Talk:Marta Lucía Ramírez

Requested move: Marta → Martha

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. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: no consensus. (non-admin closure) Calidum ^{Talk To Me} 03:50, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

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Marta Lucía Ramírez → Martha Lucía Ramírez – The first name is misspelled as it's missing an h. Relisted. Jenks24 (talk) 14:34, 6 June 2014 (UTC)  – mijotoba (talk) 01:36, 28 May 2014 (UTC) This is a contested technical request (permalink). EdJohnston (talk) 04:03, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

• Not in Spanish it isn't, see El Tiempo, someone had been playing with the BLP lead, I've fixed it. In ictu oculi (talk) 01:57, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

• Yes, in Spanish Martha is Marta, but her legal name is Martha, this is per the National Registry[1], and it is the way her name is spelled in the voting ballot]. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mijotoba (talk • contribs)

• Support - on the basis of new sources. Sorry to force an RM but if this is a presidential candidate don't regret getting it right. Surprising to see so many reliable Spanish sources apparently getting it wrong, if it really is wrong, as appears. And es.wp still at Marta. If new contrary evidence emerges someone please ping me. In ictu oculi (talk) 07:15, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

• Sorry, seems my first reservation was justified. User:EdJohnston's comments below including her own website are overwhelming. Support struck. In ictu oculi (talk) 02:31, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose – Her name is only spelled Martha on official government documents such as ballots and legislative bills. Her own web site has her name as http://martaluciaramirez.com/. Newspapers always spell her Marta. I checked the sources on the Spanish Wikipedia also. EdJohnston (talk) 13:29, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

• @Mijotoboa: Thanks for the update regarding newspapers. However per WP:AT we should aim for recognizability. So if one name is used in sources more frequently than others we would tend to prefer that. When her own web site spells her name 'Marta' it is hard to argue that the newspapers who use that spelling are getting it wrong. The confusion of spellings is external to Wikipedia. A simple rename of this article won't make the confusion go away. EdJohnston (talk) 14:56, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

• Different news sources do spell it Marta, but those same sources contradict themselves and spell it Martha as well:CaracolEl EspectadorEl TiempoSemanaRCN. Both are accepted forms, after all Marta is pronounced the same as Martha in Spanish, hers just happens to be spelled Martha. mijotoba (talk) 16:47, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

• Support - how she presents herself in English is the most important... I don't see a reason to go against the ballots as far as her "real" first name. Red Slash 23:51, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose. @Red Slash, I don't follow your reasoning here. I've seen no evidence that the subject has "[presented] herself in English". And while I can't explain the spelling "Martha" on the election webpage (which, please note, is not an actual ballot), surely the fact that the subject's own website consistently uses "Marta" should trump all else. Note that, according to InterNIC's WHOIS query tool, the domain "martaluciaramirez.com" (no h) was registered in 2006, while the domain "marthaluciaramirez.com" (with an h) remains unregistered to this day. In sum, I see no argument for the spelling "Martha" compelling enough to outweigh the spelling used on the subject's own campaign website. What stronger evidence could there be that this is the spelling that the subject herself uses (WP:BLP) and by which she is generally known (WP:UCN)? — Jaydiem (talk) 16:24, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

• Support My reasoning, which seems to be lost on some people here, is that her legal name is Martha, and yes the actual voting ballot reflects that; see: [2]. Now I also understand the protocol for WP:AT, but in her case the issue is that there is really not an "established" presence of this person in English sources. If this were Spanish Wikipedia I wouldn't dispute the reasoning why keep the article title as "Marta", because like it has been pointed out, it is the accepted spelling of the name in Spanish (I should know, I was born in Santa Marta), and that is the way she (or her campaign) presents herself, this is most likely for PR reasons but not going to go into that. In English sources, she is referred to as both Marta and Martha (Reuters, The Guardian Al Jazeera), and so given this divide and lack of general consensus, I think we, en.wikipedia, should be neutral and call her by her legal name, specially since Martha is the way most English speaking users would spell the name, if in the future English sources all move to calling her Marta, then I agree it should be changed to reflect common usage, but until then, common usage is disputed and her legal name should be kept.mijotoba (talk) 04:42, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

• @Mijotoba: I understand your argument, but I don't find it persuasive. Firstly, I don't consider the Colombian Electoral Commission website alone as sufficient to establish with certainty what the subject's "legal name" is. But even if we stipulate that the subject's legal name is spelled "Martha", that is not determinative of the article title under Wikipedia policy. For example, Bill Clinton's legal name is "William Jefferson Clinton", but the article about him is nevertheless titled Bill Clinton because that is the name by which he is widely known. The fact that the subject's own website uses "Marta" exclusively—as do, I gather, most Spanish-language media—indicates that "Marta" is the name by which she is widely known. Finally, I note that there is already a redirect from Martha Lucía Ramírez to this article, so the variation in spelling is not keeping anyone from finding it. In sum, it appears to me that the current spelling "Marta" is more congruent with applicable Wikipedia policies than the variant spelling "Martha" would be. — Jaydiem (talk) 22:55, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

• @Jaydiem: a)I don't think you understand how the Colombian Civil Registry works, but they are the authority that would determine such thing as "legal names". b)You also seem to miss my earlier point, I am not trying to change the name of the article in Spanish Wikipedia, I agree that in Spanish Wikipedia, the article should remain Marta, because it is the form that it's most widely used; my argument is for the English Wikipedia, because it is in English that we have a discrepancy in how the name is spelled in various reliable sources. Given this discrepancy, we should opt for the legal name. mijotoba (talk) 00:28, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

• I think that's the third time you've stated that argument, and I'm afraid that repeating it is not making it more convincing. Wikipedia policy for articles about living persons (in particular, WP:UCN and WP:BLP) favors the use of names preferred by the subject and by which the subject is widely known. The evidence indicates that in this case, both of those criteria call for us to use "Marta".

You could try to make a case under WP:ENGLISH, which states:

The title of an article should generally use the version of the name of the subject which is most common in the English language, as you would find it in reliable sources....

But you yourself have already said several times that English-language sources are equivocal in their use of "Martha" vs. "Marta". That brings us to WP:DIVIDEDUSE, which states:

Sometimes, English usage is divided.... In this case we cannot determine which is "most common". Use what would be the least surprising to a user finding the article.

In a following section, the policy continues:

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.... If this happens, follow the conventions of the language in which this entity is most often talked about....

All of this points to "Marta" rather than "Martha". But the coup de grâce that should bring this discussion to an end can be found at WP:Manual of Style/Proper names#Personal names, wherein we find the following:

A readily accessible and authoritative source for the accepted name of a person who has written books, or who has been written about, is the U.S. Library of Congress Authorities database, which provides the accepted name and variant names used by the British Library, the National Library of Canada, and other English language libraries.

Upon using this tool to search for our subject, I found that the spelling of the subject's name with "Marta" has six references, while the spelling with "Martha" has none. Zero. Here is the permalink to the subject's record in the LOC Authorities database: http://lccn.loc.gov/no2011115877

I recognize that you may still disagree, but it appears to me that the foregoing evidence is conclusive on this point. — Jaydiem (talk) 05:14, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

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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 or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

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