Talk:Bắc Kạn

Untitled

The page should be Bắc Kạn, not Bac Kan. --Ionius Mundus 15:34, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

No. That should redirect here. --Nouniquenames 18:04, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

Requested move

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. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: page moved: 7:3 majority for move after 2 months. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 09:44, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

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Bac Kan → Bắc Kạn – The diacritics in this article has been moved 5 times without discussion the most recent move being the removal of the diacritics (from Bắc Kạn city to Bac Kan) today. Bắc Kạn Province employs the diacritics, as do articles that employ the diactics for disambiguation ( see: Sông Cầu, Bắc Kạn, Cẩm Giàng, Bắc Kạn, Chợ Mới, Bắc Kạn). There is also no shortage of usage amongst english sources.[1] The title with diacritics does appear to have about 20% more sources [2] but in either case this move should have come to WP:RM. Good case of WP:RETAIN. Relisted. BDD (talk) 17:30, 17 October 2012 (UTC) --Labattblueboy (talk) 15:47, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Survey

• Support - and grateful to Labattblueboy for this move proposal. The use of local Latin script (actually Portuguese based, but published in Rome in 1651) is consistent with (i) en.wp treatment of all other Latin-alphabet languages, Turkish, Maltese, Irish, Serbian. (ii) the only RMs there have been on VN geo names Talk:Cà Mau 2010, 2011, 2012. (iii) August RfC with 23 vs 16 for Vietnamese spelling.

There's another more basic reason as well, which won't be apparent to non-Vietnamese reading Users, but is particularly important here. It's the reason the Jesuit missionaries applied accents and tones to the old Chinese script in the first place. A British version "Bac Kan" could mean various things, but with the Portuguese-influenced accents:

Bắc Kạn "Back" means Northern Water-margins wikt:北wikt:𣴓

Bạc Liêu "Baak" usually means Silver, but here the characters are Thin Distant wikt:薄wikt:遼

The markings in the alphabet created by the Jesuit missionaries - and later enforced/encouraged by the French don't just tell the reader how to pronounce the names, they also disambiguate between different meanings: The place name Bắc Kạn, Northern Water-margins, isn't just a random set of letters it tells the reader something about the history/geography of the place. Of course few Vietnamese today can read or write the Sino "北" and "薄" which lie behind Bắc and Bạc, but everyone still knows that Bắc means "North" and Bạc means "Silver" ...but what does "Bac" mean?

In ictu oculi (talk) 01:26, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

"Silver distant"? Is this a joke? Bạc is 薄. It has nothing to do with silver. It's probably just a way to write a sound phonetically using Chinese characters. Kauffner (talk) 06:30, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

No it's not a joke, it's a result of not returning to proofread, Bạc generally is silver obviously wikt:铂, as any beginning student would know, in this name it is 薄 weak, thin - as I linked. You think I can't click a link I link? The point being that these names, have meanings and pronunciations which are different. In ictu oculi (talk) 14:30, 22 September 2012 (UTC)oa

Now you're translating "Bac Lieu" as "thin distant"? Not every Vietnamese word is based on Chinese, you know. Even if the word does come from Chinese, Vietnamese know nothing about Chinese characters. They don't think about the issue this way. Kauffner (talk) 16:43, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Note that User Kauffner agrees that wikt:bắc means "North" and Bạc means something else. In ictu oculi (talk) 04:44, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose. None of the methods of selecting a title recommended in PLACE would lead you to select one with Vietnamese diacritics in it.
  • Method 1: Consult other encyclopedias: Britannica, Columbia and Encarta do not use Vietnamese diacritics. The CIA World Factbook, Book 2010 gives "Bac Kan."
  • Method 2: Consult GBooks: Out 32 deghosted hits for "Bac Kan" -llc, I found only two English-language books that give this name with diacritics: Moving Mountains and Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang. Moving Mountains does not otherwise use diacritics, so this example appears to be an editing oversight.
  • Method 3: Consult standard histories: Karnow's [http://www.amazon.com/Vietnam-History-Stanley-Karnow/dp/0140265473/ref=sr_1_2 Vietnam: A history] (1997), Corfield's [http://www.amazon.com/History-Vietnam-Greenwood-Histories-Nations/dp/0313341931/ref=sr_1_2?s= The History of Vietnam] (2008), Taylor's The Birth of Vietnam (1991), and Woods' [http://www.amazon.com/Vietnam-Illustrated-History-Histories-Hippocrene/dp/078180910X/ref=sr_1_5?s= Vietnam: An Illustrated History] (2002) do not use diacritics — or mention Bac Kan. The name is given without diacritics in Brocheux's Ho Chi Minh: A Biography and in [http://www.amazon.com/French-Indochina-War-1946-1954-Men-At-Arms/dp/1855327899/ref=sr_1_5 The French Indochina War 1946-1954] (1998).
  • Method 4: Consult major news sources: The news media follows AP style and thus rarely uses diacritics, let alone Vietnamese diacritics. See Reuters, ABC (Australia), BBC, or RFI.

It's not a criteria in the guideline, but I also suggest consulting the Vietnam-based English-language media. It's their country and all, so perhaps they know how to spell this name. Here's a roundup: VOV Online, Saigon Times, Tuoi Tre, Thanh Nien, VietnamNet, VGP News, and VietnamPlus. If you look at the VGP site, you can see that they used diacritics at one time, but no longer do so. Some may ask, "What's the harm in putting the marks in anyway?" The title is supposed to tell the reader the name of the subject as it commonly appears in English. To put in marks that are not found in the sources is to misinform. The marks will still be given in the article regardless of what the title is. Kauffner (talk) 06:30, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

WP:RETAIN has to with British vs American spelling. I don't the relevance. In the past year, this article has been at Bắc Kạn and at Bắc Kạn city, but not at the proposed form. Kauffner (talk) 07:33, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

WP:RETAIN applies to any variety of English. In the case of proper names, I have yet to see an argument that states that the diacritics render an article title non-English (English terms with diacritical marks). In terms of being located at Bắc Kạn, you moved the article from Bắc Kạn to Bac Kan in August 2011.--Labattblueboy (talk) 15:36, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

I looked at Category:Varieties_of_English_templates, but I didn't see Viet-lish, Franglais, or Deutsche-lish. Kauffner (talk) 16:43, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

• The ISO/IEC 8859 article explains how the Latin alphabet was extended to accommodate non-English European Latin-derived alphabets, but not Vietnamese. LittleBen (talk) 07:51, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

• Support; more accurate spelling. The wave of undiscussed moves in this controversial area is very disappointing but, alas, people know they can get away with gaming the system. bobrayner (talk) 13:03, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

• Support per consistancy (province/disambigs), accuracy (sources). Agathoclea (talk) 07:39, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose. As per ample evidence that no English-language news media (including Vietnam-based media) use complex Vietnamese diacritics in article titles—and (of course) publishers of books intended for English-speaking readers do not use Vietnamese diacritics in the titles, as is evident on Amazon. LittleBen (talk) 22:56, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Wrong [http://www.amazon.com/The-Tale-Kieu-bilingual-Nguyen/dp/0300040512/ Yale University The Tale of Kiều (Amazon LOOK INSIDE)]. See also "Bắc Kạn" in [http://www.amazon.com/Encyclopedia-Vietnam-War-Political-Military/dp/0195135253 Oxford University Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War (Amazon LOOK INSIDE)] In ictu oculi (talk) 04:44, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

• The 1987 book The Tale of Kieu (Amazon DP 0300040512) that you cite does not have diacritics in the book title, and it's advertised as a bilingual book so is (of course) bilingual inside. The Oxford University Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War (Amazon DP 0195135253) also does not have diacritics in the book title, and I can't see any anywhere inside the book either. LittleBen (talk) 05:30, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Repeat: the Yale cover visibly and clearly has Kiều spelled with ề, the title page (page i) visibly has Kiều spelled with ề. For "Bắc Kạn" if anyone has trouble getting Amazon LOOK INSIDE on the Oxford Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War to work, try to sign in to an Amazon account, or try another:[http://www.amazon.com/dp/0813109663/ Tucker Vietnam University of Kentucky Press (Amazon Look)]. In ictu oculi (talk) 05:54, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

• The ISBN numbers for these books are ISBN 978-0300040517 and ISBN 978-0195135251 respectively. You can confirm the ISBN-registered title by clicking on the ISBN number. The titles on the covers of both books do not contain any Vietnamese diacritics. (You don't have to "Look Inside" to see what is listed as the Book Title and Author Name on Amazon, or to view a picture of the actual cover). LittleBen (talk) 07:54, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
• The ISO/IEC 8859 article explains that Vietnamese is different from European (non-English) Latin-derived alphabets. LittleBen (talk) 07:45, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

• Support per Agathoclea and Bobrayner. As with bobrayner I am disappointed in this wave of mass moves in such a controversial area. -DJSasso (talk) 16:46, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

• You forgot to mention BrerRabbit and friends. LittleBen (talk) 08:15, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

• Strong Oppose for ease of reading and typing. --Nouniquenames 18:04, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

Relevance? No one is asking anyone to type Bắc Kạn. The redirect already exists. In ictu oculi (talk) 04:44, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

• How is the average user—who cannot read, write, or remember Vietnamese diacritics—supposed to guess that it's acceptable to type Bắc Kạn as Bac Kan? That's the way the Vietnamese type it when searching, so that's the accepted romanization and the way that the article should be titled. LittleBen (talk) 05:38, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Relevance? As above a redirect exists. Secondly, you have had this explained many times before: This isn't Japanese, this isn't a romanization In ictu oculi (talk) 05:57, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

• It's not just Vietnamese, for Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and English as a whole, the trend is to leave off diacritics and macrons. LittleBen (talk) 08:34, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

• Support I support this move procedurally, as August's move indeed should have been discussed at RM rather than made unilaterally, and substantially, the nominator makes a good case for uniformity with similar articles. (I do think WP:RETAIN is a bit of a red herring here. The issue at hand isn't national varieties of English, but I understand the intent.) --BDD (talk) 23:41, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
  • IIO moved this article to a title that was clearly incorrect to make a WP:POINT, and I reverted his move. As far as the village stubs go, putting them at diacritic titles predisambiguates them and gets them out of the way of more notable material. Kauffner (talk) 05:48, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
    • 06:58, 15 July 2012‎ redirect-edit-lock after undiscussed controversial move counter WP:VN geo RMs, see Talk:Ca Mau. In ictu oculi (talk) 06:09, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

• Support, correct rendering of name includes diacritics. ༆ (talk) 02:18, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Why is it has to be "Bac Kan" whereas we bother having such spellings as České Budějovice District, Jindřichův Hradec, Bistrița-Năsăud County, and Korçë County? ༆ (talk) 02:29, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

• Quote: bother having such spellings as Bistrița-Năsăud County.
• "bother" is a good choice of words. Maybe nobody wants to argue with Dracula?
• Why do you think that some people insist on bothering the majority of English Wikipedia users—who cannot read complex diacritics and do not wish to learn them—by putting diacritics in article titles?
• See this discussion as to why diacritics and Chinese characters are optional in English Wikipedia. LittleBen (talk) 03:27, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Perfect, that's my point: when one goes, all others will have to follow (except some special cases). So, you want to remove Vietnamese diacritics, well then argue with the whole Wikipedia community and remove all diacritics from other European languages too. ༆ (talk) 04:38, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Hi Yig Mgo. Your question deserves an answer. I have also asked myself this question. I believe that it is a combination of factors. First in part is evidently because Vietnam is in Asia. You see above as with LittleBenW's inability to grasp "This isn't Japanese, this isn't a romanization" that the strongest opposition to Vietnamese being treated as your Czech, Romanian and Albanian examples comes from Gaijin/Laowai/etc. "Asianists" with some knowledge of Japanese/Chinese/Korean. A selection of comments over the last couple of months makes it evident that these editors find it very difficult to register that Bắc Kạn stands with en.wp English articles like Llŷn Peninsula, or Charlotte Brontë or Renée Zellweger. Secondly it is that Vietnamese is (or was) more difficult than these languages. Which is why Oxford University and Yale might use them but National Geographic doesn't yet. Thirdly it is because Vietnamese editors don't have as active a caucus here as Czech and Romanian editors do. In ictu oculi (talk) 02:43, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Yea, it's time for the community to stop discriminating against Vietnamese diacritics. Another examples: Seyðisfjörður, Ísafjörður. ༆ (talk) 04:38, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

WP:DIACRITICS says: "follow the general usage in reliable sources that are written in the English language (including other encyclopedias and reference works)." Published encyclopedias like Britannica and Encyclopedia of Modern Asia do not used these marks, nor do the standard histories like Cambridge History of Southeast Asia or Taylor's The Birth of Vietnam. The Vietnamese government does not promote the use of diacritics in English. See "Prehistoric cave dwelling found in Bac Kan" (VOV Online), "Bac Kan develops its tourism plans up to 2030" (VNA), or "Bac Kan launches e-government system" (Saigon Times, Vietnam's English-language newspaper). Dropping the marks is how the professionals do it. Doing it any other way makes us look like amateurs pushing foreign language usage. Kauffner (talk) 07:03, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

• English book titles, book author titles, and article titles are virtually always in plain English, without diacritics. Putting diacritics in Wikipedia article titles makes them a hassle (a bother) to read, and so this virtually guarantees that articles with complex diacritics will surely never be in the Wikipedia:Top 5000 pages. You are condemning such articles to irrelevance. Is that your objective? LittleBen (talk) 11:15, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

@LittleBenW, FYI sometime back a WP:POLAND project editor did actually propose a software filter for exactly that particular kind of British and American wikipedia user who might be repulsed by Polish names on articles about Polish people and places. My question would be why would the sort of user who responds to mention of Bistrița-Năsăud County with comments about "Dracula" be looking at an article on a Romanian town in the first place? Are people with those sort of feelings about Romanians, or Vietnamese, the primary audience for articles about Romanian or Vietnamese towns? This isn't xenonymophobopedia, this is an encyclopedia with 100% Romanian, or Polish, or as Yig Mgo now introduces above Icelandic, accuracy. And again I have to ask why are you targeting Vietnamese, and now Romanians, and not English articles like Llŷn Peninsula, or Charlotte Brontë or Renée Zellweger? In ictu oculi (talk) 16:13, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

• Anyone who suggests that the use of diacritics in English in Transylvania has anything to do with the use of diacritics in English in Vietnam deserves a Dracula joke. Surely the Count would be obsessing over the number of article titles with diacritics—and desperately trying to change the article title Dracula to Drăculea in order to forcibly "educate" Wikipedia users in diacritics, and to ensure that fewer people would find the article.  LittleBen (talk) 11:14, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

"Putting diacritics in Wikipedia article titles makes them a hassle (a bother) to read". Really? Any evidence for this? If so, maybe Mötley Crüe can revive its career by dropping the umlaut.

• Support for clarity and for procedural reasons noted above. We use diacritics on other countries placenames, why single out Vietnam for dumbing down? —  AjaxSmack  02:33, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

• If no publishers are dumb enough to alienate possible customers and decrease sales by using non-English book titles (such as book titles with Vietnamese diacritics, Chinese, Japanese, or Korean) on books for English-speaking customers, then why should Wikipedia alienate the majority of its users by doing this? LittleBen (talk) 10:15, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
• Article titles with diacritics cause problems with categorization, because you can't have categories with redirects, and the majority of users can't be expected to work out how to search for categories with diacritics in them. Surely it's obvious that you're just creating hassles and problems for the majority of users by using diacritics in article titles? LittleBen (talk) 10:52, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
• Oh golly, not canvassed by IIO were we? As far as your question goes, I think I have explained this issue more than once already. Kauffner (talk) 06:12, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
• Here is The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage: "Accent marks are used for French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and German words and names....Do not use accents in words or names from other languages (Slavic and Scandinavian ones, for example), which are less familiar to most American writers, editors and readers." This was the de facto universal standard back in the days when only Latin-1 characters were commonly available, which was true until only a few years ago. Kauffner (talk) 12:54, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

• According to the "Quick Reference" index on p.vii, the [http://www.amazon.com/Associated-Press-Stylebook-Briefing-Media/dp/0465021875/ AP Guide 2011] has a couple of pages on "Usage—foreign names and words". Would be interesting to know what this (or the 2012 edition) says. LittleBen (talk) 14:42, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
• In the MOS (China), the usability and readability guidelines related to embedding non-English characters in English Wikipedia seem to be putting the readers' interests first. LittleBen (talk) 14:58, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

• Style guide quotes on diacritics for The Economist, The Guardian, The New York Times, and The Times are given here. None of them suggest using Vietnamese diacritics. The Guardian`s style guide refers to "whatever language". But that does not appear to include Vietnamese, since Vietnamese diacritics are not used in the paper. Kauffner (talk) 18:39, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Let me clarify my previous question. I'm aware that newspapers and magazines have style manuals that restrict diacritic usage. Most of these date to the era of letterpress printing where technical limitations made such policies necessary. Nonetheless, many of these practices have continued in the era of electronic publishing not doubt partly for the convenience of writers and editors. My question was not about other sources but about Wikipedia, which has always been an electronic resource and does not have the technical limitations of these sources. Why, when we use diacritics for languages as diverse as Icelandic, Maltese, Navajo, and Serbian, should we exclude only Vietnamese? —  AjaxSmack  19:39, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

• So were you canvassed by IIO or not? When you ask a question, you might try reading the answer before complaining that the question was not answered. No, the reason Vietnamese diacritics are not used in published sources is not primarily due to technical limitations. Both VGP News and VNN formally used Vietnamese diacritics, but no longer do so. The BBC and numerous other media sites publish in both Vietnamese and English. All of these sites obviously have the technical ability to put the diacritics in. As I quoted from the New York Times style guide above, the idea is to avoid using diacritics that are "less familiar" to readers. National Geographic makes the same point: "Although Vietnamese is written in the Latin alphabet, the number of accent marks can be distracting and may therefore be omitted." Britannica and Columbia don't use Vietnamese diacritics either, although I don't see how the "technical limitations" argument would apply to them. Kauffner (talk) 02:45, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Kauffner - I never mentioned Bac Kan to Ajax Smack. Do you understand the difference between mentioning an RM and not mentioning it? In ictu oculi (talk) 03:05, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

I was not notified personally of this discussion if that's what you mean. I found it listed at WP:RM where it had languished for a number of weeks. I also agree that there are a variety of reasons why some news sources avoid some or all diacritics. (Many of these reasons have been compiled at WP:DGUIDE.) I argue that Wikipedia (which is not a news source) really has few good reasons to do so. A parallel can be drawn with inline citations and notes. Writers of mass literature frequently eschew these because of their supposed distracting effect whereas Wikipedia practically mandates them. —  AjaxSmack  02:06, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

• "Practically mandates them" -- whatever that means, I suppose. The guidelines for both geography and Vietnamese names say to follow other encyclopedias, standard histories, and geography references. These do not generally use Vietnamese diacritics. I bring up the Vietnamese English language periodicals because they are obviously not hampered by any technical issue in this regard. They publish in conventional English because they want to look like they are professionally written -- and so should we. There is no market for Viet-lish periodicals any more. Only Outlook still publishes this way. They are strictly domestic and they don't even have a website. Kauffner (talk) 14:19, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

• Newspapers and magazines virtually all have online versions. Not displaying foreign languages in article titles is not due to "technical limitations", it's giving the majority of users something that they are looking for and can read rather than "forcibly reeducating" (i.e. arrogantly alienating) them—Wikipedia should not be a dictatorship, and its users surely don't want to be forcibly reeducated, thanks.
• There are "technical limitations" in using diacritics and foreign language words in Wikipedia categories, as explained above. Also the main "technical limitation" of the great majority of English Wikipedia users is that they can't read foreign languages, so they want to read about foreign countries in English—which is why they came to English Wikipedia rather than going directly to the foreign-language edition. LittleBen (talk) 01:17, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

• Neither Bac Kan nor Bắc Kạn are English so the English vs. foreign argument doesn't really hold water. I'm still wondering why we should treat Vietnamese differently from other diacriticized languages. —  AjaxSmack  01:41, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

• If you're going to ignore majority usage, why stop at Vietnamese diacritics—how about Korean diacritics or Chinese diacritics in article titles? Surely your objective is to make life as difficult as possible for the majority of English Wikipedia users who can't read diacritics? Remember: The Count is counting on you!  LittleBen (talk) 08:51, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

• I'm not aware of any diacritics for Chinese or Korean. It's irrelevant anyway since we Romanize those scripts for Wikipedia titles. —  AjaxSmack  01:50, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

• Try clicking on the links that I've provided for Chinese diacritics and Korean diacritics. "We Romanize Chinese and Korean scripts for Wikipedia titles". Surely that—and the fact that a majority of English newspapers Romanize Vietnamese in article titles—is a good reason for doing the same for Vietnamese? LittleBen (talk) 07:04, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

• Vietnamese has already been romanized for a hundred years. Wikipedia had nothing to do with it. —  AjaxSmack  02:09, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

• Can you read, pronounce, and remember Vietnamese diacritics? If not, then why would you want to move the article Bac Kan to Vietnamese diacritics that you can't read, pronounce, or remember? LittleBen (talk) 13:15, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

• "Can you read, pronounce, and remember Vietnamese diacritics?" What does that have to do with anything? But yes, I can pronounce, remember, and read the diacritics. They are the only thing that make it even remotely possible for me to render Vietnamese words intelligibly. However, I can't pronounce ghoti, Strč prst skrz krk, Aldiborontiphoskyphorniostikos, or Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious so where should we move these?
  

Seriously, as stated more eloquently at WP:DGUIDE: Reasons – Harmlessness / net benefit, diacritics can be "read through", i.e. ignored, by the uninitiated while they provide great benefit to those who can read them. —  AjaxSmack  02:06, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

• Did you notice that WP:DGUIDE says that, for Places, "An established anglicized name is preferred (even if it merely drops the diacritical marks)"? Did you read the quote from WP:DIACRITICS above?   I agree that very simple and often-used diacritics can be ignored by the uninitiated, but complex diacritics cannot. Most people know that Zoë can be anglicized as Zoe, and résumé or resumé can be anglicized as resume, so they can write and search for the anglicized version. But it's not so intuitive how to anglicize Chinese or Vietnamese diacritics. Did you know that non-Latin-1 diacritic characters in article titles cannot be read by screen readers, so this is against Wikipedia web accessibility guidelines? Also, foreign languages (with non-Latin-1 diacritic characters) embedded in Wikipedia should use language templates for the same reason.   LittleBen (talk) 02:23, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

• 8 to 3 for restoring article to status Bắc Kạn before undiscussed move contrary to the VN geo RMs. Can we please close? Note that the admin who was G6-proxied to move the Bắc Kạn Province article, has already restored the province 12:30, 27 August 2012‎ Edgar181 (Edgar181 moved page Bac Kan province to Bắc Kạn Province: reverting my G6 move/delete because the requested move was not uncontroversial as claimed) (undo). Can someone now please restore the town per the clear support above? In ictu oculi (talk) 01:37, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

• You could go easier on the trash talk after Talk:My_Linh#Requested_move. Kauffner (talk) 02:45, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Ignore that. Remains 8 to 3 for restoring article to status prior to undiscussed move contrary to the VN geo RMs. The Bắc Kạn Province article remains restored by admin reversing G6 "because the requested move was not uncontroversial as claimed." Repeat request for an admin to close the RM per clear support.

If there are "VN geo RMs", are there also "VN bio RMs"? The geography vs. biography issue didn't come up in any of the RMs. This imposes a pattern where it is not obvious that one exists or should exist. There is no way for the ordinary user to pull up old RMs and use them as precedents like this. Kauffner (talk) 14:53, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Discussion

Comment: There was a broad consensus to use diacritics until Kauffner started quietly and unilaterally moving titles to non-diacritic versions some time ago. More recent testings of opinion (as described above) have shown that the preference is to use the diacritics. Note: I am not !voting here, as I was approached by iio to comment, but I have an interest in this discussion as I moved the article to the diacritic version more than two years ago, after discussion. I would have been expected to be asked to comment by the proposer of the reverse move. Colonies Chris (talk) 17:59, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

• I see that yet another RM has degenerated into accusations and misrepresentations. Colonies Chris isn't the only editor here who was recruited by IIO. So was Labattblueboy, as you can see from his talk page. IIO badgers numerous editors this way, but not everyone responds. As for the alleged "broad consensus" that I supposedly disrupted, Ho Chi Minh and other war-related articles have never had diacritics. This is not a hypothetical example as both IIO and CC have expressed interest in seeing this article moved. The only mention of Vietnamese on Prolog’s much cited diacritics page is this quote from National Geographic`s style guide: "Although Vietnamese is written in the Latin alphabet, the number of accent marks can be distracting and may therefore be omitted." In July-August 2011, there was a very large RfC on the subject of diacritics. Those who proposed increased use of diacritics specifically excluded Vietnamese. I rewrote the Vietnamese naming conventions to conform to this RfC. I also put this and other Vietnamese titles at ASCII forms at this time. Afterwards, I made a statement concerning this issue which was widely quoted and read. Yet these articles were stable at the titles I put them for a year. IIO and I have a history, and his vendetta against me pre-dates his interest in Vietnam. Kauffner (talk) 06:12, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

So where was the "discussion" in 2010? All I see is, "Make consistent with other capitals".[3] Kauffner (talk) 06:20, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

This isn't personal - the reason I believe this article should be restored is simple (as above) and has nothing to do personally with Kauffner at all. For the record my own time in Vietnam goes back to the early 1990s. I created Mạc Đĩnh Chi Nov 5 2011, but I was not aware that 1 User had moved 800 geo articles contrary to RMs. How could anyone know? the original RM tags had been deleted, and the main RM archived by a mysterious IP. As for "I can boast of moving the Vietnamese bios and geography to non-diacritic titles -- It's hundreds of titles and took me several months to do." who knew that was there? The thing is we all take things on trust. In ictu oculi (talk) 08:35, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

The discussion I referred to took place at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Vietnam/Naming convention debate. And I'd like to thank IIO for notifying me of this proposal, remedying Kauffner's failure to invite comment from a previous editor with a clear interest in the question. Colonies Chris (talk) 13:36, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

So tell us how it's done. Who did you notify when you moved the article? If you had a reason to go against the recommendations in WP:PLACE, it's funny you didn't put it the edit summary. In fact, if you wrote anything at all about the merits of this RM, I missed it. All I see are accusations against me. Kauffner (talk) 22:57, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

You will remember the discussion, as you were a participant in it - and at that time you agreed with expanding the use of diacritics, as did most editors commenting there. During that discussion I explicitly stated that I had made that move. Noone - including yourself - had any objection. Colonies Chris (talk) 11:16, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Hi Chris thanks for the link to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Vietnam/Naming convention debate. Good to see such broad agreement. In ictu oculi (talk) 09:57, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

The idea that I had been recruited is not only an assumption of bad faith but rather confusing given I haven’t supported either the broad inclusion or exclusion of diacritics. Depending on the requested move, my view has been different. I inputted this requested move after making clear to both you and In ictu oculi on 12 September that actioning moves that either inserted or removed diacritics was controversial and to stop doing so on your own.[4] I have been checking each of your logs every couple of days to check for undiscussed moves that were Vietnamese diacritic based. Aa already mentied this one was moved undiscussed from Bắc Kạn city to Bac Kan on 21 September. So, I will say it again, stop moving articles based on diacritics given its clear these move are controversial and consequently should be discussed before they are moved.--Labattblueboy (talk) 14:21, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

• So it turns out that the much touted "broad consensus" is in fact a three-to-two vote taken two years ago. (See item No. 9). Not only that, but both my voted and Itsmejudith's are caveated. I wrote that we should follow the spelling used by "mainstream dictionaries and encyclopedias", while Itsmejudith wrote that we should follow, "the Vietnamese media...when writing in English." As I detailed in my !vote above, the Vietnamese English-language media is no longer using diacritics. Kauffner (talk) 15:53, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

• The history of this article shows that it was moved, without any discussion, by In ictu oculi from Bac Kan to Bắc Kạn city of 5 Sept. (and this undiscussed, bad-faith move was reverted by Kauffner on the 21st). IIOs bad-faith move came despite the recent ANI (Jenks24's talk page comments are also relevant), and despite the recent comment by Labattblueboy at My Linh that, "This back and forth with Vietnamese diacritics articles is abstemiously ridiculous. Take the suggestion of the administrator notice board and resolve the diacritic issue via an RfC, possibly using the WP:DIACRITICS location instead of WP:VIETNAM". My post here was not an RfC, it was a statement of Wikipedia and W3C accessibility requirements, which seem to have been ignored up to now. I will try to make time to create an RfC. LittleBen (talk) 23:54, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
• As I mention above, ample evidence has been shown that no English-language news media (including Vietnam-based media) use complex Vietnamese diacritics in article titles—and (of course) major publishers of books intended for English-speaking readers do not use Vietnamese diacritics in the titles, as is evident on Amazon. It's surely stupid to claim that majority English media usage and professional publisher usage is "not accurate" or "mistaken", and that foreign languages that the majority of Wikipedia users cannot read, write, or remember are more appropriate for article titles. Diacritics in the body of articles—where the more widely-used and readable plain-English version can also be shown—is a different issue. LittleBen (talk) 23:19, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

@LittleBenW,

I'm taking the policy of ignoring 9 out of 10 of your posts. But I should answer some yes?

First, why is your opinion about VN articles worth more than Grenouille Vert's or Yig Mgo's or anyone else who actually contributes? You're making 20x as much noise as any editor that has actually contributed to these articles. But at the moment all I see is someone who spends all his time on MOS and Talk pages "ranting" (I forget who said that of your posts) against the way en.wp is. If you don't like the way en.wp is, you probably need to start with taking yourself to WikiProject:POLAND or WikiProject:SERBIA and telling the editors there. Why are you picking on Vietnamese names rather than Polish ones, or Zoë Baird?

.

Secondly, for the record again:

• 10 Jul 2010 - Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Vietnam/Naming convention debate was full Vietnamese titles
• 14 Jul 2010 - The result of Talk:Cà Mau RM1 was to move geo to full Vietnamese titles
• 07 Aug 2011 - The result of Talk:Cà Mau RM2 was to retain geo at full Vietnamese titles
• 24 Aug 2012 - The result of Talk:Cà Mau RM3 was to restore geo to full Vietnamese titles
• August 2012 - Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_(Vietnamese) was for full Vietnamese titles 23 to 16, (23 to 10 if we remove those canvassed)

.

Thirdly, questions for you: (Q1) How many days between 07 August 2011 and 28 August 2011‎? (Q2) Which comes first, 6 Sept 2011 or 21 Sept 2011? If you looked carefully at date stamps before making posts it would be better for everyone. In ictu oculi (talk) 00:44, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

• As has already been pointed out to you by Labattblueboy, it's not the number of cronies you can bring along to a debate, it's the quality of the debate that counts—the everlasting tit-for-tat battles, and repeated attempts to intimidate admins. are not good for Wikipedia. (WMF could easily settle such usability issues by using web analytics, but maybe they will never get their act together). I am taking the user's viewpoint and citing media and publisher commonsense viewpoints. I don't think any single individual should be allowed to impose a non-neutral non-commonsense viewpoint. That's all. LittleBen (talk) 00:53, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

LittleBenW

I remind you that you have been warned before by several editors about making personal attacks in your various causes, search engines, anti-diacritics, and so on.

If you're going to contribute to en.wp, as in any team project, you need to accept that other editors' views may be "stupid" in your view, and you have to live with that.

Whatever you may think of RMs and RfCs, consider this: From 20 March 2012 to 19 April 2012 almost 102 separate editors expressed support/oppose in diacritic RMs. Of those 91 supported use of French/Polish/Czech/Serbian names, 11 opposed. That isn't "cronies" (Labattblueboy said no such thing) that is simply 91 editors from dozens of different projects or no project exercising their view. The same with the 23 names who supported Vietnamese names in the recent RfC.

If you post again, let it be answering (Q1) and (Q2). In ictu oculi (talk) 01:29, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

• We have had several discussions about diacritics like here and here, but my discussion with DJSasso here, where I mentioned you bragging to Deryck Chan on around 17 August plus or minus one day (date depends on local time) in this thread that "for any Swedish or Czech article too, full-spelling (with diacritics) will always be in the minority" (but you'd ignored Wikipedia guidelines and done it anyway, and that you intended to do the same for Vietnamese) was particularly interesting, because just minutes later you snipped the conversation (-4,598), so you had obviously been warned by him. You seem to think that usability, recognizability, common usage, and commonsense are irrelevant—all that matters is the number of cronies you can bring to wars that push your POV. Fortunately most articles whose titles you add diacritics to are esoteric stub articles that almost nobody views, so don't affect the overall user perception of usability. LittleBen (talk) 01:56, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

LittleBenW, by all means ask Deryck Chan, he's a sane friendly editor. In ictu oculi (talk) 05:33, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

• Where does this "full Vietnamese" stuff come from? I don't see this phrase used by anyone involved in the project vote. A proposal to use conventional English only was turned down 3-2, but I do not see anything resembling a mandate to use Vietnamese spelling. The so called "Cà Mau RM2" was decided as "no consensus", and the vote was six-to-five in favor of titles in conventional English. The Cà Mau RM3 was advertised as "housekeeping" to restore the earlier RM. As for the RfC, no proposal was agreed to. IIO's vote count is strictly his own. Are we really talking about RMs and projects votes from two years ago? There have been many RMs and a lot of water under the bridge since then. This RM is an independent vote and should be decided through the application of the relevant guidelines, namely WP:DIACRITICS and WP:PLACE. When it is closed, it 't will have a status equal to the golden oldies. Kauffner (talk) 02:55, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Nothing new here. In ictu oculi (talk) 05:33, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

• Just think: If LittleBen did "actually contribute" and write articles about Vietnam, IIO could then go from user talk page to user talk page claiming that he didn't. No one has contributed more than Yellowmonkey. He opposed the use of diacritics in titles. We should track him down and give him two or three votes. Kauffner (talk) 15:22, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

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 or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

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