Talk:Giessen

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was not moved. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 06:41, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Please participate in centralised discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Countering_systemic_bias --Espoo (talk) 14:02, 16 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Gießen → Giessen — 1) Spelling used in English by the city itself. 2) Official spelling used by the University of Giessen uses ss. The university would not be using that spelling if it weren't well-established and recognised in general and scholarly publications. 3) Spelling commonly used by English guide books and reference works such as Britannica. 4) Gießen incomprehensible to almost all Wikipedia users. Probably 99% of WP users cannot read it at all or misread it as Gieben. 5) (This is a completely different problem from umlauts, which do not need to be ignored or changed to ae etc. because they do not make the words incomprehensible i.e. unreadable to WP users.) --Espoo (talk) 20:21, 14 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose. See my comment on Talk:Weißenfels. Haukur (talk) 22:10, 14 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  Additionally: It makes no particular sense to go through lists of German towns searching for those which transliterate the ß in their English information blurbs. Some do, some don't. Here's one that doesn't, chosen at random: [1] We'll just be opening ourselves to even more inconsistency if we make this our criterion. Haukur (talk) 22:39, 14 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  That's not the main criterion; it only helps to understand that the spelling ss is something that many towns have already chosen for themselves in English anyhow. The main criterion is that most WP users can't read ß. The fact that some smaller towns have not followed the example of bigger towns like Giessen only goes to show that they're more provincial. In any case, there is no reason why Wikipedia cannot follow the usage of major English publishers in using ss for ß even for cities that still use ß in English, especially since publishers in Switzerland and Lichtenstein do that anyhow already even in German. --Espoo (talk) 23:15, 14 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  Very well, so you want ß removed from every article title across the board. Then why discuss it piecemeal, one town at a time? It would make much more sense to make a centralized proposal somewhere. You appear certain that your views in this matter are grounded in Wikipedia policy and represent what almost everyone would prefer. If that is true, you should certainly be able to get a centralized proposal approved and enacted. It appears to me that this would be a much happier path to take - the arguments are just about the same in every case, there's no need to discuss every single case at length. Haukur (talk) 23:28, 14 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  Actually, we do need concrete examples before starting a larger discussion which i've done here. The reason is in Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(use_English)#Modified_letters: Wikipedia does not decide what characters are to be used in the name of an article's subject; English usage does. Wikipedia has no rule that titles must be written in certain characters, or that certain characters may not be used. Versions of a name which differ only in the use or non-use of modified letters should be treated like any other versions: Follow the general usage in English reliable sources in each case, whatever characters may or may not be used in them. --Espoo (talk) 23:49, 14 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  Wikipedia has no rule that titles must be written in certain characters, or that certain characters may not be used. Obviously you disagree with that policy but there's certainly nothing preventing you from proposing that it be changed. Haukur (talk) 23:50, 14 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  Apparently you didn't understand why i quoted that first, before you repeated it. Since the policy at the moment is such, the whole point is that we have to advance one example at a time, which you were trying to discourage. It'd be a good idea to have a general ban on letters incomprehensible to most English speakers (and in fact most other people using the English WP), but that would be the next step. --Espoo (talk) 00:26, 15 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  So you're going for the thin end of the wedge? Is the idea to pick articles where you think your case for removing ß is the strongest and then to use those precedents as an argument for removing all of them? Well, if so, I commend you for admitting it - but there is no rule that says you can't change policy without going through this odd little process first. Just present your case and get people to agree with you. Everyone can see that centralized discussions are more efficient than identical discussions on the same thing across multiple articles. Haukur (talk) 00:41, 15 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  I'm saying that this badly designed WP policy – which inadvertently (by not taking into account that non-specialised, general English sources for some topics are rare or hard to find and that some towns have not realised that their native spelling is incomprehensible to most foreigners) disregards the needs of most Wikipedia users – forces us to deal with one article at a time.

  In addition, there is no chance of changing that policy unless examples of lemmas can be presented with reliable sources showing anglicised spellings of incomprehensible letters are OK and common in published English. There's no subterfuge involved in finding these lemmas, and it's not a good idea to (again!) try to make me look bad instead of directing your argument at the issue and my well-reasoned proposal.

  Your and others' inability to understand that ß is simply unreadable for the vast majority of adult English speakers, both native and non-native, is a glaring example of systemic bias to the second or third degree, for WP editors with knowledge of non-English letters are a small subset of WP editors. --Espoo (talk) 00:55, 16 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  You continue to pick inappropriate metrics. The set of WP editors isn't at all the set of people we should be concerned with - it's the set of readers of this article that concerns us. What sort of person comes here to read the Gießen article? What can we expect her to know? What can we expect her to want to learn?

  Your weird insinuations continue apace but I am not in fact attacking you. The thing is that I recognize that you feel differently about these spelling matters than I do. I know that you have a perfectly reasonable case and that there are rational arguments for your views. It's just that I have evaluated the data differently and come to other conclusions, supported by other rational arguments. It's a legitimate disagreement. But you continue to refuse to extend me the same recognition. For some reason, you won't accept that we have a legitimate disagreement. It's not enough for you to feel that I'm merely wrong, no I must suffer from some "inability to understand" as well as "a glaring example of systemic bias". I can't merely be a person you have a civilized disagreement with - I must have "an ax to grind" and a "blatant disregard" for our users. I can't merely have another opinion, I must be "snobby" and part of a "fanboy community".[2] This would all be so much more pleasant if you would stop these attacks and realize that I'm not some sort of big meanie out to get you - I'm just a person who disagrees with you about some things. Haukur (talk) 01:31, 16 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  You still haven't understood the problem because you apparently still haven't read systemic bias. Most readers coming here cannot read ß and are confused by it. It's enough to mention the German spelling once at the beginning right after what should be the lemma Giessen (German spelling: Gießen). --Espoo (talk) 23:15, 16 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Support per town's own English usage, that the requested title is in ASCII, and the fact that monoglot anglophones, and non-European polyglot anglophones will not recognize eszett is not a BETA. 76.66.197.2 (talk) 06:39, 15 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose - no reason to follow the usage of one website. To follow just one source entirely misses the point of WP:NAME, where we look at the usage of reliable English-language sources taken as a whole. WP:OFFICIALNAMES, although not policy, is a pretty accurate picture of Wikipedia's use of "official" names - we consider them, but do not automatically prefer them. The rest of the rationale about how readers pronounce the name to themselves is pure irrelevant speculation. There's precious few English people who can correctly pronounce Hódmezővásárhely or Chkhorotsqu either - picking out ß or þ for extinction does precious little for anybody in that regard. It's not worth losing the consistency of naming when redirects from the alternatives exist, and making the change helps no-one. This is a non-starter. Knepflerle (talk) 12:35, 15 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose There is no established English usage, so we should follow the conventions of the language appropriate to the subject.--Boson (talk) 15:42, 15 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  There is well-established English usage of ss for ß in all German words and names at most English publishers, see Britannica and guide books and the University of Giessen's English website. The university would not be using that spelling unless it was well-established and recognised in general and scholarly publications. --Espoo (talk) 23:07, 16 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Reply to comment

If the various books used "ß" for some names and "ss" for others, I would regard that as some evidence of English usage as regards the spelling of individual names. If individual works or publishers use "ss" for all occurences of "ß", that is, in my opinion, not evidence of English usage but evidence of a house style. Wikipedia has its own house style, which is not to replace all "ß" by "ss". Therefore such works are of limited relevance in determining the English names for German locations. The house styles of some publishers may be taken into account in deciding Wikipedia's house style, as documented in WP:MOS, particularly when documented in books like the Chicago Manual of Style, Hart's Rules, etc.; but blanket proscription of individual Latin characters in particular works is not evidence of English naming conventions. Such house rules should be treated similarly to other house coventions regarding punctuation and typography.--Boson (talk) 13:20, 21 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Support. Whilst I would normally go with the original German spelling, in this case there does appear to be established English usage. I consulted two geography sources on Germany and two guide books. Three use Giessen; one does not mention it. The 3 sources are: Germany. A regional and economic geography by Dickinson (1968); Germany by Elkins (1972) and Germany by Fodor (1962). --Bermicourt (talk) 20:36, 15 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Support. I commend Bermicourt for having done what all our guidelines recommend, and few of the disputants seem to have done: Look at what English publishers, writing for an English audience, actually do - which is presumably what anglophones are accustomed to and understand.

This is the purpose of our policies; there are indeed cases where some letter, otherwise non-English, has been adopted - but they are rare, and should be established by evidence. Where such evidence exists, it will not be difficult to find. Where anglicized spelling prevails, on the other hand - as it usually does - we are encouraged to follow it. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 06:16, 16 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Support, though with slightly different reasoning than above. WP:EN says "Use the most commonly used English version of the name of the subject as the title of the article, as you would find it in reliable sources". A couple of web pages may not by themselves constitute reliable sources. So I did some searches, and identified a bunch of professors with doctorates or postgraduate work from Giessen, and found those who had gone on to professorships in English-speaking countries and had their CVs written in English. As a person who has graduated from a university and is additionally fluently bilingual can be reasonably expected to use the commonly accepted version of the name in either language, this seems to be as close to a "reliable source" as one can get. To a one, everybody used "Giessen". --Sneftel (talk) 17:40, 21 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.