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This archive page covers approximately the dates between March 2005 and October 2005.

Requested move March 2005: Úbeda to Ubeda

  • Support. Niteowlneils 01:43, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • Support But the move should be possible without a RM request. Philip Baird Shearer 08:25, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose. No justification for move. On the Spanish Wikipedia, page is at es:Úbeda Gdr 19:11, 2005 Mar 27 (UTC)
  • Support because this is english WP. english has almost no diacritics Tobias Conradi 23:03, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose. No point in moving when there is a redirect. / Uppland 12:23, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • Support. Spanish users of the Spanish Wikipedia will no doubt be used to typing accented characters; English-language users aren't, and are overwhelmingly likely to type 'Ubeda' when searching for this topic. Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 15:32, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Absurd idea. NoPuzzleStranger 09:02, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • Support - I agree with Mel Etitis. Whereas é and è may be common in the English language, Ú is definitely not. Nobbie 10:04, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • Support violet/riga (t) 15:00, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

This article has been renamed as the result of a move request. violet/riga (t) 15:00, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I contest the validity of that vote because it is not clear how Úbeda is a special case justifying a specific vote. To be consistent with that vote result, we could excise all diacritics on Wikipedia, and it is quite clear that there is no consensus for that. This specific vote just reflects an insufficient and non-representative sample of users who happened to come across this. Why move Úbeda to Ubeda but not São Paulo to Sao Paulo? This is a general question that has to be decided elsewhere. As long as there is no general consensus to remove all similar diacritics, this article should remain at Úbeda in conformity with the existing general practice. NoPuzzleStranger 09:44, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English) (talk) --Philip Baird Shearer 10:34, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)
What's there? It says use English names if those exist. Stripping diacritics doesn't make an English name. Munich or Warsaw are English names. Úbeda doesn't have an English name. NoPuzzleStranger 11:34, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)
NoPuzzleStranger, if you have a look at the official website of the City of Ubeda, you'll find that Ubeda is used in the English text, not Úbeda. Searching for Ubeda on English language sites reveals that using Úbeda in English is very rare. I agree with you that Ubeda doesn't have an officially recognized English name (like Zurich, Cologne, Beijing...) but Ubeda is the natural choice. 'Ú' is simply not used in the English language. I noticed that Zurich has been moved around quite a bit (Zurich - Zürich)... Zurich should be at Zurich! Otherwise, well... let's move Tokyo to 東京, or at least Toukyou. I admit, however, that Ubeda is a much more difficult case.
But let's face the facts. The current title of this article is Ubeda. Both versions (with and without diacritical mark) should be given in the first line. I favour Philip Baird Shearer's approach. Nobbie 15:19, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)
If you look at the English intro, the accent is used in the graphic. In the texts, you can easily see that there are no diacritics used at all ("Lopez", "Constitucion" etc.). The point is that "Ubeda" is acceptable only in a context where the decision is made not to use any diacritics. If you say "Ú" is not used in the English language, well then no diacritic is, and we should remove all of them. But there is no consensus for that on Wikipedia. And Tokyo is a perfect English name like Munich, so it has nothing to do with this. This article was at Úbeda originally, and should be moved back there, but I want to avoid a move war on top of the edit war. NoPuzzleStranger 17:34, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Links in the text

If there is no article on a person (or whatever other topic), it should be redlinked, to make that obvious, not interwiki-linked. Adding internal interwiki-links, instead of just wikifying, also makes it impossible to use the "What links here"-function from the unwritten article to see if there are any ingoing links that might be useful to check out. / Uppland 15:01, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

That should be obvious, and also Wikipedia:Interlanguage links says nothing about putting interwiki links in the text. But Philip Baird Shearer is completely stubborn on this. Would you certify an RFC on the matter if he continues? NoPuzzleStranger 09:02, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

NoPuzzleStranger for someone who has just created an account you are very aggressive. Me thinks you have done this before. As two people object to the interwiki links, I will desist from linking in the names of the two people. Personally I think it is a good idea because it would allow someone who was interested to translate the Spanish text into English and create the articls for those two people.

I intend to re-instate the link to the interwiki to the Spanish town as it for fills two useful functions.

  1. It allows the word with and without diacritics to be included
  2. It informs a person who does not know that the word is Spanish in origin to obtain that information. In this case it is obvious, but for many articles the origins of the word is not so obvious.

--Philip Baird Shearer 10:03, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I'm not aggressive. I explained myself, you didn't, so I had to prepare for some other recourse. Glad you're talking now. However, I don't see what the interwiki has to do with your two points here. You could write "Ubeda (Spanish: Úbeda)" without any interwiki link. Of course, I would still object to that since that implies that "Ubeda" is the English name of Úbeda, which is just not true. Stripping diacritics doesn't create an English name. This city does not have a separate English name, the only name is Úbeda. NoPuzzleStranger 10:58, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

It could be written "Ubeda, also written Úbeda," or "Úbeda, also written Ubeda," but that does not convey as much information as "Ubeda (Spanish: Úbeda)". Philip Baird Shearer 14:56, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Intro

Removing the diacritic-less spelling from the first paragraph is clearly counter to the Manual of Style guidelines. That said, having an interwiki link to the Spanish version of the article in the intro seems non-standard, and redundant with the interwiki link in the left margin (assuming default skin/css). I'd follow the lead of Montreal, among others, and keep it simple: "Ubeda or Úbeda is a city...". Niteowlneils 00:05, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Where does it say in the Manual of Style that all names with diacritics have to be repeated with the diacritics stripped? Montreal is something entirely different, because it's a true English name, as seen by the fact that it is also pronounced in a distinctly different way as compared to the French. The same goes for Mexico, which is a true English name of México. But Ubeda is not an English name of Úbeda, just like Sao Paulo is not an English name of São Paulo; it is just a removal of diacritics. NoPuzzleStranger 11:16, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)
The longer I think about this, the more I tend to agree with what your saying. But if Úbena really is the only correct name, why do virtually all English sources on the net use Ubena, even sources written by Spanish people? Nobbie 16:04, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

(excuse shouting) we need a new policy page, Wikipedia:Naming conventions (diacritics). The issue has been beaten to death at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (use English), and Philip still confuses orthography and language ("Ubeda (Spanish: Úbeda)"). In any case, this is not something that should be discussed on individual talk pages. We need a policy, or at least guidelines, and a list of precedents, on how to handle names with diacritics. It does not fall under "use English", and we should really address this intelligently and from all angles, because the same discussion is reiterated on lots of unrelated pages, ad nauseam. dab (ᛏ) 17:53, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)

ps, the case at hand perfectly demonstrates the need for such a policy. Why would we actively move Úbeda to Ubeda, but keep Jaén (province) etc.? Note that the redirects are in place, and Ubeda and Zurich work in either case. Also note the potential for disambiguation of diacritics (that's why they are called diacritics in the first place): No need for Panini (scholar) if we can have Pāṇini. dab (ᛏ) 17:58, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Including a Ubeda without diacritics

NoPuzzleStranger added this comment into the history of the page anything with diacritics is "often written without" in English, this is no special case.

Including the word Ubeda without diacritics helps external search engines to find the name when it is entered using a typical English search engine like www.google.co.uk or www.ask.com. NoPuzzleStranger by removing the diacritic free version you are stopping many English speaking people from finding this article. For the sake of a few words why will you not allow others to help others? Philip Baird Shearer 19:23, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I repeat, this is no special case. Do you want to include a stripped version in every article with a diacritic in the title? If not, the reader must think that there is a real English name here. Actually Google finds Úbeda just fine, even when searching for "Ubeda". But regardless of that, you're mixing editorial and technical issues. We don't include things just for the sake of some search engine. NoPuzzleStranger 20:19, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

  • Yes I do want to include a stripped version of every article which has a diacritic in the title. Who is "We don't include"?
  • So you are not in the UK. Which Google are you using? Try the search using www.google.co.uk.
  • No I am not mixing technical and editorial. There is a techical issue BUT the much more important issue is that to strip diacritic off a word is quite acceptable in English and is practiced by most Engish speaking people. Philip Baird Shearer 21:01, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

When working with a German Müller, she used to get very vexed that most Brits in the organisation could not hear the difference no matter how often she tried to explain the difference between Muller and Müller let alone pronounce the difference. There is a add which is currently running on Britsh TV for Müller yougart and the voice over pronounces it Muller. The Müller web site in the UK is http://www.muller.co.uk/ because they know that no-one will type in http://www.müller.co.uk

Does that help explain why there ought to be a version of the word without diacritics on a page to help English speaking people find it? --Philip Baird Shearer 21:01, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

"We" is the majority of Wikipedians. Find a consensus for your idea first. Clearly no one before ever saw a need to repeat thousands of article titles with diacritics stripped. I use Google.com, but Google.co.uk finds Úbeda as well [1]. As to the "Muller" URL, it wasn't even possible until recently to use diacritics in URLs. And they use "Müller" on the site itself. What people type in is no issue for us anyway, since we have redirects. NoPuzzleStranger 22:24, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

In many many case articles are written with words without diacritics. Most of the problems seem to arise when people start to add diacritics in the mistaken belief that it is correct to do so in English (not realising that it is just as correct not to do so). They are often people who's mother tongue is not English. You have no way of knowing that the majority of Wikipedians agree with your position. The guidelines already say "Only use the native spelling as an article title if it is commonly used in English". So as you will see in the search below as Ubeda is 6 times more common than Úbeda in this case seems to be that Ubeda is common English usage. So I do not think you are standing on very thick ice when making such an assertion. Particularlly when you are willing to ride roughshot over a consensus poll which was carried out here and try to reverse a move agreed after a WP:RM poll.

You are not using the standard settings for www.google.co.uk. Which country are you in? With standard settings as used in the UK www.google.co.uk returns: Results 1 - 10 of about 59,500 English pages for Ubeda; Results 1 - 10 of about 7,740 English pages for Úbeda. It differentiates between the two and most people in England will not use any flags. Also other web search engines (like "ask Jeeves") differentiate between the two Philip Baird Shearer 13:46, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

It is you who is skating on thin ice by implying that stripping diacritics makes an "English spelling". It is true for ALL words with diacritics that the diacritics are commonly ignored in English usage. But one should either use them everywhere, or ignore them everywhere, and the consensus on Wikipedia obviously is to use them. And it is downright absurd to list a word both with and without diacritics. Anyone who doesn't care about the diacritics can ignore them by himself. NoPuzzleStranger 21:01, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Hello, I'm Juan, I live in Jaén (Spain) and I'm very impressed because of this discussion. Úbeda is a Spanish name, and Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, so I think this article must be renamed Úbeda. Why? Because Ubeda is a word that DOESN'T EXIST. Spanish diacritics are used in order to know how to pronunce the word, and you are ignoring it. If an ubetense (person from Úbeda) sees this article, I'm sure that he or she will be offended by the vote. Please, don't forget that English people are not the ones that use Wikipedia. 217.217.131.215 12:47, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Why would anyone be offended by the way another language group spell a word? If they are then they are free to read the article in Spanish. Does the City of Zurich exist? Because if you go to that page you will see that opinions are split as to the spelling. With about half the voters arguing it should be spelt "Zürich", yet the Spanish Wikipedia spelles it es:Zúrich, so should that article be changed to Zürich so as not to offened a native from Zurich? The diacritics may help a Spanish speaker pronounce the word by to most English speakers it is just a funny foreign squiggle which no meaning beyond that. Philip Baird Shearer 13:05, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I think that's a different case. Zürich is a very known city, and it has a Spanish spelling: Zúrich. The same happens with Paris -> París, Porto -> Oporto, Berlin -> Berlín... They are words that have been admited in Spanish. But, there isn't an English word for Úbeda, so, if it's difficult for you typing Úbeda, redirect Ubeda to Úbeda. At the moment, the correct spelling redirects to the incorrect spelling. It isn't very logical...

Moreover, the Zurich article redirects to the Zürich one. Why don't you do the same with Úbeda? Johnbojaen 15:51, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Google search:
  • about 167,000 English pages for Ubeda -Úbeda -wikipedia
  • about 26,000 English pages for -Ubeda Úbeda -wikipedia
Testing the spelling of Ubeda Úbeda using Google returns about six times as many English language pages with the spelling Ubeda to spanish spelling of Úbeda.
If the test is done on "site:uk" alone then
  • about 249 English pages for -Ubeda Úbeda -wikipedia site:uk
  • about 19,300 English pages for Ubeda -Úbeda -wikipedia site:uk
the Ratio is close to eighty to one in favour of Ubeda! Philip Baird Shearer 18:08, 4 October 2005 (UTC)


  • There was a WP:RM vote to move the page to this name another vote should be taken if a move is wanted.
  • WP:MOS states "if possible, make the title the subject of the first sentence of the article"
  • WP:UE "The body of such an article, preferably in its first paragraph, should list all of the other names by which the subject is known, so those too can be searched for."

--Philip Baird Shearer 09:50, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

From the History of the Page:

However, I agree with the actual edit and am now making it on my own behalf. 17:28, 7 October 2005 Curps

Given the two guidlines I mention above, please explain why you have made this edit. Philip Baird Shearer 19:39, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

Talk page discussion on page move

The discussion below was on my talk page. Philip Baird Shearer suggested that discussion should take place here instead, so I have moved the discussion from my talk page to here. -- Curps 05:08, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

Our paths cross again. Perhaps you did not realise but the move of Ubeda to Úbeda was agreed in a WP:RM move, (see Talk:Úbeda#Requested move: Úbeda ? Ubeda). To move it back to Úbeda you must have used administrative privileges. Please revert the move and if you wish the page to be moved please place a new request on WP:RM because as you know that is the Wikipedia way of reducing conflict as you can not know at the moment if there is a consensus to move the page again. Philip Baird Shearer 10:35, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

Looking at the move log, I see you did indeed move Úbeda ? Ubeda at 17:01 on October 4. However, that wasn't the move that caught my eye, and I wasn't aware of it until after. The moves I noticed when perusing the move log were the ones by User:Kolokol, who did:
These moves caught my eye because they stood out from among all the others because they were "full of red": Kolokol's user page was a redlink and Úbeda also (at the time) was a redlink. Kolokol had marked it for deletion and an admin had deleted it:
  • 20:48, 4 October 2005 R. fiend deleted "Úbeda" (content was: '{{d}}' (and the only contributor was 'Kolokol'))
So when I acted, it was to straighten out the mess that Kolokol created (with a redlink userpage, perhaps he's a newbie): "Úbeda" had been deleted instead of redirected and various double redirects had been created. So it wasn't you that I was reverting, not knowingly in any case, although that is now the net result.
Regarding the requested move vote you cite, well that's a bit disingenuous, because as you well know, there was a survey and discussion at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (use English)#Proposal and straw poll regarding place names with diacritical marks beginning in April, and the requested move vote was prior to that, in March. You're aware of that survey because you voted in it, posted very often to that page, and were involved at the very start of it [2] [3]
The requested move vote lasted only a few days, pertained to only the one article, and was voted on by only a handful of people; the survey lasted more than four months, covered the global issue rather than just one article, and many dozens of people expressed their opinions over a very extended period, not just by voting but through very extensive exchanges of discussion and commentary as well. The survey was intended to gather opinion to establish a guideline to resolve the issue globally, in a consistent way across Wikipedia, to obviate the need for case-by-case voting with possibly inconsistent results. Just as we wouldn't have case-by-case voting on, say, capitalization issues for articles (eg, prepositions in movie and book titles should be lowercase, globally), we shouldn't have case-by-case voting on diacritic issues. The survey, global in its scope, arguably supersedes earlier case-by-case discussions at individual articles.
Also, as you must realize, it is by now a very well-established practice to use diacritics. Many thousands of articles use them, a trend that was only accelerated after the new Mediawiki software on June 28 2005 made it possible to use Unicode diacritics that weren't available before (for instance, for Eastern European languages). So I'm not sure why you would insist on reverting this one article contrary to established practice.
There are a few cases where Wikipedia may make exceptions to general rules and established practice. For instance, we have articles at People's Republic of China and Republic of Ireland instead of "China" and "Ireland" because political controversy considerations apparently trump "use common names". However I think the onus would be on the person wanting to carve out the exception to justify it. If you look at Category:Municipalities in Spain, there are plenty of diacritics there. As far as I can see, "Úbeda" is just a routine case.
The survey didn't go your way, but nevertheless I don't understand why you are intently focused on this one article. You could of course move the page back to "Ubeda", it might give you some small measure of personal satisfaction, but it would be contested and I don't believe it would be helpful.
-- Curps 03:50, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

I can't move it because it is locked to ordiary users due to two edits. Philip Baird Shearer 08:54, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

I see. It seems there was a superfluous edit made by Kolokol to the redirect page. Well, I'll delete one of the two revisions, which should make it possible for you to accomplish the move. Nevertheless, for reasons described at length above, it would be nice if you refrained from doing so. -- Curps 08:59, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
I intend to lock it in the same way. If Kolokol wants to move it it is more than six months since the last WP:RM vote, so Kolokol can always request a move. My reasons for wanting the page at Ubeda is because both Úbeda and Ubeda ought to be on the first line. If it is not at Ubeda people like Kolokol do not countenance having both spellings on the first line (which is breaking another guideline). Normally I would not bother with a page like this because as you point out we both know the arguments about this and I am waiting until there is a majority in favour in the straw poll before altering the WP:UE to reflect it. In the mean time I think it is a case of primary author. However there was a WP:RM vote on this issue (not initiated by me) so it is a special case. BTW the issue about East European squiggles do not apply as these issues were in debate when this page was moved. Philip Baird Shearer 09:28, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
It is frowned upon to say the least to deliberately edit a redirect to prevent moves over it. Kolokol did this earlier but I wasn't sure if it was cluelessness (apparently not, as it turns out) because he seems to be a newbie; however, you're not. I have now deleted all but one revision of that page, please don't "lock" it again in this way. I have also blocked Kolokol for 24 hours for 3RR in repeatedly applying an inappropriate speedy delete tag. I'm a bit disappointed in your actions. I'll have more to say later. -- Curps 16:02, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

Normally I do not do it. As can be see from the history of the page (assuming that it still exists to you as an administrator, it was left with only one edit from the time it was moved after the WP:RM vote until I moved it back after Kolokol moved it. But AFACT there is no policy against it, and it is a useful tool to stop revert wars over page moves forcing a WP:RM. In this case the person seems to be unreasonable so I have no qualms over using the second edit.

I do not think you should remove the history of today's edits on the Úbeda page as it showed Kolokol's abuse of the 3RR rule. BTW I notice that you have now had to edit the page yet again for a sockpuppet user:K010k01. How do you think I should handle reverts by the same person to Ubeda?

Personally I do not mind what the page name is providing (a) moving it does not violate any agreement (which this does) and (b) that all the alternative names are mentioned close to the start of the article. But as a rule it seems silly to put "Ááéíóú (in English also Aaeiou)" when "Aeiou (language:Ááéíóú)" conveys the same information but more elegantly.

Oh yes as to the survey: In the last month every vote case has been against using funny foreign squiggles in page names. The current count is 49 supporting to to 39 opposing this is hardly a convincing majority for a policy and it seems appropriate for a case by case decision. But I think that the Talk:Ubeda is the place to argue the toss over this page name and first line content so I'll say no more about that issue here. Philip Baird Shearer 17:10, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

At the end of July, the margin was 47 to 21, or 69% to 31%. If you really feel that the tide of opinion has changed since then, why don't you call for a new survey? I think it's more likely that the proponents of diacritics simply considered it a settled issue (given the extensive actual practice on Wikipedia) and moved on and aren't even aware that some straggler votes came in later. A new survey should be very widely publicized in the usual way, see Wikipedia:Current surveys, so that the maximum number of people are aware that it's taking place, and the wording for it should be suitably neutral. Let me know if you decide to do this. -- Curps 05:46, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
Ah silly me, the original survey is still listed (six months later) at Wikipedia:Current surveys. Never mind, I suppose. -- Curps 06:46, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

Even if the straw poll was 49 to 1, you know and I know that the Wikipedia guidelines are frequently ignored. Before the straw poll people in favour of squiggles were forever moving pages and ignoring the guidelines. (As they still do). As you know it is fundamentally an argument over is this an English language Encyclopaedia or an International one.

I hate getting involved in an "Article for deletion" (or whatever it is called this month) because people make up the rules as they go along, trumping any appeal to the guidlines with "this is the custom around here".

I can site at two Wikipedia guidelines which have been broken this article name and first line:

  • There was a WP:RM vote to move the page to this name and WP:MOS states "if possible, make the title the subject of the first sentence of the article"
  • WP:UE "The body of such an article, preferably in its first paragraph, should list all of the other names by which the subject is known, so those too can be searched for."

But that is not stopping the person masquerading as Kolokol and now K0l0k0l. BTW what is the point of banning someone for 3RR if they just create a new account and do the same things again?[4] Kolokol is so far off the range of Wikipedia reasonable I am not sure what can be done, because Kolokol's behaviour wastes a lot of time for everyone.

I am not going to rehash the arguments in the previous sections here over why it should be Ubeda. (We can do that if there is another vote). But go and have a look at WP:RM there are a number of votes going on at the moment on whether to use funny squiggles on certain words. In these cases a local WP:RM vote has to take priority because otherwise there is little point holding the votes in the first place. Who other than the participants in the consensus building can decide whether the request to move a page is within the guidelines or a valid exception to the guidelines? A 60% majority vote to move once every six months keeps some stability to controversial page names and reduces conflict for everyone. Do we really want Zurich moved backwards and forwards every time a new person arrives at the page and decides that it is wrong? As a rule of thumb a consensus to move a page is normally considered to have fixed it for six months and if someone wishes to move it back then after six months they can ask for another WP:RM. That seems to work well for other pages (see Talk:Schutzstaffel for an example which comes to mind) I do not see why this page should be different. Philip Baird Shearer 09:09, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm initially somewhat torn. I voted for the move of this article to Ubeda (which won), but I also voted for the proposal: "Whenever the most common English spelling is simply the native spelling with diacritical marks omitted, the native spelling should be used" (which also "won"). The apparent contradiction is mainly traceable to the fact that when I argued for the latter case, I failed to consider initial letters. I'm not sure why I feel that the case is different when it comes to initial, capital letters; perhaps it's because in languages such as French, a capital letter is customarily used without the normal diacritic (I've recently commented at Talk:Édith Piaf about this). What's done in Spanish?
On the whole, I think that I go along with Curps' comment at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (use English):
"not such a big deal after all, merely a question of which one is the redirect and which one is the article title. It's probably better to use the version with diacritics as the page title, because the absence of diacritics bothers the people who care about them a lot more than their presence bothers the people who don't care about them."
If Spanish normally uses diacritics on capitals, then given the presence of the redirect, I tip back to calling this article "Úbeda" (and following the same principle for other articles). (I think that it should be "Edith Piaf", though.) --Mel Etitis (??? ??????) 11:30, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

In spanish you can drop the diacritic on an initial letter. But I wonder, do we really need to look at spanish writing rules in an english wikipedia? We will than need a list for every initial-diacrtic-languages that states how it is handled. Shouldn't we look how it is handled in english? Tobias Conradi (Talk) 13:09, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

If there were a single, accepted method, I'd agree — but as the discussion concerning Zürich showed, there are many difference, both between different English-speaking countries and within countries. I assume that, in most cases, at least some of the editors working on such articles will know enough of the language to be able to make the decision. But why not start a page on which we collect the basic rules for each language? Editors wouldn't be required to use these when editing, but should also not object when their work is edited in line with the rules. Languages in which diacritics are optional should be written without them.
It's worth stressing that I'm talking, as I said above, about cases in which "the most common English spelling is simply the native spelling with diacritical marks omitted". I don't suggest that we should rename Athens or Khartoum (any more than the French, Czech, etc., Wikipedias should change the names of their articles on London). --Mel Etitis (??? ??????) 09:36, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

Let's move the page back to Úbeda

Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English) says:

"If there is no commonly used English name, use an accepted transliteration of the name in the original language. Latin-alphabet languages like Spanish or French should need no transliteration" (This is probably the case here.)

See above the Google numbers in the case of the UK domian (a significant English speaking country) the usage is eighty to one in favour of Ubeda. This is not with a few hundred pages which can distort the numbers but on more than 19,000 pages. -- Philip Baird Shearer
I don't feel that qualifies it as a "commonly used English name". I don't know exactly where I'd put the threshold, though. I'd also like to rely more on print sources than web sources. But if you want another numerical case you can try searching for English language pages in the .es domain. I get 258 pages with Úbeda and 599 pages with Ubeda. In any case I prefer the more pedantically correct version for our encyclopedia. I don't see anything wrong with including an ascii version, though. People have argued that there's no need for it since anyone who doesn't like the accent can strip it herself. That's true enough but it's often the case that the preferred ascii version of names is not simply the correct name without diacritical marks. For example Åmål should not be ascii-ized as "Amal" but as "Aamaal" and Düsseldorf should not be ascii-ized as "Dusseldorf" but as "Duesseldorf". So I feel there's arguably some value in including ascii versions. At the very least it seems to me to be a harmless compromise gesture. We can probably conjure up a majority for a move back to Úbeda (and we already have a majority in the frequently mentioned straw poll) but that doesn't mean that we can or should ignore the voice of a very significant minority of users. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 16:27, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

It also says:

"[T]he majority opinion (albeit with significant dissent) seems to be that "whenever the most common English spelling is simply the native spelling with diacritical marks omitted, the native spelling should be used"

I don't see any good reason in the discussion above for why this should not be at Úbeda. Wikipedia uses diacritics in cases like this. São Paulo is a good example. So is Écija.

and as part of the "significant dissent" I do not agree with those page names either. Philip Baird Shearer
I see. Just so I know where you're coming from, can you name me a few examples of where you do think post-ascii characters are appropriate in Wikipedia page titles? - Haukur Þorgeirsson 10:53, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

I Support a move back to Úbeda if anyone wants to start a new vote. I acknowledge that I have not worked on this page and I've never been to Úbeda. Generally I think the opinions of people actually working on the article should be given precedence over those of an outsider (me, in this instance).

- Haukur Þorgeirsson, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

  1. I have moved this to the bottom of the page because it is customary to place new sections at the bottom of a talk page not at the top.
  2. There was an advertised (via WP:RM) move to this page it is customary, after a reasonable length of time to use the same mechanism to see if there is a consensus for moving a page back. -- 10:05, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
I'm fine with that. And ff someone makes a request to move at WP:RM I will support it. I don't feel right doing it myself since I haven't been involved in this page. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 10:53, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

As it has been established that Spanish usage (like French) allows for the omission of diacritics when the letter is capitalised, then the uncapitalised name should be used, as it's correct in both languages. (See also my suggestion in the previous section concerning a naming resource page.) --Mel Etitis (??? ??????) 15:42, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

Point of information there: what the Spanish Royal Academy actually says is: "Capital letters shall take accents if appropriate according to the above rules. Examples: África, PERÚ, Órgiva, BOGOTÁ. The Academy has never established any rule contradicting this." (Ortografía, 1999, §4.10.) Capitals w/o their accents are sneered at as sloppy in formal writing. –Hajor 20:25, 9 October 2005 (UTC)
I don't see any tradition in English for omitting diacritics when the letter is capitalized. In any case we have many French and Spanish article titles with a leading accented character and we should try to handle them consistently. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 16:31, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

Your right about the tradition. It is a tradition in English to strip all funny foreign squiggles not just those on capitals. In this case using Google on the UK domin in a ratio of about eighty to one in favour of Ubeda. --Philip Baird Shearer 17:50, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

"Funny foreign squiggles"? Well, to each his own terminology, I guess. Anyhow, I live in London. I go out on the street and I see shop names with diacritics in them. I see advertisements for products with diacritics in their names. I buy books written in English for English people and they have diacritics in them. I work for a company that has a catalog with diacritics in it. I go to a restaurant and there are diacritics in the menu. Clearly diacritics are commonplace here. Now, it is true that they are frequently omitted where they could be used. Often (but certainly not always) one suspects that it's for technical reasons. A typical English keyboard does not offer an obvious way to type, say, "Ú", so a typical person using such a keyboard may use 'U' as a substitute. Some may feel that 'U' is a perfectly legitimate substitute even where 'Ú' is easily available (as in handwriting). It's not our job to tell people that this is wrong. It is, however, our job to be more accurate, academic, precise and pedantic than the average British person on the web writing about her holidays in Spain. That's why I support a move back to Úbeda even though I don't doubt that Ubeda is a much more common rendering of the name in English texts on the web. The policies tell us to use the most common name in English and that is a good guideline. But it does not trump every other consideration. An example I used recently is that Wikipedia uses the name Provisional IRA for the phenomenon that most of the news media are perfectly content to call just IRA. The second form is undoubtedly much more common but the first one is more accurate, academic, precise and pedantic. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 18:50, 9 October 2005 (UTC)
You live in London, and still can't spell. In the UK it's catalogue, and a few other obvious mis-spellings (note hyphen) that I've come across. I guess you learnt your mis-spellings from Americans. Mark 11:14, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
I don't know what that was supposed to mean. Yes, I tend to use American spellings in Wikipedia discussions. Do you have a problem with that or is there some broader point I'm missing? - Haukur Þorgeirsson 13:17, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

FYI Provisional IRA is not more accurate, it is used in Wikipedia for disambiguation purposes, as it was by others, because for a time (in the 70's) there were two IRAs, but technically the provisional IRA only existed for a short time before claiming that they were the IRA as the "Official" IRA gave up the armed struggle the disambiguation need for Provisional was removed from current affairs. Sinn Fein uses the term IRA[5] so does Ian Paisley and the DUP "Sinn Fein/IRA" (not "Sinn Fein/PIRA")[6]. The British Army until quite recently prefered the term PIRA, Provisionals or Provos, but they now use the term IRA[7] as well as PIRA[8] (they probably continue with PIRA as a disambiguation with the CIRA and the RIRA[9]).

It's more accurate in the sense that there can be no doubt what organization it refers to. It's also more neutral in some sense. In any case it's more pedantic :) - Haukur Þorgeirsson 23:40, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

One can narrow the search with google to [-Úbeda Ubeda site:guardian.co.uk] and [Úbeda -Ubeda site:guardian.co.uk] site:washingtonpost.com, site:nytimes.com etc. To check what is used in newspapers. To which the answer seems to be Ubeda if it is mentioned at all.

Not exclusively - [10]. But you're right that it's not mentioned often. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 23:40, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

Diacritics which exist on words tend to be those which are being absorbed into English and as a rule they get dropped over time. Few English hôtels if any would use that spelling.

Perhaps as a rule, though I don't think 'café' can be called a recent loanword. But let's be careful to distinguish between English common nouns and proper names from other languages. Even if diacritics were not used at all in English (which is not the case) it wouldn't really change the case for their use in foreign names in English texts. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 23:40, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

The point is that it is not wrong to strip diacritics from a letter than it is to add an "s" to a word of foreign origin to make it a plural in English. Just as it would be wrong to say that a word which has not been absorbed into English can not be spelt in an English text with diacritics.

Please let's distinguish words and names. There's certainly nothing wrong about a foreign word being adopted into English and changing its spelling along the way. Nor is there anything wrong with them taking an English plural. (I personally find the use of foreign plurals in English to be somewhat pretentious and confusing.) But there are good reasons for quoting foreign names accurately in the variant of the Latin alphabet with which they are normally written. It is certainly appropriate in an academic reference work like Wikipedia. When I write about Winston Churchill in an Icelandic text I'll give his name like he wrote it himself, even though the letters 'w' and 'c' are not used at all in Icelandic. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 23:40, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

As there is not English equivalent to the Academie Francaise, I suppose that the closest is the OED, but it records usage, so the best guide for Wikipedia is common usage.--Philip Baird Shearer 22:52, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

The organization is called "Académie française" or the "French Academy" if you want to use an English name for it. I see no reason for omitting the diacritics from the French name. Why did you do it? As for what guide is best I prefer academic usage to common usage. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 23:40, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

I am opposed to using diacritics in all article titles except for a handful that might qualify as 'most common' such as "Nescafé". Also, many community pages have already been moved to diacritic-less forms long ago, such as Montreal and Quebec. Also, standard IE (by far the most-used browser) installations support fewer of the diacritics, so plain text serves the most readers best, as well as conforming with 'most common' conventions. Niteowlneils 20:42, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Out of curiosity - what's special about Nescafé? I get four times as many Google hits for "Nescafe". Montreal and Quebec are special cases because native English speakers in those places use those spellings. I think plain text for ascii text is probably not the best wording. More information serves the readers of our encyclopedia best, that includes using diacritics where they belong. They carry information. A person familiar with Spanish spelling but unfamiliar with Úbeda will mispronounce the word if it is spelled without the diacritic. Those unfamiliar can ignore it, or better yet, learn something. And people who read about an article about a Spanish town to begin with are likely to be interested in Spain and maybe even know a thing or two about the Spanish language. I just can't see anyone being put off by the presence of a diacritic here. It seems perfectly natural to include it in a reference work in English. The Britannica does. It's what our readers will expect us to do as well. People expect an encyclopedia to be a bit more pedantic and academic than the average English person blogging about her trip to Spain. Perhaps a lot more pedantic and academic. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 20:58, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Global policy versus individual article choices

Some articles are exempt from a naming policy due to individual reasons related directly to that article. In this case:

  1. The move discussion took place before the policy came into effect
  2. There is no stated reason why this should be exempt

I therefore see no reason why this shouldn't come under the general naming policy, with a move request conducted to bring it back to Ubeda if required. I think consistency is very important. violet/riga (t) 12:33, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

Is including an ASCII version worthwhile?

Conversations in edit summaries are not very effective so I'll take it here. Kolokol asks:

"will you add this to all articles with diacritics?"

Would it be terrible if we did? It seems that many Wikipedians want an ASCII version to be included in cases like this and I don't see any harm in it. In fact it seems like a nice compromise to me. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 17:54, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm throwing in the towel in this edit war. If neither Philip nor Kolokol can accept my version then it's probably not much of a compromise. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 12:56, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

You and I agree on the principle, I just happen to think that mine is more informative and fits the guidelines better. If the page was moved to Úbeda then you would be able to argue that your wording fitted the guidelines better, and reluctently I concede the point. Philip Baird Shearer 15:35, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

I'll concede the technicality that while the page is at Ubeda the guidelines suggest that it should, indeed, start with the word "Ubeda". I'll also concede that the article was moved to this place by a process within the rules of Wikipedia (though I think the closing admin might have waited a few more days). That said I think the article should be moved back to the more pedantically correct version, which would be consistent with other article titles for Spanish places. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 18:07, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Yes, move back to "Úbeda" and then do the changes in the article. Has anybody still a valid objection? --Pjacobi 16:29, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Yes. If you want to move it you must put in a WP:RM to advertise the move -- Philip Baird Shearer 18:45, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

What is your objection? --Pjacobi 18:50, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
  1. Common usage (see above)
  2. It is customary to use WP:RM to reverse a previous WP:RM decision. In doing so it reduces conflict as most will wait 6 months before challenging a previous WP:RM decision and the consensus majority of at least 60% makes decisions sticky. Philip Baird Shearer 19:00, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
I was specifically interested, whether the capital letter argument is your objection. Now I assume it is not.
There is both precedence (Category:Municipalities in Spain) and policy (Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English)) to use the accented name.
Granted, as noted in Use English, it was a slight majority only in the original poll, but that is the point where the precedence kicks in.
About a new vote: First choice: Don't vote, just discuss (from Wikipedia:How to hold a consensus vote)
Pjacobi 19:16, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

I think that if Philip feels we need an RM for a legitimate move then we probably do. As much as it pains me to admit it the poll on city names with diacritics is currently running at 55/40, which is not consensus - not even by the watered down 60% definition of it. We're still five support votes short of that. So it can't really be regarded as set-in-stone policy. The wording of the poll was also probably not clear enough. I doubt a lot of people realized they were voting for moving Mexico to México. And many didn't realize that the vote only applied to place names. Maybe a new poll is needed - though I don't exactly relish the prospects. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 21:07, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

As for this particular case I strongly support the more academic, more pedantic and more information-preserving title. If I understand Philip right he feels that "most common" trumps all else. That's such a fundamental disagreement that it leaves very little to discuss.

I would, however, doubt that Ubeda is the most common spelling in the most relevant sources. All that's been shown is that it's most common on the web. But what about printed sources? What about most common in reference works? Britannica, for example, has its article at Úbeda. See Talk:Freya for an example where the most common usage in printed books on the subject seems to be different from the most common usage on the web.

But if you feel that the important criterion is most common irrespective of source, i.e. giving the EB equal weight to a tourist's blog, then it may well be that Ubeda is the most common way of referring to the city in English language sources. After all there are probably 50 people who'll blog about their trip to Ubeda for every published book that mentions it. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 21:07, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Requested move October 2005: Ubeda to Úbeda

Ubeda → Úbeda – Use Spanish diacritics as WP:UE tells us to do for proper names where no common English name exists and as we normally do for Spanish names. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 21:09, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Our readers will expect us to include diacritics here - especially since we normally do it for Spanish names. See below for more detailed reasoning and other perspectives. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 21:18, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
Add *Support or *Oppose followed by an optional one sentence explanation, then sign your vote with ~~~~
It contains a diacritic and as such is nonstandard and unhelpful as an article title. Wyss 19:11, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
It is hardly nonstandard on Wikipedia, we have oodles of articles with diacritics in the title - including, most importantly, many articles on other Spanish locations. The Use English policy even explicitly tells us not to transliterate Spanish names. In order to support keeping the page at "Ubeda" and be consistent with policy you need to argue, as Philip has attempted, that "Ubeda" is the "common English name" for the place. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 19:22, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Comments

Comment: I was wondering how the previous move vote had slipped by without my seeing it, until I realised it was posted on Easter Sunday and resolved the following Friday: no accusations of bad faith, but that does coincide with Semana Santa, when half the Spanish-speaking population of the world is either in Church or at the beach. –Hajor 21:30, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Hahaha :) That's hilarious (and almost certainly a coincidence, of course). Now I know how to time move requests for Spanish and Catholic articles ;) - Haukur Þorgeirsson 21:37, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Comment: "But the move should be possible without a RM request." -- Philip Baird Shearer, 08:25, 27 Mar 2005, see below -- Curps 22:28, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

I made that statement at the time meaning that there was no consensus not to move and no technical impediment to the move. Once a WP:RM move has been made then I hold the position that another consensus WP:RM should be reached to move it back. This is because it is a 60% [majority vote/consensus] and it reduces conflict over moves (as for example has happened on the Zurich page). If you look through other pages where I have voted on such things I am consistent in this. I am also consistent in opposing moves back to an old name which happen in what I think is too short a period, even if I disagreed with the initial move. In the case of AE CE disputes, I vote in favour of the Primary Author whether AE or CE (See Tram,Gasoline ) I am also consistent in this. Curps you seem to think I act in bad faith, but I think my record stands for itself and I'll leave others to make up their own minds. Philip Baird Shearer 08:37, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
Don't read too much into it. He was probably just referring to his position that the diacritics survey should give us all the authority we need to move the page and that a WP:RM is not needed. You disagree and I think we ought to take that into account as I outlined above. That's why I made a WP:RM request. As far as I've seen you're consistent and a Wikipedian of integrity. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 10:58, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Comment: "Ú" is in WGL4 and so is widely supported. It's even in ISO/IEC 8859-1. --Pjacobi 08:05, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

More comments: "Úbeda" isn't commonly used in English, so arguments about which is the more common spelling are fruitless. Moreover, there are at least two places to look: the Internet (on which typing makes it easier to omit the accent even if one normally uses it, and formatting often removes accents even when the author included them [it's happened to me]) and print, where the same constraints don't apply. (My own informal research indicates that the accented version wins hands down in the latter.) --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 09:09, 17

Not in the broad sheet newspapers I checked on line (using google). If they mentioed Ubeda at all, which was not often, it was a majority almost exclusivly for Ubeda exept NYT which mentioned Úbeda once and Ubeda not at all. What sort of sources were you checking? Philip Baird Shearer 22:42, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
I was looking at reference books; I don't read newspapers much (and checking online defeats the purpose in this context). --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 22:17, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, that's how it seemed to me too. I found one mention with a Ú in the Independent but otherwise it was Ubeda all the way where I looked. Needless to say I don't think that's important. This small Spanish town does not have a commonly used English name and so falls under this case in WP:UE:

If there is no commonly used English name, use an accepted transliteration of the name in the original language. Latin-alphabet languages like Spanish or French should need no transliteration

We're even explicitly told not to transliterate Spanish names. I don't see anything special about this case which warrants special treatment. If we're not to use diacritics in the names of relatively small, relatively unknown Spanish towns - best known for their associations with some people who don't have an article here yet - then I don't see any diacritics which we should keep. If Ubeda then why not Nescafe? They both have more Google hits than their counterparts with the diacritics.

As for common usage as a guideline - if we were to try to chase down common usage in English I think we should look at common usage in reference works rather than common usage in newspapers or common usage on the web. Just about any name you can think of will be more commonly spelled without its diacritics on the English speaking web. Common usage is a poor guideline in these cases. We should use the more pedantic information preserving representations of the names. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 23:21, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

I agree with you and I only want to add that the UNESCO pdf and many webs use the (wrong) name Ubeda, because they aren't used to accent capital letters. Even in Spain you can find people who write Ubeda, but they are commiting an orthographic mistake. Johnbojaen 23:47, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

It is neither right or wrong to write Ubeda or Úbeda in English. But Ubeda is more common and Wikipeida guidelines advise most common usage. Philip Baird Shearer 09:48, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Moved from Ubeda to Úbeda

This article has been renamed as the result of a move request. –Hajor 14:02, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

The final result appears to have been 14-7. -- Curps 15:31, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Ubeda and Úbeda isn't the same

As you can see in es:Ubeda, Úbeda is the city of Jaén described in this article and Ubeda is a village of Alicante. I think we don't have to discuss anymore about it. Johnbojaen 17:58, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Are you suggesting that Ubeda becomes a disambiguation page? Or do you think that the average person for whom English is their first language and have no Spanish should be able to tell the difference between Ubeda and Úbeda? Philip Baird Shearer 20:58, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm saying that this article is about Úbeda, not about Ubeda, so it should rest in the page called Úbeda. If the average English speaker can't see the difference, we must write a warning text in both articles. Something like 

This article is about Úbeda, in Jaén. For the Ubeda in Alicante, see Ubeda

and 

This article is about Ubeda, in Alicante. For the Úbeda in Jaén, see Úbeda

Don't you agree? Johnbojaen 23:58, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

No I don't. If disambiguation were needed and I am not convinced that it is (as the Alicante article is not written), it should be "Ubeda, Jaen" and "Ubeda, Alicante" or if this vote is closed in favour of "Úbeda": "Úbeda, Jaén" and "Ubeda, Alicante". Philip Baird Shearer 09:39, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

IPA

For inclusion when the article is unprotected: is this right -- (IPA: ['uβeða]) ? –Hajor 19:50, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

I think so, at least that's how I've been pronouncing it in my mind throughout the debate ;) - Haukur Þorgeirsson 20:22, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
Thanks. My IPA is a bit rusty. Exits stage left, singing uβeð'i, uβeð'a, life goes on... –Hajor 20:32, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Vandalsim and page protection

I believe that there is consensus that no user here should make a unilateral change to this article until the debate has been closed here. Unfortunately, one user (almost certainly just one person) has kept reverting the article and pre-empting the community decission. This user has shown the ability to user sock puppets to evade blocking under WP:3RR. Having got fed up with the listof anagramatic socks, I've protected the page from editing. This is not something I wanted to do, but, when the history page has so many reverts that you're unable to see the last constructive edit, things have go out of hand. I propose that the page stay protected until the title discussion is closed. --Gareth Hughes 19:49, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

I had hoped someone else would step up to the plate for this, but no. So here goes: After an open vote lasting almost two weeks, we've got 14 in favour and seven opposed. WP:RM says a page can be moved if 60% or more support the proposal after five days. I'm going to unprotect the page, move it, and tweak the intro. –Hajor 13:54, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
I don't think anyone can complain about this on procedural grounds. The original move to "Ubeda" was decided after four days of voting and the moving admin hirself voted for the move. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 13:58, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

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