Talk:Paekākāriki

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Melissa Nightingale (May 9, 2018). "Battle of the macrons for Wikipedia spelling of Paekākāriki". The New Zealand Herald. "A battle over the use of macrons on the Wikipedia page for a small town in Kāpiti is sparking hot debate online, even from people who don't live there.

Paekakariki or Paekākāriki - it's Paekākāriki right?

I got sick of searching google to find the correct spelling (with Macrons) - as you do - and then ending up at a macron free page on Wikipedia. So I thought maybe I'll just change it here. I haven't changed the name of any proper nouns (like the song title 'Paekakariki in the land of the Tiki') but I think its more correct this way. Right?

I'm not sure how (if) we can change the actual title for this page. How does one do that? Should we do that?

Utunga (talk) update i changed the title also —Preceding undated comment added 22:09, 6 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (New Zealand)#Place_names The article's name and title in the English-language Wikipedia page should be Paekakariki - without macrons. Paekākāriki should be noted separately as the Maori spelling. Please make this change.

I note also that a Google search for "Paekakariki" gives more than 282,000 hits, whereas "Paekākāriki" gives only 26,000 hits. Wikipedia should reflect actual usage, and should not be used to try to advance an agenda. Ross Finlayson (talk) 21:52, 29 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The New Zealand Gazetteer of Place Names lists the nearby hill as "Paekākāriki Hill", but the town is listed unofficially as "Paekakariki". To avoid restarting the Whanganui or Wanganui argument, we just stick with official spellings. Lcmortensen (mailbox) 00:20, 31 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I concur with User:Lcmortensen that should define New Zealand place names according to the New Zealand Gazetteer as well. Ajf773 (talk) 00:45, 31 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I've made the change now. Ross Finlayson (talk) 14:47, 23 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

There was quite a lot of discussion about this in Paekākāriki itself. The local community board and the school have been using the Macronized form Paekākāriki for some time now and general consensus of the local discussion (mostly on facebook but also in the street) was that it is better for Wikipedia to reflect this - primarily because the google info box that appears when you search for Paekakariki or Paekākāriki comes up with the name straight from Wikipedia.

talk Can you tell me where is the discussion around Wikipedia:Naming conventions (New Zealand)#Place_names because I feel that this is incorrect. Also that we should be able to name our own town on Wikipedia, surely. Utunga (talk) 04:31, 3 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I want to add some comments: 1. Paekākāriki is a Māori word. 2. The orthography of Māori has changed, and been standardised, so that long and short vowels are now distinguished by macrons 3. Given this change, it is now appropriate to represent all Māori words, including placenames, with macrons. 4. Official changes are sow, but Wikipedia is able to use current rather than out-dated orthography, so it should. 5. Not using macrons is not a neutral point of view, is it is making the argument that Paekākāriki is an English name, an argument that will be bizarre and offensive to many people. Ready.eddy (talk) 23:05, 4 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Eddy, note that there's an ongoing discussion about this on the "New Zealand Wikipedians' notice board" at "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:New_Zealand_Wikipedians%27_notice_board", so further comments should probably go there. But just a quick clarification: Yes, "Paekakariki" is a Maori name - but the issue under discussion is what the page (describing the town) should be titled on the *English-language* Wikipedia: "en.wikipedia.org". (Note, BTW, that there's also a Te Reo Wikipedia - "mi.wikipedia.org" - as well as Wikipedias for several other languages.) Ross Finlayson (talk) 23:25, 4 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Ross, for the record however, the argument that there is an English language name that is identical to the Māori name, but which uses a now outdated orthography, is not one that I accept. With major English language newspapers in New Zealand now using macrons, macronised Māori words have taken their place in common use New Zealand English contexts. The Māori words are loan words, and it is not uncommon in English to retain the orthography of loan words from other languages (café, etc.).

I have looked for discussion about this issue on the NZ wiki talk page, but I can't find a clear resolution. If you could point me at current discussion, that would be great (I found people making similar points to you, and making opposing points, but from around 10 years ago). Ready.eddy (talk) 01:56, 5 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

As I noted above, see the ongoing discussion on the "New Zealand Wikipedians' notice board", at the link that I posted above. Any additional comments should be made there, rather than here. Ross Finlayson (talk) 03:07, 5 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, yep, I see it, down the page ... Ready.eddy (talk) 03:28, 5 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]