEP-a-neck" instead of "shteh-PAH-nek" (the latter is obvious from the correct spelling). Navrátilová is a fantastic example where the spelling tells you how to pronounce it but the omission of them ends up with "nav-ratty-LOW-va" instead of "nav-RAT-ill-oh-VAH" (the correct pronunciation, as any Czech can tell you). Countering systemic bias therefore not only makes sense in community-building on this issue, but also meets my common sense test.
Two other related points - when I type "cafe" or "resume" into Word, it assumes they are errors and fixes them to "café" and "résumé". And Britannica's article for Björn Borg, one of the tennis players, as was pointed out to me the other day, contains the diacritic not only in the title but throughout the article [1] - in complete violation of the supposed ATP standard [2]. What certain commonly used websites in the English-speaking world choose to do as part of their style guide is their business, but we should not blindly follow for no apparent reason - I remember cases of this in unrelated examples elsewhere. They're not responsible for our content, just as we are not for theirs.
Redirects are very cheap indeed and I am not against their use one bit - we use them elsewhere to link common or erroneous spellings to their correct subject. Additionally, as various people from the affected countries have commented, why should we have one standard for tennis players and another for everything else from the region? Unless Wikipedia (and I mean a proper discussion, not just a few people on some project) decides to remove diacritics entirely from Wikipedia and enshrine it in policy, I and no doubt many others will not support this. Orderinchaos 12:54, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You are not addressing why the English-language usage of the Olympics, International Tennis Federation, the Association of Tennis Professionals, the Women's Tennis Association, the Davis Cup, Fed Cup, Wimbledon, the French Open, the US Open, and the International Tennis Hall of Fame (among many others) should be ignored in favor of the usage of a general purpose encyclopedia like Britannica or, more troubling, to avoid disquiet among some Wikipedia editors and labels of ethnocentrism.
I currently intend to nominate articles here for renaming one-by-one, as others have recommended. The links to support renaming for each article are unique, as you can see by clicking on them. By the way, we already tried the group discussion thing. That discussion ran its course, with consensus among participants to rename the articles. The renaming was done, only to have late comers object and then unilaterally revert the renamings with incivility, name calling, and promises of blocks to anyone who resisted: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. Correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is that this page is not where the debate (if any) should occur. Rather, the debate should be on the discussion page of each article proposed for renaming. Tennis expert (talk) 16:50, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per Order in chaos. I wouldn't say it better - Darwinek (talk) 13:20, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support per nomination. It is not because I oppose diacritics, but because I believe that on the English wiki, one should use names that are commonly used in English sources (per WP:Verify). So café is fine with me, if that is established usage. Note that lenghty discussions about Novak Djokovic lead to the adoption of the English spelling (which the tennis player also uses on his own web page). These can be found here and here. We should use recognizable names, not names that are intended to educate or used because they are "correct" (we use Vienna instead of Wien; an example shoving that this is not particularly about diacritics). So what spelling various web pages and other organizations use, are by no means irrelevant. Are random wiki editors' personal wishes a better metric? I think not. --HJensen, talk 13:36, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Vienna/Wien's a bit of a red herring, as are most European city names, as there was 4 centuries of English language literature referring to them prior to the development of a popular media. Tennis players - not quite the same situation. The names are recognisable, and like I said, redirects are cheap. Birth names, by the way, are not "random wiki editors' personal wishes" - they're as factual as any other name, having been certified in their home country. Re Djoković, that was in every way a classic example of how not to conduct a rational debate - it nearly went to ArbCom at one point. In the end it was debated over and over to an extent that wore down most neutral editors and the smaller group got their way. Orderinchaos 13:55, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
No it is not. It is a valid example. But what you are saying is then that you are content with "Djokovic" in 400 years? Finally, your representation of the debate on that page appears rather derogatory. Could you please back up your claim that it was "a smaller group" that "got their way"? If you look at the talk page archives you will see that whenever there was a vast majority for English spelling, one or two editors popped up from nowhere and disrupted the process (overturning admins' page moves etc.) accusing other editors for being oppressive and imperialistic and other incivil stuff. (And when speaking of "random wiki editors' personal wishes", I, of course, did not mean their wishes about native spellings, but their wishes on which spelling to use on the English wikipedia — sorry if that didn't come out clear.) --HJensen, talk 19:35, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per Order in Chaos. Some further reasons:
  • their friends, family members and trainers are NOT listed at ATP/WTA, the articles would look quite awkward with different spellings from the same country/language region
  • some players really moved to the United States/Great Britain and have an Anglicised name after becoming naturalized citizens. After leaving diacritics it would be more difficult to identify who is American and who is not.
Squash Racket (talk) 14:01, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose, per Orderinchaos, but request that the nominations be withdrawn as an mass nomination which didn't set up a centralized discussion area, which should not be here. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 14:13, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There has already been a discussion on the move of those pages based on our policy and guidelines (here). It was open for + 8 days and there were links on talk pages of most, if not all, articles to be affected. This is an attempt to circumvent what was decided there. Second of all, the points being made here are the exact same-old quite appropriately listed on Wikipedia:Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions, which apply entirely, namely "I don't like it", "Wikipedia should be about everything", "just a guideline" and "it doesn't do any harm [because there are redirects]". None of which is valid to justify superseding the English language on the English-language Wikipedia. We have a widely used, different-from-native spelling used throughout the English speaking world, and that is verifiable. Whether those people's families, fellow countrymen or,least of all, Wikipedians think about it personally is of absolutely no consequence in making this determination. We need something verifiable that indicates that, in the English-speaking world — and not in Serbia, Croatia, Russia or China — there is no spelling different-from-native that is preferred and widely used. In the case of tennis players, that would be difficult to imagine, for obvious reasons. Redux (talk) 16:23, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I still maintain that a WikiProject discussion can't really circumvent or short-circuit a wider debate on policy. As far as I know, none of the people involved in the debates late last year on this topic were contacted, and the debate was certainly not brought into any public forum for discussion. (And the point re Russia and China is completely irrelevant, as neither uses a Latin alphabet, so an ISO or Pinyin transliteration is used, and these do not use diacritics as they were designed for use in English.) Orderinchaos 16:37, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Firstly, it wasn't a "WikiProject discussion". It was an open, public discussion for all-who-wanted-to to participate. That is precisely why links were posted on numerous articles' talk pages. The talk page of WikiProject:Tennis is as public as any other page on Wikipedia, and the numerous links spreaded over numerous articles' talk pages were meant to make sure that as many people as possible would be made aware of it via ethical means. Contacting people personally and "drafting" them to participate in a consensus-building discussion is canvassing and it is something we should not actually be doing, which is why it wasn't done. There is no "obligatory presence" for a discussion to be valid.
Secondly, you missed my point entirely regarding the China/Russia example (which is all those two really even were: examples of a situation applicable to any other country in the world that does not have English as its national language). The point refers to the English-speaking world, which is an objective term, and the fact that it is irrelevant to verify that a different spelling is preferred in other parts of the world for the purpose of determining the spelling to be used on the English-language Wikipedia. Redux (talk) 17:13, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
English is, probably alongside French, the only major language where a majority of fluent or competent speakers are not first-language speakers and do not live in a country or region where it is a majority language. The "English-speaking world", therefore, is quite a wide place with a bizarre array of norms and a surprising amount of flexibility. I'm all for that, personally - it gives the English Wikipedia and sister projects the scope to become the most diverse and inclusive environment within the Wikimedia sphere of operation. I think also that normative statements should be avoided in this discussion, especially due to the risk of unintentional ethnocentrism. Orderinchaos 18:43, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
But the number of English speakers whose native language is any given one of these languages is much smaller than that, and smaller than those whose native language is English. Our principal mission is, and must be, to serve monoglot anglophones, who have no other Wikipedia; readers who can profit from cs:Jana Novotná and so on should feel free to do so. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:29, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry, but you are overreaching. "English-speaking world" refers to the parts of the world where English is either a native language or an official language — in the very Wikipedia article I linked, you will even find a map indicating what, in the mapa mundi, is the "English-speaking world". The term was not invented on Wikipedia, but rather it is an established expression. It is irrelevant to assume that foreigners tend to know grammar or even the basics of the language better than natives. Claiming "ethnocentrism" to justify why the English language should be superseded on the English-langage Wikipedia, in this context, holds as much merit as claiming that this article on the Hungarian-language Wikipedia should be titled "William II of England" — being that a regnal name is also the "official" name by which this person is known in his native language/country. And most especially because it not us, on Wikipedia, who decided or created the different spelling in English, we merely verify that it exists and abide by it. If the very act of coming up with a alternate spelling is right or wrong, it is not for us to say. That would be original research and a point of view. The fact remains that the preferred spelling exists, it is widely used and it is verifiable. For more commentary on this topic, please refer to the already-mentioned discussion on the tennis biographies, and especially to the page Wikipedia:Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions (notably, "Wikipedia should be about everything"), which, again, apply exactly here. Redux (talk) 20:29, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Precisely. These should properly be considered case by case; some of Tennisexpert's evidence is fairly weak; but we should not be swayed by any ethnocentrism, including the ethnocentrism of members of a non-English language group who would prefer to misrepresent what English usage is. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:35, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Just in case there is any confusion, I am Anglo-Australian and can't speak any other language but English beyond the sort of level you'd expect from one of those travel books, although I have been told my pronunciation of written Serbian is pretty good and I can almost do the ř thing in Czech. Orderinchaos 20:59, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm glad to hear it; I can almost pronounce Dvořák myself. I am also glad to see this unfortunate discussion end in the admission that admin powers should not be used to enforce substantive decisions. Now can we turn to what our naming policy deems the most important consideration: what the greatest number of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature. This will be best done on separate articles. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:09, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
If naming conventions were a universally accepted policy, they wouldn't keep changing all the time, and they wouldn't end up at ArbCom more than any other single policy or guideline on Wikipedia. I refer to them only when there is an established consensus on an issue. For me, the clincher is that these are the people's real names, and that much is easily verifiable. To use a bastardised version of their names just because they play tennis, and for no other reason, is just silly. We have redirects to handle that situation and I've always supported their use in these sorts of situations. Orderinchaos 04:20, 5 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
How ironic that you start being incivil and call English names for "bastardised". Well, you should then quickly go edit this English wikipedia convention which say "If a native name has a common English-language equivalent, the English version takes precedence" to "If a native name has a common English-language equivalent, this bastardised name shoulod not be used". See for how long that will stay unchallenged. But I guess you will just call an eventual revert of such a change for a "stuff you" against you? Cheers :-) --HJensen, talk 17:16, 5 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In the case of tennis-related biographies, we determined that a widely-used version in the English-speaking world exists and is verifiable on official websites of the sport's governing bodies. They use English as their working language, and all material published in the English-speaking world, as well as material from those parts of the world that are online or televised follow that exact spelling. Not once have I, and I suspect anyone else, seen any pattern of spelling of a player such as "Radek Stepanek" differently than the version adopted officially by the ATP in English. And I say pattern, taken into account televized events, news channels both online and printed etc., in the English-speaking world (so please, don't link a a Czech newspaper article to make the point that other spellings exist).
Following our Manual of Style (naming conventions) and policies (verifiability, etc.) and plus using simply common sense, this determination is applicable to all biographies related to tennis. And I say that because tennis happens to be a sport that is widely popular in the English-speaking world, which is why is could happen (I don't know, this is for the sake of example) that the same cannot be said about, say, Cricket, which is only popular in a handful of countries, and not even throughtout the entire English-speaking world (in terms of population percentages, etc.). This is not because tennis receives some kind of "special treatment", but rather because in relation to it, and perhaps not other modalities, we are able to answer positively the 2 main questions: a)is there a different-from-native spelling preferred and used widely in the English-speaking world? and b) is that verifiable?
That said, we still need to make this verification case by case. I've been doing that. In the article Lili de Alvarez, for example, I was unable to find a profile on the official WTA website; that plus the fact that this is a player from the 1940s caused me to acknowledge that, in that case, I was unable to verify (key word) the state of any given spelling as being preferred and used widely in the English-speaking world, which causes the article title to default to the native spelling. At least until a time when evidence could be presented to that effect, which it was.
I regret immensily the treatment dispensed to Tennis expert. He started moving articles only after the discussion had concluded, and using the same parameters I was using to move articles. He did nothing wrong. In fact he helped me post the numerous notes and links to that discussion in order to let people know it was ongoing. What I see in his talk page is a post from a user who was unaware of the discussions that had taken place, and assumed, wrongly, that he was doing something out of his own, personal conviction. That was then followed by posts from a single user who happened to disagree with the decision made, and who, apparently, was also unaware of the discussions, the naming conventions and the entire situation of the case. That led to other misunderstandings and even to Tennis expert being threatened with a block for implementing policies and guidelines while backed by a previous, public discussion with consensus to move the articles.
The only truly wrong action was the personal requests to administrators, such as this, to circumvent the discussion because there "was no real consensus, at least not among administrators", which is completely wrong and highly inappropriate to have been granted. Redux (talk) 22:58, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There is no concensus not even among administrators, so I described the situation pretty well, thanks for pointing that out. I left that message after a number of pages had been moved back to their original title to ask an admin to move these too, not to "circumvent a discussion". What I find highly inappropriate and completely wrong is an edit like that suddenly becoming vandalism. And it could be foreseen that mass page moves will lead to that.
Leaving the diacritics distort the Hungarian names' pronunciation seriously, having an Anglicised name and a number of names with original spelling (friends, family members, trainers) would make look European players Americans. ATP has lists about players with their results, not encyclopedia articles mentioning people who may also have diacritics in their names. Squash Racket (talk) 04:53, 5 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Respectfully, you are misrepresenting the information included on the website of the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP). For example, I would not call this information about Roger Federer on the ATP website to be merely a list of his results. Looks encyclopedic to me. Tennis expert (talk) 05:34, 5 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Respectfully, you are misrepresenting the way the website of the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) works when we are talking about someone who is not number one. Does not look encyclopedic to me. Squash Racket (talk) 05:43, 5 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Concerning the Gael Monfils example you cited, you are clearly mistaken. Tennis expert (talk) 05:53, 5 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
True, there is something about the player, I clicked on player profile. I just don't know how to trust that "encyclopedic" information when I see this (Hungarian example from WTA site, easier to check for me): József Bocskay becomes Jozsef Bolskay and Zoltán Kuhárszky becomes Zoltan Kuharsky. These are not even Anglicised names, simply plain wrong ones.
And about other players mentioned above there still don't seem be much information at the ATP page. Squash Racket (talk) 06:16, 5 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not going to provide an ongoing list because you should be able to find the information yourself at the ATP website. But, see, e.g.: Stepanek, Taroczy, Borg (1), Borg (2), Borg (3), Ivanisevic, Nystrom (1), Nystrom (2), Tipsarevic. Tennis expert (talk) 07:13, 5 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The link I provided for Balázs Taróczy's bio (encyclopedic information) is empty, you provided a list of titles. For Nystrom also.
As I pointed out above, the official WTA site provided two names as the trainers of Ágnes Szávay, but these were not even Anglicised, simply wrong. Squash Racket (talk) 07:48, 5 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
In response to that, I was responding to an AN/I post - the first I heard of any of this in this particular round (I already have a watchlist of 3,500+, I can't watchlist *every* page I've ever communicated on or had an opinion on). I knew how controversial the topic was, and how unwise it was to move 68 articles in one go without a wider consensus. I quickly investigated the situation, was completely puzzled by how someone could call a WikiProject discussion a consensus for anything with such immense ramifications, and issued a warning. I was later to find that the situation had in fact been instigated by others and that Tennis expert had been left in a somewhat awkward situation of implementing this by himself and without backing. It didn't make his actions any more right (in a universal sense), but his good faith, his desisting from making further moves and his appeal to what he thought was higher authority (yourself) convinced me that he personally was not in the wrong per WP:DE, and I apologised to him both on his talk page and on AN/I. That being said, I had to spend a fair chunk of my Saturday afternoon, in between studying for exams, fixing this mess. Orderinchaos 04:18, 5 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not really "blaming" anyone for not being aware of the discussions held previously, it happens. Moving those pages back originally was inappropriate, but other people can and did get caught in the wake of that. And I do recognize what Orderinchaos is talking about regarding Tennis expert: there was a misunderstanding concerning Tennis expert's actions, and Orderinchaos apologized for it generously. That would appear to be no problem at all.
However, there was consensus previously reached. You might not have been aware of it, like I said, but there was. I won't simply repeat myself concerning the discussion held and why it pertains to tennis biographies, this has been explained here (in previous comments), in the original discussion and in the AN. Especially considering that the discussion was meant to get consensus for the implementation of previously-existing policies (verifiability, etc.), guidelines (MoS, notably Naming Conventions) and, if I might add, plain logical application of said policies and guidelines, a claim that the discussion held is somehow "not valid" or "insufficient" is completely without merit. It has been explained time and again why this is in reference to tennis biographies. It pertains to tennis (ok, here we go yet again) because the situation relating to tennis is of the nature I have just now explained for the 10th time. That it wouldn't apply to, say, hockey, cricket or spearfishing is exactly why discussions of that nature need to be held for each concrete situation — which should be in line with what people keep saying about case-by-case verification. So claiming that there was no consensus in not correct.
Mentioning consensus among administrators is, I'm afraid, even more wrong. Administrators are not high arbitrators of consensus. If consensus is reached in discussions — and regarding that, see my previous comment above about how the original discussion was conducted — an administrator's job is to abide by it, not decide to either sanction or overturn it.
What all of this ends up looking like, which does not mean that it is of course, and I hope that I'm completely wrong in that regard, is that when one end result is not as expected, the solution found is to discredit it and call for a "higher" or "broader" arena, where the result can be overturned. I am especialy concerned with a comment made previously in this very discussion, about people "not having been contacted" about the original discussion. What that is sounding like to me is "we should have an opportunity to call everyone who agrees with this or that point of view, and see how many heads there are on each side". Wikipedia is not a democracy, that is not how it works. There is no requirement to call any given people personally to a discussion; in fact, that is canvassing and should not, under no circumstance and under pain of voiding the very consensus reached, be done. Talk pages are meant for discussions on how to improve the project. Since we were having a centralized discussion that would affect a number of articles, notes with links were spreaded throughtout those articles, but without canvassing, which is how discussions are supposed to be held in the first place. Redux (talk) 05:46, 5 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Quote from WP:CANVAS: messages that are written to influence the outcome rather than to improve the quality of a discussion compromise the consensus building process and are generally considered disruptive. Squash Racket (talk) 06:24, 5 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Like this? The user explicitly states that s/he will use e-mail lists, so it is non-transparent, and also clearly partisan. So it fits into at least two categories defining "disruptive canvassing".--HJensen, talk 17:25, 5 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
No, I was only reflecting to that part of the comment:

to call any given people personally to a discussion; in fact, that is canvassing

Squash Racket (talk) 03:56, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
That is a quintessential example of inappropriateness and how things are not supposed to be conducted, especially since it makes it clear the intent to use an inappropriate method (canvassing via e-mail) to set in motion a process that is not even how Wikipedia works — getting people who share a point of view to increase the headcount in a vote because there is a clear personal feeling, not based on any valid criterion regarding how Wikipedia works, on the subject. Redux (talk) 20:05, 5 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Piotrus, with all due respect, the rationale you used in your comment is exactly what I have been talking about. There is simply no valid point made there. Especially since, for the 100th time, nobody is talking about "eliminating" diacritics or "hiding" away the fact that native spelling uses them. That is given in the article's opening paragraph, in the first sentence if possible. This is concerning article titles, and the situation has already been explained many times. Please refer to the original discussion, my comments above and in your own talk page. Redux (talk) 20:05, 5 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. With the exception of Marko Đ/Djoković, these are all cases of "simple" diacritics. The majority of the community has always supported using those whenever the most common spelling in English sources is simply the person's name with diacritics omitted, and our article titles reflect this practice. Similarly, we never decided to sort interwiki tags alphabetically based on the local names of the languages, but through time this became the de facto consensus. Moving, for example, Björn Borg and Joakim Nyström to diacritic-less titles when possibly all other articles about Nordic people use the letters ä, ö and å (if applicable) makes no sense to me. Departing from usual practice very rarely helps the project (Wikipedia, not WikiProject Tennis), and I can't see any convincing argument to do so in the case of tennis players either. Prolog (talk) 23:55, 5 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, a quick run-though of the arguments you used: 1) "it's a simple diacritics", in other words, "it doesn't really do any harm"; 2) Pertaining to the fact that Wikipedia is not a democracy, yet again: the community cannot decide to ignore verifiable facts that determine how the encyclopedia, because it is an encyclopedia, is written, as well as the fact that this particular version of Wikipedia is the English-language Wikipedia, where it is established that, if there exists [meaning also: must be verifiable] a different version in English (that is, used in the English-speaking world) that is widely used, that version will take precedence. We don't take votes to overturn that, and especially not based on arguments such as "doesn't do any harm" or "we need to respect x culture" (again, read above comments on policies, guidelines and applicability). And especially, never ever "the sources don't say exactly that, but we decide to do it differently to accomodate certain personal opinions". I don't think I could myself come up with a more complete example of a blatant violation of WP:NPOV, and voting on it does not validate it by any stretch of the imagination; 3) That part seems like a non sequitur: "it's not done on other projects I know of, so it shouldn't be done here as well". That is simply not the case, not to mention that this is an all-or-nothing type of reasoning, which is also not the case. It is not even the case on this exact Wikipedia itself. We are only talking about people whose names have widely used, different-from-native spellings in the English-speaking world. Those are usually people of particular historical noteworthiness (e.g. Erik the Red, not Erik den Røde) or people of international fame, as it is the general case of international-level athletes in sports that are highly popular in the English-speaking world (such as tennis, the case at hand). It does not apply to other people, even if they are notable and included in this Wikipedia and even well-known only in their native country, such as Ove Høegh-Guldberg. Redux (talk) 03:37, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
So "Bjorn Borg" is more recognizable to English speakers than Björn Borg just because ATP listed him like that? Squash Racket (talk) 03:48, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
That is, of course, just one source. There are many others. I may insert this link again: Wikipedia:Naming conflicts - section on proper nouns, where it is written that "If a native name has a common English-language equivalent, the English version takes precedence . All those "opposing" then means everything written there is just wrong? Or? --HJensen, talk 21:12, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
If all professional sites mentioned above list him as "Bjorn Borg", does that necessarily mean average English readers know him by that name, not as "Björn Borg"? Squash Racket (talk) 03:19, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"Bjorn Borg" is the spelling in English that is widely used and preferred in the English-speaking world. That is why our article needs to be at this title. The ATP website is a verifiable source to that effect. In other words, we don't title the article "Bjorn Borg" because the "all-mighty" ATP used that spelling, we do it because the English-speaking world uses that overwhelmingly and this fact is verifiable. Maybe the ATP was the one to introduce that spelling in the first place. Doing the research to identify that is not our job, although we can quote a trustworthy, previously-published source that might make that statement. It is definitely, never ever our job to decide that the act of having come up with a different spelling, omitting the diacritic mark, was philosophically, socially or culturally wrong and take it upon ourselves to "correct the mistake" by ignoring the usage in English on the English-language Wikipedia. That is a point of view and original work, which is not allowed in Wikipedia. Redux (talk) 04:02, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

1) A straw man? I thought it would be obvious from my comment that by "simple" I meant the set of diacritics that the community has supported and continues to support, for many reasons; accuracy, pronunciation issues, encyclopedic value, etc. 2) Exactly, this is an encyclopedia, and not a tennis federation, a news site or a TV channel. Most sources might not use the word "fuck" when quoting someone, but when we use a source that says "f**king hell", we still write "fucking hell" due to our standards. Your arguments seem to be based on your personal opinion and your interpretation of our guidelines and policies being the absolute truth and the current practice and majority of editors getting it all wrong. Most policies and guidelines are descriptive, not prescriptive, so you can't just ignore the majority interpretation and years of actual practice by linking to "Wikipedia is not a democracy". Actually, your position seems to be in the extreme minority, since you even claim that using a verified actual name of a person over a more popular spelling with no diacritics would violate NPOV. We then have featured articles, such as yesterday's TFA Émile Lemoine and Dominik Hašek, that might "blatantly violate" NPOV. Prolog (talk) 06:39, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

At this point, I actually don't know if you are misunderstanding or overreaching. It is quite simple: on the English-language Wikipedia we use the variation in English if it exists and can be verified. This topic is in referrence to tennis players, so you are using a logical fallacy by linking articles on a hockey player and a politician. I've said time and again that we are discussing specific circumstances and that it does not apply to individuals in different circumstances — in fact it's just 2 comments above your own. Yet another fallacy by equating expletive deletions in texts with deciding on our own that what sources are saying is "not what they really mean" because "we all know that the 'actual' spelling is the native spelling". That is original research and a point of view, as I explained above. What you are saying is that we can and should get a "majority" to decide that WP:NPOV can be relativized because we, the community, decided on the correctness of using the spelling adopted in the English-speaking world. Absolutely not the case. There are certain parts of the working of Wikipedia that cannot be relativized: NPOV, WP:OR and verifiability are some of them.
Further, you are assuming, as an example, that when the English-speaking world says "Radek Stepanek" they actually mean "Radek Štěpánek". That's a point of view and original research. We don't assume, we don't infer. We verify. There is no such thing as we deciding that when the sources say "this" they actually mean "that" ["because otherwise they'd be 'wrong'"].
You are using a straw-man comment by stating something like "using a verified actual name of a person over a more popular spelling with no diacritics would violate NPOV". First, because the spelling used in the English-speaking world can only be used if verified. It is not a question of it being "more popular", it is a question of it being the spelling adopted in the English-speaking world and the fact that this is the English-language Wikipedia, where content is written in English and must default to spellings in English if those exist and are verifiable. Second, because you are implying that the native spelling is the one and true "real" one. There is no such thing in linguistics. To return to the example I gave above, "Erik the Red" is not wrong while "Erik den Røde" is the correct one. A spelling is accurate if it is recognized and adopted by those who speak the language. We are an encyclopedia, we don't get to decide that this is "wrong and shouldn't be done". Redux (talk) 13:11, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Should the discussion take place here? Orderinchaos already asked this on the talk page. Also a neutral message could be written and sent to parties possibly interested (pro or contra). That is not a requirement, but I think it would be advisable. Squash Racket (talk) 04:13, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
That would be canvassing. Canvassing is not necessarily a blatant message of "go here and support our side/oppose the proposal". It can be a subtle message of "have you seen this? You might be interested.". I'm sure this is not what you meant, but I trust you can see how easily this is construed as "we need to let certain people know what they are trying to do and get 100 'opposes' in that discussion"; even if you don't really mean that, which nobody here does, that would not prevent the end result from being just that. And frankly, it is immaterial that 100 people come here if what they are going to do boils down to taking a vote to set aside verifiable sources and the neutral-point-of-view imperative. Not a democracy, therefore not the case of a simple "show of hands". What people should be doing, but so far they are not, is presenting arguments, most likely for specific cases, along the lines (but not necessarily limited to) of: "for this or that instance, we can't verify a preferred usage because there are no valid sources to that effect"; or more generally, something like: "actually, in tennis we can't really verify a overwhelming usage of any given spelling to begin with", but never "the sources do show that this usage is overwhelming in the English-speaking world, but that is just wrong on the philosophical level, and since having the diacritics doesn't do any harm, we should keep them". What we are doing here is I keep explaining to people how we are not taking a vote to put aside such things as WP:NPOV and Wikipedia:Verifiability.
Further, and curiously, when consensus was already clear in the original discussion, someone tried to make the point that the discussion was "invalid" because it was not at WP:RM, which is simply not the case and it was explained there. Still, we are now taking the time to go through this here as well. Redux (talk) 04:46, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
That would NOT be canvassing. I quote myself:

neutral message could be written and sent to parties possibly interested (pro or contra).

If you send a neutral message to all parties who might be interested, it is not canvassing. Before sending the messages we could agree on the text. And I'm not talking about the vote, but that more people should voice their opinions on the matter to avoid future edit warring.
And I repeat, it would be advisable, because last time reports were made on various noticeboards after a number of page moves and move backs had been done. Squash Racket (talk) 05:35, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oh but it is. Here is why: First, contacting people personally to join a discussion when you already know which "side" or position they will be taking is canvassing. Using more explicit words in the invite, such as "come help us approve/nuke this proposal" only makes it easier to identify it. That is not to say that we could never ask someone for help in a discussion that has hit a standstill. But one thing is if we asked for a neutral mediator to read both sides and give us perspective, or if we were discussing a topic such as history as asked a user who we know is a historian by profession so that s/he could provide us with an informed perspective on the topic to help us reach a conclusion. That connects with the second reason: it is a different thing entirely to go to people's talk pages, or send them e-mail, only to let them know that a discussion in which "they might be interested" is taking place. If we do that with people who we already known, as you said it yourself, to be "pro or contra", then what we are really doing is calling people whose position — albeit in a more general theme, and this is a more case-specific discussion — is already known, and we are simply getting them to show up and show hands in a vote. That, to use words closer to those used on WP:CANVAS, which you yourself quoted above, is attempting to influence the outcome, rather than improving the quality of discussion (which would be more the examples I gave), and that is a textbook definition of canvassing. See? Redux (talk) 21:37, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
That is NOT canvassing (repeating myself). I also urge you to read WP:CANVAS as you don't seem to understand it. So you are perfectly OK with having some new revert wars/reports on noticeboards (as we already seen what had happened) after the moves instead of sending a neutral message to potentially interested parties to avoid these. Neutral messages don't influence the outcome, only inform others of the ongoing discussion. Don't you think others will feel left out again and then edits like that will be likely again?
This is the talk page of WP:RM, how should interested parties know about it? See? Squash Racket (talk) 03:27, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
FTR this is not the place for the debate - it's only here because there isn't a clear and obvious place for it. It doesn't easily fit in any existing location. As for NPOV and V, it is easily verifiable and completely uncontroversial what their birth names are - they have birth certificates and birth registrars and local media and in some cases biographies, no less than we have for any other notable person. The only times it changes is when they actually adopt a different name upon naturalisation or by some other means - which some have done, and then it is their name and there's no objection to using it. But simply deciding to play tennis for a living does not mean they cease to have a national identity, and in fact it's POV to assert that the ATP or anyone else has the right to change someone's name. They presumably work to an internal style guide, ours is silent on the issue of diacritics and indeed, we have many, many articles in English with them. Orderinchaos 12:06, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
If this discussion is still ongoing, then oppose. Of course I understand the strong arguments for and against, I'll just try and summarize my own thoughts. Which are thus: primarily WP is here to inform. I expect maximum information from an encyclopedia. I know that WP is one of those sources that accommodate and use diacritics on Roman letters where appropriate (unlike some other sources which don't). So when I see an article titled "Bjorn Borg" I think that means his name has no diacritics, and am thus misled. If I see Björn Borg, I know the truth. And of course I can still deduce that his name spelt in diacritic-less contexts will be Bjorn Borg. That deduction would not work in reverse, obviously. So taking diacritics away seems to mean making WP less valuable as an encyclopedia just to make a point about conforming to some policy (which is open to varying interpretation in any case).--Kotniski (talk) 19:45, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You do know that we are required to write the name with diacritics in the lead? This is a proposal about the name of the articles. --HJensen, talk 21:00, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes I realise that, but this just makes the issue a bit less significant, it doesn't make either side any more right or wrong. Since we argue about article names, presumably we think they matter somewhat. One reason they matter quite a lot, I suspect, is that editors of other articles have a tendency to prefer direct links over redirects. Hence naming the article Bjorn Borg is going to cause the name to be written without diacritics in other articles and templates (where the full version is not visible), leading to the information leakage alluded to in my previous comment.--Kotniski (talk) 21:20, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sorry, but, first, you appear to be starting under a wrong premise: that the article title "Bjorn Borg" (sticking to the example) is wrong and could only be tolerated on the article itself because the opening paragraph cites the native spelling. That is simply not the case. Please read my post after MTC's comment uderneath. Secondly, as explained here, the appropriate form for linking internally is to follow the naming conventions. The name "Bjorn Borg" follows the naming conventions for the English-language Wikipedia. Not because I think so or because I prefer it, but rather because we will have verified that this spelling is the one adopted and recognized widely in the English-speaking world, which makes it the correct spelling to be used on this version of Wikipedia. So when you present the situation of linking the name "Bjorn Borg" in other articles as spreading misinformation, you are attributing the characteristic of it being wrong and not being tolerable on other articles because, unlike in the main article, there will be no "complete information" to correct the "mistake". Since it is not a mistake to begin with, that is a logical fallacy, I'm afraid. Redux (talk) 22:17, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I don't say that the diacriticless form is "wrong" or "intolerable", just that much worse for the encyclopedia. I don't believe there is one correct form for someone's name in English. Where the original name is spelt in Roman letters with diacritics, there are always going to be at least two acceptable forms (with/without). And I expect WP readers to know this as well. So: reader sees name with diacritics -> reader knows both forms. Reader sees name without diacritics -> reader knows one form only, or worse, believes that he knows both forms but has one of them wrong.--Kotniski (talk) 22:40, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As I mentioned on another comment underneath, it's not the point of an article title to assume that people will not read the article and draw conclusions from it. The relevant information needs to be in the article, which is the actual source of information. The title is supposed to be accurate in English, according to certain parameters we adopt. Assuming a logic based on a chaos theory, it would be possible to make an equally valid point that, if we were to link using the native form, the reader would be unaware that there is a spelling in English, that this spelling in English is the one that is actually adopted and recognized in the English-speaking world. As well as that by depriving the reader of such information, we would be doing him or her a disservice. You see? That is clearly reading too much into what a link means. In fact, the very point of hypertexting is exactly to make it possible for the reader to get information on related topics, information which will not be available in the main text s/he is reading at the moment. We are not supposed to convey the entire information in the link, we are supposed to provide the link so that the reader will find the information. Any more than that, and we are speculating and using the speculation to justify superseding the English language, which is something we cannot do.Redux (talk) 01:05, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose - Reasons for sources omitting diacritics can be brought down to ignorance, laziness or technical restrictions. All these players have names that are correctly spelled with diacritics and it would be wrong to move them to incorrect titles for any reason. If there are policies which state that these articles shouldn't have diacritics then those policies need changing. - MTC (talk) 20:23, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Very thin arguments that can be brouht down to a few insults like "ignorance" or "laziness" and "I don't like it" (you are directly stating that if this proposal is in accordance with policies, you would still oppose it).--HJensen, talk 21:00, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Relating to the two "oppose" posts above, although we are not holding a vote, I'm sorry, but none of you seem to have read a single word of what has been said, repeatedly, above. "Misled into believing that the name has no diacritics"? So you didn't read any of the several times I explained that this has no merit for simple reasons: article titles are not supposed to convey all the information. Not having diacritics on the article title does not mean "hide the fact that the native spelling uses them". That is given in the opening paragraph of the article, in the first sentence if possible. That's not to mention a point in Linguistics, since you are assuming, and this has also been mentioned before, that the native spelling is the only "true" one, which is not the case. If a person's name has a spelling in English that is the one adopted in the English speaking world ("Erik the Red", for maybe the 4th time) than the information "Erik the Red" within the context of the English language — and this is the English-language Wikipedia — is accurate information. The existence of a native spelling that is not the one adopted in English is information that must be in the article, which is what, to use your words, will inform you, not in the article title. The title of the article itself needs to be correct in accordance with certain parameters, which are given by a combination of the Manual of Style (which only follows logic) and certain policies, none of it includes an assumption that people won't read the article and thus we need to convey other bits of information in the title, thus sacrificing the very English language as verified by external sources.
"Reasons for sources omitting diacritics can be brought down to ignorance, laziness or technical restrictions." I explained that yet again earlier today. This is an encyclopedia, we don't get to decide that the reason why the English-speaking world uses a different spelling is "laziness" or anything else. We certainly don't take it upon ourselves to correct the alleged "mistake". That is original research and a point of view. Maybe the English-speaking world is indeed lazy and has come up with diacritic-less spellings for foreigners that happen to become well-known in those countries because they don't want to make new keyboards with keys for the diacritics. That is not our problem. And it is not up to us to assume that this is what took place. Why? Because it is original research. That would be what we, Wikipedian, are assuming heppened; and if that's not bad enough, not only are we speculating on a historical reason for a different spelling, we are also taking the initiative to "correct" the perceived mistake. That makes us a primary source, and that cannot happen. That is not up for interpretation or vote, Wikipedia cannot be a primary source, carrying original work. And certainly not work that Wikipedians came up with themselves by passing judgement on the verified sources. This is, again, ignoring Wikipedia:Verifiability on the basis of our own understanding of what ought to be, which cannot happen. Redux (talk) 21:37, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Points taken, but your arguments seem to apply only where there is one form of the name unambiguously established in English (Rome rather than Roma, to take an extreme example). If not, we can and do make a call - we don't have to go with the majority, but we take the more encyclopedic form (Faeces rather than Shit, if you want another extreme example). I've tried to explain above why forms with diacritics are generally speaking more encyclopedic. And why the fact that all the information is in the article anyway is not a valid argument one way or the other.--Kotniski (talk) 21:59, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Except that we need to remember that we are dealing specifically with tennis-related biographies. That means Proper names — considering, of course, that nicknames can never be the title of articles (although they perhaps could be redirects, if they are specific enough). That being the case, to stay with an example already used, we need to be able to verify that "Radek Stepanek" is the spelling that has been adopted and is recognized and used in the English-speaking world to identify that person. The English-speaking world, so forms used in the, say, Spanish-speaking world, if they even exist (I don't think there's such a thing, this is just an example), don't weigh in this equation. As I mentioned before, such a verification may not be possible when it comes to say, politicians from any given country, or even sportsmen that are not known in the English-speaking world. Tennis people, however, are different, also because this sport happens to be tremendously popular in the English-speaking world: every single instance of rendition of their names on sources from the English-speaking world follows that exact spelling which can be found on that person's official profile on the ATP/WTA website. By cross-referencing those sources, for tennis biographies, this verification is usually possible and even easy to be made. Will there be exceptions? Of course. We might be unable to verify certain names, especially players from the early 20th century. In that case, obviously, we won't move the article, because that we might be "sure" that a rendition of the name in English would exclude diacritics if it were to be made is also irrelevant. What we assume cannot be included as fact in the encyclopedia in any form. The principle works both ways. That is why I asked people to present such evidence, if they know of any. But so far, nobody has. Redux (talk) 22:17, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You exaggerate I trust with "every single instance" (here's Francoise Durr both with and without a cedilla, for instance), though I admit the diacriticless forms are going to dominate on the search engines. However, are we really helping anyone by leaving the diacritics off? We could do it with tennis players, but then we get inconsistencies when those people are mentioned alongside others in different lines of work who are allowed to retain their diacritics. For readers' sake, we should be trying to keep to the same standard throughout the encyclopedia, and the standard that seems (very reasonably, at least for the reasons I gave above) to have been adopted on WP is to prefer diacritics.--Kotniski (talk) 23:06, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You are right, I tripped on the "generalization rock" by stating "every single source", when what need to verify is that a rendition is widely used and the recognizable one in the English-speaking world, and not that nothing else was ever written. But of course, if we look hard enough, we could find references to the native spelling, which is also part of the mostly journalitic nature of the sources we can use to verify facts; for example if we were to find an online story on Novak Djokovic that read something like "Novak Djokovic, whose name is spelled 'Novak Đoković' in his native Serbia(...)". Obviously, that would not be proof that the English-speaking world does not adopt the rendition "Novak Djokovic", which it does, to the point of it being almost empirical.
Concerning the point you just made, if it was a simple question of style, I would agree. But in this case, it is not. We can't chose to ignore established facts because it would be convenient for our article-building process. A similar argument was presented, validly, when people were deciding if the article on the city of New York should be at "New York, New York" or simply "New York". Although the article is now at New York City, for some time it was at "New York, New York". The argument used was that, although saying just "New York" commonly evokes the city, and not the state of New York, "New York, New York" is also consistent with valid sources, especially US government sources, which consistently use the formula "city name, state name" to refer to cities in the United States; that meant that it was equally valid, which in turn meant that the criteria that would be needed to decide would lie more in a style-based decision. And then, we had the point that when it comes to cities in the US, Wikipedia follows the general standard of "city name, state name", so for consistency, since both forms were equally verifiable, the article could duely be at "New York, New York". That argumentation was perfect. I myself used to think that it was a bit weird having the article at "New York, New York", but I had to accede to that argumentation.
Here, however, it is different. In addition to the fact that New York is a city, and one that is already within the English-speaking world, whereas here we are talking about people, who are not from the English-speaking world but whose names are routinely used in multiple sources, following a specific spelling, the sources — pending individual verification, of course — will normally show that there will be a clear preferred and adopted rendition in English that is different from the native spelling. When that happens, it is no longer really our choice. The English language (again, on the English-language Wikipedia) and, far more importantly, Verifiability take precedence over our convenience. We need to reflect what the verified sources are telling us, and since circumstances tend to vary (like I said: tennis players and mathematicians are clearly very different instances, so we will not be able to afford both the same treatment) that will necessarily be reflected in the process of building the encyclopedia, which means that, while our string of articles on, for example, slav scientists and politicians will normally, and correctly, include diacritics in their titles, other circumstances exist where we will need to adopt a different pattern. Not one that we created, nor because we wanted to, but rather because we verified that such were the facts in pre-published material. Redux (talk) 01:05, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting, in that regard, is the fact that our Naming conventions regarding article titles on subjects-not-originally-from-the English-speaking-world does indeed account for what I've just explained: it says that if [and only if] a version in English exists that is widely used and recognized, that is the one that is to be used. Reversely, it is saying that when there is no such thing, we use the native/original form. When we combine this with what has been said about choices for consistency, what that means is that iff we have options to choose from (as it was the case in the example of New York I gave above), we need to make consistent choices throughtout the project, so as to maintain consistency. When the sources take the choice out of our hands, however, we are obliged to reflect what is verifiable fact. Redux (talk) 01:28, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think the New York City example does not answer the concern above. Is it a problem if you refer to NYC by any of the names mentioned in your comment? Does using one of these makes the other cities' names look strange?
Here is an example regarding tennis (with the Anglicised name of the player): "Agnes Szavay's trainers are József Bocskay and Zoltán Kuhárszky". A bit confusing for an English reader maybe? Looks like an encyclopedia? Squash Racket (talk) 03:38, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The New York City reference was an exemplification regarding a point about making a standardizing choice. I used it to show that such examples do exist: in the case of NYC, we were looking into usage, and it turned out that more than one was equally verifiable — not a question of looking or sounding "strange" — and since they were both verifiable, we would need an extra criterion to decide which title would be preferred. In that case, we were able to make a standardizing choice per the formula already used in Wikipedia for US cities. And NYC was already in the English-speaking world, thus eliminating the "need" to verify a different spelling in the English-speaking world.
Here, we are not discussing a place, but people. And people whose names have a different spelling in the English-speaking world. So if we can verify that the spelling exists and is indeed adopted widely, then we have no choice. We need to reflect verifiable facts, not decide on our own that the facts can be ignored or "bent" because it would look better on our pages. That is exactly how the encyclopedia is built, as reflected by the relevant policies and guidelines, already mentioned multiple times. Redux (talk) 17:34, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • While I Support the idea of the moves in general (I have not looked at each case) providing English usage can be proven, this should be moved to a subpage or somesuch. This is getting disruptive to RM. Narson (talk) 21:14, 6 June 2008 (UTC) (Now done, obviously.)--Kotniski (talk) 22:04, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Someone seems to have made a decision all by himself, so it would be nice to send a message to all parties who may possibly be interested in this discussion. Squash Racket (talk) 03:49, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I hope that user gets a clear warning. That is definitely not the way of going. I think one should take each article at a time. Just citing the Djokovic article as a reason for a mass move is very weak (to say the least). Moving on: I repeat myself, and may be cofusing matters (sorry if I am) but what use is this again: Wikipedia:Naming conflicts - section on proper nouns, where it is written that "If a native name has a common English-language equivalent, the English version takes precedence"? Is that irrelevant for a diacritics discussion? Or can it be dismissed as it is "just" a convention, not a policy? I am just trying to learn this process which apperas a bit like ChaosinChaos. --HJensen, talk 09:21, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
That user is an administrator on the Serbian Wikipedia. He ought to know better. This is a case of WP:POINT. Please visit talk:Daniela Hantuchová#Requested move, where I managed to snag an authoritative BBC expert (tennis, broadcasting, and language use) source that advises to not drop diacritics on Czech/Slovak players. The source is a running RSS feed, and I invite you to subscribe to it, to ascertain that it is not a "mere blog", but a source that satisfies all Wikipedia criteria for sourcing main space text. Thank you. --Mareklug talk
Yes seems POINTy, these should be reverted. Hobartimus (talk) 14:30, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That page, as quoted by Mareklug himself on the talk page of the Hantuchova article, is a "how to say" page. That means it is a page meant to show people how to pronounce names in their original language. It would be applicable if we were discussing the absurd possibility of "erradicating" any mention to diacritics from the entire Wikipedia. Since we are discussing article titles, where the spelling is defined by verification that the English-speaking world adopts and recognizes a different spelling widely, a website explaining the existence of the native spelling and the fact that in those languages diacritics are essential to defining how they are pronounced does not vacate the fact (assuming verification, of course) that the English-speaking world adopts a different spelling — spelling, not pronounciation. Wikipedia is covering that, since in the article, which is not the article title, we not only use diacritics in the first sentence of the first paragraph, but we also provide pronounciation guides to make sure readers are informed of what the diacritics mean and how they affect the pronounciation of a word. As a matter of fact, the fact that that person seems to be protesting against the fact that the names are used in English without diacritics serves to actually make the point of widely used in the English-speaking world. A individual who thinks it's wrong does not change that fact, which is what we do need to verify.
You are confusing the article itself with the article title, and assuming that pieces of information that need to be in the article are somehow supposed to be conveyed in the title. It is not the case. The title is defined by verifed usage in English for each subject. I've also mentioned the difference between the title and actual content of the article in my response to Kotniski's post, a little further above. Redux (talk) 17:34, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Mareklug found and mentioned above a page which I think merits more attention:
In Czech and Slovak (closely related West Slavic languages), primary stress is predictable: it falls almost invariably on the first syllable of a word. So, for instance, the Slovak tennis player Daniela Hantuchová’s name is pronounced DAN-yell-uh HAN-tuukh-ov-aa and the Czech player Iveta Benešová is IVV-ett-uh BEN-esh-ov-aa. The acute diacritic in Czech does not indicate stress; it actually indicates vowel length. Therefore, in the above surnames, the last vowel is a long but unstressed "a" sound (-aa as in "father"). It is important to retain the various diacritics in Czech and Slovak orthography as they represent a particular sound; loss of the appropriate diacritics results in incorrect pronunciations (e.g. Šafářová becomes Safarova, and is often incorrectly pronounced as saff-uh-ROH-vuh, instead of SHAFF-aar-zhov-aa, which is closer to the Czech pronunciation).
Which was basically my point all along. Orderinchaos 11:32, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I take it you didn't notice Kotniski's post and my response above, or you would not be making the exact same point again. So again, but more briefly (for more detail, please read the relevant posts above): article titles are not pronunciation guides; in fact, Wikipedia is not a pronunciation guide. That notwithstanding, we do include information, which is relevant, on how any given word or name might be pronounced. That information, however, is given in the article. It is not, by any measure, the scope of the article's title to provide a pronunciation guide. Sustaining that the diacritics should be in the article, in spite of the fact that, if so verified (as explained multiple times), they are not to be for the reason that otherwise readers will mispronounce the person's name is absolutely not in keeping with how the encyclopedia is organized in terms of article titles. Titles are decided according to parameters that have absolutely nothing to do with making sure that when the reader sees the title, s/he will know exactly how the name or word is pronounced. Again, please read the post above on that regard. Redux (talk) 17:34, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose. Ivanovic is pronounced as IvanoviK while Ivanović as it should be IvanoviCH.--Avala (talk) 14:26, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Your point being? (We always write pronounciation in the lead, so that is a non argument imo.)--HJensen, talk 16:24, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
In the lead of the article itself, perhaps (though not always in my experience). However, what about when the same name gets mentioned in other articles (spelt without diacritics under the influence of its main article title)? Believe it or not, there are actually many English speakers who understand the meaning of foreign diacritics, and derive useful information from them (pronunciation primarily). This proposal would deprive such people of this information (and everyone of the information about how the name is - sometimes - spelt). And I'm still not sure what it is supposed to give in return (unless we really believe that WP readers wouldn't know without being told that diacritics are often omitted in English writing).--Kotniski (talk) 20:01, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Please read my post immediately above, as well as my response to Kotniski's post, a little further above. Redux (talk) 17:34, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia is not a pronunciation guide? But is it a rubbish website which will use the wrong spelling? No it's an encyclopedia which should use accurate information. Fan page may write Jastin Henan but it doesn't mean that we have to use that as we are trying to collect precise and correct things here not whims. --Avala (talk) 19:28, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Have you read anything that has been written in this discussion? You are making the exact same point that has been made and refuted before. I have explained many times that the spelling used in the English language is not wrong. The English-speaking world's adoption of a different spelling is not a whim, it is a recognized process which is a part of any living language. Because the English-language Wikipedia is written in English, we acknowledge this process as long as it can be verified, as prescribed by our Manual of Style and policies. Our assuming that its [verified] existence is "wrong" is both original research and a point of view, as already explained about 5 times before. See the Erik the Red example I have mentioned about 4 times already — and more importantly, read carefully the posts in which they appear.
Collecting precise information is exactly what we are doing by verifying data and reflecting verified facts. A personal opinion of the facts is what would be a whim. Nothing that is being said constitutes an opinion of mine or anyone else's. That a spelling in English exists must be checked and verified before we can even consider moving a page. Redux (talk) 20:40, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Nothing was refuted before - it's just your opinion to which I and others as it seems do not agree with.--Avala (talk) 22:17, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed with Avala, all I've seen is Redux's personal opinion based on a misinterpretation of a style guideline repeated about 25 times, with two or three users coming in behind him. This is actually a very intellectually sterile mode of debate and does nothing to further it. Orderinchaos 06:11, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

My opinion? What exactly is my opinion? That Wikipedians do not get to decide that verified facts are ignorable? That so doing constitutes original research, and a violation of NPOV and WP:Verifiability? Sorry, but that's not my opinion, it's just fundamental policy and you don't need to agree with it. My personal opinion on diacritics is that whatever personal understanding I might have about diacritics is irrelevant; what matters is what the encyclopedia is obliged to do, which is to observe verified facts, which means that the extent of what I believe concerning diacritics is that we use them when we are supposed to, but there are instances where we are not supposed to use them.
Now, your opinion that the English-language spellings is "wrong" is just that: your opinion. And it is being contradicted by verifiable sources, which adopt them extensively. If you say that the sources are "wrong" (philosophically, culturally, phonetically, or whatever), that will, again, be your opinion. Even if I recognize that any given opinion in that regard is philosophically true, because neither your opinion, nor mine, nor the opinions of any number of Wikipedians supersedes WP:Verifiability, we will still reflect the verified facts, since verifiability, not "philosophical truth", is the criterion for inclusion in the encyclopedia. Redux (talk) 22:38, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You are looking for verifiable information? OK imagine we go all the way in the verification - we obtain the copy of Ivanović's birth certificate and passport. What do you think it says in there? Ivanović or Ivanovic? That would be the final verification. Even if all websites and papers decide to spell it Iwanowich, it would mean absolutely nothing. I repeat - absolutely nothing. Only verifiable information is the original, and the original in this matter are their documents - birth certificate and other - which use diacritics. Serbian Wikipedia is using the spelling of Roger Federers name pronunciation as he suggested because his mother is S.African not as one would assume the Swiss (French, German, Italian) pronunciation of Roger would be. --Avala (talk) 13:50, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose and revert the out of process moves already done. Diatrics are used everywhere in Wikipedia there is simply no reason why tennis articles should be any different. In any case wasn't there some centralized discussion about diatrics? This will come up in more areas not just tennis. Hobartimus (talk) 14:27, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
"No reasons" is wrong. Many reasons are given above. --HJensen, talk 16:24, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Clearly, this was posted without any consideration or reading anything that has been said so far. The only possible response is plainly: please read the discussion. Redux (talk) 17:34, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This is not the first time the exact same thing comes up nothing absolutely nothing is gained from mass removing diatrics. Hobartimus (talk) 20:16, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Doesn't do any harm is not a reason to ignore verified facts, which in turn [ignoring verified facts — because we might not believe that it is "worth it"] is a blatant and unacceptable violation of several of our policies. Redux (talk) 20:40, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see how using diacritics is ignoring verified facts. The form with diacritics is a verified fact; that the form without diacritics is commonly used in English is another verified fact. Readers of English presumably do not need the second fact spelt out to them every time. So by using diacritics we convey the pertinent facts; by omitting them we risk failing to do so.--Kotniski (talk) 21:17, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed - the names are perfectly verifiable. We're not talking about using IPA here, as another editor has mischaracterised this as being about pronunciation - we are talking about correctness, and the most correct form contains the diacritics unless the person themselves has chosen an alternate spelling of their name. The claim about non-verifiability is a straw man argument and is completely unsusntainable. I would accept the notion that someone who migrates to the US and adopts US citizenship and thereafter uses a diacritic-free name (eg Martina Navratilova) would be correctly diacritic-free, for example. But merely deciding to play tennis does not mean they have surrendered their national identity to faceless bureaucrats in the English-speaking world, and the fact their correct names are still in use in many media (and not just Eastern European media, either) leads me to conclude we shouldn't be sloppy about this and should have the correct name as the title, with any other variants as redirects to it. Despite claims to the contrary, no policy states otherwise, and WP:UE, which is utterly unclear on the matter, is merely a consensus of editors rather than a policy. (The special case of Đ (pronounced "j" as in "jet") can be addressed as an entirely separate issue - I wouldn't be adverse to seeing it as Dj, as that isn't simply an omission of information. Just as -oe- is often used to transliterate -ö-, but "o" would be plainly wrong as it's "oh" instead of "er".) Orderinchaos 06:21, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong oppose. Purposely spelling someone's name wrong is showing a lack of respect. Guido den Broeder (talk) 18:44, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Please look into naming conventions. This has nothing to do about showing lack of respect. That is a straw man argument in my opinion. --HJensen, talk 22:08, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It should be about respect. Guido den Broeder (talk) 22:34, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose (except in the cases with special non-diacritic characters like Djokovic) - I'm not convinced we should be treating tennis players as a special domain with a naming convention essentially different from other people. Cross-topic-area consensus has always been that simple diacritics such as acutes should be used as appropriate in the native language; they are never wrong in English; they do no harm to any reader, while their lack does harm some readers at least. – Let me also add that I find the tendency of framing this debate in terms of "verifiability" misguided. Verifiability is not an issue, because this is not about facts that are in dispute. Facts need verification. Editorial decisions don't. Our orthographic choices in how to present our material are for us to make, just like our choice of language, and of style. They are, in the truest sense, a matter of taste. De gustibus non est disputandum. Some like their diacritics spicy, some less. I think we'd all be happier if we accepted and respected each other's stylistic preferences in this for what they are, and left the ultimate decision to compromise and if necessary to majority preference, rather than arguing for a dictate of "policy" or "correctness" either way. Fut.Perf. ☼ 20:06, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitrary section break 1[edit]

Please, both of you, read the discussion. First, this is not a vote, it is a discussion. Second, as explained in the Manual of Style, we use a spelling in English, i.e. the one widely adopted and recognized in the English-speaking world when it exists (can be verified). When it doesn't, we use the native spelling. That is already accounting for variable circumstances. Obviously, for a preferred spelling to exist in English, the subject will need to be widely well-known in the English-speaking world. So if we are discussing slav mathematicians, there's obviously not going to be such a preferred spelling and we will use the native spelling. Assuming that because this is true everything else, no matter the circumstances, is also truth is not just a fallacy but it is objectively not in keeping with how the encyclopedia is built, not to mention that it is attempting an standardization by ignoring [presumably] verified facts, which is what in fact governs what gets included and how. The point being that we, the community, do not need to be "convinced" of anything. If there is verifiability, therein lies the valid criterion. Our deciding whether or not it ought to be accepted is original research and a point of view.
Also notice that we are discussing article titles, not actual article content; and nobody is talking about eliminating diacritics from content, which, were it the case, would indeed be misinformation. Nobody said that the diacritics are "wrong" in any instance, but the diacriticless spelling in English, if widely used and recognized in the English-speaking world, which needs to be verified, is not wrong either. And per our criteria, the English-language Wikipedia gives precedence to spellings in English if they meet those parameters. — I've written extensively about that yesterday and as recently as earlier today. For more details, please read the many instances in which these points and more have been addressed, that way I don't need to keep repeating myself. Thanks. Redux (talk) 20:40, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Redux, with all due respect, I think I perfectly understand your position (not so sure if you understand mine). You have made your opinion more than clear; reiterating it in response to every single opposing opinion is no longer helpful. Please take a look at the sheer volume of your postings. Take a step back, your insistence is coming across as a little bit veering towards the Reichstag. Fut.Perf. ☼ 20:46, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

And with all due respect, this is not a vote. The only reason why I keep posting is because people keep making the same points over and over and over again, presumably because they don't read any of what has been written before. We are not doing a head count, so it's not a question of waiting to see how many people "understand and support". And I'm not expressing my opinion, I am explaining that original research and points of views are not going to be decision-making processes in Wikipedia. That you yourself called for "majority preference" and "respecting each others preferences" to decide is an indication that you either didn't read what I've written several times or you misunderstood something. Majority does not decide on ignoring WP:OR, Wikipedia:Verifiability and WP:NPOV, and it doesn't decide to supersede the English language on the English-language Wikipedia. If majority is saying that we can overlook verified facts, I'm afraid it will be irrelevant to make headcounts (Wikipedia is not a democracy). If people would start making new, valid points, and not "opposing" in a discussion while citing personal views or askewed interpretations (and I mean that technically, not personally) of how this project works, we could move on appropriately. Redux (talk) 20:58, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I did read what you wrote. And I did understand it. But I disagree with it, and so do apparently others. Shrug, that's life. And your position still doesn't come across as more convincing just because you keep repeating it, so what do you hope to achieve? Fut.Perf. ☼ 21:08, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think it is plainly necessary that Redux' arguments are repeated, as several editors come by and briefly state their opinion refering some, in my opinion, very thin arguments of the "I don't like it" type. Hence, there appears to be a need for repetition to bring about some discussion. It is too weak just to say "I disagree." (as Fut.Perf.did not just do) --HJensen, talk 22:08, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yep (as I also explain below), thank you . Redux (talk) 05:47, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
When the repetition seems aimed at the opposite outcome (i.e. jamming the airwaves) I can't conclude it is anything other than an intellectually sterile exercise in ramming the point home in order to achieve a predetermined outcome without ever having to justify the point beyond citing policies which don't apply, or guidelines which are not clear as far as they relate to this subject. Orderinchaos 14:14, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You seem to be referring to my position as if I was expressing a personal point of view that diacritics should be removed. I'm not. I neither prefer nor reject diacritics. As long as in accordance with fundamental policy, Wikipedia fully supports use of diacritics, and so do I — and if I didn't it would be irrelevant, Wikipedia still supports it and that's all that matters. However, what some have said here is that although [the established-because-verifiable fact that] the English-speaking world has adopted a different spelling, which, per the MoS and common sense means that article titles need to follow that spelling, we are going to take a vote to decide that "this is wrong"/"it's disrespectful"/"it's not the same as we are doing on articles on slav mathematicians or politicans", and thus we should simply ignore it, or that we should ignore it because there are other articles where we do use diacritics, that is, ignoring verified facts because we, Wikipedians, prefer it and/or think it is right. All of this is both original research and a point of view, so it is irrlevant that I agree with the philosophical truth they might be stating, because that's irrelevant for a decision regarding content to be made. And that's when a minimally organized rationale is given, which is not always. Take a look at what the person who posted immediately above your first post wrote.
That connects with the next fundamental point: this is not a democracy and we are not taking a vote. Many, many people here seem to be under the impression that if enough people "oppose" per [the points I've just summarized] (original reserach), we can decide that a verified fact is ignorable (point of view). This is further demonstrated by the evidence linked above by other users of at least 2 instances of canvassing in relation to this discussion, one of which conducted by an Administrator on the Serbian-language Wikipedia. So that already qualifies as disruptive behavior and POV-pushing. That too will not be legitimized by a vote.
So I'm posting to try to explain that. But the tricky part is, I explain it, and the next person to post [usually, not all of course] just plainly ignores it, sustaining the same positions yet again in different words. And the people I have already explained it to usually don't bother to either reflect or, in some cases, even return, because they might be under the impression that by voting in numbers, they are effectively "blocking" something. Technically, I don't need to get them to agree with anything, because we don't need to get people to agree that WP:No Original Research, NPOV and Verifiability are non-negotiable on Wikipedia. On the one hand, the few who actually took the time to reflect on it, have agreed that us deciding that the widely adopted spelling, when and if verified, is not to be followed for the reasons given does indeed constitutes original reserach and a point of view. On the other hand, there have been people have responded to it by stating that policy should be amended to authorize us to do just that, because the English-speaking world is "wrong" in adopting a different spelling and we are "wrong" to reflect it.
My point in all of this is trying to get people to see that they need to make sustainable points, such as "this is not verifiable because of this and that", and not say "it doesn't matter that it is verifiable, because it is just wrong". Because by stating the latter, contrary to what they might think, they are accomplishing nothing. Redux (talk) 22:10, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

At the risk of likewise repeating my own argument, my point was that "verifiability"/"no original research" simply doesn't enter the picture. Stylistic editorial choices are not subject to it. NOR is about the facts we report, it's not about in what linguistic forms we choose to report them. And unlike our content policies, our stylistic choices could legitimately be made an object of a majority decision, even a vote. So, as a rebuttal to my previous post, your argument falls flat. It's still a valid position, of course, and I fully respect it, but it doesn't refute mine. But I'll stop arguing here. Fut.Perf. ☼ 22:59, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Stylistic choice? You are aware of WP:UE, right? Further, for it to constitute a choice that we, the community, can make, the options must be in equal conditions. If one is verifiable (WP:V) and the other is not, it is not a question of style or choice on our part. It is a "question" that the criterion for inclusion is verifiability. Yet further, "style" is not exactly what you are construing it to be. In linguistics, "style" means Stylistics (linguistics) and it refers to variations within one same language itself — so a question of style would be chosing to either say "car" or "automobile", for a simple (maybe even simplistic) example. When it comes to influences of different languages in a third language, we are more into fields such as transliteration. The determining that a word or name originating from any given language has entered the lexis of a third-party language with a different spelling, so defined as when this different spelling becomes the one adopted and recognized widely by those who speak the language (which is what we need to verify), is absolutely and decisively not a question of "style", and because this is the English-language Wikipedia, where content is necessarily written in English, as prescribed by the Manual of Style (WP:UE), shunning a spelling in English whose existence can and [presumably] has been verified is definitely not a "choice of style". That is precisely why it is determined that, if a spelling in English for any given name exists (=verifiable), it takes precedence. Redux (talk) 03:39, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, and I do appreciate the irony that a rule not pertaining to style at all is covered in a page that integrates a general guide titled "Manual of Style". Then again, the MoS has not been solely about style, but rather about several aspects of linguistics, for quite some time. I suppose we could nitpick and demand that it be renamed to something like "Manual of Linguistics as Applied to the Process of Writing an Encyclopedia", but I suspect this would't fly with people. The abbreviation "MoLaAttPoWaE" is not nearly as cool as "MoS" ;). Redux (talk) 05:55, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weakly support I really don't WP:DGAF and I am *not* an expert, but several authoritative English sources simply ignore the diacritics and there is sufficient use in English publications for a definitive English use. The language is extremely flaky about spelling and phonetics, so "spelled wrong phonetically" is simply a non-argument. Just for reference, I did find one reliable source retaining the diacritics: CBS sports, but that's it (other than Wikipedia itself).Somedumbyankee (talk) 21:57, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, and that last thing you wrote ("other than Wikipedia itself") indicates a huge problem: it means that we are a primary source for something, and that can never, ever happen. Redux (talk) 22:10, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Err, that was unclear on my part. Wikipedia is not a primary source for anything, especially not for Wikipedia. Somedumbyankee (talk) 23:00, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Recent arguments seem to imply that certain Wikipedians invented diacritics themselves, or that their use is not acceptable in good English. This is simply not the case. Diacritics are widely used in English; they are also widely dropped - there are two acceptable styles, the choice can be made based on which is more appropriate for us. Don't know how e.g. Britannica handles tennis players specifically, but I believe that most serious reference works now tend to use diacritics if practical conditions permit, and Wikipedia certainly does as a general rule. I have argued several times above as to why the pro-diacritic style makes for a better encyclopedia - while that argument remains unrefuted, you can quote all the policy you like. In fact, to avoid regular outbreak of discussions like this, we seriously need to have a clear policy statement on this (if only one reflecting the very widepread and logical current practice, which in a nutshell is to use diacritics regardless of what Google hits might tell us).--Kotniski (talk) 04:47, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Who has said that? I believe the point has been the opposite: it is entirely appropriate to use diacritics in formal texts in English, as long as a spelling specific of the English language doesn't exist. It is not, however, a choice of style, as I explained in my recent response to Future Perfect at Sunrise earlier today. Further, IAR needs to be taken with several grains of salt. Redux (talk) 05:47, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Strong oppose. I've read through most of this, and I really don't see any strong, reasonable rationale to move them to improper forms. Most US-centric sources are written by writers without the means to type the special characters required, so rather than properly type out the names, they simply anglicanize them. While I think that may be appropriate for a news story, for a formal reference work I think it shows a lack of respect both for the subject and from their originating countries. Also, I don't really think that intarweb hits are going to give a good guideline for this; people are going to type what's most convenient for them. What's most convenient isn't necessarily what makes the most sense, and I think this is one of the cases where THISNUMBERISHUGE really shines. Celarnor Talk to me 07:02, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've got to say, this is definatly a candidate for WP:LAME. It is fairly simple, in my view, if the person is unknown in English media/literature/the english speaking world or what have you or they are known with diacritics (which does happen) then we use the diacritics. If a person is well known without them, then we don't use them. As the pro-diacritic crowd often say, o is different to ó which is different to ô which is different to ö, so the non diacritic names are something different, a transliteration from non-english latin alphabet to english. Once we get beyond the WP:IDHT aspect of it, it seems simple to me. Narson (talk) 13:46, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You'd think so, right? Per the comment further above, again: "writers anglicized because they don't have the means to write in diacritics"? If you read the previous discussion, you should realize that this is speculating on the historical cause of why something happened, and passing judgement on it; it is assuming that when a verified source says something, they "actually mean something else" for no other reason then that we are also assuming that their keyboards didn't have diacritics and that and their own convenience were the reasons why they decided to write without diacritics, when "we know" that they "meant to use" the spelling in the native language. Do you see that this is both original research and a point of view?? "Lack of respect" is something that has been addressed to no end: that is by no means a valid criterion for this kind of point; it amounts to "I don't like it", or maybe "some people out there don't like it". A process of transliteration has nothing to do with "respect for other cultures/language", it is a continuing social process that all living languages go through. It is also, for the most part, spontaneous and not controlled by any given individuals particularly. Negating that on grounds of "respect to other languages or cultures" is, with all due respect, sort of out of touch with the most basic principles of linguistics, which is the science that studies languages and [to an extent] their evolution, and also technically incorrect. Redux (talk) 17:35, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal[edit]

Further to my above comment, I have constructed a germ of a proposal here. It might be more helpful to discuss that general principle than the specific issue of tennis players (whose situation is hardly unique).--Kotniski (talk) 05:30, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Except it is not a question of style, as explained. "Using diacritics" is a broad theme, completely appropriate when no spelling in English exists, but not correct if it does. Example (yet again): If you are writing a formal text in English and you write "Erik den Røde" while refering to Erik the Red, you will get red-penned, unless your text is using a figure of speech or otherwise another linguistic resource, such as a direct reference to the native spelling, to justify it (not the case of the title of an article on Wikipedia). It is a fallacy to assume that because something is true of a case scenario (such as slav politicians, who are unknown in the English-speaking world and therefore will have no alternate spelling in English) it will also be true in a completely different scenario (people who are in fact well known in the English-speaking world and, for one reason or another, have had their names transliterated into English with a specific, different spelling). As explained above. Redux (talk) 05:47, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed, but he is not called Eric den Røde in English, so this is yet another straw man argument, as it's not what we're discussing. I'm sure Ivan the Terrible was not called that by Russians, but we use that in English and that would be the correct title. This is about spelling, not language - there is, for example, only one correct way to spell Milošević or Tadić, both of whom are extremely well known in the West and who are frequently referred to without diacritics in Western publications (Milošević's name is even mispronounced "-osseh-" instead of "-osheh-" by many English speakers). Similarly former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, often called "Schroeder" in Western media as "oe" is a common transcription of both ö and ø, is only referenced by the one name. Orderinchaos 06:28, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No, there is no straw-man argument. For the first part of your argument, you seem to be misunderstanding, and in the second part, you are starting from a false premise. In the first part because spelling is part of the language; to stick with the example, "Erik the Red" entered the English-language lexis via a process of transliteration of the original in Dannish or Nordic languages; as you mentioned yourself, it then becomes how he is known in English. It is the same process through which "Radek Štěpánek" becomes "Radek Stepanek": transliteration, which is not limited to romanization of non-Latin characters. Rather, it is a process through which a language transfers to its own writing system markings and symbols that are used in the native spelling of any given name or word and which are not recognized in that language (i.e., those who speak it). Diacritics falls within that context.
For the second part, it is obvious enough that the criterion is not "well-known in the English world", and it is also obvious that the fact that some people who are well-known in the English-speaking world have not received spellings in English that may be widely recognized, configuring usage, does not somehow negates the [verified] fact that other individuals did receive that spelling. Why some did receive it and some didn't? Doesn't matter as far as an encyclopedia is concerned. The criterion is "there is a verified spelling that is verified as being widely used in the English-speaking world". Why and how exactly it happened, and why it happened to some names and not to others, is besides the point; it is not our job to speculate on that. Normally it will happen because the individual is well-known in the English-speaking world. It could also happen for historical reasons, or even other reasons that I'm not even accounting for right now. That is irrelvant, because Wikipedia does not attribute "value" to the reason why it happened in order to discard it if we don't think enough of it.
That said, it is perfectly clear that it is quite possible, and it does happen, that a very well-known person has not had his or her name transliterated, for whatever reason. Saying that would be pretty much stating the obvious.
So it is simple enough: if we can verify that the version exists and is widely used, that means that that name has been transliterated and has entered the lexis of the Engish language with a different spelling. That being the case (pending verification, obviously) it is no longer the case of there being "only one right way to spell" the word can be spelled (so that's a false premise). Because when that happens, then, as linguistics explain, usage in English defines the "correct" term in English (nothing to do with the native spelling at this point) as the one recognized and adopted in the English language. If you do not use in a formal text that is supposed to be written in English (such as the English-language Wikipedia) you are in fact writting in a different language, which is not to be done on the English-language Wikipedia. Redux (talk) 17:35, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Verifiability is not sufficient. Guido den Broeder (talk) 18:41, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Sufficient for what? The original post gave justification from several verifiable, reliable sources using English. The policy says "follow usage as recommended by verifiable sources using English." If we're going to WP:IAR, we must have a concrete reason why that doesn't involve "I don't like it." If one of these players has in fact gone on record stating that they are offended by people not spelling their name correctly in English publications, then I'm sure we could oblige them. That evidence (or equivalent) has not been provided, so I don't see any reason not to just follow what the policy says. Somedumbyankee (talk) 18:55, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Where are these recommendations? Guido den Broeder (talk) 19:47, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
WP:UE#Modified letters. Somedumbyankee (talk) 19:54, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia is not a reliable source. Guido den Broeder (talk) 20:09, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia is a reliable source for Wikipedia policies. Somedumbyankee (talk) 20:14, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This is not a policy (and it's not even particularly well written, ironically given the title of the style guideline.) Orderinchaos 06:16, 9 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It's a guideline, I stand corrected. Regardless, it's a consensus statement about expectations for use of things like diacritics, and this is far from the first time someone has brought up this issue, so that consensus is not to be lightly brushed aside. Somedumbyankee (talk) 06:45, 9 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. We should follow Wikipeia policies and guidlines. The Policies say use reliable third party English sources, and common names. The most relevant guidline is WP:UE and the current WP:UE guideline is neither overtly hostile to accent marks or friendly. The WP:UE guideline, follows Wikipedia Policies (WP:V, WP:NOR and WP:Naming conventions) "Use the most commonly used English version of the name of the subject as the title of the article, as you would find it in verifiable reliable sources". and "Wikipedia does not decide what characters are to be used in the name of an article's subject; English usage does. Wikipedia has no rule that titles must be written in certain characters, or that certain characters may not be used. Follow the general usage in English verifiable reliable sources in each case, whatever characters may or may not be used in them." As for names in a page there is a section in the MOS that covers it see Wikipedia:MOS#Foreign terms.

For the majority of foreign names the current guidelines are consistent with Wikipedia policy, but there are two special categories in WP:UE where reliable third party English language sources may not be enough to determine what to use in English. The first is Divided usage in these cases if it can not be agreed what is best, then it is a good idea to put the individual page(s) up for WP:RM to decide the issue (as the use of accent marks is a contentious issue). The second is No established usage in English the suggestion is to use the name in the local language. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 20:33, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The question remains: what reliable sources? Is there an authority that has published recommendations? Guido den Broeder (talk) 20:50, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well, the editor that proposed the move tossed a few reasonable sources up there which I think rather convincingly show an existing English usage. A couple of quick googlings also shows Sports Illustrated and ESPN using at least one name (Tomas Smid) without diacritics. There are probably some other reasonable sources out there, but the CBS page is the only major English source that I've seen using the diacritics. Somedumbyankee (talk) 21:00, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Of these, certainly CBS is by far the most reliable source on correct spelling, although still weak. Guido den Broeder (talk) 21:03, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Specialist sources are more likely to have thought about it, and on that count the International Tennis Federation is the most authoritative source. CBS isn't particularly notable for their coverage of tennis. Somedumbyankee (talk) 21:13, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I would also tend to think that the players' own organizations (ATP and WTA for men and women, repsectively) are quite reliable when it concerns tennis.--HJensen, talk 21:16, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
WP:UE suggests "The references for the article should themselves be reliable sources; if one name is clearly most commonly used in the English-language references for the article, use it. If (as will happen occasionally) something else is demonstrably more common in reliable sources for English as a whole, and this is not a question of national varieties of English, use that instead." --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 21:59, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Tennis is not the issue here. Sources should be reliable sources for spelling. Sports magazines are not known for that. Guido den Broeder (talk) 22:42, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes they are reliable sources for spelling if that is where the information about the subject comes from, because as WP:NC policy says "Generally, article naming should prefer what the greatest number of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature. This is justified by the following principle: The names of Wikipedia articles should be optimized for readers over editors, and for a general audience over specialists." and WP:UE says "The references for the article should themselves be reliable sources; if one name is clearly most commonly used in the English-language references for the article, use it. If (as will happen occasionally) something else is demonstrably more common in reliable sources for English as a whole, and this is not a question of national varieties of English, use that instead."--Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 07:16, 9 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Tennis is actually the issue, because, aside from applicable policies and guidelines that may be applicable in any similar situation, we are precisely considering the concrete verification in the scenario of tennis. The most reliable sources here are the International Tennis Federation (ITF), the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) and the Women's Tennis Association (WTA). They are not "sports magazines", they are the highest governing bodies of tennis and the ultimate authoritative sources when it comes to this particular sport. And they all use English as their working (or official) language. Since we are considering players' names' usage in English, which affects article titles, unless the player himself or herself happens to go on the record concerning the usage in English of their own names, it does not get more reliable than those 3 organisms. And that's not to say that a sports magazine, depending on which magazine and of their reputation, can't be a reliable source. We need to be careful about generalization. I certainly won't presume to say that Sports Illustrated doesn't know what they are talking about on, at the very least, certain sports that are highly popular in their base grounds, the US (wherein tennis is included). Wikipedia does not get to decide [by either presuming or assuming], without any proof to that effect, that a highly renowned publication for sporting themes "does not know its business". That would be a POV. Redux (talk) 23:23, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Then it is fortunate that nobody is saying that. Spelling, however, is not its business. Guido den Broeder (talk) 23:28, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Then you may not be aware that the ATP and the WTA are associative bodies, where the players themselves are associated members, and that they provide official profiles with the spellings in question (diacritics-less) — of which, obviously, the players are fully aware. The spellings used in those profiles are in turn used widely in the English-speaking world's instances involving tennis and become, inevitably — I'm not aware that there are any current exceptions, but they might exist; but they'd be just that: exceptions —, the widely adopted usage in English for those names. They are, for those reasons, barring a personal declaration by any player regarding their own name's usage in English, the ultimate, most reliable source for spellings. Redux (talk) 23:44, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I must add, I'm puzzled by this mention of "spelling is not their business". Spelling is not anyone's "business" specifically. We verify a spelling by in-text usage. Redux (talk) 23:57, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I would only support moves when the player himself does not use diacriticals. For example, Amer Delic, who lives in and attended college in the US, and whose website doesn't even try to use the marks. A quick scan of this list suggests that most these players do use diacriticals—they mostly still live in countries that do, and I would be surprised if they don't use diacriticals on their own name.

For any players who don't use diacriticals in their own materials, they should be moved. Cool Hand Luke 04:45, 9 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You appear to be making a moot point: if even the native spelling doesn't use diacritics in the first place, there is nothing to move or discuss. Your main point, however, is going back to "it is used in their native language/country". Obviously, the native version will use diacritics. Of course the players will write their own names using their native spellings. That does not negate usage in English, since that would be defined by widespread usage, and it is by no means a declaration from any player regarding usage in English of his or her name, especially since there is no known instance of any player going on the record to protest their official, diacritic-less profile on the ATP/WTA records. There is no such thing as we assuming that "deep down" they don't agree. That would be an assumption and as such, a form of POV.
This concerns usage in English, when different from the native. This has nothing to do with the native form, the point being exactly that the native form has been transliterated into English without diacritics, as well as that Wikipedia does not get to be the judge that this is ignorable on the basis that Wikipedia users think so. Redux (talk) 21:26, 9 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm a moderate on this issue. If you look, I'm the reason that Amer Delic was moved. If your goal is to always use English, than you have much bigger fish to fry. Few English sources use "Slobodan Milošević", for example, yet there he is. If you would like this to change, let's change the practice at the top in a community-wide discussion, perhaps on the talk page of WP:UE. I'm 100% in favor of your suggestion. But as long as we have Milošević, I'm not really interested in changing Sávolt. I think consistency is more valuable than putting a few tennis players' names into proper English. Cool Hand Luke 23:28, 9 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, as I mentioned before in this discussion, we can't have an all-inclusive discussion on diacritics because, as our policy itself states, we use English spellings if and when they exist. So we can't really say that we either will always use diacritics or that we will never use diacritics, because either one would be incorrect. And since our current state of affairs already states "use when it is the case", it is only a question of us starting to do just that, case by case, when common usage is verified. This particular discussion is centralized on the general aspect that tennis players' names' usage in English all come into being through the same path: their names are transliterated by the governing bodies of tennis, and almost all coverage of these people in the English-speaking world follows that spelling, which in turn, and also because of this sport's immense popularity in the English-speaking world, and by virtue of that, becomes common usage in English. We still need to make an individual check, mainly by cross-referencing the official profiles on the ATP/WTA with other sources from the English-speaking world to ascertain usage. But the general circumstance is overall the same.
I'm sorry, but the point you are making about Milosevic is a case of two wrongs make a right. I too believe that, if we verify a more common use of "Milosevic", without diacritics, the article would need to be moved appropriately. If that is the case, the article's current title, in English, is as incorrectly given as those on tennis players. However, Wikipedia works by means of "if you see something wrong, fix it", not "demand that other things that are also wrong be fixed first/concomitantly or don't fix it at all". Allowing something that is being done incorrectly (assuming we are accepting the premise that the tennis biographies are not at the correct spelling in English) to remain incorrect because yet another thing that is being done incorrectly has not yet been fixed as well is not in keeping with any of our policies or guidelines and is even contrary to common sense in the aspect of "fix the mistakes/problems as you encounter them". The question regarding Milosevic could be discussed in the article's talk page or even at WP:RM, but an outcome on that is not a prerrequisite for fixing other issues. Redux (talk) 02:34, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This isn't an WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS argument. We all know what WP:UE says, and I agree with your interpretation of those words. However, the reality on the ground systemically deviates from that supposed policy. As such, we can't have much confidence the policy is right. The general practice seems to be using diacriticals whenever the party him or herself would. That's not an insane policy, and because it's our most common practice, I would rather adopt it.
SO: if you have examples like Amer Delic where the player him or herself does not use them, then we will move those articles. We'll let the rest sit, because WP:UE is ignored in this area, and our policy flows from consensus, not the other way around. Cool Hand Luke 17:40, 22 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
So, you're saying we should ignore English Wikipedia policy because you don't like it? Do you realize that this is not the appropriate forum for trying to change that policy? Tennis expert (talk) 07:30, 23 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: Not tennis, but concerning American media, so, rather topical: Yesterday's Croatian/Polish/German/Austrian names displayed on graphics during the ESPN television broadcast of the Euro 2008 group matches were all complete with diacritics, in all cases, including Croatian players from English Premiership. The announcers also tried hard to pronounce them faithfully. Perhaps that's the trend, and graphical exactness is tied to all the other good things, having accuracy as common denominator. Even linguistically, at ESPN. I would not be surprised, to see the staid tennis angloworld adapt, albeit grudginly. Meanwhile, we are an encyclopedia, a place of refuge -- where else will a person see names rendered correctly? Falsifying titles of articles serves no good. And we are to do no harm. --Mareklug talk 05:00, 9 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"Doing harm?" "Falsifying?" A little alarmist in my book. Anyway, your point is very relevant. Common usage is a moving target, and if a substantial number of authoritative and more recent sources are using the diacritics, we could follow suit. Somedumbyankee (talk) 06:45, 9 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
That has actually been the point all along. Which is why I had mentioned, several times, that this is specific to tennis, and obviously not applicable to all sports. Especially sports, such as football/soccer that, unlike tennis, are not popular throughout the English-speaking world. As I mentioned I-don't-know-how-many-times-already, for many, many instances, we will use diacritics because there is no verifiable usage in English. Football is an example — although it may not be the case for foreign players active in the MLS or the Premier League, I don't know, we'd have to verify —. Tennis is not. Beyond that, please read my comments in this very sub-section (and immediately above its header) on transliteration: when it takes places, which is a process in linguistics, there is no such thing as "wrong spelling" in English; the result of transliterated names becomes, through usage, the "correct" spelling in any given language where the process has taken place — and as a point of order, what Wikipedia requires in that regard is not even "absolute scientific accuracy", but rather verified usage in English. Still, transliteration is a scientific fact, and usage, in the case of tennis, is verifiable. That anyone here perceives it as "wrong" is a point of view. If we use it on the encyclopedia, it's original research as well. Redux (talk) 14:54, 9 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Again: can you provide a reliable source that supports your claim that transliterated names become the correct spelling in English? Guido den Broeder (talk) 23:25, 9 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
English does not have an official usage. "Correct spelling" and "correct grammar" are simply a matter of practice. There are accepted spellings, and they change, but that does not mean they don't exist. This knoweth we ful welle, 'sfut, the tonge hath made grete iourne from hir dauninge. Somedumbyankee (talk)
More specifically, Guido, I have already, and so have others on the course of this discussion. Transliteration and it becoming commonly accepted in English is verified by widespread usage in sources from the English-speaking world. We need to verify usage of those spellings by sources. Less than 24 hours ago, in this exact thread, you asked the exact same thing and others explained, citing the information in the process, on which I later expanded. If you forgot, please be so kind as to review the discussion in this sub-thread, starting with your own post from June 8, at 20:50 UTC, right up to our exchange at about 23:45 UTC that same day. Redux (talk) 02:34, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sorry, but that does't fly. Without a reliable source, your claim is just your pov. Guido den Broeder (talk) 14:41, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Excuse me? I said that sources have been provided, and that is fairly clear, since you asked the question yourself on June 8 and it was answered then. Several users have stated that they conducted research and found that all reliable sources but one (CBS) were spelling tennis players names without diacritics. Specific research for each player will still be conducted as each page move is considered. The purpose of this discussion is not to establish a single source, or a number of sources, that will provide an umbrella rationale establishing usage for every single player out there. Case-specific verifications will need to be conducted when we get passed this point that Wikipedia can somehow ignore the sources because they are "wrong", etc. Have you reviewed any of the discussion I mentioned? Right now, you are crossing over to WP:POINT. Redux (talk) 15:07, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You don't seem to understand. What you need is a reliable language source that says you can use a reliable tennis source for spelling. You only provided reliable tennis sources, but nobody doubted their existence. It's the existence of a reliable source on the English language to back up your view that you can use tennis sources for spelling, that is in doubt. Guido den Broeder (talk) 15:32, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Exactly. Use tennis sources for rankings, match results and such that is what they are for. Hobartimus (talk) 15:52, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

First, the ultimate purpose in this discussion is that we are looking to get passed the general points that people have been making about "only correct spelling", "the sources don't really mean what they are saying", etc. Like I said, we need to verify widespread usage for each case. That won't be done here. That's done for each case scenario, that is, each player — possibly on each page's talk page. Of course we are not going to be moving any article solely on the basis of the ATP/WTA profile. They are highly authoritative sources, but alone they don't configure widespread usage. Ideally, we will be able to cross-reference this with other sources, such as specialized sources (Sports Illustrated is one that was mentioned), news that mention any given player by name (CNN, BBC, etc.) and other [reliable] venues in English where players are mentioned by name, using the spelling. But this exact verification, player by player, is not what we are doing right now. That's because we are still getting a lot of stuff like the comment immeditely beneath mine (for now, when someone responds here it won't be 'immediately' beneath anymore), amounting to "doesn't matter that the sources might be spelling this like that because we know that they don't really mean that".
So verification of common usage in English, which is what we need, is done by verifying that the vast majority of reliable sources that write in English, in the English-speaking world, are using this same spelling. That demonstrates common usage in English. That is what our policy requires in terms of demonstrating that a form of spelling is the one commonly used and recognizable in English. Common usage and wide recognition is demonstrated by usage, that is, the fact that the vast majority of the sources in English are using that spelling. As Somedumbyankee mentioned, nobody lays down a formal piece of legislation regarding usage. It is a continuous process through which a given form of spelling a word enters the language's lexis and becomes accepted, commonly used and widely recognized, thus defining it as "correct" in that language.
Hobartimus, you seem to be misunderstanding something: "tennis sources" or any source, as long as they are reliable, and the ATP and the WTA certainly are, are valid sources to verify information, including spellings of names. There is no such thing as "this source is only meant for match results". In this particular context, because we need to verify widespread usage, they are not sufficient on their own, since we need to demonstrate common usage across various venues. That does not, however, negate their position as the single most authoritative sources for anything pertaining to tennis, including the spellings of players' names — and notably because they are both associations of professionals, where the players themselves are members, which means that, unless there is a formal protest, players endorse or, at least, accept what their own organization is saying about them. And that includes how they spell their names. Redux (talk) 16:32, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Tennis does not include spelling. Now please, take a break, give other users a chance. It gets very annoying to have to plow through one long piece of text after another only to find that it merely repeats what you put on this page several times already. Guido den Broeder (talk) 17:38, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
"Tennis does not include spelling"? What is that? No one said that tennis is the sport of spelling, or that sources on tennis know best how to spell anything. Just that the root or origin of the different spelling comes from the ATP and WTA, with the players' blessing, and then it becomes verifiable usage when this becomes widespread in English sources. Spelling is verified by usage, not the other way around. As the name makes it obvious, usage means people use that spelling. What do you not get about that? I've just said it: we cross-reference multiple sources to establish usage.
Now, I'm sorry to inconvenience you, but you certainly have noticed that, the latest comment beneath is perhaps the 20th time people have said that "the sources don't mean what they say". In topics such as this, the continuous repetition of this point to make a case that a majority "vote" can authorize Wikipedia to conduct and carry original research and reflect user points of view in article has allowed this situation to continue for a worringly long time. And sure enough, in the first few days of discussion, already at least two people were canvassing in relation to this discussion. The objective is typical of canvassing: increase the headcount in a perceived vote. Unfortunately, we had to find a way to break the trend. See people actually try to defend a rationale that they know what the sources mean better than the authors, or that they are privy to the "fact" that the author couldn't be bothered to get a keyboard with diacritics and that is why they didn't use it, even though they might have meant to otherwise — which, even if it is somehow true, constitutes original research. Because a lot of people seem to be coming here to cast their vote, using those kinds of rationale — although that is still better than no rationale at all, of course — and apparently either not willing to read any of what has been written or simply refusing to get the point that we can't either make assumptions and speculate on what the sources are saying or ignore policies and guidelines on the basis of "I/some don't like it", I'm forced to address each of them individually. In theory, I shouldn't have to. Per the most basic knowledge regarding how Wikipedia works, especially the part that we hold discussions, not votes, and that if a rationale has already been proven to be inaccurate and people keep "voting" "per that rationale", that ultimately is not counting validly towards what we are really trying to accomplish. But on the other hand, simply ignoring them will not help us in a truly constructive manner.
But believe me, my time is very limited. That I have been doing this here has reduced my available time elsewhere on Wikipedia drastically. But I understand it to be more relevant to fix an instance in which Wikipedia is carrying original research and POV at this moment. Redux (talk) 19:59, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm in much the same boat - I had exams last week and assignments for my second course this week leading up to presentations on Saturday, and spent way too much time here trying to sort out something which in my view is perfectly fine, has been for over two years, and is not in need of being sorted out. People "refusing to get the point", in your opinion, however, is not an excuse to bully or badger them or to belligerently reassert your points, assuming that you will eventually cower everyone into submission. Wikipedia does not, and has never, worked like that and I would advise giving it a rest. We work by agreement here, not brute force. Additionally, the blatant misuse and twisting of policy and imperfectly worded/scoped guidelines well beyond their intended effect by yourself and other WP Tennis supporters seems like gaming to me. I'm fairly sure that after 180k of this nonsense people have a fairly clear idea of what your opinion is. There is not one truth that a myriad of people somehow don't get and if they're told enough times it will somehow make all the difference, and your assumption of such reeks of arrogance and overconfidence - not to mention downright insulting to the people who have taken time out of their day to write here. Your last edit summary, "I wish it was easier too, believe me", demonstrates this arrogance perfectly - so that makes you right, everyone else wrong, and you're going to win whatever it takes? I've seen many good faith contributions and efforts at proposals to resolve the problem, and I think you should give them a chance. Orderinchaos 05:58, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This is an astronomical misrepresentation of what I have said or what I have been doing. My point is not to tell you specifically the same thing time and again until you accede. My point has been that numerous people come here and "vote" per the exact rationale that has already been refuted. And that has been a trend in discussions involving article titles that revolve around not using native spellings. It is my belief, indeed, that it would not be constructive just to ignore them. If anything, they should have a chance to defend their postion as not being original research or just their own opinion. I'm addressing this somewhat further down in the discussion.
What you seem to be refusing to get is that this is not a democracy, this is not a vote, and we will not have a group of people decide that we can carry original research and pov. The point being that those are taking place when people insist that we ignore common usage because "authors are lazy/ignorant/don't have proper keyboards" or "there is only one right spelling and that's the native" offering no evidence but that they believe in it and perceive it as obvious.
We also need to be mature enough to understand that Wikipedia is not a place for us to vehicle our opinions, even if they appear to be obvious and logical. This is an encyclopedia, so unless your opinion is verifiable in reliable sources, it will not be reflected in the encyclopedia at all.
And if you want to get user consensus on this particular issue to claim that these group of people's opinion, in consensus, authorize Wikipedia to carry their opinion, you should know that this is measured against a much larger consensus, visible at WP:NPOV, that states that no user opinion, to no extent, is to be included in the encyclopedia. In other words, we have a more significative consensus that says that we don't get consensus to carry original research and user opinion that is not verifiable. Redux (talk) 22:51, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose: Diacritcs were originally dropped either because the original printing machines were not designed to recreate them, or because the original editor was either too lazy, sloppy or just ignorant to take any notice. The fact is plain and simple: diacritics are additions - not letter replacements - they complement the grapheme, and as such, they cause no difficulty when reading. Ţō ṭáķè àñ éχãṃρłẽ, ωĥö ṝẽâłłγ ṣṭřúģģļèš ťó ŕéáđ ţħïš ??? Every character in that last sentence is alien to its plain counterpart among the 26 basic letters of English. The human brain copes with diacritics by ignoring them when it is unsure how the letter is supposed to be pronounced in the source language. Names which are printed without diacritics are not transcribed into English. If they were, he who transcribed them would have to do a lot more to match the new form with the expected pronunciation. Here on the free encyclopaedia, we can all write names as and how we choose. If someone should come along and ammend a name by adding a diacritic, or moving a page to the relevant name involving the diacritic, it is primitive to revert it: it brings us backwards when our purpose is to be knowledgeable. I accept that no tennis lover can be familar with every language of the world. So if he/she wishes to use "Ivo Karlovic", then that is fine, nobody need take exception. If then one reader with a knowledge of the South Slavic written languages reads it and changes it to "Karlović", let us be grateful that he/she is aiming to improve the article quality by adding accuracy. In response to HJensen's suggestion that it is all right to use diacritics on such word as "café" because it is common for English, I wish to add that it too is often omitted, and where it is common to find it, you will also find the same writer using diacritics for other words and names which use them in the source language, except if that editor is unaware of them and even then it would only be a matter of time before he or she became familiar with them, and started to use them. It would be unfounded for any writer to use diacritics for some titles whilst discluding them for other things when he/she is aware of their usage. It would be even sillier for an editor of a newspaper to present forms such as Zoë (girl's name) and façade, but dismiss Vírag Németh as un-English when it is the editor here who dictates precisely what is and what is not English, at least for our sakes. It is incompatible: he'll either use the diacritics everywhere, or he won't; except where he is unsure. Here on Wikipedia we have millions of editors and monolingual editors need feel no shame when they reproduce a tennis player's name as on the tabloid backsheet. When your Romanian/Polish/Croatian/Swedish/Icelandic editor makes the relevant change, it will: a) improve the accuracy and raise its reputable appearance, b) still be easy to read whilst educating those who were previously unaware but are otherwise interested, and c) still be in accordance with some English language media. Now you cannot be fairer than this. Evlekis (talk) 13:24, 10 June 2008 (UTC) Евлекис[reply]

Have you read anything that has been said? "Diacritcs were originally dropped either because the original printing machines were not designed to recreate them"? "The original editor was either too lazy, sloppy or just ignorant"? You are basing that on what? On that "you know" this? You are assuming that the sources don't really mean what they are saying? That's original research and a point of view. You are speculating on the reasons why diacritics are not used in the English-language sources to arrive at a conclusion which, for that reason, reflects only your own opinion and assumptions. "It would be unfounded for any writer to use diacritics for some titles whilst discluding them for other things when he/she is aware of their usage"? Are you aware that the criterion on the English-language Wikipedia is usage in English, that is in sources from the English-speaking world? Usage in sources from the native language do not negate that. Of course the native-language sources are going to use the native spelling, that has nothing to do with a verified different usage in English. Encyclopedic entries' titles on the English-language Wikipedia follow common usage in English when they exist. That it doesn't exist for some instances does not negate that it does exist for others. "Other circumstances", involving other words or other people who may or may not have had their names transliterated are just that: different circumstances. If in those cases there is devided usage, or even no usage at all in English that is different from the native, we will obviously use diacritics.
"Here on the free encyclopaedia, we can all write names as and how we choose"? Not at all. Wikipedia's motto of "anyone can edit" does not translate into "do whatever you want". We are bound by pre-established facts, on previously published material as verified. If we do "as and how we choose", we are manifesting our own opinion, or at the very least, taking sides, and Wikipedia cannot do any of that, on any subject matter. Redux (talk) 14:11, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Redux. I know exactly what I said in the above paragraph and my sentiments remain. I cannot find you internet sources to state that certain publishers omit diacritics on account of ignorance any more than I can find a source to suggest that television soap operas aim at the gullible and unintelligent. That is why I make these remarks on talk pages and not the articles. But if you can prove that the soap opera viewer population has a significant percentage of highly intelligent and respectable individuals, you might also be able to deduce this: (Local Name) - (Diacritics) = (English variant). But you havn't, and neither has anyone, and that is why this discussion exists. If removing diacritics is an attempt to anglicise word forms, then that would only be the first stage of the project. Before an English speaker is expected to pronounce the foreign name, a conventional transcription would materialise from somewhere. Look at the example for Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin here. So, you are saying that: Jelena Dokić, becomes, Jelena Dokic (common English). To read the new form in English, you end up pronouncing the initial letter as the first in "jam", and the final letter as the last letter of "Civic". To keep her local language pronunciation, you'd probably want to write Yelena Dokich. Since our publishers do not do this, they clearly have no intention of Anglicising her name. And if they do not wish to Anglicise her name, why do we not have the diacritic? It could be either because they are unaware of it - possibly because they copied it from others who also copied from the first influx whose ultimate source was some primitive computer scoreboard on the courts, many of which cannot cope with much more than the 26 letters and the 10 digits - or because their own original printing equipment did not have the facility. These are just two reasons why some publishers may not use diacritics. Today, everything is available at the editor's fingertips. So if he should choose to ignore the diacritics because it is "the journal's policy not to change what it has been doing since 1972", that is their problem at the firm. I doubt there will be an outcry to have them removed by their readers! And in any case, keeping the diacritics out still does not make it "English", because you still have English language literature which observes diacritics. Nobody would accuse them of deviating from written English if they restrict them to the name of a foreign source, apart from those who think that Scandinavians are stupid for using /j/ for their /y/ sounds. So, diacritics may not be seen everywhere, but if keeping them is in breech of "English", so too is keeping the rest of the spelling. "Goran Ivanisevic" as you read it here is as misleading and meaningless in English as it would be in Croatian. As for my other comments, the editor being free to write as he chooses, I did not mean that he can blank an article and replace it with his own poetry, I meant that he is free to write names the only way he knows how, to misspell, editing free from the fear of being ungrammatical and in time, piece by piece, someone will ammend it for the better. One is not a vandal if he uses diacritics where others don't, even if the page has been move to the plain form. And this is where I say that we should not go to war with good faith individuals who install diacritics to improve a page's accuracy, which as I said, is in accordance with some English media. Evlekis (talk) 08:58, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

He is probably basing that on knowledge and experience, Redux, and as a publisher as well as someone whose name has often been misspelled in English sources (diacritics don't make only thing that some journalists find difficult) I can only confirm it. Please don't approach other users in such an aggressive manner. Assume good faith and stay civil. Guido den Broeder (talk) 07:33, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I used to work in the media here in Perth and the use of style guides was pretty much institutional, so what you were getting was the media agency's style guide rather than any encyclopaedic truth emerging out of their choice of spelling or representation. Some indeed had the same but one problem we always had was Taliban vs Taleban as our input sources were split on the issue. I've also heard some *terrible* pronunciations of names from some news announcers (Boo-noss Ezz for Buenos Aires for instance). Orderinchaos 07:49, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm being rather objective about it, not personal. You are missing the point. What defines usage is the fact that people use a spelling commonly. The historical reasons are not decisive, because Wikipedia does not get to pass judgement on them to decide that they are indicative of someone's original personal choice, or a general guideline in media agencies. That is irrelevant from the perspective of an encyclopedia. What concerns us is that a spelling has become common usage in English-speaking sources and verifies that it is the most commonly used in the English-speaking world, which in turn defines the title of our articles. It is as I said: if someone argues that "I know that they are doing it out of ignorance" it's original research and a point of view. If someone says "I have experience in the field and I know that authors don't give it much thought when deciding how to write" that's original research and, more specific to the point of usage, irrelevant, because we are not here to define the historical reasons why a spelling became commonly used (original research), and certainly not to pass judgment on those reasons (point of view) and decide that we can overlook common usage because we have reached an understanding amongst ourselves on the value of the historical reasons and, by extension, on the value of the current common usage (both original research and pov).
Understand, I'm not disagreeing with anyone on any particular issue. Only this is an encyclopedia, we do not create new knowledge, we do not analyze and assign "worth" to existing knowledge. We gather and reproduce information, according to certain parameters (our policies and guidelines). That is why I say that anyone's sentiment or opinion in that regard is irrelevant. It has nothing to do with my own standing regarding any user or even any point concerning whatever reasons might have inspired the sources originally to start using a spelling. As far as I am concerned, you could be 100% correct. But that is still just not how the encyclopedia is written. Redux (talk) 12:44, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The guideline reads: Use the most commonly used English version, and not the most commonly used version in English texts. A misspelled version is NOT an English version, and therefore it does not matter how common the misspelling is. Guido den Broeder (talk) 13:37, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
If it's consistently spelled "wrong", then at least we'll be in good company. It's entirely possible that one of the critics of Global Warming is correct, but that doesn't mean that Wikipedia shouldn't focus the article on mainstream scientific thought. "Common use" is a fact like any other, and pushing WP:FRINGE viewpoints on English usage is just as tendentious as pushing fringe viewpoints on science. I'm sorry to assume bad faith, but this argument is getting ridiculous. Somedumbyankee (talk) 13:52, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
If you think the guideline is ridiculous, then suggest a change. Meanwhile, do not attack other users for following it. Specifically on modified characters it reads: Follow the general usage in English verifiable reliable sources in each case, whatever characters may or may not be used in them. Again: just verifiability is not enough. That is not 'fringe', but the usual requirement on Wikipedia. Guido den Broeder (talk) 14:00, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I must agree with Somedumbyankee. This is becoming a case of refusal to get the point. You do realize that you said that a "misspelled version is not an English version" and that "it doesn't matter how common it is", which is saying that it is spelled different from the native and as such it is "wrong" and thus we should ignore common usage on grounds that it is "wrong", regardless of what the sources are saying and our policies and guidelines, which you quoted yourself. That has been addressed before; read specifically my explanations about transliteration in linguistics and the fact that our assuming that it is "wrong" on some philosophical, cultural or social level is original research and a point of view. We are an encyclopedia, and regarding usage, we follow common usage in English sources. We do not judge and decide that all the English sources are "wrong" and because of that we are authorized to ignore them. Concerning reliability, please read WP:RS, you seem to be misunderstanding this concept as well. Redux (talk) 15:15, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In view of your hostile attitude, I'm done here. Consensus is against you. Accept it, and move on. Guido den Broeder (talk) 17:46, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You are enterpreting as hostile what is simply an explanation. Saying that you are wrong in the subject at hand is no offense to you personally. Don't confuse things. You are also grocely misinterpreting how Wikipedia works. This is not a vote. A headcount will not authorize original research and point of view. And on numbers, I'm not even going into the demonstrated canvassing that has taken place in relation to this discussion (as linked in the early parts of this discussion).
So far, nobody has been able to defend that our deciding that sources are ignorable because they are "wrong", and that they are "wrong" not because we can verify the opposite more convincingly, but because we, the users, understand that they are wrong for our own reasons (original research and point of view), does not constitute original research and PoV. We are not examining specific, player by player cases here, but all arguments so far have actually admitted that, once we search, we do find that the English-language sources widely use diacritic-less spellings, but that this is ignorable per "keyboard issues", "ignorance", "only one right spelling" (according to whoever is writing), etc. And again, even if I personally agree that some level of convenience, or whatever other reason, might have been key in English speakers deciding to adopt a different spelling, that does not negate that common usage in English exists. And if it exists, we follow that usage. You said it yourself while quoting exactly WP:UE above. Speculating on historical reasons and assigning worth to them is not our job as an encyclopedia.
Or rather, not nobody: Future Perfect at Sunrise did. He said OR and NPOV wouldn't apply because it would be a "matter of choice of style" to select spellings. This, however, has already been refuted. Redux (talk) 18:56, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Redux, again you misenterpret me. This "original research" on my behalf exists only in discussion and not on the main article. I have actually read WP:UE and all it advises is to use the form most common to English. To me, this would mean using Jelena Janković as opposed to Јелена Јанковић (Serbian Cyrillc). WP:UE states that one should use the English transcriptions even if they are unsystematic. Naturally, this is in line with your theory. Alternatively, if the native form is more common, it advises that you use that form, and display the English exonym close to the introduction. That too, I suppose, is in line with your proposals. However, the variations suggested by Tennis Expert are neither English exonyms (ie. new names emerging in English for English), nor transcriptions (ie. new names baring local pronunciation using conventional English spelling forms). They are the local name minus diacritics. And if they don't use it for a Swedish tennis player, then they will not use it when talking about his place of birth, which might be Umeå, or should that be "Umea". Goran Visnjic, a man who lost his diacritics, was still born in Šibenik. I challenge anybody on the planet, to find me a piece of text among the billions of internet articles, with would have a presentation such as the following: "Goran Visnjic, a Croatian actor born in Šibenik...", don't even waste your time trying to find one. Yet it is the same source. So shall we remove the diacritics from polititians and names of cities and provinces? If one should argue that diacritics are common for people like Milo Đukanović, Vojislav Šešelj or Oliver Dulić then that is only because the source which gives it is a different one in the first place: presumably because a site/magazine mentioning these three people is likely to be about politics, and anything mentioning the tennis players will be about sport. But this is itself only original research isn't it? So, is it the end for diacritics across English Wikipedia because you don't find them on tennis-based literature? If so, the next thing to go should be that insert-board at the bottom of the editing page. For those who never touch diacritics and have never explored the editing page, just look beneath the Save Page/Show Preview/Show changes captions and you'll find a great big box full of marvelous characters, all no use to English. Evlekis (talk) 20:12, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Evlekis, I do get what you are saying. But WP:UE is actually very, very simple: "Use the most commonly used English version of the name of the subject as the title of the article, as you would find it in verifiable reliable sources" and "if one name is clearly most commonly used in the English-language references for the article, use it". That means, if such a thing exists, we use that spelling. If it doesn't (devided spelling, etc.) we use the native, most common form. I believe you might be confusing a couple of things: first, the rule regarding systematic transliteration refers to how we will list names with non-Latin characters, and it says that we don't use systematic transliteration if a common English form exists. "Common" means, simply enough, "used widely by sources". Second, exonyms are something we need to mention in articles even if they are not common usage, to demonstrate to readers how the word "works" in English. That has nothing to do with us demonstrating that the most common spelling used in sources is a proper exonym or a product of more complex romanization. It is just a question of using the more common form adopted by the sources in English.
All we need to do is that we must be able to demonstrate widespread usage of a spelling in reliable sources. For tennis players, this is usually rather simple — which is why nobody has denied that that's what's found in English-language sources. That they are simply the native form minus the diacritics changes nothing. It's not our job to decide that it is "close enough" to the exact native form.
What you are saying about cities is what I mentioned earlier: it is irrelevant to make assumptions such as "if they were to write, they'd sure not use diacritics". Doesn't matter. That is not usage. If one source, once in a blue moon, does it, that's not usage either. When it comes to cities and other places, the rule is the same, so we have Vienna not Wien, Prague not Praha etc., but we have Umeå, as you mentioned. Umeå is a case of no established usage, so we default to the native spelling. There is no law that says that those cities are to be called that in English. What exists is common usage. If it were to change in the future, we'd need to move those articles to Wien and Praha. In terms of article titles, we use the name that is common usage in English if that exists. And, of course, from WP:UE as well: "Wikipedia is not a crystal ball. It is not our business to predict what term will be in use; but to observe what is and has been in use, and will therefore be familiar to our readers. If Torino ousts Turin, we should follow; but we should not leap to any conclusion until it does." Redux (talk) 22:51, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I am in agreement with Guido's view of the conflict, and Evlekis's informed arguments above. I consider the arguments against moving to be stronger than those for moving. Consensus clearly favours this position, the hostility and aggression shown by one very verbose and persistent contributor notwithstanding (betraying the good faith contributions of the two or three who support his position). Denying such behaviour a response deprives it of the oxygen it needs to breathe, and I intend to do that from this point. I thank all contributors who have provided their thoughts here, and especially those (there are a few!) who I have been able to learn from during this discussion. Orderinchaos 20:38, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

With respect, gauging concensus is something I have a little experience in doing. If you have 15 people supporting a point that we can ignore sources and carry original research in that regard, this will be taken in light of the facts not only that the rationales for so doing might have been refuted here, but also that there is a larger consensus, represented in WP:OR and WP:NPOV that says that Wikipedia will not, under any circumstance, carry original research and user point of view. So certainly, if we have I-don't-know-how-many-users saying "ignore the sources because they only mean that English authors are ignorant/don't have appropriate keyboards", those positions will be taken and weighed exactly for what they represent. Otherwise this would be a vote, a headcount. And that is not how Wikipedia works.
And I am very much aware that issues representing language structure have been forced around via canvassing in other-language projects and on en.wiki to harness similar PoVs and create a vote-like situation where a show of hands favors a specific side. Since canvassing has already been demonstrated to have taken place here, associated with the fact that many people clearly "voted" per same-old rationales, without reading previous discussions or caring to reflect, you should be very careful in claiming that I'm the one trying to sway any kind of result. Nobody likes being told that they are wrong. Assuming bad faith because someone will not agree with what you perceive as obvious is quite frankly, misguided. Redux (talk) 22:51, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Again, you twist policy to suit your own ends. (And again, you'll reply with 500 words saying exactly what you said last time.) No, I can see what game you're playing to try and get this through, and I can assure you that any move to implement a "consensus of one + a few" will be resisted, strongly - at ArbCom if necessary. Past observation of their resolutions is that they tend to come down in the middle, and I think that is the essence of Kotniski's proposal which we already have on the table. My key involvement here is 1/ that Wikipedia correctly represents the facts as they are (not as some slightly ethnocentric Western agency would like us to believe they are*), 2/ that the spirit and letter of WP:CSB are maintained and 3/ an increasing sense that bullying and tactics should not prevail on this dispute, especially when they are being used by senior people on the project who feel their view should stand over and above anyone else's. Only Jimbo and ArbCom in their official capacities have that weight, sorry.
* Yes, I am being facetiously disingenuous.Orderinchaos 04:20, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
"On Wikipedia we represent the facts as they are and not how an ethnocentric Western agency would like us to believe they are"?? Then do tell: what characterizes the facts "as they are"? For common usage in English, I would say that that would be....usage, when verified. How do you negate that, once verified, that is not original research and point of view? You don't. And that being the case, do notice: you cannot get consensus of those who agree with your "ethnocentrism" point here to "authorize" Wikipedia to negate a verified fact on the basis that you and others deem it to be ethnocentric, biased and thus ignorable. And why is that? Because we have consensus on that. On WP:V, WP:OR and WP:NPOV. Much like WP:BLP, under our current structure those policies are non-negotiable. By all means, do ask ArbCom or Jimbo about it. And why are you quoting a WikiProject? Interestingly, some people questioned the original discussion because it had taken place in the pages of a WikiProject. And really, a "cabal is trying to rule us" argument? My point is regarding policy, not levels of access. Redux (talk) 11:48, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I have filed an alert at Wikipedia:Wikiquette_alerts#User:Redux. Guido den Broeder (talk) 13:15, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting. As you wish. You are certainly entitled to say what you want. You think I'm offending you because I'm telling you that you are wrong. You also think that I'm "burying" you under repetitive argumentation while you keep refusing to get the point (WP:POINT); I've been giving you a chance to demonstrate how negating verified usage is not original reseach and point of view. You think you don't need to because you have consensus. So I'll do as you wish and no longer respond to you. What I explained above still stands, the notion of consensus included. Redux (talk) 13:45, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Obvious Oppose OrderinChaos has pretty much summed it up. I would add just two thoughts. I find it quite extraordinary that the ATP and others would choose to misspell players' names. They should certainly change their practice. Second, no-one would ever suggest moving Antonín Dvořák to Antonin Dvorak or Gabriel Fauré to Gabriel Faure; I don't see why Tennis players are less deserving of respect than other figures with diacriticised nominal embellishment. Eusebeus (talk) 20:09, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

We are not proposing to move all in a bundle. This discussion is aimed at getting passed certain aspects regarding original research and pov. Once that is done, we would still need to verify common usage for each case. In any case it would, of course, not be based solely on the ATP/WTA profile, but rather on common usage, as we would find it in a sufficient majority of reliable sources. Usage is not a question of respect. It is a question that the English-speaking world started to use that spelling predominantly, for whatever reason. The encyclopedia is not concerned with speculating on the reasons and deciding that they are "wrong". We simply use the most recognizable form in the English language in the title. Off the top of my head, a good example would perhaps be Charlesmagne. His name in life was Carolus Magnus. "Charlesmagne" is a francophonic rendition of that. A more precise translation in English would be "Charles the Great". Then why is the English-language Wikipedia using for a title a name in French for someone whose name was in Latin and spelled differently [even from the French rendition]? The answer has nothing to do with official name, or respect or deference for someone or something. In fact, that is immaterial. As far as an encyclopedia is concerned, what matters is that, in English, that is the common usage of this person's name. So if we were to say: "absurd to use 'Charlesmagne' because that's neither a rendition in English nor the original spelling of the name", while this would be 100% true, we would be basing the decision to ignore common usage on our own understanding, which makes it original research and a point of view — and verifiability [of common usage, as indicated on WP:UE], not philosophical truth, is the criterion to be followed. You see? Redux (talk) 21:03, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Repeating the point, language is not being argued, so straw man argument. Orderinchaos 01:44, 13 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
If not language, what are we talking about? Somedumbyankee (talk) 02:15, 13 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Names. We're talking about names, not what language to use in describing the person who the name belongs to. It doesn't make sense to me why an encyclopedia would want to purposely mis-spell someone's name, verifiable by public records (one of the instances where using primary sources really makes sense), just to be in line with other people who have mis-spelled their names, whether it be by malice, ignorance, laziness, or poor typestting environments. Just because other people are doing something wrong doesn't make it the right thing to do for us simply because that's what other people are doing. I think IAR is sufficient for cases like Charlesmagne, where there is little to no reliable documentation that discusses him as anything but, but for the vast majority of cases (particularly these), they are known natively by, surprisingly enough, their name. I don't see using their actual name as a case of OR; I see the opposite, creating a bastardized form of a person's name without any other standing than the use thereof by negligent writers gross synthesis and OR. Celarnor Talk to me 03:15, 13 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It seems that the names without diacritics are used by a lot of reputable publications which are capable, dedicated enough to put out a magazine on a regular basis, and have plenty of money for the right typesetting equipment. I really doubt that news magazines and player associations are run by evil people who want to abuse innocent tennis players by bastardizing their names. Somedumbyankee (talk) 03:45, 13 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
And the spelling of names is language. Processes in linguistics such as transliteration and romanization affect the spelling of names in that particular language just like they do a word. The spelling of names is a function of language just as much as it is for a word, provided, just like with a word, that this new spelling becomes common usage in that language. In the example of Charlesmagne, we are not ignoring the rules; quite the opposite, we are following them. Redux (talk) 12:55, 13 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I dearly hope someone has already brought up Wikipedia:Naming conventions (standard letters with diacritics). Unfortunately, this is an essay, not even a guideline, so while it is worth a read, we cannot use it for guidance. What I think we can learn a lot from, however, is the Talk page where it was discussed whether to enact that essay as a guideline or policy. The discussion there is almost identical to the one taking place here, lasted for weeks, and came to no decision. For those spending a lot of their valuable time debating on this page, I would just point that out ;) Seriously, it looks like the community sadly cannot reach a consensus on this issue. --Jaysweet (talk) 13:17, 13 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. Media Wiki does allow the use of UTF characters, which TV subtitles or many database systems don't allow. The diacritic marks are part of the name. (And it is quite funny how the disrespect and the lack of knowing it better let many sport reportes speak (Jaromír) Jágr like (Mick) Jagger (indeed its [ˈjaromiːr ˈjaːgr̩]ⓘ. Last but not least, the motion to move the diacritic marks away can be understood by foreignors (i.e. not English-language speakers) as an act of cultural imperialism. --Matthiasb (talk) 09:13, 19 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose renaming - diacritics are useful, unobtrusive, we have redirects, they don't hinder understanding, and most of all, they are correct, whereas diacritic-less names are merely a dumbed-down version of the proper name. Biruitorul Talk 03:14, 29 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong oppose - one WikiProject should not be carving exceptions for itself. Unless wikipedia-wide ban on diacritics is launched, I object WP:TENNIS having it's own little rules. Renata (talk) 06:26, 2 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong oppose Just in case someone has doubts about my position on this, after my arguments below. Húsönd 12:56, 2 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong oppose In the age of Unicode, there is simply no reason to omit diacritics. KovacsUr (talk) 13:35, 6 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Suggestion on how to conduct the discussion[edit]

"This is madness!" When I look at this "discussion," I see a problem. Every time a new editor chimes in, a couple of prolific editors jump in and pick apart everything they say, often repeating the same arguments. I do not think this is productive, it makes the discussion confusing, makes it extremely daunting to anyone else who might want to participate, and obscures consensus.

Let's say editor #1 makes comment X, and editor #2 rebuts it in a reply. A couple days later, editor #3 comes along and makes a comment that is essentially a rehash of X. There is no need for editor #2 to repeat his/her rebuttal, because there is already a record of it in the reply (at most, editor #2 might add a comment that said "see this" with a link to the diff of the original rebuttal).

I was alerted to this page because of a Wikiquette alert, and while I understand what is being debated, after reading for 2-3 minutes I have absolutely no clue what the arguments are from the various sides, because this is just a hodge-podge. The discussion will be much more effective if people could stick to succinctly summarizing their main points. Thanks. --Jaysweet (talk) 14:01, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. I stopped following this discussion some time ago, but in any case I suggest it be put on hold and discussion continue on the general principle at WT:Use diacritics, as I suggested somewhere before.--Kotniski (talk) 14:09, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The problem is the continued lumping together of all of these at once. Rather than attempt consensus on a couple at a time, more and more keep getting piled on. I see this page sitting in the backlog for a LONG time. JPG-GR (talk) 16:54, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I don't really see that as the problem. We should be consistent by treating them all in the same way. I believe we should be aiming at an even broader consistency, though, WP-wide, without enacting different rules about diacritics per sport. Hence WP:UD.--Kotniski (talk) 18:08, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You can't treat people's names "all in the same way." You have to treat them on an individual basis, because they are a person's name. Yes, a -general- rule would be nice, but a quick glance at the proposals shows that some are well supported and some are not. A good example that comes to mind is people named Ramón. Or is it Ramon? Well, it depends, doesn't it? JPG-GR (talk) 19:25, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Coming up with different proposals for different people ends up with all manner of tangle. I think the community should develop a framework for these (something like Kotniski's link above) and reasonable exceptions to it, and then a lot less of these sorts of arguments will occur. Orderinchaos 01:40, 13 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I don't disagree. At this point we have a long list of proposed moves that no one seems to be interested in discussion individually and, therefore, a whole lotta clutter in CAT:RM. JPG-GR (talk) 00:33, 14 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I know we covered a great many things in this discussion, but let us remind ourselves of a handful of points which are both empirical (nobody will argue with them), and relevant.
  • 1. Many have mentioned "spelling". This is not about spelling, the question is do we or do we not use diacritics.
  • 2. None of the forms suggested by Tennis Expert on the top of the page are exonyms.
  • 3. None of the forms suggested by Tennis Expert on the top of the page are transcriptions.
  • 4. Diacritics are acceptable in English to the point that they are used in the reputable dictionaries (ie. Collins, Oxford, Longmans, Chambers etc.) as well as by some writers and some media.
  • 5. The use of the diacritics are a mere addition to letters which would otherwise stand in exactly the same sequence. As no diacritic obscures the identity of any letter, it is easily read.
  • 6. As this is not a content dispute (he did vs he did not), we do not rely so heavily on sources. The sources do not do for us here what they do in a disputed argument elsewhere because this is just about overall presentation.
I thank you. Evlekis (talk) 13:45, 13 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Just a thought[edit]

This was a very sad proposal indeed. I wonder if it has occurred to a few users fighting diacritics that many English speakers actually know how to read them, and would therefore be misled if presented titles lacking them. I totally accept that many people will not bother to pronounce foreign names right. Or care to learn. But for those who do care for accuracy of information, diacritics are most essential. You thus have no right to promote ignorance on an encyclopedia, which is supposed to be regarded as a trustworthy and precise source of information. Húsönd 02:31, 18 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This puts succinctly exactly what I was thinking. True, this may be the english encyclopedia, but we're discussing names. I don't expect most monoglots to understand the issue at hand here, but diacritics are useful for the proper pronunciation of names; accuracy and precision are things that we should be striving to improve, not to remove. Celarnor Talk to me 03:19, 18 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I agree, Húsönd. Renaming articles simply on the basis that native English speakers usually ignore diacritics (I suspect that the prevalance of these naming conventions on official websites is rather more to do with the difficulty of typing these characters on American keyboards than anything else...) is very much against our stated principles - are we here to collate knowledge or are we here to support common mistakes & pop culture? Sometimes I wonder. Naerii - Talk 23:50, 18 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Exactly which "stated principles" are those? One of our "stated principles" is that we must abide by Wikipedia policy, and this project page is not the place to debate policy. That principle trumps your unsourced suspicions and, more troubling, comfort with ignoring WP:NOR whenever it suits your core belief that Wikipedia should not be "just" an encyclopedia. Tennis expert (talk) 03:08, 19 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The stated principle of compiling all human knowledge? lol @ you thinking you know my "core beliefs". Policies are frequently wrong and should be changed if they are wrong; people new to Wikipedia never seem to get that policies are mostly there to describe current practice, not prescribe it. If you can't make an argument for doing something that stands on it's own merits rather than an argument that consists of "policy says so!!" then you're probably arguing the wrong position. Naerii - Talk 11:13, 19 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
What's sad is that you still don't understand that this project page is not the place to argue policy. This project page is simply implementing existing policy. If you want to argue that existing policy is wrong, go elsewhere to make your argument. You are currently at the wrong forum. Tennis expert (talk) 13:27, 19 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The 1st pillar determines that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, that's the prime principle. And encyclopedias strive for accuracy. Couldn't be simpler. As for Munich, that's a long establish English name for the German city, unlike "München", which is used only in the German language. So, unrelated to this issue. Húsönd 12:02, 19 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It's a question of accessibility as well, especially for the article title. "Being right" really isn't a big deal if people start creating articles that can't be found because the spelling is correct. The native spelling (and IPA) will be in the article, so knowledge is not "lost". Somedumbyankee (talk) 13:59, 19 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
How can they not be found? We have redirects, and they're cheap. Húsönd 14:02, 19 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
New articles may not have the redirects yet, and in many of these cases these aren't high-traffic articles where someone will have done so. The first and final thing that matters with the title is that people find what they're looking for. Anything else can go into the body of the article. Somedumbyankee (talk) 15:26, 19 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well thanks for proving yourself that your argument is completely false :) All of the articles listed here have redirects and moving them will not prevent new articles from being created with diacritics and without redirects. Naerii - Talk 21:27, 19 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I was speaking generally, as to why the guideline says what it does. It's not an issue in these particular cases, no, but tennis isn't a dead sport and there will be new articles. WP:IAR is fine, really, but there should be a reason other than "I don't like the guideline", and WP:UE explicitly addresses use of diacritics and other "funny characters". Somedumbyankee (talk) 06:26, 20 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As said elsewhere this is not a question of spelling. UE refers to things like Munich whereas here they are suggesting something akin to Munchen Tfd25 (talk) 09:08, 19 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's not so much an issue of "I don't like the guideline" as "there has been no actual reason provided as to why reader experience would be improved if we removed the diacritics". Naerii - Talk 14:24, 20 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Several have been given above and repeating them yet again would be silly. The moves are consistent with existing guidelines, and if there are problems with the guidelines they should be brought up on the guideline's talk page. Somedumbyankee (talk) 15:25, 20 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Said existing guideline trips all over itself and cannot be considered authoritative - it would be tagged if it was in mainspace. However, even its tangled logic does not in any way preclude keeping diacritics, contrary to what those who wish them removed have argued (it's getting repetitive). Orderinchaos 14:25, 21 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The existing guidance is certainly controversial. At any rate, there is an open discussion there (though I wish people would actually use the WT:UE page instead of proposing separate guidelines) and I don't think any of these moves should be done until that is resolved. Somedumbyankee (talk) 18:31, 21 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think you're terribly mistaken. This IS a question of spelling and the circumstances here have nothing to do with Munich vs. München. All the names listed above are the most common in the English language, differing only in the presence or not of diacritics. Whereas Munich is by far the most common name in the English language. In fact, München is not even English, period. I don't know why are you making me repeat this, it's not so complicated to understand. Húsönd 14:02, 19 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
We have a misunderstanding here. I am pointing to Munich as application of WP:UE - simply removing diacritics isn't. Tfd25 (talk) 15:12, 19 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

We are still going around in circles on the actual point: the guideline is quite simple, and that is why it is not written in intricate terms: in terms of article title, we use the spelling that is commonly used in sources written in English. Our arguing that it is "wrong", "mispelled" or anything else is simply besides the point. It is besides the point because Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and as such in all instances we carry information, or spellings, that we can verify. Is it "wrong"? Is there a "plot" to vandalize peoples name that has been successful? It doesn't matter as far as we are concerned. If the evil plot worked, it is not our place to "right the wrong". It would be original research. Under our current criteria for inclusion, if an information is "wrong" but is the only one verifiable externally, than that one is actually the information that will be on Wikipedia — to change that would not be a case of amending only WP:UE, but also WP:V (verifiability), WP:NPOV and WP:OR (no original research). In terms of common usage of a spelling, if there is a rendition clearly widespread in reputable sources in English, that's going to be the title of the article on the English-language Wikipedia (title; the actual content of the article must, always give the native spelling as well).
The other point that has been made is that the diacritics-less spelling is not even "wrong", contrary to suggestions, for the reasons already given above (as per linguistics, etc.). I believe I used a good example concerning the title of the article Charlesmagne; it is also above. Redux (talk) 20:52, 28 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I really do not agree with "we use the spelling that is commonly used in sources written in English". You are right though that verifiability determines inclusion. So, since all the names (with diacritics) above are verifiable, then this is not a matter of verifiability, but simply minor spelling differences. And when it comes to diacritics, it is common knowledge that a majority of English sources will always drop them (reasons repeated ad nauseam: lack of diacritics in English keyboards; unawareness of diacritics; disregard for diacritics), so "most common usage" cannot apply for this (as unencyclopedic reasons will make for the most common usage). And when it comes to reputable sources, I reckon a source could hardly be more reputable than the above people's birth certificates. Because unless those people specifically changed their names to a form without the diacritics, then their names do contain the diacritics in their certificates, as they were naturally written in their national languages. Húsönd 01:47, 29 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I am referring to verifiability of a widely used spelling in English that is different than the native. In the case of tennis players, such spellings exist and are verifiable. In addition, we have a guideline that states clearly that we use as the title of the article the "most common spelling in English, as you would find them in reputable sources". Claiming that the native spelling is different, and that it is used in sources written in the native language does not negate common usage in English. And also as explained to no end before, claiming that the common usage in English "does not apply" because it denotes "keyboard configuration problems", "ignorance", etc. is simply not acceptable, because it is both original research and point of view. If every (or almost every) source out there in English is writing without diacritics except for the English-language Wikipedia, then what reason do we have for ignoring common usage and doing it differently in formal text in English? "Wikipedia community decided that the sources are all wrong because they don't have proper keyboards/are ignorant/etc."?? And how do we arrive at this conclusion? "We know it", despite the fact that every reputable source (or almost every source) written in English out there is doing it differently? That's blatant OR and PoV.
Not to mention, as Somedumbyankee already said, that assuming (key word: assumption) that reputable, well-financed and sizable publications either can't use diacritics because their keyboards are not configured, or that the people writing for those periodicals are completely unaware of diacritics and could not find out about it to save their lives is, to be honest, wishful thinking. Redux (talk) 16:11, 29 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
My claim that most English sourced do not use diacritics due to "keyboards, unawareness, disregard" is neither OR nor POV, it's just plain common sense. I don't think any of us here needs a PhD to figure out the reasons behind the lack of diacritics in most English sources. Of course that "reputed, well-financed" (and I should note that reputed, well-financed sources have just as much weight here as the less-known, less-financed sources, as long as they're equally valid) could use all the diacritics they want. But if those sources are run by diacritics haters like some of the folks around, then you won't get to see any (see "disregard"). Really, with so many sources that won't bother running a spell checker on stuff they publish, why should they care about diacritics. Luckily, we're supposed to be an encyclopedia here, so we do care. Húsönd 02:16, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The only thing that is obvious is what we can verify: common usage, that is, what the reputable sources in the English-speaking world are using. Other than that, it is us speculating on the reasons why they are doing it and then basing a decision to ignore common usage on our own speculations. It doesn't matter if I or any other user here on Wikipedia happen to agree with any given point, it doesn't even matter if we could agree that it is "obvious enough" why any given usage has become common practice. And it doesn't matter precisely because Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. As such, we reproduce existing knowledge and don't create anything new; applying that to the issue of common usage, it means that we adopt it as the title of any given article. What we don't do is pass judgement ourselves on the sources to decide that they are "wrong" and take it upon ourselves to rectify their "mistake", because the existing, widespread usage in the English-speaking world is ignorable for the reasons we ourselves considered. That is textbook original research. And because we are plainly speculating — doesn't matter if accurately from a philosophical point of view, it is speculative because it is based on nothing other than Wikipedia users' perception — on the reasons why a usage became widespread, if we conduct editorial actions based on our own speculations, that's textbook point of view, which we also can't carry.
I'm sorry, but "sources don't care to perform spell checks" is yet another speculation. If we were talking about a single source, already well-known for editorial carelessness, that would be one thing. But we are discussing common usage, and in this context we cannot discard usage, as adopted by multiple, reputable sources based on our understanding that they don't conduct spell checks, that if they did they would "certainly" use diacritics and thus this alleged carelessness allows us to disregard a clear widespread usage in English. Do you see how many leaps, how many assumptions and speculations there are in this? And even if deep down we were to be right and those were true, because we are an encyclopedia it is still not up to us to rectify anything. If we did, well, we'd be creating new knowledge, that is, original research. Redux (talk) 14:36, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You're complicating a simple issue by entangling a series of Wikipedia's policies, which as you know aren't even set in stone. What is set in stone is that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and it is the editors' duty to provide readers with the most accurate content we can provide, not content that complies with a majority of outside sources. You're sticking to a very unreasonable application of common usage, where you should let common sense prevail instead. All diacritics above are verifiable, and they provide that many readers who know how to read them be able to thereby pronounce the name of the players as closely to the original as possible. No excuse can be brought about to justify denying those readers the right to have access to accurate information on Wikipedia. Húsönd 15:17, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, the issue is indeed very simple: we use the most common spelling as found in reliable sources in English. For the cases in which there is such a usage, as in the case of tennis players, we cannot keep searching for reasons that would allow us to find "loop holes" and permit us to ignore common usage for our own reasons. Using our own reasons to ignore established usage is original research and point of view. You are also losing sight that we are discussing common usage as the factor that defines the title of an article, and not as a reason for us to omit the existence of diacritics in the native spelling in the article itself, which is by no means what is being discussed. Defining the title of the entry using the most commonly used form or spelling of any given name has absolutely nothing to do with "denying access to content".
But even though content of the article is not really the issue here, you also need to reflect on what constitutes accurate content in an encyclopedia. From our perspective, "correct" content is what previously published material is stating. The only way we can oppose or consider discarding verified (or verifiable) content from reliable sources is if we can establish, in previously published material as well, that any given version of the facts is incorrect, outdated or biased somehow. What we, the users, understand to be the truth cannot be used as a reason to disregard reliable sources. This applies, of course, to the issue of common usage in English as the guiding factor to define the title of our articles. If the vast majority of the sources written in English, from the English-speaking world, use any given spelling, indicating that that spelling is the most commonly used form in English and as such the most recognizable form in the language, that's the title of the article on Wikipedia. Not because we, the users on Wikipedia, decided that it is "more accurate" somehow, but because we verified a factual reality, utterly external from Wikipedia and which we merely reflect. That's how an encyclopedia is written. If we use our own impressions over verified facts (in this case: a common usage in English that we decide to ignore because we passed judgement on a multitude of sources and decided, based exclusively on our own impressions, that they were not to be taken into account), then we are no longer collecting information, we are interpreting facts on our own as we believe they should be (or what we believe they are, if our position is that our own interpretation is what constitutes the truth). And that's crossing over into OR and PoV. Redux (talk) 19:18, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry Redux, you're just repeating your views and I still do not find your arguments sound. Verifiability, accuracy, and common sense, that's what I find sound. Not a most common spelling that you cite, a most common spelling that does not apply and that would result in nothing more than a downgrade of content quality. Fortunately, the community has already spoken against such downgrade and I am glad for that. I believe that you're quite mistaken in your approach to this issue. Nobody is disputing the validity of the sources that refuse diacritics, only that we need not and must not follow such tendency. And I find your evoking of WP:Truth, WP:OR and even WP:POV at least far-fetched for this case, if not undue. Húsönd 21:35, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Excuse me? Verifiability and accuracy apply, but verified common usage, as indicated on WP:UE, doesn't? What kind of logic is that? It only applies to the point where it is convenient? Not quite. If a common usage in English-language sources is verifiable, than that's the title of the entry. "It does not apply" based on what? Your say so? The say so of any number of Wikipedia users? A number of people, after canvassing is already known to have taken place, getting behind rationales such as "keyboard configuration problems", where a head count validates whatever point, regardless of what it is? This is not a vote, and if it were it would already have been voided by canvassing.
Now, ignoring reputable sources, which are indicating a common usage in English, based solely on users' assumptions and speculations on the reasons why that usage became commonly adopted in English and deciding, based on nothing but our own sense of what is "worthy" or "correct", that those reasons we ourselves indicated are indisputably the historical reasons why a spelling came into use and that those reasons are "wrong" and, as such, a verified common usage "does not apply"? You are seriously saying that that is not original research on our part? That we are not applying our own point of view if we decide that using the diacritics-less spelling adopted widely by multiple reputable sources as the title of articles is a "downgrade in quality", which is plainly passing judgement on what the entire English-speaking world is doing and deciding that it means nothing and Wikipedia can ignore it? We do not vote or simply decide that on this instance we can do just that. We have a much more significant consensus that such things are not permitted in the creative process of the encyclopedia under any circumstance.
But if I'm not getting this point across, and that would appear to be the case, since you have been bringing up the exact same points that have been addressed time and again before, and not only by me, then I suggest we use the conflict resolution process. Not to resolve a "conflict", since we are not in one personally, but in order to clarify what is an essential part of this project. It is impossible, I believe, to justify this "common usage does not apply in this case" pitch without essentially authorizing us to exercise point of view and original research in writing the project. Since those are non-negotiable on Wikipedia, we will need to establish, once and for all, what exactly is original research and point of view in editorial decisions. Because those are certainly not "flavors of the month" that we can pick and choose how and when to apply. Redux (talk) 02:41, 1 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You are not getting your point across indeed, and neither am I mine. And I doubt dispute resolution/mediation would be any useful. When it comes to diacritics, it has many times become obvious that no consensus is ever going to be reached. You appear to have an interpretation of WP:UE similar to that of user Septentrionalis, with whom I've discussed diacritics ad nauseam without attaining any common ground for ourselves. In my view, common usage applies for content, not for spelling, when a spelling difference is nothing more than the suppression of Latin alphabet diacritics from the original name in another language. English allows usage of diacritics, and they are most helpful to readers, as accurate, and make Wikipedia much more encyclopedic. Supporting suppression of diacritics under unclear grounds of WP:UE is nothing more than vowing to follow the sloppiness of a majority of sources, something we by no means are obliged to. Lawyering my position down to original research and point of view, and insisting with it, is definitely not the best display I've seen from you. Last time I checked, users were welcome to provide their feedback and opinions without having these discarded as OR and POV. Húsönd 12:29, 1 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Any opinion is a PoV, of course. But Wikipedia's point of view must be a neutral one. We do not get it if we carry information as Wikipedia users believe it should be, against what the sources might be stating. "Following the sloppiness of sources" is a slippery claim. In the case of common usage, and in this particular case, we are talking about multiple sources, most if not all of them, reputable. "Sloppy" is an opinion you might have on them. And they could even be sloppy, and we'd still have to reflect what they are carrying. We don't get to pick and choose when we are going to reflect the sources, when we are not and when we are going to reflect them partially. I don't know where you are getting that common usage doesn't apply to spelling on Wikipedia. It absolutely does, to the point that we have guidelines and policies establishing which variations of spellings are to prevail if more than one exists within the English language itself (British v American v Australian, for instance). We do not decide that we don't need to follow those on grounds that we might not like them, because we believe they represent "sloppiness" on the side of the sources. "I don't like it" is not grounds to IAR, and in reductio ad absurdum, Wikipedia would actually carry alleged "sloppiness", if that's what all the sources are saying — mutatis mutandi for common usage: if all the sources are indicating a usage as widespread and most recognizable in English, it doesn't matter that we the users might not like it, or disagree with it, we still need to use that as the title of the article.
As for confict resolution, or in this case, resolution of policy interpretation problems, the principle is the same: if we are unable — and indeed by "we" I mean not just us, but apparently the entire community, on repeated instances — to reach an understanding, we will need to start working towards a resolution, even if it ultimately has to come from ArbCom. You do realize, no policy on Wikipedia is enforceable if all people need to do to excuse themselves from them is claiming "my position is simply not original research, period", as doc glasgow once put it very well. Redux (talk) 13:21, 1 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Redux, diacritics do not interfere with NPOV on Wikipedia. If their usage is verifiable, then Wikipedia may not be accused of something like "undue promotion of non-English characters". Diacritics in the Latin alphabet are allowed in the English language, and it is simply a long established choice of the community here to use diacritics whenever possible for the sake of ultimate accuracy. I believe you speak both Portuguese and English just like me, so you know well the difference a diacritic will make on the reading and pronunciation of a word (have Mação and Macao for instance and imagine the implications of a suppression of diacritics on Wikipedia just for this particular case). You see, it all comes down to common sense and the ability that users have to rely not that much on policies, but on their own sense of quality for the project. That's what I'm doing. If I have a firm conviction that Wikipedia is a better encyclopedia with diacritics, then there is no argument or accusation that can convince me of the opposite. I will always stand on the side of accuracy/quality for Wikipedia, not on the side of policies when they are so vague as in their application for this matter. But of course not everybody agrees with my approach. You are right that what I see as "sloppy" is my opinion only, and that what I find sloppy, others may not. I doubt there will ever be any consensus on this, but we can be rest assured that common usage will never decide for the entire community. The Arbcom? It would be interesting indeed to see what the Arbcom has to say about diacritics. But the Arbcom has for more than a year now been developing a certain tendency for refusing cases where its feedback would be quite appreciated. I doubt they would accept this one, as it would undoubtedly prove painstakingly long and complicated, just like they dread so much. Húsönd 21:49, 1 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
First, you're not going to get any points with me quoting a person who tried to change the meaning of "no consensus" to "consensus to delete". Second, you really need to get off the idea that the use of diacritics is some kind of synthesis or original research; the reverse is true, not the other way around. This is not conservapedia. This is not "Ameripedia" or "ASCIIpedia". There's an international worldview that has to be respected, and using a screwed-over, half-accurate version of a name just because a few people have chosen not to is not the way to maintain quality and accuracy. I don't expect most monoglots to understand exactly how important a diacritic is, but they can significantly change the reading and pronunciation of a word. We should strive to be as accurate as possible, and realize that not everyone is perfect; not all CMSes support Unicode, probably because MySQL itself couldn't store them unless they were binary a few years ago. It doesn't make sense to me why we should use a half-grounded name for something when there is more accurate, more precise, more meaningful one available. Celarnor Talk to me 13:17, 2 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Please understand, and that might not be entirely clear: I'm not asserting that diacritics are not important, and putting aside my personal view on this claim of keyboard/software problems, I'm not even going to state categorically that there is no such thing. All of this would be my own point of view. And if it comes down to pov vs. pov, then we can't possibly get anywhere, because your opinion is as important as mine, and, as stated on WP:TRUTH, an opinion is usually perceived as the truth by those who sustain it. The point here is completely different: we have common usage for certain people, whose names are rendered without diacritics commonly in the English-speaking world, making that form the most commonly recognized form in English. We are the English-language Wikipedia, and because of that we have certain standards regarding using that form as the title of the article on that given person. The idea is not to remove all reference of diacritics from the articles themselves, or even to move every single article we have on people with names using diacritics to diacritics-less renditions. We need to have common usage, that is a widespread usage of that name in English that differs from the native. It is not a question of us approving or disaproving of diacritics, or even applying our common sense, not if our common sense is going against what the entire English-speaking world is doing. We don't correct every single source out there because we are an encyclopedia.
My reference is not so that ArbCom will pass judgement on the importance or utility of diacritics. Rather it is focusing on the situation of us passing judgement on sources, for reasons originating on our own assumptions and leaps, even if those are grounded, on our own opinion, on common sense and reasonable thinking. We still can't do it.
And this is a very interesting case, because here we are not dealing with bad faith, with people looking to hurt the project. Quite on contrary. Obviously I couldn't speak for every single person out there, but for the most part, it would be safe to say that the points are made in absolute good faith. Sometimes, we might trip on original research or even pov while trying to do our best. It's not just like page blanking, something only a vandal would do with the clear purpose of doing harm. But what I am reading here is that, without fully realizing it, and under the premise of correctly interpreting facts, people have been, at least for the cases where common usage can be established, effectively using OR and PoV in editorial decisions. I believe that to be the case because, if a widespread usage in English can be verified on external sources and we the users on Wikipedia are deciding to ignore it for reasons exclusively of our own — regardless of whatever merit they might carry — that constitutes, depending on the case, OR and/or PoV. So the proposal would be for us to start working towards a definition of how far we are allowed to go, regarding usage in English, if it can be verified on external sources. Can we verify something on reputable sources and still choose to ignore it? For our own reasons, even if they are with some merit? I believe we can't, because if we intepret and modify as we believe it ought to be done, we are doing original research, and possibly expressing points of view in the encyclopedia — in this case, in article titles. Redux (talk) 01:01, 3 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Fair enough, Redux. Your argument is quite straight simple and understandable, but here's a few thoughts I think you should ponder about:
  • When you say "most commonly recognized form in English" aren't you also stepping into a personal interpretation, one of those you say we are to avoid? After all, the premise of diacritics affecting recognition can be easily disputed. I, for one, disagree that e.g. an "á" instead of an "a" would have an English speaker fail to immediately recognize the letter "a".
  • Do you not agree that if we were to unconditionally abide by the most common spelling appearing on English sources we would have to eradicate diacritics completely on Wikipedia because no word with diacritics is more common in English sources due to the reasons mentioned above which shouldn't be simply ignored and dismissed as OR and POV?
  • Do you not agree that users are the human side of this encyclopedia and that we improve it like humans, not like robots following the policies and guidelines that we created ourselves, instead modifying those whenever they prevent us from creating a better encyclopedia and even endanger the quality of the project? Do you not agree that WP:IAR was created precisely to remind us that rules aren't set in stone and that we must use our best judgment to provide readers with the best Wikipedia we can give them?
Think about it. Húsönd 01:25, 3 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Since you itemized your post, allow me to reply in a similar fashion, each item corresponding to yours, in the order you posted:

  • No, because common usage must be verified, not simply presumed because "normally the English language would not use diacritics". That is done by verifying the fact that all or almost all reputable sources in the English-speaking world are using them (as said on WP:UE — "use the most common form in English as you would find them in reputable sources). For professional athletes, such as tennis players, we could even conduct offline verification: as we speak, there is currently a broad coverage of the Wimbledon tennis tournament, involving numerous athletes with names whose native form uses diacritics. All coverage, namely on-screen renditions, from broadcasters in English, which reach the vast majority of the English-speaking world, are rendering those names without diacritics. That's not an interpretation, it is a simple observation of a fact. And again, I will not speculate on the historical reasons why they are doing that. I am writing an encyclopedia, I cannot come up with those reasons on my own, and certainly not base any editorial decision on my own speculations of the facts, even if they appear to be well-grounded on what I perceive as common sense. That would be a new interpretation of facts, and one devised on Wikipedia, which would make it original research, while also carrying my own point of view on the matter at hand.
  • No, because we cannot make any leaps and assumptions. That works both ways. Common usage is verified by usage in the vast majority, if not all, of the reputable sources out there. It is arguable that if any given name using diacritics was to become commonly mentioned in the English-speaking world they would probably drop diacritics and other markings, but until such a thing actually happens we cannot assume and, as you mentioned, move all our articles in anticipation of that. This is what is mentioned in the Turin/Torino example given on WP:UE. But if we do verify that a common usage is already established, as it is the case with certain people, especially professional athletes from sports highly popular in the English-speaking world, then we do have to abide by common usage in English. This usage is not something that Wikipedia created, it is something that the English-speaking world did. You mentioned the reasons being given as explanations for the process. I won't go into my personal opinion of them, some are actually reasonable, some, in my humble opinion, are not. But in any case, they are reasons we are assuming, even if reasonably, to be the historical reasons for an event (dropping diacritics in sources in English), and then basing an editorial decision on those reasons we ourselves presented. This is particularly complicated because we are seeking to justify us ignoring verified common usage for reasons that Wikipedia users are claiming, out of their own minds, or even common sense, to be the reasons why something happen, and then deeming those reasons as sufficient motive for the English-language Wikipedia to ignore established usage.
  • Yes, but there are limits to what we can do. We can't create new knowledge, or more in-point, new interpretations of any given fact or event. We are here to collect information, and not reinterpret and assign worth to them, deciding what can be considered and what can't, at least when reputable external sources are verifying information. Further, it is already established that certain aspects of the process of building this encyclopedia are non-negotiable, unless a much deeper change was to be implemented. Those would be WP:BLP, WP:V, WP:NPOV, WP:OR. Obviously, nobody here is saying "IAR to allow OR", but if the end practical result is just that, we can't use IAR. And especially in the case of common usage. Verifying that requires multiple reliable sources. If we ignore them on the basis that we believe them to be wrong for reasons we ourselves are deducting, it would be a question of us plainly not agreeing with sources and deciding to write the encyclopedia according to our own views, which, to use a general, very broad term, would be a case of "I don't like it" [what the sources are saying, in the sense that we don't agree with what every single source — or almost — is doing], and we can't invoke IAR in a "don't like/agree personally" scenario. Redux (talk) 19:39, 3 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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