Wikipedia talk:Naming policy poll

Londres - offensive?

Why is "Londres" offensive to English speakers? By English, do you mean England? RedWolf 05:59, Apr 23, 2004 (UTC)

Clarification?

Are not the official names of most non- English-speaking countries different to their commonly known names in English:

Hanover/Hannover Seville/Sevilla - these both are listed under the common name, yet:

Lyons/Lyon is listed under the French or official name with a note on the disambig page saying as much

Is this vote to standardize this for all such places?

calexico 08:16, 23 Apr 2004 (UTC)

What I would like to know is where is the discussion about this topic, and why has a whole new page been created just for a single poll. Isn't this polutting the wikipedia name space? My only comment at this time would be this: there is no such policy in the English language as "use the most common name." If that was true no names would ever be changed, and they clearly are being changed all the time, not only for places, but for groups of people etc. If everyone followed that policy we would still be talking about Colored people, Indians, Eskimo etc. There are also plenty of examples of the "correct name" being used in Wikipedia. Check voodoo for example. --Voodoo 08:34, 23 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Thats another example where I would support a move from Vodun to Voodoo, as most english speaker would know it (by a factor of 100 according to Google). -- chris_73 08:48, 23 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Yes, but half of those are references to the graphics card or other unralated material, and the other half probably has very little to do with a Beninese religion, but is instead a reference to the pop culture meaning of the term. This is yet another example showing that 'correct' is sometimes better than 'popular.' Mainly though I think we should decide whether Wikipedia should help set common standards, or just follow them. If we just follow them then all there is left to do is chose authoritative sources we should follow, and some kind of procedure for picking the naming convention in cases of disagreements between them. If, on the other hand, Wikipedia should help set a standard, then the convention should be something other than "do what everyone else is doing," since, first, that's not what everyone is doing, and second, with such a rule policy will always be made by those who don't follow policy. --Voodoo 13:06, 23 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Well, even if most refs are to Pop culture, one reference out of 100 for Vodun is pretty poor. BTW: An encyclopedia does not set standards, it follows them. If everybody (+/- 1 out of 100) calls it Voodoo, then my feeling is that an encyclopedia should also call it Voodoo. Just out of curiosity: Shouldn't you be User:Vodun? (Guess you follow the standards, too ;-) In any case, this poll is about Locations, not Religions. -- chris_73 14:01, 23 Apr 2004 (UTC)

My user name is not a reference to the religion. Leaving that aside, if Wikipedia will simply follow standards, what will be used to determine the standard? Simply typing the two or three versions into google doesn't seem like a very good solution. --Voodoo 16:29, 23 Apr 2004 (UTC)

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The key question at play here is: what authority, if any, should Wikipedia accede to in the domain of place names?"

The current policy says, in effect, that the authority of place names is "most common English usage". Unfortunately, in pratice, it is difficult to get this "authority" to agree on what is the most common English usage. Which leads to sometimes debates such as the Kiev/Kyiv debate, which proximally sparked this poll.

Several alternative authorities have been suggested:

• The locally used name; that is, the name used by locals of place to refer to the place in their local language. By extension the version used here would be a transliteration of any such local names if the local usage doesn't use the Latin alphabet.
• The preferred name as defined by some other source, such as:
  • What the main entry listed in various dictionaries uses, such as the Merriam-Webster or American Heritage. (I have omitted here the OED because they don't include many place names)
  • What other encyclopedias use, such as the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
  • What place-name authorities say, such as the Getty Thesaurus of Geographical Names, the US Census Bureau, or the US Board on Geographic Names (for US place names)
  • What English-language authorities on foreign places call them, such as British or US embassies.

Of course, none of these alternatives are acceptable as the sole authority on Wikipedia for place names because the "prime directive" if you will of Wikipedia is the Neutral Point of View, and by accepting any of these as an authority, we implicitly are accepting their POV which most likely is NOT the NPOV as we define it.

Therefore, the names used as the titles of Wikipedia pages have to somehow reflect the Neutral Point of View. However, in some cases, the NPOV can't apply because all possible names are contested by some group, but some name has to be chosen as the name of the page.

The current policy attempts to apply the NPOV in these cases by setting a criterion for choosing a name which is independent of various advocates of different names: the criterion is the most common English usage; that is, what name is used most commonly to refer to a place in English.

There are historically a large number of places that have had distinct English names, particularly European place-names. Most major Italian cities, Rome, Venice, Florence, Turin, Milan, and Naples, for example, are different from the native name used in Italy. Nevertheless, the English names are accepted by most Italian-speakers and in general, they don't insist that English speakers use the Italian names for their cities. The same is the case for some German cities, such as Cologne and Munich. In these cases, for example, the Getty TGN specifies the native (or vernacular) name as the preferred name, but also specifies that the English name is the preferred name in English. Over time, some places which have had traditional English names have been replaced by the native name, particular in China, where for example Peking is now normally called Beijing, and Amoy is now normally called Xiamen. These facts are borne out not only by listings in the TGN, dictionaries, and encyclopedias, but also by searches through general corpora of English texts, such as a Google search, where the ratio of occurrence of the new name to the old name is at least 2 to 1, and in many cases 5 to 1 or more. In the cases where there is a clear preference no only in usage by by authorities for one name, then I think it is clear that Wikipedia policy should follow that preference. Proposals to change the policy to prefer a name which is different from when there is a clear preferred English name will most likely meet with much resistance and will never reach consesus.

However, there are also some "English" names whose status as the preferred English name is somewhat more contested. In these cases, common usage, encyclopedias, dictionaries, and place-name databases differ in what is the "preferred" English name. The Wikipedia policy on what to choose here has to then be carefully selected so as to be consistent with other policies.

There is also the question where there are accusations of a particular name being "offensive". The criterion of offensiveness should not have precedence over the criterion of neutrality or common usage. I would argue that accusations of offense are not reasonable when it can be shown that use of a name has been chosen because it reflects common usage and not because the use of that name will be used to oppress, subjugate, or belittle those who find the name offensive. While the policy for names which refer to people can be somewhat more flexible, the policy for names that refer to places has no need to accede to the demands of those who call a name "offensive". Of course the article should talk about the fact that some groups find a name offensive, but Wikipedia shouldn't not use a name for the only reason that some people find it offensive. Causing offense is not a rational basis for name selection. Please note that I am not advocating using offensives as article titles on Wikipedia. I am only advocating that Wikipedia use the criterion of most common usage regardless of whether a name is offensive or not. Also, when a name is more common, but is "incorrect" in some way because it actually refers to something else, Wikipedia should use the correct name. For example, "Holland" might be more common than "The Netherlands", but we should use "The Netherlands" because Holland is only a part of the Netherlands. This case, however, is moot, because Netherlands is in fact more commonly used (in written English, at least) than Holland. On the other hand, it has been argued that some Dutch people take offense at the term "Dutch" because of the relation to "Deutsch", which means "German", however Wikipedia uses the term "Dutch" instead of say "Netherlandic" because "Dutch" is by far the more commonly used term in English.

In short, I think that the current policy is good, although it needs strengthening. The policy needs to clarify how "the most commonly used English term" is to be determined. I advocate that some combination of a survey of what other authorities use as well as searches of English-language corpora, such as directed Google searches. By this I mean that for deciding whether to use Canton or Guangzhao one should just blindly compare the result count for a "Canton" and "Guangzhao" because "Canton" is a place name for many other places as well as the name of the sub-national entities of Switzerland. A more accurate comparison would be comparing searches for "Canton +city +China" and "Guangzhao +city +China", therefore insuring that only pages that include the words "city" and "China" are counted.

For the purposes of this poll, however, we are only talking about whether the basic policy should be changed to prefer something other than "the most common English term", whatever that may ultimately mean. We should discuss here what the best criterion for deciding what name to use should be. Nohat 19:08, 2004 Apr 23 (UTC)

I actually agree with much of what you say here Nohat. One small point of usage. I do not think there is such a thing as "THE" neutral point of view. NPOV is better described as a state reached through compromise rather than implying there is some objective standard of a singular NPOV. older ≠ wiser 19:28, 23 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Nohat: You assume that commonly 'accepted' standards dictate viable encyclopedic information. "Over time, some places which have had traditional English names have been replaced by the native name" How did this take place? The information had to be disseminated through some conduit or other, most likely publications, encyclopedias. Native speakers do not reach English-speakers by, say, talking to them in Chinese or Bengali. They institute internationally accepted changes and the world slowly incorporates them through usage and increasing awareness. Google Hit ratios between new and old names do not magically occur through an NPOV miracle, that the whole world realizes that one name is better than another. This name-change is communicated through official or well-accredited sources, like encyclopedias or newspapers, news channels. How can one be neutral and base facts on vacillating public knowledge and usages, on general whimsy or the force of habit? --LordSuryaofShropshire 18:43, Apr 26, 2004 (UTC)

Your comments betray a fundamental misunderstand of how language works. Language doesn't change because people make proclamation that it should change. It changes because it changes. Changes occur; they are not made. New words are invented every day and most of them don't get adopted as part of the language. Sometimes organizations get behind name changes, such as anti-abortion organizations calling abortion "murder". However, most of the time these changes are ignored and they don't become part of the language. Sometimes these changes gain a following and become popular for a time, and then disappear. This is no logic to it; there is no reason for it; sometimes things catch on and sometimes things don't. The "catching on" of words is not something that can be legislated or accepted by important international organizations or decreed by governments. Words and names "catch on" by chance, by happenstance, by the linguistic whimsy of the speakers of a language.

Wikipedia has taken the stance that it is not going to support any kind of point of view, and that includes the support of linguistic campaigns of any sort, including name changes of cities. Wikipedia policy is to use the most common name because any other policy for name choie will inherently be supporting someone's linguistic campaign and that is a violation of the NPOV policy. The only instances where Wikipedia should change the name it uses from one name to another is when the new name has been show to be at least equal in usage to the old name. When the usages are equal, then using the name supported by some government or organization can be a valid reason for choosing one name over another. But until the usages are approximately equal there can be no valid reason for using a name that is not the most commonly used name. Nohat 19:39, 2004 Apr 26 (UTC)

You betray an arbitrary logic. First of all, the words of which you speak are based on judgement calls and are not analagous to official country/city names. This is a fundamental misunderstanding of language. You're speaking of common neologisms whereas I am speaking about internationally accepted name changes of city and state entities. For instance, the Encyclopedia Britannica uses Kolkata as the official name and mentions within the article, prominently, that its former name was Calcutta. This is about accredited institutions making real changes, not opinion polls about whether or not abortion is murder or Jesus rose again. You fail to appreciate the explicit difference between popular sentiment and fact. Why do you evade issues like Congo/Zaire? How do you think these names changed? People were informed through official sources, and while no one beat them into submission, the practice of encyclopedias and journalists made aware the public of important changes in the world; they didn't fool them into believing that what they knew up till then was Gospel and perpetuate inaccuracies. An encyclopedia represents fact, not public opinion. --LordSuryaofShropshire 19:54, Apr 26, 2004 (UTC)

First of all, the words of which you speak are based on judgement calls and are not analagous to official country/city names. This is a fundamental misunderstanding of language. You're speaking of common neologisms whereas I am speaking about internationally accepted name changes of city and state entities.

Words are words are words. Whether it is a new name for being drunk or a new name for a city, it's still a word. There is no difference in the way words get assimilated into a language.

For instance, the Encyclopedia Britannica uses Kolkata as the official name and mentions within the article, prominently, that its former name was Calcutta. This is about accredited institutions making real changes, not opinion polls about whether or not abortion is murder or Jesus rose again. You fail to appreciate the explicit difference between popular sentiment and fact.

Who's doing the accrediting of these institutions? Why should we trust their accreditation? It is a fact that "Kolkata" is the new official name of Calcutta, but it is not a fact that there is an official English name for the city which is Kolkata. That's just an opinion.

Why do you evade issues like Congo/Zaire? How do you think these names changed?

I haven't "evaded" the Congo/Zaire issue. It's not relevant here, because the most common name AND the official name are both Congo. As I explained before, they changed because English speakers accepted them. It's not Wikipedia's responsibility to promulgate those changes. Nohat 20:58, 2004 Apr 26 (UTC)

There's much I would like to say to Nohat about the fallacies of that reading of NPOV and of language change, but right now none of it would be very polite. So I'll leave that alone to address why the current vote is really a farce. It's because there is no incontrovertible method for fairly assessing CURRENT usage throughout the english speaking world. You continue to promote the Google Test, even though it is not designed for such use (and for us to rely upon it to provide definitive guidance is foolhardy). Wikipedia:Google Test even makes it clear: It should be stressed that none of these applications is conclusive evidence, but simply a first-pass heuristic. Google results can be manipulated, see Google bomb and also consider the booming industry of "search engine optimization" (which I'll grant deals more with ranking of results, but also with stuffing a page with as many keywords as possible to ensure the page appears frequently -- hence skewing the results). Then there is the problem of whether the hits for a place name actually correspond to references to that place or to other entities that use the place name (such as the band called Danzig or the camera company called Kiev). But beyond that, a simple count of Google hits will always lag behind current usage because it indexes a vast body of historical documents. So by your criteria relying on the Google Test, a new usage would have to overcome a huge hurdle before it would be accepted for Wikipedia. To recap, the real problem with the policy is that there is no mechanism for deciding what is actually current usage. In the absence of such a mechanism, I think we should defer to official english language names of places that are recognized by international entities such as the UN and other governments. older ≠ wiser 20:28, 26 Apr 2004 (UTC)

It's unfortunate to see that most of them who voted doesn't know what they were voting about. BL 02:38, May 8, 2004 (UTC)

my turn

I'm late to this debate; but by my posting in it becomes new again, so I'm right on time. "United States" is not nonambiguous; other countries use the term for their own, like for Mexico. The more precise USA refers to America, and if America did not refer exactly to the 50 states we know, then USA would be just as ambiguous as America. Therefore the country should be referred to as America, US, or USA, as opposed to N or S America.

Proteus's arguments are almost wholly wrong. A name is not a word, a placename even less so. The maker or coiner of a name should get full rights to enforce its useage, unless the name is dumb. No nation, culture, or speaker should call foreign places however they want, again unless the native name is dumb, because this encourages and allows corruption. And everyone should consider why the place is named such, and improve it if it's wrong or dumb. It's rude to corrupt, whether by foreigners or by natives. Most people aren't even familiar with either name version, and will consult a descriptive or authoritative source, the former usually appealing to the latter. Because of this, it matters little what the most common version is used in a language. Links to the common name should redirect to the native name when the names are to the same place. The former might have a short meaning saying that it's the English or old name for the place, and the circumstances of the change. Sure, it'll take work, but wrong is wrong and the policy doesn't disallow my idea. lysdexia 04:07, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Please categorize

If this page weren't protected, I'd add it to Category:Wikipedia historical pages. -- Beland 05:58, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)