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Archive 1

removal

I moved the following from the article.

A Nithhoggr was slain by Danish king Frotho in Gesta Danorum. It is described as a serpent: "...wreathed in coils, doubled in many a fold, and with a tail drawn out in winding whorls, shaking his manifold spirals and shedding venom ... his slaver burns up what it bespatters yet ...remember to keep the dauntless temper of thy mind; nor let the point of the jagged tooth trouble thee, nor the starkness of the beast, nor the venom there is a place under his lowest belly whither thou mayst plunge the blade'"

- Haukur Þorgeirsson 22:19, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Why remove it from the article? Is it not relevant? Also, I don't think this page should be moved from the common English version of the name. Feel free to list on WP:RM if you disagree, of course. Jonathunder 16:24, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
It does not appear relevant to me. It is a description of a dragon from Gesta Danorum [1] but that dragon is never identified as Níðhöggr there. I have moved the page back as per Use English. I don't think it can be said to have a common English name so the name in the original language should be used. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 18:15, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
I see. Thank you for your additions; they are valuable. I don't agree WP:UE mandates moving this article from where it has long been and where almost all links point. Nidhogg is an English form and seems common enough as I see it. Please list on WP:RM if you'd like to move, as it may be controversial. Kind regards. Jonathunder 18:39, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
I wrote basically all of this article and added the picture in it. I would have moved it to Níðhöggr some time ago except that I did not want to prejudice the naming convention discussion. Now that it is over I decided to move it to include its diacritics and nominative case marker, a move which I think is consistent with our policies and guidelines. I would have moved it back myself except that you made an edit to the redirect solely so that I would not be able to. I will take your concerns about the links into account. I'm still working on the article, do you have any suggestions on how to improve it? - Haukur Þorgeirsson 19:08, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

You can't claim these is no common English variant when the article itself admits there is. Furhtermore, the Use English policy means we have to use the most common English variant even if the most common one isn't as common as you think it should be... Changing the name of this article is an ridiculous contradiction of your claims that your article naming goals would only affect those articles without common English names. You claim "I think is consistent with our policies and guidelines" -- this is patently false, as the only guidelines about naming is to use English -- you tried and failed to make your own naming conventions into a guideline, this is just further indication of your bad faith activity here. DreamGuy 23:08, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

I am acting in good faith in accordance with my interpretation of our policies and guidelines. While Nidhogg is probably the most common Anglicization in popular works and in Google hits and I think it is useful to give it at the outset of the article you will see that none of the English texts which the article quotes actually uses that form. In cases where there are multiple Anglicized forms - none of which can be said to be commonly used in English the way "Thor" and "Odin" are - I think it is best to use the original form as the Use English guideline suggests. Many people agree with me on that as you've seen in the vote on the recent naming convention proposal and in such requested moves as Talk:Höðr and Talk:Lóðurr. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 23:25, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
Yeah, you're for Iceland, and I know you want to use archaic Iceland as the article title, but that's a violation of the policies here. What, pray tell, are the "multiple Anglicized forms" you speak of... It is commonly used in English, and needs to be moved back. Your desire to reword the English language Encyclopedia to the language of your origin is all very interesting, but your attempts to ignore policies to get your own way is just absurd. DreamGuy 23:28, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
Please read the article and you will find the multiple Anglicized forms. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 23:46, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
And Danicized and Germanicized and Frenchified or whatever. Just because someone decided to throw out a red herring with all the possible permutations of little squigglies doesn't mean we have any more difficulty choosing an acceptable English name here, no more than we do for Will Sheakspear who even signed his own name about that many different ways. Gene Nygaard 21:10, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
All the forms listed occur in English texts. The Danish form Nidhug, in particular, is used in Anderson's English translation of the Prose Edda. The list of forms and array of redirects is not a red herring but a device to help people find the article. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 23:23, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
I think it is unfair on Haukur to suggest that his nationality is the only reason he prefers the Icelandic versions. It is increasingly common in academic and scholarly work to use names as close to the original as possible, rather than a transliteration which often completely mangles the name. —Matthew Brown (T:C)

I won't question anyone's motives as that is quite impolite and violates policy. I must point out that I think it is also impolite and a violation of policy for the move to be pushed through after objections were raised and a listing made on requested moves. The article has been at Nidhogg for a long time, that is where the links are, that is where it was on my watchlist. There was absolutely no notice given here on talk before this move was done. When I reverted that and politely said "please list on WP:RM" that wasn't done, but it was moved again. So I listed it on requested moves, even though I am not the initator, and I put the article back to its original location while discussion could take place. But it was moved again, even though there was significant objection. I really must protest this. Can't we discuss controversial moves like this before just moving? Please be courteous to your fellow editors. None of us is the only one who cares about these topics, and other editors have ideas are worth hearing. No one person owns this article. Jonathunder 01:23, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments. I'd just like to point out that all the links have been fixed, except the one in the List of Forgotten Realms deities, I really don't know what to do with that one, it's some weird text in the external links section, I'd be inclined to just remove it but I have no idea about the subject. Any help would be appreciated. As for the comment on the procedure of the move, I'd like to point out that it was done by the editors who have been most active in improving the articles. Their position to where the articles should be has been well advertised so this should not come as any surprise. Of course I understand that you care about the article and I have to say that from my viewpoint the article has greatly improved with Haukur's additions. Finally, as you must know if you have been watching the article, the creature has been called Níðhöggr in the article for the last two months [2] without any complaints and that sets a good precedent in my opinion. Stefán Ingi 02:01, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
As to listing the Old Norse name in the article in addition to the English name, I of course have no objection. As to moving it with no note on talk, that did take me by surprise. As to moving again after it was put back to it original location and after I made a very polite request to discuss and not force the move, I have to admit I am quite put out. As to changing links even after this discussion and before it is decided where this article should land, I'm just not going to comment because I have never made an impolite comment on WP and I will not start now. Jonathunder 02:16, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
I can see that I have upset you, I'm sorry about that. I honestly thought that the comment you made previously about the links was an encouragement to fix them. Anyway, I will help in moving them back if the consensus will be to move the article back to Nidhogg. Also, I think you missed the point about the edit I linked to before. The name Níðhöggr was not just mentioned in that edit, it is put into the text as the proper name of the creature. But I will go to bed now, good night. Stefán Ingi 02:24, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Article should have English title

Add *Support or *Oppose followed by an optional one sentence explanation, then sign your vote with ~~~~
Those are all Latin letters. See cyrillic for a few real non-Latin letters. ;) ナイトスタリオン ✉ 16:31, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose. The most common of the several Anglicized forms is already prominent and bolded on the first line of the article. There are redirects from just about every Anglicized form. There is a catalog of them in the article already. Using the accurate Old Norse spelling for the title is more professional and does not harm accessibility. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 23:50, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
If you admit there's a most common one, then by Wikipedia:Use English policy, it HAS to be moved. Old Norse is NOT English, and your opinion that it looks nicer doesn't matter, we have rules here that have to be followed. DreamGuy 00:23, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose for the same reasons as so many times before. Lots of articles on wikipedia have diacritics in their names, this has all been discussed before and Níðhöggr is the name following the same lines as have already been established. Stefán Ingi 00:13, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
Those "same liines as have already been established" HAVE NOT BEEN ESTABLISHED. A small group of people dedicated to a certain topic working against policy does not overrule policy. DreamGuy 00:23, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Keep diacritics. ナイトスタリオン ✉ 08:28, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose for reasons thoroughly hashed and rehashed. Keep the original, even if English speakers seem to slightly favour one aberrant spelling over the other. In any case, there are always redirects, and some curious soul, of whom there don't seem to be all that many, alas, might actually want to know the original. Cheers Io 16:40, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Keep at Níðhöggr, and please have some respect for the competence and judgment of the people who actually contribute to the articles on Old Norse mythology. u p p l a n d 19:34, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
When they show competence and good judgment, then they get respect. If a group of Norse mythology fans here on Wikipedia up and decide to violate overall Wikipedia policy, that doesn't make them right. Talking about competence when none has been shown is rather outlandish. The whole concept of "if there is no common (enough for my personal preferences heh heh heh, which I will of course set objectively so that I always get my own way) English form, use archaic foreign language form" is just so pathetic it's amazing. DreamGuy 19:49, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose keep the funny letters. They look good. — Dunc|☺ 19:55, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose. m:Polls are evil, but if used for discussion, are a necessary one, IMO. All possible redirects already redirect here, so what's the big deal? There's no consensus on what the English name should be, anyhow. Johnleemk | Talk 19:57, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose Agree with comments given by previous three users above. I am in favour of using English names obviously, but this case is not clear and before we write something wrong, better write it right. Gryffindor 20:19, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose, this mythical creature is not well known enough to be wrongly named. --Oldak Quill 21:28, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose. I don't believe that Use English is as 'strong' a rule as some seem to understand it. The examples given on that page seem to refer to things commonly known in English. Níðhöggr is not that commonly even discussed in English. I believe that most modern translations of original texts and most modern scholarly work tend to use the original forms. —Matthew Brown (T:C) 22:36, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose, title should be Níðhöggr. Reasons have been given above by others and elsewhere by me, no need to repeat yet again. -- Curps 23:28, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose the anglicised misspelling &mdash use the correct name, which has an eth in it. It has no commonly used English equivalent, so per the standard, use an accepted transliteration of the name in the original language: Níðhöggr. Redirects are already in place to help those who prefer to avoid using heathen unAmerican characters. ➥the Epopt 01:29, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Support using English letters. Níðhöggr seems to be modern Icelandic rather than Old Norse, and seems to get 1% of the Google hits [3] [4]. Furthermore, most of the hits for Níðhöggr seem to be in fact for Nidhoggr. The little campaign I seem to be following breeches policy (use English and use common name). --Henrygb 01:57, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
    • Maybe you would prefer Níðhǫggr or Niðhǫggr? I'm not convinced that those Google searches have not been skewed by, amongst others, the software and the blogger, not to mention the Lego set: just because that particular spelling is easier for people to type in ASCII doesn't mean we have to follow the herd. Phil | Talk 11:26, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
      • That Lego spelling is much more relevant for our purposes than any obscure history journal; that's the spelling people are going to know, are going to see and recognize. Note also that things such as this and various trademarked names are much more likely to use strange squiqqles than ordinary English, just because of the brand recognition factor. Gene Nygaard 14:07, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
        • Nice to have you on record in favor of Lego over academic works but anyone searching for the Lego spelling will immediately be redirected to the more precise spelling with diacritics. Aside from that I listed several works above which are so far from obscure that you can browse their index on Amazon. And none of them uses the spelling you're advocating. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 14:15, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
          • Did I just read correctly, Lego is more important than a history journal? Gryffindor
            • That is Wikipedia policy: use the common name. Academics are prone to show off their ability to find with obscurity. That is why the main Jesus article is not at Yeshua. --Henrygb 17:18, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
              • We keep Jesus there because that's the common name for him. If you wanted to write an article about the Lego dragon then you could call that Nidhogg (Lego) or something like that. The original norse mythology dragon doesn't have a common English name, it is hardly ever talked about. We should not base the names of articles on names of derivative items, e.g. Peking duck should not be a reason for moving the Chinese city to Peking. Stefán Ingi 17:37, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
                • It is the same beast. Lego did not invent the name, they just used the common name. --Henrygb 18:05, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
                  • The chefs didn't invent the name Peking, they just used the common name. Stefán Ingi 18:11, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
                  • We're talking about a set of Legos which includes a "Viking catapult". That they snatched a name for their Lego dragon from Norse mythology and decided to use the Anglicized form they thought would be most palatable to their customers has very little bearing on what we should name the article here. The goal of selling as many Lego sets as possible is radically different from the goal of writing an accurate and informative encyclopedia article. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 18:15, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Support keeping in English script. Colonel Tom 02:07, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose, for the reasons stated by Matthew Brown. Chick Bowen 02:57, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose: better to keep it at the accurate and unique name rather than enter into a move-page war as to whether it should be at Nidhogg, Nidhoggr, Nithhogg, Nidhögg, Nidhöggr, Nithhöggr, Nídhöggr, Nithhoggr, Nidhhogg, Níðhögg, Niðhoggr, Níðhoggr, Nídhögg or Nidhhoggr. We didn't go through the pain of converting Wikipedia to UTF-8 just so that everything could be restricted to ASCII anyway. HTH HAND Phil | Talk 11:26, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
If there are two common English usages, we can just pick one or the other; it shouldn't be any problem; we don't really need to determine precisely which has the greater usage overall. But in this case, there isn't really any problem at all determining the most common English usage, is there? Gene Nygaard 14:07, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose, I agree w Haukurth, this is a waste of time. When in doubt, use the original name. Sam Spade 16:01, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
  • oppose until at least the people so eager for diacriticlessness get their terminology right and distinguish English from Anglicized. Nidhogg surely isn't an English name, and I'm tired of arguing the same trivial point (for simplicity: Oðinn: Old Norse. Odin: Anglicized Old Norse. Woden: English). Get support for a policy that says "Use Anglicized names whenever possible" (if you can), and then wave policy in people's faces. dab (ᛏ) 18:15, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Support move back to most common name: 19 displayed hits (yahoo since google auto-translates) for Níðhöggr yggdrasil (many of which are Wikipedia or non-English language sites) versus more than 2,000 for nidhogg yggdrasil, including Encarta[5]. Waterguy 08:57, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose. There's no strongly established English name. Duja 12:49, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Support moving back to most common name like the Waterguy said. Tree&Leaf 18:11, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Support using the more common English name. Longboat 19:06, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
  • support accent marks in the title are ok if I can see them, but why use letters that aren't part of the English alphabet at all when the article was at an English title. Via Egnatia
  • Keep the name it had when first listed on WP:RM, the original name. It should not have been so hastily moved when objections were raised. No Account 23:10, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose, article names shouldn't be misspelled. --Bjarki 10:29, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
  • SupportInge 11:14, 2 December 2005 (UTC) Allthough Old Norse is great it isn't English.
  • Keep as Níðhöggr, a personal name does not become English by simply cutting out the diacritics. Swietochlowice is not the English name of the town of Świętochłowice, it's simply the name written without diacritics, nothing more nothing less. If there is a problem with people using different keyboards - it can be easily solved by creating redirects. Also, if the "English" name proposed by some is simply an invention and is not used in sources, then its usage borders WP:NOR. Halibutt 14:00, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Strong support. I don't understand why we should tolerate all the stresses and apostrophies and whatever-those-things-are-called on top of the letters. Some people are not even sure how to pronounce it, let alone how to write it. And some of them don't have this language support, so all they see is little cubes instead of certain letters. All those Polish and other names should be moved to proper English spellings. We Russians don't keep the article on their Cyrillic names, do we? --Ghirlandajo 14:05, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose per Matthew Brown above. In my experience, most modern translators of Icelandic into English keep the eths, thorns and diacritics in names (see, e.g., Halldór Laxness's translators). There is nothing to be gained in departing from this convention, especially if redirects are established. –Joke137 16:50, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
    • In this case, I propose moving Vladimir Lenin to Владимир Ленин. Why to keep Polish and Norse names in non-Latin letters and Cyrillic names in Latin? --Ghirlandajo 16:52, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
    • Last time I checked, Volokhonsky and Pevear wrote the transliteration Raskolnikov, not... whatever it is in Cyrillic. It's a convention. With little effort, English speakers can learn very roughly how to pronounce – and most importantly, visually recognize! – Icelandic names. Not so with Cyrillic, where the letters are entirely unfamiliar. –Joke137 17:39, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
  • The page was moved prematurely, and moved back and forth during the vote, which is unfortunate. My vote is to keep it at the original title, for reasons already given. Jonathunder 18:53, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
    • The article has used this spelling since September without anyone contesting it - far from being premature the move was long overdue. Anyone wanting to contest the spelling change had ample time to do so before the actual move was made. After the move you had the option of requesting a vote on a move back as DreamGuy did but the onus is on you to show why this case should be treated differently from closely analogous cases in the past. You had never edited the article or shown any interest in it until you noticed on my contribution log that I had moved it and decided to force a confrontation. DreamGuy then escalated the confrontation with personal attacks. Much to your credit you have completely avoided those and I still believe that you are acting sincerely for what you consider to be the best interests of the encyclopedia. As for the requirement of a supermajority to move a page I think it is most useful in discouraging repeated attempts to move the same page or a swing back-and-forth between locations with slight shifts in the majority opinion. In this case we're debating the location of this page for the first time so I don't see why you should need a supermajority to move it. If you get a simple majority to move the page I think it should be moved - I have no interest in having my way through some technical loophole if it turns out I am in the minority. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 00:16, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Support. The picture (right) shows a name spelt differently to that of the modern Icelandic version (from the picture it looks like "Nydhogg" to me), which is much closer to the English version. That Lego example uses the common spelling of the name in English, not the so-called academic and Icelandic spelling.
    I don't know why we let foreigners and those academic morons try to force more "correct" spellings over more common spellings on to us (native English speakers). I find that behaviour and our weakness in letting them have their own way, very offensive. Marco79 13:54, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
The academic moron here. The spelling "Níðhöggr" is not Modern Icelandic, it is normalized Old Norse spelling. The spelling of the manuscripts themselves varies widely. The 17th century Icelandic manuscript which the picture I added is from uses another spelling - and it's not "Nydhogg". The squiggle at the end is a manuscript abbreviation for the Modern Icelandic 'ur' ending. The original Edda manuscripts use other spellings - see here for transcriptions of the four main manuscripts of Gylfaginning: [6]. As you can see the W manuscript uses the Níðhǫggr spelling (the editor of that website uses underlined 'o' to represent 'ǫ' for technical reasons as we have been using 'ö'). The other manuscripts use other spellings. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 14:34, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
Thankyou for the clarification, but I'm still not changing my vote, as the most common spelling in English that I've come across is "Nidhogg". Marco79 16:19, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Discussion

Add any additional comments

This article needs to be moved back to Nidhogg... Other editor is making up his own rules and violating Wikipedia:Use English policy.

This is such a horrible waste of time and energy. Please, do we have to go through this yet again? You did not succeed in the Talk:Höðr requested move and you did not succeed in the Talk:Lóðurr requested move. Once again you file an identical request to get rid of diacritics and nominative endings. - Haukur Þorgeirsson
No, you are the one who has not succeeded here. Wikipedia:Use English is still in effect. If you want to change that, go try to vote on it. Please don't make deceptive comments. Yhe fact that you are from Iceland, have an Icelandic name, and want to make articles Icelandic is all hunky dory for your cultural heritage, but it's not how this encyclopedia is run. DreamGuy 00:23, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
Please try to accept that my interpretation of the Use English guideline is not the same as yours. In particular I give a lot of weight to this part of it:
"If there is no commonly used English name, use an accepted transliteration of the name in the original language. Latin-alphabet languages, like Spanish or French, should need no transliteration[.]"
The examples of commonly used English names cited in the guideline are Beijing, Vienna, Venice and Christopher Columbus. All of those names are commonly used and known to the average English speaker. The name "Nidhogg" is not a commonly used English name in that sense. A Google search for 'Nidhogg mythology' yields less than a thousand pages. A search for 'Thor mythology' yields more than half a million English language pages. Thor is a commonly used English name so we use that rather than the original form "Þórr". Nidhogg is not a commonly used English name so it is natural to use the accurate Old Norse spelling. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 00:35, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
A search for Nidhogg and mythology returns 802 pages. A search for Níðhöggr and mythology returns 317 pages. I'd say you are hoist on your own petard! Gene Nygaard 14:07, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
I completely failed to get my meaning across if you think that this Google search was my "petard". - Haukur Þorgeirsson 14:12, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
We don't determine the commonness of the usage of "Nidhogg" by comparing it with the usage of "Thor". We determine the commonness of the usage of "Nidhogg" by comparing it with other versions of Nidhogg's name. Gene Nygaard 14:09, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
Google isn't a good way to determine. 802 versus 317 isn't overwhelming, especially when you consider 1) computer games; 2) Lego; 3) using eth, thorn, diacritics is harder on an English keyboard. —Matthew Brown (T:C) 18:57, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
Google certainly isn't useful, and I really don't know what Gene Nygaard entered into google (and which google then) to get his numbers. When I try, I get Haukur's numbers within 10. Stefán Ingi 19:06, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
There is no conflict between my numbers and Haukur's. Gene Nygaard 20:05, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
Haukur's numbers: 641 and 698 hits (see below), Gene Nygaard's numbers: 317 and 802 (see above). What am I missing? Stefán Ingi 20:17, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

My arguments against using the "Nidhogg" form

I don't think the form "Nidhogg" constitutes a common English form. I think Google results are always hopelessly skewed towards ASCII forms and that we should much rather go by works in print. There have been some popular computer games which happened to use the "Nidhogg" form and I don't think that should influence the decision. It's not the form I'm used to seeing in works on the subject or reference works.

I'll start by enumerating the forms which the references I've been using to write the article use:

  • Ursula Dronke's translation of the Poetic Edda: Níðhǫggr
  • John Lindow's handbook: Nídhögg
  • Brodeur's translation of the Prose Edda: Nídhöggr
  • Thorpe's translation of the Poetic Edda: Nidhögg
  • Bellows' translation of the Poetic Edda: Nithhogg

And here are some books which you can see the index for on Amazon:

  • Gods and Myths of Northern Europe by H.R. Ellis Davidson: Niðhǫggr [7]
  • Myth and Religion of the North by Edward Oswald Gabriel Turville-Petre: Níðhögg[8]
  • The Poetic Edda : Second Edition, Revised by Lee M. Hollander: Níthhogg [9]
  • Medieval Scandinavia: An Encyclopedia (Encyclopedias of the Middle Ages) by Paul Acker: Niðhǫggr [10]

Some other works available online:

  • Young's translation of the Prose Edda: Níðhogg [11]
  • Anderson's translation of the Prose Edda: Nidhug[12]

There are, of course, works which use the completely stripped "Nidhogg" version. Some of them are even decent. For example, I think Faulkes' translation of the Prose Edda probably uses it but I don't have it at hand and Amazon doesn't have the index so I can't check. But I think the "Nidhogg" form is a very long way indeed from being a "commonly used English form" on par with "Venice", "Christopher Columbus" and "Beijing" as cited in WP:UE.

I think that going by Google in this case is not a good idea but if we try to restrict the Google hits to something that might be relevant here is one attempt:

  • nidhoggr mythology -wikipedia: 641 hits
  • nidhogg mythology -wikipedia: 698 hits

If you compare this with a search for e.g. 'Thor mythology -wikipedia' you'll see what I mean by Thor being a commonly used English form in a sense which Nidhogg isn't. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 13:47, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

My arguments for the "Níðhöggr" form

"Okay, wise guy", you're probably thinking, "but of all those possible forms why do you want to use 'Níðhöggr'"?

My reason is as follows. Unless there is some compelling reason not to I think we should go by the most recent and most respected scholarship. Dronke's translation of the Poetic Edda is as canonical a work as they come and she prefers to assume that the first vowel was long. "Okay", you may say, "but why use 'ö' rather than 'ǫ'? Isn't the second letter the more authentic?" Indeed. In fact I would personally prefer to use 'ǫ' throughout. The reason we haven't done so is that it was technically impossible until recently and even now many people don't have fonts that show it. I thought using 'ö' instead, something frequently done among those who work in the field, was a nice compromise and technically expedient. I thought that using 'ǫ' would invite page move requests with shouts that "I can't see this crazy character!" :) But if there's consensus for using 'ǫ' rather than 'ö' I'll be the first to open up the champagne. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 14:10, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Wrong vote

We already have a policy:

In English works intended for the general public it is common to use some system for anglicizing the names. Frequent features of such systems include the replacement of 'ð' with 'th', 'dh' or 'd' and of 'þ' with 'th'.

So the question should be reframed:

  1. Should we adhere to policy, or
  2. Make an exception and move Nidhogg to Níðhöggr?

So as an administrator I am moving the article back to the policy-prescribed title. We can then discuss and/or vote on whether we should make an exception. Uncle Ed 20:43, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

I strongly contest this use of administrator powers. Moving the page in the middle of a debate makes it harder to understand the debate. There is no consensus for a policy to disallow eth and thorn in article titles and hundreds of articles have such titles already. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 21:03, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
Hm, I have to say I am a bit concerned about an administrator moving a topic in the middle of a voting procedure. Because now the voting would have to be completely restarted again, won't it? IMO even an administrator has to wait for the outcome of a vote. Or start a countervote basically. But the voting procedure above now is completely useless, because the article's name is not what is being voted upon anymore. Is moving articles during a vote allowed? Gryffindor
No. "I've reframed this from Move back to English to Keep at English", so how would anyone's "vote" have to be re-cast? And why should this issue be resolved by a vote anyway?
If it's to be decided by a vote, what are the voting rules? Uncle Ed 21:52, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
Ed, why the emphasis on "as an administrator"? From my understanding, admins have no status above ordinary users, just some extra responsibilities that they are permitted to carry out. Shouldn't it be something like "as a concerned Wikipedian"? Johnleemk | Talk 06:42, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

It is really really bad when an admin abuses his administrative powers to move a page during a vote.--Wiglaf 07:26, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Ed I can understand your motives, however as an administrator i'm sure you know better not to unilaterally move a page (even though a normal user might have done so) that is under a vote. what I meant is that if you move the article during the voting procedure, users might get confused when looking at the {move} table of articles to be voted upon. Therefore by moving the article without waiting first you have probably influenced the count in a manner that is impossible to fathom. And besides, how is the result going to look? if a majority votes for oppose it basically means keep the nordic version, so now we have a reverse situation, would it switch back? is this allowed by the rules or would a new procedure have to be called for? in my opinion a waste of time and an exercise in patience that really should not have been. My understanding of administratorship is to stay neutral, it would have been better that you waited for the outcome regardless of your status. in any case it doesn't matter anymore, i see it has been moved back. Gryffindor 11:05, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
When a move of an article which has stood for a considerable time under one title is objected to within a week after it is made, we ought to have an automatic rule that the original name is restored until the issue is resolved. That would certainly simplify things, and it would stop giving unfair advantage to those who make the undiscussed move in the first place. Gene Nygaard 15:15, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
Not, in general, an unreasonable idea. I'd like the issue to be decided on the merits of the arguments not on legalistic technical points about supermajorities and who-should-request-which-moves. Can we agree that this be decided by a simple majority? - Haukur Þorgeirsson 15:27, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
I still think the burden of proof should be on those who want the "Nidhogg" spelling to show how this case should be treated differently from exactly analogous cases in the past and differently from what the naming convention proposal, which was improved by a supermajority, suggests.
I also feel that those who wanted to object to the "Níðhöggr" spelling had ample opportunity to do so during the last two months since I started rewriting the article and using that spelling. The only reason I didn't move it earlier was that I didn't want to prejudice the naming convention.
I also feel that watching my contribution log simply to check for moves to contest is a somewhat counterproductive tactic. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 15:27, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
Your contribution logs are indeed interesting - they show why polls are evil, as you (and others) turn this into a lobbying exercise. --Henrygb 17:18, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
I would have greatly preferred not to have this vote at all - I've been trying for a long time to avoid these draining votes in favor of establishing a naming convention. Once this vote was forced upon us I would also have preferred not to go through the motions of posting notices on the talk pages of people who have shown interest in similar matters in the past. But after User:CDThieme contacted 15 carefully selected people with what I felt was a misleading message on their talk page I felt that some balance in advertising was called for. And it's not like I have invoked some secret army of hypnotized sockpuppets here - for example I contacted User:Angr and he's voting for another option than I am. He's a competent linguist and I respect his opinions, even when they are different from my own. And many people here have received no notice from either CDThieme or myself. I assume and hope that everyone carefully studies the issue and votes without prejudice using her or his own judgment. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 17:29, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

what on earth was Uncle Ed thinking? This debate isn't any different from the dozen others we had on exactly the same topic. All we can say is that opinions differ. Uncle Ed stepped in "as an admin" in a content (in this case, a titling) dispute. No cookie, Uncle Ed :( dab (ᛏ) 18:10, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

It boggles my mind what drove him. He was possibly just obeying CDthieme.--Wiglaf 18:58, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
I think I'll try to defend Ed a bit here, even though I strongly disagree with what he did. He believes that admins should enforce policy more agressively and proactively than is currently being done and he believes, which I do not, that the policy clearly dictated one result in the current debate. His opinions are perfectly legitimate but they have repeatedly landed him in disputes with other admins as you can see on Talk:Côte d'Ivoire (where he made a similar move) and User_talk:Ed_Poor. He's a good guy and it's sad that it has come to this. - Haukur Þorgeirsson

I have no intention of voting on this move, as I would be satisfied with either name providing both appear on the first line, but I do want to contribute a comment. If DreamGuy's assertion is correct on Wikipedia_talk:Requested_moves#Gaming the system then I support Uncle Ed position on this (alghough the page move is not neccessary just an explanation at the start of the requested move that the usual thresholds for apporval are to be the other way around). If DreamGuy's assertion is correct, I think it should be up to those who want the name to be Níðhöggr to reach the 60% or more threshold. There is enough conflict over this issue without people feeling that others are mugging them. --Philip Baird Shearer 21:05, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

DreamGuy's summary of the situation is wildly inaccurate. I never ignored any comment and it was Jonathunder, not I, that made a pointless edit to the redirect to prevent a move from his preferred location. My further comments on this can be found above, starting with "Not, in general". I very much regret all the heavy-handedness and accusations this case has involved. I'm still certain that Jonathunder acted out of the best of intentions. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 21:55, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
And just to reiterate: I'm not interested in "winning" here on some technicality with the majority disagreeing with me. I agree that there are reasonable procedural concerns and I think we should go by a simple majority in deciding the location of the page. That way no-one feels mugged, I hope. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 22:42, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
Actually, it looks like it was Wiglaf who edited the space in the redirect [13] to lock it when he moved this page [14] after Jonathunder listed it [15] on requested moves. CDThieme 23:39, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
Yes, he did that too. You'll have to view the deleted edits to see Jonathunder's version. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 07:47, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
*Sigh* ok people, let's just concentrate on the vote now, I think we are getting ourselves way too caught up now and this is increasingly turning unpleasant. everyone please just calm down :-( Gryffindor 13:25, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

I don't know where to find the deleted edits, so I don't know what happened there. I still don't understand why Wiglaf moved the page away from its original location AFTER it was listed on requested moves. It is really really bad when an admin abuses his administrative powers to move a page during a vote. CDThieme 18:10, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

There was no vote going on when Wiglaf moved the page. Please let this go. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 18:15, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
Sorry, but that just isn't true. Both times that Wiglaf moved this page away from its original location were after it was listed on requested moves and while people were voting here. You can check the history: [16]. No Account 18:41, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
The first time he moved the page there was no vote going on here and I don't think DreamGuy had made his move request. The second time Wiglaf moved the page he was reverting Ed Poor's move. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 18:49, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
Check the links CDTheime gave and note the times. No Account 19:03, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
Wiglaf is innocent of any abuse here. Blame me for all your procedural concerns. Wiglaf moved the page six hours before DreamGuy made his move request and at a time when this talk page consisted only of a dialogue between me and Jonathunder. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 23:58, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
So, did you not check the links I gave or are you choosing to be disingenuous? Both times Wiglaf moved the page were clearly AFTER it was listed on requested moves. The dialogue was of Jonathunder saying let's discuss this before moving and voting to oppose the move, and you saying it should be moved. But you kept moving it and you put a note on Wiglaf's talk page asking him to move it. CDThieme 16:17, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
I think it is unlikely that Wiglaf was aware of Jonathunder's edit on WP:RM when he made his move since Jonathunder had made no indication of it here. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 17:03, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Indexing

One of the biggest problems with the advocates of squiggles in the titles is that they also run roughshod over standard English indexing rules.

For example, on some other talk page someone mentioned the loan word soupçon. That is indeed the way it is entered in Webster's Third New International Dictionary, for example. So where do we find it indexed? We find

  • soupbone ...
  • soupçon ...
  • souped-up ...

What we don't find is nonsense like:

  • soupy ...
  • soupçon ...
  • sour ...

Gene Nygaard 15:21, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

I think most of us "squiggly" people would prefer the first indexing too. This is something that probably requires a software-change. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 15:28, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
It doesn't require a software change. I've shown you how to do it. What don't you understand about that? Gene Nygaard 15:58, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
I'm not sure I understand the problem here. Wikipedia doesn't sort anywhere but in category pages anyway, I thought. —Matthew Brown (T:C) 18:55, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
Well, duhhh! What do you think we're talking about. Haukur and User:Edinborgarstefan have reverted my fixing of the problems with that indexing. That's exactly the major problem associated with this; the people who change these article names do not fix the indexing. Gene Nygaard 19:05, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
I think this is a technical problem, we should be using the Unicode collation algorithm to get the alphabetical order in shape. I have asked a developer whether this will be fixed. If it will be fixed then we should not be messing with the sort order for now because that will cause problems over 1000's of articles later. If it will not be fixed then there should be a reference somewhere saying that, and also saying that we should fix the sorting order on a article by article basis and give the sorting order we should use. Haukur simply asked Gene to provide this reference and he didn't do that. Until somebody comes along and clarifies this issue I think we should leave the order alone. If it turns out that we should be doing this manually then I will help in doing so. Stefán Ingi 20:09, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
It needs to be fixed now. No waiting for some pie in the sky possible future attachment. It was fixed in this particular article. I'm fixing it again, now that both of you agree that it is the proper indexing.
You are just throwing out a red herring about causing problems with thousands of articles later. There will be no problem; they will still index correctly, or at least reasonably so (any problems will be miniscule compared to the current problems). If such an enhancement shows up, you can remove the manual part in the course of other editing. There will be absolutely no urgency in doing so, no real need for it. It will be like removing underscores in Wikipedia links. Of course, if naming convention rules were followed, there wouldn't be so many thousands needing it anyway.
Another problem, of course, is that there is no universal agreement on proper Unicode indexing rules. They are not universally agreed upon, and they are country specific, which Wikipedia is not. The algorithm itself discusses "examples of cases where sort order differs by language, by usage, or by another customization." It discusses how they need to be "tailored" for a particular application. Gene Nygaard 20:57, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
I can see you are very interested in this and I am willing to defer to you, now that you have given your argument, eventhough it doesn't involve pointing out the policy on this. I was sort of hoping you could wait until we heard back from the developer but nevermind. As for the rest of the comments, I don't think the collation algorithm is any pie in the sky, I think the lack of it must be causing a lot of problems on the other wikipedias so I think it will arrive and then everything needs to be moved back, not urgently of course, but in my view none of this is urgent anyway. Now, I know that the sort order depends on language, we should use the English sort order here, my guess is that at least the UK, US and Australia will have the same English sort order in their country locale. I cannot verify this because the site mentioned in the article doesn't work for me. If that is the case then we don't need any further tailoring. Finally, I would recommend waiting until we hear what the plans are before carrying this out on the 1000's of articles that need better sorting. Stefán Ingi 21:21, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
I have had a reply from the developer pointing to bug 164. So the problem is recognised. There is no info on whether the solution is imminent so I wouldn't object if you went on a massive spree of making this less bad... Hmm, looking at your log I see that that suggestion is more or less moot. Out of curiosity, are you following any particular rules in doing the ascii-isation, I see for example you changed ä to ae in Swedish names which is the German method. Are you doing that because that is the way it is in the English standard as well? Stefán Ingi 00:37, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
I went on IRC and chatted with the same developer. Much to my surprise (and chagrin) he agrees with Gene's appraisal that the technical solution is pie-in-the-sky for the time being - at least six months in the future. While we're saddled with this execrable codepoint sort almost any scheme Gene cooks up for ascii-izing sorting titles will probably do more good than harm. So if he really has the stamina to go through oodles and oodles of article titles by hand then I'm not going to stop him. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 00:57, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
Article titles are governed by Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English). Use within the article is not. Gene Nygaard 14:55, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
Are you saying you would be happy with having the article named Nidhogg but keeping Níðhöggr as the name of the creature in the article, i.e. keep the text of the article unchanged? I'm sure I've heard people say that there is a policy against this but I cannot find it now that I look for it. I would be very interested to hear you confirm whether this is your position. Stefán Ingi 17:44, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Don't mess with the move header

The move header was changed so that it read a move from Níðhöggr to Níðhöggr -- obviously that makes no sense. The person who did that should be aware that editing the template for discussion is ridiculous and petty. Don't do it again. DreamGuy 19:43, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

More not-very-meaningful Google-statistics

As a point of reference I get 692 English language Google hits for "Lech Wałęsa" -wikipedia and 273.000 English Google hits for "Lech Walesa" -wikipedia. Yet our article uses the diacritics since this anonymous edit [17] two years ago. This seems to have never been contested. And that article is indexed with the diacritics. We're talking about a difference of more than two orders of magnitude in Google hits. Why don't you Google-people come down like a ton of bricks on the diacritics in that article title?

It seems to me that the typical Wikipedia procedure is that someone creates a stub article under an ASCII-title (like Lech Walesa). Excellent. Later on someone else comes along and switches to the more accurate spelling. Excellent, the system works. So where does this idea come from that every switch to a spelling with diacritics must go through this horrible time-wasting soul-draining WP:RM procedure? That just isn't how we do things here and it's not how we should do them. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 11:27, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

I agree whole-heartedly. ナイトスタリオン ✉ 11:47, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
Let's not compare apples and oranges, with names of living people (or those who have lived in the last century or so) in living languages compared to mythological creatures and the dead languages or altered and modified over time languages in which they were originally described. Maybe the Lech Walesa article should be moved, but it isn't particularly relevant to this discussion.
Your difference link doesn't show any such change of the article title, which was unlikely (impossible?) at the time.
The other significant difference is that that respelling within the article took place when it was still a one-sentence stub. This, on the other hand, is a long-standing article name, in a more fleshed out and frequently edited article. Gene Nygaard 14:40, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
This is such a weird request, we must be able to draw analogies between the common features of the things compared and not get drawn into nitpicking about how old the people or concepts are. But anyway, Étaín has been with diacritics for more than a year [18]. That's a mythological being from a not widely known language. The change was not made when the article was one line. The spelling within the article is obviously the important one, technical difficulties caused titles to be kept in an ASCII form longer, those difficulties have now been removed. Stefán Ingi 14:44, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
I'm not sure I understand why it's more important to you, Gene, that an obscure mythical creature MUST be at a common but poor English transliteration but a living person commonly known to English-speaking people under a transliteration is fine to be at an unfamiliar but accurate version of his name. This is not a criticism per se: I'm genuinely puzzled. Given that my experience with your edits has given me an impression of someone who is in favor of consistency, I'm lost as to what rule of consistency is in place here. —Matthew Brown (T:C) 14:57, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
The mythological creature is the one under discussion here. Lech Walesa is irrelevant to this discussion, and not that I have not said whether or not the current article title is correct—it remains a debatable issue, but simply doesn't matter here. (As in many other articles including this one, its indexing was clearly incorrect, however.) But in any case, distinctions can be made between things (like dragons) and people, towns and indefinite geographical areas, and on various other bases. Gene Nygaard 17:26, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
Certainly. But none of the arguments you've been making hinge on this being a dragon. You're basing your entire case for "Nidhogg" on common usage as determined by Google (via Lego etc.) What Matthew and I are puzzled by is how the exact same logic wouldn't apply even more strongly to Lech Wałęsa. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 17:36, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
Extremely good point. I could understand the anti-squiggle-crusaders if they actually crusaded for Lech Walesa instead of the present squiggly form.--Wiglaf 09:20, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

A brief history of the article

I've assumed throughout the debate that it was I who changed the spelling from "Nidhogg" to "Níðhöggr". Having finally checked the article history it turns out that this is not the case. The spelling change was made by the IP 85.197.201.1 (which I have never had). She or he made the change back in September and it was never contested.

As for the article in general it was so inaccurate before I started editing it that having no article at all would have been better, in my opinion. An article of similar quality on George W. Bush might go a bit like this:

In American politics, Georg VV. Bush was the ruler (although sometimes a president) that conquered Afghanistan and swore at Saddam Hussein. Georg also harvested oil. The Georg was said to fight with MkKain in the presidential election and would be defeated by Hillary Klinton.

Other Republicans who conquered Afghanistan: Kheney, Povvel, Rike, Bugman.

To complete the picture all those other "Republican" articles would simply be redirects back to Georg VV. Bush.

Later on an irrelevant passage from Gesta Danorum was added (and that editor used the spelling "Nithhoggr"). I won't try to write the Georg equivalent of that, though :) - Haukur Þorgeirsson 17:30, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

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