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Requested move

[edit]
The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. 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 move request was: page moved (majority for "move"). Anthony Appleyard (talk) 08:57, 13 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]


Mate Pavic → Mate Pavić – There was no consensus regarding the use of diacritics, so this article should use the diacritics until a consensus is reached. Gabinho>:) 06:34, 5 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep at Mate Pavic - Common name English usage places his name at Mate Pavic with no diacritics, which is what we are supposed to use. The International Tennis Federation (ITF) and the Mens Tennis Association (ATP) official website bios place the name at Mate Pavic and he is notable for being a tennis player. Most searches place the name without diacritics also. Wiki rules say common English and that's where it is now at. Fyunck(click) (talk) 06:57, 5 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Move because this person's name is in fact Mate Pavić and not Mate Pavic. The lack of a diacritic in this case doesn't indicate an actual common English name, just a common lack of feature of English keyboards - it's still a foreign, non-English name. English readers were not harmed in any way when the article used the actual spelling (before Fyunck(click)'s move) - this is not a case of Đoković vs Djoković. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 19:34, 5 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    What an odd statement. So you are saying that people would be harmed with a move of Djokavic to Đoković? Fyunck(click) (talk) 20:46, 5 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    The main thing to realize is that, I'm not odd ;) rather, I'm sympathetic to your cause, but to a point. When an English(-only) reader encounters the letter "Đ", they clearly associate it with the letter "D", but that little line is a bit of a nuisance that hints that something is off. That's a useful bit of information - it indicates to the reader that this letter might not be the same as "D", which usually means it's not pronounced the same. That is a good thing - the reader has probably learned something from the get-go. They easily move on and concentrate on the actual content of the article - no harm is done whatsoever. Likewise, if we were to consistently use "Dj", that would have a similar effect, too. But, if there's a mix of Dj and Đ, plus the fact that there's a Cyrillic spelling in there too, then the level of nuisance to the reader is elevated to the point where they aren't necessarily sure what the right spelling is, or what that whole diversity is supposed to mean. This is a good thing as far as provoking curiosity, but a bad thing as we lose track of the original goal - getting people to read an article, rather than having to immediately ponder numerous intricate spelling issues. The latter is the main reason why I didn't particularly object to moving Novak Đoković to the ASCII spelling - it's hard to argue that it's just a simple diacritic. In case of Mate Pavić, it's a very easy and straightforward argument. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 09:27, 6 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

note - Well the admin that looks at this move proposal does not count polls, she/he looks for proof. This is a person notable for tennis, the major tennis organizations spell it without diacritics (ATP bio and ITF bio), US sports press and BBC sports spell it without diacritics bbc sports and sports illustrated, wimbledon spells it without diacrtics wimbledon. People at wikipedia say they want verifiable sources for things. Well I don't know what else we can do to show what is the common English spelling... it's overwhelming for this tennis player! Maybe for other types of bios it's closer in terms of commonality, but usually in tennis the facts of common English spelling in this English wikipedia is way in favor of non-diacritics. And in this case I don't even know why we are discussing it, it's so lopsided from English sources. Fyunck(click) (talk) 20:46, 5 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The problem is the simple fact that English-centric organizations don't care about having e.g. UTF-8 support - but then, they don't have to, really - they're our reliable source for the person's tennis record, they don't have to be our reliable source for the person's proper name. There is no hint of this person engaging in any sort of a procedure to change their last name when they started playing tennis internationally. No other sportsperson would do that either - their birth certificates and other documents by and large remain intact. If you look at Croatian websites, there's 32,800 hits for "Mate Pavić", which indicates clearly that sources which have support for this character do use it. Wikipedia supports it also, so it should use it as well. The incoming redirect from the diacriticless name stays, obviously. That is the case for all other .hr sportspeople (and other people) and Mate Pavić should not be an exception. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 09:27, 6 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. Subject is primarily known for activities as a Croatian. The diacritic does not hinder comprehension—it can be read through by the unknowing. —  AjaxSmack  07:03, 7 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    What does being Croation and not hindering have to do with common English? It's against common English policy here at wikipedia. If I spell "unknowing" with two W's as "unknowwing" it can be read through with comprehension also. That doesn't make it right. At least I supported my view with heavy facts instead of just opinion. Fyunck(click) (talk) 07:47, 7 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Try to assume good faith from other users. This discussion is not a personal attack on you. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 09:26, 7 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    And I did not take it as a personal attack at all. I simply wanted to point out that particular argument made no sense. I assumed he meant well. Fyunck(click) (talk) 17:41, 7 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    The subject does not appear to live in, play for, or act on behalf of an English-speaking country but rather Croatia. Therefore Wikipedia should not go around changing his name without a compelling affirmative reason. That other media outlets may as policy not use any diacritics (or may not have the technical capability to use them) is relevant, but Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and has neither these limitations nor the same mission. Finally, as I noted before, if someone stumbles on the Mate Pavić article, I doubt he will feel "Oh, wrong person because there's a mark on the c". That's what I meant when I said that the diacritic can be "read through". If one sees ć, one will still think c. (Unlike maybe Đ for Dj.) No confusion and more accuracy with the proposal here. —  AjaxSmack  16:31, 7 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note - This is one of several articles that Fyunck(click) recently moved and then tampered with the redirect to prevent non-admin reversion. Less than a month ago at AN/I, this behaviour was found to be a type of gaming of the system and another anti-diacritic editor got pagemove-banned. Prolog (talk) 16:01, 7 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Ugh, I didn't even notice that. Adding HTML comments to redirects immediately after moves is not a common practice and it not should be done, if only to avoid the implication of impropriety. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 16:24, 7 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      • This is not true. I had seen several articles where the same thing had been done. Maybe to counteract this particular bot RjwilmsiBot which makes it impossible to make moves soon after an article is created. Sorry if it was against some policy but then so would that bot be. Fyunck(click) (talk) 17:36, 7 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support for the usual reasons: Accuracy (the lack of diacritics in foreign names is considered a grammatical error or misspelling by several reliable sources), consistency (standard practice with personal names in this language), the recommendations of style guides such as The Chicago Manual of Style, the practice in other English-language encyclopedias such as Britannica, harmlessness (the diacriticless spelling is deducible from the proper name, but not vice versa), pronunciation guidance, informativeness (our primary purpose as an encyclopedia is to educate the readers by providing accurate, complete and trustworthy information) and respect (people usually want their name spelled right and knowingly misspelling a living person's name is both unencyclopedic and unethical). Prolog (talk) 16:01, 7 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    You seem to be talking generally here. We are supposed to be taking these articles case by case as far as common English. I haven't seen English non use of diacritics considered an error by wikipedia rules or outside for that matter. Can you list those sources and the wikipedia page that says it's an error? Chicago Manual of Style has it's own rules but is Mate Pavic listed in it? No. Is he listed in Encyclopedia Britannica? You'll need to source that if so. You say it is "standard practice with personal names in this language"... that is simply wrong, and you can't back that up with sources like I did. Being general, if you look at Ana Ivanovic she is listed on her own website as Ana Ivanovic... no diacritics. She popped up on a google search in Encyclopedia Britannica as Ana Ivanovic also Ivanovic on Britannica. So while EB may use diacritics they are not consistent. Also that is a secondary source instead of a primary source. Why is she listed under Ivanović here on wikipedia? Because there seems to be a lot of wikipedians using their own opinions, or foreign language experience instead of following the English rules we have here. Then there is a bot that goes around mucking up the redirect page which doesn't allow people to fix those errors. This was discussed in Tennis project archives where pretty much the only votes for diacritics was a banned user. How did this change? An influx of non-native English speakers or something? I've given the administration good official sources on Mate Pavic and haven't seen English sources to the contrary. Fyunck(click) (talk) 22:36, 7 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    The "English rules" you talk of here do not actually exist as such... The issue has been in flux since at least 2005 (see the relevant talk pages too) and the current state of affairs is an uneasy compromise that is in fact being discussed at those same talk pages right now. We as a community don't really agree on this part of that guideline, and it is not a policy, which would actually be a rule, as you say. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 07:54, 8 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Joy, This is true... it is the wikipedia guideline (I should have used that word), but it is there for all to see. I realize that not everyone agrees with its exact wording but it is there to tell us use common English not the foreign spelled version (unless that foreign spelled version is more common). It does not say use the person's name or use diacritics. I certainly don't know everything here but at least I cited multiple sources that have been used many times, and I talked of this guideline. You also cited the naming convention and though I have seen no other English sources other than mine, at least you cited something official from wikipedia. Prolog above, an administrator, cited his own words, from his own personal essay, from a subpage he created here on wikipedia. If I had done that on a talk page such as global warming it would have been removed on the spot as unhelpful. That essay is well written but absolutely against the guidelines we have at wikipedia today. He was saying things that are against present guidelines. I was really surprised to see that by an administrator. This is a newer player and I listed specific sources for this player. Other administrators have told me we need to handle these naming things case by case and that we should follow wiki guidelines, not the fictitious guidelines that we want. Ok that's fine. Here we have a specific player with multiple English sources. So when does common English win? Never? If we bring this up again for another new player is it an instant "never?" If so we need to have an administrative roundtable to tell editors what guidelines we should follow and which ones we can ignore because that is really not fair at all. Fyunck(click) (talk) 09:02, 8 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Written rules or interpretations thereof are almost never a good argument against established practice (WP:BURO). It seems I need to make a clarification: My arguments, encompassing everything from consistency and following the most reliable and relevant sources to the five pillars and the BLP principle of getting the article right, are my reasons for supporting the move, and not the related essay itself. Regarding common English, should it really be used if it counters good English? As noted by Chicago, "while common usage can excuse many slipshod expressions, the standards of good usage make demands on writers and editors". Prolog (talk) 13:08, 8 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
You're not ignoring the "use English" guideline by using "Mate Pavić" - you're simply placing more weight on Wikipedia:Article titles (which is a policy, mind), which says that a name needs to be recognizable, natural, precise, concise and consistent. IMO - both versions discussed are as concise as possible, both are recognizable (although arguments could be made for each); because it's the canonical name, "Mate Pavić" satisfies the precision requirement better; because of the widespread lack of diacritic support, "Mate Pavic" satisfies the naturalness requirement better; because of widespread practice of using diacritics for Croatian people on en:, "Mate Pavić" also satisfies the consistency requirement better. So that's that.
I should also note that my reading of the text and spirit of the "use English" guideline is to actually use English where English is used in the real world - it supports Florence over Firenza and Vienna over Wien and that's perfectly logical because the former words are actually English in nature. It shouldn't be extended to support using words that aren't actually real English words nor use normal English pronunciation rules, but instead an automatically-generated product of ASCII - in effect, a technical glitch.
After all, when English speakers try to pronounce "Mate Pavic", and try to use English pronunciation rules, something like mayte pay'vick comes out and that is simply unlikely to get that person to respond :) Instead, the pronunciation necessarily shifts towards the original, foreign word - which is the whole point. The words "Mate Pavic" are not English just because we stripped a small diacritic off of it. Hence - why even bother. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 13:52, 8 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
By standard practice, I was referring to our de facto policy to spell the non-anglicized names of Croatian people in the correct orthographic form, as can be seen from this and numerous other categories. Your idea of extending common names to common spellings of people's names is, by all indications, a (significant) minority view in the community. As far as I know, it is not supported by any English style guide. Britannica does not have a biography on Ivanović. They do have one for Josip Jelačić and Ivan Meštrović. You are correct that they are not 100% consistent, but their "house style" is clear. Should we abandon encyclopedic practice because we are the first encyclopedia to write about Pavić? Here are a few sources that you queried about: Chicago says that "foreign words, phrases, or titles that occur in an English-language work must include any special characters that appear in the original language [...] The following special characters are needed for Bosnian and Croatian [...] Č č, Ć ć, Đ đ, Š š, Ž ž". The Journal of Paleontology style guide is even more explicit: "Common errors of grammar are: comma splices, mixing tenses, using “however” as a conjunction, confusing “its” and “it’s,“ confusing “that” and “which,” and not putting in diacritical marks in foreign words or names".[1] Prolog (talk) 13:08, 8 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the sources for paleotology and CMoS. They are not Mate Pavic sources like mine but they at least source your opinion. I do not believe your sentence of "a (significant) minority view in the community." I believe we have squeaky wheel syndrome and people are now simply throwing up their hands and following or leaving wikipedia. There are thousands of editors and if you take a hand count of everyone on whether an article name should be named without diacritics with the diacritic name in parenths, or with an article where diacritics are used throughout, it would be different. If you take editors whose first language is English it would be a vast majority in the other direction. And remember the inherent bias in page moving here now. If a page starts in diacritics it can't be moved (because of bot restrictions) except by an admin. There's a poll which is no consensus so it stays. A page starts with no diacritics and it can be moved by anyone... someone notices a month after the change...another poll and it stays at the moved diacritic page. That has now eventually piled up the diacritic pages. A few weeks ago, the last attempted policy rewrite to force diacritics wound up as no consensus. Granted it was poorly written, sneaky in what it was trying to slip in, and biased in its presentation... but it failed to happen. That vast majority didn't show up so I'm not alone here. When this was discussed at Tennis Project except for one or two banned editors it was supposed to be common English. Somehow that got swept away. Fyunck(click) (talk) 19:02, 8 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I haven't followed WT:TENNIS but there was a huge RM three years ago about diacritics in tennis biographies (see Wikipedia:Requested moves/Tennis). It came to a consensus against the dropping of the marks. It is true that it was never decided project-wise that diacritics should usually be retained in cases like these. Like the way interwiki links are now sorted, as I opined previously, the situation just evolved to the current state. Of course, you are correct that native speakers of other Latin-based languages have played their part in it. However, it is interesting to note that the controversy about diacritics in the names of living people seems to be quite limited to sports biographies (mainly tennis and ice hockey). Prolog (talk) 21:12, 8 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I remember that RM. It was called to directly circumvent a previous policy discussion and decision by the Tennis project. That editor was also universally disliked and many were voting against him personally. Pretty much no Tennis people voted in protest. We had come to a conclusion, one of us implemented it and the foreign wiki community had a heart attack. I don't know why it is mostly limited to sports articles except that they are very intermingled nationality-wise. Maybe native English speakers don't really care about a concert pianist or Nobel prize winning scientist, but we do care about our sports. Fyunck(click) (talk) 22:18, 8 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. 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.
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