Talk:Marek Židlický

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was

The result of the move request was: Move to Marek Zidlicky, without prejudice on broader issues of policy regarding diacritics.

I'm going to spend a bit of time and bandwidth explaining this, so my thinking is as transparent as possible.

I assess the following consensus on the basis of policy and guideline-related arguments put forward below:

1. Diacritics are currently permitted in article titles.
2. To further make that point, we should be clear that unless and until consensus changes in core policies such as WP:COMMONNAME diacritics are not ideal, but should be used where appropriate.
3. WP:COMMONNAME tells us to spell the names of articles in the way that is most frequently used to refer to the subject in English-language reliable sources
4. Supporters of the page move, notably Kauffner make it abundantly clear that English language RS spell the name without diacritics.

No strong argument in refutation of that 5th argument has been made and that is the one that draws on COMMONNAME policy.

Opponents of the move have argued passionately and I have felt some resonance with their comments, but WikiProject guidelines and userspace essays cannot trump policy. Furthermore, tempting as it is to defer to precedent, Wikipedia doesn't work on precedent, so I have not viewed any previous diacritic-related page moves referred to by Darwinek. If it is the case that there are a good number of English language RS that use the diacritics, I have missed it and I'd invite the opposers to question this decision.

I have no doubt that I will be pilloried for this decision but it seems to me that while a straight vote count would show this to be a fairly balanced discussion, the policy-related arguments are for the rename. As such, the weight of supporting opinions is far stronger than those opposing and thus that's the way I close this discussion. Dweller (talk) 14:15, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

---

Marek Židlický → Marek Zidlicky –

• Support – Per WP:UE and WP:COMMONNAME. Marek Zidlicky is a veteran NHL player of over 500 games. He has been playing in North American for almost a decade, and his name is commonly used in its anglicized form. All English language sources spell his name without diacritics. Even the name on his sweater is “ Zidlicky”.[1] Dolovis (talk) 01:49, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
• Support per sources. I doubt this will succeed, though, as consensus at WP:HOCKEY is to use diacritics. Powers ^T 11:52, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

  Comment: Ice hockey's Wikiproject notice states that player pages should have diacritics applied where required. In this case, diacritics are clearly not required. And in any event, the hockey project does not trump established Wikipedia policy. Dolovis (talk) 12:26, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

  Yeah, by "where required" they mean "where the player's name actually uses diacritics" -- that is, they mean "don't go putting diacritics on Ryan Miller's name". Powers ^T 14:01, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

  I haven't looked through the discussion behind the adoption of the phrase here, but typically "where required" is understood to be a much narrower subset than "where appropriate". And, given the facts here, it is not even clear to me that this would pass the "where appropriate" bar -- the fact that his jersey does not use them, for example, militates in the opposite direction IMHO. To read "where required" to mean "where one form of his name uses them, even if his jersey doesn't, etc." seems a bit of a stretch, perhaps.--Epeefleche (talk) 07:01, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose - per WP:HOCKEY consensus and newly added reference. --Sporti (talk) 14:47, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
• Support. The Minneapolis Star Tribune, the hometown paper for his team, gives this name as "Marek Zidlicky". Kauffner (talk) 13:14, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose per authoritative style guides, our standard practice and other encyclopedias; the misspelling of this living person's name is not acceptable in English. Prolog (talk) 19:34, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

  Comment: Your posted link to your own "User:Prolog/Diacritical marks" user space must not be construed as being authoritative of Wikipedia's practices or style guides. Dolovis (talk) 21:55, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

  Agreed. He's done this before and it's not kosher. Fyunck(click) (talk) 02:36, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose per common sense and outcome of dozen previous RM's. The person has only one surname, and it is Židlický. - Darwinek (talk) 15:22, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose. While some sources tend to consider misspelled Czech as an "English" or "anglicized" form, I don't think WP should unless there's actual proof that the person has adopted the proposed spelling. Jafeluv (talk) 19:30, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

  Comment: Actually, if your argument is to go against the established wiki-policy of WP:UE and WP:COMMONNAME, then the onus must be on you to demonstrate that after a decade in North America he has not adopted his commonly used English-language name. That being said, the proof of his use of the spelling as "Zidlicky" is seen on his sweater.[2] Dolovis (talk) 21:44, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

  Neither of those say what you think they do, and you have been shown this by tens if not hundreds of editors at this point. -DJSasso (talk) 14:53, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

• Comment - A Google search confirms that Marek Zidlicky is the COMMON NAME that is most frequently used to refer to the subject in English-language reliable sources:

  Marek Zidlicky = about 301,000 total hits,[3] whereas

  Marek Židlický = has only about 15,700 total hits.[4] Dolovis (talk) 22:10, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose. His real name uses diacritics. Will. Somebody. Stop. Dolovis. From. RMing? This is getting well past WP:POINT. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk to me} 22:20, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

Dolovis is using commonsense. GoodDay (talk) 15:13, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

From what I've witnessed English sourcing has taken a big back seat to consensus at wikipedia. If most pollers want it to say the sun is blue then that's what it will say in the article. It won't matter if the sources say it's not blue. Fyunck(click) (talk) 02:36, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose One would think that Dolovis would get tired of his crusade to rid the world of diacritics. Since almost all of his requests end up failing. And after numerous sanctions and admonishments. Its probably time to change his topic ban from only concerning moves to concerning diacritics period. -DJSasso (talk) 14:52, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
• Support as this is the English Wikipedia & not the Czech Wikipedia. The problem here is that many are letting their 'mother country' pride, guide their judgement on these article titles. An observation that even Jimbo Wales agrees with. The dios don't add anything for the english reader. GoodDay (talk) 15:11, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

  One could say the opposite of the people supporting...that it is xenophobia that is getting the best of people. So how about we not assume the motivations of people ok? For instance I don't come even remotely from a country that they are in use commonly. -DJSasso (talk) 15:13, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

  Those 'mother country' editors do have their supporters, don't they. GoodDay (talk) 15:15, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

• Support per WP:UE , WP:UCN , WP:COMMONSENSE , the fact that his employer spells it without diacritics, that the local media from the place he plays in doesn't use diacritics, that Jimbo Wales even said that using diacritics was not the way to go in these cases. Wikipedia is not supposed to introduce the new wave in the English language, it is supposed to follow the most common usage. If the new wave is to use foreign non-French diacritics (I say non-French, since English borrows liberally from French), it needs to reach a greater mass of usage than it has. 65.94.77.11 (talk) 11:33, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
• Comment the only way this could stay with diacritics is with a WP:IAR rationale, and none of those who want it to stay are arguing for one. 65.94.77.11 (talk) 11:34, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose I completely agree with Prolog and Jafeluv. --Vejvančický (talk | contribs) 20:11, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Hahaha .. V, you could have simply signed your name and -- without more -- I would have guessed as much. I hope you don't think the lesser of me for not using mine!--Epeefleche (talk) 07:27, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

• Support per WP:UE, WP:COMMONNAME, WP:COMMONSENSE; as Dolovis provides above, overwhelming use is Zidlicky.  WP:Policy says follow the reliable sources; Google News hits say:

	Marek Zidlicky		Marek Židlický
	English Press	Foreign Press	English Press	Foreign Press
Google News - 35 Hits	24	5	0	6

Only slightly more foreign language press even uses the diacritics; all English RS use straight English spelling.  If someone wants the move to North America, part of the deal is you end up with an English name!  If I move to Germany, my user name becomes "Wer sind Sie?"; in France, "Qui êtes-vous?"; you want to move to another country, you take on their standards, you don't expect them to change to suit you!  Slightly different story when English press reports on French named people in France, or German named people in Germany; but if they live in an English country, they get English names — period.  That's basically what North American press policy is and WP follows the sources, as a matter of policy. And to others that want to make up inaccurate information in userspace (which Wiki-ediquette requires other users not to correct), then don't link it to the WP space as if it's anything more than your inaccurate, biased, POV.  If you want to cite some sources to use diacritics, how about citing some non-British sources, from the parts of the world where most of the people that speak English live?  Oh, right, the rest of the English speaking world that isn't surrounded by foreigners and part of a political union with them doesn't have any such sources because everywhere else uses actual English. And the fact that 10 guys in some little corner (WikiProject Ice Hockey) of WP have 15 conversations and finally come up with a policy to list the same people in WP with diacritics on one page and without diacritics on another page is ridiculous.  First, if you want to change WP policy (WP:UE, WP:COMMONNAME) you do so at the policy page, not in your own secret talks that most people don't care about, and second, you certainly don't come up with a compromise of listing the same person with two different primary spellings on different pages.  The policy is English titles and list their foreign name(s) in the body somewhere; not English names in the body of one page and foreign names as the title of others for the same person.  Move the page to English. — Who R you? Talk 22:06, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Actually both those policies you quote mention there is no preference for using them or not using them. Hence there being no guidance on the subject. And all discussions on those policy pages have had consensus that the wording of the policy does not have consensus support (as such it really should be flagged as in dispute). Since guidelines/policies at wikipedia are supposed to reflect practice and not prescribe practice and the majority of the wiki (not just ice hockey) uses diacritics when spelling proper names for article titles then that shows its not some random group of 10 guys at the hockey project. Also a proper name does not change when going from an english country to say Germany. Your user name is essentially a sentence so its not a relevant example. Proper names aren't translated when you switch languages. (Transliteration being a different subject for things like Cryllic). -DJSasso (talk) 22:23, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Actually it is common practice to Anglicize names when foreigners move to North America.  It's basically part of the price of living here.  Just ask 黃淑玲 (aka Wáng Shu Ling and Sherine Wong Sook Ling) whose article Sherine Wong has "the most common English representation of her name".  I was going to say ask Jaromir Jagr; but, of course, the small group from Hockey has made up their own rules and gone ahead and renamed a bunch of these articles already.

We can be pretty sure that most of this group either live in a foreign country, and speak ESL, or moved to an English country, generally because where they (or their parents) moved away from sucked, and now they would like to take over and dictate how the countries that allow them to enter should speak English.  People that actually know a little more about the English speaking world (more than having learned how to speak a little English in some class at school) know that, when a foreigner moves to North America, they are typically expected to Anglicize their name, to varying degrees; but in every case they generally lose the diacritics.  Paul, Joe, Tony, Fred, John are considered common names in these countries; just ask the people formerly known as Paulo, Giuseppe, Antonio, Frederick, Johann about it.

Maybe some of you feel that we English speaking people, who live in English speaking countries (and invent things like Wikipedia and all the other things that are generally named in English) should have to conform to your desires because you want to move to our countries; too bad.  You learned to speak English because you wanted to, or your country made you because they recognize that it's the primary language of the business world and, if anything is, it's the global language.  A whole lot more people speak Spanish than English globally; but Spanish people learn English because they want to be able to move to better countries and live a better life; English people speak English when we go on vacation to Spanish countries because we know that, since we're the ones paying the bill, we'll speak whatever the hell we want and if we aren't happy with the service (like they expect use to learn another language to order lunch and we don't feel like it), then we take our money elsewhere; and at the same time, we generally try to treat people with respect and learn one or two words of their foreign tongue (Hola; gracias), but fuck'em if they think we're going to any more effort than that.  (BTW, I like Spanish countries & people as long as they don't try to dictate how I speak/write English!)

Regarding policy; actually, policy does not reflect usage and just whatever people are doing; if it did then policy would be for inaccurate crap and copyright infringements everywhere.  Policy is subject to amendment by consensus; that meaning following an opportunity for input by the entire populace of editors.  And unfortunately, WP seems to have a rather communist streak to it where, even when the majority of editors vote for something to be one way, some small group that thinks itself superiour decides it should be a different way and makes whatever change they want.  Which is likely why so few people even bother to give their opinion on issues like this when it's much easier to just find a real life passtime.

And of course, reality is that my user name is (on every WP language) the same English version, phrase, name, or otherwise, as a factor of software limitation and the decision of the programmers; which I couldn't care less about since I have no particular interest in what the foreign language wikis say, be they in foreign languages I can read or ones I can't.  Because, of course, the en.WP is the only one where a bunch of people who don't really speak the language want to be involved with because they feel unimportant in some (1 in 40), minor, unimportant little country surrounded by a bunch of others, where the sense of identity (let alone freedom) has pretty much long since disappeared, so the only thing they can think to do is come stur up some shit on the English WP by trying to dictate how people that actually speak English should write about things.

If Jaromir Jagr gave a rat's ass about having his name spelled the way it appears on WP, he would have said to any one of the 50 reporters that would love to write about anything he has to say to them, something like Please spell my name Jaromír Jágr; but of course, he didn't, probably because he cares more about the pay cheque than how the press (or WP) spell his name.  Did it ever occur to you that some of the people that leave these foreign countries do so because they don't want to be involved with them and that they might prefer to have their names spelled the way they let the press spell them?  That's why WP policy (not common practice of whatever people feel like doing but established policy which even consensus probably couldn't change) is use what the sources use; always, in every case, see what others use and, if there is confusion or discrepancy, then some question of choice and consensus comes up; but where the sources all agree, like here, there is no choice, consensus is irrelevant, use what the sources use.  Or do some not realize that WikiMedia Corporation's primary concern is being sued by someone for something in an article; and, as long as we got it from another source, we're exempt from any problems, but if we make up our own stuff, someone else could end up owning Wikimedia and all it's subsidiaries.

Perhaps the problem is that a few, from whatever country so-and-so moved away from, feel let down because the best and brightest wanted to leave their homeland to go to North America for a better life; and maybe the best that those children living at home with there parents in that foreign land can do is use the English they learned in school to a) contribute to en.WP, and b) to try to stir up shit at en.WP by trying to rename a bunch of articles to foreign languages.

Did if ever occur to any of you that perhaps the reason EVERY English source (and almost half the foreign sources) spell his name as Marek Zidlicky is because HE wants it that way?  No, that's right, the most important thing is that a few WP editors feel important because they belong to a small little cliche in WP and they get off on telling others how to name the articles and on dictating what the English world reads.  As a native English speaker, I have no interest in how you spell things in your foreign country; if you'd like to spell it like that, go back there and speak whatever foreign language you started with.

And of course, when we're titling articles about foreign people in foreign lands who did things that make them notable in foreign lands (or at least while they were still officially citizens of foreign lands), then we spell their names the way they do in those foreign countries (because that's the way that the sources, that prove that they're notable, spell their names).

I nominate the article entitled Marek Židlický for deletion on the basis that there is no proof that the individual is notable, in accordance with WP:NN; and I await someone to present reference to sources about this unknown "Marek Židlický".  I really do try to write short replies!  Ciao for now! — Who R you? Talk 01:20, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

WP:UE — First sentence: "The choice between anglicized and local spellings should follow English-language usage."  For those that don't speak English on a regular basis, follow English-language usage translates to use what the reliable sources use which is what people commonly use. — Who R you? Talk 01:25, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

That has to be the most xenophobic rant I have ever seen. You assume bad faith of just about everyone and those you don't assume bad faith of you make attacks on. Feel better now that you got that off your chest? Or do you want to beat someone up while you are at it? -DJSasso (talk) 01:37, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

I love how you throw guidelines/policies up and then violate WP:CANVASS. -DJSasso (talk) 01:43, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Never seen that before; I won't make the same mistake again.  Of course, problem is that there are 831 pages with "diacritic" in them and there certainly doesn't seem to be one place for this discussion to take place.  I would have suggested that the talk page of one lone hockey player probably wasn't the right place, but when I went looking, there didn't seem to be a good place to point to; and creating another page on the topic would be even worse.  But that said, I'd never read or heard of WP:CANVASS before and I certainly had no intention of violating it.  But of course, the odds of others just stumbling on a conversation like this, as I did, are slim; which is probably how all these other moves have taken place without any kind of consensus.  I guess it's okay if someone belongs to a group (like WPrj:Hockey) and collectively makes changes like this without consulting the masses; but, attempting to develop consensus by ensuring that those who share the same opinion are involved is all wrong.  But then again, I didn't check, was that WP article that I read a few paragraphs about a WP policy, established by consensus; or was that a link to an article in userspace that was intentionally designed to mislead people; perhaps I'll go check; perhaps not!  And BTW, xenophobes don't welcome foreigners to their country or generally visit foreign countries; I, on the other hand, simply don't accept that those who move to another country should then try to turn the country they move to into the place they left.  On the other hand, I generally welcome those who are looking to move to a better place and become a part of the culture they've joined.  Or are the only cultures that count the ones that use diacritics? — Who R you? Talk 02:53, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

This discussion is listed on a highly viewed page at Wikipedia:Requested moves so generally those interested will comment. As for diacritics discussions the best place is either at WP:DIACRITICS or one of the pages you have linked to previously. ps xenophobe was the nicer of the words that came to mind after reading that even if it wasn't the most accurate. You seem to think the hockey wikiproject is pushing a pov. Quite the opposite, the project had watched these heated battles for years go back and forth wasting hundreds of editors time on hundreds of articles on a topic that is likely to never be solved so we worked out a way to stop the fighting and stop people from attacking one another assuming it has something to do with a "mother country pride" or the opposite. It worked for a number of years, apparently its time is over and it will be back to the ways of arguing back and forth and pages moving back and forth over and over again. -DJSasso (talk) 03:07, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

 ┌──────────┘

This wasn't a topic I would have thought could ever be an issue since the core concept of WP is everything comes from another source (and is ref'd).  But then I eventually came across a previous discussion where someone was trying to establish a policy to use diacritics even when sources don't.  Kinda like this page does.  But when that came to an open discussion, if it  failed to achieve consensus.  Now, suddenly I see arguments over pages being moved because some small group decides that they've decided for all WP editors that diacritics should be used if someone moves to North America from the other side of the world.  There is not the slightest bit of consensus for it.  A small group deciding anything (like even the 5-10 that have commented here or the 50+ that read the WP:RM board in the 7 days before this move happens) don't come close to representing what the majority thinks and agrees with.  And the claim that Hockey established this policy, even though a WP policy with the same effect failed, seems rather ridiculous.  I'm all for democracy; if the majority want it, even when I don't generally agree with it, I can accept it; but that isn't what I'm seeing.  How do you justify Židlický when there isn't one English RS for it; when the RS against is (mathematically) infinite.  I agree the arguments are stupid; but that's 'cause I believe that a policy like RS makes sense and is the only thing that can work in an enviroment like this (unlimited anonymous contribution by all).  But the argument here is to ignore RS because some think his name should be spelled with diacritics because he would be required to use them if he hadn't escaped from the country he got out of — taking it to the furthest extreme; yes; but it's meant to show that WP editors are not the ones that should be deciding how peoples names get spelled; we follow reliable press in all things, who they say is right, who they say did wrong, how they say a notable public person's name is spelled.  And, of course, I wouldn't give the press that kind of authority over the spelling of private names; but then private/non-notable people don't appear on WP and so they need only worry about the press, who they sue if they don't like what's said.

WP:Diacritics: "…follow the general usage in reliable sources that are written in the English language…"  But I should start a discussion there to change the policy to say what it says?  Or am I starting a discussion to achieve consensus that the rules apply to Hockey and all the other projects?  But, of course, the fact is that you think that those statements are as ridiculous as I and everyone else does. — Who R you? Talk 03:41, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

P.S.  I'm neither a bigot nor racist (if those where the other terms that came to mind) (though I will fully admit to being an asshole and a prick on occasions [some without trying]); those who know me in the real world are quite aware that that's the truth; but neither am I afraid to say what I think is right just for fear that I might be called such.  My issue is a small group trying to re-write the English language for reasons unknown; for which I am unable to come up with a good faith explanation, since every possible one fails when asked why go against RS?. — Who R you? Talk 04:06, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Ever seen this guy (Клинтон, Билл) before?  How about this (رونالد ريغان) one?  Oh, that's right, the symbols ˆ ˇ ˈ ˉ ˊ ` ¨ ´ ˊ ˋ ˑ ˘ ˙ ˚ ˜ ˝ ¸ ˌ ˎ ˏ ˒ ˔ ˕ ˖ ˛ ˞ ˠ don't exist in the Latin character set; no – no, wait, that's a different argument; I mean "tonliCB" aren't characters in the Cyrillic alphabet, and "Ronlgeda" don't exist in Arabic scrit.  But seeing as English is such a trivial, meaningless language, only used in one or two worthless little places in the world, and seeing as it's hasn't had any important effect (good or bad) on the global culture, the fucking piss-ants that use it should be forced to learn the alphabets of big, important, countries of global stature, with massive populations of 20-30 million; who cares if its not a part of their alphabet, their computers can create the symbols; those damned English speakers have got to learn!  A really important group of guys (or gals but I assume not in this case) have decided it's so.  Can ya maybe understand how an English speaker might possibly be against the Wikipedia re-writing of the language without them acting in bad faith (or being evil people)?  Maybe not! — Who R you? Talk 06:29, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

• Strong support It doesn’t matter whether some here feel we should look towards how Zidlicky himself spells his name; it matters only how the English-language press spells his name. In accordance with a policy that is well entrenched into the very DNA of Wikipedia (follow the practices of English-language RSs), we should have been spelling it “Marek Zidlicky” long ago. It is not the proper role of mere wikipedians (“Greg L-style” illustrations of wikipedians here and here) to presume to debate how the very alphabet of the English language should be expanded beyond conventional norms. Wikipedia just looks naive whenever practices like this are allowed to persist while the rest of the English-language press does otherwise. And, FYI, a local consensus by a handful of people on WP:HOCKEY is superseded by WP:LOCALCONSENSUS, which says Consensus among a limited group of editors, at one place and time, cannot override community consensus on a wider scale. Wikipedia policy is clear about following the RSs on matters such as this. Greg L (talk) 02:35, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

• You are right, they can't. Except that based on the most recent RFC (and many previous such) there is no consensus on their use or non-use. Thus a local consensus can be created to fill the void until such a time as a consensus is reached. -DJSasso (talk) 03:08, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

There is no hockey project consensus on this issue. To say there is one is patently false. It has been better described as a compromise, and even at that it has been contentious. Dolovis (talk) 12:50, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

• The underlying principle of WP:RS can quite reasonably be interpreted to encompass something as basic as what sort of letters comprise the English language. The whole point of “follow the RSs” is to avoid mere wikipedians getting into the business of trying to debate what is the wisest course of the future of the English language. That we are even having this debate in light of the lopsided reality of how the rest of the English-language media spells his name is rather amazing. But, given how broad Wikipedia is, it does get its share of temporary hiccoughs like this; they invariably get solved in the *sensible* fashion after a while. Greg L (talk) 03:35, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

• I have no idea how many actual English sources (UK, Aussie, US, Canadian) spell Zidlicky's name with diacritics but there are tennis player articles with absolutely zero English spelling sources using diacritics, and many sources spelling the player's name without diacritics. Yet the name wins consensus with the diacritic version. It's nutty but it's wikipedia. All one can do is nominate and hope for the best and then move on. Fyunck(click) (talk) 07:01, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

• In this case, every Google News hit that uses diacritics is non-English.[5] There are over 4,000 examples of the name without diacritics. I like to see at least 10 percent usage before putting a diacritic in the title, or at any rate something higher than 0 percent. Kauffner (talk) 08:36, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

• There are two types of non-futuristic English at play here; the one supported by prestigious style manuals (including American and Canadian; AMA, APA, Bringhurst and CMoS) and commonly used by general-purpose encyclopedias (such as us, Britannica and Columbia), and the one commonly used by the deadline-intensive news media, especially by sports writers. What would be amazing is if a respected encyclopedia preferred the lower standards of newspapers. Anyone know of one? The idea of googling up the common spelling when dealing with diacritics in the names of living people would surely be laughed out of any serious reference work. Prolog (talk) 17:02, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

• Nice job, Prolog. You fulfilled your soldierly duty and did your best to advance about the only nice-sounding argument available given the overall weakness of your position (what with “deadline-intensive news media” and whatnot). But even the NHL spells it “Zidlicky” and they have no deadlines to worry about whatsoever.

  Your argument still amounts to “Židlický = quality and the future” and “Zidlicky = bad & poopy and unenlightened.” That is insufficient to rise to the level of overturning the principle of “follow the English-language RSs.” You guys can’t have it both ways. If this is article was governed by the rules that globally apply across the Wikipedia project, we would follow the RSs. If this article was instead governed by some sort of “Hockey-based” local phenomenon (an island unto itself), it would still be in flagrant violation of follow the RSs given that the NHL and other hockey-related websites—and Marek himself on his Facebook page— use the English alphabet when writing his name.

  This all explains why it has to be moved; because Wikipedia always goes with the RSs and it is beyond the purview of mere wikipedians to do otherwise and promote the expansion of the English alphabet into territory the RSs don’t tread.

  Oh… and if facts actually matter at all (since you allege that Encyclopedia Britannica is now in the business of expanding the English alphabet into foreign territories): the Vietnamese Wikipedia article on their infamous spy spells his name as Vũ Ngọc Nhạ. Encyclopedia Britannica (you know… the dudes who write using English?) spells it using that unenlightened, boring English alphabet and write Vu Ngoc Nha. So please spare us from nonsense that if the EB actually thought Marek was notable and created an article on him, they’d suddenly start changing the English alphabet for him.

  The simple reality of the RSs and the English language and its alphabet is that only certain diacritics like the acute (´) have been adopted for use in English. I came down on the side of changing Crepe to Crêpe (does that surprise you?) because the finest RSs spelled it that way and the circumflex (ˆ) is generally accepted as being part of the English language for certain words of foreign origin. So too, certain Czech spellings that use certain diacritics are acceptable, such as Václav Klaus. And, not surprisingly, EB's article on Václav Klaus spells it that way. You may not be pleased that the English language is not more *inclusive*, but the simple reality is only some diacritics are generally accepted for use with English.

  It is not your or my job to go through the whole list of diacritics and try to decide whether more of them should be adopted into the English language so we can be more inclusive and less xenophobic (or “huggy” or hold hands on a mountaintop and sing about the world of Coca-Cola and how we’d like to teach the world to sing). Again, mere wikipedians don’t debate what is good for humanity in hopes of serving as some sort of paradigm that others might follow. It’s the other way around; we follow them. Greg L (talk) 20:50, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

• We don't just copy the stylistic practices (diacritics, units, dates, capitalization, headings, punctuation, paragraph format...) of sources and I doubt that any other reference work does either, unless the source itself is one. NHL.com drops all diacritics as sports websites often do, so no surprise there. Britannica and other English-language encyclopedias indeed do not usually use Vietnamese diacritics. They do use all the Czech ones (including the háček: Žižka, Ružička). If you browse Webster's dictionaries, you'll find these diacritics there as well, with no alternative spellings. Crêpe (or crepe) is an English word and directly mentioned in dictionaries and style manuals; these debates are of course very different. The lack of an entry in relevant and authoritative sources, which comes with having 3.7 million articles, does not mean that the best practice must be abandoned. Prolog (talk) 22:22, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

• Actually, WP Policy is that we just follow sources and copy the stylistic practices of the English sources, and provide citations to those sources.  There's a whole list below of the relevant policies which boils down to we follow English RS in all things.  Instead of trying to misleading people with false versions of the truth and pretending things are policy (WP:DGUIDE|authoritative style guides) when they're actually just links to POV essay pages (User:Prolog/Diacritical marks) intended to mislead other editors (a practice I believe WP:FORUMSHOP classifies as disruptive), how about we try citing some actual facts or actual policies that say otherwise.

And can you explain the fact that Encyclopedia Britannica, which you seem to hold up as the authoritative source, while they haven't even created an article for Marek Zidlicky, does have an article for Jaromir Jagr; we have an article about a similar guy, but of course, Wikipedia intentionally misspells his name as Jaromír Jágr so you might be misled when you first arrive at the article, but it really is about the professional hockey player "Jaromir Jagr" that all the newpapers write about.  Rather than telling us how POV might be used to interpret style guides, perhaps we could all follow the numerous WP policies and WP:CITE reliable sources.  And since clarity appears to be a problem; from Wiktionary – Cite: 1. To quote; to repeat, as a passage from a book, or the words of another.   2. To list the source(s) from which one took information, words or literary or verbal context.   3. To summon officially or authoritatively to appear in court.  So by all means, please, tell all the editors who are wasting there time with these discussions all over WP, who is the neutral, third-party English source that backs up these non-English spellings of Marek Zidlicky's and Jaromir Jagr's name?  Until then, please stop pushing POV to misspell the name in this and other BLPs. — Who R you? Talk 01:23, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

• As already noted, written rules, or interpretations thereof, are not policy if they fail to reflect community practice and opinion. The current practice, while also not backed by consensus, is in line with the BLP principle of getting the article right. I have mentioned Jágr's Britannica article before myself, as this is the only Czech person I have seen there without the appropriate diacritical marks. I already listed some authoritative sources like AMA ("Accent marks should always be retained in the following instances: Proper names: Dr Bönneman is a Pew Scholar in the Biomedical Sciences"). Your perspective on English and spelling is at odds with experts on the matter. Prolog (talk) 09:20, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

• I believe your interpreting style guides, instruction of how they should/shouldn't be applied, and provision of one line which you say supports your position, are pretty close to the definition of WP:OR.  The policies (which everyone can read below in their entirety) seem crystal clear, that the sources make the decision(s) in this regard.  While it appears obvious that you believe that all of the sources in the English speaking world, including Encyclopedia Britannica, don't know what they're doing and that Prolog, et al are needed to correct their errors; WP policy would appear to indicate otherwise.  WP:Hockey apparently believes that, seeing as only a small group has (often unsuccessfully) attempted to correct their errors in the past, this in some way indicates a replacement of the sources professional interpretation of proper style, with Hockey's POV; and that Hockey's POV somehow trumps the policies established by consensus (I note that you acknowledge that these changes are, in fact, in direct opposition to accepted consensus); other editors may however prefer to continue to uphold Wikipedia's established method of determining all facts; which is, of course, we don't decide fact / policy / interpretation / correctness in these matters; rather, we follow what is clearly "most common in the English language".  The simple retorical test is, If Jagr or Zidlicky specifically want their names spelled the way the entire English media currently does, how do they get Wikipedia to do so?  Do you expect them to contact you and advise you that this is their desire (at which point you can advise them how they are misspelling their own names)?  We follow the RS because the RS have the access, information, contacts, facts, professional knowledge, and legal liability for their publication of all things.  We don't decide such things (and, of course, the entirely different set of arguments as to why all the English sources are correct to spell these names without diacritics is an entirely separate line of discussion which I have only briefly touched on throughout; but then, Wikipedia generally eschews such debates of POV by simply following the RS).  Personally, I'm still looking for citation of a source which supports your OR and POV, since your interpretation doesn't appear to be shared by the professional media.  Rather than simply moving countless articles all over WP to the way you'd like them to be, contrary to the RS, perhaps you could pursue the media to convince them that your research indicates that they are all spelling these names incorrectly; though I doubt they will agree with you. — Who R you? Talk 12:27, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

• Support. I'm happy to support using the same approach used on the fellow's jersey. That seems logical.--Epeefleche (talk) 07:01, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

• As far as I know, even the Czech national team doesn't use diacritics in their jerseys. The availability of the marks especially for these capital letters is probably not great. Historically, diacritics have been dropped from uppercase characters, at least for some European languages. Some English sources still consider this acceptable, while others disagree (MHRA says that "accents should be retained on capitals in languages other than English, e.g.: le Moyen Âge, Éire, el Éufrates, Ólafsson" and Library of Congress began adding more diacritics to capital letters in 2006). Prolog (talk) 09:20, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

A Summary of all relevant WP:Policies

Policies

• WP:EN: The title of an article should generally use the version of the name of the subject which is most common in the English language, as you would find it in reliable sources…

If an examination of the sources in an article shows that one name or version of the name stands out as clearly the most commonly used in the English-language, we should follow the sources and use it. …

Names not originally in a Latin alphabet, as with Greek, Chinese or Russian, must be transliterated into characters generally intelligible to literate speakers of English. …

The native spelling of a name should generally be included in parentheses, in the first line of the article, with a transliteration if the Anglicization isn't identical. …

• WP:UCN: Wikipedia does not necessarily use the subject's "official" name as an article title; it prefers to use the name that is most frequently used to refer to the subject in English-language reliable sources. …

…The term most typically used in reliable sources is preferred to technically correct but rarer forms, whether the official name, the scientific name, the birth name, the original name or the trademarked name. …

• WP:DIACRITICS: The use of modified letters (such as accents or other diacritics) in article titles is neither encouraged nor discouraged; when deciding between versions of a word which differ in the use or non-use of modified letters, follow the general usage in reliable sources that are written in the English language (including other encyclopedias and reference works). The policy on using common names and on foreign names does not prohibit the use of modified letters, if they are used in the common name as verified by reliable sources.
• WP:COMMONSENSE: Why isn't "use common sense" an official policy? It doesn't need to be; as a fundamental principle, it is above any policy.
• WP:BURO: … Written rules do not themselves set accepted practice. Rather, they document already existing community consensus regarding what should be accepted and what should be rejected. When instruction creep is found to have occurred, it should be removed.
• WP:CONSENSUS: … Editors usually reach consensus as a natural and inherent product of editing; generally someone makes a change or addition to a page, then everyone who reads it has an opportunity to leave the page as it is or change it. When editors cannot reach agreement by editing, the process of finding a consensus is continued by discussion on the relevant talk pages.
  

… unless they can convince the broader community that such action is right, participants in a WikiProject cannot decide that some generally accepted policy or guideline does not apply to articles within its scope.

Wikipedia has a higher standard of participation and consensus for changes to Policies and guidelines than to other types of articles. This is because they reflect established consensus, and their stability and consistency are important to the community. As a result, the best practice is to propose substantive changes on the talk page first and then allow sufficient time for thorough discussion before implementing the change. …

Raising the same issue repeatedly on different pages, to different admins, or with different wording is confusing and disruptive. It doesn't help to seek out a forum where you get the answer you want, or to play with the wording to try and trick different editors into agreeing with you, since sooner or later someone will notice all of the different threads. …

• WP:UE: The choice between anglicized and local spellings should follow English-language usage…

 If  there are too few English-language sources to constitute and established usage…

Editing for the sole purpose of changing one controversial title to another is strongly discouraged. If an article title has been stable for a long time, and there is no good reason to change it, it should not be changed. If it has never been stable, or unstable for a long time, and no consensus can be reached on what the title should be, default to the title used by the first major contributor after the article ceased to be a stub.

Past Discussions

There are currently 2,270 pages in Article Talk, 831 in Wikipedia, and 616 in WP:Talk namespaces (excluding redirects) containing the word "diacritic".  A brief sample of some of these ad nauseam discussions on diacritics, selected from the first 50 found in WP:Talk, include:

Page	Dates	Synopsis
Wikipedia talk:Usage of diacritics	Late June / Early Jul'08	"This is a failed proposal. Consensus in its favor was not established within a reasonable period of time. If you want to revive…"
Wikipedia talk:Use diacritics	Early Jun'08	"See also the current guideline Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English) and the prosed guideline Wikipedia:Naming conventions (standard letters with diacritics) which was {{rejected}} on 21 April 2007"
Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (standard letters with diacritics)	2 archives (in 3 parts) Feb-Jun'06, Mar-Dec'06, & 2007	Summary: "See also the current guideline Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English) and the proposed guideline Wikipedia talk:Use diacritics which was {{rejected}} on 18 June 2008"
Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (use English)/Diacritics RfC	Jul − Aug'11	"Please Note... this RFC has been closed with a "no consensus" decision. This means that any further discussions on changing the language of the guideline should now take place at the guideline talk page itself, and not here. Thanks. Blueboar (talk) 16:05, 6 August 2011 (UTC)"
Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (use English)/diacritics	Nov 2004	Didn't see any obvious summary Some 42,000 characters in ~46 comments.
Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (use English)	DIACRITIC RELATED DISCUSSIONS LISTED IN ARCHIVE INDEX Discussion Topic Replies (estimated) Archive # Are diacritics part of everyday English? 5 #4 Clueless on diacritics 7 #6 Diacritics and this policy 17 # 7 Diacritic marks in article titles 12 # 1 Diacritics, South Slavic languages 20 # 4 Diacritics January 2008 1 # 6 Fact: it is a common practice to use diacritics on Wikipedia 42 # 9 Fact: Using diacritics in article titles is contrary to the policy of WP:Article titles 22 # 9 Pointer to discussion about WP:DIACRITICS and MOS:FOREIGN 75 Main Talk Page Proposal and straw poll regarding place names with diacritical marks 146 # 3 The English alphabet includes diacritics 7 # 3 Use of diacritics in biographical article titles 490 # 8 Using diacritics (or national alphabet) in the name of the article From Village Pump # 4 Wikipedia:Usage of diacritics 15 # 7 With/without diacritics: how about "anything goes if you can prove you can clean up your own mess?" 5 # 2 WP:DIACRITICS 8 # 7
Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ice Hockey/Player pages format	Jan−Jun'06	Some 91,000 characters with ~124 postings in 8 successive sections (plus 4 or 5 or more sections, on the same page, about diacritics) — Never even came to any sort of vote although a proposal was made.
Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Finnish) Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Finnish)	Aug/Sep'06 Jan'07	This page is currently inactive and is retained for historical reference. 9 Sections/sub-sections, 48,000 characters in ~69 posts.
Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Swedish) Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Swedish)	Feb−Jul'06	This page is currently inactive and is retained for historical reference. 7 (sub)Sections, 43,000 characters in ~70 posts including more than half cut & pasted from a Village Pump conversation. — The debate has continued here Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Finnish). Masterhatch 16:57, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Hawaii-related articles#Proposal to avoid okina's and kahako's	Oct'07 − Apr'08	37,000 chars, ~48 posts — Although full consensus could not be reached on this proposal, of those commenting there was a clear majority of 11 opposed to 4 in favor. Furthermore, many of those opposed felt very strongly that diacritics should be retained, and all of those in favor have not been actively involved in editing Hawaiʻi-related articles other than to remove diacritics. Therefore, the debate is considered resolved in favor of placing okina and kahakō where appropriate for Hawaiian-language words and place names in the text of articles (diacritics in article titles is a somewhat separate issue; see section below). The discussion is archived below. KarlM (talk) 18:28, 1 May 2008 (UTC) Note: The article's title remains State of Hawaii (Mokuʻāina o Hawaiʻi); along with Oahu (Oʻahu), Kahoolawe, Kauai (Kauaʻi), Lanai (Lānaʻi), Maui, Molokai (Molokaʻi), Niihau (Niʻihau), in accordance with article naming policies).
Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Japan-related articles/More macrons discussion#Yet again on diacritics	Oct'06	87,000 characters, ~167 posts — This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. …

There is not now, nor does there ever appear to have been, consensus on changing the existing policies on the use of diacritics; there is, however, a policy on the use of diacritics; it basically boils down to this:

WP Policy regarding diacritics is to follow the majority of the (English) RS!

Can this stupid topic be dropped now?  (And can this page in particular be moved back to what undisputedly matches all the RS?)

I can't be bothered, but it'd be my pleasure to support (or provide input on a draft of) any proposal to ban (for a day or two (1^st offence), for purposefully disruptive behaviour) any editor who proposes another policy change on diacritics, who Moves a page, starts/opposes a Request Move, starts a debate about, or makes an RfC for anything to do with diacritics between now and 2014-01-01 on the basis of anything other than definitive RS.  Honest / noob mistakes aside, and given a crystal clear restatement of the follow RS rule, anyone that raises this crap again and waists thousands of hours of other editors time having to argue to follow the follow RS rule, shouldn't be editing here.

And please, if any relevant policies are missing from above add them if their indisputable, or list them in discussion above and if no one disagrees on your interpretation of the policy, then add them to what should be a complete list.  And if you can be bothered to search "Diacritic" and add a few more to the list of past discussions (preferably with a summary of outcome), please feel free.  Thanks — Who R you? Talk 13:45, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Until the pro-diacritics crowd stops pushing Non-English accents on English language Wikipedia, the discussions will likely never end. GoodDay (talk) 13:54, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Thus it might actually be necessary to see if there is consensus to start banning editors for violating WP:FORUMSHOP — "Raising the same issue repeatedly on different pages … or with different wording…" — Who R you? Talk 14:27, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

If the community chooses the gag route, so be it. GoodDay (talk) 14:31, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

There's gotta be a whole lot of people just as fed up with this; but whether a) anyone wants to spend the time proposing it, getting enough people to notice it, read and respond to all the postings, and b) people are willing to support what they want for fear that someone might give them a hard time for standing up for their own rights; those are the big unanswered questions.  But hell, anythings possible! — Who R you? Talk 15:01, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

To user:Who R you: It was good that you posted the above list of relevant policies. They clearly indicate to me that the proper way to close this RfC is to ensure that a good admin does so. As you know, RfCs are not nose-counts but are decided by the strength, weight, and consistency of the arguments.

Even if the balance of nose-count here was 2:1 in favor of expanding the English language with Cyrillic characters out of well-meaning motives of being inclusive, non-xenophobic, and leading the way to a New And Brighter Future Without Cultural Barriers Dividing Us From Love [yadda yadda], it seems clear that if this article was to adhere to the rules that apply elsewhere on Wikipedia, the guy’s name simply must be spelled like the rest of the English-language press spells it—not as Mark spells his name in the Czech Republic. It is not the proper role of mere wikipedians to debate such fundamental issues as what characters rightfully should be part of the English alphabet; that is beyond the purview of wikipedians.

A paradigm for how issues like this are settled can be found at Talk:Crepe, Move?. There, the issue was simply resolved by looking at best English-language practices as practiced by RSs.

Were I you, I would do my homework, approach a respected Wikipedia bureaucrat, and have said ‘crat assign a closing admin to this, who should be entrusted with carefully parsing the above arguments to see which side of the debate is best grounded in Wikipedia’s policies. I am actually shocked at how much an aberration this discussion is considering that it is a hockey-related article and the Hockey Hall of Fame and the NHL both spell his name using the English alphabet. The article’s current name is so wrong at so many levels.

And, for whatever it’s worth, I’ll bet you dollars to doughnuts that even Marek doesn’t write “Židlický” in hotel guest books while checking into hotels and motels in English-speaking countries. Why the hunch? Well, HERE is a Facebook page parroting Wikipedia’s article on him and it uses Wikipedia’s current title (“Marek Židlický”). However, HERE is his personal Facebook page (“Marek Zidlicky”). I would have thought Marek himself would be an RS in this regard. Greg L (talk) 16:24, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Same type of thing with Ana Ivanovic... personal webpage is diacritic free. There are many items decided here on wikipedia that go by direct sourcing rather than consensus... diacritics is not one of them. Fyunck(click) (talk) 21:32, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Apparently. It is also called “I wanted to Change the World©™® and you’re not letting me do thaaaat! It’s obvious why the title of this article has to change: because the proponents of keeping the current title have no leg to stand on. A majority vote! to break all rules is no consensus; it is just a local cabal that desires to break rules. All the RSs, the NHL, and Marek himself are consistent with the spelling. The odd duck out is Wikipedia. Greg L (talk) 21:46, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Getting these non-english accents off the ice hockey article titles won't be easy. GoodDay (talk) 22:10, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Hello. I received a message on my talk page asking me (a possibly respected crat, lol) to come along and close the discussion, but reading this section it seems you may actually want a crat to help you find an admin to make the close. Happy either way. Lmk. NB I'll be onwiki (on and off) for another 4 hours or so, and then offwiki until Monday morning UK time at the earliest, possibly Tuesday. --Dweller (talk) 10:24, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Hi Dweller; Thanks for looking in.  If the real world is going to pull you away and it's easier for you to assign an appropriate Admin, that would be great; alternatively, if you'd care to handle it yourself, either today or next week, that'd be wonderful (although I suspect an Admin might, at random, close the matter over the weekend without necessarily reading this section & being aware of your involvment).  In either case, your assistance is much appreciated and I'll leave it to your judgment as to the most appropriate course of action.  Cheers & have a great weekend. — Who R you? Talk 11:31, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

This page

I'm utterly flummoxed by the formatting the templates have created. Anyone bright enough to fix it for me will earn my gratitude. Apologies for the ham-fistedness. If you'd like some help fixing double redirects etc, I'll be back in a few days. --Dweller (talk) 14:33, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

(jumping in here to help)… No problem. Yeah, this version wasn’t working out. The </div><!-- Template:pollbottom --> needed to be moved to below my autosignature, is all. Greg L (talk) 17:49, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

No kidding. You know what all that was about? That table posted by Who Are You in his 22:06, Oct. 26 post didn’t have a |} at the end of it. (Phew). I think our div-templates could use a little bit more error handling capability. Greg L (talk) 01:18, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Addressing grief over the above closure

Prolog, I note your complaint (∆ edit, here ) on User talk:Dweller’s talk page; specifically your first sentence: This was, while done in good faith, an inappropriate way to close a hotly debated RM on an issue where the community has not formed a consensus.

(*sigh*) As an experienced admin, I’m surprised you would resort to such a familiar refrain: “There was no CONSENSUUUUS.” I lead the charge to turn around Wikipedia’s three-year-long practice of using language from the planet Vulcan in our computer articles (The Dell Dimension offered 256 MiB of RAM). Note that this wasn’t easy; WT:MOSNUM’s archives has 18 separate “Binary Prefix” archives on this one subject! And I was also part of the group that overturned Wikipedia’s practice of linking dates to articles that amounted to a Ripley’s Believe It Or Not list of trivia totally unrelated to the subject of the article.

Why did I write that above paragraph?

Because in both cases, the losing side complained that there was no consensus—just like you did on Dweller’s talk page. In all three cases (those two and this one), there was too a consensus; just not one to the losing side’s liking. Moreover, the debate over “mebibyte (MiB)” also entailed advocates who cited how it was future-talk that was more—as Sarah Palin might say—“all scientificy” and furture‑ific and Wikipedia should Lead By Example®™© and not succumb to what the rest of the planet does with their old-fashioned “megabytes.” It was another argument based on “what mere wikipedians think are the very-best, little-finger-out practices for the future” vs. “what do all the RSs do.” Now…

You seem to be a sufficiently experienced admin to recognize when one’s personal biases blind them to reality and you should have thought one additional day before lambasting a respected, totally uninvolved bureaucrat for closing this. Apparently the shortcoming you saw with Dweller closing the above RfC was that he had been solicited by a partisan, User:Who R you, whom you must feel wears one of those “evil Mr. Spock beards” and all that bad ‘cess somehow rubbed off on poor Dweller.

Dweller took the perfect approach when closing. He wrote …without prejudice on broader issues of policy regarding diacritics and foresaw the inevitable cornhole-fest that would descend upon him when he added …I have no doubt that I will be pilloried for this decision but it seems to me that while a straight vote count would show this to be a fairly balanced discussion, the policy-related arguments are for the rename. Did you note that business Dweller added about “vote count”??? It is a subject I touched upon above when I wrote as follows:

“ Even if the balance of nose-count here was 2:1 in favor of expanding the English language with Cyrillic characters out of well-meaning motives of being inclusive, non-xenophobic, and leading the way to a New And Brighter Future Without Cultural Barriers Dividing Us From Love [yadda yadda], it seems clear that if this article was to adhere to the rules that apply elsewhere on Wikipedia, the guy’s name simply must be spelled like the rest of the English-language press spells it—not as Mark spells his name in the Czech Republic. It is not the proper role of mere wikipedians to debate such fundamental issues as what characters rightfully should be part of the English alphabet; that is beyond the purview of wikipedians. ”

And as I also wrote above:

“ A majority vote! to break all rules is no consensus; it is just a local cabal that desires to break rules. ”

Each article is different. As you pointed out, Encyclopedia Britannica uses Czech diacritics when spelling the name of notable political figures in the Czech Republic. But as I pointed out, adopting diacritics into the English language is a complex business and even the EB doesn’t use Vietnamese diacritics. And as many people pointed out here, Marek Zidlicky’s name, being that he plays on the NHL, has had his name effectively Anglicized because the RSs—including the NHL themselves—spell it without diacritics. I’ve carefully deconstructed many of your arguments (such as how deadline-intensive publications don’t have time to properly use diacritics by pointing out that the NHL has no deadlines to speak of) but you seem utterly undeterred and apparently thought it exceedingly wise to pillory Dweller on his talk page, which only proved his premonition to be prescient, and—in my book—that being biased beyond all comprehension can make otherwise smart people make really *poor choices*.

I suggest you not harangue Dweller any more and give it up. Just accept that what was appropriate application of our policies for this particular article doesn’t broadly apply for every Czech on whom we have an article; each article has its own circumstances. Greg L (talk) 02:01, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Prolog's complaint about this closing has been the same distorted, misleading argument used to justify diacritics throughout this discussion; the claim is:

“ Regarding your closure, you cite COMMONNAME, like the supporters, but the move is not supported by this policy but by your interpretation of it; the stretching of this principle to always cover the most common spelling (includes diacritics, capitalization, hyphens/dashes...) of the common name is not supported by consensus and was in the slight minority in the recent RFC. You also did not respond to the 5P concerns (Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and incorporates elements of other reference works), the NOTBURO argument (actual practice on Czech people) or to the BLP point of getting the article right (well-sourced unencyclopedic material is rejected from BLPs all the time). ”

Firstly, this fabrication that "stretching of this principle to always cover the most common spelling (includes diacritics, capitalization, hyphens/dashes...) of the common name is not supported by consensus and was in the slight minority in the recent RFC." is typically spin-doctoring of reality.  The closure summary of the RFC, on a proposal to change policy and add diacritics even if RS didn't use them, was:

“ The heart of this RfC is a proposal to change the wording of the guideline at WP:DIACRITICS. There is no consensus to go forward with that change. There is general agreement that diacritics should be used for the name of a subject if the majority of English-language reliable sources use them, and there is agreement that if the commonly used name for the subject is an Anglicized version that everyone will recognize, it should be used. But these are items that already had consensus before the RfC started. On everything particular to the RfC, even the question of what the exact impact of the proposed wording would be, opinion appears to be split down the middle. --RL0919 (talk) 23:29, 3 August 2011 (UTC) ”

in other words, the result was the same as it's been in countless other attempts to change current policy by adding inappropriate diacritics — No consensus for change – Existing policy remains unchanged.  That previously existing policy still exists; it says:

“ when deciding between versions of a word which differ in the use or non-use of modified letters, follow the general usage in reliable sources that are written in the English language (including other encyclopedias and reference works). The policy on using common names and on foreign names does not prohibit the use of modified letters, if they are used in the common name as verified by reliable sources. ”

Perhaps Prolog & friends don't understand, or more likely they think that if they keep repeating the lie people won't recognize it as a lie, but the truth is there is no consensus to change existing policy; that doesn't mean that there is no policy, the policy did, does, and still will exist (unless and until the consensus is to change it) that RS determine spelling and that, again, English RS determine English spelling in the English Wikipedia.  The policy never was to use diacritics (except when it was evident from the RS that the English spelling of the name included diacritics); the failure of these numerous attempts to change this policy reflect the reality that the previous policy remains, and that policy was, and is, WP:Use English for article titles.

In foreign languages, such as Czech, Židlický means something different that Zidlicky as is pronounced differently, in English, that isn't the case.  We don't have the Ž or the ý in our alphabets, and while the arguments keep being brought up that we could use them if we wanted to, such as in words like naïve, the reality is that the word is spelled naive in English (See "naive". Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary. Merriam-Webster.), not that it didn't take us a few years to adapt it from its French root.  Similar concepts apply to names, if we're writing about someone or someplace in some far off foreign land, we will, if we're trying to be particularly accurate, such as when writing an encyclopedia, take the spelling of that foreign proper noun and use the foreign spelling in the foreign characters if those character are part of the base Latin character-set; but once something is in our culture, in our land, like a person who immigrates, lives, works, and gets paid in our land, we spell their name in English, and English does not now and never has used every variation and permutation of Latin characters.  In fact it's a fairly quick and easy way to know your not looking at English if its Śpęļŀëđ łĩķē ŧĥĭş.

By creating an article title Marek Židlický, Wikipedia is telling every natural English speaking user (particularly the kids who may often be the ones to most likely rely upon and trust what they see here), that writing the name as Marek Zidlicky is incorrect; but that's not even a little bit true.  If we were in Czechoslovakia, first of all we'd be in Československo, and at that point the name would be misspelled with a plain Z or y; but in English speaking countries, the RS unequivocally tell us that the correct English spelling is Zidlicky (as en.WP properly reflects); and, of course, cs:Marek Židlický is the title of the Czech article.

And as for Prolog's posting on the closer's page that:

“ …they are usually closed by the regulars who know this dispute inside out. So, why did you not leave the discussion to be closed by someone experienced in that area of the project… ”

it begins to become clear how so many article have been named to titles which are unsupported by English RS.  Perhaps part of the issue here is a lack of involvment by impartial Admins, in an area where the side primarily supporting the change to non-English titles appears, from Prolog's comments, to be heavily supported by a small group of WP:INVOLVED Admins bent on ignoring consensus, usurping the discussion and decision making processes, and implementing those changes that conform to their private POV.

If there's another opinion on the English spelling, where are the English RS? — Who R you? Talk 05:18, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Canvassing

Since canvassing was used in the vote above, and the canvasser also personally approached a person of their choice to close the RM - resulting in a fairly controversial decision - should the move be reconsidered? I wouldn't want anybody to get the impression that a small but noisy minority is colluding to game the system. bobrayner (talk) 16:33, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

I would reverse the move and reopen the discussion personally since it was a clearly controversial close and there was canvassing and a hand picked closer. (not that the closer was necessarily biased) -DJSasso (talk) 16:36, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Goodness, there have been plenty of times I've seen biased closers. This guy is a good guy who at least thought about things. Too often it gets closed becasue of a simple head count which is really wrong. Fyunck(click) (talk) 19:27, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

He was a user that has in the past supported the nominators position from what I can see in other edits. Doesn't mean he necessarily was biased in his closing, but a hand picked closer by someone who was canvassing is not a good way to go about things. The closer specifically asks the opposers to question his decision. So in light of this it should probably be reopened or started over with a new one whatever is deemed the best way to go about it. -DJSasso (talk) 19:30, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

The admin could have recused...he wasn't forced. You know how many times I've seen the diacritic discussions been placed in places like Swedish wiki project pages where everyone comes over suddenly and votes one particular way. Big canvassing. I've seen admins make decisions on this subject in favor of diacritics, only to see them voting the next go around in favor of the same thing. Obvious bias. But I didn't go back and argue that the page they ruled on should be put up to new poll. If you did that to every wiki article under the same circumstances it wouldn't surprise me to have 50% under scrutiny for bias. This one is done already and it's time to move on. Fyunck(click) (talk) 19:44, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

This was more the opportunity to give the closer the choice to make the call before taking it to review or to open a new one without him. It was simply a courtesy. As you said he could have recused, and he did not, thus the issue. -DJSasso (talk) 19:51, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

I see no real issue. I see someone unhappy that things didn't go their way so that he accuses an admin of bias towards a particular editor. Fyunck(click) (talk) 20:33, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Of course you think that....you were on the side who "got their way". Canvassing rules were broken here and it appears there could have been a bias. As such the proper thing is to reopen or redo. In no way should the canvasser have been hand picking the closer. That is a blatant bad move, if you are unable to see that then there are bigger issues here. -DJSasso (talk) 20:36, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Would it be worth the hassle? I don't know. GoodDay (talk) 20:44, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

In a result that was this close and most likely a no-consensus situation. Yes it would be. -DJSasso (talk) 20:46, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Requested move 2

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was moved. --BDD (talk) 19:59, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Marek Zidlicky → Marek Židlický – Two reasons: 1) the vast majority of Czech ice hockey players are at their diacriticized name variants, 2) it appears on the talkpage that the close of the previous move was not met with much enthusiasm. The discussion itself is why I post this RM instead of just boldly moving the page. I don't see why this particular player should be an exception. HandsomeFella (talk) 20:15, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

• Support - this was bad move, the closer apparently swayed by arguments misunderstanding a MOS/font issue as an exonym or stagename issue. We don't anglicize Dominican baseball players, why do it to a Czech hockey player? User:HandsomeFella are there any more like this? In ictu oculi (talk) 02:49, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

I don't know, I just came across this one by chance, I don't even remember how anymore. HandsomeFella (talk) 06:57, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. I can't really understand how/why this one was missed among the 130 or so at Talk:Dominik Halmoši. As far as I know the only pointedly ASCII-ed BLP on en.wp is the pretty blonde one. In ictu oculi (talk) 14:37, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

• Support There have been many discussions in the past and most of the policies quoted above as supporting the original move actually support the use of diacritics. Since that discussion, most if not all players there didn't conform to the normal use of diacritics have since been moved there though move discussions. So its about time this is put back where it belongs. -DJSasso (talk) 13:55, 7 February 2014 (UTC)
• Support per many previous discussions on the topic, and prevalent practice on EN WP. - Darwinek (talk) 13:08, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.