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#We are an encyclopedia. Our goal is to educate. We should have the proper names as the title. Redirects can take care of those who do not wish to type them. Add to that many of the arguments I have made in the past when this gets brought up over and over again. I am too tired of having to re-argue it to list them yet again. -DJSasso (talk) 16:45, 7 August 2012 (UTC) |
#We are an encyclopedia. Our goal is to educate. We should have the proper names as the title. Redirects can take care of those who do not wish to type them. Add to that many of the arguments I have made in the past when this gets brought up over and over again. I am too tired of having to re-argue it to list them yet again. -DJSasso (talk) 16:45, 7 August 2012 (UTC) |
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===Do NOT Use Diacritics=== |
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===Follow English-language language sources=== |
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#“we, ‘follow the general usage of English-language reliable sources.’ This is something that [[WP:DIACRITICS]] already stipulates.” Kauffner (talk) 19:08, 18 July 2012 (UTC) |
#“we, ‘follow the general usage of English-language reliable sources.’ This is something that [[WP:DIACRITICS]] already stipulates.” Kauffner (talk) 19:08, 18 July 2012 (UTC) |
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#“English readers, particularly those who read no other language, are accustomed to some French and Spanish diacritical marks through long proximity…. Vietnamese is far more peripheral to the typical native English reader.” Yopienso (talk) 16:47, 20 July 2012 (UTC) |
#“English readers, particularly those who read no other language, are accustomed to some French and Spanish diacritical marks through long proximity…. Vietnamese is far more peripheral to the typical native English reader.” Yopienso (talk) 16:47, 20 July 2012 (UTC) |
Revision as of 16:14, 11 August 2012
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Diacritical marks
The main Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English) page says that diacritical marks should not be used unless it is familiar with English readers. The whole idea behind transliteration is that an English-keyboard user need not be required to figure out how to type out the Vietnamese diacritical marks. Yellowtailshark 02:45, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
- The "Đ" is not pronounced like an English "D" in either northern or southern Vietnam. This creates a problem for words with this letter. For cities with well known romanizations like Saigon and Hanoi, we'd probably want to use our normal WP rule, like we do for Milan or Rome--just use the English version, without diacritics. But for names, it seems that using diacritics is good. Badagnani 03:53, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
- Quite honestly, I see no place for diacritics at all in any of the articles in English Wikipedia except as a gloss to illustrate the Vietnamese spelling of a place name or proper name after the first occurrence of the name in its normal, unaccented English spelling. This is not a question of political correctness (respect for how others spell names), it's a question of simple convenience for the vast majority of readers who neither know nor care about how Vietnamese names are accented and are not interested in obtaining the fancy software to be able to type in Vietnamese. I find it difficult to locate the articles I wrote recently on the 1860s Cochinchina Campaign because place names like Vinh Long and Bien Hoa (their normal spelling in English) have been given accents. This is supposed to be an encyclopedia written in English, not Vietnamese. Having said that, we should gloss all Vietnamese place and personal names with their accented versions on their first appearance in an article.
- This is how I personally have been dealing with the problem, in the lead sentence of my articles:
- The Capture of Bien Hoa (Vietnamese: Biên Hòa) on 16 December 1861 was an important allied victory in the Cochinchina campaign (1858–62).
- Diacriticals are used for all the European languages. See Gerhard Schröder, Horst Köhler, Hermann Göring, Göttingen, Lübeck, Finistère, or Lech Wałęsa. Finding the articles? That's what redirects are for. Kauffner (talk) 19:09, 25 July 2009 (UTC)
- Diacritics are used for European languages when English uses them. This is sometimes but not always; the most obvious example being George Frideric Handel, not Händel. Usage should prevail; some of these examples should be changed. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:05, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
- Diacriticals are used for all the European languages. See Gerhard Schröder, Horst Köhler, Hermann Göring, Göttingen, Lübeck, Finistère, or Lech Wałęsa. Finding the articles? That's what redirects are for. Kauffner (talk) 19:09, 25 July 2009 (UTC)
Knowing the History of Vietnam and its relations with other countries, especially English-speaking countries, since we're talking about an English Wikipedia, I'd guess that there are two major bodies of literature that talks about Vietnam: during the Indochina Wars, and literature written after the US embargo was lifted and Vietnam's relations with other countries became normalized. So when I weigh in on "common usage" argument for having diacritics, I suspect that literature written during the war would omit the diacritics, and that if there are diacritic usage in English media, then that is really a more recent phenomenon. It would be an exhaustive statistical research to count pronouns in all articles and books written about Vietnam during the war to see what names and geographical locations were often mentioned. My Lai, Ngo Dinh Diem, Bien Hoa and Lam Son seem like names that were mentioned often enough in media and books to constitute non-diacritics as common usage. But, let's say with a hamlet in North Vietnam, where media coverage during the war was limited, then it's not so clear cut. Spelling conventions for cases like those will likely to come from more recent sources (past 20 years), and quite possible that diacritic convention would dominate. yellowtailshark (talk) 12:18, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
Article title
I looked at a few government sites that use áo dài and ao dai. The US Embassy in Canberra, Australia uses ao dai. So does the HCMC People's Committee for its English-language pages. The site uses áo dài for its Vietnamese languages sections. It seems to me that diacritical omission will become used on official sources. Yellowtailshark 05:18, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
- The official website of the government of Vietnam is recently writing names with diacritics in its English section. DHN 05:45, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
In the case of Cả River when I googled for it, the only reference was the Wikipedia article itself (hah! go figure). Ca River is mentioned in the Encyclopedia Britannica as well as this paper from the National University of Laos. Yellowtailshark (talk) 04:33, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
- As a model, scholarly usage beats official usage or newspaper usage. In scholarly writing, you put the diacriticals in as long as there are no technical barriers. Wikipedia doesn't have the technical barriers that prevented people from putting in diacriticals historically. For, say, German, the diacriticals go in, period. It doesn't depend on sources or official Web sites. It's Göttingen, Lübeck, and so forth. You can write good German without diacriticals, but Vietnamese without diacriticals is just gibberish. Kauffner (talk) 04:39, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
- We are not discussing the usage of German in English; and if we were, this would be wrong on both counts. English does not always use diacritics, and scholarly usage is not our model; our article titles are chosen for lay readers, not for specialists. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:11, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
- Let us, therefore, consider actual parallels. We do not - and should not - include Greek accents, ancient or modern, in article titles; we do not - and should not - include pinyin tones. In both cases, we indicate the marks once in a transcription of the Greek or Chinese characters. So here. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:00, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
- You do realize that Vietnamese speakers use the Latin alphabet with diacritics? The situation is therefore is parallel to German and Polish, but unlike Greek or Chinese, which have their own characters. If a publication doesn't use diacritics for technical reasons, it cannot be accepted as a model with respect to this issue. Of course English does not always use diacritics. Names that are common usage in English -- Hanoi, Saigon, Vietnam, etc -- should remain unaccented. Kauffner (talk) 07:55, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
- Yes, I do. That's why I'm comparing it to Pinyin (which has two sets of optional marks for the tones), not to Chinese characters. But even Latin alphabetic languages - perhaps especially they - are respelt on adoption into English; Novak Djokovic, the Djoker, and Handel are two clear examples of this. It may be that in a few centuries or even decades the diacritics of Vietnamese will be as familiar, and as widely adopted, as those of French; but I don't believe, and see no evidence, that that time has come. Wikipedia is not a crystal ball. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:50, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
- You do realize that Vietnamese speakers use the Latin alphabet with diacritics? The situation is therefore is parallel to German and Polish, but unlike Greek or Chinese, which have their own characters. If a publication doesn't use diacritics for technical reasons, it cannot be accepted as a model with respect to this issue. Of course English does not always use diacritics. Names that are common usage in English -- Hanoi, Saigon, Vietnam, etc -- should remain unaccented. Kauffner (talk) 07:55, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
Proper nouns
Names
I wonder how useful these templates would be? Template:Vietnamese name and Template:Vietnamese name2 Yellowtailshark 03:30, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
- I think these are very useful, firstly because most people would not know that it is the custom to use given names in the ensuing text, and because many of those who are not Asian specialists but who run categorizing and standardizing campaigns will need to know these things, so as to not list someone alphabetically by their given name, or to make other sorts of category/template/standards related mistakes. LordAmeth 14:33, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
Family-name, middle-name, given-name order? Or given-name, middle-name, family-name order? It seems for Vietnamese within Vietnam, the family-name is given first. But for those outside of Vietnam, you will also see the given-name first. Perhaps we should stick with the name order that the person is most commonly referred to as. Yellowtailshark 03:53, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
Locations
I see that words of cities are spelled joined, and sometimes not (e.g. Hà Nội → Hanoi; but Đà Nặng → sometimes Danang, sometimes Da Nang). Any thoughts on this? Yellowtailshark 03:34, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
- I am deeply interested, but not very knowledgeable or experienced in Vietnamese history, so I don't presume to speak from knowledge of what the scholarly standards may be. But on Wikipedia, I believe that we should try as much as possible to place things in the format most recognizable to the average English speaker. Our average reader is likely to have heard of Hanoi and Tonkin and Saigon, and so these places should be represented in the spelling most common in English; other places like Can Tho and Hai Phong I at least have not heard of, and so perhaps these (and the multitude of more obscure places) should be represented however is most proper in Vietnamese. Since Vietnamese is written in Roman letters (with diacritics, but not in Chinese characters or another writing system), I would imagine there ought to be standards within the Vietnamese language as to this issue, no? LordAmeth 14:33, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
- Perhaps what might help is to use the spelling from the city's official website. In regards to Danang, they consistently use it without the space. Yellowtailshark 02:58, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
- Proper Vietnamese is with diacritical marks and spaces between the syllables, e.g. Đà Nặng, not Danang or Da Nang. English-language usage isn't created by the city's official Web site. If there is a well-known English-language spelling, for example "Saigon" or "Hanoi," that should be used. Otherwise, we should follow Vietnamese usage. Kauffner (talk) 04:54, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
- There is a whole Vietnamese Wikipedia, for which proper Vietnamese spelling matters. Otherwise, this is an encyclopedic fact, which should indeed be mentioned - once per article. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:34, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
- Proper Vietnamese is with diacritical marks and spaces between the syllables, e.g. Đà Nặng, not Danang or Da Nang. English-language usage isn't created by the city's official Web site. If there is a well-known English-language spelling, for example "Saigon" or "Hanoi," that should be used. Otherwise, we should follow Vietnamese usage. Kauffner (talk) 04:54, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
Monarchs
Sometimes I see King An Dương Vương used, even though vương means "king". Would this be redundant? Should it just be King An Duong?
- The standard on Wikipedia is to not include titles in article titles. The article should thus be listed at An Duong or An Duong Vuong but not at King... anything. As for how he is referred to later in the article, I'd vote for king only because it's a term widely understood and recognized in English, and because it is widely accepted as the term used to refer to these rulers. There are plenty of other terms (shogun, Opperhoofd, Shah) which do not easily translate to a single term like "king", and those I think can certainly be used as is. However, the more obscure a term is, the more necessary it is to translate or explain it briefly in parens whenever used. In other words, if we are going to start articles with "So-and-so was a vuong of Annam in X year", then there really needs to be a "(King)" right after vuong. LordAmeth 14:33, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
- Although Wikipedia:Naming conventions (names and titles) says not to use titles, it also mentions that it does not apply to East Asian monarchs. According to Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Japan-related articles)#Names of emperors, "Emperor" is an integral part of the name. However, Vua (Emperor) Bao Dai doesn't have any sort of honorific titles in the article name. Then again, Bao Dai isn't the real name, but an imperial title for the era of reign. Likewise, it seems Vương (King) is an integral part of the imperial title. Which would suggest that we translate An Dương Vương as the An Duong King or King of An Duong (his real name was Thục Phán). An Duong, it seems, was a toponym. Yellowtailshark 18:57, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
- Oh, I see. And, of course, now that you mention it, I should have realized that all the Japanese, Chinese, and Korean monarchs do have the title included. Sorry. LordAmeth 22:36, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
- Vương and vua both mean "king". "Emperor" is hoang để. Vietnamese generally say vua. It's Vua Bao Dai (King Bao Dai), Các Vua Nguyễn (Nguyen dynasty) and so forth. Kauffner (talk) 03:36, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
Chinese and Pinyin transliterations
I do a lot of work on the Chinese/Vietnamese prehistory and ancient history articles. Because the two modern societies share quite a bit in common in terms of their ancient pasts, I use the Template:CJKV to standardize transliterations. One issue is, however, which name to use, Zhao Tuo or Trieu Da for the main article title? Yellowtailshark 03:30, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
- Vietnamese person -> Vietnamese name. Chinese person -> Chinese name. Zhao Tuo was Chinese. DHN 03:36, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
Copied over from /Tasks
- Comment - For articles about Vietnamese Americans who don't use diacritics when spelling their name, that's easy--we do the article titles without diacritics (though we can include them in the first paragraph). But for province names, for example, we have some with and some without. It might be best for these if we arrive at a consensus regarding one way of doing it. Badagnani 07:36, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
- Working on putting together Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Vietnamese). Yellowtailshark 03:45, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
Updating the guidelines on diacritics
This page has yet to be updated to reflect the vote that was taken back in July. It's still basically a list of reasons not to use diacritics. There was a unanimous vote in favor of using anglicized forms when they are "in common use" (i.e. Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam, etc.). (See Question 1). But for other cases the vote was 3-2 in favor of using the Vietnamese form, or at least that is how I interpret Question 9. Kauffner (talk) 14:04, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
- I have taken this discussion as an indication of Wiki community views and made appropriate changes in the guidelines. Article titles are read by a broader group of people than the actual articles, so our use of diacritics should reflect that. Kauffner (talk) 05:47, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
- The link appears to be broken. Can you repair it and add the key sentence where it mentions Vietnamese please? In ictu oculi (talk) 03:00, 28 June 2012 (UTC)
Biography standards
I've been working on the biographies lately, so I have thought of some standards:
- Title is the name in non-diacritical form. Reasons: For any given Vietnamese name, published English-language usage will be nearly 100 percent without diacritics. This includes not just the news media, but also sources that you might think would include diacritics: Britannica, Columbia, Vietnam News Agency, and National Geographic. The title establishes normative use: It tells the reader that this is an acceptable English-language form. There is no significant use of Vietnamese diacritics in published English and we should not mislead the reader in this regard. The non-diacritical form of the name should certainly appear somewhere in the article. The title is most logical place for it since a typeable title makes searching and linking easier. Unlike printed encyclopedia articles, Wiki articles often function as stand-alone works. This makes our article titles analogous to book titles. Book titles rarely use special characters, and certainly don't use Vietnamese diacritics.
- The version of the name with diacritics goes in the opening and is put in boldface, per WP:MOSBIO. This avoids opening the essay with an awkward construction along the lines of "Le Quy Don (Vietnamese: Lê Quý Đôn)" .
- The name on top of the box should should be given in the opposite style as in the title, i.e. normally with diacritics.
- Running text should be free of diacritics that are merely decorative and do not serve an instructive purpose. For example, there is no need to repeat the diacritic version of the subject's name if this has already been given in the opening. Excessive diacritics in the running text create clutter and strain the eye. Kauffner (talk) 15:06, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
I see the discussion above, and I have slightly more sympathy for removing tones in Vietnamese than for removing accents from French people, but there needs to be a WP:common sense line drawn somewhere. It is very odd to remove the tone from a major cultural item like ca trù. As I just mentioned to Kauffner I have never seen ca trù without the accent before - it is, as far as I have seen, always used on CD covers: CD1 CD2. The tone is also used by UNESCO. ... In this case I don't think ca + tru actually produces a new meaning, but tru without the tone looks like the verb "stay" which is a bit offputting. In ictu oculi (talk) 12:59, 24 June 2012 (UTC)
- Also what is going on with Traditional Vietnamese musical instruments and category:Vietnamese musical instruments? Should Dan Tinh be at đàn tính, or tính tẩu? In ictu oculi (talk) 14:04, 24 June 2012 (UTC)
- If I wanted to create an article on a subject related to Vietnamese music, the sources I would check are VietnamNet Bridge ("ca tru" site:english.vietnamnet.vn), Viet Nam News ("ca tru" site:vietnamnews.vnagency.com.vn), and VOV ("ca tru" site:english.vov.vn). These sites have hundreds of stories where "ca tru" is spelled without diacritics. All three are based in Vietnam, so there is no technical barrier that would prevent them from using diacritics. The general policy of Wikipedia is to "follow the sources" and to use the best sources available, preferably English language. We don't "correct" our sources by adding marks that they don't have. As for CDs, Amazon's top-selling Vietnamese music CDs are here and here. The most authoritative academic source on music is New Grove. I can't be sure how they spell "ca tru". But as they don't use diacritics for Polish, I assume that their policy is to use Latin-1 diacritics only. Kauffner (talk) 04:42, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
- Anyone will tell you that New Grove is absolutely not the most authoritative source for World Music, Garland is. I wasn't aware that New Grove wasn't a reliable source for Polish names until you mentioned that, but they certainly are a reliable source for Polish composers, spelling of names apart.
- Anyway, you say "The general policy of Wikipedia is to "follow the sources" and to use the best sources available," so on what basis is a diacritic disabled website like Viet Nam News which doesn't spell the new French president's name correctly a more reliable source for the spelling of Vietnamese musical instruments and other terms in South-East Asian musicology than The Garland Handbook of Southeast Asian Music?
- (Perhaps this essay needs a tag on the header saying it is under discussion). In ictu oculi (talk) 07:48, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
- Umm?? New Grove has Đàn ty bà and Charles Bodham. “Witold Lutosławski.” The New Grove. Why do you say New Grove doesn't? In ictu oculi (talk) 07:52, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
- If I wanted to create an article on a subject related to Vietnamese music, the sources I would check are VietnamNet Bridge ("ca tru" site:english.vietnamnet.vn), Viet Nam News ("ca tru" site:vietnamnews.vnagency.com.vn), and VOV ("ca tru" site:english.vov.vn). These sites have hundreds of stories where "ca tru" is spelled without diacritics. All three are based in Vietnam, so there is no technical barrier that would prevent them from using diacritics. The general policy of Wikipedia is to "follow the sources" and to use the best sources available, preferably English language. We don't "correct" our sources by adding marks that they don't have. As for CDs, Amazon's top-selling Vietnamese music CDs are here and here. The most authoritative academic source on music is New Grove. I can't be sure how they spell "ca tru". But as they don't use diacritics for Polish, I assume that their policy is to use Latin-1 diacritics only. Kauffner (talk) 04:42, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
RfC on spelling
Should the spelling of Vietnamese names follow the general usage of English-language reliable sources? Kauffner (talk) 16:11, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
I wish to propose that the following language be added to WP:Naming conventions (Vietnamese):
- The spelling of Vietnamese names should follow the general usage of English-language reliable sources, for example Ngo Dinh Diem, Ho Chi Minh, and Saigon, not Ngô Đình Diệm, Hồ Chí Minh, and Sài Gòn. Consult Encyclopedia Britannica, Encyclopedia Columbia, and Encarta.
This language is adapted from WP:NCGN#Widely_accepted_name, and the selection of references is copied from there. Columbia doesn't have enough material on Vietnam to be useful to the project, and the reference to Encarta looks odd, since it hasn't been published in years. I'd prefer to replace them with specialist works such as The History of Vietnam (2008) by Justin Corbin.
A provision of this kind may appear unnecessary and obvious, but there has recently been a series of RMs to move various titles to Vietnamese spellings. So a reaffirmation of the “use English" principle by the community may be useful at this point.
I want to emphasize that even when a title is anglicized, the Vietnamese name of the subject is still displayed prominently. The subject's "full name", including diacritics, is given boldfaced in the opening, per WP:FULLNAME. This format combines the advantages of both systems. Monolingual readers aren't put off by the title, and those who are interested in diacritics, tones, and local spellings can get this information from the opening. Kauffner (talk) 16:52, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
Survey
- Kauffner, it is incredibly disingenuous to say "there has recently been a series of RMs to move various titles to Vietnamese spellings". In fact, there has been a flood in the past few months, by *you*, to move hundreds of articles to spellings without diacritics, in many cases for articles that had diacritics for several years; and often with the rather drole comment: "Remove diacritics as is usual for Vietnamese biographies" (the only thing that makes this usual is your efforts to create facts on the ground).
- In addition, after making these unilateral moves, you then edited the redirects, preventing editors from undoing the moves, leaving the only choice to be an RM. I am rather sure that this editing of the redirects was done with an explicit understanding that this would prevent a revert of your moves. Thus, I'm afraid this RfC is fatally flawed because you are actively pushing an agenda, and the above statement is not worded in a neutral fashion.
- To wit, I oppose the addition of the language above. Instead, I would propose language such as the following:
Use of diacritics in Vietnamese names should follow the usage of context-appropriate sources, per WP:IRS. Thus, sources which never, as a rule, use *any* Vietnamese diacritics, should not be used as a reference for spelling of Vietnamese names. Instead, high-quality sources that are capable and willing to use Vietnamese diacritics should be used.
- This is a specialty rule, that does not necessarily mirror that used in other naming conventions, because Vietnamese diacritics are often ignored even by major publishers (which do, on the other hand, publish using european diacritics). Wikipedia has no such limitations and we have access to VN volunteers (as pointed out in another conversation) that can help, so there's no reason to not use the proper spelling. This is not to say we should use them in words which have a well-established english spelling, such as Saigon or Hanoi, but for words which are more rare, high quality sources (and not just encyclopedias which have never used VN diacritics) should be used to determine proper spelling.--KarlB (talk) 17:45, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
- So Britannica is a low-quality source because it doesn't use Vietnamese diacritics? If "high quality source" means only that it says what you want it say, that's the same as making it up as you go along. Who are these "high quality sources"? Give me some names — and hopefully not more "quality source" food articles from Thanh Nien News. WP:EN recommends "other encyclopedias and reference works, scholarly journals, and major news sources". Other encyclopedias and major media never use Vietnamese diacritics. They're not exactly common even in scholarly journals, although you can certainly find examples. I note that this proposal does not restrict the use of Vietnamese in any way, but simply reaffirms that we, "follow the general usage of English-language reliable sources." This is something that WP:DIACRITICS already stipulates. Kauffner (talk) 19:08, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
- I didn't say that Brittanica was a low-quality source. My claim is that since they have chosen to eschew VN diacritics, they are not a good source for VN diacritics. Please read WP:IRS more carefully.
- The problem with your proposal is it is equivalent to saying remove diacritics from everything, because if Brittanica never uses VN diacritics, then the result will be always remove VN diacritics, which I don't think is desirable. Since Brittanica *does* use european accents, they are a good source for checking spelling and usage of names which have European accents in the original (for example, Brittanica would be a good source for Étienne Marcel vs Etienne Marcel or Copenhagen vs København. However, since they seem to have made an editorial decision to eschew VN diacritics, it does not mean Wikipedia should - no such decision has been made here. The best test is whether a source that *does* use VN diacritics declines to use them for a particular word; for example, I'm sure we could find books that use diacritics for Bà Rịa–Vũng Tàu province, but that don't use them for Vietnam or Saigon. This is especially the case where a common english language usage has not been established; and if we look at the literally hundreds of page moves you have personally enacted, without broad consensus, over the past year, I'm sure there are many in there for which there is *not* a c"ommon english version, in which case they should all be moved back per Wikipedia:NCGN ("use the modern English name (or local name, if there is no established English name)"). This blog entry explains for example why the Economist doesn't use VN diacritics - bottom line it is a staffing issue.; Wikipedia has no such issues. --KarlB (talk) 20:46, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
- So Britannica is a low-quality source because it doesn't use Vietnamese diacritics? If "high quality source" means only that it says what you want it say, that's the same as making it up as you go along. Who are these "high quality sources"? Give me some names — and hopefully not more "quality source" food articles from Thanh Nien News. WP:EN recommends "other encyclopedias and reference works, scholarly journals, and major news sources". Other encyclopedias and major media never use Vietnamese diacritics. They're not exactly common even in scholarly journals, although you can certainly find examples. I note that this proposal does not restrict the use of Vietnamese in any way, but simply reaffirms that we, "follow the general usage of English-language reliable sources." This is something that WP:DIACRITICS already stipulates. Kauffner (talk) 19:08, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
- Malformed proposal question - It is meaningless to pose "Should the spelling of Vietnamese names follow the general usage of English-language reliable sources?" if "reliable" hasn't been defined. The WP:IRS "definition of reliable sources" states:
- The reliability of a source depends on context. Each source must be carefully weighed to judge whether it is reliable for the statement being made and is the best such source for that context. In general, the more people engaged in checking facts, analyzing legal issues, and scrutinizing the writing, the more reliable the publication. Sources should directly support the information as it is presented in an article, and should be appropriate to the claims made. If no reliable sources can be found on a topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it.
- (i) If WP:IRS is not taken onboard then this the same old issue that a sports website reliable for one statement being made (a hockey or tennis match result) is not reliable for spelling a Czech name. This proposal should start with an acceptance that en.wp spells European names fully both in title, lede, and text. Even with fairly strong resistance from a small group of editors who take the view that sports websites with no Czech accents are a reliable. A series of RMs - i.e. with community consensus - has pulled the "stick out" 100 or so tennis/hockey BLPs into line with the 100,000s of other Euro BLPs.
- (ii) Then having started with that acceptance, a case should be made for why Latin-alphabet Asian languages should be treated differently?
- These seem to be the two main issues. Otherwise this is a pointless rehash of ground already well-covered, if not covered to death. In ictu oculi (talk) 01:26, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
- My proposal states that the Vietnamese name should appear boldface in the opening of the article. So the objection that it would "always remove VN diacritics" is overheated. Of course a consistent titling style is desirable. "No established usage" is not even one of the top five WP:NAMINGCRITERIA, so it should not override the need for consistency, English-language titling, recognizability, etc, etc. If it was some sort of super criteria, we would have Chinese villages at Chinese character titles. If a publication doesn't have the staff, of course they can't put the diacritics in. But this is not the only reason they are not used. BBC has a Vietnamese edition, so they obviously have the necessary technical capability and staff. For Vietnam-based sites like VNA, VietnamNet, or Thanh Nien, the original story is typically in written in Vietnamese and the diacritics are stripped off by a translator. In other words, it is actually more trouble for them to publish without diacritics than with. Thanh Nien`s English edition uses diacritics for food-related items, but not for other subjects. The paper has persumably made a policy decision to follow this unusual style. In general, we have no way of knowing why a source uses a particular spelling, nor is there any need for us to know. If the English-language sources don't use diacritics, we shouldn't use them, end of story. Putting them in anyway misrepresents usage to the reader.
- In response to IIO, this proposal doesn't create a standard that treats Vietnamese names differently than some other language. The language about "the general usage of English-language reliable sources" is taken from WP:DIACRITICS and the list of references is from WP:NCGN. Of course, we do need a Vietnam-specific reference as well. I'd be happy to add Thanh Nien if you like. Using diacritics for European languages but not for Vietnamese is the style of Britannica and Columbia, both of which are already cited prominently in our guidelines. The encyclopedias adopted this style back in the 1970s because Vietnamese diacritics were considered intense and distracting. My project to standardize the spelling and format for Vietnamese titles arose from the last year's diacritics RfC. As far as the actual proposal went, the vote was sharply split. But those wanted to rewrite the guideline cited primarily Britannica and National Geographic, neither of which use Vietnamese diacritics. Kauffner (talk) 06:30, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
- Kauffner
- If you aren't going to recognise that en.wp uses French, German, Czech, Polish, Turkish etc. names, what is there to discuss?
- In ictu oculi (talk) 07:00, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
- I don't what to make of this list. You plan to liberate these peoples from under my oppressive thumb? For most of these, I don't recall any edits or posts that could be considered remotely controversial. Kauffner (talk) 13:07, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
- Kauffner
- "liberate these peoples from under my oppressive thumb?"
- No, I'm asking if you agree with the community consensus built by 1,000s of article-contributing editors that have produced en.wp's 3.9 million articles with French, German, Czech, Polish, Turkish etc. names being used. Because if your issue is with foreign names/words per se rather than just Vietnamese ones then we should be having an RfC here on French etc.
- Do you recognise that en.wp uses French, German, Czech, Polish, Turkish etc. names?
- It's a completely fair and straight question. Are you against French, German, Czech, Polish, Turkish too, or just Vietnamese diacritics? Please let us know what the starting point of your proposal is?
- Cheers. In ictu oculi (talk) 16:49, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
- I think the issue is that *you* (and some others) consider VN diacritics to be ugly or off-putting (or as you say, intense or distracting) (although, I note from earlier discussions that you've changed your mind on this; a few years ago you seemed to be defending such diacritics) I think the bottom line is, the reason that some entities have chosen to not use VN diacritics has more to do with a combination of staffing, technical competency of the editors, cost, and audience factors, and less to do with correctness, which should be our focus as an encyclopedia. Also, they are still latin letters, and the slippery slope that ends in Chinese characters is a false argument; as is Jimmy's assertion that he doesn't know how to pronounce a VN name (nor do I, but I'm sure if I read a few articles it would go a long way to helping, and the diacritics/tone marks of course help). In addition, we have seen that in some sources which do use VN diacritics, they remove them for certain well known terms, which have become anglicized. So I think that is the metric we should use. Just as you wouldn't use a black and white book to determine which shades of blue were used by Picasso, we should not use sources that ignore VN diacritics as a rule to determine whether diacritics should be added. There are a number of *other* sources, which can be found in the diacritics essay, that *do* propose use of diacritics, including VN ones. A good example of this is pho; which I think has now passed into the english language, and I'm sure you could find sources that use VN diacritics but that decline to use it for pho since it has become basically so common. Finally as to your point that you are keeping the diacritics in the lead; yes that's very good, and we should always do so as a matter of course; but do note that much interaction of wikipedia comes through search engines, and the article title is quite important in that regard; for example a search for Nguyen Ngoc Ngan shows prominently in google his name w/o diacritics, including in the mini-profile-box now used by google; I just don't see any good reason to willfully misname people just to save readers some theoretical angst in encountering foreign diacritics.--KarlB (talk) 13:59, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
- The "good reason" is that the pros, the published encyclopedias, the top history and travel books, and the Vietnamese English-language media, all take the diacritics off. Do we want to be in the same category as Britannica and Columbia, or would we rather be together with Yellowdawn, the self-published work cited to support the banh bo RM? The anglicized name of the subject should appear somewhere in the article, since that's the version the reader is most likely to be familiar with. The title is most logical place, since that makes searching and linking easier. When Google results pop up, it allows the reader to distinguish which results are English and which are Vietnamese at a glance. Of course, we are not supposed to consider technical issues. Our role is to follow the established convention, not reinvent the wheel. Kauffner (talk) 15:25, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
- I don't what to make of this list. You plan to liberate these peoples from under my oppressive thumb? For most of these, I don't recall any edits or posts that could be considered remotely controversial. Kauffner (talk) 13:07, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
- Oppose heavy use of Vietnamese diacritical marks in English WP on the principle of least astonishment. English readers, particularly those who read no other language, are accustomed to some French and Spanish diacritical marks through long proximity. French contributed a great deal to English after the Battle of Hastings, and when the British Empire was spreading the language around the globe, French was the language of diplomacy. Spanish is a strong influence in the United States. Vietnamese is far more peripheral to the typical native English reader. Yopienso (talk) 16:47, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
- I'll count this as a support for the proposal (to use Britannica spelling), unless you object. Kauffner (talk) 17:18, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
- Yes, please. Yopienso (talk) 00:16, 21 July 2012 (UTC)
- Yopienso, Hi, out of interest, simply because, I don't recognise the name as contributing to Vietnam articles, where did you find out about Kauffner's proposal? But question - given that en.wp uses diacritical marks for Czech, Icelandic and Maltese which can be even stronger than Vietnamese, how does your argument above apply? In ictu oculi (talk) 22:52, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
- Yes, please. Yopienso (talk) 00:16, 21 July 2012 (UTC)
- I'll count this as a support for the proposal (to use Britannica spelling), unless you object. Kauffner (talk) 17:18, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
- I contributed to Talk:Ngo Dinh Diem 4 times between April 9-11; here's the earliest diff. Since then it's been on my watchlist. Please read my comments there to more fully appreciate my reasons against the markings. Also, I forgot to say earlier today that, despite the arguments of an editor there, the diacritical markings are not generally considered part of the Latin alphabet in which the English Wikipedia is written. Even the Vietnamese article omits the markings. Kauffner alerted me to the RfC this morning after I'd already noticed it on my watchlist. Wrt to Czech, etc., I haven't happened to run across that. The Czechoslovakia article--which is as far as I took the time to look--is free of distracting diacritical marks. But, how does it apply? WP:OSE, I guess, though I'm no great fan of that essay. Regards, Yopienso (talk) 00:16, 21 July 2012 (UTC)
- Support following usage of Britannica, Columbia, and Encarta, which is to say, use the diacritic-free English alphabet to title Vietnamese subjects. This convention seems to be used universally among English-language sources: even by English-language publications in Vietnam! Titles should be easy to read, not astonishing, and not misleading as to normative usage. The Vietnamese-language name can be included, separately, in the article. We lose no accuracy with Kauffner's proposal, but properly distinguish ourselves as a mainstream English-language, and not a faux Vietnamese-language, resource. This debate has already been settled on our most-scrutinized articles: for example, Ngo Dinh Diem is the title of the Wikipedia article, not Ngô Đình Diệm. It's time to codify this best practice in the naming convention. Shrigley (talk) 20:51, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
- Apart from the malformed proposal...' Kauffner, can we please see a list of those you have invited to your RfC? In ictu oculi (talk) 02:40, 21 July 2012 (UTC)
- Support: I never learned how to type those squiggly diacritics, and do not know how to do so. I'd expect many people to be in the same boat as myself. When looking for an article on, say, a Vietnamese person, I think it is reasonable that I should be able to reach my destination by typing in standard Latin letters (the 26 ones I learnt in kindergarten) whilst on the English Wikipedia. Sure, we could make redirects for every single Vietnamese-titled article, but why bother with such a painful mess? We don't have Korean biography articles with their titles written in Hangul, and don't have Chinese biography articles written in Chinese, so why do we use Vietnamese diacritics for articles on EN Wiki? I'm certain that most people reading EN Wiki don't even know how to read those diacritics - whether a squiggly line makes this tone or that tone; I for one can't. Having those diacritics means that it's not an English article title, and this is problematic since readers of the English Wikipedia are supposed to be literate in English, and not Quoc Ngu. -- 李博杰 | —Talk contribs email 11:43, 21 July 2012 (UTC)
- Note: Redirects are largely sufficient here to deal with your squiggly issues, and I have yet to find *any* such articles where redirects from non-diacritics versions do not already exist. This whole typing argument can thus be avoided. Besides, you probably don't know how to type french or german or icelandic or maltese accents either, so why not go after those as well? There is no reason to single out Vietnamese in wikipedia. --KarlB (talk) 16:45, 21 July 2012 (UTC)
- Let me warp your words a little bit. Why don't we move today's main page featured article, pi, to π? A redirect is sufficient enough to remedy typing issues, and most English speakers (and speakers of other languages) recognise that Greek letter, since they would have learned it in Grade 7 mathematics. -- 李博杰 | —Talk contribs email 05:09, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
- Note: Redirects are largely sufficient here to deal with your squiggly issues, and I have yet to find *any* such articles where redirects from non-diacritics versions do not already exist. This whole typing argument can thus be avoided. Besides, you probably don't know how to type french or german or icelandic or maltese accents either, so why not go after those as well? There is no reason to single out Vietnamese in wikipedia. --KarlB (talk) 16:45, 21 July 2012 (UTC)
- Well, that is warping my words, and I would not suggest such a thing, and it's a rather silly comparison. Again, we have diacritics for dozens of languages. Why should we all of a sudden remove diacritics from Vietnamese for specious typing reasons, when those reasons are not sufficient to remove diacritics from any other language? This is not western wikipedia, this is english wikipedia, and FWIW there are probably more english speakers in Asia than there are anywhere else in the world.--KarlB (talk) 12:26, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
- And in the English Wikipedia we use English. Diacritics from, say, French (in addition to other languages) are commonly understood by English speakers due to the proximity of England and France, and the sharing of vocabulary between the two which familiarises readers with such diacritics (café, coup d'état, résumé, jalapeño, naïve). Though French/Spanish/whatever in origin, words such as café and jalapeño are also in English dictionaries, and are also English words of foreign origin. This is not the same situation as Vietnamese. Vietnam is much more distant, and the connections between English and Vietnamese are not as apparent. Being written with a modified Latin alphabet does not make Vietnamese text become English; Vietnamese writing is as unique to the Vietnamese language as Chinese characters are unique to the Chinese language, where English speakers are unable to read neither Vietnamese text nor Chinese text, and we do not have the Mao Zedong article located at 毛泽东. By the same logic, both Chinese and Japanese use Han characters, however the Japanese Wikipedia article for Mao Zedong is located at ja:毛沢東, and not 毛泽东 as it would be written in Chinese. "东" is not a valid character in the Japanese language, and is only used in Chinese. Both languages, albeit using the same writing system, have different methods of writing, and this is the same case with English and Vietnamese: we do not use those squiggly lines in the English language. There are similar cases for languages that use the Arabic and Cyrillic writing systems as well. -- 李博杰 | —Talk contribs email 13:42, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
- To summarise: Japanese readers do not recognise "东", and cannot read "毛泽东" even though it is the native written form in Chinese, and so write it in a form which is legible to them; Russian readers do not read the "i"s in Ukrainian and the "j"s in Serbian, and Russify Ukrainian and Serbian proper nouns with their own vowels and consonants; native English readers do not understand those squiggly diacritics used in Vietnamese, and hence often drop them. "东" is not Japanese, "j" is not Russian, and "Ngô Đình Diệm" is not English. -- 李博杰 | —Talk contribs email 13:56, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
- This has really nothing to do with japanese/chinese, and the proximity argument doesn't hold either; you may recall that the US fought a war with Vietnam, there are over a million Vietnamese living in the US (Vietnamese are the second-largest SE asian minority in the US (after Filipinos)); and the Vietnamese soup Pho was recently voted one of the top 50 foods in the world. I certainly feel a lot closer to Vietnam than to Malta or Iceland. Again, I still don't understand why Maltese or Icelandic or Serbian diacritics are considered ok, but Vietnamese are not? There are plenty of sources which use VN diacritics in the English language. There are lots of exceptions that should be made, for VN terms that have been widely anglicized, but when no-such anglicization has occurred stripping the diacritics is silly. Again, I'm not opposed to individual discussions about appropriate use of diacritics, and if someone proposed moving Hanoi to a version with diacritics (the strawman Kauffner put above) I would oppose such a move; however, for more obscure subjects that haven't received much coverage in English-language media, we should default to the correct spelling. If Kauffner has his way, the result would be to remove diacritics from every single Vietnamese article in the wikipedia, since the sources he propose *never* use VN diacritics as a matter of course; he has already been attempting to do so, by unilaterally moving hundreds of articles over the past 6 months in an attempt to create facts on the ground, but he now knows he cannot continue to do so uncontested so is trying to change the rules of the game.--KarlB (talk) 14:16, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
- Well, that is warping my words, and I would not suggest such a thing, and it's a rather silly comparison. Again, we have diacritics for dozens of languages. Why should we all of a sudden remove diacritics from Vietnamese for specious typing reasons, when those reasons are not sufficient to remove diacritics from any other language? This is not western wikipedia, this is english wikipedia, and FWIW there are probably more english speakers in Asia than there are anywhere else in the world.--KarlB (talk) 12:26, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
- Comment. I feel that generally, we should make our encyclopedia as easy to edit as it is to read, and in the case of Vietnamese, it would be incredibly cumbersome if we had this inconsistency of whether or not having diacritics is 'proper' or not. An editor who edits an article with diacritics but without access (or knowledge) to Vietnamese typing tools can find this bothersome. I would say that we can retain diacritics for infoboxes only, but for the most part I am in favour of abolishing Vietnamese diacritics altogether from the article body. Colipon+(Talk) 18:46, 21 July 2012 (UTC)
- Thanks; however, I don't see why this is an issue; if you don't have access to (or don't want to use) diacritics, it's not a problem; someone else who is so inclined can come fix it later, just as has been already done in thousands of articles. Having the correct diacritics in the title does not prevent users from typing the name without diacritics, because of redirects, etc. Again, I'm not sure why we feel like we should exclude Vietnamese but accept accents for almost all other latin-based languages? --KarlB (talk) 18:52, 21 July 2012 (UTC)
- comment Note: see usage guides here, from other sources: User:Prolog/Diacritical_marks#External_guides; most journals and academic publications about Vietnam use diacritics for example.--KarlB (talk) 19:06, 21 July 2012 (UTC)
- Wikipedia is a general purpose digital encyclopedia, not an academic journal. Yopienso (talk) 22:59, 21 July 2012 (UTC)
- The only mention of Vietnamese on the linked page is a quote from the National Geographic style Manual: "Although Vietnamese is written in the Latin alphabet, the number of accent marks can be distracting and may therefore be omitted." Kauffner (talk) 17:14, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
- Wikipedia is a general purpose digital encyclopedia, not an academic journal. Yopienso (talk) 22:59, 21 July 2012 (UTC)
- Comment Our WP:AT policy states among other things: "The choice of article titles should put the interests of readers before those of editors, and those of a general audience before those of specialists." We do exactly the opposite when we go too far in changing anglicized names to native spelling that is often hard to read and edit for our English language audience. There will always be "spelling puritans" and "spelling liberals", but if WP is any neutral then it should either serve both of them, or side with neither of them. WP should not become used as a tool to push more foreign spelling into English language usage, it should go along with what IS used in English language. Our current policies state that when there is mixed usage in English language sources, then we go with the anglicized version rather than the native version, see WP:ON and WP:IMOS and WP:CYR for examples. I see no reason do it any different for Vietnamese names: if there is an anglicized version then use it. If there is no anglicized version appearing in English language sources, then we have no choice but use the native spelling. Using native spelling should be the exception, not the rule.
- People sometimes contend that there is no harm in using more diacritics in article titles, nothing is lost because there is always a redirect from the non-diacritics spelling. I disagree. What you lose is editors as an unintended consequence. Some editors (including me) refuse to type in weird characters that are not on their keyboard all the time, and that is their good right since they volunteer their time to wp or not. Some of them will say "thank you very much" when they see a name full with strange diacritics in the title. The result is a net loss for wp, because the article is not developed/maintained as well as it would be if it were kept at the more common anglicized name. The slogan of WP used to be: "the encyclopedia that anyone can edit", but for English WP we should now change that to: "the encyclopedia that anyone can edit, if they know how to type in 20+ languages". Somebody can drop me a note when this place has become the "English" wikipedia again. MakeSense64 (talk) 09:31, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
- Comment Without diacritics, some Vietnamese words would look the same while they are totally different (and thus have totally different meaning). For example, Nguyễn is the most popular family name in Vietnam while Nguyên can be full, a Vietnamese first name, or the Vietnamese name for Yuan Dynasty. Without diacritics, Nguyễn and Nguyên are simply the indistinguishable Nguyen. While I choose this example? Because I found one passage in Cecil B. Currey (2005), Victory at Any Cost: The Genius of Vietnam's Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap, Potomac Books, Inc., page 7: "There are a few family names in the land,... Giap's middle name, Nguyen, is one of them, but, as in his case, is not always a family name. Perhaps he bore this name to remind him of some distant lineage with the Nguyen rulers of the land.". The author, who is a respected military historian, made an unbelievable error (in regards of any Vietnamese reader) of mistaking Võ Nguyên Giáp's middle name, which is Nguyên, with the family name Nguyễn. For the sake of Vietnamese words' meaning, please take your argument of Vietnamese words with diacritics is not understandable for English speakers aside, since without them (diacritics), even Vietnamese speakers cannot understand the words! For the popular Vietnamese names (without diacritics) in the English speaking world (like pho - although in Vietnamese, pho with diacritics will become phở - the English pho, phố - a street, phò - derogatory term for ... prostitute, or simply pho - a volume), I have no objection of let them exist here without diacritics, but for the less known words, please keep the diacritics intact and don't just cite Britannica for killing them (diacritics), since you will kill the meaning accompagning the words as well. Thank you for your understanding. (and to Mr. Kauffner, removing diacritics from every single article about Vietnam that I tried my best to create here without noticing me or discussing with me is really not nice, not nice at all.) With best regards. Grenouille vert (talk) 15:03, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
- And again, I'm not talking about "right/wrong", I just hope that Wikipedia readers can avoid the unnecessary misunderstanding of Vietnamese words without diacritics, removing those diacritics from Vietnamese words (which are, by any mean, written using a Latin alphabet) doesn't make a Wikipedia article clearer or proper, only in reverse. There are only a few popular Vietnamese names without diacritics in the English speaking world like "pho", "Saigon", "Hanoi", so please don't take them as norm or think that I try to change them into "phở", "Sài Gòn", "Hà Nội", I'm only talking about less well-known articles like Ngô Sĩ Liên, xẩm or these guys. Thank you. Grenouille vert (talk) 02:56, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
- Hi Grenouille vert, agree but actually Vietnam Saigon and Hanoi are the only 3 English exonyms for Vietnam. phở is not an exonym and is usually written phở in English menus. In ictu oculi (talk) 03:10, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
- The official view of this matter is quite different, you know. Vietnam promotes English-language usage of "Viet Nam" and "Ha Noi".[1] But diacritics, not to any significant degree. Kauffner (talk) 11:31, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
- With all due respect, I do not talk about changing very popular in the English speaking world Vietnamese names like Hanoi, Vietnam into the with-diacritic-form, I care more about the less well-known Vietnamese words/names which have been moved (without any discussion with the creator) into the non-diacritic form, so please try to kindly understand my reasons and to move "Hanoi", "Saigon" and "Vietnam" out of your arguments here. Thank you. Grenouille vert (talk) 17:02, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
- The official view of this matter is quite different, you know. Vietnam promotes English-language usage of "Viet Nam" and "Ha Noi".[1] But diacritics, not to any significant degree. Kauffner (talk) 11:31, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
- Hi Grenouille vert, agree but actually Vietnam Saigon and Hanoi are the only 3 English exonyms for Vietnam. phở is not an exonym and is usually written phở in English menus. In ictu oculi (talk) 03:10, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
- Oppose – this RFC is biased by calling the issue "spelling". The examples used are cases where we already use no diacritics, because the names are long familiar in almost all English sources that way. When many English sources still use the diacritics, there is no reason for WP not to as well, so we do; as pointed out, redirects take care of any possible disadvantage that people have mentioned. Let's leave it that way. And thanks to KarlB for remembering that I care about this issue, since Kauffner seems to have forgotten. Dicklyon (talk) 15:34, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
- The purpose of this proposal is to allow the Vietnamese articles to remain where they are, at predominently non-diacritic titles. It is a response to IIO's proposals to move virtually all titles to diacritic spellings, including such well known names and terms as Ho Chi Minh, Ngo Dinh Diem, and pho. Kauffner (talk) 11:31, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
- Support I think that is more likely to be consistent, although we should defer to WP:AT. Of note I was asked (neutrally) to join this discussion by KarlB. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 19:13, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
- Oppose: Skipping the diacritics would be failing in our duty as an modern online encyclopaedia, with Unicode at our disposal, to represent facts accurately, even if they are difficult. Readers not familiar with Vietnamese diacritics (a group I fall into) are perfectly capable of mentally stripping them off - when opponents of diacritics say that they don't like those funny squiggles, they demonstrate exactly that capability. And as User:grenouille vert says, the diacritics affect the meaning - a good example is the emperor Duc Duc, where stripping off the diacritics, as has been done, obscures the fact that the two parts of the name are completely different (Dục Đức). And I cannot believe that any editor would be put off editing an article by the diacritics - if they have a real interest in Vietnamese matters, they'll want to learn how to type the diacritics, and if not, everyone can cut and paste. Colonies Chris (talk) 21:10, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
- Support, on the basis that it is not Wikipedia's objective to represent The Truth, but to reflect the corpus of scholarly and reliable English language sources. The vast majority of our stylistic choices are driven by widespread practice, and our rendering of foreign script and diacritics are no exception to this standard. The rendering of text in the majority of reliable English sources is without diacritics, which is how titles and in-prose usage should be rendered here. – NULL ‹talk›
‹edits› 22:50, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
- Where diacritics are commonly used in the English spelling of Vietnamese words, and where the Vietnamese word itself is used in the literature exclusively, either as the English texts loan the Vietnamese word, or as the only or predominant literature is in Vietnamese, then we should spell the Vietnamese word in the Vietnamese way. Where English has loaned a word, such as Nguyen or pho, and the English loan word is the common useage in English texts, and where the word is substantively discussed in English texts, we should use the English language form of the word. We are writing an English encyclopaedia. Where English has a significant impact in the sources, or where the object is known with an English word, we use the English word (pho). Where the subject is primarily discussed in Vietnamese, and the object is not known or not widely known in English using an English loan word, we use the Vietnamese. Fifelfoo (talk) 03:19, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
- Oppose'. We stick with current practice, which is to apply the general MoS on diacritics. Use diacritics unless the word has entered English without them. Entered English does not mean being used sporadically. No diacritics on Hanoi, Saigon. Most other place names should have them. Always redirect for article titles. Itsmejudith (talk) 16:35, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
- MOS:FOREIGN says, "For foreign names, phrases, and words generally, adopt the spellings most commonly used in English-language references for the article." That would normally be without diacritics, unless someone is gaming the references. Kauffner (talk) 17:18, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
- Oppose as per Users Karl B. and In ictu oculi; I believe the article names should be without diacritics, but the articles themselves should have them as needed. In the event the support side prevails, I am curious as to how we will retrofit all the articles concerning Vietnam and containing diacritics to make them uniform, and then make the playing ground level with regard to other languages with diacritics, some of which (such as Serbian, Croatian, Welsh, Irish, Polish, etc.) will likely provoke pitched battles, and to avoid being unduly selective or hypocritical. Quis separabit? 16:04, 24 July 2012 (UTC)
- BTW: In re Kauffner's earlier query: "Do we want to be in the same category as Britannica and Columbia, or would we rather be together with Yellowdawn, the self-published work cited to support the banh bo RM?", I think Wikipedia is sui generis. I don't think Britannica and Columbia would accept the comparison, and they would be right given that Wikipedia is distinguished, not only by its open-editing, but also by the ancillary services it provides. Respectfully submitted. Quis separabit? 17:33, 24 July 2012 (UTC)
- Oppose as per Users Karl B. and In ictu oculi; I believe the article names should be without diacritics, but the articles themselves should have them as needed. In the event the support side prevails, I am curious as to how we will retrofit all the articles concerning Vietnam and containing diacritics to make them uniform, and then make the playing ground level with regard to other languages with diacritics, some of which (such as Serbian, Croatian, Welsh, Irish, Polish, etc.) will likely provoke pitched battles, and to avoid being unduly selective or hypocritical. Quis separabit? 16:04, 24 July 2012 (UTC)
- Support. It is not normal for English language sources to use Vietnamese diacritics. English WP is an English language source. I don't think the current situation makes very much more sense than having an article titled Київ or عمر الشريف. Formerip (talk) 14:12, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
- Oppose. Use of diacritics is educational, which is one of our goals. The practise of Anglicising things is a relic of the last millennium, and it time to bury it. (looking at option #4, below.) Br'er Rabbit (talk) 00:57, 30 July 2012 (UTC)
- Support - I believe wikipedia should try to use the English commonname , if there are sources that do not use the diacritics, then nor should wikipedia. BritishWatcher (talk) 13:55, 1 August 2012 (UTC)
- Oppose We are an encyclopedia. Our goal is to educate. We should have the proper names as the title. Redirects can take care of those who do not wish to type them. Add to that many of the arguments I have made in the past when this gets brought up over and over again. I am too tired of having to re-argue it to list them yet again. -DJSasso (talk) 16:45, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
- Oppose unnecessary removal of information. And what Itsmejudith said. —Kusma (t·c) 19:11, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
- Oppose. I've always seen this issue as stylistic—something WP has the right to decide in-house. The diacriticals: add information, do not detract sufficiently from the underlying characters, are handled by redirects (in titles), educate readers, and may even spark an interest in their effect. I believe that removing diacritical markings (on some) words, phrases, and even languages smacks of dumbing-down WP, and therefore I will always support placing the markings on characters based on Latin-derived alphabets. GFHandel ♬ 23:03, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
Canvassing?
- Improper canvassing by Kauffner: Note, per notes such as this: [[2]], Kauffner is not notifying in a neutral fashion. Note the wording of the notice, and the examples given (like Saigon), which are not under dispute.--KarlB (talk) 16:45, 21 July 2012 (UTC)
- That really takes the proverbial biscuit. Kauffner, on what basis did you select those you invited and leave it to KarlB to invite AjaxSmax? You know full well that AjaxSmax has been one of the main advocates of treating Vietnamese names like French and Czech names for as long as you have been moving Vietnam articles. How could you possibly select a list of invitees and not include AjaxSmax and all the various WP:Vietnam editors who have objected to your moves? And then get smart with KarlB for doing the blindingly obvious - which you should have done. In any case this is a charade, since selective invites aside, the question you have asked is immaterial, the issue is not sources/typographic limits (which is the same issue for every Latin-alphabet language), yet en.wp articles Irish, French, Spanish, German, Portuguese, Swedish, Finnish, Danish, Norwegian, Dutch, Latvian, Estonian, Lithuanian, Icelandic, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Hungarian, Romanian, Bosnian, Serb, Croat, Maltese and Turkish names, even Hawaiian, are giving full spelling but not Vietnamese? Why single out Vietnamese? In ictu oculi (talk) 01:43, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
- When I went over to AjaxSmax's talk page to notify him, I noticed KarlB had already done it. Kauffner (talk) 06:10, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
- Note: I've notified a number of other editors, who participated in past vietnam RMs. I noticed that in some cases, those participants in a discussion who voted for a move away from diacritics were notified by Kauffner, while several who voted against were not notified. I've tried to rectify this, and have notified all participants I could find in past VN diacritic rename discussions (regardless of which side they were on.)--KarlB (talk) 14:05, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
- Well done Karl, but as Dicklyon notes above the terms of the question are ridiculously put. I would think it impossible to get a sensible discussion out of this - even without the selective invites - perhaps Dicklyon has an idea for a better question. I do note and agree with Grenouille vert's comment - some of these article titles are absolutely ambiguous with the diacritics stripped off. My Vietnamese isn't what it was 20 years ago but I can still read it, and I haven't a clue what a lot of these "Britannia"ised titles are. Bloody unhelpful, much worse than looking at Czech with the accents stripped. In ictu oculi (talk) 16:43, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
- Note: I've notified a number of other editors, who participated in past vietnam RMs. I noticed that in some cases, those participants in a discussion who voted for a move away from diacritics were notified by Kauffner, while several who voted against were not notified. I've tried to rectify this, and have notified all participants I could find in past VN diacritic rename discussions (regardless of which side they were on.)--KarlB (talk) 14:05, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
- I initiated a debate on this subject a couple of years ago - favouring diacritics - but I didn't find out about this RFC until KarlB invited me just today. I certainly would have expected to be notified by the initiator of the RFC. Colonies Chris (talk) 21:14, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
- Page titles should not use diacritics in the English wiki because people can't type them in (although obviously redirects should exist using them), but the article should employ diacritics. Vietnamese is a roman alphabet. What's our wikistandard for Czech? It's a similar - if less diacritical-intense - issue. The issue isn't dissimilar to the problem of Arabic (and Mandarin) romanisation, where actual speakers get confused when the romanised diacritics are not visible (of the sort "which Shanxi" or "which Nasir?) Ogress smash!
- Ogress, our Wikistandard for Czech is 100% use of diacritics in titles. In fact that's our wikistandard for all Latin-alphabet titles and until last year included Vietnamese too. The issue is not the same as Arabic and Chinese which are not Latin alphabets. In ictu oculi (talk) 13:45, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
- One hundred percent use of diacritics? Trời ơi! So we could actually end up with articles that explain how the Battle of Sài Gòn unfolded during the Tết Offensive; how Hà Nội supplied the Việt cộng via the Hồ Chí Minh trail; or assess Võ Nguyên Giáp's generalship during the Battle of Điện Biên Phủ. Kauffner (talk) 14:31, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
- Kauffner,
- I think your right to score points is on hold at the moment isn't it.
- I won't insult the intelligence of the others here to address the other examples but Võ Nguyên Giáp is a relevant example. Yes and it is a Vietnamese bio which wasn't moved by you and was moved by two other editors after a discussion on the Talk page. There will always be exceptions.
- But as I say, your right to score points is on hold. In ictu oculi (talk) 16:06, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
Other options
I appreciate User:Kauffner's proposal to bring order to this issue and codify the status quo. The ensuing discussion above is very interesting and it is clear there could be a a variety of approaches to the use of diacritics in titles in Vietnam-related articles while still adhering to Wikipedia policy. I'm just curious where users fall when given more restrictive guideline options. For example, what do you feel about the following positions? — AjaxSmack 17:34, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
Please weigh in with support, oppose, or other quips if you care:
1) Little or no diacritic use at all except in cases when a preponderance of all types of sources use them (i.e., following usage similar to that of newspapers)
2) Diacritic use on an ad hoc basis but consistency across categories (e.g., use diacritics for Vietnamese foods and terms but not for places in Vietnam)
3) Status quo — diacritic use on an ad hoc basis decided on a case-by-case basis with different weight given to different types of sources
4) Diacritic use on most articles unless name has been nativised (e.g. Viet Cong, Ho Chi Minh City)
Survey Other Options
- support option 4 this is the one I would support as a default. We'd have to establish wide use of a name w/o diacritics to make the case for stripping them. There are a number of obvious ones (like you've listed above), but the bulk of other VN articles that I've looked at, I was not familiar with and googling doesn't find a lot of usage.--KarlB (talk) 17:39, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
- Support option 4 - We have the techology, so let's use it! As has been pointed out, Vietnamese is a tonal language and the correct use of diacritics is vital for those who understand Vietnamese. Use of diacritics will also help ensure that IPA pronunciations are correct for those that understand that system. For the rest of us (me included), we'll just read the words sans diacritics. Words commonly Latinized should be housed at non-diacritic titles. Appropriate redirects should be provided in all cases. Mjroots (talk) 22:54, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
- Support 4 more or less, though it's not really much different from 3 or the status quo. The problem is just in reaching agreement on which names have been "nativized"; otherwise there would be no basis for dropping diacritics, would there? Some editors have a different approach to it than others do, which is why it seems rather ad hoc. Dicklyon (talk) 23:01, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
- Probably support 4 - same as for Czech, Maltese, Turkish I still haven't really made my mind up, what little time is available for this has been spent looking at the the most ridiculous anglicizations in the category:Vietnamese words and phrases category and diverted by the shenanigans surrounding the Can Tho RM. But it's been brought to my attention (by Karl B) that the initial Chicago math professor Ngo Bao Chau RM was deeply flawed, given that his own Chicago website, New Scientist and math papers use diacritics. The Vo Chi Cong RM similarly missed his English obituary using accents. The Dang Huu Phuc RM there's not much to go but naturally his CD covers. And to be honest that RM was messed around a bit by the "license" given by Jimbo's comment, which is awkward when J and W are "diacritics" in the Vietnamese alphabet, and yet vi.wp doesn't have "Đim-bo Ưêirs", Jimbo could easily have picked a Czech, Maltese, Turkish example - and would we then have 1000+ page moves for Czech, Maltese, Turkish? It's on that question that Joy (Shallot)'s frequent complaint about anglicisation of names being xenophobic sticks. Why single out Vietnamese? I think the thing I really notice is that Vietnamese English-publication sources are beginning to use the accents - like Vietweek, Baomoi, scholarly western books - at exactly the same time en.wp has been pulled in the opposite direction. And then there's Grenouille vert's point about ambiguity which I already agreed with. In ictu oculi (talk) 02:16, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
- None of the above. How many more years does WP want to lose editors and waste time on an issue that splits the community right down the middle? A few lines of code can solve this for good, see my suggestions below. Or do editors and admins prefer to continue to argue and block or ban? MakeSense64 (talk) 06:37, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
- Support option 4 exactly per In ictu oculi's rationale. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 09:07, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
- Support option 4 Removing the diacritics causes LOSS of information, keeping them (and adding redirects when necessary) not only informs, but loses none. Also, we'd be avoiding systemic bias in favor of the latin alphabet.... Zaldax (talk) 19:16, 27 July 2012 (UTC)
- Option 4, please. All part of educational, informative, interesting, useful, comprehensive. And see my comment up in the survey. (and opposed to the further silly options, below.) Br'er Rabbit (talk) 01:02, 30 July 2012 (UTC)
Comment Other Options
Various Vietnam-based news sites have opened in recent years and a few use diacritics. I would not think of it in terms of a trend toward greater use. If we are to consult the usage of a Vietnam-based site, surely it should be the most comprehensive and authoritative such site, which is Viet Nam News. Perhaps not everyone is aware of Jimbo's thoughts on the issue of Dang Huu Phuc vs. Đặng Hữu Phúc, so I will link to them. Does this proposal imply that even if a subject is given in Britannica and other encyclopedias without diacritics, we might still use a spelling given only in Vietnamese-language sources? This is quite far the idea the en.wiki should, you know, "use English" and all that. The editors of National Geographic say that Vietnamese diacritics are too "distracting" to include, and they can be considered the authorities on the subject of how to deal the scripts of various languages. I don't worry about whether the marks are distracting or not. To me, the issue is that the title should provide accurate information: It should tell the reader what this subject is called in real-world English, and it follow the usage of the best available sources. Kauffner (talk) 05:08, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
- As you know, wikipedia does *not* have a bias towards online sources. In this case, your example of Viet Nam news is excellent; as you know, they *do* use diacritics in their print version. Here is a recent example, from 2010: No diacritics in online article; Diacritics in print article. To me, this establishes that their non-use of diacritics in the online version may have more to do with technology, staffing, costs, or perhaps user interface issues. That they have no fear of using diacritics in the English-language printed version, to me supports that Wikipedia should do the same. Now, they also use Việt Nam and Hà Nội, which I don't think we should use since those terms are sufficiently anglicized. Someone who lives in VN should stop by their offices and ask them why they have chosen to not use diacritics in the online version - their answer may be illuminating. --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 18:59, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
- I am not sure that these questions relate to the RfC, but I'll do my best to answer them. If you have been reviewing my old posts, you know that at one time I considered the print edition of VNN to be more official than the Web site. But I do not think this way anymore. To anyone outside of Vietnam, there is only the Web site. As the VNN site has to compete with other similar sites, it must provide news in the form that English speakers want to read it, and that includes stripping off diacritics. As a printed English-language paper, VNN has no significant competition. So the print edition is stuck in a communist-era time warp, full of headlines and unreadable articles like, "Prime Minister visits Đồng Nai province" and "Inflation lower than expected again this month." In short, they treat the readers like mushrooms, keep them in the dark, and feed them diacritics. (I hope nobody tells Trinh Thanh Thuy I said that. I don't need any trouble with VNN.) Check out VietnamPlus, VNA's most recent creation. As you can see, the new Vietnam is not demanding that English-speakers learn the Vietnamese alphabet. Kauffner (talk) 12:54, 24 July 2012 (UTC)
Even More Other options
Comment Having watched this ongoing diacritics saga, it has become clear to me that rewriting our policies or guidelines will not solve this. We simply have people who are and remain on opposite sides of this. We need a solution that satisfies both sides. So let me suggest a few other options that are technically possible:
5) Change the WP code to allow for multiple article titles. Readers who access the page through "Dang Huu Phuc" see that as the title, readers who came searching for "Đặng Hữu Phúc" get the page rendered with diacritics in the title. Everybody happy, and diacritics wars become a thing of the past.
6) Create an "English wikipedia" and an "English(international) wikipedia". The English wp uses anglicized names whenever they exist in any reliable sources, the "international" version uses native spelling of names as much as possible. Everybody happy, and our English readers with a visual impairment can read WP again (right now they struggle to do so)
7)Embed a "diacritics stripping" script into WP, which people can turn on or off in their own user settings. Such scripts already exist in Perl and Javascript: [3] and [4].
Why continue to argue about an issue that technology can solve with a few lines of code? Let everyone make their own choice wherever we can. User customization is the way of the future anyway, so there is no need for WP to be a laggard in that regard. MakeSense64 (talk) 06:01, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
- MakeSense64 The diacritics saga is over - all en.wp articles are now spelled correctly except for Ana Ivanovic, who we can leave there as a monument to what Joy (Shallot) calls it. That only leaves Vietnamese. You may want to take your technical request to Village Pump. In ictu oculi (talk) 06:35, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
- Btw - sorry about cutting and pasting this chunk inadvertently just now, got caught in an edit conflict and uploaded wrong version. Restored. Actually your proposal 7 isn't that bad, Prokonsul Piotrus looked into this last year. In ictu oculi (talk) 06:44, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
- Reply No problem, I have become used to that kind of things. And I am not interested in the village pump, if there is some use in my idea it will get picked up sooner or later.
- You think the diacritics saga is over, and I think it only gets started once you have moved almost every name to foreign spelling. Some people hate it to see names with diacritics stripped on WP, others don't like to have foreign spelling being pushed in their face and see it as a form of "reverse-colonialism". That's not going to change. If WP itself doesn't offer a "plain English" version without diacritics for those readers who want a "normal" read (for their English eyes), then WP will not only continue to lose editors, then it is only a matter of time till somebody else offers a more "readable" version of English WP, because the technology to strip diacritics from pages already exists. It is that simple: you serve your customers or you lose them (sooner or later). MakeSense64 (talk) 07:25, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
- Okay but is Prokonsul Piotrus' idea not yours and he already looked into it. It won't be reality unless people really want it.
- Yes I think the European diacritics saga is over. I would even say that your WP:TENNISNAMES essay was the thing that led to the end. But anyway, we're here to discuss Vietnamese. In ictu oculi (talk) 07:39, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
- I don't know Prokonsul Piotrus. I think you are dreaming that the diacritics saga is over just by having moved (nearly) all names to native spelling titles. As you know, some countries like Macedonia seem to be dropping diacritics, and all over the world young people are discovering that they can easily read and write without diacritics when they send an SMS. Spelling is something that will remain in flux for a long time to come. The best way to deal with it is for WP to make space for all existing variations, because that will satisfy most of the users.
- Essays are meant to stimulate discussion, and WP:TENNISNAMES has succeeded beyond expectation in doing so. You are still talking about it. What more one can ask for?
- MakeSense64 (talk) 09:36, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
- Hi MakeSense64
- Prokonsul Piotrus' page is User:Piotrus.
- Macedonian isn't a Latin alphabet language, it is a dialect of Bulgarian and both are Cyrillic, it is only natural that after independence they will probably eventually gravitate to using Bulgarian romanization rather than their traditional Serbian romanization. That has zero to do with why en.wp articles, except for Ana Ivanovic, are at European Latin-alphabet names. And again it has zero to do with Vietnamese. Sure, I give your essay full credit, as above. But we are here to talk about Vietnamese. :) In ictu oculi (talk) 10:38, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
- You digressed by starting to talk about "European" diacritics saga and WP:TENNISNAMES, not me. Credit where it belongs. MakeSense64 (talk) 11:07, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
- Please look at your first sentence "Having watched this ongoing diacritics saga," - you clearly meant foreign names in general not just Vietnamese ones. Everyone else is beyond this. In ictu oculi (talk) 12:54, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
- Whom are you trying to fool, IIO? Ever since you commented in this topic last week you have been talking about "European names", "Czech accents", Turkish, Polish, and so on... but others should stick to Vietnamese only. heheh?
- It's fairly obvious that the "other options" I floated would affect all diacritics on WP... But please read your own posts before asking others to discuss Vietnamese only. No double standards, please. MakeSense64 (talk) 13:42, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
- Whatever. In ictu oculi (talk) 14:01, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
- Please look at your first sentence "Having watched this ongoing diacritics saga," - you clearly meant foreign names in general not just Vietnamese ones. Everyone else is beyond this. In ictu oculi (talk) 12:54, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
- You digressed by starting to talk about "European" diacritics saga and WP:TENNISNAMES, not me. Credit where it belongs. MakeSense64 (talk) 11:07, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
- Btw - sorry about cutting and pasting this chunk inadvertently just now, got caught in an edit conflict and uploaded wrong version. Restored. Actually your proposal 7 isn't that bad, Prokonsul Piotrus looked into this last year. In ictu oculi (talk) 06:44, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
Without wanting to step into the same hellish discussions as ever, I really like MakeSense's option 7 a lot. The Serbian Wikipedia does a similar thing enabling users to switch between Latin and Cyrillic. The basic Latin letters only version could even transcribe all text not in {{lang}} templates in article text as well as in titles. - filelakeshoe 14:27, 24 July 2012 (UTC)
- It's an interesting idea, but the articles still have be at a single title. If we could implement option 7, would people agree to leaving these titles with the correct diacritics, along with an ascii-redirect? Then users who don't want to see diacritics can turn them off, which would strip them from titles and elsewhere. One problem would be, what do you do in cases where accents are used to disambiguate (ex: Hue and Huế)?--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 14:47, 24 July 2012 (UTC)
- I think such cases are pretty rare, and there is probably a way to avoid that kind of problem. If such a "switch option" system already exists for Serbian wp, then it cannot be much of a problem to create a diacritics-stripper for en.wp. It never hurts to give people choice. I am even thinking to create a diacritics-stripper as a Firefox plugin. MakeSense64 (talk) 14:57, 24 July 2012 (UTC)
- The second article would still be at Huế in the database and its URL would be /wiki/Huế, but the title would appear as "Hue" for people with diacritics stripper enabled. - filelakeshoe 15:07, 24 July 2012 (UTC)
- That's right. The display text would be stripped of diacritics, but the hyperlinks to other pages would be unaffected and thus work normally. MakeSense64 (talk) 15:19, 24 July 2012 (UTC)
- I'd like to see a citation for the claim that diacritics cause people with visual impairment to "struggle" to read text. If that were the case, then surely accessibility tools for French and German speakers would strip diacritics for native speakers of those languages who have a visual impairment. I have not heard of such a thing. But I wouldn't oppose a diacritic-stripping option in Preferences, purely as a customization feature, as long as it's not the default. — P.T. Aufrette (talk) 06:24, 29 July 2012 (UTC)
- I have no sources for you (although they may exist). Visually impaired people generally have no problems to read the diacritics that are common in their native language, because they are used to them. It is when the text starts being full of diacritics that are completely alien to them (like Vietnamese diacritics), then it becomes a hinderance. Heck, they are even a hinderance for people without visual impairment. Here is an online diacritics-stripper I have tried: [5]. E.g. paste the text from our Ho Chi Minh article into it. The diacritics-stripped version is a much smoother read, reading the diacritics version makes me tired before I reach the end of the article. But maybe that's just me.
- I agree that diacritic-stripping should not be made the default option. But I have noticed that more and more notable websites customize texts (and even language) based on the user-locale, and I think that's an interesting possibility too. When a reader from the UK or USA accesses a wp page then it could default to diacritics-stripped, when a reader from Eastern-Europe or Vietnam accessed a page it defaults to diacritics-on....(almost) everybody happy. WP does try to "serve" its readers, doesn't it? MakeSense64 (talk) 07:23, 29 July 2012 (UTC)
Vietnamese diacritics on the main page
Squeamish readers shield your eyes but there are Vietnamese diacritics on today's main page (even though the article title does not include them). What gives? — AjaxSmack 02:35, 24 July 2012 (UTC)
- The article uses non-diacritic forms all through the text: Ngo Dinh Nhu, Nguyen Khanh, Ngo Dinh Thuc, etc. Full name boldfaced in the opening is the style I proposed above. Kauffner (talk) 05:58, 24 July 2012 (UTC)
Christina Schwenkel preface
This is from Christina Schwenkel The American War in Contemporary Vietnam: Transnational Remembrance and Representation. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2009 and may be helpful:
NOTE ON USE OF DIACRITICS
Vietnamese is a tonal language written in an adapted version of the Latin alphabet with additional diacritical marks to signify particular tones and vowel qualities. Without these diacritics, the meaning of a Vietnamese word is ambiguous. For this reason I have chosen to include diacritical marks in this book to most accurately represent terms, locations, and people's names.
However, at the same time, I recognize that diacritics may prove distracting to those unfamiliar with the conventions of the language. Taking into concern both specialists and generalists who may read this book, I opted to keep all Vietnamese diacritical marks with the exception of widely known geographical names such as Vietnam, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, and Saigon. I also removed the diacritics for familiar Americanized phrases, such as “Viet Cong” or the “Ho Chi Minh Trail.” Vietnamese who have migrated to other countries often drop the diacritics from their proper names. I thus refer to individuals according to their own practice, and according to their choice in name order (in Vietnam surnames are placed first).
While I recognize potential inconsistencies in my own practice here (for example, Ho Chi Minh City versus President Hồ Chí Minh), I feel this is the most reliable solution for making the text accessible to all audiences.
In ictu oculi (talk) 00:28, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
- Amazon lists almost 14,000 books that discuss the Vietnam War. This is one of them. Kauffner (talk) 01:18, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
- The point is that this is one with a page explaining why English exonyms like Vietnam, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, and Saigon are not given full Vietnamese spelling like Hồ Chí Minh or Ngô Đình Diệm which are not exonyms. In ictu oculi (talk) 01:54, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
- She admits that this is "my own practice". There is no claim that what she is doing is representative of any category of English-language material. GBooks has far more examples of "Ho Chi Minh", the allegedly no-established-usage dude, than for the "familiar Americanized phrases" Ho Chi Minh City and Ho Chi Minh trail, as you can see here. Kauffner (talk) 03:45, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
- The point is that this is one with a page explaining why English exonyms like Vietnam, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, and Saigon are not given full Vietnamese spelling like Hồ Chí Minh or Ngô Đình Diệm which are not exonyms. In ictu oculi (talk) 01:54, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
- This is a very well-considered piece about how to resolve the diacritics issue - I heartily endorse it and hope this approach will be adopted by Wikipedia. Colonies Chris (talk) 17:26, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
Kauffner, did you read the information that was posted? Please stop being so dismissive of what other people are contributing; this source demonstrates the need for the diacritics in the proper pronunciation of the word. Sure, you might not come to wikipedia looking for that, but I can guarantee you that someone out there is. Keeping it in the article title will make their life that much simpler, and this practice is standard pretty much everywhere at this point. Zaldax (talk) 19:19, 27 July 2012 (UTC)
- It is not about "keeping it in the article title". The Vietnamese titles are predominantly at non-diacritic forms now. Not many readers will be familiar with the Vietnamese alphabet, and it's tricky to figure out pronunciation from the spelling even if you do know it. Pronunciation can explained in the opening of the article. Not all relevant information needs to be in the title. The title should tell the reader what the subject is commonly called in English, not multitask. As for the above, "very well-considered piece," it is simply an author's explanation of her own usage. This book is most obscure and its usage far out of the mainstream. English-language GBooks has tens of thousands of examples of "Ho Chi Minh", two or three for "President Hồ Chí Minh." Britannica and Columbia both use diacritics for European languages, but not for Vietnamese. Vietnamese has a far more diacritics than any European language, and not even National Geographic puts them it. Joe Wikipedia editor does not know better than the people who deal this issue professionally. Kauffner (talk) 00:44, 28 July 2012 (UTC)
- Kauffner, I only saw this this morning when P.T. Aufrette linked to it "I can boast of moving the Vietnamese bios and geography to non-diacritic titles -- It's hundreds of titles and took me several months to do. Kauffner (talk) 12:52, 14 November 2011 (UTC). Given that you have only actually created 1x Vietnam article (which ironically you argued for Trương Tấn Sang) what gives you the license to move 950+ articles under your own name and as many hundreds again misusing the dbmove tag with "uncontroversial moves" requests to admins (which shows in the dbmove log), and then lock the undiscussed moves by editing the redirects? And what is so terrible about Hồ Chí Minh (3 diacritics) compared to Cúán úa Lothcháin (4 diacritics), Lech Wałęsa (2 diacritics), Antonín Dvořák (3 diacritics), Ľudovít Štúr (4 diacritics), József Eötvös (4 diacritics), Andris Bērziņš (Latvian President) (3 diacritics) or this lot? Why should all English, Irish, West European, East European, Scandinavian, Turkish, Albanian, Hawaiian bios have the fully-spelled name according to reliable-for-statement-being-made sources in title lede and where possible in text, but not Vietnamese - after your 2,000 or so undiscussed moves. In ictu oculi (talk) 01:22, 28 July 2012 (UTC)
- Re: National Geographic, there is a fairly obvious reason why they chose to adopt a manual of style that omits Vietnamese diacritics: an untrained person with no knowledge of a European language can still add and proofread diacritics for that language, by visual inspection and using a tool like Character Map in Windows; however, you really can't do this for Vietnamese unless you have some knowledge of the language and its keyboard input methods. A commercial publication like National Geographic can't commit to having at least one Vietnamese-speaking staff member in perpetuity, so the simplest solution for them is to make an exception and omit diacritics for Vietnamese even though they don't omit them for European languages. However, a crowdsourced publication like Wikipedia does not have this problem: there are thousands of contributors, including native speakers of many different languages. If "Joe Wikipedia editor" left out the diacritics, someone else who cares about Vietnamese diacritics and is knowledgeable about them can come by at any time later and add them. We don't have the same constraints as a commercial print publication with a small staff, tight publication deadlines, and a final frozen published text that can never be modified later or corrected. So there is no need for us to adopt their manual-of-style practices either. — P.T. Aufrette (talk) 06:10, 29 July 2012 (UTC)
- Let's not forget that our WP:AT policy clearly mentions that in article titles we serve the general audience rather than the specialists. That's of course also the basis for WP:COMMONNAME. This Schwenkel note states that she concerns for both the specialists and the generalists, so is not very applicable as a model for our article titles. Cathering for the general audience in article titles can only mean that we use the term they are most likely to search for and is most recognizable for them. That purpose is generally not served by the diacritics in Vietnames names. If there is an existing anglicized version that is common in our sources, then that's the best title from the perspective of the general audience. And it's easy enough to figure out what rendering the audience is searching for. E.g in the case of the Lech Wałęsa. Even on a worldwide basis more people look up "Lech Walesa": [6]. And if you look at search in the UK [7] or the USA [8], then search for the diacritics rendering is virtually non-existent. Never mind the Vietnamese diacritics. You could move all Vietnamese names to diacritics spelling, but it wouldn't serve the general audience in any way. All it does is slow wp servers down, because the redirects get hit all the time. While P. T. Aufrette is right that we don't have the constraints of a print publication, we also don't have the constraints of existing in only one language. We can have all the Vietnamese diacritics we want in the Vietnamese version of wikipedia, so there is no need to fill up en.wp with them. MakeSense64 (talk) 11:16, 29 July 2012 (UTC)
- Yeah. It wouldn't help the readers in any way whatsoever, except for, I dunno, telling them the proper spelling of someone's name. I don't see why you don't find that useful, but I certainly do. We're not here to pander to our readers either.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 18:42, 29 July 2012 (UTC)
- I see the purpose of a title a bit differently. In my opinion, it should tell the reader what the subject is commonly called in English, per WP:UE and so forth. To provide marks that are extremely rare in published English-language sources does not provide information, but rather misleads. Kauffner (talk) 05:22, 30 July 2012 (UTC)
- @Obiwankenobi. That's a moot point. We always show the native spelling(s) in the opening paragraph. So if an article is kept at a common name title, it doesn't mean that readers cannot find the native spelling. Have a look at our article Ho Chi Minh City and you will see what I mean. Per our current AT policy we serve the general audience in article titles, and we serve both the general audience and the specialist in the article body. MakeSense64 (talk) 05:36, 30 July 2012 (UTC)
- I see the purpose of a title a bit differently. In my opinion, it should tell the reader what the subject is commonly called in English, per WP:UE and so forth. To provide marks that are extremely rare in published English-language sources does not provide information, but rather misleads. Kauffner (talk) 05:22, 30 July 2012 (UTC)
- Yeah. It wouldn't help the readers in any way whatsoever, except for, I dunno, telling them the proper spelling of someone's name. I don't see why you don't find that useful, but I certainly do. We're not here to pander to our readers either.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 18:42, 29 July 2012 (UTC)
- No, it's a disservice to the general audience, to present a low-fidelity reproduction of someone's name (or the name of a city) based on a few specious (and likely inaccurate) google searches.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 06:10, 30 July 2012 (UTC)
- The cities too? I don't see how that can be justified in terms of WP:NCGN. If the Vietnamese government wants anglicized spellings and uses them in VNA and the other English-language material they put out, are we going say, "Sorry, Vietnam, but you're not Vietnamese enough." There is an RM for cities here, if anyone reading has an opinion. Well, anyway, I guess Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh here we come. Kauffner (talk) 06:36, 30 July 2012 (UTC)
- Kauffner, the sarcasm doesn't help and I think there is a more pressing question you need to give a clear answer on, rather than expending bytes here.
- However, all Wikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic names) WP:NCGN says is: "Vietnam - A naming convention is under discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Vietnam" unquote.
- As for arguments like "If the Vietnamese government.. Sorry, Vietnam, but you're not Vietnamese enough." that evidently is (i) emotive and (ii) illogical given according to your own arguments when you supported diacritics at Talk:Truong Tan Sang RM where you say the main English newspaper in VN does use the diacritics on towns.In ictu oculi (talk) 03:28, 1 August 2012 (UTC)
- The cities too? I don't see how that can be justified in terms of WP:NCGN. If the Vietnamese government wants anglicized spellings and uses them in VNA and the other English-language material they put out, are we going say, "Sorry, Vietnam, but you're not Vietnamese enough." There is an RM for cities here, if anyone reading has an opinion. Well, anyway, I guess Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh here we come. Kauffner (talk) 06:36, 30 July 2012 (UTC)
- No, it's a disservice to the general audience, to present a low-fidelity reproduction of someone's name (or the name of a city) based on a few specious (and likely inaccurate) google searches.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 06:10, 30 July 2012 (UTC)
Other contributors, Would everyone here agree that there is a pyramid for exonyms, as in most languages:
- Toponyms - some English exonyms#Vietnam
- Personal names - no exonyms
- Things, category:Vietnamese words and phrases - by default in Vietnamese In ictu oculi (talk) 03:28, 1 August 2012 (UTC)
- I think you may have a general trend there, but no clear lines. There are very obviously exonyms in English for foreign names - but this is not simple diacritic stripping. And things, again it depends on whether the thing is so common that it has entered the language as native - I don't know of any vietnamese phrases myself, but there may be some french ones that we use regularly in English like c'est la vie that are widely understood.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 19:21, 1 August 2012 (UTC)
Gallery
I thought this might be at least good to think about while we pause. In ictu oculi (talk) 18:39, 1 August 2012 (UTC)
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Renée Geyer, Australia
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Severina Vučković, Croatia
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Như Quỳnh, VietnamNhư Quỳnh, Vietnam
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Jurga Šeduikytė, Lithuania
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Phương Vy, Vietnam
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Hélène Ségara, France
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Róisín Murphy, Ireland
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Hiền Thục, Vietnam
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Sıla Gençoğlu, Turkey
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Björk Guðmundsdóttir, Iceland
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Mỹ Linh, Vietnam
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Ági Szalóki, Hungary
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Élodie Frégé, France
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Laura Samojłowicz, Poland
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Ximena Sariñana, Mexico
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Gülseren Yıldırım, TurkeyGülseren Yıldırım, Turkey
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Lương Bích Hữu, Vietnam
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Zoë Skoulding, England
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Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh, IrelandMairéad Ní Mhaonaigh, Ireland
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Hồ Ngọc Hà, VietnamHồ Ngọc Hà, Vietnam
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Michèle van der Aa, Netherlands
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Joanna Jabłczyńska, Poland
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Marija Šestić, Bosnia
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Thanh Hà, Vietnam
- ahh.. hurts my eyes... all those lovely singers, with such non-english names. too many squiggly lines! What were their parents thinking? Shall we anglicize all of their names? I bet they don't even sing in English... Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 19:18, 1 August 2012 (UTC)
- Indeed. My purpose in posting this gallery was to make the point that on en.wp French, Irish, Czech, Lithuanian, Serbian, Turkish BLPs all retain the Latin alphabet diacritics. Why then is Vietnamese Latin alphabet to be an exception?
- So far in the discussion following the original (no good faith in my view - witness the scare tactic "and Sài Gòn"), and canvassed RfC the following editors (A) expressed support for treating Vietnamese names as any other Latin alphabet. For other editors it isn't clear whether opposition (B) includes acceptance of en.wp practice re East European and Turkish BLPs. (C) includes disagreement with use of diacritics in East European and Turkish names. I don't know about others but I for one would be interested in seeing how that breaks down. So have made the little Census box below. (The reason for specifying "East European and Turkish" is that some editors accept French/Spanish/German since NY Times uses French/Spanish/German, so the point of "East European and Turkish" is that en.wp uses these but majority non-specialist English Google Books and Google News sources such as NY Times, don't. In ictu oculi (talk) 02:40, 4 August 2012 (UTC)
Census - Finer definition of scale for no diacritics view
Preference | User |
---|---|
(A) Treat as West European, Scandinavian, East-European and Turkish BLP and geo titles |
|
(B) Treat Vietnamese differently from all
other Latin-alphabet languages |
|
(C) Use only French, German, Spanish, accents (e.g. use NY Times, Economist MOS) |
|
(D) Never use accents (e.g. use USA Today, Daily Express MOS) |
|
(E) Other |
|
Comments on census
Please do no more than add signature in (A) (B) (C) (D) (E) above, to prevent table distortion. In ictu oculi (talk) 02:28, 4 August 2012 (UTC)
- User:Prolog/Diacritical marks may be helpful explanation of what is meant by "Economist MOS" etc. In ictu oculi (talk) 16:43, 4 August 2012 (UTC)
I believe it's way off-topic to bring in all these other languages; the question is about Vietnamese diacritical markings in the English Wikipedia. (I also responded on my talk page.) That said, using diacritics for the subject of a biography is far more acceptable than littering a whole article with diacritics. In other words, if they are used for only one name in an article and maybe a few other phrases, eyes accustomed to English don't strain like they do in the article to which I initially responded. This sentence is over the top, imo: "Diệm attempted to travel to Huế to dissuade Bảo Đại from joining Hồ, but was arrested by the Việt Minh along the way and exiled to a highland village near the border."
Real-life example: I married a Hispanic and took his surname. When I'm speaking in Spanish, I pronounce the name with its proper Spanish accent. When I'm speaking in English, I anglicize it to avoid the awkwardness of introducing a foreign pronunciation. He does likewise. That's what I'm asking for here, but in visual form, not aural. Yopienso (talk) 04:46, 4 August 2012 (UTC)
- Well no one is forcing anyone to have a view. But others think Spanish etc. are relevant, since Vietnamese isn't the only Latin-alphabet language on en.wp. Maybe now is a good time to form an opinion on the current 100% use of Spanish names for Spanish people on en.wp? Or not have a view. Either way. In ictu oculi (talk) 06:35, 4 August 2012 (UTC)
- You've misunderstood me. I never thought or said anyone is forcing me to have a view. I'm not saying anything about forming an opinion of using Spanish on en.wp. All I was doing was using an example in order to illustrate a broad principle. I'll try again.
- Let's pretend I am bilingual in Vietnamese and in English. When a Vietnamese asks me (in Vietnamese) which is my first language, I'm going to say "tiếng Anh," not "English." If an Australian asks me what language I speak other than English, I'm going to say, "Vietnamese," not "tiếng Việt." (The only reason I would say "tiếng Việt" to an English-speaker would be to be cute or to show off. An encyclopedia isn't cute and doesn't show off.) Get it? You don't have to agree with the application of my logic, but I'd like the satisfaction of knowing you understand my logic. Yopienso (talk) 07:09, 4 August 2012 (UTC)
- Apologies, I'm slightly lost. But that's okay, thanks. In ictu oculi (talk) 13:55, 4 August 2012 (UTC)
A unanimous vote in favor of IIO's position. This is a joke, right? For most of these "options", who can even figure out what they mean? Kauffner (talk) 15:42, 4 August 2012 (UTC)
- We'll see, the table isn't filled in yet. In ictu oculi (talk) 16:22, 4 August 2012 (UTC)
- Kauffner, I see you collapsed the gallery, I have restored it. It is there for a reason, even if you do not like it. Some of us want to know why Vietnamese articles, particularly BLPs, hence the singers, have been singled out - by you - for removal of diacritics, when 100% of other Latin-alphabet BLPs have them. You have already boasted of how you moved 1000s of articles, you have done so using a combination of methods ranging from dubious to serious, now should accept the subject being reviewed without you running or setting the agenda or deciding what other users see or don't see. Please understand this. In ictu oculi (talk) 16:32, 4 August 2012 (UTC)
- Have to say, I couldn't figure out what they mean. But then, IIO can't figure out what I mean, either. Guess we have a language problem. :-) Yopienso (talk) 16:37, 4 August 2012 (UTC)
- Hi Yopienso, I suppose that the census boxes assume too much familiarity with the wider issue of diacritic usage on en.wp. I have now linked in User:Prolog/Diacritical marks for background. Cheers. In ictu oculi (talk) 16:42, 4 August 2012 (UTC)
- Kauffner, the vote in favor of IIO's position wouldn't be unanimous if you and other editors who disagree would simply add your name to the census under the position you support. No other editor can, or indeed should, do that for you if you are unwilling to do so yourself. Granted, this census isn't binding, but if you have no right to object on the grounds that the near-unanimous "vote" is misleading if you or any other objecting editors have not bothered to vote. Zaldax (talk) 14:54, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
- Hi Yopienso, I suppose that the census boxes assume too much familiarity with the wider issue of diacritic usage on en.wp. I have now linked in User:Prolog/Diacritical marks for background. Cheers. In ictu oculi (talk) 16:42, 4 August 2012 (UTC)
- Have to say, I couldn't figure out what they mean. But then, IIO can't figure out what I mean, either. Guess we have a language problem. :-) Yopienso (talk) 16:37, 4 August 2012 (UTC)
- Kauffner, I see you collapsed the gallery, I have restored it. It is there for a reason, even if you do not like it. Some of us want to know why Vietnamese articles, particularly BLPs, hence the singers, have been singled out - by you - for removal of diacritics, when 100% of other Latin-alphabet BLPs have them. You have already boasted of how you moved 1000s of articles, you have done so using a combination of methods ranging from dubious to serious, now should accept the subject being reviewed without you running or setting the agenda or deciding what other users see or don't see. Please understand this. In ictu oculi (talk) 16:32, 4 August 2012 (UTC)
- The above census box deleted by Wolbo, and restored. Wolbo, please don't do that again. None of those who expressed opposition to Vietnamese diacritics is in any way obliged to put their opposition into the wider context of en.wp usage, but at least the option exists to do so. In ictu oculi (talk) 23:23, 4 August 2012 (UTC)
- Why was the census box deleted again, Wolbo? You were explicitly asked not to delete the table again, and yet you did so. A simple straw poll relating to various proposals is not a violation of WP:NOTVOTE, but instead a way of gauging support for the various options which may become the new naming conventions if a consensus is reached. I have restored the census below; please see my comments further down the page (section: Other) before you revert another editor's comments on this talk page. Doing so is not only rude, but it opens you up to accusations of violating WP:GAME. So please, let's all continue discussing this clearly contentious issue in a civil, rational manner, and stop suppressing the discussion by altering other editors comments on a talk page! Seriously folks, it's getting ridiculous. Please, let's just relax and not make this unfortunate lapse in etiquette more of an issue than it already is, okay? Zaldax (talk) 14:54, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
Summary of discussion
Use diacritics
- “Use of diacritics is educational, which is one of our goals." Br'er Rabbit (talk) 00:57, 30 July 2012 (UTC)
- “This blog entry explains for example why the Economist doesn't use VN diacritics - bottom line it is a staffing issue.; Wikipedia has no such issues." KarlB/Obiwankenobi
- "I think the thing I really notice is that Vietnamese English-publication sources are beginning to use the accents - like Vietweek, Baomoi, scholarly western books - at exactly the same time en.wp has been pulled in the opposite direction." In ictu oculi (talk) 02:16, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
- “We have the technology, so let's use it!” Mjroots (talk) 22:54, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
- “When many English sources still use the diacritics, there is no reason for WP not to as well.” Dicklyon (talk) 15:34, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
- “exactly per In ictu oculi's rationale.” — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff
- “Removing the diacritics causes LOSS of information”, Zaldax (talk) 19:16, 27 July 2012 (UTC)
- "Skipping the diacritics would be failing in our duty as an modern online encyclopaedia, with Unicode at our disposal, to represent facts accurately, even if they are difficult.” Colonies Chris (talk) 21:10, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
- "for the less known words, please keep the diacritics intact and don't just cite Britannica for killing them (diacritics), since you will kill the meaning accompagning the words as well." Grenouille vert (talk) 15:03, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
- "We don't have the same constraints as a commercial print publication with a small staff, tight publication deadlines, and a final frozen published text that can never be modified later or corrected. So there is no need for us to adopt their manual-of-style practices either." — P.T. Aufrette (talk) 06:10, 29 July 2012 (UTC)
- I'd looked at those pictures of people above, a lot of other languages that use the Latin alphabet are able to keep their diacritics so why not Vietnamese (except for the common words such as Hanoi, Saigon); per Mjroots. ༆ (talk) 23:30, 5 August 2012 (UTC)
- We are an encyclopedia. Our goal is to educate. We should have the proper names as the title. Redirects can take care of those who do not wish to type them. Add to that many of the arguments I have made in the past when this gets brought up over and over again. I am too tired of having to re-argue it to list them yet again. -DJSasso (talk) 16:45, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
Do NOT Use Diacritics
- “we, ‘follow the general usage of English-language reliable sources.’ This is something that WP:DIACRITICS already stipulates.” Kauffner (talk) 19:08, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
- “English readers, particularly those who read no other language, are accustomed to some French and Spanish diacritical marks through long proximity…. Vietnamese is far more peripheral to the typical native English reader.” Yopienso (talk) 16:47, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
- “Use the diacritic-free English alphabet to title Vietnamese subjects. This convention seems to be used universally among English-language sources: even by English-language publications in Vietnam!” Shrigley (talk) 20:51, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
- “Having those diacritics means that it's not an English article title,” User:Benlisquare
- ”I would say that we can retain diacritics for infoboxes only" Colipon+(Talk) 18:46, 21 July 2012 (UTC)
- "We can have all the Vietnamese diacritics we want in the Vietnamese version of wikipedia, so there is no need to fill up en.wp with them." MakeSense64
- "It is not normal for English language sources to use Vietnamese diacritics" Formerip (talk) 14:12, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
- "We are writing an English encyclopaedia. Where English has a significant impact in the sources, or where the object is known with an English word, we use the English word (pho)." Fifelfoo
- “I believe the article names should be without diacritics, but the articles themselves should have them as needed.” User:Rms125a@hotmail.com
- "I think that is more likely to be consistent [to follow the spelling used by other encyclopedias],” Eraserhead1 <talk> 19:13, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
- “The rendering of text in the majority of reliable English sources is without diacritics, which is how titles and in-prose usage should be rendered here.” – NULL ‹talk› ‹edits› 22:50, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
- “Page titles should not use diacritics in the English wiki because people can't type them in (although obviously redirects should exist using them), but the article should employ diacritics.” Ogress smash!
- “I believe wikipedia should try to use the English commonname , if there are sources that do not use the diacritics, then nor should wikipedia.” BritishWatcher (talk) 13:55, 1 August 2012 (UTC)
Other
- "We stick with current practice, which is to apply the general MoS on diacritics" Itsmejudith (talk) 16:35, 23 July 2012 (UTC) [I note that MOS:FOREIGN says, "adopt the spellings most commonly used in English-language references for the article."]
After I looking at the comments above about the Vietnam's English language press, I took walk around to the local newsstands and discovered that Viet Nam News has been largely replaced by diacritic-free Saigon Times. So I am certainly not seeing any kind of trend in favor of increased use of diacritics in English-language publications. Kauffner (talk) 18:00, 4 August 2012 (UTC)
- As above (1) this RfC is somewhat compromised by the way you sent out selective invitations, but (2) it would still be interesting to hear from those opposed to Vietnamese diacritics as to how this fits into the broader en.wp context in relation to other Latin-alphabet languages. Beyond that I don't see this exercise acheiving anything greatly useful, other than generating smoke. In ictu oculi (talk) 23:27, 4 August 2012 (UTC)
More Talk page deletions: Neither I nor anyone else should not have to follow an editor to 2RR to restore my own talk on a talk page. This RfC is already something of a charade given the context in which it was launched, the way the leading question was phrased. But it would have been useful, as above to understand how those opposing the same treatment for Vietnamese as the de facto treatment of Czech etc. contextualise Vietnamese in relation to other East European languages. I would prefer it if another editor restored my talk here which Wolbo has again deleted.
In ictu oculi (talk) 00:05, 5 August 2012 (UTC)
- if one rigged summary is allowed then another riggged summary should be allowed as well. The above summary is flawed as it contrasts the use of diacritics with "use English" when it has long been established that stripping diacritics does not make something English, just incomplete. As such I am for using diacritics even for Vietnamese as it is a Latin script as long as there are no established alternatives akin Hanoi. Agathoclea (talk) 16:02, 5 August 2012 (UTC)
- I agree. The "Use English" heading should be changed to "don't use diacritics" or something like that (so I changed it). Many of the points listed there are nuts, in my opinion, like "titles should not use diacritics in the English wiki because people can't type them in" (irrelevant, as there's no need for anyone to type them in when the article is titled with them), and "if there are sources that do not use the diacritics, then nor should wikipedia" (appeal to the bottom), and "It is not normal for English language sources to use Vietnamese diacritics" (a bold claim, considering the diversitiy of actual practice). Dicklyon (talk) 19:25, 5 August 2012 (UTC)
- Agathoclea, following above 2 posts I've restored the box and text that Wolbo twice deleted (I've never seen text deleted like that off an Talk page before). As regards "rigged" - I'd genuinely hoped it is not in any way rigged, the purpose is to contextualise the Vietnamese diacritics with the convenient broad MOS types per Prolog's page - (A) Academic, Schwenkel example, (B) National Geo, (C) NY Times/Economist (D) tabloid/html. The rigging in this RfC is more that this is a survey of those Kauffner selectively invited to answer a misleading and overstated (Sai Gon) question. But having got this far we might at least find out whether there is a scale. I thought User:Quis seperabit's comment interesting and clear enough to add in National Geo MOS. There's always the (E) "Other" box, for other. In ictu oculi (talk) 02:12, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
- Kauffner has reverted Don't use diacritics back to follow English sources - this is WP:GAME again, setting up an "RfC" on a slanted comment. At best this should say "follow the majority of English sources" - since counting sources is the basic rationale in so many of the "Don't use diacritics" discussions. The heading "follow English sources" is misleading since always a minority (academic sources, Viet News etc.) do use Vietnamese diacritics, same as for French Czech, whatever. Let's have at least one thing here that is not GAMED please. In ictu oculi (talk) 02:18, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
- Folks, please don't interfere with the consensus building process by altering other editors comments on the talk page. talk should not have to revert other editors just to make something he posted visible. It doesn't matter if you think it is inappropriate, or if you think it doesn't conform to Wikipedia policy (personally, I think that the posted argument summary is fine and in no way violates policy.); rather than deleting his post, please explain why you consider the post inappropriate. I'm sorry, but reverting an editor's comments on a talk page is, quite frankly, rude. As is reverting the discussion title currently summarizing the RFC to reflect a contested point, Kauffner. I'm sorry to call you out directly, but honestly given the controversy I think you should have known better; making this change anyway opens you up to accusations of violating WP:GAME. This is not a political debate; both sides can't style themselves "Pro-This" and "Pro-That". The positions are "Use Diacritics" and "Do not use Diacritics." (Your new title, "Follow English Language Sources", isn't even correct for those arguments -- not all of them argue to do that!) That's all there is to it; in accordance with that, I have changed the discussion heading to the proper title. Please do not change it again. Zaldax (talk) 14:19, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
- Kauffner has reverted Don't use diacritics back to follow English sources - this is WP:GAME again, setting up an "RfC" on a slanted comment. At best this should say "follow the majority of English sources" - since counting sources is the basic rationale in so many of the "Don't use diacritics" discussions. The heading "follow English sources" is misleading since always a minority (academic sources, Viet News etc.) do use Vietnamese diacritics, same as for French Czech, whatever. Let's have at least one thing here that is not GAMED please. In ictu oculi (talk) 02:18, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
- Agathoclea, following above 2 posts I've restored the box and text that Wolbo twice deleted (I've never seen text deleted like that off an Talk page before). As regards "rigged" - I'd genuinely hoped it is not in any way rigged, the purpose is to contextualise the Vietnamese diacritics with the convenient broad MOS types per Prolog's page - (A) Academic, Schwenkel example, (B) National Geo, (C) NY Times/Economist (D) tabloid/html. The rigging in this RfC is more that this is a survey of those Kauffner selectively invited to answer a misleading and overstated (Sai Gon) question. But having got this far we might at least find out whether there is a scale. I thought User:Quis seperabit's comment interesting and clear enough to add in National Geo MOS. There's always the (E) "Other" box, for other. In ictu oculi (talk) 02:12, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
- I agree. The "Use English" heading should be changed to "don't use diacritics" or something like that (so I changed it). Many of the points listed there are nuts, in my opinion, like "titles should not use diacritics in the English wiki because people can't type them in" (irrelevant, as there's no need for anyone to type them in when the article is titled with them), and "if there are sources that do not use the diacritics, then nor should wikipedia" (appeal to the bottom), and "It is not normal for English language sources to use Vietnamese diacritics" (a bold claim, considering the diversitiy of actual practice). Dicklyon (talk) 19:25, 5 August 2012 (UTC)
Also, given Kauffner's ongoing belligerence (seriously dude, take a step back), I just thought it would be interesting to point out this comment from near the top of the page:
- "Diacriticals are used for all the European languages. See Gerhard Schröder, Horst Köhler, Hermann Göring, Göttingen, Lübeck, Finistère, or Lech Wałęsa. Finding the articles? That's what redirects are for. Kauffner (talk) 19:09, 25 July 2009 (UTC)"
So, uh, when did that change? Zaldax (talk) 22:03, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
- Obiwan/KarlB sent invitations to everyone I missed, plus others. So I don't think the "Use Vietnamese" side can claim an invitation disadvantage. Has anyone seen another RfC that consists of kilobyte after kilobyte of personal accusations and opposition research against a particular user? I would like to clarifying something in case anyone is confused: I am not running for president, U.S. senate, city council, dogcatcher, admin, or rollbacker. Kauffner (talk) 14:37, 11 August 2012 (UTC)