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Use of tourist guidebooks as sources for naming RS?

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There may be (I'm not sure that there is) a problem with over-emphasis of tourist sources in showing that the name in English is Hlavni Nadrazi. Such sources inevitably must give the Czech name for disambiguation to avoid people going to the other station, Praha-Holešovice railway station, and I know from personal experience that the metro doesn't (didn't) have English on the metro Hlavni Nadrazi name. Yet the other approach per Frommer's Prague & the Best of the Czech Republic Hana Mastrini - 2006 "There are four express trains from Prague's main station for 224Kc ($9.30) (trip time: 2 hr... " is simply "main station" no caps. In ictu oculi (talk) 02:32, 27 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Naming conventions (geographic names) says not to use guidebooks to establish an English-language name since they may be attesting to local signage. Foreign-language names need to be translated, according to WP:UE. Kauffner (talk) 03:05, 27 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Having recently spent an extended period of time in Prague as a native English speaker, and passing through the station myself, I can confirm that the OVERWHELMING majority of English language sources refer to the train station with the present name. As such, I'd recommend keeping it as is. Zaldax (talk) 18:45, 26 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Requested Move:Praha hlavní nádraží → Prague main railway station

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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: not moved. Consensus is against moving to "Prague main railway station", or similar. "Praha Hlavní railway station" was supported by a few people, but I'm not seeing enough support to call it a consensus. No prejudice against a new nomination with "Praha Hlavní railway station" as the proposed title. Jenks24 (talk) 04:54, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Praha hlavní nádraží → Prague main railway station – This is a proposal to move a title from a non-English form few readers will understand to a straightforward translation, per WP:UE. None of the words in the existing title can be found in Merriam Webster, American Heritage, Oxford Dictionaries, or even on WordNet 3, which boasts the “largest English dictionary and thesaurus”. So we must conclude that they are not part of standard English vocabulary. This Czech-English dictionary defines hlavní nádraží as “main station.” Radio Prague refers to this station as "Prague's main train station,"[1] "Prague's main railway station,"[2] or "Prague's main station."[3] So the proposed form modestly adjusts the official usage to conform to Wikistyle. Now that Germany's "Hauptbahnhofs" have been moved to "central stations," I think this is worth trying again. C.f. Berlin Central Station. Kauffner (talk) 15:15, 12 June 2012 (UTC) Addendum: The proposed form gets 48 post-1990 English language GBook hits. Kauffner (talk) 02:20, 13 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Guidelines

  • “If there is no established English-language treatment for a name, translate it if this can be done without loss of accuracy and with greater understanding for the English-speaking reader.” (WP:UE).
  • "When a guidebook or roadmap written in English shows an autobahn between München and Nürnberg, it is attesting to local usage, because that is what the signs on the autobahn will say;" (WP:NCGN) Kauffner (talk) 15:15, 12 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Survey

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Oppose this, but I would support a move to Praha Hlavní railway station (which I can tell you is used by the Thomas Cook railway timetable). The name of a railway station should be treated as a proper noun, and the nomination yet again fails to identify the difference between "Prague Main railway station" and "Prague's main railway station". Birmingham New Street station would be correctly described as "Birmingham's main railway station" and surely is by sources. I see no real reason why this should be moved, but not Hlavní nádraží (Prague Metro) to "Main Station (Prague Metro)" - which really would just be stupid (although I wouldn't be against merging the metro articles to the station articles, which seems pretty conventional).

As for Czech stations, I'm apparently the only person actually doing any work in this area, but why not agree on a naming convention - I've been using titles like Praha-Smíchov railway station, Praha-Holešovice railway station - those who've worked in this area before me have been using Strašnická, Můstek and Muzeum, not Strašnice street, Bridge (Prague Metro) or Museum (Prague Metro). My proposed convention would therefore be to translate "nádraží" or "stanice metra", but not what precedes it, because then we'd just be making stuff up. There is English signage all over Praha hl.n., but not one mention of "Prague Main railway station". I think the sentence from WP:NCGN is being taken too far here - the fact is few people will know the name of a station without having travelled there or seen it on a map, whereas it's more common knowledge to know München as Munich (does anyone else find it ironic that this guideline uses the word "autobahn"?)

Finally, Brno hlavní nádraží, Pardubice hlavní nádraží and Bratislava hlavná stanica should probably be nominated here for discussion as well. And FWIW, I strongly disagree with this Cologne Central Station stuff, I see no one has moved anything to Cologne Deutz Fair railway station yet... way to make Wikipedia station articles woefully inconsistent.

TL;DR: It would be more productive to come up with naming conventions than randomly RM single articles. - filelakeshoe 15:54, 12 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Strongly oppose on the grounds of WP:Commonname and WP:Reliable, but would support Praha Hlavní railway station. WP:UE says "follow English-language usage", not "invent new and potentially ambiguous or even misleading translations if English sources in the real world outside Wikipedia use the local name". It has been pretty comprehensively found that English-language reliable sources use the Czech name when naming (rather than attempting to describe) this station in English. Even if we ignore official sources such as

and ignore specialist sources such as

and ignore travel sources such as:

there are still sources like

  • Radio Prague: "Praha Hlavní nádraží" [10]
  • Living in freedom: the exhilaration and anguish of Prague's second spring by Mark Sommer (1992, p31): "Praha Hlavni nadrazi"

WP:TITLE says "Titles are names or descriptions of the topic that are recognizable to someone familiar with (though not necessarily expert in) the topic." Obviously the real name comes under that heading; while someone "familiar with" the subject might be able to guess which station Wikipedia had deemed to be "main", "central" would be very problematic. Naturalness, Precision, Conciseness: again, the real name surely fits. Consistency: inventing new names for stations is going to cause huge problems - would Pennsylvania Station (New York City) become New York Main railway station or Gare du Palais become Quebec Central?

The (unreferenced) Central station article looks like wishful thinking rather than a reflection of European reality. If Wikipedia can cope without creating new English names for the Arc de Triomphe, Sagrada Família or Reichstag (building), a station which is known by its local name shouldn't be problem. Plenty of us have even managed to use the place with no knowledge of Czech beyond ordering a beer. Wheeltapper (talk) 22:55, 12 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Question - After reviewing the last attempt to move Talk:Praha hlavní nádraží/Archive 1, and seeing that Google Books ["Prague Main railway station" -"Prague's main railway station"] gets zero hits with that capitalisation I'd like to ask how capital "M" was arrived at for this proposal? In ictu oculi (talk) 23:51, 12 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. I can't imagine why Kauffner would go looking for place-names in dictionaries - a search guaranteed to yield the fewest results! I just went to RGI (since they're anglophone and they know about railways), searched for articles on Prague, and got results like this and this and this and this and this. I'd be happy with Praha Hlavní railway station though, as that strikes a reasonable balance between clarity, accuracy, and usage by sources. bobrayner (talk) 01:02, 13 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Railway station names are not forcibly translated even if the place itself has an English name. Praha Hlavní railway station on the other hand would follow sources and consistancy.Agathoclea (talk) 06:36, 13 June 2012 (UTC)stricken part due to later comments Agathoclea (talk) 13:10, 19 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    To further comment on the "confussing" issue. Mikhail is translated into English as Michael and that is where it redirects to. Nevertheless when used as part of a personal name we don't. But again we might translate his title ie President Mikhail Gorbachev. Agathoclea (talk) 11:01, 13 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong oppose per Wheeltapper. I travelled many European countries and never heard of any other name for the station than the current one. - Darwinek (talk) 18:52, 13 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • On the train schedules, this station is "Praha hl.n." [12] So the railway people don't expect non-Czechs to be able to handle three Czech words in a row. Kauffner (talk) 02:03, 14 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • Kauffner, I don't know about others but I'm beginning to get a bit tired with some of the arguments you will use in RMs to anglicize things - even when in this case there'd be support for an English common name if we could find one. This argument "So the railway people don't expect non-Czechs to be able to handle three Czech words in a row" ranks with "or 北京站" above; "the railway people" are who? http://czech-transport.com will be some ticket agent with a PC and his girl assistant in a box room somewhere in Prague. And "don't expect non-Czechs to be able to handle three Czech words in a row."? Are we mind readers? Common sense might suggest the exact opposite - clearly to this irrelevant website "Praha hl.n." is something they assume everyone will know. Please come up with some meaningful use in reliable printed sources for an English name (your 48 results are for apostrophe-s 's not for what you've proposed), though too late am now registering an Oppose below. In ictu oculi (talk) 02:37, 14 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • hl.n is simply an abbreviation for the full name, which is used for the usual reasons that people abbreviate things. I don't think the reason that "King's X" or "Charing X" are sometimes used in the UK is because of concerns that people who don't speak English will struggle with the word "Cross". Wheeltapper (talk) 07:03, 14 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • yeah, that's not at all the case. Ústí nad Labem hlavní nádraží appears on tickets as "Ústí n.L. hl.n." which looks like more of a horrible mess; hl.n., like Hbf is a good abbreviation. "Central" is also often abbreviated "ctl" in England. - filelakeshoe 09:45, 14 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. It's a proper noun, a name, and as such does not need to be translated. Translating part of it as suggested above (e.g. Praha Hlavní railway station) is a mess, as Praha is not English, Hlavní is neither English not Czech (would be lower case hlavní). Train timetables and so on use the name which is displayed at the station - the real name, being Praha hlavní nádraží (the current title). For me, common sense dictates that this is how we should name the page here at English Wikipedia. Anything else (Prague hlavní station, Prague Holešovice station, Prague Libeň station) would just be a pick-and-mix. Cloudz679 07:03, 17 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    If a name is non-English, WP:UE requires that it be translated. "Foo Railway Station" is Wikistyle for a station without an English-language name. We have Saigon Railway Station, Vienna Central Station, Warsaw Central railway station, and many others. Kauffner (talk) 10:53, 17 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
But WP:UE does NOT require translation. It says - and this a direct quote - "follow English-language usage". It does not say "create a new translation if English-language usage in the real world outside Wikipedia is to use a name imported from the local language".
There are lots of examples of Wikipedia using the names which are used by English-speakers, rather than inventing new English translations; Arc de Triomphe (not "triumphal arch"), Reichstag (building) (not "imperial parliament"), Moscow Kremlin (not "Moscow castle"), Union Station (Los Angeles) (not "The Angels Central station"), Köln Messe/Deutz station (not "Cologne Exhibition Grounds/Deutz"), Roma Termini railway station (not Rome Spa railway station), Gare d'Austerlitz (not theParisCentralStationNamedAfterABattleAtSlavkovUBrna).
I believe the station in Ho Chi Minh City is actually called Saigon locally, for legacy historical reasons and because of its location within the modern city (will Wikipedia be renaming it HCM City Central station?). Vienna doesn't really have a central station, any more than London or Paris do; the nearest is perhaps Wien Mitte railway station. There seems to be a strange belief that every city has to have a "Central station", which is bizarre. Wheeltapper (talk) 12:48, 17 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
If would be nice if you could read the nomination before using it as a basis to make sundry accusations against me. No, I was not referring section of UE that deals with spelling, but rather to the portion a little further down that deals directly with the translation issue. Let me quote it again, since once is never enough: If there is no established English-language treatment for a name, translate it if this can be done without loss of accuracy and with greater understanding for the English-speaking reader. As far as "Reichstag" goes, of course it is an English-language word. See here. The station in Saigon is ga Sài Gòn in Vietnamese. So "Saigon Railway Station" is a direct translation of the local name, the same idea as what I am proposing here. Kauffner (talk) 14:02, 17 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I have read the nomination a number of times, and I haven't made any accusations against anyone. I have also read the guidelines which the nomination would appear to misinterpret.
If there is no established English-language treatment for a name: WP:RS show that the established English usage is the same as the local name (as with the Reichstag etc). Objections to this appear to based on dismissing any source which might reasonably be expected to mention a railway station; in which case we can fall back on WP:ENGLISH: It can happen that an otherwise notable topic has not yet received much attention in the English-speaking world, so that there are too few English sources to constitute an established usage. Very low Google counts can but need not be indicative of this. If this happens, follow the conventions of the language in which this entity is most often talked about (German for German politicians, Turkish for Turkish rivers, Portguese for Brazilian towns etc.) - which would surely suggest Czech for a Czech station.
translate it if this can be done without loss of accuracy and with greater understanding for the English-speaking reader. It can't. If a name exists nowhere but Wikipedia, it doesn't help anyone.
Saigon is not a translation of the name of the city; its Wikipedia entry suggest that would perhaps be something to do with trees. And if Reichtag is English, so is, say, honi soit qui mal y pense.[13] Wheeltapper (talk) 14:40, 17 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Did you think I can't tell whether you've read my nomination or not? As for German politicians, nobody translates their names. The quoted sentence is copied from WP:UE, where it is clear from the context that it refers to "anglicized and local spellings", i.e. the use of diacritics. What point you are making with respect to Saigon eludes me. Isn't Sài Gòn/Saigon equivalent to Warszawa/Warsaw or Praha/Prague? Kauffner (talk) 00:39, 18 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
In British English, "[It] would be nice if you could read..." sounds rather like a suggestion that someone hasn't already read it. Apologies if that is not what you meant. WP:UE says "In deciding whether and how to translate [note: no mention of diacritics] a foreign name into English, follow English-language usage" - which in this case is clearly to use the real name and not translate. If we invent new station names, how will we deal with Whittlesea railway station?Wheeltapper (talk) 07:21, 18 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
We are not debating that the name of the city is Prague in English, we're debating that the name of the station is not "Prague main" but Praha hlavní, just like the name of Köln Messe-Deutz railway station is exactly that, and not "Cologne Messe-Deutz" or "Cologne Deutz Fair" or any other bastardisation, I notice you've been unilaterally moving central stations but not any other - Warszawa Praga railway station remains exactly there, not at Warsaw Prague railway station, why is this? - filelakeshoe 09:51, 18 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Minor sidenote - I'm a little bit confused by the comment "for German politicians, nobody translates their names." since at Talk:Nico Hülkenberg Kauffner you did actually argue for a German racing driver's name being stripped of accents since he appeared in English sports sources. Are we to understand that if the racing driver later entered politics his umlaut would be restored? Likewise at ongoing Talk:Marek Hrivik you've just argued for giving (anglicised?) tabloid MOS names to 12 Czech and Slovak BLPs. Is the difference that they are not German, or not politicians? In ictu oculi (talk) 10:18, 18 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Strictly speaking, wouldn't Warszawa Praga railway station have to be something like "Warsaw Forest Clearing railway station" if we insisted on translation? I think the similarity to the name of the Czech city is coincidental(?). Wheeltapper (talk) 11:21, 18 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
After reading Cloud and Kusma's comments not so sure that Praha hlavní nádraží (Prague main railway station) wouldn't be the best title... In ictu oculi (talk) 09:55, 19 June 2012 (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.

IP set up of MiszaBot Talk/RM Archiving prior to RM

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Yesterday I became aware of possibly problematic set ups of archiving and/or resets of archiving by an IP in Ho Chi Minh City pushing previous contrary or failed RMs back beyond the visibility line with the result, intended or not, that a new RM was started without the results of the old one being visible. Examples like Ho Chi Minh City IP 21 June adding archiving to Talk:Black Caviar and others

It looks like the IP may have attempted to influence this RM as well:

The history

27 June 2011 – User:Kauffner RM No.1 (failed)
06:28, 1 June 2012 - Ho Chi Minh IP edits Talk:Praha hlavní nádraží ‎"(add autoarchiving)" not sure if the edit summary is left by IP or whether there was no summary and "(add autoarchiving)" is added by wp.
16:14, 2 June 2012 - archive bot kicks in, old failed 27 June RM is no longer visible.
18:39, 2 June 2012 IP (|minthreadsleft = 3) again not sure if the edit summary is provided by IP or added automatically
15:23, 12 June 2012 Kauffner (→‎Requested Move:Praha hlavní nádraží → Prague Main railway station: new not marked “Requested Move 2” as recommended by WP:RM
RM2 fails again, closed by as no consensus by Jenks24

Only incidentally - since the Praha hlavní nádraží IP only edited one other article - the same Ho Chi Minh City IP also added autoarchiving to a Vietnamese town Talk:Cà Mau on 1,2 June 2012, which had been subject of a previous (failed) RM, Miszabot kicked in and archived evidence of the RM on 4 June 2012, and the town was then moved by User:Kauffner on 21 June, and then redirect edited 28 June, thereby, intentionally or not, giving the redirect history and preventing other editors reverting the move counter archived RM.

Note that I am not making any allegations against anyone, or saying that setting up archiving bots is wrong, and I left a note on any relevant User's talk page about this yesterday. This is here since this is where the archiving happened and there was actually no move, so a move review is not needed. In ictu oculi (talk) 04:00, 23 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Czech vs. English name on English WP

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I happened across this article due to a reference by a Czech friend. While I have nothing but positive wishes for the Czechs and the Czech Republic, the use of Praha hlavní nádraží as the title of the English-language article about this generically named public facility does not serve readers of English Wiki, the vast majority of whom will find it unintelligible. Sca (talk) 14:59, 10 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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