Talk:Marián Cisár

Spelling

Why is the spelling in this article contrary to all the cited sources? Why did User:LarRan improperly move the article here without any discussion, and without citing any sources whatsoever for his or her change?

One thing that is totally missing from this article is any citation to any credible source for the spelling currently used in it.

Even with some citation to a proper source, the whole purpose of the name parameter in {{tl:hockeydb}} is to cite the name as it appears in the source. That name is "Marian Cisar". I have no idea what LarRan refers to in this incomprehensible edit summary: "Claim to spell according to link purely anecdotal. Link does not reflect the heading in the link target." The page header at that link, like the page itself, spells his name Marian Cisar.

In other words, the spelling that was used in this article doesn't even reach the point of "purely anecdotal"--we are pointed to no anecdote whatsoever which would support it.

I'll change the spelling in the article back like it was for now. Gene Nygaard (talk) 21:30, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Why is the spelling contrary to "all the cited sources"? Sounds like there are a host of cited sources, all of which spelling Cisár's name without diacritics. In fact, there's only one source: the statistics at the internet hockey database. This is an English-language database, based (from what I can determine) in North America (a reasonable assumption, as the British are not that much into ice hockey). This source is probably an authority on statistics, but less so on spelling. English-language sources seem to take diacritics lightly, especially in NHL, where it's an explicit policy to ignore them. This does not mean that it's the correct spelling, but the policy is reflected in the guidelines for NHL-related pages, so that the spelling in these pages will ignore diacritics (or "hiding" them by piping the links like this: [[Marián Cisár|Marian Cisar]]).

For hockey pages unrelated to NHL, and player pages, however, the guidelines are that the spelling should reflect the correct spelling, including diacritics. So what is the correct spelling in this case? Well, we've got a clue: Cisár is a Slovak player, and there's a link to the Slovak wikipedia. There, his name is spelt with diacritics. One would assume that the Slovaks know what they're doing, just as I, as a Swede, know how Nicklas Lidström and Björn Borg spell their names. So one can assume on good grounds that "Marián Cisár" is the correct spelling, and this is why I moved the article to its current name. Unless you can provide reliable sources that explicitly declare that his name is spelt without diacritics, I suggest you don't remove them, as this is the wikipedia policy.

Regarding the hockeydb template, the whole purpose with the name parameter is not at all to reflect the spelling in the hockeydb database (which, as I mentioned above, is unreliable on non-English names). The purpose is rather to enable avoiding that the disambiguator part of the page name (if present) is displayed in the link. Instead of displaying "Jim Jones (ice hockey)'s career stats", the parameter enables displaying this: "Jim Jones's career stats", if the parameter name=Jim Jones is passed.

Cheers LarRan (talk) 09:12, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

I asked you to cite a source. You have not done so.

Wikipedia is most definitely not a reliable source under our rules. Otherwise, anyone could just go change the spelling in another article, on English Wikipedia or a different language Wikipedia, and bootstrap that into this article.

Nor do we have a rule about "correct" names. And even if we did, the only evidence of the correct name we have for this person is Marian Cisar.

Furthermore, stop this misspelled nonsense. There is absolutely nothing improper about using the German alphabet to when writing in the German language, nor to use the English alphabet when writing in the English language. This person has no notability whatsoever outside of his playing days in the United States and Germany, and the latter standing alone probably wouldn't meet notability rules.

So I ask again, why have you improperly moved this article to a name contrary to all the sources, without any discussion and with no references? Gene Nygaard (talk) 10:51, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

The question cannot be answered, as I properly moved it to its present name. Please don't tell me that you're entering on a crusade to rename pages like Nicklas Lidström, Björn Borg, Dominik Hašek, Markus Näslund, Annika Sörenstam, Jaromír Jágr, Börje Salming, Marián Hossa, etc, etc, or former Swedish prime minister Göran Persson, former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, former French president François Mitterrand, Nobel prize laureates Heinrich Böll and Wilhelm Röntgen, just to mention a few. Will you require proof of the spelling of each of these? Will you rename all Andrés and Renés? Be real. Do you have proof of how Tiger Woods spells his name? There are no diacritics in his name, but what's that got to do with anything? Or doesn't this rule of yours apply everywhere?

If you care to check these links, you'll find that they are stored at their correct name -- with redirects without the diacritics pointing to them. There's a reason for that; this is the proper way to name biography articles in wikipedia. And don't try to confuse matters with a notability discussion. If you want to contest the notability of this guy, fine with me, but it doesn't have anything to do with the spelling of his name.

Why I didn't start a discussion? I didn't think it was needed (and I still don't). You didn't start a discussion before your first edit, did you? Is a page move more dramatic than an edit?

I know that wikipedia is not a reliable source. Nor are North American-based ice hockey statistics databases, when it comes to the spelling of non-English players' names, given the fact that NHL and other North American hockey organizations (save possibly for Canadian ones) explicitly ignore diacritics. Having to choose from these, I must admit that I didn't hesitate for a second.

Let me ask you a question. Do you really -- I mean really -- think that this Slovak guy's name is spelt without the diacritics, and that the Slovak wikipedia is wrong? Or are you just pissed off for your edits being undone?

Cheers LarRan (talk) 20:22, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I do indeed mean that this Slovak's name is spelled without the diacritics, and quite properly so. It might also have been spelled with diacritics at times, at least in languages other than English, thanks for finding some of the things you should have found before moving the page. There are millions of people who have routinely spelled their own names differently in different languages, in addition to all those best known by a particular spelling in any particular languages own alphabet.

But lets deal with some of your irrelevant nonsense above. Do you think that Francois Mitterand lived and worked in Australia or something? We are dealing here with someone who has lived and in the United States and a bit in Germany, and that is not what has given him a modicum of notability which might support having a Wikipedia article on him, it is the sum total of what we know about him, period. We have nothing on his life outside of the United States and Germany (and very little of the latter). Yes, some of them you mentioned probably really are misnamed according to our general naming conventions. But there are distinctions there, too. You can find English-language sources using the "Dominik Hašek" spelling; there are none untainted by Wikipedia using the "Marián Cisár" spelling.

Those hockey databases are "reliable sources" in Wikipedia jargon; and no matter what the usage in the hockey databases, that can't be used in any way to assume that someone's name must be spelled differently from what it is there.

Even given that you have found Czech language sources using the "Marián Cisár", that still does not determine the proper spelling to be used in the English language Wikipedia article, nor the proper spelling to be used in the article's name in accordance with our naming conventions. All that means is that that spelling can be considered as a possibility, not that it is the one we should be using. Gene Nygaard (talk) 16:46, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

I notice that you are improvising your rationale as you go. Before I bothered to find the sources (which took only seconds), the purported lack of them was the issue. Now, people having lived part of their life in United States is suddenly a reason to misspell their names. That rule has escaped me.

An important part of the background to missing diacritics in non-English ice hockey players' names is NHL's explicit policy to ignore diacritics. The effects of this policy has spread to a lot of media actors, including ice hockey databases. It doesn't mean that they are right.

I can see several factors that have led you to believe what you (seem to) believe. First, the NHL policy. Second, the fact that ice hockey is played in North America, but not to a great extent in the rest of the English-speaking world. This makes the NHL policy dominant within the area of ice hockey, and not contradicted by British or Australian wikipedians. But here's news to you: wikipedia is not an NHL project. And this is not the United States wikipedia, it's the English language wikipedia. So the way NHL, or media influenced by NHL, spell players' names does not dictate the way wikipedia should spell them. On the other hand, wikipedia should reflect the reality. The compromise reached in wikipedia is that diacritics should not be visible on pages related to NHL (and several other North American hockey leagues), but on all other hockey pages, including player pages, the diacritics should be used.

The reason for people accepting the missing diacritics in their names, when in the English-speaking world, is obvious to most people. These letters are missing in the English alphabet, and thus people don't know how they are to be pronounced, and many will not be able to reproduce a name with diacritics in writing, as they would be preoccupied where they would put the ring, the dots, or whatever the diacritic was. So people with such names would be spending much time correcting other people's pronounciation and spelling of their names. It's not what either party wants to focus on. So it's just a matter of being practical, it's not a proof on how the name is spelt.

You admit that there are English language sources that spell Hašek's name with diacritics. But there are none that spell Cisár's name with diacritics. Don't you see the difference? Hašek is famous, and some in media have come to realize how his name is really spelt, and as courtesy, or out of respect, they use the diacritics. Cisár is much less famous (or "notable" in wiki-speak). The degree of fame/notability does not determine whether or not the diacritics should be used.

You're also distorting what I have written. Nowhere have I argued that "someone's name must be spelled differently from what it is there" (in the ice hockey database). That wouldn't make much sense for player names without diacritics now, would it? I take it as you're finding it hard to produce valid arguments, and a sign of desperation.

You're as wrong about this, as you are about the purpose of the name parameter in the hockeydb template.

LarRan (talk) 21:14, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Found these Czech language pages by searching google.cz. There are more.

• [1]
• [2]

Happy? LarRan (talk) 22:47, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

I would also like to know why you repeatedly refer to "all the sources", when there's only one? Who are you trying to fool? LarRan (talk) 09:53, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Under the diacritics compromise at Wikipedia: WikiProject Ice Hockey, the diacritics should remain at this article. As this is a non-North American player. GoodDay (talk) 21:58, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Being that his name is a proper noun it needs to keep the diacritics. You can't translate a name just by removing the diacritics although many people try to. And yes as GoodDay mentions the current consensus is that all player pages keep the diacritics. Don't worry LaRan you aren't the first person to argue this with Gene as I am pretty sure he has brought this up before. That being said the entire hockey project has unanimously agreed that player pages should keep them. The only debate was ever around whether team pages should use them, and at this time the consensus for that is that North-American related pages don't use them and International related pages do. -Djsasso (talk) 22:16, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't know that a Wikiproject consensus overrides general policies of Wikipedia in the first place.

But don't feed me any nonsense about "keeping" diacritics in any article where the spelling has been changed with no credible sources cited for the change. I will most certainly continue to correct them as I find them.

And no, being a proper noun does not in any way whatsoever mean that it "needs to keep the diacritics". It is never an error to use the English alphabet when writing in English. Furthermore, there are thousands and thousands of examples on Wikipedia to prove you wrong, including Munich and Romania for a few of the bigger ones.

Sure, there are still lots of Wikipedia editors who think that it is Wikipedia's role to tell the world that an eighty-year-long-American author like Arpad Elo was do damned stupid that he did not know how to spell his own name in the books and articles he wrote. So they tried to change it to a made-up-for-Wikipedia spelling, one which differed from the spelling of his name on the ship's manifest when he came to America as a young child. Gene Nygaard (talk) 22:06, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Actually Munich proves my point, Munich is a true translation where removing diacritics is not. Diacritics as has been argued numerous times are used in English, so when people argue that its never incorrect to use the English alphabet when writing in English are either misinformed are are ignorring the fact. Nevermind the fact that its not the English alphabet we use when writing English, its the Latin alphabet. -Djsasso (talk) 23:00, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Oh and for the record the parameter in the template is so that Joe Smith (ice hockey) shows up as Joe Smith. Not so that you can remove the diacritics. -Djsasso (talk) 22:22, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

It, and similar templates for IMDB, etc., are there so that the link can reflect what the database says. Gene Nygaard (talk) 22:05, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Except that's not why we at the hockey project added it. -Djsasso (talk) 22:18, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Gene, some of us sympathize. Heck, GoodDay and myself are firmly in the camp of those who strongly believe that diacritics do not belong on the English Wikipedia, anywhere, except where words are commonly rendered in English with them; we are, however, outvoted systemwide. That being the case, we have this consensus approach, hammered out after long, painful and often acrimonious discussion, and it should be respected until and unless the consensus changes.  RGTraynor  05:15, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

You still ought to be sticking up for the fact that nobody should be gratuitously making changes to a spelling different from that used in all the cited sources in the article, and especially that nobody should be moving pages on that basis. Gene Nygaard (talk) 22:05, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

All the sources only consist of one source, which in this case can not be consider reliable. I do understand your point, but use common sense in this case. —Krm500 ^{(Communicate!)} 23:43, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

(Pounting my hand, with a hammer). The article must stay as is, Gene. GoodDay (talk) 00:50, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Oh, for pity's sake. Gene, you're in the bloody top 100 of edit count on Wikipedia. You've been around for years. You are not ignorant of the role consensus plays on Wikipedia, nor of the policies and guidelines, nor of the pertinent civility rules. One, for instance, is that no one is gratuitously doing anything, and it's uncivil to suggest otherwise. Part and parcel of the WikiProject's consensus is the acceptance that the names of European players are properly - in Europe - rendered with diacriticals, and that their use is not inappropriate on the individual player pages. You have two choices here: work within the consensus or work to change the consensus. I am all for the latter, and completely against doing neither.  RGTraynor  06:39, 8 December 2008 (UTC)