- Raul Julia (talk|edit|history|logs|links|archive|watch) (RM) (Discussion with closer)
In ictu oculi asked on 16 January 2019 (diff) for me to re-open the 3 January 2019 close of the RM in question. I was away on a wikibreak and Andrewa saw to the original message. I feel that the close was justified considering it had been relisted twice. Until their latest message in which they allude to a naming convention with which I am not familiar (diff), their rationale had been simply that an administrator should close it. I determined the consensus, after relisting it twice, to be in favour of the removal of diacritics, so that is what I did. I am opening this move review as a pro forma (yes, I know it's very odd for someone to refer themselves to the review process), because I advised In ictu oculi to go to move review (diff) before the aforementioned latest message. I'm perfectly willing to accept scrutiny on my determination of consensus in this case, however, I feel that unilaterally re-opening a discussion which has been stale for over a month and which had already been relisted twice would not be constructive insofar as generating further discussion. At the same time, if my determination of consensus was incorrect, it would be wrong of me to advise In ictu oculi to start a new requested move, because if my determination of consensus was faulty, then they should not have to argue for the re-addition of the diacritics in a similar vein to WP:RMUM. So, my question to the community is: Should the 3 January 2019 closure of the RM discussion at Talk:Raul Julia be endorsed or overturned? Many thanks, SITH (talk) 17:30, 4 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
- Reopen It's very unfortunate that this was closed and then the closer went on a wikibreak. The issue however is not stale since the result is at odds with the rest of the bio article corpus. We do not strip Puerto Rican bios down to "American" or "English" spelling on en.wp, but treat them as any other Spanish speaking peoples bios. We would not have done this (in fact we don't do this) to a Mexican or Argentine or Spanish bio, so the comments from some of the !votes about Puerto Rico's status make this move, and therefore this close, controversial. As mentioned the close is not stale because it has not been reviewed and all other Puerto Rico bios are currently as Mexican or Argentine or Spanish bios. The close should have acknowledged the rest of the article corpus and this issue. Otherwise it could be taken as a precedent declaring open season to give "English names" to all Puerto Rico bios. In ictu oculi (talk) 17:40, 4 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
- In ictu oculi, I agree the timing of my break was unfortunate for this particular discussion. I also note that there are several open diacritic requested moves and I don't want the one at Talk:Raul Julia to be taken as a precedent. It seems from these observations that there is significant disagreement in the community about the place of diacritics in article titles and that there is a larger debate which I was unaware of at the time of determining consensus on the aforementioned discussion. As Andrewa says below,
[t]he issue of diacritics will not go away and while I do believe, taken as a standalone requested move, that my close was within the closing guidelines, I agree with you that if one is moved and another isn't there may be a debate of USESOURCES v.s. CONSISTENCY on an inordinate number of articles. I really think that, looking beyond this move review at the broader picture, an RFC is the best way to go so we can all lay out the different points of view and try and craft something which will be acceptable to all those involved. SITH (talk)
- We've already had RFCs on this 7 years ago during the Ice Hockey Names and Tennis Names incidents. This is why the entire article corpus has full fonts. We don't need an encyclopedia-wide RFC we need a reopen to let another closer close with an explanation of why this Puerto Rico bio should be singled out? If you'd just let it be reopened we could get on with it, please. In ictu oculi (talk) 14:49, 5 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
- We have indeed, and are likely to have others as it stands. But I note that you don't link here to any of them. Is there a place where these RfCs are summarised and linked to? Did they result in any relevant changes to the applicable policies and naming conventions? If so, how can we encourage participants in future RMs (notably yourself) to refer to these policies and conventions? And if not (as I suspect) then (sigh) there is still work to do on this. Andrewa (talk) 19:54, 10 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
- It is 7 years ago and the article corpus has been remarkable stable since. WP:TENNISNAMES WP:TENNISNAMES2 (I forget the HOCKEYNAMES link) led to WP:MOSFR-type Unicode full font titling being uplheld across hundreds of articles where it had been challenged. There were literally several hundred articles affected - mainly hockey and tennis bio stubs, but nevertheless. In ictu oculi (talk) 09:30, 13 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse. As I said at the time I looked at reopening this as an uninvolved admin, and was a bit surprised at what I found. Have a look.... I did a quick scan of just the oppose !votes (not the support or the discussion) and based just on that scan would feel justified in discarding each and every one of them were I the closer. (I would need to also look at the sometimes lengthy discussion of course, in case some valid point were to have been made there.) The requester here of the reopen, for example, said "Puerto Rico is Spanish speaking, so are all the BLP articles." [1] (And I note no edit summary, which is unlike them and made the diff hard to find, but that's a minor point.) But WP:BLP doesn't seem relevant, nor does Spanish. Am I missing something? [2] It's a tricky issue, some favour using diacritics wherever the source language does, others say they're never really part of English, and the middle ground seems to be, go with English sources. But in this particular RM, it's clear no oppose case was made, and so IMO the close was quite proper. The issue of diacritics will not go away, but we need to move on so far as this RM is concerned. Andrewa (talk) 02:52, 5 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
- Andrew, not sure why you say "issue of diacritics will not go away", the issue of diacritics has totally gone away. If you remember six or was it seven years ago we had lot of turmoil on en.wp with active editors on a couple of projects (ice hockey and tennis) arguing for "English names", or even "tennis names", and a series of RfCs led to an absolutely overwhelming consensus against following low-MOS ASCII-24 sources in spelling not just bios but geos and any other article title or content. The article corpus then is massively, virtually unanimously full-Unicode for spelling of bio names and places. The only exceptions are a few micro stubs recently created or overlooked - due for example to lacking Talk page country project tags. The issue with this close is why this close does not address the reason why this close moves a stable article against consistency with the rest of the article corpus. E.g. is the rationale of the close "Puerto Rico is not a real nation, like independent Spanish-speaking countries", or is it "For non-English speaking actors we follow low-MOS sources such as film end credits and the tabloid press", or is it something else? What exactly is the rationale and precedent being set by this move. Is it opening season on all bio articles?, or just all Puerto Rico articles? or all film actor articles? Or the entire corpus? That is why this is a controversial close and (all apologies to SITH who is clearly acting in good faith) a bad precedent. The close opens a door, but what door, and how many doors? This is why a reopen and better close is required. In ictu oculi (talk) 09:01, 5 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
- Why do I say that? I would have thought it self-evident... It's the preamble to we need to move on so far as this RM is concerned, and follows on from It's a tricky issue. And the post to which I am replying demonstrates the point I think, in that you are re-arguing the RM. You and others have strong feelings on the matter, and it will come up again and again, and does. The big issue is how to minimise this relatively unproductive activity. And one small step is to endorse this as a good close. Andrewa (talk) 03:43, 8 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
- Improve the closing statement. Highly contested discussion, and is likely precedent setting or firming. The closing statement, the lack of explanation, is an unacceptable way to close such a discussion. I cannot read the closing statement to get any confidence that the close was correct. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:27, 5 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
- On re-reading carefully, there is no chance of it being closed any other way, but the closing statement fails to explain the close. Casual reviewers of the archived RM box should not have to slowly study the whole discussion to understand why it closed that way. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:18, 7 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
- Agree that Casual reviewers of the archived RM box should not have to slowly study the whole discussion to understand why it closed that way. That's one reason for Post move section, [3] which will be archived with the RM box. Andrewa (talk) 03:51, 8 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse. (uninvolved) Agree that in RMs like this, it helps (and might stave off a MRV) to give an explanation for the close that enlightens but isn't a !supervote. Andrewa summarizes it here, and I have to agree. Paine Ellsworth, ed. put'r there 15:12, 6 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
- It is not like you to so briefly validate the terse. For closes to have broad respect, they have to be able to be understood by the broad community. That close was too terse. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:55, 7 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
- I fully accept that I could have elaborated more and have taken to writing something, even if it's just a sentence, explaining my RM closes in all but the most obvious of cases. SITH (talk) 17:45, 8 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
- Wouldn't be overly concerned about this, SITH. A brevity close like this one is almost always condemned by some editors if it goes to MRV. And then, if you write more than a sentence or two, some editors will accuse you of !supervoting. It's a tightrope closers must walk. We're here mostly to tackle the close itself, and in this case endorsation is the best outcome. Paine Ellsworth, ed. put'r there 23:33, 8 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse – as this is the English Wikipedia we prefer the name in use in English-language sources. The oppose voters failed to present arguments that English sources used the diacritics, so most, if not all, of their arguments are properly discounted per Andrewa. Bradv🍁 01:06, 7 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse. Accents and diacritics should not be appended to names on a "one national size fits all" basis. Each case brings differing circumstances to the discussion and the particulars of sports personalities differ from those of authors who use pen names or actors who use stage names. The particulars of this case apply solely to the stage name "Raul Julia" and are not intended as an across-the-board move against accents used by other Puerto Rican actors such as José Ferrer whose stage name was accented in approximately three-fifths of his on-screen credits. Raul Julia's stage name, on the other hand, was virtually never credited with an accent and, therefore, Wikipedia's main title header of his entry should be unaccented. Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 18:40, 7 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
- Roman the issue here is the close not the move. If you're saying the close should have been made "no one national size fits all" then the close should be saying "This bio was moved not because Puerto Rico is not a nation, but because Raul Julia appeared in English films" or similar. The close doesn't say that, or anything else. It does not make clear why it was closed with a move. In ictu oculi (talk) 09:33, 13 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
- Incidentally the issue of whether an accent stripped Mexican or French etc. name is a WP:STAGENAME was discussed to death 7 years ago in multiple RFCs during the Diacritics War, and the consensus then is that a simplification of font is not a Stage name but a MOS issue. i.e. Penelope Cruz is not the WP:STAGENAME of Penélope Cruz it is just how hear real actual name is treated by low-MOS sources In ictu oculi (talk) 09:38, 13 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
- In ictu oculi since, as you state, "the issue here is the close not the move", and this move review is not requesting an overturn of the closer's one-word close, "moved", but merely requesting an elucidation of the reasons for the move, then the rationale for resorting to this venue is much weakened.
- If it is not self-evident that, following a lengthy discussion with 12 votes in favor of the move to Raul Julia and 6 votes in favor of retention of Raúl Juliá, the closer concluded that the arguments for the move prevailed, then the complaints against the move should be submitted on Talk:Raul Julia, directly below the closed move discussion and allowed to consolidate for a reasonable length of time (six months, a year, two years), until a possible change of consensus, before being presented for another move request.
- As for stage name, whether that of Penélope Cruz, José Ferrer or Rade Šerbedžija, a key factor is whether a performer had used accents or diacritics in English-language cinema or television (José Ferrer, Željko Ivanek, but not Raul Julia), or whether a performer, who had not been using accents or diacritics in English-language cinema or TV, had been part of his or her native country's film or TV industry and had been credited there with accents or diacritics (Rade Šerbedžija, Sônia Braga, but not Raul Julia).
- In that respect, it may even be time to reignite the long-dormant debate regarding Malin Åkerman → Malin Akerman who was brought to the English-speaking world from Sweden at the age of two, had never used Malin Åkerman as her stage name and had never been part of her birth country's film or TV industry. Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 00:49, 16 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
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