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Requested move

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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: page not moved per discussion. The same arguments are made here as in any discussion about diacritics in personal names. In particular, athletes are subject to lots of these discussions. If you ask some Wikipedians, it's our standard practice to drop diacritics whenever sources drop them. If you ask other Wikipedians, it's our standard practice to include diacritics whenever we can reasonably do so with our technology. Both are right, in the sense that there are hundreds, if not thousands, of precedents for both.

In this case, I'm going to close this as no consensus, because there's no more consensus on this page than there is in Wikipedia in general, and I'm going to see about getting this issue discussed in a centralized and well-advertised venue. - GTBacchus(talk) 03:14, 30 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]


Andrea Gámiz → Andrea Gamiz — Relisting. -GTBacchus(talk) 04:58, 23 August 2011 (UTC)per the article's own sources at WTA and ITF and FedCup official websites, this should be moved to the common English name of Andrea Gamiz. Fyunck(click) (talk) 22:03, 15 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Survey

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Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's policy on article titles.
  • Support - As per the move request. The ATP, WTA and ITF are highly respected sources for all matters of tennis information. Fyunck(click) (talk) 22:06, 15 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - This is an encyclopedia. The name of a person it is encyclopedic fact. (Gabinho>:) 05:31, 16 August 2011 (UTC))[reply]
  • Oppose - you remove the diacritics, and it's no longer the person's name. --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 07:42, 16 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Sports publications strip out diacritics, as ESPN does here. Unless we are anticipating a run for president or something like that, this title should be done according to the conventions of sports writing. Kauffner (talk) 13:27, 16 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. From the article I see that the subject is "a professional Venezuelan tennis player and member of the Venezuela Fed Cup team", living in Venezuela. English-language sports authorities are not experts in cross-linguistic orthographic variation, any more than telephone directories are; neither is a reliable source in cases like this one. Spanish-language sources show an acute in the surname; and that acute shifts the stress in the regular Spanish way (gAmiz, rather than gamIz without the acute). This is immediately understood by most English speakers (especially in the US, where Spanish is studied in very many schools and in the community at large). Spanish diacritical marks are extremely simple, and are widely preserved in English-language publications because of their simplicity and utility. Keep the acute.
NoeticaTea? 00:05, 17 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
If "Spanish diacritical marks are extremely simple, and are widely preserved in English-language publications", implying that it is the norm to retain Spanish diacritics, then how can you prove it was not a conscious decision, by the English-language sources that have been supplied, to drop the diacritic? Jenks24 (talk) 05:23, 19 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
First, I do not mean to imply that preserving Spanish diacritical marks is "the norm"; I said only that they are "widely preserved". That's demonstrable; but it's also relative. Compare pinyin tone marks, which are much less widely preserved (just plain Beijing, Mao Zedong).
Second, which "English-language sources that have been supplied"? You mean the ones cited in the article? Of course I can't prove that dropping the acute was not a conscious decision. I don't even know if they were aware of the issue, or cared. But we can be aware, and we can care. This is an encyclopedia, not a sports database or a telephone directory.
NoeticaTea? 06:06, 19 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I did mean the ones in the article. In any case, I guess we can argue to 'til the cows come home about whether it's our encyclopedic duty to care about diacritics or not. Your reply did prompt me to look up some references, though, and the results were quite interesting. What I found is that the diacritic is not even commonly used in Spanish. Searching the google news archive for "Andrea Gamiz", I found that many of Spanish sources did not use the diacritic, while they did use diacritics throughout the rest of the articles, signifying that it was a conscious choice not to use the diacritic for Gamiz's name. Examples include [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10]. Those were all from the first page of the search (and it goes without saying that none of the English-language sources used the diacritic). Using the diacritic is not the common name in English and a case could easily be made that it's not even the common name in Spanish. Due to this, I am formally supporting. Jenks24 (talk) 13:09, 21 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Well done, Jenks24. I think it's great to scratch under the surface like that. It seems to me, though, that in some parts of the Hispanic world the news services are careless, just as they are in the English-speaking world. It seems also that the name "Gamiz" also exists (properly lacking the "á", and therefore stressed on the second syllable). Here are some results of interest:

Google news search on "Andrea Gamiz", confined to Venezuela (her own country; Google's constraint is not watertight)
Just 4 hits, all with "á". (Same results with a search using "á".)

Google news search on "Andrea Gamiz", confined to Spain
Just 5 hits, all with "a". (Same results with a search using "á".) Sample text from one hit: "la venezolana Andrea Gamiz, cabeza de serie número 1, que derrotó a Alicia Fernández Gálvez"; so this source follows the standard usage where it sees the need for an acute.

The second of your reported hits has both "Gamiz" and "Gamíz" (!): "La capitalina Andrea Gamíz ganó [...] y US Open junto a Gamiz y Ricardo Rodríguez". Now, if I am not mistaken "Gamíz" is not a possible form in standard modern orthography (though it does occur, predominantly in older sources, as this Googlebooks search shows; names sometimes preserve archaic spelling and diacritics). Standard "Gamiz" would already be stressed on syllable two, so the "í" would be superfluous. That the form is used at all here, alongside "Gamiz", suggests that a second-syllable stress is assumed.

This last point strongly supports the contention that "Gamiz" does also exist, and certainly that it is stressed on syllable 2. But the weight of other sources shows that this would be wrong for our article. Auxiliary evidence comes from this Googlebooks search: but what exactly is confirmed? Close inspection suggests both careless inconsistency ("Antonio Gamiz Gordo. ... Antonio Gámiz Gordo"; only on a cover, referring to works in the same series) and the true variation that has been established by cases of "Gamíz". None of this evidence supports a change from "á" to "a" in our article. In fact, this evidence all suggests that some Hispanic sources indeed have it wrong, for this case at least; and also that it is appropriate for an encyclopedia to set things straight. "Gamiz" would positively mislead; "Gámiz" would not.
NoeticaTea? 10:00, 22 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Additional evidence, complicating the story:

1. A Google search on "Andrea Gamiz" restricted by "site:.ve" (Venezuela) yields "Gámiz" much more than other forms.

2. Keying in a search on "Gamiz" at a Venezuelan tennis site yields the "non-standard" form "Andrea Gamíz". And see the captioned image at the very top of the page.

Items 1 and 2 directly contradict each other. What to make of all this? We'd have to ask la tenista herself, or her mum! Meanwhile, there is no compelling evidence for altering the status quo in this RM. "Gámiz" appears to dominate in the Hispanic world, but there is diversity by true variation, and also seemingly due to the internationalised and "database" presentation of sports information. (For the latter, see the PDF listings linked at this page of the same Venezuelan site: no diacritics in names at all, apart from "ñ" which is taken as a distinct letter in Spanish.) I wish there were something more definite to settle this. Any ideas?
NoeticaTea? 23:09, 22 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes indeed, Bacchus. This little case goes far beyond the usual tussle over how to manage diacritics. I'd have to insist on no change, given the state of evidence as I write. It may be that original research (through a personal approach by email, etc.) is the only way forward. That wouldn't stop me. WP:IAR is there for a reason. NoeticaTea? 05:25, 23 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
What an interesting point of view here to insist on something opposite of the evidence. You're not being done any favors with a relist at this English wikipedia... these moves are handled case by case, person by person, and place by place. Administrators listen to us and sometimes relist and sometimes go with the best evidence regardless of polling numbers. Saying it "wouldn't stop me" really doesn't help the situation or your cause from where I sit. Fyunck(click) (talk) 05:56, 23 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Relax, Fyunk. For a start, I have no "cause" here, except to present relevant evidence as clearly as I can and to analyse it to the best of my ability. You simplify too much if you say that I favour "something opposite of the evidence". I certainly do not. I will allow, of course, that your single line of evidence above has some weight; what is your analysis of mine? This may indeed be a case in which no move is warranted from the available public sources, and something more focused would be needed – especially since we now have "Gamíz" in the mix. NoeticaTea? 08:04, 23 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sitting back in my lounge chair now. I had no problem with any line of reasoning and was reading with interest. I only had a problem with your response to GTBacchus with the use of words like "insist", "wouldn't stop me", etc...
As for your arguments the biggest problem I see is it is Venezuelan or Spanish-centric. Now that's great for the Spanish or Venezuelan wikipedias but not for this English wikipedia where we look for reliable English language sources for our articles. You may not like sports sources for the name but this person is notable for one reason only...she plays tennis well. So well she is a professional and is listed by tennis's highest authorities in the WTA and ITF and Fed Cup. They spell it Gamiz. So do most other English news agencies. Even some Spanish oriented pages like Guillermo Vilas Academy of Tennis where they certainly have access to diacritics and use them in the Spanish section along with Gamiz. English language is versatile... no matter how people spell their names there are a myriad of pronunciations, so leaving off diacritics just adds more to the pot. It's normal for English. I'm Polish myself with a spelling of Kołodziej. Sure in Polish books I would expect it to be spelled with the "Ł" but in English I expect it to be spelled with a simple L. Is it usually pronounce wrong, sure, so I tell people how to pronounce it correctly and they do or don't. I have a neighbor named Ellen but she pronounce it E'lan. No big deal to Americans and it's why we almost never use diacritics. We're flexible. Sure some get thrown in but as time goes by they usually disappear unless the spelling is the same as another word.
Bottom line is though I like reading about the google books search I really don't think simply looking at the name Gamiz in general is what we need. We look at these things case by case, English source by English source, for a particular person or place. In this case Andrea Gamiz. For doctors I would look at the English press and English medical databases. Vulcanologist I would search the English press and authorities on Volcanoes... etc... For tennis players I use the English Press, WTA, ATP, Davis Cup, Fed Cup, Wimbledon archives. Sometimes even a player's own website spells it diacritic free like "Ana Ivanovic" and still we can't get pages moved. Anyway that's how I see it. Fyunck(click) (talk) 09:00, 23 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I appreciate all that, Fyunck. Just a couple of points in reply:
  • Jan Łukasiewicz retains the "ł" that you mention because despite his substantial international reputation he remained "Polish" in very strong senses of the term. (In my circles, his name is still pronounced with a proper "ł".) Your own case is clearly different; a Wikipedia article for you should substitute "l". But consideration of these extremes does not resolve the present case. I wish it did.
  • I wrote: "I'd have to insist on no change, given the state of evidence as I write." But I don't mean that I demand no change. I don't demand anything. I simply wanted to make my take on this RM clear, on the evidence so far. The closing admin will judge the evidence well, I'm sure. Either result will be fine by me.
My best wishes to you. NoeticaTea? 01:55, 24 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Noetica, hi. I'm not sure I'd call that "original research" of the kind that's prohibited per our purview as an encyclopedia. Finding out how someone writes their name is pretty different from positing new ideas, or presenting the results of an unpublished experiment.

Diacritic discussions in general are getting trickier, it appears. Over the last few months, I get the impression something is coming to the surface that's been simmering for some time. I wonder what it will finally look like. -GTBacchus(talk) 03:09, 30 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

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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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