Wikipedia:Requests for Comment/Duplicate name in basic ASCII character set

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Consensus here is clear that a name in basic ASCII character set should not be included. There is a possible exception in the specific case of instances where the Anglicised name differs from the native script name by more than just the removal of diacritics, as for instance in the case of the examples given by VE15 such as þ→th, đ→dj and ij→y. For these cases there has been relatively little discussion and so I find there is no consensus in this discussion for either having or not having a name in basic ASCII script. So for those cases this RfC should not be used as justification for the removal or addition of such names. If editors feel that more clarity is need on this specific case is needed then a wider consensus should again be sought. Dpmuk (talk) 20:02, 31 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Should BLPs contain a duplicate name in basic ASCII character set? In ictu oculi (talk) 03:02, 29 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]


Clarification of terms in question:
By "basic ASCII character set" is meant the original 95 ASCII#ASCII printable characters namely ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ, abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvxyz, plus digits, punctuation marks, and a few miscellaneous symbols, still used as the restricted character range in many websites, and many newspapers, without User:Prolog/Diacritical marks.
By "contain a duplicate name" is meant any duplicate name format:
Frédéric Fontang (Casablanca, 18 March 1970) is a French... [Footnote: often spelled Frederic Fontang]
Frédéric Fontang (Casablanca, 18 March 1970) professionally known as Frederic Fontang is a French...
Frédéric Fontang (Casablanca, 18 March 1970) is a French... [Infobox: ATP NAME: Frederic Fontang]
By "BLPs" is meant the 105 BLPs to which such duplicate names in basic ASCII character set have been added since the closure of WikiProject Tennis WP:TENNISNAMES RfC " "Is it appropriate for a wikiproject to insist on no-diacritics names, based on an organisation's rule or commonness in English-language press?" closed 8 June 2012.

Survey[edit]

  • Yes/No

No. Redirects should always be made from plain ASCII versions of foreign names, but unless the person has a specifically alternate Anglicized name, any unaccented names are simply a technological limitation and not a standard alternate of their name. VanIsaacWS Vexcontribs 05:26, 29 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

And in tennis, they do have alternate registered spellings. Hence the reason tennis project is talking about the placement that the proposer doesn't like. Fyunck(click) (talk) 09:22, 29 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
They're not alternate spellings, they're the only spellings, based on obsolete technical limitations, but kept for unknown reasons. HandsomeFella (talk) 07:14, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • No. This is effectively a repeat of the WP:TENNISNAMES siliness, just made less severe and moved two lines down - from the title to the lead section. The whole notion of elevating a trivial technicality to this level has already been discussed to death: in the past I remember we talked about character set issues, IPIN names, a comparison to Dr. Dre's lead section, ... and none of it helps assuage some people, they still think this is a huge verifiability issue. At this point it's really starting to remind me of the Obama birth certificate controversy. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 08:05, 29 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • No. Whatever we think about the use of diacritics in names, insisting on a gloss explaining that Noël Coward may sometimes be known as Noel Coward is absurd. This sort of duplicate name has (marginal) value when there's a non-obvious orthographic change, such as names with ß/ss in them, or perhaps Æ/E, but obvious cases like é-e or æ-ae don't need explained. Andrew Gray (talk) 08:24, 29 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
This has never been suggested for Noël Coward and the proposer of this biased entry knows that. This is his way of getting around the talk at tennis project. That probably isn't apparent to most editors. Fyunck(click) (talk) 09:24, 29 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • No. I don't see a technical justification, and this is the thin end of a wedge we really shouldn't countenance. Charles Matthews (talk) 08:55, 29 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes - since this is a proposal for complete banishment for every blp no matter the sourcing or circumstances, and no matter the wikiproject. This would be absurd use of censoring power at wikipedia. Should every blp have duplicate spellings... of course not. Should some have duplicate spellings when the sources are overwhelming and authorities and international organizations recognize them... of course they should at least be mentioned. That's why these things are done project by project, bio by bio. Not a 100% blanket banning. I can't say I've ever seen that in all my days at wikipedia. Fyunck(click) (talk) 09:19, 29 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • No. Authorities and international organizations—and for that matter, the English-language media—don't get to decide how a person's name is spelled. The person gets to decide how their name is spelled. Angr (talk) 09:51, 29 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • No. We should give the correct name. If some sources strip diacritics, that just makes it a slightly misspelt name; it doesn't become a second name that should be treated like some alias or stage name. We have redirects to accommodate people unable to type diacritics and people who read the misspelt name elsewhere. By deliberately repeating a misspelt name we would do a great disservice to any readers that took this nonsense at face value. This has already been discussed elsewhere, repeatedly, and there's a trail of SNOW closes behind us; why do we need another RfC on it? bobrayner (talk) 10:20, 29 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • No. These spellings are mostly done in news articles and databases et al due to keyboard limitations and convenience, not because said person is known by an alternate name by the anglophonic media. It is much easier for journalists and editors and what have you to type with the 50-odd keys in front of them, rather than copying and pasting from Character Map every time they use a word with a particular character in it. I do, however, support the use of Template:Slavic name and similar templates to clarify readers on English transliterations which are not that obvious. Like þ→th, đ→dj and ij→y for example, not for trivial matters like ` getting omitted from the top of an o. VEOonefive 12:44, 29 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • No. There is a reason Wikipedia exists in more languages that just English. In the English language Wikipedia, the most common English language name for an article title is the appropriate one to use. The fact that accents may be left off letters does not need to be painstakingly spelled out in every instance. To do so is absurd. Alternative spellings in the English language Wikipedia should only be pointed out when they are actually likely to cause confusion for an English speaker. Factchecker25 (talk) 14:54, 29 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Your reasoning sounds backwards from your poll answer. The almost 100% common English spelling of a player's name has already been banned in this English wikipedia unless you can show the person uses the English spelling on their own personal website. So we RARELY have common names as the titles anymore... maybe two or three in tennis articles. When we allowed Anglicized titles, we had the home country spelling somewhere in the lead for our readers benefit to show an alternate less-used version exists. This is wiki policy. Now, with the almost complete removal of all Anglicized titles we at least let readers know that an alternate spelling dominates the English press and pro and amateur tennis organizations (organizations that will put in a diacritic for a city but purposely leave them off players names). This rfc is an attempt to ban even that ability. You can see that in [[Novak Djokovic]'s infobox, at the top, we have alternate spellings listed. I think he is one of a couple of players that have not yet been moved to the Serbian spelling. The top has English, Serbian and Crylic spellings (and also has room for a full name spelling if needed). With this all-encompassing ban guideline proposal you can't have both the English and Serbian versions of his name there. One will have to go. Same with players like Mirza Bašić where we have a simple English spelling in the infobox (as suggested by the person who started this rfc) which represents spellings of tennis organizations, his registered ITF name, and the English press. Again this rfc is attempting to make a guideline to ban this usage. Fyunck(click) (talk) 18:42, 29 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
What's your point? That you don't like foreign characters because they're not English? Like I shown you, FIFA uses the English 26-letter alphabet for footballers in its database but on almost every single language Wikipedia, their native spelling is used if their language uses the Latin script. The only exception, as far as I'm aware is, Vietnamese as they use too many diacritics and it can be distracting (see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Vietnamese)). The Slavic name template is used on Predrag Đorđević's article for people like you, FIFA use his transliterated form[1] but Djordjevic used his native name on his jersey at the 2006 FIFA World Cup (pic 4). This is supposed to be an encyclopaedia, the information on it is supposed to be correct and colloquialisms should be kept to an absolute minimum in their articles. Besides, Djokovic's case doesn't fall into WP:COMMONNAME, unlike Joseph Stalin and even Danny Boyle. Djokovic's spelling came about due to technical limitations which I'm subject to, hence my spelling. VEOonefive 23:50, 29 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
What I like or don't like means nothing. What I can source or can't source, what should be higher up in an article or lower down because of wp:weight, what can have an outright ban... that means everything. Your example of Predrag Đorđević's article... I can't even begin to make sense of the title so I don't try. Sure I think titles should be under the common English spelling per policy here, but that's not under discussion because it's pretty much been abolished already. We are discussing not being allowed to even mention at all the fact that in English and pro tennis these players are known by a different spelling. We can't even mention it if it's banned forever. For me that's unacceptable and it's easily remedied. If a player's name in source after source is spelled with diacritics, I have no problem with it... in fact that is the title it should be under. But if a player's name in pretty much all English sources is not spelled with diacritics I see policy as saying that what we should use with the first line spelling it as in his native language. Now... that's not the way it has been working here and I may disagree but I live with the results. No problem. But to have an editor bypass discussions at the tennis project, not list this rfc there, and attempt to not only lessen the heavily used spelling but completely censor it as if it doesn't exists. Then yes, I have a huge problem with that. And I'm Polish with diacritics in my own family name to boot. Fyunck(click) (talk) 01:21, 30 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Fyunck User:Piotrus explained to you here that your father having dropped Polish accents in emigrating is not a logic for de-accenting Poles who simply visit UK to play at Wimbledon. Please re-read Piotrus' comments and try and understand the difference. Your family history is not a relevant input for WP:Naming conventions. In ictu oculi (talk) 02:24, 30 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • No. To do so would be churlish. Tennis, ice hockey, sport, culture or foo – regarding this issue, one needs to use common sense. Jared Preston (talk) 07:12, 30 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • No per my previous arguments that In ictu oculi already linked above. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 10:25, 30 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • No Diacritics are well supported on WP (and on the internet generally) and searches easily find "é" as well as "e". There is no reason to provide alternative spellings. Jschnur (talk) 06:22, 2 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Actually this isn't completely true. If you take a name here like ranked player Radek Štěpánek and plug his name into the ITF search database it goes nowhere. You must type Stepanek. If you type the same name into ATP head to head vs other players it again says no player exists. Tennis is very touchy about these things and it's why the tennis project right now isn't agreeing to censoring multiple spellings for our readers. The obverse - It would also hurt players where the article is at the long-standing English spelling and we have to remove the identical diacritic spelling. Fyunck(click) (talk) 06:53, 2 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • No/No/Possibly The question of the infobox would be a WP:Tennis decision. The template could cover the governing body and its registered "name" as well as a link to the profile there. But this would not be a question of diacritics vs ASCII as the tennis bodies will have to move on the issue and already have started to do so. The current situation is disruptive Agathoclea (talk) 15:03, 3 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • No per bobrayner. I can go on for a lot longer, but let's be short and sweet and bury this expired equine once and for all. -- Ohc ¡digame!¿que pasa? 02:47, 4 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • No - this is a proposal to cater to a tiny coterie of haters of diacritical marks, and no solid reason has been offered why we should do so. --Orange Mike | Talk 13:02, 5 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Wikidata? – I haven't had a chance to work with Wikidata so much yet, but this seems like a potentially useful parameter for Wikidata. For the main text of the lead or infobox, definitely not. —Ynhockey (Talk) 11:27, 6 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • Wikidata's policy on aliases (which you see at the top of any item there, under "also known as") indeed includes instructions to always include "Unicode free versions of items where the label contains unicode". I forget whether we currently have a bot doing this, but it's certainly something we aim to include. I think part of the long-term idea is that aliases could be used for algorithms that define words as synonymous, e.g. for search engine results. — PinkAmpers&(Je vous invite à me parler) 11:14, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • No, unless there is widespread use of the alternative name without diacratics in reliable sources. Lankiveil (speak to me) 01:43, 7 July 2013 (UTC).[reply]
    Interesting, almost all the sources use the alternative spelling. Even the governing bodies of the sport and registration. Fyunck(click) (talk) 05:22, 7 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • No, no more than they should contain an all-caps version for holdout users of Hollerith code. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:02, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • No. HandsomeFella (talk) 07:14, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • No. Wickedlizzie (talk) 16:43, 21 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Neutral. This is not an important issue. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 04:49, 22 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • No. Redirects exist for people to search and link to non-diacritical forms and the DEFAULTSORT can be used by anyone who needs a machine-readable format without diacritics that is unable to strip accents from the page title or infobox fields themselves. Names should also not be respelled simply to add/remove diacritics, but if an alternate name has to be given anyway then that should be presented how they spell it, e.g. no "Édith Muñoz, also known as Edith Munoz" but "Édith Muñoz, also known by her stage name Eddie Munoz" is fine if she didn't use the diacritic in her stage name. Thryduulf (talk) 16:36, 26 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • No This is an extremely pedantic practice, and it's frankly condescending to readers. --BDD (talk) 23:57, 30 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Threaded discussion[edit]

  • as a counter - This is here because Wikipedia Tennis Project has a unique set of circumstances that other biographies do not have. The players register with the International Tennis Federation with non-diacritic names. You can't even type in searches at the ITF website using diacritics. The Association of Tennis Professionals and the Women's Tennis Association (the two other governing bodies of tennis) use Anglicized spellings. The 4 Grand Slam Tournaments use Anglicized spellings. All the other tennis tournaments use Anglicized spellings. Davis Cop and Federation Cup international events use Anglicized spellings. This is why wikipedia has guidelines because there are certain areas where they don't work well. Placement of these spellings is under discussion at Tennis Project as I write yet this editor puts this here because things aren't going his way there. Again no surprise with this editor. With almost all English sources spelling a name that readers will recognize it seems unbelievable that wikipedia would permanently ban (no matter how many sources) any mention of that fact anywhere in the article, even the infobox. I don't think an rfc should be able to outright censor this type of thing when the Tennis project uses it. This is the type of thing best handled project by project as opposed to a blanket banishment. Fyunck(click) (talk) 09:19, 29 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: as stated, this question needs wider community input than a simple RfC. I would suggest adding this to {{cent}}. -Nathan Johnson (talk) 00:17, 30 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Actually, if this is limited to the 105 players in WikiProject Tennis, there's no need to be advertised on cent. -Nathan Johnson (talk) 00:20, 30 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • The initial question doesn't limit itself to tennis BLPs, and it's a broader problem which has rumbled on despite what appeared to be local consensus on specific talkpages; I welcome this RfC (although I'm disappointed that it's necessary); if getting more people involved can settle this question for more articles, it's time to get the wider community involved. bobrayner (talk) 00:55, 30 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • It appears to me that in the "Clarification of terms in question", the user who opened the RfC expressed a wish to limit it to tennis BLPs. But I agree that a wider-reaching RfC would be a great idea. -Nathan Johnson (talk) 00:59, 30 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Hi Nathan, thanks but it isn't so much "expressed a wish to limit it to tennis BLPs" as "105 tennis BLPs are the only ones affected" - the only cases I am aware where duplicate name in basic ASCII character set has happened outside tennis (such as for a few minutes at François Mitterrand) have been quickly reverted and editors slapped.
As to scope, I was following your close note and Talk page advice, so would also follow your advice (or leave to you) as regards whether or not to add to centralized discussion. In favour of {{cent}} would be the feeling expressed above that a whole stream of previous of SNOW closures on RMs has failed to be followed, and frustration that the User might not accept the way this RfC is heading either. Against {{cent}} would be courting possibly unneeded drama. Although the big phrase "diacritics war" is mentioned in such discussions now and again, the major drama of the "diacritics war" at WP:HOCKEY was ended by WP HOCKEY Project Notice and ratified by the mass RMs at Talk:Dominik Halmoši; consequently this now leaves only 1 tennis editor carrying on the war on his island like Hiroo Onoda while the WTA and ITF websites have started using French and German accents. In ictu oculi (talk) 02:14, 30 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
At tennis project we just had 2 other editors very much liking putting the heavily used alternate spelling in the infobox, amazingly enough at "In ictu oculi's" suggestion, so this appears to be another fabrication by IIO and his war against the English alphabet. As for accepting the censoring of heavily sourced info, that would depend on Tennis project and whether this is to become a new wikipedia "Policy", a new wikipedia "guideline" or simply a suggestion. At tennis project, where this conversation started, the infobox placement is favored. Here it's not. Fyunck(click) (talk) 06:05, 30 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Question, for the purposes of the Tennis WikiProject, would it suffice to place an unaccented form of a player's name on the Talk page of articles? Charles Matthews (talk) 06:51, 30 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I can't speak for the project. For me I would not agree. But you have to remember where I'm coming from. We had articles placed at John Doe for many years where we had Jon Doe as the title and Jon Doe as the first line in the lead. I thought this wrong and made sure we had the title at Jon Doe but the lead would say Jon Doe (French: Jon Doé) as a service to our readers. The articles I created and corrected were formatted that way since both versions could be sourced even though Jon Doe was heavily preferred in English. I admit I even changed some diacritc titles to non-diacritic titles at the time. Since IIO is the main force behind this and has reverted 1000s upon thousands of articles things got changed to title Jon Doe but first line Jon Doé. With advice from an administrator I added Jon Doé (Eng: Jon Doe) to correlate with the previous additions I had made. This wasn't good enough and no matter the multitude of placement and wording I tried IIO was not happy. He usually had 6 or 7 regular votes on his side to my 2 or 3. oh well, the English variant was still there in the title as the common English name so I eventually let it go. But then also came the removal of the common name from the title and now we were left with no spelling used by the vast majority of English speakers. Hence our problem today. You can't believe the variety of things I've tried to find any kind of compromise. The other day IIO suggested we put ASCII:Jon Doe in the infobox (I was in shock that a compromise was suggested for the first time) and I brought that to the Tennis project to maybe end this thing. I said I would prefer ITF:Jon Doe but made many suggestions. ITF:Jon Doe seemed to be preferred and IIO I guess is furious and brought it here to be banned completely. With all this, being put on the talk page where 99.9% of readers will never see it is not an option I would like. Sorry. Fyunck(click) (talk) 07:34, 30 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
There has been a template to be used on names with diacritics explaining the character involved and the alternative ASCII. That was deleted as unwanted by the community. Agathoclea (talk) 14:46, 3 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia Tennis Project does not have "a unique set of circumstances that other biographies do not have", and even if it did, that would not justify making up new names for biographies. The result of the TENNISNAMES RfC was overwhelming; and there have been plenty of other discussions which delivered similar results. How long does this WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT campaign have to continue? Even claiming to speak on behalf of WikiProject Tennis is deceptive, because other project members (ie. [2], [3]) have joined the rest of the community in opposing this crusade. bobrayner (talk) 03:57, 4 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Obviously Tennis does have a unique set of circumstances or the governing bodies and English press and other sources would agree with the foreign spelling. And you know as well as I that the tenninames rfc was on a personal essay that asked whether we can ban diacritics in tennis. Of course it failed since that's against policy here. And claiming to speak for Tennis project... what falsehood is that? I just said in my last post that I do not speak for the project. Did you read that wrong? Fyunck(click) (talk) 10:12, 4 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Fyunck
Re. the claim "tenninames rfc was on a personal essay" - Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tennis/Tennis names was a continuation of "the tennis project guideline" Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tennis/Archive 8 Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tennis/Archive 10, the page was clearly marked:
WikiProject iconTennis NA‑class
WikiProject iconThis article is within the scope of WikiProject Tennis, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of articles that relate to tennis on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.TennisWikipedia:WikiProject TennisTemplate:WikiProject Tennistennis articles
NAThis article has been rated as NA-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.
Tennis To-do:
Here are some tasks awaiting attention:

This page is meant to explain and support the tennis project guideline to use the English names of players as found on the ITF website. The why and the how for it. With the best quality sources we can find. It has a shortcut WP:TENNISNAMES, which is easy to remember and can be used in discussions around this issue. MakeSense64 05:33, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

The fact that the majority of Tennis editors evidently never supported it doesn't change the fact that Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tennis/Tennis names was as WikiProject Tennis as any other WikiProject Tennis discussion, and moving it into user-space after it was SNOW rejected doesn't change that. But anyway, since you don't accept the former RfC, and since the former RfC concentrated on titles not duplicate ASCII names, this is why we're going through this re-run. For your benefit, 1 editor. In ictu oculi (talk) 10:53, 4 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Another fabrication by you. Will it never stop? I certainly accepted and agreed that diacritics can't be banned in tennis titles. And we are here so you can bypass tennis project rfc's. Fyunck(click) (talk) 18:06, 4 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Fyunck, you cannot go around accusing editors of "lying" "falsehood" as you've done again in this discussion.
As above "the former RfC concentrated on titles not duplicate ASCII names" - because at that time there was no way of anticipating that an editor would after the RfC go around BLPs adding duplicate name in basic ASCII character set. Nevertheless the RfC was not about titles: the question was WP TENNISNAMES "Is it appropriate for a wikiproject to insist on no-diacritics names, based on an organisation's rule or commonness in English-language press?" And the conclusion was WP TENNISNAMES "Consensus is that the answer to the question posed in the title of this RfC is "no". Additionally, a great majority of participants express a preference for retaining diacritics in the title of articles, either generally or as applied to tennis players in particular. Sandstein 18:00, 8 June 2012 (UTC). This is not a mandate for any editor to insist on duplicate no-diacritics names, based on an organisation's rule or commonness in English-language press. In ictu oculi (talk) 00:28, 5 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
A couple of things... many or most of those articles talked about in that personal essay already had two versions of the players names. When you personally started deleting the English titles by the countless thousands you also removed the common sourced English spelling. Effectively banning 95% of sourced tennis names. That Rfc was ONLY about a persons essay that banned diacritics. It was nothing about banning all English versions of names at all. You extrapolating that is wrong. Also, if a person accuses me of representing Tennis Project when I specifically said otherwise... then yes I accuse him of a falsehood. Certainly it could have been an error so it's an accusation. You it's not an error as it's over and over and over, piling on and on and on. Zero trust at all. Fyunck(click) (talk) 05:06, 5 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Fyunck, for the record the total number of RMs needed were for hockey were 300 RMs (mainly bulk), for tennis about 50 RMs. It certainly felt like "countless thousands" but in reality it wasn't, these were minor localized disruptions among the project's overall high-MOS for BLPs.
Anyway, the question now would be do you intend to abide by an eventual result of this RfC? If it either gets an early close, or continues in the same vein, then the outcome appears to be No. If that is the case will you abide by the outcome? In ictu oculi (talk) 06:30, 5 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
RM's maybe.... across wikipedia simple moves and rms to remove English are massively higher. Plus there are other wikis you've done the same to I believe. Fyunck(click) (talk) 07:01, 5 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Fyunck, of course, absolutely, but the difference is that fr.wp and hr.wp don't have a "tennis names" lobby. In countries that have accents spelling people correctly is uncontroversial.
Anyway, back to this RfC, the outcome appears to be heading to No; Are we all understood what that will mean? Is there any unforseen problem relating to following the outcome that hasn't been anticipated? In ictu oculi (talk) 08:15, 5 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I see plenty of problems ahead with the censoring of every sourced spelling entry in prose and the demand that Ĵéņeş Łuväč and Jenes Lavac are identical as far as this rfc is concerned. The Tennis Project has some authority in this also, as stated above by others, when there is no policy against multiple sourced spellings. I also see plenty of unintended consequences depending on if this is immediately placed in "wiki Policy", "wiki Guidelines" or simply a wiki wishlist. The banning of multiple spellings in prose may be a very sticky wicket. Fyunck(click) (talk) 08:38, 5 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Fyunck, I see you have just created infobox entries on these BLPs Dénes Lukács (tennis) ‎ITF Name: Denes Lukacs and Andrej Kračman ITF Name: Andrej Kracman. If this RfC ends as No what do you intend to do in regard to those additions? In ictu oculi (talk) 10:57, 5 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
See post above. Fyunck(click) (talk) 18:33, 5 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The templates referred to above by Agathoclea (talk · contribs) (foreignchar, foreignchars, foreignchars2) were first deleted around 2008-06-02 but quickly restored following a deletion review (I believe there was a problem with the AfD not being properly advertised). They were then deleted again around 2012-01-10 following a deletion discussion over the Christmas holiday period. It was my impression (when I returned from my holiday break and found the templates gone) that the support for the deletion was due in large part to to the wording of the templates, which caused many of those in favour of titles with diacritics to support deletion. I don't think anyone discussed the possibilty of rewording. As I understand it, the feeling was that the templates suggested that, for instance, the spellings ae, oe, ue, ss for ä,ö,ü,ß were acceptable. I, myself, did not interpret the wording in that way and welcomed that the templates actually linked to the articles on ä,ö,ü,ß, etc., where the reader was fully informed. The discussions are here:

I suppose it would be possible to create somewhat similar templates with a different wording, and preferably with a better name. It's debatable, of course, but compared with a deletion review, that would, in my opinion, be more in line with the injunction " If you are creating a new page with different content, please continue. If you are recreating a page similar to the previously deleted page, or are unsure, please first contact the deleting administrator using the information provided below." I believe the deleting administrator (Fastily) has since retired and/or is no longer an admin. I believe the deletion itself was in order and in good faith but I think the apparent consensus may have been based on a misunderstanding and may have been affected by the timing. --Boson (talk) 12:13, 4 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • Question - For names written in a non-Latin script, aren't they always anglicized in the English Wikipedia? I.e. all our Chinese names are in pinyin, all our Hindi and Cyrillic names are transliterated, aren't they? Is there a manual of style or guideline that says where to draw the line? EllenCT (talk) 07:29, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Proper names#Diacritics. Romanisations vary - in Russian WikiProject Russia strip the academic diacritics, WikiProject China strip the pinyin of tones. But WikiProject Japan retains Hepburn macrons for pre-Meiji names, and WikiProject Hinduism retains markings of Sanskrit for some cases. In ictu oculi (talk) 07:47, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Alternate proposal[edit]

It would be better to show the anglicized spelling if and only if it differs from simply removing diacritics, e.g. when inserting an 'e' for an umlaut. It makes sense when it's not immediately obvious like that, but otherwise there's no point. EllenCT (talk) 20:26, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Exactly. When they have to actually change the spelling instead of simply dropping diacritics, then you have a legitimate alternate name that should be included. In the end, this isn't even an alternate proposal, it's what policy currently says to do when you have alternate names. VanIsaacWS Vexcontribs 21:46, 25 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Well hurrah for the status quo, but where exactly does the policy say that? EllenCT (talk) 03:54, 29 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
It doesn't. Policy is to show all the spellings in the opening paragraph or have a separate section on them. The banishment would also work backwards in that articles with English spellings would be banned from having the diacritic spelling also, since as many have argued (they are identical). That's just not the way wikipedia should work. And certainly what is important to tennis bio infoboxes is not the jurisdiction of a hand vote here. If editors here think right or left handed is not important, tennis project will include the info regardless. As with spellings. Fyunck(click) (talk) 05:18, 29 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Then my proposal stands, but I can't figure out where in the policy you are seeing that interpretation either. EllenCT (talk) 05:39, 29 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
WP:UEIA, sorry, guideline on this one. "The body of each article, preferably in its first paragraph, should list all frequently used names by which its subject is widely known"..."If there is a significant number of alternative names or forms it may be helpful to keep only the most common two or three in the first paragraph and a list of them in a separate section or footnote to avoid cluttering the lead." Fyunck(click) (talk) 06:28, 29 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
OTOH we are differenciating between real alternative names and misspellings due to technical restrictions. Reminds me of the old typewriters that did not have a "1" because a "l" would suffice. That idea did not last long. Agathoclea (talk) 06:38, 29 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
We are? Many of these sources may spell items in a biography in the Latin alphabet while spelling players' names in that same bio using the English alphabet. Misspelling, I don't think so. And my English profs didn't ding me for all these horrible misspellings either. You have no idea if the spellings are purposeful or not. But this isn't about using one or the other, this is about an attempt of banishment of one spelling if another spelling exists in the article prose. Fyunck(click) (talk) 07:05, 29 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Yes we are, and you have contributed to many RMs with that outcome. You don't agree, but that does not change the fact of the outcome of those RMs. The narrow scope of this RfC is due to you not agreeing with majority of contributors at these RMs. Agathoclea (talk) 22:11, 29 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
No, that is your opinion on them being misspellings. I have no problem with being in the minority on a requested move... it moves and I don't change it. I do have a major problem with banishment/censorship, especially since RMs are usually either or and other things are supposed to take into account all those voicing an opinion. Consensus may lean one way but it's not supposed to be one or the other. Fyunck(click) (talk) 02:34, 30 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

RFC, take two[edit]

RfC restart removed

Should BLPs contain an alternate name in the basic ASCII character set if and only if the anglicized name differs from the native script name with diacritic marks removed?

  • Yes, as proposer per discussion above. EllenCT (talk) 22:28, 29 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • No, While this would stop the current disruption, it would tie our hand in the cases where there is a genuine alternative name without diacritics. (See also the links to the deletion of the foreignchar templates above) Agathoclea (talk) 22:46, 29 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
in such case it would require display of the genuine alternate name unless it is completely obvious. What is an example name with its anglicized alternative for which you think this will not work well? EllenCT (talk) 23:16, 29 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
If it's appropriate for Franz Josef, why isn't it appropriate for everyone with an eszett? EllenCT (talk) 01:00, 30 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
This is a minor sideline issue which doesn't affect standard names. For eszett see previous discussion at WP Germany under WP:ß. In ictu oculi (talk) 01:51, 30 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • No that would still be banishment or censorship. We strive not to do that on wikipedia. Fyunck(click) (talk) 02:34, 30 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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