Wikipedia:Use diacritics

This page is retained as an archive. It has been superseded by a new proposal at WP:Usage of diacritics.

This is a failed proposal.

Consensus for its implementation was not established within a reasonable period of time. If you want to revive discussion, please use the talk page or initiate a thread at the village pump.

This is a proposed guideline under construction. Please help to construct it.

Proposed addition to WP:MOS and WP:NC:

Where a foreign personal name or place name contains diacritics, it may be acceptably written in English either with or without the diacritics. The preferred style on Wikipedia is to use diacritics, as this provides maximum information to the reader. This includes article titles; alternatives without diacritics should be set up as redirects.

Exception:

Where the person or place has a common English name which is spelt differently: e.g Bucharest over Bucureşti; Geoffrey Keating over Seathrún Céitinn.
Where a person has changed his or her name or the spelling of it, for example in the case of naturalization as a citizen of another country.
Where a character is commonly transcribed other than by simple dropping of a diacritic (for example, Đ is transcribed "Dj", ß is transcribed "ss", the ö in Göring is transcribed "oe") use the transcribed version (if it is commonly used) rather than the special character, to ensure recognizability.