Talk:Kinmen

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Kaohsiung which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 20:59, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

Requested move 29 August 2015

Kinmen → Jinmen – Jinmen is the pinyin spelling of this name, and WP:PINYIN tells us that pinyin is our default Romanization. "Jinmen" is at least as common in the RS as "Kinmen," according to this ngram. Merriam-Webster's Geographical Dictionary gives "Quemoy or Chin. Jinmen" (that is to say, no "Kinmen") "For spelling of place names, a good reference is Merriam-Webster's Geographical Dictionary." according to WP:WIAN. The Columbia Gazetteer of the World, an authoritative library reference work, gives "Jinmen." ConstitutionalRepublic (talk) 03:28, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

Please note previous move discussions in the Archives here. —  AjaxSmack  16:28, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

• Use Quemoy -- 67.70.32.190 (talk) 06:11, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

• Stay with Kinmen as Lonely Planet etc. Do not use old colonial name Quemoy as per Archive move discussions. In ictu oculi (talk) 07:24, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose per WP:PINYIN (use "pinyin as the default..., except where a non-pinyin form of a word is used by modern reliable secondary sources.") [my emphasis] Note that the names of the counties of Taiwan use the postal form and not pinyin. (The sources given in the nomination to support "Jinmen" also use the very uncommon "Chi-lung" instead of Keelung[1]) Also note my reasoning and evidence in previous move requests: In common English usage in the context of contemporary Taiwan, "Kinmen" is almost exclusively used.[2][3] Also note the usage in Kinmen National Park and the WTO name for Taiwan, the Separate Customs Territory of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen, and Matsu. As far as 67.70.32.190's comment goes, "Quemoy" is still used in sources referring to the 1958 Taiwan Strait Crisis, but it is rarely used for contemporary topics (cf. Stalingrad vs. Volgograd). —  AjaxSmack  16:28, 29 August 2015 (UTC)
  • If this theory was true, wouldn’t you expect to see an author use a different name depending on which historical period he was discussing? That never happens. It would be like saying that the capital of China was once in Peking, but that it is now in Beijing. It makes no sense to grant a common name exception for Kinmen, but not for Quemoy, which is a far more common usage. According to Geonames, the “approved” (local official) usage for the island is Jinmen Dao. The county is given as Jinmen while Keelung is Jilong. In other words, pinyin is official pretty much across the board at this point. We should not assume that the Taiwanese are making some sort of political statement when they use a non-standard Romanization. They are usually just screwing up. This page has some amusing examples. ConstitutionalRepublic (talk) 16:56, 30 August 2015 (UTC)
    • The local official name is 金門 which we won't be using for a number of reasons. You are relying on a USA military source that does not use common English names for places. A search reveals that Kinmen is a "Conventional" name while Jinmen is "Approved". Compare this with let's say Florence (Conventional) and Firenze (Approved) or Hong Kong (Conventional) and Heung Kong (Approved). Are we really supposed to have an article called Heung Kong based on this source? Please take a trip to Kinmen if you get a chance. It's a nice place. Notice all of the English signs that use "Kinmen" (and many Engrish ones, too). If you prefer more official usage, try both local and national government sources from Taiwan, the folks who are actually in charge in Kinmen. I agree that it is poor policy for Taiwan to have such exception to its pinyin policy for county names like Hsinchu and other places like Lukang but it's not my decision to make. —  AjaxSmack  02:56, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

• I didn't mention Geonames in the proposal, you know. My argument is that "Jinmen" and "Kinmen" are about equally common on Gbooks, and that our guideline recommends defaulting to pinyin. Geonames gets its data from BGN, which is a civilian U.S. agency. BGN standardizes geographic naming across the U.S. government, not just for the military. It is the main supplier of data to the makers of atlases, gazetteers, and other geographic references. See here. I uploaded a scan from Columbia Gazeteer: Scan of entry for Jinmen, Taiwan This is a standard three volume reference, the book you would consult if you took a trip to the reference section of a major library and did this the old-fashioned way. ConstitutionalRepublic (talk) 11:24, 31 August 2015 (UTC)