Talk:Agustín Stahl/Archive 1

Thank you for the temporary protection of the original title in the article, Agustin Stahl. When I first wrote the article, I left the title without accents. I did this because I wrote it in the English version of Wikipedia with the english people speaking people, in mind. I realized that there are many people who do not understand the usage of accents and therefore may have difficulty in accessing one of my articles (I have written over 70 mini-bios already). Since Wikipedia is a free encyclopedia and its articles are also in other web sites, such as Nationmaster, I wanted the articles to be very acessable. Mind you that I don't mind having the accents within the article itself, only in the title. I know that Wikipedia permits accents but, I think that Wikipedia doesn't say that you "MUST" have accents. My intentions are that English speaking persons, including the Latinos raised in English speaking countries and who do not understand the usage of accents, will be able to enjoy and appreciate my work. It is much easier to write Jose without the accent than with an accent and therefore more accessable. If the bylaws of Wikipedia state that it is a "MUST" that the titles contain an accent, then I personally will make the changes. Thank you for reading. User:Marine 69-71

Other forks are none of our concern. If they can't cope with special characters, it's not our problem. RickK 23:38, Aug 18, 2004 (UTC)

Agree. We have no obligation to Nationmaster or other downstream users in this regard. --Michael Snow 20:51, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Presumably the only way we're going to get these articles unprotected is by resolving this issue of diacriticals in titles. I'm surprised to discover that preferring Agustín Stahl over Agustin Stahl does not appear to be enshrined in policy anywhere (or at least I couldn't find it). It's standard practice, no question about that, but it appears not to be policy. Where should we take the discussion to clear this up once and for all? –Hajor 01:56, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I think it's not policy because there are plenty of situations where a name is quite well known in English without diacritics even though such marks would be present in the original language. For an example, consider the many baseball players from Latin America who play (or have played) professional baseball in the US major leagues. Take Joaquín Andújar and César Gerónimo, two cases I picked at random; here the titling was done differently, even though logically they should be treated the same, regardless of what our policy turns out to be. --Michael Snow 20:51, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I beleive that it would be nice to share our articles with other forks and until a policy is drawn up by Wikipedia about the accents in the titles, the originator should have the option of the deciding if he or she wants a title with an accent. We must have rules to avoid all the reverting, at least in the titles. User Marine:69-71

The originator does not own the article and does not get to make the final decision. --Michael Snow 20:51, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Personally, I think Wikipedia should have a flexible policy on this, similar to British vs. American English. If the name is more likely to be written in English with diacritics, then definitely title the article that way, but if the name is commonly seen in English without diacritics, titling without might be preferable (e.g. Slobodan Milosevic). But acting like either one is a wrong answer is counterproductive pedantry. For the particular case of Mr. Stahl, I don't think he's very well known in English at all, so I would choose the title with accents. In either case, properly creating redirects is more important than bickering over accent marks in titles. --Michael Snow 20:51, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Slobodan Milosevic has to be titled that way because the correct characters cannot be used in titles for technical reasons. Within the article, however, he is spelled Milošević, which is indeed the only correct spelling, no matter how many people omit the diacritics, either for technical reasons or out of ignorance. Likewise, Agustín Stahl is correct, while Agustin is wrong and can only be justified in a context where no diacritics at all are used. According to your "in English" argument we would indeed have to scrap almost all diacritics, as most people writing in English omit them all. But that would be highly unprofessional; I can't imagine the Britannica omitting diacritics or using them in a random fashion. The BE/AE inconsistency is also regrettable, but probably unavoidable, as the split in preferences goes through the middle and, if we were to settle on one version, many would not conform to it and there would be too much of a need for constant "corrections". However, it is not too hard to add the diacritics where people merely neglect to use them; we just have to deal with the rare crank editor who insists on not having them and actually removes the diacritics added by others. Gzornenplatz 21:26, Aug 19, 2004 (UTC)

Sorry, I should have picked a better example, like Antonin Dvorak, where at least most of the special characters can be used. Anyway, consider a situation like the baseball players mentioned above, who are just about universally referred to in English without accents. Case in point: Tony Perez. And if you want to use the professional competition as a guidepost, we get nowhere on this one - Encarta has Perez, even though it uses diacritics pretty regularly, whereas Britannica has Pérez. I'm not saying the article shouldn't mention how the name is accented in Spanish, but because this is English and not Spanish, use of diacritics is a choice that can go either way. I'm saying this is a judgment that may vary according to the situation, and there's no automatic reason to pick the editors who insist on diacritics over the editors who insist on not having diacritics, no matter how cranky either of them are. --Michael Snow 22:16, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

In cases like Antonin Dvorak, it can at least be argued that if not all special characters can be used in the title, it is better to use none. Tony Perez is also a borderline case; Hispanics in the (mainland) U.S. generally don't use accents on their names. None of this applies to Agustín Stahl though, and whether this is the English or Spanish Wikipedia should not make any difference to the spelling of people's names. As long as we use diacritics in general, we should use them correctly. And I maintain that insisting on correct spelling is less cranky than insisting on incorrect spelling. Gzornenplatz 22:40, Aug 19, 2004 (UTC)

This dicussion page should be treated with respect for all those involved. Gzornenplatz has been disrespectful in calling another user "a rare crank editor". That is totally uncalled for. He should apologize, because name calling is not part of this subject and he may have offended somebody. Let us continue as the civilized people we are for the good of Wikipedia. User:Marine 69-71

I was speaking in general, about a kind of behaviour, not any particular person. Gzornenplatz 22:40, Aug 19, 2004 (UTC)

I feel that the correct spelling should be used if possible, but make a redirect at the spelling without special characters. --Sgeo | Talk 23:23, Sep 10, 2004 (UTC)

Proposed policy

Marine 69-71 wrote the following, copied from my talk page:

I just want t know when is it proper to use accents on titles, that's all. I do have an idea thuogh. If a person is born in a country where accents are used, then the title should carry the accent. Just an idea.

Like all of us, I think he's looking for a simple guideline that people can easily understand. This seems like a reasonable way to do it in general. Though I would clarify that country will not always be the right unit to consider (Quebec and Puerto Rico, for example). If people are okay with this, maybe we can write it down as policy in an appropriate place. --Michael Snow 23:29, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Slavic diacrits are different, and more difficult, from a technical POV, at least until we move over to UTF-8. Not so the accents used in Western European languages: they're all in the default character set we currently use. I firmly believe we should use those (for names in French, Spanish, German, Portuguese, etc.) whenever they're necessary, whenever they appear on the native form: Dammit, Jim, we're an encyclopaedia, not a news-wire. There's no question that François Mitterrand belongs at that title, and Benito Juarez without his accent is either insensitive or ignorant. The problem arises, particularly, with Hispanic names that have gone over into Anglo culture: Jennifer Lopez is the prime example of that, followed by all the Dominicans and Venezuelans in MLB. So, let country of origin be the general guide, but for the doubtful cases -- Hispanics and Germans and Brazilians and Francophones who've drifted into English-speaking milieus -- let customary use or stated individual preference be the clincher. I don't know enough about baseball or his personal history to make a decision on Ruben Gomez, but I have to confess that whenever I've seen 19th-century Venezuelan writers and Bolivian politicians (and Puerto Rican national heroes, as Marine 69-71 knows only too well from experience) under un-accented article titles, I've religiously taken in upon myself to move them. –Hajor 02:30, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Marine 69-71 also commented at the top of this page, "I realized that there are many people who do not understand the usage of accents and therefore may have difficulty in accessing one of my articles". This shows admirable concern but is really a non-issue since it's easy to add redirects for alternate spellings, e.g. Salvador Dali -> Salvador Dalí. —Hob←Talk 19:44, 2004 Aug 20 (UTC)