User:Iricigor/diacritics

This page is outdated!
It was substituted by User:Iricigor/UE page on April 19th, 2008.

This page is about using diacritics in article titles on WIkipedia.

Introduction[edit]

I have created this page just after article Novak Đoković was moved to Novak Djokovic. In my point of view, there were two opinions on this move:

leave the page as Novak Đoković (I supported this option ) and
change the page to Novak Djokovic .

Reasons to change title[edit]

Reasons to change title were:

This is English Wikipedia. It should use English names and only English letters.
Also, Wikipedia should use most common used name for the subject (even if it is not correct).
Another argument is if we want English Wikipedia to use Đoković, we should also use in Serbian Wikipedia Andy Roddick, instead of Endi Rodik. Simply put, for English Wikipedia it does not meter how his name is written in Serbian language.
Other arguments for this move include
- WP:OTHERSTUFF (it does not meter if other articles exists),
- WP:NOR (there can not be original research) and
- WP:RS (we should use only reliable sources).

Arguments against this move[edit]

Arguments against this move consisted mostly on arguments that are not part of official Wikipedia policies, but are widely accepted.

Supporting editors also pointed out that WP:UE is not clear on diacritics.
Even more, WP:NAMEPEOPLE says we should use diacritics, like in Thomas à Kempis or Teresa of Ávila.
Also, if we use redirect pages and comment on letters with diacritics in opening line of an article, there is no real need for Wikipedia not to use correct title.
Wikipedia is using Unicode so there is no need to use only ASCII characters, like in old days. Or like many mass media or Internet standards still do.
Another argument is that for most popular sportsmen (or any other persons) there is no well established use of names in English language, like one can say for ancient Greek names or medieval kings. In this situations Wikipedia should more take care of correctness and educational point of view.
Also, argument with comparison on names in Serbian Wikipedia do no stand for it. Serbian grammar has clear rules how you should write foreign names.

Related pages[edit]

This is list of guidelines and interesting talk pages.

Guidelines

WP:UE
WP:RM
Wikipedia:IAR
Wikipedia Naming conventions: Finnish, Swedish, Irish, Hockey players

Talk pages

Active requests[edit]

This is list of active RMs (Requests for Moving an article) related to this issue, that I know on April 11th, 2008.

Dani Martín

Not using diacritics[edit]

This is the list of articles that use English names as titles. Original name of the person have diacritics, but article title does not. I think this option is widely abandoned on Wikipedia.

Exception to my point of view might be letter ß that most often gets substituted with ss, but I do not think that discussion belong here.

Moved pages[edit]

Novak Djokovic, from Novak Đoković
Malin Akerman, from Malin Åkerman
SMS Friedrich der Grosse (1911), from SMS Friedrich der Große
Iao Valley, from ‘Īao Valley
Mexico State, from México (state)

With requested, but not accepted moves[edit]

Eoin MacNeill, Irish, original Eoin Mac Néill (1867-1945)
Vicente Fernandez (golfer), Argentinian, original Vicente Fernández (1946- )

Without move requests[edit]

Using diacritics[edit]

This is the list of articles that use diacritics in article title. I think this option is widely accepted on Wikipedia. From my experience this is going to be a very long list. So, I would add some subcategories.

Comment: ET stands for non diacritics (or English) title.

In official guidelines[edit]

Moved from ET[edit]

San Sebastián

Other moved pages[edit]

This is a list of pages that are using diacritics in titles and have been moved around, but even in older version title had diacritics.

RM to ET not accepted[edit]

These articles are important for discussion. Someone requested move for them, but those moves were not accepted. You can check their discussion pages.

no	article	description	diacritics	non-diacritics
1.	François Mitterrand	president of France (1916-1996)	95k (29%)	232k (71%)
2.	Éamon de Valera	president of Ireland (1882-1975)	20k (17%)	97k (83%)
3.	Kimi Räikkönen	Finnish driver (1979- )	228k (9%)	2.4m (91%)
4.	Lech Wałęsa	president of Poland (1943- )	35k (4%)	826k (96%)
5.	Níðhöggr	Icelandic dragon	1.7k (3%)	59.1k (97%)
6.	Franjo Tuđman	President of Croatia	15k (21%)	96k (79%)

Numbers at the end represent Google search results (see explanation below). For those pages "most common name" (according to Wikipedia) is used in only 3-29% of web pages.

Non moved pages[edit]

This list would be separated by some categories (nationalities, professions). I would start with very famous Serbs.

Top 20 or other famous tennis players

Names using Đ or đ

Vietnamese

Nguyễn Tấn Dũng

Kosovo Albanians leaders

Mentioned on Walesa's page

Mentioned by User:Kubura on Talk:Franjo Tuđman
Very nice list (important persons)

Lists with big number of peoples' names with diacritics[edit]

Google search testing[edit]

To test which name is more common I performed this test using Google search engine. This test is absolutely not enough to give you answer which name is more common in English, but it can give pretty good suggestion. Test results also may not be the same all the time.

If you have Sömé Nãme, I compared it to Some Name. In Advanced Google Search page, in first field I have put "Sömé Nãme" (with quotation marks) and in unwanted words I have put "Some Name" (again with quotation marks). In Language field I have selected English. For the second test, I just change positions of "Sömé Nãme" and "Some Name". i.e. "Sömé Nãme" becomes unwanted. After searching, I take the Google approximation on number of pages that have one, but not the other name.

This test I used for articles that were requested to move, but those moves were not accepted. See that list.

Go to the top or back.