Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Vietnamese)

Diacritical marks

The main Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English) page says that diacritical marks should not be used unless it is familiar with English readers. The whole idea behind transliteration is that an English-keyboard user need not be required to figure out how to type out the Vietnamese diacritical marks. Yellowtailshark 02:45, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

The "Đ" is not pronounced like an English "D" in either northern or southern Vietnam. This creates a problem for words with this letter. For cities with well known romanizations like Saigon and Hanoi, we'd probably want to use our normal WP rule, like we do for Milan or Rome--just use the English version, without diacritics. But for names, it seems that using diacritics is good. Badagnani 03:53, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Quite honestly, I see no place for diacritics at all in any of the articles in English Wikipedia except as a gloss to illustrate the Vietnamese spelling of a place name or proper name after the first occurrence of the name in its normal, unaccented English spelling. This is not a question of political correctness (respect for how others spell names), it's a question of simple convenience for the vast majority of readers who neither know nor care about how Vietnamese names are accented and are not interested in obtaining the fancy software to be able to type in Vietnamese. I find it difficult to locate the articles I wrote recently on the 1860s Cochinchina Campaign because place names like Vinh Long and Bien Hoa (their normal spelling in English) have been given accents. This is supposed to be an encyclopedia written in English, not Vietnamese. Having said that, we should gloss all Vietnamese place and personal names with their accented versions on their first appearance in an article.

This is how I personally have been dealing with the problem, in the lead sentence of my articles:

The Capture of Bien Hoa (Vietnamese: Biên Hòa) on 16 December 1861 was an important allied victory in the Cochinchina campaign (1858–62).

Djwilms (talk) 04:08, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Diacriticals are used for all the European languages. See Gerhard Schröder, Horst Köhler, Hermann Göring, Göttingen, Lübeck, Finistère, or Lech Wałęsa. Finding the articles? That's what redirects are for. Kauffner (talk) 19:09, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Diacritics are used for European languages when English uses them. This is sometimes but not always; the most obvious example being George Frideric Handel, not Händel. Usage should prevail; some of these examples should be changed. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:05, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Knowing the History of Vietnam and its relations with other countries, especially English-speaking countries, since we're talking about an English Wikipedia, I'd guess that there are two major bodies of literature that talks about Vietnam: during the Indochina Wars, and literature written after the US embargo was lifted and Vietnam's relations with other countries became normalized. So when I weigh in on "common usage" argument for having diacritics, I suspect that literature written during the war would omit the diacritics, and that if there are diacritic usage in English media, then that is really a more recent phenomenon. It would be an exhaustive statistical research to count pronouns in all articles and books written about Vietnam during the war to see what names and geographical locations were often mentioned. My Lai, Ngo Dinh Diem, Bien Hoa and Lam Son seem like names that were mentioned often enough in media and books to constitute non-diacritics as common usage. But, let's say with a hamlet in North Vietnam, where media coverage during the war was limited, then it's not so clear cut. Spelling conventions for cases like those will likely to come from more recent sources (past 20 years), and quite possible that diacritic convention would dominate. yellowtailshark (talk) 12:18, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Article title

I looked at a few government sites that use áo dài and ao dai. The US Embassy in Canberra, Australia uses ao dai. So does the HCMC People's Committee for its English-language pages. The site uses áo dài for its Vietnamese languages sections. It seems to me that diacritical omission will become used on official sources. Yellowtailshark 05:18, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

"ao dai" appears in various English-language dictionaries, so this is a common usage name. Kauffner (talk) 07:55, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

The official website of the government of Vietnam is recently writing names with diacritics in its English section. DHN 05:45, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

In the case of Cả River when I googled for it, the only reference was the Wikipedia article itself (hah! go figure). Ca River is mentioned in the Encyclopedia Britannica as well as this paper from the National University of Laos. Yellowtailshark (talk) 04:33, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

As a model, scholarly usage beats official usage or newspaper usage. In scholarly writing, you put the diacriticals in as long as there are no technical barriers. Wikipedia doesn't have the technical barriers that prevented people from putting in diacriticals historically. For, say, German, the diacriticals go in, period. It doesn't depend on sources or official Web sites. It's Göttingen, Lübeck, and so forth. You can write good German without diacriticals, but Vietnamese without diacriticals is just gibberish. Kauffner (talk) 04:39, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

We are not discussing the usage of German in English; and if we were, this would be wrong on both counts. English does not always use diacritics, and scholarly usage is not our model; our article titles are chosen for lay readers, not for specialists. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:11, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Let us, therefore, consider actual parallels. We do not - and should not - include Greek accents, ancient or modern, in article titles; we do not - and should not - include pinyin tones. In both cases, we indicate the marks once in a transcription of the Greek or Chinese characters. So here. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:00, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

You do realize that Vietnamese speakers use the Latin alphabet with diacritics? The situation is therefore is parallel to German and Polish, but unlike Greek or Chinese, which have their own characters. If a publication doesn't use diacritics for technical reasons, it cannot be accepted as a model with respect to this issue. Of course English does not always use diacritics. Names that are common usage in English -- Hanoi, Saigon, Vietnam, etc -- should remain unaccented. Kauffner (talk) 07:55, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I do. That's why I'm comparing it to Pinyin (which has two sets of optional marks for the tones), not to Chinese characters. But even Latin alphabetic languages - perhaps especially they - are respelt on adoption into English; Novak Djokovic, the Djoker, and Handel are two clear examples of this. It may be that in a few centuries or even decades the diacritics of Vietnamese will be as familiar, and as widely adopted, as those of French; but I don't believe, and see no evidence, that that time has come. Wikipedia is not a crystal ball. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:50, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Proper nouns

Names

I wonder how useful these templates would be? Template:Vietnamese name and Template:Vietnamese name2 Yellowtailshark 03:30, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

I think these are very useful, firstly because most people would not know that it is the custom to use given names in the ensuing text, and because many of those who are not Asian specialists but who run categorizing and standardizing campaigns will need to know these things, so as to not list someone alphabetically by their given name, or to make other sorts of category/template/standards related mistakes. LordAmeth 14:33, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Family-name, middle-name, given-name order? Or given-name, middle-name, family-name order? It seems for Vietnamese within Vietnam, the family-name is given first. But for those outside of Vietnam, you will also see the given-name first. Perhaps we should stick with the name order that the person is most commonly referred to as. Yellowtailshark 03:53, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Locations

I see that words of cities are spelled joined, and sometimes not (e.g. Hà Nội → Hanoi; but Đà Nặng → sometimes Danang, sometimes Da Nang). Any thoughts on this? Yellowtailshark 03:34, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

I am deeply interested, but not very knowledgeable or experienced in Vietnamese history, so I don't presume to speak from knowledge of what the scholarly standards may be. But on Wikipedia, I believe that we should try as much as possible to place things in the format most recognizable to the average English speaker. Our average reader is likely to have heard of Hanoi and Tonkin and Saigon, and so these places should be represented in the spelling most common in English; other places like Can Tho and Hai Phong I at least have not heard of, and so perhaps these (and the multitude of more obscure places) should be represented however is most proper in Vietnamese. Since Vietnamese is written in Roman letters (with diacritics, but not in Chinese characters or another writing system), I would imagine there ought to be standards within the Vietnamese language as to this issue, no? LordAmeth 14:33, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps what might help is to use the spelling from the city's official website. In regards to Danang, they consistently use it without the space. Yellowtailshark 02:58, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Proper Vietnamese is with diacritical marks and spaces between the syllables, e.g. Đà Nặng, not Danang or Da Nang. English-language usage isn't created by the city's official Web site. If there is a well-known English-language spelling, for example "Saigon" or "Hanoi," that should be used. Otherwise, we should follow Vietnamese usage. Kauffner (talk) 04:54, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

There is a whole Vietnamese Wikipedia, for which proper Vietnamese spelling matters. Otherwise, this is an encyclopedic fact, which should indeed be mentioned - once per article. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:34, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Monarchs

Sometimes I see King An Dương Vương used, even though vương means "king". Would this be redundant? Should it just be King An Duong?

The standard on Wikipedia is to not include titles in article titles. The article should thus be listed at An Duong or An Duong Vuong but not at King... anything. As for how he is referred to later in the article, I'd vote for king only because it's a term widely understood and recognized in English, and because it is widely accepted as the term used to refer to these rulers. There are plenty of other terms (shogun, Opperhoofd, Shah) which do not easily translate to a single term like "king", and those I think can certainly be used as is. However, the more obscure a term is, the more necessary it is to translate or explain it briefly in parens whenever used. In other words, if we are going to start articles with "So-and-so was a vuong of Annam in X year", then there really needs to be a "(King)" right after vuong. LordAmeth 14:33, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Although Wikipedia:Naming conventions (names and titles) says not to use titles, it also mentions that it does not apply to East Asian monarchs. According to Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Japan-related articles)#Names of emperors, "Emperor" is an integral part of the name. However, Vua (Emperor) Bao Dai doesn't have any sort of honorific titles in the article name. Then again, Bao Dai isn't the real name, but an imperial title for the era of reign. Likewise, it seems Vương (King) is an integral part of the imperial title. Which would suggest that we translate An Dương Vương as the An Duong King or King of An Duong (his real name was Thục Phán). An Duong, it seems, was a toponym. Yellowtailshark 18:57, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I see. And, of course, now that you mention it, I should have realized that all the Japanese, Chinese, and Korean monarchs do have the title included. Sorry. LordAmeth 22:36, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Vương and vua both mean "king". "Emperor" is hoang để. Vietnamese generally say vua. It's Vua Bao Dai (King Bao Dai), Các Vua Nguyễn (Nguyen dynasty) and so forth. Kauffner (talk) 03:36, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Chinese and Pinyin transliterations

I do a lot of work on the Chinese/Vietnamese prehistory and ancient history articles. Because the two modern societies share quite a bit in common in terms of their ancient pasts, I use the Template:CJKV to standardize transliterations. One issue is, however, which name to use, Zhao Tuo or Trieu Da for the main article title? Yellowtailshark 03:30, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Vietnamese person -> Vietnamese name. Chinese person -> Chinese name. Zhao Tuo was Chinese. DHN 03:36, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Copied over from /Tasks

Comment - For articles about Vietnamese Americans who don't use diacritics when spelling their name, that's easy--we do the article titles without diacritics (though we can include them in the first paragraph). But for province names, for example, we have some with and some without. It might be best for these if we arrive at a consensus regarding one way of doing it. Badagnani 07:36, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Working on putting together Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Vietnamese). Yellowtailshark 03:45, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Updating the guidelines on diacritics

This page has yet to be updated to reflect the vote that was taken back in July. It's still basically a list of reasons not to use diacritics. There was a unanimous vote in favor of using anglicized forms when they are "in common use" (i.e. Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam, etc.). (See Question 1). But for other cases the vote was 3-2 in favor of using the Vietnamese form, or at least that is how I interpret Question 9. Kauffner (talk) 14:04, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

I have taken this discussion as an indication of Wiki community views and made appropriate changes in the guidelines. Article titles are read by a broader group of people than the actual articles, so our use of diacritics should reflect that. Kauffner (talk) 05:47, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

The link appears to be broken. Can you repair it and add the key sentence where it mentions Vietnamese please? In ictu oculi (talk) 03:00, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

fixed now. --KarlB (talk) 19:01, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Biography standards

I've been working on the biographies lately, so I have thought of some standards:

1. Title is the name in non-diacritical form. Reasons: For any given Vietnamese name, published English-language usage will be nearly 100 percent without diacritics. This includes not just the news media, but also sources that you might think would include diacritics: Britannica, Columbia, Vietnam News Agency, and National Geographic. The title establishes normative use: It tells the reader that this is an acceptable English-language form. There is no significant use of Vietnamese diacritics in published English and we should not mislead the reader in this regard. The non-diacritical form of the name should certainly appear somewhere in the article. The title is most logical place for it since a typeable title makes searching and linking easier. Unlike printed encyclopedia articles, Wiki articles often function as stand-alone works. This makes our article titles analogous to book titles. Book titles rarely use special characters, and certainly don't use Vietnamese diacritics.
2. The version of the name with diacritics goes in the opening and is put in boldface, per WP:MOSBIO. This avoids opening the essay with an awkward construction along the lines of "Le Quy Don (Vietnamese: Lê Quý Đôn)" .
3. The name on top of the box should should be given in the opposite style as in the title, i.e. normally with diacritics.
4. Running text should be free of diacritics that are merely decorative and do not serve an instructive purpose. For example, there is no need to repeat the diacritic version of the subject's name if this has already been given in the opening. Excessive diacritics in the running text create clutter and strain the eye. Kauffner (talk) 15:06, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Ca trù

I see the discussion above, and I have slightly more sympathy for removing tones in Vietnamese than for removing accents from French people, but there needs to be a WP:common sense line drawn somewhere. It is very odd to remove the tone from a major cultural item like ca trù. As I just mentioned to Kauffner I have never seen ca trù without the accent before - it is, as far as I have seen, always used on CD covers: CD1 CD2. The tone is also used by UNESCO. ... In this case I don't think ca + tru actually produces a new meaning, but tru without the tone looks like the verb "stay" which is a bit offputting. In ictu oculi (talk) 12:59, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

Also what is going on with Traditional Vietnamese musical instruments and category:Vietnamese musical instruments? Should Dan Tinh be at đàn tính, or tính tẩu? In ictu oculi (talk) 14:04, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

If I wanted to create an article on a subject related to Vietnamese music, the sources I would check are VietnamNet Bridge ("ca tru" site:english.vietnamnet.vn), Viet Nam News ("ca tru" site:vietnamnews.vnagency.com.vn), and VOV ("ca tru" site:english.vov.vn). These sites have hundreds of stories where "ca tru" is spelled without diacritics. All three are based in Vietnam, so there is no technical barrier that would prevent them from using diacritics. The general policy of Wikipedia is to "follow the sources" and to use the best sources available, preferably English language. We don't "correct" our sources by adding marks that they don't have. As for CDs, Amazon's top-selling Vietnamese music CDs are here and here. The most authoritative academic source on music is New Grove. I can't be sure how they spell "ca tru". But as they don't use diacritics for Polish, I assume that their policy is to use Latin-1 diacritics only. Kauffner (talk) 04:42, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Anyone will tell you that New Grove is absolutely not the most authoritative source for World Music, Garland is. I wasn't aware that New Grove wasn't a reliable source for Polish names until you mentioned that, but they certainly are a reliable source for Polish composers, spelling of names apart.

Anyway, you say "The general policy of Wikipedia is to "follow the sources" and to use the best sources available," so on what basis is a diacritic disabled website like Viet Nam News which doesn't spell the new French president's name correctly a more reliable source for the spelling of Vietnamese musical instruments and other terms in South-East Asian musicology than The Garland Handbook of Southeast Asian Music?

(Perhaps this essay needs a tag on the header saying it is under discussion). In ictu oculi (talk) 07:48, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Umm?? New Grove has Đàn ty bà and Charles Bodham. “Witold Lutosławski.” The New Grove. Why do you say New Grove doesn't? In ictu oculi (talk) 07:52, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

RfC on spelling

Should the spelling of Vietnamese names follow the general usage of English-language reliable sources? Kauffner (talk) 16:11, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

I wish to propose that the following language be added to WP:Naming conventions (Vietnamese):

The spelling of Vietnamese names should follow the general usage of English-language reliable sources, for example Ngo Dinh Diem, Ho Chi Minh, and Saigon, not Ngô Đình Diệm, Hồ Chí Minh, and Sài Gòn. Consult Encyclopedia Britannica, Encyclopedia Columbia, and Encarta.

This language is adapted from WP:NCGN#Widely_accepted_name, and the selection of references is copied from there. Columbia doesn't have enough material on Vietnam to be useful to the project, and the reference to Encarta looks odd, since it hasn't been published in years. I'd prefer to replace them with specialist works such as The History of Vietnam (2008) by Justin Corbin.

A provision of this kind may appear unnecessary and obvious, but there has recently been a series of RMs to move various titles to Vietnamese spellings. So a reaffirmation of the “use English" principle by the community may be useful at this point.

I want to emphasize that even when a title is anglicized, the Vietnamese name of the subject is still displayed prominently. The subject's "full name", including diacritics, is given boldfaced in the opening, per WP:FULLNAME. This format combines the advantages of both systems. Monolingual readers aren't put off by the title, and those who are interested in diacritics, tones, and local spellings can get this information from the opening. Kauffner (talk) 16:52, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Survey

• Kauffner, it is incredibly disingenuous to say "there has recently been a series of RMs to move various titles to Vietnamese spellings". In fact, there has been a flood in the past few months, by *you*, to move hundreds of articles to spellings without diacritics, in many cases for articles that had diacritics for several years; and often with the rather drole comment: "Remove diacritics as is usual for Vietnamese biographies" (the only thing that makes this usual is your efforts to create facts on the ground).

• In addition, after making these unilateral moves, you then edited the redirects, preventing editors from undoing the moves, leaving the only choice to be an RM. I am rather sure that this editing of the redirects was done with an explicit understanding that this would prevent a revert of your moves. Thus, I'm afraid this RfC is fatally flawed because you are actively pushing an agenda, and the above statement is not worded in a neutral fashion.

• To wit, I oppose the addition of the language above. Instead, I would propose language such as the following:

Use of diacritics in Vietnamese names should follow the usage of context-appropriate sources, per WP:IRS. Thus, sources which never, as a rule, use *any* Vietnamese diacritics, should not be used as a reference for spelling of Vietnamese names. Instead, high-quality sources that are capable and willing to use Vietnamese diacritics should be used.

• This is a specialty rule, that does not necessarily mirror that used in other naming conventions, because Vietnamese diacritics are often ignored even by major publishers (which do, on the other hand, publish using european diacritics). Wikipedia has no such limitations and we have access to VN volunteers (as pointed out in another conversation) that can help, so there's no reason to not use the proper spelling. This is not to say we should use them in words which have a well-established english spelling, such as Saigon or Hanoi, but for words which are more rare, high quality sources (and not just encyclopedias which have never used VN diacritics) should be used to determine proper spelling.--KarlB (talk) 17:45, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

So Britannica is a low-quality source because it doesn't use Vietnamese diacritics? If "high quality source" means only that it says what you want it say, that's the same as making it up as you go along. Who are these "high quality sources"? Give me some names — and hopefully not more "quality source" food articles from Thanh Nien News. WP:EN recommends "other encyclopedias and reference works, scholarly journals, and major news sources". Other encyclopedias and major media never use Vietnamese diacritics. They're not exactly common even in scholarly journals, although you can certainly find examples. I note that this proposal does not restrict the use of Vietnamese in any way, but simply reaffirms that we, "follow the general usage of English-language reliable sources." This is something that WP:DIACRITICS already stipulates. Kauffner (talk) 19:08, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

I didn't say that Brittanica was a low-quality source. My claim is that since they have chosen to eschew VN diacritics, they are not a good source for VN diacritics. Please read WP:IRS more carefully.

The problem with your proposal is it is equivalent to saying remove diacritics from everything, because if Brittanica never uses VN diacritics, then the result will be always remove VN diacritics, which I don't think is desirable. Since Brittanica *does* use european accents, they are a good source for checking spelling and usage of names which have European accents in the original (for example, Brittanica would be a good source for Étienne Marcel vs Etienne Marcel or Copenhagen vs København. However, since they seem to have made an editorial decision to eschew VN diacritics, it does not mean Wikipedia should - no such decision has been made here. The best test is whether a source that *does* use VN diacritics declines to use them for a particular word; for example, I'm sure we could find books that use diacritics for Bà Rịa–Vũng Tàu province, but that don't use them for Vietnam or Saigon. This is especially the case where a common english language usage has not been established; and if we look at the literally hundreds of page moves you have personally enacted, without broad consensus, over the past year, I'm sure there are many in there for which there is *not* a c"ommon english version, in which case they should all be moved back per Wikipedia:NCGN ("use the modern English name (or local name, if there is no established English name)"). This blog entry explains for example why the Economist doesn't use VN diacritics - bottom line it is a staffing issue.; Wikipedia has no such issues. --KarlB (talk) 20:46, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

• Malformed proposal question - It is meaningless to pose "Should the spelling of Vietnamese names follow the general usage of English-language reliable sources?" if "reliable" hasn't been defined. The WP:IRS "definition of reliable sources" states:

The reliability of a source depends on context. Each source must be carefully weighed to judge whether it is reliable for the statement being made and is the best such source for that context. In general, the more people engaged in checking facts, analyzing legal issues, and scrutinizing the writing, the more reliable the publication. Sources should directly support the information as it is presented in an article, and should be appropriate to the claims made. If no reliable sources can be found on a topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it.

(i) If WP:IRS is not taken onboard then this the same old issue that a sports website reliable for one statement being made (a hockey or tennis match result) is not reliable for spelling a Czech name. This proposal should start with an acceptance that en.wp spells European names fully both in title, lede, and text. Even with fairly strong resistance from a small group of editors who take the view that sports websites with no Czech accents are a reliable. A series of RMs - i.e. with community consensus - has pulled the "stick out" 100 or so tennis/hockey BLPs into line with the 100,000s of other Euro BLPs.

(ii) Then having started with that acceptance, a case should be made for why Latin-alphabet Asian languages should be treated differently?

These seem to be the two main issues. Otherwise this is a pointless rehash of ground already well-covered, if not covered to death. In ictu oculi (talk) 01:26, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

• My proposal states that the Vietnamese name should appear boldface in the opening of the article. So the objection that it would "always remove VN diacritics" is overheated. Of course a consistent titling style is desirable. "No established usage" is not even one of the top five WP:NAMINGCRITERIA, so it should not override the need for consistency, English-language titling, recognizability, etc, etc. If it was some sort of super criteria, we would have Chinese villages at Chinese character titles. If a publication doesn't have the staff, of course they can't put the diacritics in. But this is not the only reason they are not used. BBC has a Vietnamese edition, so they obviously have the necessary technical capability and staff. For Vietnam-based sites like VNA, VietnamNet, or Thanh Nien, the original story is typically in written in Vietnamese and the diacritics are stripped off by a translator. In other words, it is actually more trouble for them to publish without diacritics than with. Thanh Nien`s English edition uses diacritics for food-related items, but not for other subjects. The paper has persumably made a policy decision to follow this unusual style. In general, we have no way of knowing why a source uses a particular spelling, nor is there any need for us to know. If the English-language sources don't use diacritics, we shouldn't use them, end of story. Putting them in anyway misrepresents usage to the reader.

In response to IIO, this proposal doesn't create a standard that treats Vietnamese names differently than some other language. The language about "the general usage of English-language reliable sources" is taken from WP:DIACRITICS and the list of references is from WP:NCGN. Of course, we do need a Vietnam-specific reference as well. I'd be happy to add Thanh Nien if you like. Using diacritics for European languages but not for Vietnamese is the style of Britannica and Columbia, both of which are already cited prominently in our guidelines. The encyclopedias adopted this style back in the 1970s because Vietnamese diacritics were considered intense and distracting. My project to standardize the spelling and format for Vietnamese titles arose from the last year's diacritics RfC. As far as the actual proposal went, the vote was sharply split. But those wanted to rewrite the guideline cited primarily Britannica and National Geographic, neither of which use Vietnamese diacritics. Kauffner (talk) 06:30, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Kauffner

If you aren't going to recognise that en.wp uses French, German, Czech, Polish, Turkish etc. names, what is there to discuss?

In ictu oculi (talk) 07:00, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

I don't what to make of this list. You plan to liberate these peoples from under my oppressive thumb? For most of these, I don't recall any edits or posts that could be considered remotely controversial. Kauffner (talk) 13:07, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Kauffner

"liberate these peoples from under my oppressive thumb?"

No, I'm asking if you agree with the community consensus built by 1,000s of article-contributing editors that have produced en.wp's 3.9 million articles with French, German, Czech, Polish, Turkish etc. names being used. Because if your issue is with foreign names/words per se rather than just Vietnamese ones then we should be having an RfC here on French etc.

Do you recognise that en.wp uses French, German, Czech, Polish, Turkish etc. names?

It's a completely fair and straight question. Are you against French, German, Czech, Polish, Turkish too, or just Vietnamese diacritics? Please let us know what the starting point of your proposal is?

Cheers. In ictu oculi (talk) 16:49, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

I think the issue is that *you* (and some others) consider VN diacritics to be ugly or off-putting (or as you say, intense or distracting) (although, I note from earlier discussions that you've changed your mind on this; a few years ago you seemed to be defending such diacritics) I think the bottom line is, the reason that some entities have chosen to not use VN diacritics has more to do with a combination of staffing, technical competency of the editors, cost, and audience factors, and less to do with correctness, which should be our focus as an encyclopedia. Also, they are still latin letters, and the slippery slope that ends in Chinese characters is a false argument; as is Jimmy's assertion that he doesn't know how to pronounce a VN name (nor do I, but I'm sure if I read a few articles it would go a long way to helping, and the diacritics/tone marks of course help). In addition, we have seen that in some sources which do use VN diacritics, they remove them for certain well known terms, which have become anglicized. So I think that is the metric we should use. Just as you wouldn't use a black and white book to determine which shades of blue were used by Picasso, we should not use sources that ignore VN diacritics as a rule to determine whether diacritics should be added. There are a number of *other* sources, which can be found in the diacritics essay, that *do* propose use of diacritics, including VN ones. A good example of this is pho; which I think has now passed into the english language, and I'm sure you could find sources that use VN diacritics but that decline to use it for pho since it has become basically so common. Finally as to your point that you are keeping the diacritics in the lead; yes that's very good, and we should always do so as a matter of course; but do note that much interaction of wikipedia comes through search engines, and the article title is quite important in that regard; for example a search for Nguyen Ngoc Ngan shows prominently in google his name w/o diacritics, including in the mini-profile-box now used by google; I just don't see any good reason to willfully misname people just to save readers some theoretical angst in encountering foreign diacritics.--KarlB (talk) 13:59, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

The "good reason" is that the pros, the published encyclopedias, the top history and travel books, and the Vietnamese English-language media, all take the diacritics off. Do we want to be in the same category as Britannica and Columbia, or would we rather be together with Yellowdawn, the self-published work cited to support the banh bo RM? The anglicized name of the subject should appear somewhere in the article, since that's the version the reader is most likely to be familiar with. The title is most logical place, since that makes searching and linking easier. When Google results pop up, it allows the reader to distinguish which results are English and which are Vietnamese at a glance. Of course, we are not supposed to consider technical issues. Our role is to follow the established convention, not reinvent the wheel. Kauffner (talk) 15:25, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose heavy use of Vietnamese diacritical marks in English WP on the principle of least astonishment. English readers, particularly those who read no other language, are accustomed to some French and Spanish diacritical marks through long proximity. French contributed a great deal to English after the Battle of Hastings, and when the British Empire was spreading the language around the globe, French was the language of diplomacy. Spanish is a strong influence in the United States. Vietnamese is far more peripheral to the typical native English reader. Yopienso (talk) 16:47, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
  • I'll count this as a support for the proposal (to use Britannica spelling), unless you object. Kauffner (talk) 17:18, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
    • Yes, please. Yopienso (talk) 00:16, 21 July 2012 (UTC)
      • Yopienso, Hi, out of interest, simply because, I don't recognise the name as contributing to Vietnam articles, where did you find out about Kauffner's proposal? But question - given that en.wp uses diacritical marks for Czech, Icelandic and Maltese which can be even stronger than Vietnamese, how does your argument above apply? In ictu oculi (talk) 22:52, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

I contributed to Talk:Ngo Dinh Diem 4 times between April 9-11; here's the earliest diff. Since then it's been on my watchlist. Please read my comments there to more fully appreciate my reasons against the markings. Also, I forgot to say earlier today that, despite the arguments of an editor there, the diacritical markings are not generally considered part of the Latin alphabet in which the English Wikipedia is written. Even the Vietnamese article omits the markings. Kauffner alerted me to the RfC this morning after I'd already noticed it on my watchlist. Wrt to Czech, etc., I haven't happened to run across that. The Czechoslovakia article--which is as far as I took the time to look--is free of distracting diacritical marks. But, how does it apply? WP:OSE, I guess, though I'm no great fan of that essay. Regards, Yopienso (talk) 00:16, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

• Support following usage of Britannica, Columbia, and Encarta, which is to say, use the diacritic-free English alphabet to title Vietnamese subjects. This convention seems to be used universally among English-language sources: even by English-language publications in Vietnam! Titles should be easy to read, not astonishing, and not misleading as to normative usage. The Vietnamese-language name can be included, separately, in the article. We lose no accuracy with Kauffner's proposal, but properly distinguish ourselves as a mainstream English-language, and not a faux Vietnamese-language, resource. This debate has already been settled on our most-scrutinized articles: for example, Ngo Dinh Diem is the title of the Wikipedia article, not Ngô Đình Diệm. It's time to codify this best practice in the naming convention. Shrigley (talk) 20:51, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
• Apart from the malformed proposal...' Kauffner, can we please see a list of those you have invited to your RfC? In ictu oculi (talk) 02:40, 21 July 2012 (UTC)
• Support: I never learned how to type those squiggly diacritics, and do not know how to do so. I'd expect many people to be in the same boat as myself. When looking for an article on, say, a Vietnamese person, I think it is reasonable that I should be able to reach my destination by typing in standard Latin letters (the 26 ones I learnt in kindergarten) whilst on the English Wikipedia. Sure, we could make redirects for every single Vietnamese-titled article, but why bother with such a painful mess? We don't have Korean biography articles with their titles written in Hangul, and don't have Chinese biography articles written in Chinese, so why do we use Vietnamese diacritics for articles on EN Wiki? I'm certain that most people reading EN Wiki don't even know how to read those diacritics - whether a squiggly line makes this tone or that tone; I for one can't. Having those diacritics means that it's not an English article title, and this is problematic since readers of the English Wikipedia are supposed to be literate in English, and not Quoc Ngu. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 11:43, 21 July 2012 (UTC)
  • Note: Redirects are largely sufficient here to deal with your squiggly issues, and I have yet to find *any* such articles where redirects from non-diacritics versions do not already exist. This whole typing argument can thus be avoided. Besides, you probably don't know how to type french or german or icelandic or maltese accents either, so why not go after those as well? There is no reason to single out Vietnamese in wikipedia. --KarlB (talk) 16:45, 21 July 2012 (UTC)
    • Let me warp your words a little bit. Why don't we move today's main page featured article, pi, to π? A redirect is sufficient enough to remedy typing issues, and most English speakers (and speakers of other languages) recognise that Greek letter, since they would have learned it in Grade 7 mathematics. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 05:09, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Well, that is warping my words, and I would not suggest such a thing, and it's a rather silly comparison. Again, we have diacritics for dozens of languages. Why should we all of a sudden remove diacritics from Vietnamese for specious typing reasons, when those reasons are not sufficient to remove diacritics from any other language? This is not western wikipedia, this is english wikipedia, and FWIW there are probably more english speakers in Asia than there are anywhere else in the world.--KarlB (talk) 12:26, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

And in the English Wikipedia we use English. Diacritics from, say, French (in addition to other languages) are commonly understood by English speakers due to the proximity of England and France, and the sharing of vocabulary between the two which familiarises readers with such diacritics (café, coup d'état, résumé, jalapeño, naïve). Though French/Spanish/whatever in origin, words such as café and jalapeño are also in English dictionaries, and are also English words of foreign origin. This is not the same situation as Vietnamese. Vietnam is much more distant, and the connections between English and Vietnamese are not as apparent. Being written with a modified Latin alphabet does not make Vietnamese text become English; Vietnamese writing is as unique to the Vietnamese language as Chinese characters are unique to the Chinese language, where English speakers are unable to read neither Vietnamese text nor Chinese text, and we do not have the Mao Zedong article located at 毛泽东. By the same logic, both Chinese and Japanese use Han characters, however the Japanese Wikipedia article for Mao Zedong is located at ja:毛沢東, and not 毛泽东 as it would be written in Chinese. "东" is not a valid character in the Japanese language, and is only used in Chinese. Both languages, albeit using the same writing system, have different methods of writing, and this is the same case with English and Vietnamese: we do not use those squiggly lines in the English language. There are similar cases for languages that use the Arabic and Cyrillic writing systems as well. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 13:42, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

To summarise: Japanese readers do not recognise "东", and cannot read "毛泽东" even though it is the native written form in Chinese, and so write it in a form which is legible to them; Russian readers do not read the "i"s in Ukrainian and the "j"s in Serbian, and Russify Ukrainian and Serbian proper nouns with their own vowels and consonants; native English readers do not understand those squiggly diacritics used in Vietnamese, and hence often drop them. "东" is not Japanese, "j" is not Russian, and "Ngô Đình Diệm" is not English. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 13:56, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

This has really nothing to do with japanese/chinese, and the proximity argument doesn't hold either; you may recall that the US fought a war with Vietnam, there are over a million Vietnamese living in the US (Vietnamese are the second-largest SE asian minority in the US (after Filipinos)); and the Vietnamese soup Pho was recently voted one of the top 50 foods in the world. I certainly feel a lot closer to Vietnam than to Malta or Iceland. Again, I still don't understand why Maltese or Icelandic or Serbian diacritics are considered ok, but Vietnamese are not? There are plenty of sources which use VN diacritics in the English language. There are lots of exceptions that should be made, for VN terms that have been widely anglicized, but when no-such anglicization has occurred stripping the diacritics is silly. Again, I'm not opposed to individual discussions about appropriate use of diacritics, and if someone proposed moving Hanoi to a version with diacritics (the strawman Kauffner put above) I would oppose such a move; however, for more obscure subjects that haven't received much coverage in English-language media, we should default to the correct spelling. If Kauffner has his way, the result would be to remove diacritics from every single Vietnamese article in the wikipedia, since the sources he propose *never* use VN diacritics as a matter of course; he has already been attempting to do so, by unilaterally moving hundreds of articles over the past 6 months in an attempt to create facts on the ground, but he now knows he cannot continue to do so uncontested so is trying to change the rules of the game.--KarlB (talk) 14:16, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

• Comment. I feel that generally, we should make our encyclopedia as easy to edit as it is to read, and in the case of Vietnamese, it would be incredibly cumbersome if we had this inconsistency of whether or not having diacritics is 'proper' or not. An editor who edits an article with diacritics but without access (or knowledge) to Vietnamese typing tools can find this bothersome. I would say that we can retain diacritics for infoboxes only, but for the most part I am in favour of abolishing Vietnamese diacritics altogether from the article body. Colipon+(Talk) 18:46, 21 July 2012 (UTC)
  • Thanks; however, I don't see why this is an issue; if you don't have access to (or don't want to use) diacritics, it's not a problem; someone else who is so inclined can come fix it later, just as has been already done in thousands of articles. Having the correct diacritics in the title does not prevent users from typing the name without diacritics, because of redirects, etc. Again, I'm not sure why we feel like we should exclude Vietnamese but accept accents for almost all other latin-based languages? --KarlB (talk) 18:52, 21 July 2012 (UTC)
• comment Note: see usage guides here, from other sources: User:Prolog/Diacritical_marks#External_guides; most journals and academic publications about Vietnam use diacritics for example.--KarlB (talk) 19:06, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia is a general purpose digital encyclopedia, not an academic journal. Yopienso (talk) 22:59, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

The only mention of Vietnamese on the linked page is a quote from the National Geographic style Manual: "Although Vietnamese is written in the Latin alphabet, the number of accent marks can be distracting and may therefore be omitted." Kauffner (talk) 17:14, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

• Comment Our WP:AT policy states among other things: "The choice of article titles should put the interests of readers before those of editors, and those of a general audience before those of specialists." We do exactly the opposite when we go too far in changing anglicized names to native spelling that is often hard to read and edit for our English language audience. There will always be "spelling puritans" and "spelling liberals", but if WP is any neutral then it should either serve both of them, or side with neither of them. WP should not become used as a tool to push more foreign spelling into English language usage, it should go along with what IS used in English language. Our current policies state that when there is mixed usage in English language sources, then we go with the anglicized version rather than the native version, see WP:ON and WP:IMOS and WP:CYR for examples. I see no reason do it any different for Vietnamese names: if there is an anglicized version then use it. If there is no anglicized version appearing in English language sources, then we have no choice but use the native spelling. Using native spelling should be the exception, not the rule.

People sometimes contend that there is no harm in using more diacritics in article titles, nothing is lost because there is always a redirect from the non-diacritics spelling. I disagree. What you lose is editors as an unintended consequence. Some editors (including me) refuse to type in weird characters that are not on their keyboard all the time, and that is their good right since they volunteer their time to wp or not. Some of them will say "thank you very much" when they see a name full with strange diacritics in the title. The result is a net loss for wp, because the article is not developed/maintained as well as it would be if it were kept at the more common anglicized name. The slogan of WP used to be: "the encyclopedia that anyone can edit", but for English WP we should now change that to: "the encyclopedia that anyone can edit, if they know how to type in 20+ languages". Somebody can drop me a note when this place has become the "English" wikipedia again. MakeSense64 (talk) 09:31, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

• Comment Without diacritics, some Vietnamese words would look the same while they are totally different (and thus have totally different meaning). For example, Nguyễn is the most popular family name in Vietnam while Nguyên can be full, a Vietnamese first name, or the Vietnamese name for Yuan Dynasty. Without diacritics, Nguyễn and Nguyên are simply the indistinguishable Nguyen. While I choose this example? Because I found one passage in Cecil B. Currey (2005), Victory at Any Cost: The Genius of Vietnam's Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap, Potomac Books, Inc., page 7: "There are a few family names in the land,... Giap's middle name, Nguyen, is one of them, but, as in his case, is not always a family name. Perhaps he bore this name to remind him of some distant lineage with the Nguyen rulers of the land.". The author, who is a respected military historian, made an unbelievable error (in regards of any Vietnamese reader) of mistaking Võ Nguyên Giáp's middle name, which is Nguyên, with the family name Nguyễn. For the sake of Vietnamese words' meaning, please take your argument of Vietnamese words with diacritics is not understandable for English speakers aside, since without them (diacritics), even Vietnamese speakers cannot understand the words! For the popular Vietnamese names (without diacritics) in the English speaking world (like pho - although in Vietnamese, pho with diacritics will become phở - the English pho, phố - a street, phò - derogatory term for ... prostitute, or simply pho - a volume), I have no objection of let them exist here without diacritics, but for the less known words, please keep the diacritics intact and don't just cite Britannica for killing them (diacritics), since you will kill the meaning accompagning the words as well. Thank you for your understanding. (and to Mr. Kauffner, removing diacritics from every single article about Vietnam that I tried my best to create here without noticing me or discussing with me is really not nice, not nice at all.) With best regards. Grenouille vert (talk) 15:03, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

  And again, I'm not talking about "right/wrong", I just hope that Wikipedia readers can avoid the unnecessary misunderstanding of Vietnamese words without diacritics, removing those diacritics from Vietnamese words (which are, by any mean, written using a Latin alphabet) doesn't make a Wikipedia article clearer or proper, only in reverse. There are only a few popular Vietnamese names without diacritics in the English speaking world like "pho", "Saigon", "Hanoi", so please don't take them as norm or think that I try to change them into "phở", "Sài Gòn", "Hà Nội", I'm only talking about less well-known articles like Ngô Sĩ Liên, xẩm or these guys. Thank you. Grenouille vert (talk) 02:56, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Hi Grenouille vert, agree but actually Vietnam Saigon and Hanoi are the only 3 English exonyms for Vietnam. phở is not an exonym and is usually written phở in English menus. In ictu oculi (talk) 03:10, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

The official view of this matter is quite different, you know. Vietnam promotes English-language usage of "Viet Nam" and "Ha Noi".[1] But diacritics, not to any significant degree. Kauffner (talk) 11:31, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

With all due respect, I do not talk about changing very popular in the English speaking world Vietnamese names like Hanoi, Vietnam into the with-diacritic-form, I care more about the less well-known Vietnamese words/names which have been moved (without any discussion with the creator) into the non-diacritic form, so please try to kindly understand my reasons and to move "Hanoi", "Saigon" and "Vietnam" out of your arguments here. Thank you. Grenouille vert (talk) 17:02, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose – this RFC is biased by calling the issue "spelling". The examples used are cases where we already use no diacritics, because the names are long familiar in almost all English sources that way. When many English sources still use the diacritics, there is no reason for WP not to as well, so we do; as pointed out, redirects take care of any possible disadvantage that people have mentioned. Let's leave it that way. And thanks to KarlB for remembering that I care about this issue, since Kauffner seems to have forgotten. Dicklyon (talk) 15:34, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

The purpose of this proposal is to allow the Vietnamese articles to remain where they are, at predominently non-diacritic titles. It is a response to IIO's proposals to move virtually all titles to diacritic spellings, including such well known names and terms as Ho Chi Minh, Ngo Dinh Diem, and pho. Kauffner (talk) 11:31, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

• Support I think that is more likely to be consistent, although we should defer to WP:AT. Of note I was asked (neutrally) to join this discussion by KarlB. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 19:13, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose: Skipping the diacritics would be failing in our duty as an modern online encyclopaedia, with Unicode at our disposal, to represent facts accurately, even if they are difficult. Readers not familiar with Vietnamese diacritics (a group I fall into) are perfectly capable of mentally stripping them off - when opponents of diacritics say that they don't like those funny squiggles, they demonstrate exactly that capability. And as User:grenouille vert says, the diacritics affect the meaning - a good example is the emperor Duc Duc, where stripping off the diacritics, as has been done, obscures the fact that the two parts of the name are completely different (Dục Đức). And I cannot believe that any editor would be put off editing an article by the diacritics - if they have a real interest in Vietnamese matters, they'll want to learn how to type the diacritics, and if not, everyone can cut and paste. Colonies Chris (talk) 21:10, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
• Support, on the basis that it is not Wikipedia's objective to represent The Truth, but to reflect the corpus of scholarly and reliable English language sources. The vast majority of our stylistic choices are driven by widespread practice, and our rendering of foreign script and diacritics are no exception to this standard. The rendering of text in the majority of reliable English sources is without diacritics, which is how titles and in-prose usage should be rendered here. – NULL ‹talk›
  ‹edits› 22:50, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

• Where diacritics are commonly used in the English spelling of Vietnamese words, and where the Vietnamese word itself is used in the literature exclusively, either as the English texts loan the Vietnamese word, or as the only or predominant literature is in Vietnamese, then we should spell the Vietnamese word in the Vietnamese way. Where English has loaned a word, such as Nguyen or pho, and the English loan word is the common useage in English texts, and where the word is substantively discussed in English texts, we should use the English language form of the word. We are writing an English encyclopaedia. Where English has a significant impact in the sources, or where the object is known with an English word, we use the English word (pho). Where the subject is primarily discussed in Vietnamese, and the object is not known or not widely known in English using an English loan word, we use the Vietnamese. Fifelfoo (talk) 03:19, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose'. We stick with current practice, which is to apply the general MoS on diacritics. Use diacritics unless the word has entered English without them. Entered English does not mean being used sporadically. No diacritics on Hanoi, Saigon. Most other place names should have them. Always redirect for article titles. Itsmejudith (talk) 16:35, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
  • MOS:FOREIGN says, "For foreign names, phrases, and words generally, adopt the spellings most commonly used in English-language references for the article." That would normally be without diacritics, unless someone is gaming the references. Kauffner (talk) 17:18, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Oppose as per Users Karl B. and In ictu oculi; I believe the article names should be without diacritics, but the articles themselves should have them as needed. In the event the support side prevails, I am curious as to how we will retrofit all the articles concerning Vietnam and containing diacritics to make them uniform, and then make the playing ground level with regard to other languages with diacritics, some of which (such as Serbian, Croatian, Welsh, Irish, Polish, etc.) will likely provoke pitched battles, and to avoid being unduly selective or hypocritical. Quis separabit? 16:04, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

BTW: In re Kauffner's earlier query: "Do we want to be in the same category as Britannica and Columbia, or would we rather be together with Yellowdawn, the self-published work cited to support the banh bo RM?", I think Wikipedia is sui generis. I don't think Britannica and Columbia would accept the comparison, and they would be right given that Wikipedia is distinguished, not only by its open-editing, but also by the ancillary services it provides. Respectfully submitted. Quis separabit? 17:33, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

• Support. It is not normal for English language sources to use Vietnamese diacritics. English WP is an English language source. I don't think the current situation makes very much more sense than having an article titled Київ or عمر الشريف. Formerip (talk) 14:12, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose. Use of diacritics is educational, which is one of our goals. The practise of Anglicising things is a relic of the last millennium, and it time to bury it. (looking at option #4, below.) Br'er Rabbit (talk) 00:57, 30 July 2012 (UTC)
• Support - I believe wikipedia should try to use the English commonname , if there are sources that do not use the diacritics, then nor should wikipedia. BritishWatcher (talk) 13:55, 1 August 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose We are an encyclopedia. Our goal is to educate. We should have the proper names as the title. Redirects can take care of those who do not wish to type them. Add to that many of the arguments I have made in the past when this gets brought up over and over again. I am too tired of having to re-argue it to list them yet again. -DJSasso (talk) 16:45, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

• You do realize that no published English-language encyclopedia uses Vietnamese diacritics? I guess they really do let anyone edit around here. Kauffner (talk) 03:32, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose unnecessary removal of information. And what Itsmejudith said. —Kusma (t·c) 19:11, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose. I've always seen this issue as stylistic—something WP has the right to decide in-house. The diacriticals: add information, do not detract sufficiently from the underlying characters, are handled by redirects (in titles), educate readers, and may even spark an interest in their effect. I believe that removing diacritical markings (on some) words, phrases, and even languages smacks of dumbing-down WP, and therefore I will always support placing the markings on characters based on Latin-derived alphabets. GFHandel ♬  23:03, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
• Support. Seems like a no-brainer for Vietnamese names to follow the general usage of English-language reliable sources. That's what we do here... follow the English sources and use what we find. That way we don't have to rely on someone's POV. Fyunck(click) (talk) 07:21, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
• Support. It is easy to find out which rendering of a word or name is more common in English-language book usage with Ngram Viewer.
• It is also easy to find which rendering of a word or name is most searched for, by using Google Insights for Search like this (note: sports category) or like this. Since articles are unlikely to be read if people don't find them when they search, this is surely one of the strongest WP:COMMONSENSE reasons for generally not using diacritics in article titles. The example of Pelé illustrates both the problem and the solution. Maybe you cannot use his real name in the article title, because almost nobody would recognize it, much less remember it (it's so long), and the article would probably not be found in a Google search. Although it makes sense to avoid accents where possible, and people are going to search for Pele without the accent (Google Insights for Search data for searches for Pele just in Brazil is very informative), maybe it's unavoidable to use the diacritic in this case—because the name looks stupid, even unrecognizable, without it. So people are forced to research the COMMONNAME, and use COMMONSENSE ;-) How dreadful that there can't be one rule that can be forced on everyone ;-)
• For Spanish names and the like, as well as researching the COMMONNAME in English, it is surely important to look at the corresponding foreign-language Wikipedia. In the above example, Manuel Sánchez (tennis) is NOT the title in Spanish Wikipedia. The reason is surely that an abbreviated English version of his name is acceptable in international tennis, because there is no confusion, but an abbreviated version of his name in Spanish is NOT ACCEPTABLE in Spanish Wikipedia because it is not unique and/or it is disrespectful. Already there are several "Manuel Sánchez <lastname>" articles in English Wikipedia that use formal full names—but it's easiest to find the correct Manuel Sánchez if the title is the abbreviated English COMMONNAME plus the context (tennis). If Manuel Sánchez were a really famous tennis player then he would probably get an abbreviated nickname that might not resemble his real name, as in the Pelé example. Otherwise the abbreviated English name—and not an abbreviated Spanish version with diacritics—has surely got to be the COMMONNAME in English.
• There is also good reason to use the most common name WP:COMMONNAME, because doing otherwise means that a lot of page searches are sent through a redirect, which eats more server capacity (so WP becomes slower and it costs more).

• But let's play devil's advocate, and take the opposing arguments to their logical conclusions:

• "use of diacritics in article titles is educational" ( → if ramming a foreign language down the throat of a user who is not familiar with it is "educational", then why not Chinese and Japanese titles too?)
• "we have the technology" ( → we have the technology to display Japanese and Chinese too)
• "forget about properly researching the COMMONNAME, forget about COMMONSENSE, let's have "one standard" for all Latin alphabets. This sounds lazy, sloppy, and unprofessional to me. Obviously the COMMONNAME of a sportsman like Pelé is going to change at various stages of his career, so Wikipedia must allow the article title to reflect current usage rather than applying rigid rules regardless of real-world usage, context, and nationality. LittleBen (talk) 11:36, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose a rule against the use of native diacritics. This is an encyclopedia, not a work for the lowest common denominator. μηδείς (talk) 04:27, 13 August 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose. Unless the "name with no diacritic" is VERY COMMON, these names should be written with full diacritics. Reason: this is an encyclopedia for the whole world, not only for the English-speaking countries. We still have redirect pages for non-diacritic writings. Anyone support the abandon of diacritics please remember the example of GV about the "Nguyên" and "Nguyễn". There are many words in Vietnamese without diacritics look exactly the same, and that can cause many misinformations during the process of identifying the Vietnamese name, both people's name and geographic name. Михаил Александрович Шолохов (talk) 15:22, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose. without diacritics, a lot of names will look the same and then we have to make disambiguation titles. ༆ (talk) 21:39, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose: Vietnamese is the language of character manifestation of sound. --Minh Tâm-T41-BCA (talk) 04:47, 15 August 2012 (UTC)--

Canvassing?

• Improper canvassing by Kauffner: Note, per notes such as this: [[2]], Kauffner is not notifying in a neutral fashion. Note the wording of the notice, and the examples given (like Saigon), which are not under dispute.--KarlB (talk) 16:45, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

• What about this? Kauffner (talk) 17:25, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

I used a template; the notification itself was neutral. --KarlB (talk) 17:28, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Templates have nothing to do it. You notified somebody selectively because you expect him to vote a certain way. Kauffner (talk) 17:46, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

• That really takes the proverbial biscuit. Kauffner, on what basis did you select those you invited and leave it to KarlB to invite AjaxSmax? You know full well that AjaxSmax has been one of the main advocates of treating Vietnamese names like French and Czech names for as long as you have been moving Vietnam articles. How could you possibly select a list of invitees and not include AjaxSmax and all the various WP:Vietnam editors who have objected to your moves? And then get smart with KarlB for doing the blindingly obvious - which you should have done. In any case this is a charade, since selective invites aside, the question you have asked is immaterial, the issue is not sources/typographic limits (which is the same issue for every Latin-alphabet language), yet en.wp articles Irish, French, Spanish, German, Portuguese, Swedish, Finnish, Danish, Norwegian, Dutch, Latvian, Estonian, Lithuanian, Icelandic, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Hungarian, Romanian, Bosnian, Serb, Croat, Maltese and Turkish names, even Hawaiian, are giving full spelling but not Vietnamese? Why single out Vietnamese? In ictu oculi (talk) 01:43, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

• When I went over to AjaxSmax's talk page to notify him, I noticed KarlB had already done it. Kauffner (talk) 06:10, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Note: I've notified a number of other editors, who participated in past vietnam RMs. I noticed that in some cases, those participants in a discussion who voted for a move away from diacritics were notified by Kauffner, while several who voted against were not notified. I've tried to rectify this, and have notified all participants I could find in past VN diacritic rename discussions (regardless of which side they were on.)--KarlB (talk) 14:05, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Well done Karl, but as Dicklyon notes above the terms of the question are ridiculously put. I would think it impossible to get a sensible discussion out of this - even without the selective invites - perhaps Dicklyon has an idea for a better question. I do note and agree with Grenouille vert's comment - some of these article titles are absolutely ambiguous with the diacritics stripped off. My Vietnamese isn't what it was 20 years ago but I can still read it, and I haven't a clue what a lot of these "Britannia"ised titles are. Bloody unhelpful, much worse than looking at Czech with the accents stripped. In ictu oculi (talk) 16:43, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

• I initiated a debate on this subject a couple of years ago - favouring diacritics - but I didn't find out about this RFC until KarlB invited me just today. I certainly would have expected to be notified by the initiator of the RFC. Colonies Chris (talk) 21:14, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Page titles should not use diacritics in the English wiki because people can't type them in (although obviously redirects should exist using them), but the article should employ diacritics. Vietnamese is a roman alphabet. What's our wikistandard for Czech? It's a similar - if less diacritical-intense - issue. The issue isn't dissimilar to the problem of Arabic (and Mandarin) romanisation, where actual speakers get confused when the romanised diacritics are not visible (of the sort "which Shanxi" or "which Nasir?) Ogress _smash!

Ogress, our Wikistandard for Czech is 100% use of diacritics in titles. In fact that's our wikistandard for all Latin-alphabet titles and until last year included Vietnamese too. The issue is not the same as Arabic and Chinese which are not Latin alphabets. In ictu oculi (talk) 13:45, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

One hundred percent use of diacritics? Trời ơi! So we could actually end up with articles that explain how the Battle of Sài Gòn unfolded during the Tết Offensive; how Hà Nội supplied the Việt cộng via the Hồ Chí Minh trail; or assess Võ Nguyên Giáp's generalship during the Battle of Điện Biên Phủ. Kauffner (talk) 14:31, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Kauffner,

I think your right to score points is on hold at the moment isn't it.

I won't insult the intelligence of the others here to address the other examples but Võ Nguyên Giáp is a relevant example. Yes and it is a Vietnamese bio which wasn't moved by you and was moved by two other editors after a discussion on the Talk page. There will always be exceptions.

But as I say, your right to score points is on hold. In ictu oculi (talk) 16:06, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

You mean that SPI stuff is still going on? I thought it was all over except the laughing. Kauffner (talk) 17:39, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

(Personal attack removed)

Other options

I appreciate User:Kauffner's proposal to bring order to this issue and codify the status quo. The ensuing discussion above is very interesting and it is clear there could be a a variety of approaches to the use of diacritics in titles in Vietnam-related articles while still adhering to Wikipedia policy. I'm just curious where users fall when given more restrictive guideline options. For example, what do you feel about the following positions? —  AjaxSmack  17:34, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Please weigh in with support, oppose, or other quips if you care:

1) Little or no diacritic use at all except in cases when a preponderance of all types of sources use them (i.e., following usage similar to that of newspapers)

2) Diacritic use on an ad hoc basis but consistency across categories (e.g., use diacritics for Vietnamese foods and terms but not for places in Vietnam)

3) Status quo — diacritic use on an ad hoc basis decided on a case-by-case basis with different weight given to different types of sources

4) Diacritic use on most articles unless name has been nativised (e.g. Viet Cong, Ho Chi Minh City)

Survey Other Options

• support option 4 this is the one I would support as a default. We'd have to establish wide use of a name w/o diacritics to make the case for stripping them. There are a number of obvious ones (like you've listed above), but the bulk of other VN articles that I've looked at, I was not familiar with and googling doesn't find a lot of usage.--KarlB (talk) 17:39, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
• Support option 4 - We have the techology, so let's use it! As has been pointed out, Vietnamese is a tonal language and the correct use of diacritics is vital for those who understand Vietnamese. Use of diacritics will also help ensure that IPA pronunciations are correct for those that understand that system. For the rest of us (me included), we'll just read the words sans diacritics. Words commonly Latinized should be housed at non-diacritic titles. Appropriate redirects should be provided in all cases. Mjroots (talk) 22:54, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
• Support 4 more or less, though it's not really much different from 3 or the status quo. The problem is just in reaching agreement on which names have been "nativized"; otherwise there would be no basis for dropping diacritics, would there? Some editors have a different approach to it than others do, which is why it seems rather ad hoc. Dicklyon (talk) 23:01, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
• Probably support 4 - same as for Czech, Maltese, Turkish I still haven't really made my mind up, what little time is available for this has been spent looking at the the most ridiculous anglicizations in the category:Vietnamese words and phrases category and diverted by the shenanigans surrounding the Can Tho RM. But it's been brought to my attention (by Karl B) that the initial Chicago math professor Ngo Bao Chau RM was deeply flawed, given that his own Chicago website, New Scientist and math papers use diacritics. The Vo Chi Cong RM similarly missed his English obituary using accents. The Dang Huu Phuc RM there's not much to go but naturally his CD covers. And to be honest that RM was messed around a bit by the "license" given by Jimbo's comment, which is awkward when J and W are "diacritics" in the Vietnamese alphabet, and yet vi.wp doesn't have "Đim-bo Ưêirs", Jimbo could easily have picked a Czech, Maltese, Turkish example - and would we then have 1000+ page moves for Czech, Maltese, Turkish? It's on that question that Joy (Shallot)'s frequent complaint about anglicisation of names being xenophobic sticks. Why single out Vietnamese? I think the thing I really notice is that Vietnamese English-publication sources are beginning to use the accents - like Vietweek, Baomoi, scholarly western books - at exactly the same time en.wp has been pulled in the opposite direction. And then there's Grenouille vert's point about ambiguity which I already agreed with. In ictu oculi (talk) 02:16, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
• None of the above. How many more years does WP want to lose editors and waste time on an issue that splits the community right down the middle? A few lines of code can solve this for good, see my suggestions below. Or do editors and admins prefer to continue to argue and block or ban? MakeSense64 (talk) 06:37, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
• Support option 4 exactly per In ictu oculi's rationale. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 09:07, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
• Support option 4 Removing the diacritics causes LOSS of information, keeping them (and adding redirects when necessary) not only informs, but loses none. Also, we'd be avoiding systemic bias in favor of the latin alphabet.... Zaldax (talk) 19:16, 27 July 2012 (UTC)
• Option 4, please. All part of educational, informative, interesting, useful, comprehensive. And see my comment up in the survey. (and opposed to the further silly options, below.) Br'er Rabbit (talk) 01:02, 30 July 2012 (UTC)
• Definitely Option 4, per In ictu oculi, without diacritics sometimes hard to identify the native spellings. ༆ (talk) 21:51, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
• Opinion 4. Due to heavy reliance on diacritcs, without diacritcs Vietnamese is a nonsense group of characters. Михаил Александрович Шолохов (talk) 12:12, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

Comment Other Options

Various Vietnam-based news sites have opened in recent years and a few use diacritics. I would not think of it in terms of a trend toward greater use. If we are to consult the usage of a Vietnam-based site, surely it should be the most comprehensive and authoritative such site, which is Viet Nam News. Perhaps not everyone is aware of Jimbo's thoughts on the issue of Dang Huu Phuc vs. Đặng Hữu Phúc, so I will link to them. Does this proposal imply that even if a subject is given in Britannica and other encyclopedias without diacritics, we might still use a spelling given only in Vietnamese-language sources? This is quite far the idea the en.wiki should, you know, "use English" and all that. The editors of National Geographic say that Vietnamese diacritics are too "distracting" to include, and they can be considered the authorities on the subject of how to deal the scripts of various languages. I don't worry about whether the marks are distracting or not. To me, the issue is that the title should provide accurate information: It should tell the reader what this subject is called in real-world English, and it follow the usage of the best available sources. Kauffner (talk) 05:08, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

As you know, wikipedia does *not* have a bias towards online sources. In this case, your example of Viet Nam news is excellent; as you know, they *do* use diacritics in their print version. Here is a recent example, from 2010: No diacritics in online article; Diacritics in print article. To me, this establishes that their non-use of diacritics in the online version may have more to do with technology, staffing, costs, or perhaps user interface issues. That they have no fear of using diacritics in the English-language printed version, to me supports that Wikipedia should do the same. Now, they also use Việt Nam and Hà Nội, which I don't think we should use since those terms are sufficiently anglicized. Someone who lives in VN should stop by their offices and ask them why they have chosen to not use diacritics in the online version - their answer may be illuminating. --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 18:59, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

I am not sure that these questions relate to the RfC, but I'll do my best to answer them. If you have been reviewing my old posts, you know that at one time I considered the print edition of VNN to be more official than the Web site. But I do not think this way anymore. To anyone outside of Vietnam, there is only the Web site. As the VNN site has to compete with other similar sites, it must provide news in the form that English speakers want to read it, and that includes stripping off diacritics. As a printed English-language paper, VNN has no significant competition. So the print edition is stuck in a communist-era time warp, full of headlines and unreadable articles like, "Prime Minister visits Đồng Nai province" and "Inflation lower than expected again this month." In short, they treat the readers like mushrooms, keep them in the dark, and feed them diacritics. (I hope nobody tells Trinh Thanh Thuy I said that. I don't need any trouble with VNN.) Check out VietnamPlus, VNA's most recent creation. As you can see, the new Vietnam is not demanding that English-speakers learn the Vietnamese alphabet. Kauffner (talk) 12:54, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Even More Other options

Comment Having watched this ongoing diacritics saga, it has become clear to me that rewriting our policies or guidelines will not solve this. We simply have people who are and remain on opposite sides of this. We need a solution that satisfies both sides. So let me suggest a few other options that are technically possible:

5) Change the WP code to allow for multiple article titles. Readers who access the page through "Dang Huu Phuc" see that as the title, readers who came searching for "Đặng Hữu Phúc" get the page rendered with diacritics in the title. Everybody happy, and diacritics wars become a thing of the past.

6) Create an "English wikipedia" and an "English(international) wikipedia". The English wp uses anglicized names whenever they exist in any reliable sources, the "international" version uses native spelling of names as much as possible. Everybody happy, and our English readers with a visual impairment can read WP again (right now they struggle to do so)

7)Embed a "diacritics stripping" script into WP, which people can turn on or off in their own user settings. Such scripts already exist in Perl and Javascript: [3] and [4].

Why continue to argue about an issue that technology can solve with a few lines of code? Let everyone make their own choice wherever we can. User customization is the way of the future anyway, so there is no need for WP to be a laggard in that regard. MakeSense64 (talk) 06:01, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

MakeSense64 The diacritics saga is over - all en.wp articles are now spelled correctly except for Ana Ivanovic, who we can leave there as a monument to what Joy (Shallot) calls it. That only leaves Vietnamese. You may want to take your technical request to Village Pump. In ictu oculi (talk) 06:35, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Btw - sorry about cutting and pasting this chunk inadvertently just now, got caught in an edit conflict and uploaded wrong version. Restored. Actually your proposal 7 isn't that bad, Prokonsul Piotrus looked into this last year. In ictu oculi (talk) 06:44, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Reply No problem, I have become used to that kind of things. And I am not interested in the village pump, if there is some use in my idea it will get picked up sooner or later.

You think the diacritics saga is over, and I think it only gets started once you have moved almost every name to foreign spelling. Some people hate it to see names with diacritics stripped on WP, others don't like to have foreign spelling being pushed in their face and see it as a form of "reverse-colonialism". That's not going to change. If WP itself doesn't offer a "plain English" version without diacritics for those readers who want a "normal" read (for their English eyes), then WP will not only continue to lose editors, then it is only a matter of time till somebody else offers a more "readable" version of English WP, because the technology to strip diacritics from pages already exists. It is that simple: you serve your customers or you lose them (sooner or later). MakeSense64 (talk) 07:25, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Okay but is Prokonsul Piotrus' idea not yours and he already looked into it. It won't be reality unless people really want it.

Yes I think the European diacritics saga is over. I would even say that your WP:TENNISNAMES essay was the thing that led to the end. But anyway, we're here to discuss Vietnamese. In ictu oculi (talk) 07:39, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

I don't know Prokonsul Piotrus. I think you are dreaming that the diacritics saga is over just by having moved (nearly) all names to native spelling titles. As you know, some countries like Macedonia seem to be dropping diacritics, and all over the world young people are discovering that they can easily read and write without diacritics when they send an SMS. Spelling is something that will remain in flux for a long time to come. The best way to deal with it is for WP to make space for all existing variations, because that will satisfy most of the users.

Essays are meant to stimulate discussion, and WP:TENNISNAMES has succeeded beyond expectation in doing so. You are still talking about it. What more one can ask for?

MakeSense64 (talk) 09:36, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Hi MakeSense64

Prokonsul Piotrus' page is User:Piotrus.

Macedonian isn't a Latin alphabet language, it is a dialect of Bulgarian and both are Cyrillic, it is only natural that after independence they will probably eventually gravitate to using Bulgarian romanization rather than their traditional Serbian romanization. That has zero to do with why en.wp articles, except for Ana Ivanovic, are at European Latin-alphabet names. And again it has zero to do with Vietnamese. Sure, I give your essay full credit, as above. But we are here to talk about Vietnamese. :) In ictu oculi (talk) 10:38, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

You digressed by starting to talk about "European" diacritics saga and WP:TENNISNAMES, not me. Credit where it belongs. MakeSense64 (talk) 11:07, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Please look at your first sentence "Having watched this ongoing diacritics saga," - you clearly meant foreign names in general not just Vietnamese ones. Everyone else is beyond this. In ictu oculi (talk) 12:54, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Whom are you trying to fool, IIO? Ever since you commented in this topic last week you have been talking about "European names", "Czech accents", Turkish, Polish, and so on... but others should stick to Vietnamese only. heheh?

It's fairly obvious that the "other options" I floated would affect all diacritics on WP... But please read your own posts before asking others to discuss Vietnamese only. No double standards, please. MakeSense64 (talk) 13:42, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Whatever. In ictu oculi (talk) 14:01, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Without wanting to step into the same hellish discussions as ever, I really like MakeSense's option 7 a lot. The Serbian Wikipedia does a similar thing enabling users to switch between Latin and Cyrillic. The basic Latin letters only version could even transcribe all text not in {{lang}} templates in article text as well as in titles. - filelakeshoe 14:27, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

It's an interesting idea, but the articles still have be at a single title. If we could implement option 7, would people agree to leaving these titles with the correct diacritics, along with an ascii-redirect? Then users who don't want to see diacritics can turn them off, which would strip them from titles and elsewhere. One problem would be, what do you do in cases where accents are used to disambiguate (ex: Hue and Huế)?--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 14:47, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

I think such cases are pretty rare, and there is probably a way to avoid that kind of problem. If such a "switch option" system already exists for Serbian wp, then it cannot be much of a problem to create a diacritics-stripper for en.wp. It never hurts to give people choice. I am even thinking to create a diacritics-stripper as a Firefox plugin. MakeSense64 (talk) 14:57, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

The second article would still be at Huế in the database and its URL would be /wiki/Huế, but the title would appear as "Hue" for people with diacritics stripper enabled. - filelakeshoe 15:07, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

That's right. The display text would be stripped of diacritics, but the hyperlinks to other pages would be unaffected and thus work normally. MakeSense64 (talk) 15:19, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

• I'd like to see a citation for the claim that diacritics cause people with visual impairment to "struggle" to read text. If that were the case, then surely accessibility tools for French and German speakers would strip diacritics for native speakers of those languages who have a visual impairment. I have not heard of such a thing. But I wouldn't oppose a diacritic-stripping option in Preferences, purely as a customization feature, as long as it's not the default. — P.T. Aufrette (talk) 06:24, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

I have no sources for you (although they may exist). Visually impaired people generally have no problems to read the diacritics that are common in their native language, because they are used to them. It is when the text starts being full of diacritics that are completely alien to them (like Vietnamese diacritics), then it becomes a hinderance. Heck, they are even a hinderance for people without visual impairment. Here is an online diacritics-stripper I have tried: [5]. E.g. paste the text from our Ho Chi Minh article into it. The diacritics-stripped version is a much smoother read, reading the diacritics version makes me tired before I reach the end of the article. But maybe that's just me.

I agree that diacritic-stripping should not be made the default option. But I have noticed that more and more notable websites customize texts (and even language) based on the user-locale, and I think that's an interesting possibility too. When a reader from the UK or USA accesses a wp page then it could default to diacritics-stripped, when a reader from Eastern-Europe or Vietnam accessed a page it defaults to diacritics-on....(almost) everybody happy. WP does try to "serve" its readers, doesn't it? MakeSense64 (talk) 07:23, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Just to clear up a misunderstanding:the "switch option" in the Serbian wikipedia is not stripping diacitics but is converting between two equally valid script versions of the Serbian language, one Latin and one Cyrillic. Agathoclea (talk) 06:21, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

Vietnamese diacritics on the main page

Squeamish readers shield your eyes but there are Vietnamese diacritics on today's main page (even though the article title does not include them). What gives? —  AjaxSmack  02:35, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

The article uses non-diacritic forms all through the text: Ngo Dinh Nhu, Nguyen Khanh, Ngo Dinh Thuc, etc. Full name boldfaced in the opening is the style I proposed above. Kauffner (talk) 05:58, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Christina Schwenkel preface

This is from Christina Schwenkel The American War in Contemporary Vietnam: Transnational Remembrance and Representation. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2009 and may be helpful:

NOTE ON USE OF DIACRITICS

Vietnamese is a tonal language written in an adapted version of the Latin alphabet with additional diacritical marks to signify particular tones and vowel qualities. Without these diacritics, the meaning of a Vietnamese word is ambiguous. For this reason I have chosen to include diacritical marks in this book to most accurately represent terms, locations, and people's names.

However, at the same time, I recognize that diacritics may prove distracting to those unfamiliar with the conventions of the language. Taking into concern both specialists and generalists who may read this book, I opted to keep all Vietnamese diacritical marks with the exception of widely known geographical names such as Vietnam, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, and Saigon. I also removed the diacritics for familiar Americanized phrases, such as “Viet Cong” or the “Ho Chi Minh Trail.” Vietnamese who have migrated to other countries often drop the diacritics from their proper names. I thus refer to individuals according to their own practice, and according to their choice in name order (in Vietnam surnames are placed first).

While I recognize potential inconsistencies in my own practice here (for example, Ho Chi Minh City versus President Hồ Chí Minh), I feel this is the most reliable solution for making the text accessible to all audiences.

In ictu oculi (talk) 00:28, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Amazon lists almost 14,000 books that discuss the Vietnam War. This is one of them. Kauffner (talk) 01:18, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

The point is that this is one with a page explaining why English exonyms like Vietnam, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, and Saigon are not given full Vietnamese spelling like Hồ Chí Minh or Ngô Đình Diệm which are not exonyms. In ictu oculi (talk) 01:54, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

She admits that this is "my own practice". There is no claim that what she is doing is representative of any category of English-language material. GBooks has far more examples of "Ho Chi Minh", the allegedly no-established-usage dude, than for the "familiar Americanized phrases" Ho Chi Minh City and Ho Chi Minh trail, as you can see here. Kauffner (talk) 03:45, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

• This is a very well-considered piece about how to resolve the diacritics issue - I heartily endorse it and hope this approach will be adopted by Wikipedia. Colonies Chris (talk) 17:26, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Kauffner, did you read the information that was posted? Please stop being so dismissive of what other people are contributing; this source demonstrates the need for the diacritics in the proper pronunciation of the word. Sure, you might not come to wikipedia looking for that, but I can guarantee you that someone out there is. Keeping it in the article title will make their life that much simpler, and this practice is standard pretty much everywhere at this point. Zaldax (talk) 19:19, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

• It is not about "keeping it in the article title". The Vietnamese titles are predominantly at non-diacritic forms now. Not many readers will be familiar with the Vietnamese alphabet, and it's tricky to figure out pronunciation from the spelling even if you do know it. Pronunciation can explained in the opening of the article. Not all relevant information needs to be in the title. The title should tell the reader what the subject is commonly called in English, not multitask. As for the above, "very well-considered piece," it is simply an author's explanation of her own usage. This book is most obscure and its usage far out of the mainstream. English-language GBooks has tens of thousands of examples of "Ho Chi Minh", two or three for "President Hồ Chí Minh." Britannica and Columbia both use diacritics for European languages, but not for Vietnamese. Vietnamese has a far more diacritics than any European language, and not even National Geographic puts them it. Joe Wikipedia editor does not know better than the people who deal this issue professionally. Kauffner (talk) 00:44, 28 July 2012 (UTC)
  • Kauffner, I only saw this this morning when P.T. Aufrette linked to it "I can boast of moving the Vietnamese bios and geography to non-diacritic titles -- It's hundreds of titles and took me several months to do. Kauffner (talk) 12:52, 14 November 2011 (UTC). Given that you have only actually created 1x Vietnam article (which ironically you argued for Trương Tấn Sang) what gives you the license to move 950+ articles under your own name and as many hundreds again misusing the dbmove tag with "uncontroversial moves" requests to admins (which shows in the dbmove log), and then lock the undiscussed moves by editing the redirects? And what is so terrible about Hồ Chí Minh (3 diacritics) compared to Cúán úa Lothcháin (4 diacritics), Lech Wałęsa (2 diacritics), Antonín Dvořák (3 diacritics), Ľudovít Štúr (4 diacritics), József Eötvös (4 diacritics), Andris Bērziņš (Latvian President) (3 diacritics) or this lot? Why should all English, Irish, West European, East European, Scandinavian, Turkish, Albanian, Hawaiian bios have the fully-spelled name according to reliable-for-statement-being-made sources in title lede and where possible in text, but not Vietnamese - after your 2,000 or so undiscussed moves. In ictu oculi (talk) 01:22, 28 July 2012 (UTC)
  • Re: National Geographic, there is a fairly obvious reason why they chose to adopt a manual of style that omits Vietnamese diacritics: an untrained person with no knowledge of a European language can still add and proofread diacritics for that language, by visual inspection and using a tool like Character Map in Windows; however, you really can't do this for Vietnamese unless you have some knowledge of the language and its keyboard input methods. A commercial publication like National Geographic can't commit to having at least one Vietnamese-speaking staff member in perpetuity, so the simplest solution for them is to make an exception and omit diacritics for Vietnamese even though they don't omit them for European languages. However, a crowdsourced publication like Wikipedia does not have this problem: there are thousands of contributors, including native speakers of many different languages. If "Joe Wikipedia editor" left out the diacritics, someone else who cares about Vietnamese diacritics and is knowledgeable about them can come by at any time later and add them. We don't have the same constraints as a commercial print publication with a small staff, tight publication deadlines, and a final frozen published text that can never be modified later or corrected. So there is no need for us to adopt their manual-of-style practices either. — P.T. Aufrette (talk) 06:10, 29 July 2012 (UTC)
  • Let's not forget that our WP:AT policy clearly mentions that in article titles we serve the general audience rather than the specialists. That's of course also the basis for WP:COMMONNAME. This Schwenkel note states that she concerns for both the specialists and the generalists, so is not very applicable as a model for our article titles. Cathering for the general audience in article titles can only mean that we use the term they are most likely to search for and is most recognizable for them. That purpose is generally not served by the diacritics in Vietnames names. If there is an existing anglicized version that is common in our sources, then that's the best title from the perspective of the general audience. And it's easy enough to figure out what rendering the audience is searching for. E.g in the case of the Lech Wałęsa. Even on a worldwide basis more people look up "Lech Walesa": [6]. And if you look at search in the UK [7] or the USA [8], then search for the diacritics rendering is virtually non-existent. Never mind the Vietnamese diacritics. You could move all Vietnamese names to diacritics spelling, but it wouldn't serve the general audience in any way. All it does is slow wp servers down, because the redirects get hit all the time. While P. T. Aufrette is right that we don't have the constraints of a print publication, we also don't have the constraints of existing in only one language. We can have all the Vietnamese diacritics we want in the Vietnamese version of wikipedia, so there is no need to fill up en.wp with them. MakeSense64 (talk) 11:16, 29 July 2012 (UTC)
    • Yeah. It wouldn't help the readers in any way whatsoever, except for, I dunno, telling them the proper spelling of someone's name. I don't see why you don't find that useful, but I certainly do. We're not here to pander to our readers either.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 18:42, 29 July 2012 (UTC)
      • I see the purpose of a title a bit differently. In my opinion, it should tell the reader what the subject is commonly called in English, per WP:UE and so forth. To provide marks that are extremely rare in published English-language sources does not provide information, but rather misleads. Kauffner (talk) 05:22, 30 July 2012 (UTC)
        • @Obiwankenobi. That's a moot point. We always show the native spelling(s) in the opening paragraph. So if an article is kept at a common name title, it doesn't mean that readers cannot find the native spelling. Have a look at our article Ho Chi Minh City and you will see what I mean. Per our current AT policy we serve the general audience in article titles, and we serve both the general audience and the specialist in the article body. MakeSense64 (talk) 05:36, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

No, it's a disservice to the general audience, to present a low-fidelity reproduction of someone's name (or the name of a city) based on a few specious (and likely inaccurate) google searches.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 06:10, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

The cities too? I don't see how that can be justified in terms of WP:NCGN. If the Vietnamese government wants anglicized spellings and uses them in VNA and the other English-language material they put out, are we going say, "Sorry, Vietnam, but you're not Vietnamese enough." There is an RM for cities here, if anyone reading has an opinion. Well, anyway, I guess Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh here we come. Kauffner (talk) 06:36, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Kauffner, the sarcasm doesn't help and I think there is a more pressing question you need to give a clear answer on, rather than expending bytes here.

However, all Wikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic names) WP:NCGN says is: "Vietnam - A naming convention is under discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Vietnam" unquote.

As for arguments like "If the Vietnamese government.. Sorry, Vietnam, but you're not Vietnamese enough." that evidently is (i) emotive and (ii) illogical given according to your own arguments when you supported diacritics at Talk:Truong Tan Sang RM where you say the main English newspaper in VN does use the diacritics on towns.In ictu oculi (talk) 03:28, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Other contributors, Would everyone here agree that there is a pyramid for exonyms, as in most languages:

• Toponyms - some English exonyms#Vietnam
• Personal names - no exonyms
• Things, category:Vietnamese words and phrases - by default in Vietnamese In ictu oculi (talk) 03:28, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

I think you may have a general trend there, but no clear lines. There are very obviously exonyms in English for foreign names - but this is not simple diacritic stripping. And things, again it depends on whether the thing is so common that it has entered the language as native - I don't know of any vietnamese phrases myself, but there may be some french ones that we use regularly in English like c'est la vie that are widely understood.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 19:21, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Gallery

I thought this might be at least good to think about while we pause. In ictu oculi (talk) 18:39, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

• 
  Renée Geyer, Australia
• 
  Severina Vučković, Croatia
• Như Quỳnh, Vietnam
  Như Quỳnh, Vietnam
• 
  Jurga Šeduikytė, Lithuania
• 
  Phương Vy, Vietnam
• 
  Hélène Ségara, France
• 
  Róisín Murphy, Ireland
• 
  Hiền Thục, Vietnam
• 
  Sıla Gençoğlu, Turkey
• 
  Björk Guðmundsdóttir, Iceland
• 
  Mỹ Linh, Vietnam
• 
  Ági Szalóki, Hungary
• 
  Élodie Frégé, France
• 
  Laura Samojłowicz, Poland
• 
  Ximena Sariñana, Mexico
• Gülseren Yıldırım, Turkey
  Gülseren Yıldırım, Turkey
• 
  Lương Bích Hữu, Vietnam
• 
  Zoë Skoulding, England
• Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh, Ireland
  Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh, Ireland
• 
  Hồ Ngọc Hà, Vietnam
• 
  Michèle van der Aa, Netherlands
• 
  Joanna Jabłczyńska, Poland
• 
  Marija Šestić, Bosnia
• 
  Thanh Hà, Vietnam

ahh.. hurts my eyes... all those lovely singers, with such non-english names. too many squiggly lines! What were their parents thinking? Shall we anglicize all of their names? I bet they don't even sing in English... Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 19:18, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Indeed. My purpose in posting this gallery was to make the point that on en.wp French, Irish, Czech, Lithuanian, Serbian, Turkish BLPs all retain the Latin alphabet diacritics. Why then is Vietnamese Latin alphabet to be an exception?

So far in the discussion following the original (no good faith in my view - witness the scare tactic "and Sài Gòn"), and canvassed RfC the following editors (A) expressed support for treating Vietnamese names as any other Latin alphabet. For other editors it isn't clear whether opposition (B) includes acceptance of en.wp practice re East European and Turkish BLPs. (C) includes disagreement with use of diacritics in East European and Turkish names. I don't know about others but I for one would be interested in seeing how that breaks down. So have made the little Census box below. (The reason for specifying "East European and Turkish" is that some editors accept French/Spanish/German since NY Times uses French/Spanish/German, so the point of "East European and Turkish" is that en.wp uses these but majority non-specialist English Google Books and Google News sources such as NY Times, don't. In ictu oculi (talk) 02:40, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

Census - Finer definition of scale for diacritics view

Preference	User
(A) Use Diacritics in Vietnamese titles and text Treat as West European, Scandinavian, East-European and Turkish BLP and geo titles (e.g. use Viet Nam News English print edition MOS) except English exonyms for Saigon and Hanoi (also Schwenkel Bloomington MOS) Example: Title: Trương Tấn Sang Lede: Trương Tấn Sang Body: Trương Tấn Sang	AjaxSmack 17:34, 22 July 2012 (UTC) In ictu oculi 22 July (UTC) P.T. Aufrette (talk) 06:24, 29 July 2012 (UTC) Br'er Rabbit (talk) 00:57, 30 July 2012 (UTC) Itsmejudith (talk) 16:35, 23 July 2012 (UTC) Colonies Chris (talk) 21:10, 22 July 2012 (UTC) Dicklyon (talk) 15:34, 22 July 2012 (UTC) Grenouille vert (talk) 17:02, 23 July 2012 (UTC) Obiwankenobi / KarlB (talk) 20:46, 18 July 2012 (UTC) Mjroots (talk) 22:54, 22 July 2012 (UTC) Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 09:07, 23 July 2012 (UTC) Zaldax (talk) 19:16, 27 July 2012 (UTC) ༆ (Tibetan caret mark) 5 August 2012 Agathoclea (talk) 16:02, 5 August 2012 (UTC) DJSasso 16:45, 7 August 2012 (UTC) Kusma 19:11, 7 August 2012 (UTC) GFHandel 23:03, 7 August 2012 (UTC) Ogress smash! μηδείς (talk) 04:27, 13 August 2012 (UTC) Михаил Александрович Шолохов (talk) 15:22, 14 August 2012 (UTC) 65.128.144.159 (talk)‎ 15 August 2012 (UTC) Minh Tâm-T41-BCA (talk) 04:47, 15 August 2012 (UTC)--
(B) Do not use diacritics in Vietnamese titles and text body Treat Vietnamese differently from Czech, all other Latin-alphabet languages (e.g. use National Geographic MOS) Example: Title = Truong Tan Sang Lede = Truong Tan Sang (Vietnamese Trương Tấn Sang) Body = Truong Tan Sang	[Name here please]
(C) Do not use diacritics in Vietnamese titles and text body Use only French, German, Spanish, accents (e.g. use NY Times, Economist MOS) Example: Title = Truong Tan Sang Lede = Truong Tan Sang (Vietnamese Trương Tấn Sang) Body = Truong Tan Sang	Yopienso (talk) 16:47, 20 July 2012 (UTC) [Name here please]
(D) Do not use diacritics in Vietnamese titles and text body Never use accents (e.g. use USA Today, Daily Express MOS) Example: Title = Truong Tan Sang Lede = Truong Tan Sang (Vietnamese Trương Tấn Sang) Body = Truong Tan Sang	[Name here please] [Name here please]
(E) Other	Quis separabit? 16:04, 24 July 2012 (UTC) [not titles, yes text] LittleBen 17 August 2012 [NOT titles, YES in body if properly explained with Template:CJKV or Wiktionary link as appropriate]

Comments on census

Please do no more than add signature in (A) (B) (C) (D) (E) above, to prevent table distortion. In ictu oculi (talk) 02:28, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

User:Prolog/Diacritical marks may be helpful explanation of what is meant by "Economist MOS" etc. In ictu oculi (talk) 16:43, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

I believe it's way off-topic to bring in all these other languages; the question is about Vietnamese diacritical markings in the English Wikipedia. (I also responded on my talk page.) That said, using diacritics for the subject of a biography is far more acceptable than littering a whole article with diacritics. In other words, if they are used for only one name in an article and maybe a few other phrases, eyes accustomed to English don't strain like they do in the article to which I initially responded. This sentence is over the top, imo: "Diệm attempted to travel to Huế to dissuade Bảo Đại from joining Hồ, but was arrested by the Việt Minh along the way and exiled to a highland village near the border."
Real-life example: I married a Hispanic and took his surname. When I'm speaking in Spanish, I pronounce the name with its proper Spanish accent. When I'm speaking in English, I anglicize it to avoid the awkwardness of introducing a foreign pronunciation. He does likewise. That's what I'm asking for here, but in visual form, not aural. Yopienso (talk) 04:46, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

Well no one is forcing anyone to have a view. But others think Spanish etc. are relevant, since Vietnamese isn't the only Latin-alphabet language on en.wp. Maybe now is a good time to form an opinion on the current 100% use of Spanish names for Spanish people on en.wp? Or not have a view. Either way. In ictu oculi (talk) 06:35, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

You've misunderstood me. I never thought or said anyone is forcing me to have a view. I'm not saying anything about forming an opinion of using Spanish on en.wp. All I was doing was using an example in order to illustrate a broad principle. I'll try again.

Let's pretend I am bilingual in Vietnamese and in English. When a Vietnamese asks me (in Vietnamese) which is my first language, I'm going to say "tiếng Anh," not "English." If an Australian asks me what language I speak other than English, I'm going to say, "Vietnamese," not "tiếng Việt." (The only reason I would say "tiếng Việt" to an English-speaker would be to be cute or to show off. An encyclopedia isn't cute and doesn't show off.) Get it? You don't have to agree with the application of my logic, but I'd like the satisfaction of knowing you understand my logic. Yopienso (talk) 07:09, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

Apologies, I'm slightly lost. But that's okay, thanks. In ictu oculi (talk) 13:55, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

A unanimous vote in favor of IIO's position. This is a joke, right? For most of these "options", who can even figure out what they mean? Kauffner (talk) 15:42, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

We'll see, the table isn't filled in yet. In ictu oculi (talk) 16:22, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

Kauffner, I see you collapsed the gallery, I have restored it. It is there for a reason, even if you do not like it. Some of us want to know why Vietnamese articles, particularly BLPs, hence the singers, have been singled out - by you - for removal of diacritics, when 100% of other Latin-alphabet BLPs have them. You have already boasted of how you moved 1000s of articles, you have done so using a combination of methods ranging from dubious to serious, now should accept the subject being reviewed without you running or setting the agenda or deciding what other users see or don't see. Please understand this. In ictu oculi (talk) 16:32, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

Have to say, I couldn't figure out what they mean. But then, IIO can't figure out what I mean, either. Guess we have a language problem. :-) Yopienso (talk) 16:37, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

Hi Yopienso, I suppose that the census boxes assume too much familiarity with the wider issue of diacritic usage on en.wp. I have now linked in User:Prolog/Diacritical marks for background. Cheers. In ictu oculi (talk) 16:42, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

Kauffner, the vote in favor of IIO's position wouldn't be unanimous if you and other editors who disagree would simply add your name to the census under the position you support. No other editor can, or indeed should, do that for you if you are unwilling to do so yourself. Granted, this census isn't binding, but if you have no right to object on the grounds that the near-unanimous "vote" is misleading if you or any other objecting editors have not bothered to vote. Zaldax (talk) 14:54, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

• The above census box deleted by Wolbo, and restored. Wolbo, please don't do that again. None of those who expressed opposition to Vietnamese diacritics is in any way obliged to put their opposition into the wider context of en.wp usage, but at least the option exists to do so. In ictu oculi (talk) 23:23, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

Why was the census box deleted again, Wolbo? You were explicitly asked not to delete the table again, and yet you did so. A simple straw poll relating to various proposals is not a violation of WP:NOTVOTE, but instead a way of gauging support for the various options which may become the new naming conventions if a consensus is reached. I have restored the census below; please see my comments further down the page (section: Other) before you revert another editor's comments on this talk page. Doing so is not only rude, but it opens you up to accusations of violating WP:GAME. So please, let's all continue discussing this clearly contentious issue in a civil, rational manner, and stop suppressing the discussion by altering other editors comments on a talk page! Seriously folks, it's getting ridiculous. Please, let's just relax and not make this unfortunate lapse in etiquette more of an issue than it already is, okay? Zaldax (talk) 14:54, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

To "In ictu oculi": Why did you just add "in titles and text" to the "Census" above? Isn't it fraudulent to change things after the fact like that? Surely what is being discussed is only whether it's appropriate to use diacritics in article titles. It has already been agreed that the foreign-language equivalent of romanized words in the article title should (where possible) appear in the first sentence of the body copy, like in most articles with romanized Chinese and Japanese names in the title. LittleBen (talk) 13:04, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

LittleBenW - no, the edit is not "fraudulent" (you have the opportunity to apologise for that, unless you are randomly warring), the edit was for clarity, following the distinction made on titles and texts. Please re-read the conversation above and below before making any more posts of this nature. In ictu oculi (talk) 06:10, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

• The RfC proposal by Kauffner above is quite clear in proposing only that article titles use accepted English-language practice—i.e. usually no diacritics—not that diacritics be totally eliminated from both title and text. Quote: "I want to emphasize that even when a title is anglicized, the Vietnamese name of the subject is still displayed prominently. The subject's "full name", including diacritics, is given boldfaced in the opening, per WP:FULLNAME. This format combines the advantages of both systems. Monolingual readers aren't put off by the title, and those who are interested in diacritics, tones, and local spellings can get this information from the opening".
• For you to modify your "survey" after the fact to suggest otherwise is surely grossly dishonest if not fraudulent. LittleBen (talk) 13:38, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

I am losing humour quickly with your personal attacks. Read the context. That clarification was put in for those like yourself who are not reading. In ictu oculi (talk) 16:54, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Summary of discussion

Use diacritics

1. “Use of diacritics is educational, which is one of our goals." Br'er Rabbit (talk) 00:57, 30 July 2012 (UTC)
2. “This blog entry explains for example why the Economist doesn't use VN diacritics - bottom line it is a staffing issue.; Wikipedia has no such issues." KarlB/Obiwankenobi
3. "I think the thing I really notice is that Vietnamese English-publication sources are beginning to use the accents - like Vietweek, Baomoi, scholarly western books - at exactly the same time en.wp has been pulled in the opposite direction." In ictu oculi (talk) 02:16, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
4. “We have the technology, so let's use it!” Mjroots (talk) 22:54, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
5. “When many English sources still use the diacritics, there is no reason for WP not to as well.” Dicklyon (talk) 15:34, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
6. “exactly per In ictu oculi's rationale.” — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff
7. “Removing the diacritics causes LOSS of information”, Zaldax (talk) 19:16, 27 July 2012 (UTC)
8. "Skipping the diacritics would be failing in our duty as an modern online encyclopaedia, with Unicode at our disposal, to represent facts accurately, even if they are difficult.” Colonies Chris (talk) 21:10, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
9. "for the less known words, please keep the diacritics intact and don't just cite Britannica for killing them (diacritics), since you will kill the meaning accompagning the words as well." Grenouille vert (talk) 15:03, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
10. "We don't have the same constraints as a commercial print publication with a small staff, tight publication deadlines, and a final frozen published text that can never be modified later or corrected. So there is no need for us to adopt their manual-of-style practices either." — P.T. Aufrette (talk) 06:10, 29 July 2012 (UTC)
11. I'd looked at those pictures of people above, a lot of other languages that use the Latin alphabet are able to keep their diacritics so why not Vietnamese (except for the common words such as Hanoi, Saigon); per Mjroots. ༆ (talk) 23:30, 5 August 2012 (UTC)
12. We are an encyclopedia. Our goal is to educate. We should have the proper names as the title. -DJSasso (talk) 16:45, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
13. Oppose unnecessary removal of information. And what Itsmejudith said. —Kusma (t·c) 19:11, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
14. The diacriticals: add information, do not detract sufficiently from the underlying characters, are handled by redirects (in titles), educate readers, and may even spark an interest in their effect .GFHandel ♬ 23:03, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
15. There are many words in Vietnamese without diacritics look exactly the same, and that can cause many misinformations during the process of identifying the Vietnamese name, both people's name and geographic name. Sholokhov (talk) 15:22, 14 August 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sholokhov (talk • contribs)
16. Stripping diacritics is not the same as anglicizing the name. If diacritics are removed, the debate will change from diacritics usage to proper spelling sans diacritics, and will result in a much higher chance of Wikipedia hosting incorrect information. Zaldax (talk) 13:48, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Follow English-language sources [disputed summary title, see below]

1. “we, ‘follow the general usage of English-language reliable sources.’ This is something that WP:DIACRITICS already stipulates.” Kauffner (talk) 19:08, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
2. “English readers, particularly those who read no other language, are accustomed to some French and Spanish diacritical marks through long proximity…. Vietnamese is far more peripheral to the typical native English reader.” Yopienso (talk) 16:47, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
3. “Use the diacritic-free English alphabet to title Vietnamese subjects. This convention seems to be used universally among English-language sources: even by English-language publications in Vietnam!” Shrigley (talk) 20:51, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
4. “Having those diacritics means that it's not an English article title,” User:Benlisquare
5. ”I would say that we can retain diacritics for infoboxes only" Colipon+(Talk) 18:46, 21 July 2012 (UTC)
6. "We can have all the Vietnamese diacritics we want in the Vietnamese version of wikipedia, so there is no need to fill up en.wp with them." MakeSense64
7. "It is not normal for English language sources to use Vietnamese diacritics" Formerip (talk) 14:12, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
8. "We are writing an English encyclopaedia. Where English has a significant impact in the sources, or where the object is known with an English word, we use the English word (pho)." Fifelfoo
9. “I believe the article names should be without diacritics, but the articles themselves should have them as needed.” User:Rms125a@hotmail.com
10. "I think that is more likely to be consistent [to follow the spelling used by other encyclopedias],” Eraserhead1 <talk> 19:13, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
11. “The rendering of text in the majority of reliable English sources is without diacritics, which is how titles and in-prose usage should be rendered here.” – NULL ‹talk› ‹edits› 22:50, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
12. “Page titles should not use diacritics in the English wiki because people can't type them in (although obviously redirects should exist using them), but the article should employ diacritics.” Ogress smash!
13. “I believe wikipedia should try to use the English commonname , if there are sources that do not use the diacritics, then nor should wikipedia.” BritishWatcher (talk) 13:55, 1 August 2012 (UTC)
14. Seems like a no-brainer for Vietnamese names to follow the general usage of English-language reliable sources. Fyunck(click) (talk) 07:21, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
15. There is also good reason to use the most common name WP:COMMONNAME, because doing otherwise means that a lot of page searches are sent through a redirect. It is also inappropriate to simply add diacritics to shortened romanized names that sportspeople use internationally, as the Manuel Sanchez (tennis) example shows, without a little research (like on a foreign-language Wikipedia) to confirm whether such usage (of the shortened name with diacritics) is considered acceptable in the person's home country. LittleBen (talk) 11:36, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

Other

1. "We stick with current practice, which is to apply the general MoS on diacritics" Itsmejudith (talk) 16:35, 23 July 2012 (UTC) [I note that MOS:FOREIGN says, "adopt the spellings most commonly used in English-language references for the article."]

After I looking at the comments above about the Vietnam's English language press, I took walk around to the local newsstands and discovered that Viet Nam News has been largely replaced by diacritic-free Saigon Times. So I am certainly not seeing any kind of trend in favor of increased use of diacritics in English-language publications. Kauffner (talk) 18:00, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

As above (1) this RfC is somewhat compromised by the way you sent out selective invitations, but (2) it would still be interesting to hear from those opposed to Vietnamese diacritics as to how this fits into the broader en.wp context in relation to other Latin-alphabet languages. Beyond that I don't see this exercise acheiving anything greatly useful, other than generating smoke. In ictu oculi (talk) 23:27, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

More Talk page deletions: Neither I nor anyone else should not have to follow an editor to 2RR to restore my own talk on a talk page. This RfC is already something of a charade given the context in which it was launched, the way the leading question was phrased. But it would have been useful, as above to understand how those opposing the same treatment for Vietnamese as the de facto treatment of Czech etc. contextualise Vietnamese in relation to other East European languages. I would prefer it if another editor restored my talk here which Wolbo has again deleted.

• 23:48, 4 August 2012‎ Wolbo (talk | contribs)‎ . . (121,760 bytes) (-1,733)‎ . . (Undid revision 505817866 by In ictu oculi Rvt, adding a rigged and misleading 'census table' is not part of the WP:RFC process and in no way helps the RFC along. This is not a Zimbabwean election.) (undo)

In ictu oculi (talk) 00:05, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

if one rigged summary is allowed then another riggged summary should be allowed as well. The above summary is flawed as it contrasts the use of diacritics with "use English" when it has long been established that stripping diacritics does not make something English, just incomplete. As such I am for using diacritics even for Vietnamese as it is a Latin script as long as there are no established alternatives akin Hanoi. Agathoclea (talk) 16:02, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

I agree. The "Use English" heading should be changed to "don't use diacritics" or something like that (so I changed it). Many of the points listed there are nuts, in my opinion, like "titles should not use diacritics in the English wiki because people can't type them in" (irrelevant, as there's no need for anyone to type them in when the article is titled with them), and "if there are sources that do not use the diacritics, then nor should wikipedia" (appeal to the bottom), and "It is not normal for English language sources to use Vietnamese diacritics" (a bold claim, considering the diversitiy of actual practice). Dicklyon (talk) 19:25, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

Agathoclea, following above 2 posts I've restored the box and text that Wolbo twice deleted (I've never seen text deleted like that off an Talk page before). As regards "rigged" - I'd genuinely hoped it is not in any way rigged, the purpose is to contextualise the Vietnamese diacritics with the convenient broad MOS types per Prolog's page - (A) Academic, Schwenkel example, (B) National Geo, (C) NY Times/Economist (D) tabloid/html. The rigging in this RfC is more that this is a survey of those Kauffner selectively invited to answer a misleading and overstated (Sai Gon) question. But having got this far we might at least find out whether there is a scale. I thought User:Quis seperabit's comment interesting and clear enough to add in National Geo MOS. There's always the (E) "Other" box, for other. In ictu oculi (talk) 02:12, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Kauffner has reverted Don't use diacritics back to follow English sources - this is WP:GAME again, setting up an "RfC" on a slanted comment. At best this should say "follow the majority of English sources" - since counting sources is the basic rationale in so many of the "Don't use diacritics" discussions. The heading "follow English sources" is misleading since always a minority (academic sources, Viet News etc.) do use Vietnamese diacritics, same as for French Czech, whatever. Let's have at least one thing here that is not GAMED please. In ictu oculi (talk) 02:18, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Folks, please don't interfere with the consensus building process by altering other editors comments on the talk page. In ictu oculi should not have to revert other editors just to make something he posted visible. It doesn't matter if you think it is inappropriate, or if you think it doesn't conform to Wikipedia policy (personally, I think that the posted argument summary is fine and in no way violates policy.); rather than deleting his post, please explain why you consider the post inappropriate. I'm sorry, but reverting an editor's comments on a talk page is, quite frankly, rude. As is reverting the discussion title currently summarizing the RFC to reflect a contested point, Kauffner. I'm sorry to call you out directly, but honestly given the controversy I think you should have known better; making this change anyway opens you up to accusations of violating WP:GAME. This is not a political debate; both sides can't style themselves "Pro-This" and "Pro-That". The positions are "Use Diacritics" and "Do not use Diacritics." (Your new title, "Follow English Language Sources", isn't even correct for those arguments -- not all of them argue to do that!) That's all there is to it; in accordance with that, I have changed the discussion heading to the proper title. Please do not change it again. Zaldax (talk) 14:19, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Also, given Kauffner's ongoing belligerence (seriously dude, take a step back), I just thought it would be interesting to point out this comment from near the top of the page:

"Diacriticals are used for all the European languages. See Gerhard Schröder, Horst Köhler, Hermann Göring, Göttingen, Lübeck, Finistère, or Lech Wałęsa. Finding the articles? That's what redirects are for. Kauffner (talk) 19:09, 25 July 2009 (UTC)"

So, uh, when did that change? Zaldax (talk) 22:03, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

I did answer this question in my 19 July and 24 July posts above, you know. It seems that you are on auto-fulminate -- the setting where you don't have read someone's writing before denouncing it. Kauffner (talk) 06:07, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm not even going to dignify that with a response, Kauffner. If you aren't interested in discussion, that's fine, but please don't accuse other editors harboring some sort of vendetta against you. I came to this issue via the RFC board, and was invited by neither side; I'm not involved in any of the disputes surrounding you. So please, refrain from personal attacks; they can't possibly help anything, or anyone. With regards to the comment, in an RFC of this size anyone is bound to miss something; it's important to strike-through a comment to show other editors that you retract it, so as to avoid misunderstandings such as this one. Cheers, Zaldax (talk) 15:53, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Obiwan/KarlB sent invitations to everyone I missed, plus others. So I don't think the "Use Vietnamese" side can claim an invitation disadvantage. Has anyone seen another RfC that consists of kilobyte after kilobyte of accusations and opposition research against a particular user? I would like to clarify something in case anyone is confused: I am not running for president, U.S. senate, city council, dogcatcher, admin, or rollbacker. Kauffner (talk) 14:37, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

I've changed the heading back to the proper title again. Kauffner, do NOT change it again. Also, stop trying to play the victim card; you're pretty seriously violating WP:GAME now...So discuss this in a proper manner, and support your arguments properly, rather than deflect attention and belittle other users comments. I'm getting tired of it, as is everyone else. Cheers, Zaldax (talk) 16:18, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

@Zaldax, Kauffner put "Follow English-language sources" back in. Given that it's a distorted title in a distorted summary it probably doesn't make any difference to leave it. But I've added in "[disputed summary title, see below]" to note that it has been objected to. I think we all, including Kauffner, know very well that it means "Follow majority of English-language sources", which even with French and Czech inevitably = "follow diacritic use in non-diacritic enabled English-language sources", which en.wp doesn't do for other languages.

@Kauffner, as far as "consists of kilobyte after kilobyte of personal accusations" - the two particular complaints about this RfC relating to (a) slanted wording about "English sources," scare tactics about "Sài Gòn," etc. - (b) selectively notifying first only Users who'd opposed Vietnamese in the past, then quite bizarre canvassing,, are behaviours which any RfC would complain about. As for other issues regarding your behaviour, you are the one who directly mentioned the Sockpuppet Investigation. That doesn't have any direct bearing on your behaviour here.

Back to the actual RfC, to the extent that any result here is usable it indicates that, even following extensive selective canvassing including for example to WikiProject Conservatism etc. (what was that for?) the above shows:

• A slender majority here favour of use of diacritics, i.e. treating Vietnamese as French or Czech
• A sizable minority here are against use of diacritics in Vietnamese, without indication of how this relates to French and Czech.In ictu oculi (talk) 04:25, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

• It's possible that the bash-Kauffner aspect of this RfC has affected the vote count as well. Various editors seem to be here more for the purpose of putting together vicious phrases and threats than to discuss diacritics, like this is the new alt.flame. I would also appreciate it if you did not describe my position as "do not use diacritics." I have responded to this accusation before: I support the use of the native-language full name boldface in the opening, per WP:FULLNAME. Kauffner (talk) 15:13, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

(1) I see no bash-Kauffner here. Other than that Users are not awarding you barnstars for your behaviour, neither your behaviour in relation to the set-up/canvass of this RfC, nor in relation to your edits/undiscussed moves/admin proxies/redirect locks of articles, nor in relation to the Sock Puppet Investigation you introduced above (which you appear to be deliberately prolonging). Why would anyone expect to be rewarded or complimented for these behaviours? Each of these behaviours individually would be a concern.

(2) Obviously "I support the use of the native-language full name boldface in the opening" is against the use of diacritics in the title and the text of article. Is there anyone who opposes one mention of the Vietnamese spelling in the lede? Your view is clear on edits to Âu Cơ, (plus usual pattern of G6 proxying of an uninvolved admin and redirect locked)

Since you complain about "bash-Kauffner", and since also you introduced the subject of the Sockpuppet investigation above, then it seems appropriate to repeat again here the question you have been asked before: Are the IPs you? In ictu oculi (talk) 05:10, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

• There's no need for a rule like, "ignore COMMONNAME, ignore COMMONSENSE, and use diacritics universally in English titles for articles relating to all Latin-alphabet languages". It makes more sense to use the COMMONNAME (without diacritics, if this is more common) plus context, e.g. "(tennis)" as discussed in my post at the end of the Survey above. Even just the example of people named Manuel Sanchez on English Wikipedia looks sloppy and inconsistent; surely the correct COMMONNAMEs for the other tennis articles have also not been adequately researched. It doesn't matter if the diacritics are right if they are inappropriate, e.g. if the name used with diacritics in the article title would be considered wrong or incomplete in the native language (Spanish, Czeck or whatever). That's "low fidelity reproduction of a person's name"—even more so than omitting diacritics. LittleBen (talk) 16:15, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

Anyone support the abandon of diacritics please remember the example of GV about the "Nguyên" and "Nguyễn". There are many words in Vietnamese without diacritics look exactly the same, and that can cause many misinformations during the process of identifying the Vietnamese name, both people's name and geographic name. Михаил Александрович Шолохов (talk) 15:34, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

• I understand the discussion as being whether it's appropriate to always use diacritics in titles. Nobody seems to object to showing versions of romanized names (that are in article titles) both with and without diacritics in the head of the body of articles. LittleBen (talk) 12:35, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Moving forward? (Continuing Discussion)

• I believe the arguments in favor of using diacritics when there is not an established, commonly used English name omitting them (ie. Saigon, Ho Chi Mihn) are the stronger ones, and there appears to be a rough consensus in favor of that proposal. Given the length and vehemence of the discussion so far, I'm not sure where this discussion could possibly go from here; it seems that positions are becoming rather fixed. What do we need to do to move this issue forward? If the rough consensus is indeed in favor of limited diacritics use (and again, I believe that those arguments are indeed stronger), how do we go about formulating the guideline. If there is no rough consensus, how can we go about attracting fresh voices to this discussion, in hopes of achieving one? This discussion has lasted for ages; I think it's time we move towards some sort of resolution; especially because this is the sort of RFC where "no consensus" isn't really a viable outcome. Cheers, Zaldax (talk) 15:50, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

This discussion isn't getting anywhere. Both sides have their own sense. But it looks like that Vietnamese people support the use of diacritic. You guys should let the Vietnamese people to decide on this issue. It is however their language and I think they have the right for their voices to be heard. Or let just make a voting. Majority won. The only to solve the problem here.65.128.144.159 (talk) 00:54, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

@Zaldax, I believe that RfCs are supposed to run for 30 days. I don't know where that's written but User:Joedecker mentioned it to me a couple of days ago. The conclusion would at this point be treat Vietnamese entirely as Czech and French, but there may be some other options.

@65.128.144.159, on a simple "majority won" it's evident that there's a visible majority for treating Vietnamese as any other Latin alphabet language. Which is not too surprising since that is where these articles were created prior to the undiscussed moves. Having said that, it isn't a large majority, and also it would be really very helpful if those indicating opposition to Vietnamese titles could please put that in context of whether it is objection to Vietnamese only or to diacritics per se (Czech, French - which en.wp uses). At this point we don't know and going forward it would be helpful to know. In ictu oculi (talk) 12:57, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Just took a look at the WP:RFC page; the default length for a RFC discussion is 30 days, but they can be ended earlier or extended if consensus is or isn't achieved by that date. That being said, if a consensus exists right now, it's definitely only a rough one. Since there's only a few more days until the 30-day base length, we might as well keep going at least until then.

That being said, to move this conversation forward I think we need to do two things. First, if those in opposition to diacritics use would state and clarify their positions, that would help a great deal; y'all seem to have disappeared from this thread over the past couple of days, but I'd appreciate hearing your continued input as events progress. Second, if the rough consensus is indeed in favor of using Vietnamese diacritics, we need to firmly establish how we plan on doing so; as French and Czech, as per some other language, or whatever. (I think it's indisputably agreed that we aren't using diacritics in a case where an unquestionably widely-used name sans diacritics exists, i.e. Ho Chi Mihn and Saigon. We need to decide if there are any other articles that fall under this scope; other possible examples are Viet Cong and Hanoi) I suggest that we draft the naming guideline on diacritics here, before we insert it into the MOS, once we have determined our course of action. Also, if someone wants to start a new section soon, that might make editing easier for everyone...Cheers, Zaldax (talk) 14:04, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

@Zaldax, this makes sense and I for one would be more than happy with you starting a new section. But perhaps wait a day or two until one or two who are in the ballpark of the majority consensus above surface again.

Otherwise sounds good. In ictu oculi (talk) 15:38, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

• My idea of an ideal for the handling of foreign languages is the way that Japanese is handled: (1) Japanese is NOT used in English Wikipedia article titles. (2) Template:Nihongo can be used to show both the Japanese equivalent of an English word, and the Japanese pronunciation: "{{Nihongo|English|英語|eigo}}" gives "English (英語, eigo)". You can omit the English meaning and use this template to show just the Japanese and romanized versions of a word, so "{{Nihongo||東京|Tokyo}}" gives "Tokyo (東京)". It is not useful to stuff Wikipedia full of foreign words without giving either or both their meaning and/or pronunciation: this is like having *either* an English or Japanese map rather than a bilingual English / Japanese map. If it's a Japanese-only map then maybe you can't read it, and if it's English-only then it's no use showing it to a Japanese who doesn't read English. It's only useful if it's bilingual. LittleBen (talk) 14:15, 15 August 2012 (UTC)
• Chinese articles like the Pearl S. Buck article illustrate another similarly educational approach, linking of "words" or Chinese characters to Wiktionary. Quote: Pearl Sydenstricker Buck (June 26, 1892 – March 6, 1973), also known by her Chinese name Sai Zhenzhju (Chinese: 賽珍珠; pinyin: Sài Zhēnzhū)... LittleBen (talk) 14:51, 15 August 2012 (UTC)
• Isn't Vietnamese an Asian language rather than a European language? LittleBen (talk) 14:56, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

LittleBenW, this comment I think puts the finger on part of the problem.

The deciding factor according to WP:AT is whether a script is Latin-alphabet or not, not whether the person speaking it or the language is "Asian" or "European."

• Hawaiian, Tagalog, Indonesian and Vietnamese are Latin-alphabet.
• Russian, Georgian, Armenian and Greek are not Latin-alphabet.

These are the criteria we use to decide whether to adopt a romanization. Not race. In ictu oculi (talk) 15:18, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

But even without this, you appear to be opposed to Spanish names too. So why are you raising that Vietnamese is primarily spoken in Asia? In ictu oculi (talk) 15:19, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

• I am simply pointing out that blindly applying "rules" without properly researching if they are appropriate is neither "intelligent" nor "educational". Arbitrary rules will never be a substitute for adequate research and commonsense. For example—as mentioned above—it is inappropriate to simply add diacritics to shortened romanized names that sportspeople use internationally, as the Manuel Sanchez (tennis) example shows, without a little research (like on a foreign-language Wikipedia) to confirm whether such usage (of the shortened name with diacritics) is considered acceptable in the person's home country. If you search for Manuel Sanchez articles on English Wikipedia you will see what an inconsistent shambles things have become. A consistent naming scheme like "Manuel Sanchez (tennis)" as the article title, and the formal full name—including diacritics—in the head of the article, would make a lot more sense to me. "Always use diacritics in article titles and article body, and remove the romanized form, regardless of national customs and commonsense" is a big problem, rather than a panacea. The reverse—"Always remove diacritics"—is equally stupid. LittleBen (talk) 15:52, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

LittleBenW, you may not realise this but you are advancing a version of the view which was thoroughly rejected at WP:TENNISNAMES RfC. I'm sorry but this view is out of the ballpark here. If you object to Spanish names, you are not, I'm sorry, going to add value to a discussion on Vietnamese. In ictu oculi (talk) 16:43, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Dear Ben, I guess you have already know that, the Latin-based Vietnamese alphabet relies heavily on diacritics. In most cases, diacritics are one of the key elements which determine the pronounciation, and in many cases, two words can be told apart by the appearance of diacritics - in other words they look exactly the same without diacritics (exp: Nguyễn & Nguyên, Tiên & Tiền, Đan & Dân, Phố & Phở, Trấn & Trần,...). I understand the English-users may face great difficulties with diacritics, and some names are so well-known without the use of diacritics; but, as a Vietnamese, I believe that, in most cases, removing the diacritics in Vietnamese names is inadvisable. (well you also said that "The reverse—"Always remove diacritics"—is equally stupid") Михаил Александрович Шолохов (talk) 16:10, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

@Михаил. English speakers don't face any difficulties with accents on Renée Zellweger, so no reason that any English speaker should face difficulty with Thanh Hà. I mean they will just read "Thanh Ha", but the actual accent doesn't cause difficulty. In ictu oculi (talk) 16:43, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

• Names and terms that are frequently used with simple diacritics in English sources, and so are recognizable—like "Pelé" and "Bête noire"—are surely not a problem in article titles. Foreign names and foreign terms that the great majority of English Wikipedia users cannot read, write, remember, or pronounce should NEVER be used in article titles: that's surely little different from using Chinese, Japanese, or Korean names in article titles. The great majority of English Wikipedia users will need a romanized title, name, or term in order to be able to search for it in Wikipedia—they should not be forced to try to guess one (or read the body of an article to find one). The whole idea of a title or slogan is to make it as easy as possible for the majority to read and remember. By "majority" we should be thinking "majority of users", not "majority of the few editors who spend too much time playing politics and trying to force their POV on the rest of the world".
• If you are going to use foreign names with diacritics—like Manuel Sánchez (tennis)—in article titles, then surely the absolute least that you should be doing first is to check the corresponding article title in the foreign Wikipedia to confirm that such usage is considered acceptable in his or her native country.
• When romanized words are used in titles, then it will be educational for some people to see the foreign and romanized equivalents together in the body of an article—like Tsunami (津波). Note that the Japanese article on Tsunami explains that "tsunami" used to be called tidal wave in English, which is inappropriate because they are earthquake induced—the Japanese article even has a bilingual diagram to explain the term—and the shorter, simpler, and more appropriate term "tsunami" has now been widely adopted in English, it has become the COMMONNAME. The English Wikipedia article Tsunami does not explain in the first sentence of the article that earthquake-induced "tsunami" used to be called "tidal wave" in English. The English Wikipedia DAB page Tidal wave has a misleading or wrong explanation of "tsunami", and doesn't link to the English Wikipedia Tsunami page. This looks sloppy and unprofessional.
• In English Wikipedia, the only acceptable usage of little-recognized foreign words that the great majority of English Wikipedia users cannot read, write, remember, or pronounce—like 津波—is surely NOT to use them in article title (use the romanized equivalent) but rather to show the foreign and romanized equivalents together in the head of the article body. :*Template:Lang is the preferred method for tagging foreign-language words in English Wikipedia—it inserts language tag in the HTML markup—and surely the "Nihongo" template above also has the same function. LittleBen (talk) 01:57, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

We use the "Ř" for Czech names and accents, and as a native English speaker who speaks some Czech I can tell you that it is near-impossible for most English speakers to pronounce, let alone read correctly. Most think it's pronounced similarly to the letter "R", when in fact it is pronounced "Rzh"; the "R" is rolled, as well. That's only the best possible transcription; a closer explanation would be to say its pronounced as if you're saying a rolled "R" and "zh" at the same time. There is no direct equivalent of the sound in the English language, and it is indisputably the hardest letter for English speakers to learn. We still use it in English for that very reason. A good example of why it might help to use diacritics even in this case is the name "Jiři". If spelled "Jiri", an English speaker would not think anything special of it; if correctly spelled "Jiři", when pronounced it becomes much clearer that "Jiři" is the Czech equivalent of "George". Cheers, Zaldax (talk) 14:05, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

National Geographic advises against the used of Vietnamese diacritics as they are distracting.[9] Perhaps they know more than someone who thinks that the Vietnamese alphabet is based on French. Kauffner (talk) 00:31, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

Kauffner, as before P.T. Aufrette already addressed your National Geographic argument. As for "based on French" since no one has said that, why should anyone respond? The French colonial administration made the Latin alphabet official - but the script was based, in part, on Portuguese. But we all know that don't we, you're gaming, as usual. Can you not say anything straight?

When does the Project community get a word of explanation or apology from you regarding your use of IPs? In ictu oculi (talk) 01:20, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

So the French colonial authorities were the real Vietnamese nationalists? I had no idea. BTW, alphabetic script became official under Bao Dai in 1945. The French authorities wanted to create a French-speaking Indochine, so the plan was to deprive Vietnam and Vietnamese of all official status. Kauffner (talk) 05:39, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

Dear Kauffner:

1. According to my knowledge, the first officially recognized creator of Vietnamese alphabet is a Portuguese priest. And, Latinization of Vietnamese was a long process which had the participation of a lot of people and generations, many of them were not French and probably did not have any connection with France.
2. Every coin have two sides. The heavy reliance on diacritics of Vietnamese causes a lot of diacritics appear on Vietnamese words, and it may cause inconveniences to English speakers, as Kauffner said. HOWEVER, also due to this heavy reliance on diacritics, as I have already said, you have really high chance of misread and misidentify the diacritic-ommited Vietnamese names. Even we Vietnamese, who are really familiar with our names's patterns, in some cases also misread our language's name in a very painful way.
3. Let us have a fun example. Mr Joseph Cao's Vietnamese name is Cao Quang Ánh, without diacritics it becomes Cao Quang Anh. The probem is, both Cao Quang Anh and Cao Quang Ánh are viable names in Vietnamese, and both their patterns are equally common. Another viable, and not uncommon, one is Cao Quang Ảnh. Now assume that we did not know anything about Joseph Cao's Vietnamese real name, imagine the difficulties that we had to face when trying to identify this name, and also to pronounce his Vietnamese name (diacritics in Vietnamese are also the key element which determine the pronounciation). According to my experiences, as a Vietnamese, 99% I might think his name is Cao Quang Anh, not Cao Quang Ánh.
4. About the cases non-diacritic names which are very common (such as Ho Chi Minh, Saigon, Hanoi, Vietnam), of course I agree that we should not add diacritics to these names. Михаил Александрович Шолохов (talk) 01:28, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

In short, well, Kauffner, your concern is reasonable. But please take what I said in mind when you consider this problem. Михаил Александрович Шолохов (talk) 01:28, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

As a reference work, Wiki should follow the usage of other reference works, or at least that's what guidelines like WP:DIACRITICS and WP:EN suggest. Published reference works do not use Vietnamese diacritics, not even the references intended for specialists. See Britannica, Encyclopedia of Modern Asia (2002), Southeast Asia: A Historical Encyclopedia (2000), The Cambridge History of Southeast Asia (2004), or Corfield's The History of Vietnam (2008). It should not matter why the marks are not used. But the fact that news sources based in Vietnam, including Saigon Times and Voice of Vietnam, do not use them either suggests that the reason does not relate to staffing or technology, but rather to the readability issue cited by National Geographic. The diacritics will still be given in the opening, whatever happens with the titles. Kauffner (talk) 02:39, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

Well, in light of the arguments put forth so far, especially by Михаил Александрович Шолохов, maybe those reliable sources are, in fact, wrong in this case. Maybe it is a staffing and technology issue (it takes a good bit more effort to type Vietnamese accents on an English keyboard than, say, French or Spanish). Maybe Wikipedia can actually do it better than those other sources. That's what I think. Cheers, Zaldax (talk) 13:09, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

• You think that writers at English-language publications in Vietnam may have trouble typing the necessarily diacritics into their computer keyboards? I'm not sure this post is meant to be taken seriously or not, but I'll play it straight. It's certainly a subject I know a thing or two about. There is a program called UniKey which is pretty standard for computers in Vietnam. Vietnamese all learn to type with it. Here's how I do it for publication. There is a Vietnamese word in the article that's italicized and given with diacritics. But place names and so forth are all anglicized. Kauffner (talk) 14:57, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

It was a serious comment, actually. While it's quite interesting to learn that how they've worked around the problem (thanks for the program link; maybe that will come in handy someday), my statement was primarily referring to individuals reporting on Vietnam from outside the country. News organizations such as the BBC, National Geographic, etc. may or may not use diacritics when discussing Vietnam-related topics, but much of their coverage is written on English-language keyboards outside the country. Assuming that they, as well as our other references omitting diacritics, are doing some portion of their work in a standard word processor such as Microsoft Word, I would not be surprised if the decision to omit diacritics was solely a labor-saving one. Compare the amount of time it takes to type "D" and "Đ" (one key vs. three; ctrl+'+D) , or "O" and "Ơ" (one key vs. at least three). I literally just spent ten minutes trying to figure out the first, and wasn't able to figure out the latter. Given that the shortcut for Spanish, French, Italian, etc. accents is slightly more intuitive (ctrl+`+letter, ctrl+'+letter, ctrl+,+letter, etc.), it's no surprise that news organizations and other sources use them while omitting them for Vietnamese topics. Furthermore, along the same lines Czech accents are also less intuitive shortcuts, and yet we use those on Wikipedia. In any case, those who don't write solely on Vietnamese-based topics can't be expected to learn the keyboard shortcuts, and since those who don't have to go through "Insert Special Character" to type them, their omission is unsurprising. Fortunately, this isn't a problem for the reader, as that's what redirects are for.

Kauffner, I'm interested in hearing your thoughts on Михаил Александрович Шолохов's recent comments, particularly the issue of possible "false friends" with diacritic-stripped names; i.e. the given example of "Cao Quang Anh" vs. "Cao Quang Ánh". Hypothetically, if we were to strip all diacritics from article titles, how would we handle this possible redundancies? Would we create a disambiguation page for each conflict, with a summary of each entry? It seems like doing so might create a great deal of unnecessary confusion, but I'm interested in hearing what your solution to this problem might be. Cheers, Zaldax (talk) 15:55, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

The BBC has a Vietnamese edition, so they obviously have the technical ability to present diacritics. For sites based in Vietnam, the original version of the story is usually written in Vietnamese, and the diacritics are removed by the translator. They mean nothing to vast majority of English speaking readers. No is going to learn Vietnamese from English-language news reports (or from Wikipedia). Title clashes are a common problem, and there are various workarounds. The long term solution is software that handle more than one instance of a title. Kauffner (talk) 04:23, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

Continuing Discussion (Arbitrary Break)

I guess after all it is a matter of choice: convenience or correct ? If not omitting the diacritics, these "annoying marks" may cause uncomfortable to the readers who are still not familiar with Vietnamese names. If omitting, there is a high chance of misreading and misinterpreting the names. To me, sacrificing some conveniences for preventing the high chance of misinterpreting and for preserving the full information of the name is still worthy enough. For more information, Kauffner, I believe that most of English and VNmese newspapers - both online and hard-copy ones, omit the diacritics in French, Czech, Spanish, German,... names, too. But, if my memory is not wrong, many of these diacritics names still exist in en.wikipedia. Михаил Александрович Шолохов (talk) 07:38, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

I strongly agree with the above sentiment. I want to particularly emphasize that you can't anglicize a word just by stripping the diacritics; think of a letter with diacritic as an entirely separate letter, not just a letter with a funny symbol attached to it. Not only does a diacritical mark change the pronunciation, but it changes the meaning as well. One of the first examples I learned in Czech was "byt = flat (apartment)" whereas "být = 'to be'". Thousands more examples exist in languages worldwide. My question is, would it really be worth all of the extra trouble of disambiguation pages, debating WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, confusion on the part of those familiar with Vietnamese names, debating the proper anglicization of the name, etc. when we could solve the entire issue just by including the diacritics? Zaldax (talk) 13:31, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

• I don't think anybody is saying that diacritics should be stripped, just that (1) If they are not frequently used and well established in English sources then they should NOT be used in article titles, (2) Both versions with and without diacritics should be used together in the article body, using a language template that properly adds semantic tags to foreign words. LittleBen (talk) 05:34, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

• Foreign names and terms that are frequently used with simple diacritics in English sources, and so are recognizable—like "Pelé" and "Bête noire"—are surely not a problem in article titles of English Wikipedia. But foreign names and foreign terms that the great majority of English Wikipedia users cannot read, write, remember, or pronounce should NEVER be used in article titles. In choosing a title or slogan, the whole idea is to make it as easy as possible for the majority to read, recognize, remember—and to type in and search for—it.
• Terms and names that are not unique (like Manuel Sanchez) can always be disambiguated. LittleBen (talk) 14:19, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

The entire issue could still be avoided in many cases just by including the diacritics, which will not only properly inform but will also reduce unnecessary disambiguation pages. Zaldax (talk) 13:31, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

Kauffner, this is going in circles, every one of these semi-correct statements has been made before and answered before. At this point instead of trying to dominate discussion by repeating the same arguments which have already been responded to, you should instead be using bytes to explain your use of IPs, your canvassing, your 1,700 or so undiscussed moves, and your use of redirect edits to lock your moves from being reverted. In ictu oculi (talk) 02:54, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

• To which Kauffner's response was to move and strip Vietnamese text from another biography and to resume editing redirects. It's pretty evident that this User is only interested in getting his own way - whether it's by use of undiscussed moves, G6 proxies, IPs, edit redirects, whatever, and the majority here for treating Vietnamese like any other Latin-alphabet language don't count for anything. In ictu oculi (talk) 09:06, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

I thought there was a gentleman's agreement to refrain from changing article titles while this conversation was ongoing? Since I don't think it has been said explicitly before, and since any implicit arrangement has broken down, I'll go ahead and say it: Please refrain from making any edits to article titles involving diacritics until this discussion has come to a close. I would say "controversial edits", but seeing as how they all are, no sense being redundant. Continued attempts to change article titles (by anyone, in any way) will probably be seen as attempts to circumvent consensus. I don't care if the edit is to add diacritics, or remove diacritics*, continued attempts to circumvent this discussion may result in escalation to WP:WQA or WP:DRN. *Unless the edit is to restore an article title that has been changed since this message was posted. I recognize that I can't stop anyone from doing this, but in the interest of allowing the process to do its job I'm putting my stern hat on for a moment.

With regards to the conversation "going in circles", perhaps its time we get some more eyes on it? I recommend posting another message at the Village pump, to attract editors with no previous relation to the topic to provide a more moderating voice. Otherwise, I'm not sure if we'll end up with an ironclad result. Cheers, Zaldax (talk) 13:31, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

Zaldax, not trying to be an ass, but posting to village pump again won't make a difference. The diacritic war on the wiki has been going on for the entire 8 years I have been around the wiki and I am sure longer. It isn't likely to end any time soon. These discussions happen at least once a year if not multiple times a year (I have been in atleast 3 RfCs on the matter this year alone), there is never really any true consensus in any of them. Posting won't get more people to show up to the discussion because most people on the wiki are totally sick of the discussion. There have been entire site wide RfCs on the matter with hundreds of participants and the result is always the same with about a 50-50 split. If its an ironclad result you are looking for, this isn't a topic area that will have one. -DJSasso (talk) 14:35, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

No worries, you're not being an ass! I didn't realize that they'd been waging for that long, damn. Well, in any case, it looks to me that the "diacritic wars" are mostly settled for the time being; this appears to be the last major holdout left. I'd argue that there is a rough consensus (and stronger arguments) so far in favor of using diacritics in circumstances where there is no commonly-used name without them (the frequently-stated Hanoi, Saigon, etc). If more people aren't coming, than we need to draft the proposal, and close the issue, as this RFC is starting to come to a close; otherwise, this war will just drag on and on and on. Cheers, Zaldax (talk) 15:00, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

• Hey, Zaldax, would you like to be forced to learn to read Japanese and Chinese in order to read English Wikipedia? If not, don't you think that a majority of users would not want to be forced to learn to read Vietnamese and other diacritics in order to read English Wikipedia? Should everybody on Wikipedia be forced to adopt your religion as well? LittleBen (talk) 15:09, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

• That is a strawman, not even remotely similar. These are both latin-based alphabets. The diacritics in most cases do not change the readability of the name. You don't need to learn another language to read them. If you choose not pay attention to them you can in most cases still read the word. Albeit in a misspelled/pronounced way. Japanese and Chinese etc use a completely different set of characters and would not be readable by English readers. Vietnamese words with diacritics on the other hand are. -DJSasso (talk) 15:29, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

Take it easy there, buddy. There's a big difference between a Latin alphabet such as Vietnamese and other scripts such as Japanese and Chinese. While I might not know how a letter like "Đ" is pronounced, I can certainly recognize it as a D, as I'm sure everyone else does. However, I, and everyone else, would also know that it isn't the same thing; maybe that'll inspire me to go and look up "Vietnamese alphabet" and learn something. Keep in mind that Vietnamese isn't just based on the Latin alphabet (see Cherokee alphabet for an example of one that is); it uses the Latin alphabet, and modifies it with diacritics. So, perhaps a better question would be "Should everybody on Wikipedia be forced to adopt the 26 unmodified letters of the English alphabet?" My religion has nothing to do with it. Cheers, Zaldax (talk) 15:29, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

@Ben: On my opinion, I think you should replace "Japanese" and "Chinese" by "French", "Spanish", "German", etc. We have to take note that, just like the Western European countries, our Vietnamese alphabet now is Latin-based one. At the moment, Vietnameses do not use kanji, kana, joseongul or whatever "weird" characters, we use Latin characters such as a, b, c, d, e,... toghether with several diacritcs, just like some European languages. There are some people who suggest that Vietnam should adds the letter "z", "j" and "w" to our alphabet. So, I believe it is more fair to replace "Japanese" and "Chinese" by some languages of European countries, which use Latin characters toghether with diacritics. Yours faithfully, Михаил Александрович Шолохов (talk) 15:25, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

• Most English Wikipedia users can ignore simple diacritics if they want to, but most English Wikipedia users cannot read, write, or pronounce complex diacritics—just as they cannot read, write, or pronounce Chinese, Japanese, Korean or Vietnamese. So (1) it is not beneficial to the majority of Wikipedia users to embed Chinese, Japanese, Korean, or complex diacritics in Wikipedia article titles, and (2) it is not beneficial to use them in the body of articles without using a language template such as Template:CJKV or a link to Wiktionary to properly explain them. Forcing readers to try to read lots of complex diacritics is surely as annoying and time-wasting for the majority of users as trying to read articles that are written in ALL CAPITALS, or an article that is stuffed with lots of Chinese, Japanese or Korean—if there are no language templates or links to Wiktionary to explain the foreign words. People who prefer foreign languages can read the corresponding foreign-language Wikipedia. LittleBen (talk) 16:10, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

I totally agree with the points made by LittleBen. This is the English language wikipedia and that clearly English language users should be taken into account. BritishWatcher (talk) 18:47, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

I also agree with LittleBen on this. Fyunck(click) (talk) 19:13, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

Once again, stripping the letters of diacritical marks means you are actually changing the spelling of the word. In other words, not only is the word potentially confused with others, and stripped of information, it's actually spelled wrong. I know that some readers may feel a tad uncomfortable seeing unusual diacritics, but they'll still be able to just ignore them. Besides, this is an encyclopedia; our mission is to record information, not "dumb things down." Cheers, Zaldax (talk) 02:00, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm not doing anything since I go with English sources. If they have diacritics that's what we should be using. If they don't then we don't. Makes it easy to find and add the proper English sources. And it's one thing to let readers know how a name is spelled in a foreign language, it's another to thrust upon us a foreign spelling if it isn't used in English sources. Fyunck(click) (talk) 05:26, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

Did you seriously just go Canvass a user who you know is very anti-diacritics? -DJSasso (talk) 19:23, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

This is in fact canvassing; after a bit of digging, the only individuals he has notified are known for opposition to diacritical use. I have left a notice on Ben's talk page here. If you notify editors, be sure to notify all potentially interested parties. Cheers, Zaldax (talk) 01:55, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

• Template:Wikitravel (Wikitravel:Romanization) seems pretty sensible to me — much simpler and clearer than Wikipedia. LittleBen (talk) 19:19, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

That page doesn't exist. Were you trying to make a point there, or was that a mistake? Zaldax (talk) 02:01, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

• Try the Wikitravel:Romanization link that I just added. LittleBen (talk) 02:59, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

@BritishWatcher, Fyunck. You seem to be proposing (D) Daily Express MOS. Is that correct? If it is correct would you mind please signing in box D to help get a more representative capture of the variety of views. I take it what you want to see is

Example = title: Truong Tan Sang, lede: "Truong Tan Sang (Vietnamese Trương Tấn Sang)" body text: Truong Tan Sang

Is this correct?

@LittleBenW, thanks for signing in the census box. Do you also mean

Example = title: Truong Tan Sang, lede: "Truong Tan Sang (Vietnamese Trương Tấn Sang)" body text: Truong Tan Sang

Or did you mean something else?

• Quote: "Did you mean Truong Tan Sang, lede: "Truong Tan Sang (Vietnamese Trương Tấn Sang)" body text: Truong Tan Sang?" See the Wikitravel romanization guide. CJKV languages (Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese) have long-established standards for romanization. Use them! Also when embedding any foreign language in English Wikipedia please use templates like the Template:CJKV or Template:Lang templates that add the correct language-related semantic markup to the page and ensure that the browser uses fonts appropriate for the language (fonts that look professional). For example, if English embedded in a Japanese page is not marked up as English, then the browser displays it using a Japanese font, which looks really ugly. Also, Chinese and Japanese share some so-called "commmon characters" that look quite different depending on whether they are displayed in Chinese or Japanese fonts. Web standards are there for a reason. As explained by no less an authority than Wikipedia: in many countries, organizations may be prosecuted for not abiding by such web accessibility standards. LittleBen (talk) 03:12, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
• Quote: "@LittleBenW, thanks for signing in the census box". @IIO, thanks for fraudulently modifying the contents of the census after the fact from the "Diacritics in Article titles of not" RfC subject to "ALL DIACRITICS, NO ENGLISH (in article title and body) or vice versa". LittleBen (talk) 04:24, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

Okay LittleBen you have one last chance to start behaving in a civil way before I request admin assistence for personal attacks here. You have repeatedly had it explained to you that I clarified my own census form for your benefit, among others, since you seem to have communication difficulties. Let me tell you that I, unlike some other anti-foreign name editors whom I see with no moral or personal standards at all do not do things "fraudulently". What I am trying to do is modify my census form again in a way that suits your LittleBenW's dictates if you will respond in a clear and coherent way when being asked a straight question. Now the link you gave had "Xilin Pagoda (西林塔 Xīlíntǎ)" which seems to confirm the previous. So, now I'm going to repaste the question again in good faith, and this time instead of launching a personal attack, look at the question and try and answer:

Actually I'm done with saying anything to this user. If he can't see the difference between "Manuel Sánchez" and "西林塔" he's out of the ballpark, it's a waste of time engaging with him, with or without the personal attacks. We'll be going through Zoë Baird again next. In ictu oculi (talk) 05:19, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

To those who continue to object to diacritic use in article titles, are you willing to come up with a proposal for transliterating those names into the standard 26 letters of the English alphabet? Simply stripping the article title of diacritics and pretending that the letters are the same is not an encyclopedic standard, in my opinion. Cheers, Zaldax (talk) 02:14, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

There's no need plus that would be original research to just plop up a transliteration without it being backed up with English sources. If most usage/sourcing in common English strip the diacritics, for whatever reason they choose, that's what the title should be sitting at. That would be the common English rendering. Again you make sure the foreign spelling is in there too, so our readers are informed of all spellings. That would only make sense since we don't want to censor it...it exists whether we like a spelling or not. And Encyclopedia Britannica sometimes strips out the diacritics... but they then usually show the foreign and English spelling next to each other. Fyunck(click) (talk) 05:39, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

• Try the Wikitravel romanization link that I just added above. LittleBen (talk) 02:59, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

In response to the personal attacks from LittleBenW I have further detailed my census form - which no one among the oppose section but Yopienso and Quis/RMS have actually given a clear answer to - in the hope that it may still generate some clarity. For those who've been round this subject before with Spanish and Czech the usual default of a accentless title is this, and the example is presented in good faith. For those who still need "Other" the other box is still there.

Example:

Title = Truong Tan Sang

Lede = Truong Tan Sang (Vietnamese Trương Tấn Sang)

Body = Truong Tan Sang

If this isn't clear I don't know what will be. LittleBenW think very very carefully before responding with another personal attack. In ictu oculi (talk) 05:34, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

Provisional discussion for those in favour of Vietnamese spelling

As Zaldax says, we need to move on. The below is Provisional discussion for those in favour of full Vietnamese spelling. Those who do not agree with diacriticis for Vietnamese are in the minority of those who have responded and have also indicated disagreement with how en.wp treats French or Czech. I realise the strength of feelings against diacritics en toto among this group, but I'm going to request to keep discussion on the general principle of diacritics above this "let's make a start line". I personally will not be responding to any comments about Spanish, Japanese or Czech, below this line. In ictu oculi (talk) 06:00, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

Let's make a start

Okay we have broad consensus for treating Vietnamese as en.wp treats French or Czech:

• Zaldax, DJSasso, those among the majority favouring Vietnamese diacritics it seems to make sense to start where agreement is easiest in Category:Vietnamese words and phrases. How do you feel about this initial edit this diff (note the discuss tag)? In ictu oculi (talk) 06:00, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

The options should be editing styles used by real world publishers, like Britannica/Columbia style, New York Times style, or AP style. Asking whether en.wp should treat Vietnamese the same as French or Czech just gives you an answer that you're looking for. Kauffner (talk) 13:33, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

Is there actually any need for a Vietnamese naming convention? There is no French naming convention, and the Czech one has been labeled "historic" since 2006 : Category:Wikipedia naming conventions. Article titles for these languages are handled just fine by our general WP:AT policy, and the article title section under discussion here looks rather redundant to me. Geographic names are already handled well by WP:PLACE, which doesn't leave all that much Vietnamese titles that WP:AT cannot deal with. MakeSense64 (talk) 14:26, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

• Sorry, but this is ridiculous. "Broad concensus" is something quite different from a "majority" among the handful of editors that have somehow appeared on this little watched naming convention page. First you have been wearing down editors who disagree with you, with endless repetitions of the same arguments and questions. When enough of them have left in disgust, then you declare "broad concensus" and start a new section that tries to limit the discussion to "for those in favour of Vietnames spelling". Is this how concensus-building works those days? If starting sections with titles "discussion for those who are in favour of .." is not POV-pushing, then what is?

Here is the problem: "those who favour ...." are not based in NPOV. Wikipedia doesn't "favour" anything, it is neither for nor against diacritics, as is clearly expressed in our current policies.

When we try to write or rewrite a naming convention, then it is not about holding a local poll who favours diacritics or not. It is about applying our existing policies to the specific case on the table (in this case: article titles for Vietnamese names and words). What we add or change here, should be in line with our general naming policies, otherwise we would be introducing a policy conflict. Titles for Vietnamese names should simply depend on English-language usage, just like we do for other languages. A broad RfC on a proposal to retain diacritics for all names, was not accepted last year. And we shouldn't use a rejected proposal as the basis for changing the Vietnamese naming convention. Our existing policies should be the starting point, not the personal opinions of editors like you and me. Concensus-building means we try together to make sense of the question on the basis of our existing policy (even if we may not personally agree with some of these policies). That's what is not happening here, and that's why the discussion has not progressed.

MakeSense64 (talk) 07:29, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

• MakeSense64: I agree with you 100%, and welcome back. Don't give in to intimidation, and continue to think first of making Wikipedia accessible and useful to the majority of its users. Wikipedia is not about using difficult technical words without explanation, or using complex diacritics or Chinese / Japanese / Korean characters without explanation, in order to show one's superiority and so tell the majority of Wikipedia users "you guys are ignorant twits, go away!" Wikipedia is not about totally eliminating all highly technical words, complex diacritics or Chinese / Japanese / Korean characters either. Wikipedia is about accessibility, welcoming users, and treating them gently and with kindness and patience, using highly technical words or unfamiliar foreign words only in moderation and with adequate explanation, not ramming stuff down users' throats, and not trying to impose international conformity where such conformity doesn't exist.
• IIO recently said on his own talk page that "(for) any Swedish or Czech article too, (as well as certain Vietnamese names) full-spelling (i.e. with diacritics) will always be in the minority". So he is willfully ignoring what he knows is widely-accepted English usage in order to cram Wikipedia with diacritics, his own POV.
• A fairer census question than the above, if I may suggest one, would be something like, "Have you stopped beating your wife, answer only Yes or No". LittleBen (talk) 07:47, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

• What we really need to do is take a good look from the perspective of our main naming criteria WP:CRITERIA, which is a policy. For example one of them is (quoting): "Naturalness – Titles are those that readers are likely to look for or search with as well as those that editors naturally use to link from other articles. Such titles usually convey what the subject is actually called in English."

Is anybody going to make the case that these Vietnamese diacritics are "natural" for an English-language reader? Will English readers "search" for the anglicized or the native spelling of Vietnamese terms? This really tells us we should prefer the anglicized version of Vietnames names and words, if there is one. The native spelling(s) of a word or name is always given in the lede anyway, so every type of wp reader is being "served". MakeSense64 (talk) 08:21, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

@Ben and MakeSense64: I see now. I have to admit that your points is quite reasonable, and quite strong. But to me, using disambig page/methods for different Latinized names is really not right, and it will certainly happen when we delete the diacritcs in Vietnamese names. Making disambig pages for the two name Đan Chu and Dân Chủ ? That thing is totally nonsense, but it will certainly happen with the policy of abandon the diacritcs. Ah, one more thing, I have a very bad idea that all of you, both side, are debating so intensely that you all are beginning to attack and insult each others. Everybody, please keep calm. With respects. Михаил Александрович Шолохов (talk) 08:42, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

@Sholokhov. That's a common misunderstanding. We do not have any policy of delete or abandon the diacritics. Just like we do not have any policy that asks us to add diacritics (when there are none). WP just reflects what English-language sources do. Broadly speaking: if for a given name/word most English-language sources retain diacritics, then wp retains them too... if for another name/word most sources remove the diacritics, then wp uses that rendering.

So, it will vary from case to case. Other common renderings that are not retained as the title will always get redirects, and disambiguation pages are created as needed. That is long standing wp practice. The only problem is that we seem to have editors who basically refuse to stick to that policy.

We all know very well that Vietnamese diacritics are not natural for an English-language reader. So, then why all this effort to push more such diacritics in en.wp? What purpose is being served by that? That question is apparently never being answered. We are not here to serve the Vietnamese audience, do we?

MakeSense64 (talk) 11:02, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

• The next time iio claims he knows Vietnamese, I'm certainly going have to bring up the ao-dai-means-long-shirt blooper. (Why put any translation in a guideline?) Guidelines are supposed to reflect usage in the articles. The ao dai article doesn't have diacritics in the title, and this follows the usage Oxford and other dictionaries. Kauffner (talk) 11:15, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

• Question for those opposed to use of Vietnamese script. Can someone please show on en.wp a non-Vietnamese Latin alphabet language article title (not an exonym) which has diacritics removed. In ictu oculi (talk) 13:12, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

Why not read you own comment at the start of this section? You said you won't comment anymore about Spanish, Czech and so on... Now, less than 10 hours later you are already asking for examples from other languages again. Can you please stop wasting other editors' time? We are here to look into Vietnamese. And we are supposed to do it on the basis of our existing policies. MakeSense64 (talk) 14:21, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

As you can see, that isn't all I said, what I said was this:

As Zaldax says, we need to move on. The below is Provisional discussion for those in favour of full Vietnamese spelling. Those who do not agree with diacriticis for Vietnamese are in the minority of those who have responded and have also indicated disagreement with how en.wp treats French or Czech. I realise the strength of feelings against diacritics en toto among this group, but I'm going to request to keep discussion on the general principle of diacritics above this "let's make a start line". I personally will not be responding to any comments about Spanish, Japanese or Czech, below this line. In ictu oculi (talk) 06:00, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

And what I was hoping for was that the anti-French, Czech name group, or those who can't distinguish Japanese from Latin alphabet, would have the good grace to let the majority of those who responded discuss without drowning it out. But that's not going to happen because we've now got 5 editors who do not accept the consensus of en.wp on French, Czech etc. and don't have any common ground with the majority of respondents to this RfC.

So if you're going to take over this section of the Talk page as well then I ask the same question as always: Question for those opposed to use of Vietnamese script. Can someone please show on en.wp a non-Vietnamese Latin alphabet language article title (not an exonym) which has diacritics removed. Simple question. Answer that and then we'll talk. Good bye. In ictu oculi (talk) 15:09, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

• Quote: "we've now got 5 editors who do not accept the consensus of en.wp on French, Czech etc. and don't have any common ground with the majority of respondents to this RfC".
• I don't see that as the main problem. Maybe the main problem is that you don't seem to have any common ground with the majority of Wikipedia users and supporters. Maybe trying to intimidate and overwhelm them—and make Wikipedia much less user-friendly and accessible—satisfies your own ego, but is not good for Wikipedia? LittleBen (talk) 15:21, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

LittleBenW, no, that's not it. Please see wikt:majority and do some math. Then please answer the question in pink. Regards. And goodbye. In ictu oculi (talk) 15:34, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

I get these questions every day and I certainly don't answer them. Where's my "goodbye"? Kauffner (talk) 17:58, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

Enough with the personal attacks. On both sides. I am rapidly losing patience, as are others here I'm sure. How can we possibly expect to get anywhere if we're going to stoop to that level. Please, keep your cool and address the arguments, not the editors. Zaldax (talk) 01:21, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

Let's make another provisional start..

Okay - those who formed part of the majority - we have broad consensus for treating Vietnamese as en.wp treats French or Czech:

@ Zaldax, DJSasso, those among the majority favouring Vietnamese diacritics it seems to make sense to start where agreement is easiest in Category:Vietnamese words and phrases. How do you feel about this initial edit this diff (note the discuss tag)? In ictu oculi (talk) 13:12, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

I don't see a problem with it. Cheers, Zaldax (talk) 01:21, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

Good, thanks. In ictu oculi (talk) 02:41, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

How a person spells his own name

One of the most obvious things to remove/replace in the article titles section is this passage (quoting):
"When the article refers to a person who spells their own name without diacritics, write it in this form. When the article refers to a person who spells their own name in Vietnamese with diacritics, use the Vietnamese name."
Wikipedia doesn't care how people spell their own name. What we look into is how their name is spelled in reliable sources. Figuring out how people spell their own name is not something that can be done easily and objectively anyway. Some people may use more than one rendering of their own name depending on the circumstances. MakeSense64 (talk) 14:34, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

Agree, it's unpractical, possibly original research, and disregards the fundamental importance of reliable sourcing. That sentence should never have made it into the convention, at least not without a clear qualification that it needs to be based on reliable sourcing.--Wolbo (talk) 14:40, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

Agree. For sporting figures anyway, the romanized names cited most frequently by international tournament organizers will surely be the names that the players themselves have agreed to use. Tournament organizers are not going to invent names for players, and players are not going to insist that only Chinese, Japanese, Korean or Vietnamese versions of their names be used in international sporting events either. LittleBen (talk) 15:10, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

Strongly disagree. That passage is being taken out of context, and used to imply something that isn't the case. Besides, why shouldn't Wikipedia care how someone spells their own name? "Reliable sources" aren't always reliable. Just because they do something poorly, doesn't mean we can't improve upon it. Cheers, Zaldax (talk) 01:24, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

The reason is that WP prefers "independent" sources. And what independent sources do with the spelling of foreign names varies from language to language. For example, go tell the Latvians or the Czech that they should stick to how the person spells his own name and they will just laugh: lv:Stīvs Džobss and cs:Angela Merkelová.

Some languages retain the native spelling of most names from other languages, and other languages are fairly quick to change them. English is rather quick to anglicize names. It is what it is. WP generally avoids the position of "improving on our sources" :.MakeSense64 (talk) 06:02, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

That is untrue. English today is retaining the original names unlike the old days where a Battenberg became a Mountbatten. The Czech example mentioned above is equal to the English Mrs Angela Merkel as the ová indicates the female identity. In English you would not write Frau Angela Merkel either. Anglicising would be to call her Angie, something that happened to Andrew Sachs. Agathoclea (talk) 08:17, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

So, you agree that we base our article titles not on how a person spells his own name, but on how our reliable sources spell his (or her) name? If it is a recent name and English sources retain the native spelling, then that will become the title of our article. If it is an older name and reliable English sources used to change it, then that becomes the title we use. Usage decides, not how the person spells (or spelled) his own name. MakeSense64 (talk) 12:14, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

• MakeSense64, I agree that the rule should be changed to "adopt the spelling used by reputable English sources". But you really need to justify your opinion with examples of why "how a person spells his own name (in his own language)" is a stupid rule. Here are some such examples: The name "Edison Arantes do Nascimento" would not be recognized, and so would be a stupid article title in English Wikipedia, however the name Pelé (for the same person) is recognizable to virtually everybody. Likewise, the name "Manuel Sánchez Montemayor" (an article title in Spanish Wikipedia) would probably not be recognized in English. To use just "Manuel Sánchez" on Spanish Wikipedia would be ambiguous if not insulting, because there are many people called "Manuel Sánchez", so it is probably also insulting to use the abbreviated Spanish name on English Wikipedia. This tennis player is known as "Manuel Sanchez" in English, so the best article title would surely be "Manuel Sanchez (tennis)" (without diacritics). Likewise, Japanese custom is to use family name (surname) first and then "first name", but in English Wikipedia you should use the customary English "first name" "surname" order.
• Summary: International sporting figures are usually known by "first" and "last" names (usually English) in English newspaper, radio and TV reports. Where necessary, such names (used in article titles) should be followed by the name of the sport in brackets, so that there is no ambiguity. (Manuel Sanchez is a common name). LittleBen (talk) 03:00, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

No, because we still use Mountbatten and not Battenberg. Usage changes over time, and the modern trend is towards keeping the original name. It's a part of globalization. Zaldax (talk) 18:33, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

And everybody missed the Battenberg point. His name actually changed. As Sachsen-Coburg-Gotha bacame Winsor at the same time. Iwas explaining anglicising which is not removing diacritics but translating one way or another ie Dai/David Wilhelm/William Ernst/Earnest Hiob/Job ect pp Agathoclea (talk) 20:40, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

Oooooh. I'm dumb, my bad. Gotcha. Well, you're still right. Cheers, Zaldax (talk) 00:26, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Czech, as well as several other languages, changes the endings of all nouns, depending on gender and case. English does not. If you're going to say something like "For example, go tell the Latvians or the Czech that they should stick to how the person spells his own name and they will just laugh: lv:Stīvs Džobss and cs:Angela Merkelová." to dismiss my point, actually learn something about the language first. Cheers, Zaldax (talk) 18:31, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

• Zaldax: Re. "Czech(s), Latvians and others change the endings of all nouns (including names of persons?), depending on gender. English does not". It would surely be helpful if there were English-language MoS for these countries/languages that point this out. LittleBen (talk) 03:38, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Yep, including the names of persons. Places, too. Any and all nouns can be changed (some are not, but it depends entirely on spelling) in Czech depending on the gender and grammatical case. At some point, someone perhaps could create an English-language MoS for those countries/languages, but it isn't really an issue now. Cheers, Zaldax (talk) 16:49, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

• I have added a reply to MakeSense64 under his post above. LittleBen (talk) 03:02, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Truong Tan Sang

Despite being Vietnam's top leader, Truong Tan Sang remains a most obscure figure who has gotten virtually no international media attention. The government here is quite secretive about these things and few Vietnamese know anything about Sang beyond the fact that he is the president. So I was surprised to discover that IIO has added his name as an example in numerous places above, perhaps in preparation for an RM. I don't think anyone else has expressed a preference regarding Sang specifically. The article is mainly my work, and it has always had an ASCII title. Did anyone think that this campaign was ever about anything other than knife twisting? Kauffner (talk) 17:44, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

• This RfC has served its purpose. I don't quite know how, given the way it was canvassed but surprisingly there were a largish majority in favour of the way en.wp was - with full Vietnamese titles for Vietnamese people and places. It would be good to have some clarity on the spectrum among the opposes. And that's why I prepared that census form, to aid understanding, that's all. Like all tables like that it was rough and ready when started and has been improved by input. The choice of Vietnam's leader relates to a natural choice as when there were RfCs 18 months ago on Lech Wałęsa, Gerhard Schröder and François Mitterrand. It's fairly simple. As to "sticking in a knife" that's a silly comment. There's no need to stick in a knife, other users have already expressed plentiful disagreement with Kauffner's moves. Anyway, this RfC has served it's purpose, it has indicated a largish majority in favour of the way en.wp was. Someone who wishes to count up can please count up. In ictu oculi (talk) 02:38, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
  • IIO, are you saying, "I have personally made sure that virtually every single one of the European articles has diacritics in the article title, even though I am well aware that for some European languages it is not common practice to use diacritics in English media. So this Wikipedia usage justifies diacritics usage as right in every situation, including Vietnamese. I was hoping to fix Vietnamese as well"? LittleBen (talk) 03:18, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
    • No what I said was this:

This RfC has served its purpose. I don't quite know how, given the way it was canvassed but surprisingly there were a largish majority in favour of the way en.wp was - with full Vietnamese titles for Vietnamese people and places. It would be good to have some clarity on the spectrum among the opposes. And that's why I prepared that census form, to aid understanding, that's all. Like all tables like that it was rough and ready when started and has been improved by input.

In ictu oculi (talk) 04:17, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

But the purpose of a RfC is not to find "majority", it is to find "consensus". Quite a different thing. And to find consensus needs dialogue and addressing relevant questions... which hasn't happened here.

Looking at the "article titles" section, sentence by sentence:

* first sentence with examples of exonyms: is redundant, because naming of places is already covered much better by WP:PLACE

* 2nd sentence says that editors need to find consensus. That is as good as saying nothing at all, because we always need consensus.

* 3rd sentence is striked out

* 4rd and 5th sentence are worthless, because basing titles on how the person spells their own name is not backed by any of our policies.

* 6th sentence is also redundant, because it just repeats the common practice of making redirects for significant alternative names.

Conclusion: we can do away with this entire section because it doesn't say anything that is not already covered by our general AT policy. Per WP:CREEP. MakeSense64 (talk) 05:52, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Yep, we should not need that WP:CREEP, but we do because there are some people who think they can find loopholes to dumb down wikipedia. Agathoclea (talk) 06:33, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

But it are always the little watched guideline pages (like this one) that are used to serve "loopholes", not the main policy pages (which are much more widely watched). A proposal to use native spelling for all titles in languages that use latin script (which includes Vietnamese), was rejected in a broad RfC last year. So, putting that in the guideline here would go against broader community consensus. That's simply a non-starter. Current policy is that titles depend on usage in English language sources, so that's what should be done with Vietnamese too. The WP:AT policies are sufficient to cover Vietnamese titles, and the article title section we have here is redundant. MakeSense64 (talk) 06:49, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

If you are referring to this RfC, Vietnamese was specifically excluded from the proposed list of languages for which diacritics would be used. Kauffner (talk) 07:34, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the correction. But if there was not even a consensus to mandate the use of diacritics in all names from languages which have relatively few diacritics (compared to Vietnamese), then the logical implication is that there is probably even less support for mandating diacritics in all Vietnamese names. Vietnamese diacritics are a lot more "unnatural" for the general English-language audience than for example French diacritics. And naturalness is one of the main criteria we consider for article titles.

This is how consensus building is supposed to work: look into our existing policies and relevant recent RfC and use common sense to see what they mean for the topic in question. This cannot be replaced by trying to outnumber each other, and then declare a "majority". People who don't understand this are welcome to (re)read WP:VOTE. MakeSense64 (talk) 07:59, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

No one here is trying to circumvent consensus, except possibly those of you who keep pointing to other discussions to justify your own points. Consensus can change. This RFC has been listed on the Village pump before, there has been a fair bit of canvassing, and even still those who support the use of diacritics have formed a rough consensus. Frankly, your dismissal of this RFC as hopeless and meaningless suggests that the only result you'll accept is your position, and that's insulting to all of us who have spent days discussing and debating these proposals. Rather than resorting to these sorts of tactics, try new arguments; those you've put forward have thus far been rejected. Try again, or accept the consensus and help draw up the new policy. Right now, this reeks of stalling. Cheers, Zaldax (talk) 12:52, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

The purpose of the Vietnamese naming conventions guideline is to describe how long-established guidelines and policies like WP:UE, WP:EN, and WP:DIACRITICS apply to Vietnamese. This RfC should not be used to create policy. In any case, I don't think that there was a clear majority for any particular proposal, even for "Option 4". Option 4 was, "Diacritic use on most articles unless name has been nativised". Does someone want to add that to the guideline? Frankly, this doesn't sound very "guidelineish", and I have to wonder if the editors who voted for this option actually expected this language to be added. Kauffner (talk) 14:18, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

So then why did you bother starting this RFC in the first place? This RFC is to determine how we will handle Vietnamese names, etc with respect to diacritics. Simple as that. With regards to "No clear majority", see the Straw poll posted later down the page, under the "Census" section. Even though you and a couple of other editors have not added your stance, there is still a pretty large majority in favor of "A" (aka "Option 4"). Furthermore, Option 4 was not "this is the exact wording", it was an indication of support. No one expected that to be the exact wording, because it was clear that it wouldn't be. I'm trying to AGF, but at this point I'm really having a hard time not seeing comments like yours as an attempt to deflect attention and delay progress. The next step in the RFC, as I've said before, is to draw up the exact wording; contributions on this would be appreciated (Specifically, what is the threshold for determining if a name has an exonym in common use sans diacritics, i.e. Hanoi, Saigon, etc.) Let's keep this productive, and try to move forward. Cheers, Zaldax (talk) 16:40, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

@Zaldax. You may have noted that I hardly participated in the earlier discussion, until somebody announced a new start section. So, to blame me for the failure to reach a consensus is quite a stretch. It's not as if a consensus was being found while I kept away from the discussion. As others already pointed out, most people are sick of these diacritics discussions, and earlier broad RfC have typically resulted in a 50-50 split. This one is no exception. And as WP:VOTE points out, more polls may actually make it worse. Polls tend to live up to their name: they poll-arize.

Consensus building means that we have to try to find some agreement, not just within those that already have a given opinion, but also with those who have a different take. That means discussion and debate is required. I have brought a lot of different questions and policy based arguments that you could pick up on if you are interested in finding consensus. Nobody picked up on the "naturalness" point, or on what our current policies actually state, or on what earlier RfC has brought. When consensus is not found easily, then sometimes it is taken sentence by sentence, cutting it up in smaller steps. I tried to do that as well. You have not picked up on it either. There is only that much questions or new arguments I can bring. If nobody wants to discuss them, then it is hard to make the case that they are trying to engage in consensus-building. So be it. Sometimes a new consensus is not found, and then things just fall back on the existing policies.

Let's also not forget that the current consensus: let titles be decided mainly on the basis of English-language usage, is already a compromise solution. It doesn't satisfy everybody, but it probably satisfies the largest possible number of editors. MakeSense64 (talk) 07:33, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

• The census is a thoroughly dishonest piece of work. Everyone who wrote anything favorable about diacritics is counted as Option A. Some these "votes" weren't even in the RfC, but taken from IIO's talk page and other places. All the people who voted for Option 4 got listed under Option A, although the two proposals are significantly different. There are at least ten other editors who participated in the RfC, myself included, who for whatever reason don't appear in the chart at all. Kauffner (talk) 01:48, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

Unfortunately, from what I heard recently, that's now all "part of how it goes" on wp. MakeSense64 (talk) 08:19, 21 August 2012 (UTC)