Talk:Eisack/Archive 1

Requested move to Isarco

Same as Talk:Etsch-Adige. I don't know where and when it was decided to change all the names of places in the Province of Bolzano (Italy) putting the german name first I only know that:

• It's wrong, the towns/cities/rivers/whatever are in Italy - in a province where the two languages have the same rights - but they are in Italy, if there is no "english" name the article should be with the italian name and a redirect from the german name.
• Wikipedia is not the correct place for this (out of date) "sort-of-irredentist" battles...
  

--Civvi 20:38, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

• Support Olessi 00:58, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
• Oppose Oppose Oppose Please stop trying to force Italian names on places in Südtirol. See discussion on Bozen, Etsch, Trentino-Südtirol and accept that there are two official languages, German and Italian, which are treated equally by the Italian constitution. Gryffindor 11:37, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Gryffindor, I am not "forcing" anything, I'm just pointing out that no river called Eisack-Isarco exists, so the title of this article is wrong and the article should be moved to an existing name. The river has no english name plus the river is in Italy so my suggestion is to move it to the italian name with a redirect from the German name since the river flows through a province where the "German language is parified with the Italian language". For towns and cities the double name is actually officially used - even if in the form [[Italianname (Germanname)]] but not for other geographical entities like rivers, mountains and so on. Or are we going to rename/write all articles about mountains with the double name? Sassolungo-Lankofel? Catinaccio-Rosengarten-Ciadenac or Val di Fassa-Fassatal-Val de Fascia (we are not discrimining the third official language, are we?) Uh...that would be quite confusing... ;-) --Civvi 13:31, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Look, I'm not from South Tyrol. But I know that the German and the Italian are both official languages, it is even written in the Italian Constitution. By proposing to only have "Isarco", you are forcing the Italian name at the cost of the German one. That is simply not acceptable, because minorities have the same right to be heard and use their language. Gryffindor 22:57, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

• Oppose. GhePeU 21:49, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
• Oppose. Please do as you think is right, without listening to italian- and german-speaking people. --Snowdog 00:35, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
• Oppose — but perhaps there should be a template for articles on South Tyrol that explains why article titles are doubled. --Gareth Hughes 11:39, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
• Support - I agree to move all these discussions to a new one concerning a policy for the area -- Pietro 14:43, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
• Striclty oppose there is a wikipedia meeting later this week, we will diskuss the matter there--MartinS 16:42, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

@Civvi: I think You need a an update concerning the status of Südtirol, You can write to me (German, Italian, English or Spanish) if I can send You something.--MartinS

• Support double names sound ridiculous to me. Eisack is as good as Isarco, choose one and let the other be a redirect. And maybe do the same for towns and villages. After all this neither the German wikipedia nor the Italian one. Otherwise put all the names on the tile of the Danube river.. it sounds ridiculous, doesn, it? --Cruccone 16:51, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
• Oppose. If it is to be moved, then to the German name, which is the majority language of the region. Martg76 00:03, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
• Oppose. In any situation such as this, where a single name would be seen as "taking sides", we must use a compound name, even if that means using a name that nobody actually uses. Wikipedia is not the place to make or promulgate political judgments. --Stemonitis 09:42, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
• Comment I've removed this page's entry from Wikipedia:Requested moves due to a lack of consensus on the move. If this changes, feel free to add another request. --Lox (t,c) 16:34, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Discussion

The Danube comment is irrelevant, because that river has an English name. The subject of our current discussion has no such English name. --Stemonitis 09:42, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

moved to Eisack

During the Diskussion about the naming of cities, villages, mountins and rivers in South Tyrol we found this agreement: if the object is located in a mainly etnic german area an if ther isen't an English Name shut be used the German name quoting the Italian name in the first row. This means for Eisack the name has to be german. Etsch-Adige has been moved to Adige--MartinS 18:06, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Move request April 2007

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. 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 current name of the article, "Eisack-Isarco", is a combination of the German name ("Eisack") and the Italian name ("Isarco"). This type of bilingual naming was found to be undesirable in a survey at Talk:Communes of South Tyrol, see also Wikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic names)#Multiple local names. The three most plausible options are listed below, please cast your votes. Markussep 18:29, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Add "* Support" or "* Oppose" followed by an optional one-sentence explanation, then sign your opinion with ~~~~

Eisack

• Support. Large German speaking majority along most of its course (see census data below). No clear preference for either name in English usage. Markussep 18:09, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
• Weak Support If someone finds countervailing evidence, please let me know; but Markussep's evidence supports this for now. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:58, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose. When I use Google with "river eisack -wikipedia" I get 566 hits. Using "river icarco -wikipedia" I get 15,500 hits. Icsunonove 23:50, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support Gryffindor 11:38, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support --Martin Se 12:34, 6 April 2007 (UTC) (As I said 2005)
• Support --PhJ 13:55, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support Tridentinus 10:41, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Isarco

• Weak oppose. Better than the bilingual version. Markussep 18:29, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support This appears to be the most common English usage for this river. Also, I would think using Italian names for geographical items in Italy makes sense. Counting the language spoken in the towns it passes through... :-) Icsunonove 23:50, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose as I said 2005--Martin Se 12:34, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose --PhJ 13:55, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Eisack-Isarco (current name)

• Oppose. Markussep 18:29, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose, either of the alternatives is better. Olessi 19:53, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose. Icsunonove 23:50, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support Gryffindor 11:38, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
• neutral--Martin Se 12:34, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
• neutral --PhJ 13:55, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Discussion

Add any additional comments

This is the census I referred to: [1]. The Eisack flows through Brenner, Italy (79% German), Sterzing (75%), Freienfeld (96%), Franzensfeste (58%), Vahrn (88%), Brixen (73%), Feldthurns (99%), Klausen (91%), Waidbruck (91%), Karneid (87%) and Bolzano (26%). Some English use statistics:

• Google Scholar:
  • Eisack river 18
  • Isarco river 29
• Google (only English language, .org, -wikipedia):
  • Eisack river 97
  • Isarco river 87

Markussep 18:29, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

• Google Books:
  • Eisack river: 15
  • Isarco river: 25
  • river Eisack: 20
  • river Isarco: 2

Olessi 19:53, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

• Google USA:
  • river eisack -wikipedia: 566
  • river isarco -wikipedia: 15,500

Icsunonove 23:50, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Limiting to English hits changes these to 847 to 1410. Google, plain Google, is not a good test. I suspect this is demonstrating that river occurs (probably as a loan word) in Italian text, as these examples . Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:55, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Gotcha, still, I'm in the opinion that when we come up with a name that is so borderline, I think it makes sense to err on the side of caution and go with the name used in the national language of its location. Icsunonove 07:03, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. 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.

This article has been renamed from Eisack-Isarco to Eisack as the result of a move request. --Stemonitis 11:47, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Old requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. 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 proposal was not moved. No consensus reached after 12 days of heated discussion. Page was already moved at least once three months ago. ●DanMS • Talk 00:12, 28 July 2007 (UTC) Eisack → Isarco — We made a mistake, most people along the river speak Italian as a first language. —Icsunonove 22:05, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's naming conventions.

• Support As requester. See discussion for reasons (i.e., we made mistakes above in our numbers/logic) Icsunonove 22:07, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
• Weak Oppose Don't we have something better to do? The river flows through an Italian-speaking city after flowing through German-speaking countryside. The raw google results are even less convincing than usual. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:48, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

  Well, you could of asked if they had something better to do above too. :P I'm trying to be rigorous with our criteria, and I put in the time to sharpen our results. This move request should be treated as a formality unless there is convincing evidence that shows the majority of speakers is German. Icsunonove 22:55, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

  They did have something better to do: clean out the double name nonsense, and the prospect of eternal silly move requests between Eisack/Isarco and Isarco/Eisack. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:16, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

  Yeah, but still. 1 + 1 != 3. The way the criteria was satisfied was simply incorrect. It is not like it takes some huge amount of work to correct it. That, and the method used above was plain wrong. I mean, there could be some appreciation for an editor taking the time to go through and compute things in a way that is actually mathematically correct. Saying, don't we have better things to do, can actually be quite insulting you know? Icsunonove 23:28, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose. Okay, so you found a loophole and interpreted it your way. I'm looking forward to many renaming requests featuring US census data, like Niagara River to At The Neck River. -- Matthead ^discuß!     O       01:43, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

  Nonsense. I did not "find a loophole"; you are simply trying to be antagonistic is all I see -- and likely any unbiased Admin would agree. I used the information Markussep posted above and multiplied it by the populations of those towns. That is the mathematically correct way to use such data. Why don't you do something constructive and explain why Markussep's analysis is better than mine, or suggest a better one? Otherwise, you offer nothing of substance or intellectual value to this discussion. Icsunonove 05:05, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

  follow up to this post. Matthead, you said, "I'm looking forward to many renaming requests featuring US census data". Note that the group that went around moving all the BZ pages, used exactly that: census data. If that is the method of the moment, it must be at the very least be applied correctly. Icsunonove 00:09, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

• Support obviously. The name most commonly used in English is Isarco (check English maps and google searches giving 6x more hits for "isarco river" than "eisack river"); 100% of the inhabitants of the province of Bolzano speak Italian, 70% speak German (for those of you who like the "majority speak" criterion, that, in my opinion, is absurd and it isn't a naming convention); 100% of the length of the river is in Italy, 0% in Germany (see the Soča river that has the Slovenian name because 70% of its length is in Slovenia and 30% is in Italy, and I agree with that name); 100% of the inhabitants of Italy speak Italian, 0.1% speak German; Icsunonove comments; etc., etc.. Oppose the absurd nationalism of Gryffindor, Emes and others.--Supparluca 08:04, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

  Oh don't say that, it might point out the farce that this entire debate has been. :-) Just think actually having the pages located at the national language of the nation they places are located; obviously nonsense. ;-) Icsunonove 17:25, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

  OK but 100% is in the South Tyrol and official languages of South Tyrol are Italian and German. I would inform you that Italy defends linguistic minorities. Please read it:Provincia_di_Bolzano#Uso_della_lingua_tedesca, you can see: "Le amministrazioni pubbliche devono usare, nei riguardi dei cittadini di lingua tedesca, anche la toponomastica tedesca, se la legge provinciale ne abbia accertata l'esistenza ed approvata la dizione. (art. 101)". --Ilario 14:23, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Read Wikipedia: Naming conventions (geographic names) for the policies about how to name articles in the English wikipedia. The fact that Italy defends linguistic minorities is admirable but unimportant.--Supparluca 15:16, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

It's strange that a region who has decided its own rule with a law is less important than Wikipedia and its rules. It's time that Wikipedia will write also national Constitutions!!! --Ilario 17:05, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Ilario, what the heck are you going on about? :))) Icsunonove 05:28, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

• Support per Supparluca. --Checco 08:20, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
• Weak oppose. There seems no reason to prefer one name to the other. Andrewa 09:17, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

  Please read the criteria that was found by consensus at Communes of South Tyrol. That criteria explains why we prefer one name to the other in locating pages. Icsunonove 17:16, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

• Support per Supparluca. --GhePeU 20:52, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
• Support for the italian version Isarco. Alfio 12:59, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose I could accept all statistics for Adige, but in this case Eisack is acceptable. --Ilario 14:18, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
• Support: the numbers seem aolid, usage in fine. Tridentinus 02:57, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Discussion

Any additional comments:

Language spoken

I realized today that, due to no real fault of Markussep, we made a slight oversight in figuring out the majority language in order to locate this page. The towns/cities the river flows through are correct, but we have many villages listed who have 1000s if only 100s of people, but the main city the river flows through (Bolzano (Bozen)) has two or three orders of magnitude the people. Anyone have a chance, please check my numbers: Brenner (Brennero); 79% German/20% Italian; population 2,072 (1,639; 414); Sterzing (Vipiteno); 75% German/24% Italian; population 5,997 (4,498; 1,439); Freienfeld (Campo di Trens); 96% German/3% Italian; population 2,460 (2,362; 74); Franzensfeste (Fortezza); 58% German/41% Italian; population 892 (517; 366); Vahrn (Varna); 88% German/11% Italian; population: 3,994 (3,515; 439); Brixen (Bressanone); 73% German/26% Italian; 19,163 (13,989; 4,982); Feldthurns (Velturno); 99% German/1% Italian; 2,666 (2639; 27); Klausen (Chiusa); 91% German/8% Italian; 4,622 (4206; 370); Waidbruck (Ponte Gardena) 91$ German/9% Italian: 193 (176; 17); Karneid (Cornedo all'Isarco) 87% German/12% Italian; population: 3,111 (2707; 373); Bolzano (Bozen); 26% German/73% Italian; population 100,179 (26,047; 73,131): Grand Totals: German: 62,295; Italian: 81,632. So per consensus on the communes page, we need to move this page to Isarco. I've put a move request though so we can be more formal. Icsunonove 22:13, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

This gives undue weight to the large city which has more than twice as many inhabitants than all others towns combined which have about 36,000 German vs. 8,000 Italian. How about counting river length in predominately German or Italian area? -- Matthead ^discuß!     O       00:12, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Undue weight to the large city??? Now who is looking for a loophole???? Would you have us derive some more complex formula maybe? Add some weighting to the cities, inversely proportional to the population of the town, together with the language spoken subtracted from number of towns multiplied by the length of the portion of river, divided by the number of syllables in the peoples' surnames? Should we factor in the depth of the river too so we can compute volume of liquid? Obviously more water equals more weight! We can't give too much credit to people living next to a mere meter of water!! I used basic math, not looking for any loopholes, you appear in some sort of desperation to circumvent the consensus. If you say you will name places and villages based on population, you can't list 100 villages with 10 people each and compare them to one city with 10x the number of people. It isn't comparing apples to oranges. Give me a break.. Icsunonove 05:12, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

In Dutch we have several expressions for this: one involves measuring the weight of raisins, one involves sorting flies by size, and another, more rude version involves sexual intercourse with ants. In other words: I can't be bothered anymore. Do as you like, just no double names anymore. Markussep ^Talk 11:11, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, I was obviously speaking tongue-in-cheek in my previous post. I'm only being rigorous in the application of the consensus found on communes page. The criteria was English usage, and if that couldn't be found, than majority language spoken. I thought you'd appreciate that I critiqued your analysis and made a correction. This is of course the way to add things correctly. I shouldn't get lambasted for having us use consistent units when we add. Icsunonove 17:02, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

English usage

Our primary criteria actually (before majority language spoken):

Google USA

English usage should always be in connection with river or valley

• "Isarco valley" (-wiki, English results): [2]: 592 hits
• "Eisack valley" (-wiki, English results): [3]: 657 hits
• "Eisacktal valley" (-wiki, English results): [4]: 288 hits
• "Isarco River" (-wiki, English results): [5] 802 hits
• "Eisack River" (-wiki, English results): [6] 191 hits
• "River Isarco" (-wiki, English results): [7] 152 hits
• "River Eisack" (-wiki, English results): [8] 171 hits

Italian use is Isarco in connection with valle, val d' or fiume, German use is Eisacktal, or Eisacktaler, so its doubtful to attribute the following counts to use in English:

• Isarco (-wiki, English results): [9]: 50,700 hits
• "Valle Isarco" (-wiki, English results): [10]: 23,400 hits
• "Val d'Isarco" (-wiki, English results): [11]: 11,200 hits
• "fiume Isarco" (-wiki, English results): [12]: 59 hits
• Eisacktal (-wiki, English results): [13] 21,100 hits
• Eisacktaler (-wiki, English results): [14] 507 hits
• Eisack (-wiki, English results): [15] 10,100 hits

There are even hits for mixes of Italian and German

• "Valle Eisack" (-wiki, English results): [16]: 1 hit
• "Isarco tal" (-wiki, English results): [17]: 14 hits

Comparison for proper use in Italian and German

• "fiume Isarco" (-wiki, All results): [18]: 739 hits
• "der Eisack" (-wiki, All results): [19]: 1500 hits
• "des Eisack" (-wiki, All results): [20]: 814 hits
• "Eisack Fluss" (-wiki, All results): [21]: 104 hits

Getting a factor of 4-5X more usage of Isarco. Icsunonove 22:22, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

See my updates above. In English use, connected with river or valley, only "Isarco River" beats its counterpart by factor 4 (and even the Italian "fiume Isarco" in all languages!), in all other comparisons the German version is more frequent. -- Matthead ^discuß!     O       04:25, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

?? "Isarco": 49,800; "Eisack": 9,450; "Isarco river": 758; "Eisack river":112; "Isarco valley": 568; "Eisack valley": 543 (all with "-wikipedia"). How can these results show a preference for Eisack in English?--Supparluca 11:20, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

The "valle Isarco" top hit says "the valley of Valle Isarco". Is that the kind of language you want to use as reference for Wikipedia? Apparently there are many local websites out there promoting tourism with a crude mix of English, Italian, German [22] On the other hand, the top hits for "Eisack valley" are scientific papers on the Alpine Iceman [23] apparently written by native speakers of English. -- Matthead ^discuß!     O       12:10, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

I quote WP:NCGN: "These are not reliable sources, especially for what we should use. Avoid raw google searches as far as possible; when they are used, always include "-wikipedia" in the search conditions." These searches show up several of the defects which raw google may be expected to have, in particular, results which are in fact citing addresses in Italy and the names of Italian companies. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:34, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Elementary searching shows that many published sources, quite sensibly, use Isarco/Eisack, or Eisack/Isarco. Searching Google Books for one wihout the other, and adding "river" to cut down on the false positives, yields Isarco 172, Eisack 235. These results should be further combed to eliminate more false positives, but I'm underwhelmed. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:45, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

It is fine if we disregard Google in this matter, but then the next step is to by language spoke, or origin of the place. You could at least give a weak support my friend. :P Icsunonove 22:56, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

No, the next step from an invalid method is one of the six methods actually suggested by WP:NCGN to guage English usage. I will add that the population test, for most communes, gives the name used by 80 or 90% of the population, not 60%56%57% (we round up .7 generally Icsunonove 23:33, 15 July 2007 (UTC) :) as here. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:23, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Ok, then to be blunt, there has to be a really good reason for naming rivers in Italy, in German. Icsunonove 23:25, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

The reason is really good: Many Italian citizens prefer the established name Eisack. Just relax about the issue, and Go Blue! -- Matthead ^discuß!     O       01:16, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

"Many Italian citizens prefer the established name Eisack", reference please? I wasn't aware they had polled the citizens on such matter. Thanks for checking out my homepage though! Icsunonove 05:13, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

More reason than naming cities in Italy (Florence, Rome, Venice, Milan) in French? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:28, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

But in those cases it is exactly the case that they are clearly used in English, and for all intents-and-purposes are English words now (of French origin). I've said before, Los Angeles is of Spanish origin, but do you know another name for the city in English? What I'm saying, is in cases where it is ambiguous, having an Italian river named in German is just downright silly. If we go and flaunt our criteria (or the criteria that was found by a majority of German speakers, I might add :) on naming places and villages in this region now, it is even that more glaring. Icsunonove 23:31, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

• Look, the way we placed the article was on the census information above by Markussep. I've shown that the original calculations were wrong. If you can show me my numbers are wrong, then tell me. If not, I don't want to argue all day about criteria. I'm applying what was agreed to, and what was applied incorrectly in April. THese are not popularity votes, these are discussions. I want to hear why my calculations are less valid than the previous ones. That is it; otherwise based on the criteria we move the page. yeesh Icsunonove 23:37, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
  • You may well convince others that the English usage is not Eisack, and that the best treatment of the census data is to choose Isarco. This is not an unreasonable position; that's why I weakly oppose; but I am not convinced by it. . Go ask Markussep (who is Dutch, btw.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:44, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

I was asked by user Icsunonove to express my opinion about the name to be used here. I am afraid to say that I have no knowledge about this argument. I even think I have never written the words Eisack or Isarco in my life. The only things I can say is that this is a case where redirects are very useful, but I do not know what should be the "main" title. I think that nobody that speaks Italian only and does not live in the area would understand the name Eisack, so it is quite correct that on the Italian Wikipedia the article is under Isarco, but this can no lead to any conclusion (on the opposite side it could be said that a great part of Italian would not understand Isarco too). I do not know how is called by the local (this would be interesting). Anyway I think this question should be broader to the other names in the area. The same question/problem arise for Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, Brenner pass, Sterzing (Vipiteno), just to quote some of the name present on this article. -- AnyFile 11:49, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

I was asked too, so I looked around this and similar articles (disclaimer: I'm Italian). I didn't know about this fight over italian names in places where significant German speaking population lives. All I know is that the river is in Italy and it has an official Italian name (Isarco). I never heard the Eisack term, which is obviously used by a tiny minority of Italian speaking people and, I suppose, by the majority of German speaking people in Germany and elsewhere (a few of them would live near this river in Italy). The same goes for the other names: I may understand that Bozen is the German name of Bolzano, but you have lost me if you pretend that I should know that Vipiteno should really go by its German name of Sterzing, which is how the article is now called. Alfio 12:59, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

• Thanks for giving your input. I'm trying to generate some discussion here, instead of hearing the same stories all the time. Icsunonove 17:13, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

IMHO is good to have as main denomination Eisack-Isarco. We cannot apply the same rule of communes because it's easy to find the majority of language speaking for the commune (i.e. the denomination Brixen must be the main denomination). For the river it's not easy because it flows in different regions. I would accept the denomination of combined solution but I agree a little bit for that in German. Historically the region is a German speaking region (or better it was Ladin speaking in the past), it's normal that Google offers more results than Italian because they are recent results. As the German people has accepted the main denomination of Adige, I think that Eisack could be acceptable for us. IMHO we must follow the official language of the region when there is not a translation in English: The Eisack-Isarco flows entirely in South Tyrol... the official language of South Tyrol is German+Italian. I have seen the statistics but the consistent part of Italian presence is in Bozen... in any case it's not autochthonous population IMHO Bozen in this statistics must be cut of. --Ilario 14:06, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Ilario, thanks for your coming to share input. Yes, the region was Ladin speaking originally (and still is). Ladin is just another Italian language, the particular one of this area. Then there was German colonization, which is fine. The point is you make the case for why all the names indeed have a place. But Supparluca makes the best point above that everyone in Italy speaks Italian.. and this pseudo-divisions that a few rather extreme individuals like to portray, are simply crude politics. By the way, the official language is Italian + German + Ladin. I think valid names would be Isarco, and I'm fine with Isarco-Eisack or Isarco/Eisack. Icsunonove 17:17, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

I inform you that "Bozen" isn't an English name, please speak English. By the way, the German (Austrian) users didn't accept the main denomination of Adige, they wanted to use the nice "Etsch-Adige" name.--Supparluca 15:16, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Probably you are new. There were other discussions in the past about this denominations Talk:Eisack/Archive, if you read the footer of discussions you can see that Isarco has been moved to Eisack and Etsch to Adige. I remember this discussion because the proposal to move Etsch to Adige was mine Talk:Etsch-Adige. In addition... there is not an ENGLISH denomination of Bozen [24], the English denominations follows the South Tyrol communes denominations... the same rule used by Brixen, for this reason I am free to use the German or Italian denomination in my discussions. --Ilario 17:10, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

The situation was different for the Bolzano article, because in that case there was clear evidence that the English name was Bolzano, and for that reason the article was moved.--Supparluca 19:54, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, we've heard there were meetings in Bolzano and consensus found. It is funny that a few people can get together and think they have decided for the World. :-) No offense, but it is the impression given. Nonetheless, I agree with what you say, either term can certainly be used in English. You have the freedom to indeed say anything you desire. :-) Icsunonove 17:12, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Am I still in time to contribute? OK. Since this is the English language Wikipedia, in my opinion the only problem is to find out how that river (and all other place names in that region) is called in the English language (quite simple, isn't it?). So, it is an issue that concerns exclusively English philology. Having said this, a great problem arises: what is English today? First of all, we have several English language countries with slightly different ways to use English. Then we have International English, especially that International English that is spoken by many persons who do not really know English very well, e.g. myself. I think this is another reason not to use Google in order to establish how to solve a difficult question like this one here. So, someone should determine through English language literature of English language countries (there is no need to go to libraries in the region) how the object is called in English. No other research should be done, such as how many people speaks Italian or German in the area crossed by the river, when Italian speaking population arrived to the area and so on (btw, not 100% of Italian citizens speak Italian, if you visit some rural areas in the region you'll easily experience that there are many persons who are not really able to communicate in Italian, and it's not a matter of ideological refusal). This means that it might occur that the English word of a place name where 80% of the population speaks German could be that used by the Italian speaking community, or vice-versa. It should also be considered how that river (or place) was called in English before 1920. If there is a change (e.g. from Bruneck to Brunico), this could have some consequences on encyclopaedic employment of that word, too. I also would not exclude double indication (e.g. Bruneck/Brunico or Brunico/Bruneck) in some cases. I also think there should not be a rule to be applied for all place names in the region, since place names in other languages do never follow rational rules. One example for this: there are German names for Italian towns, such as Rom (for Rome), Mailand (for Milan), Venedig (for Venice) and so on. There are also cases where German names existed in the past, but are now completely in disuse (e.g. Bern for Verona). Not for Italian towns, but for the Slovenian and Croatian capitals Ljubljana and Zagreb there are also German names (Laibach and Agram), but they are poorly used in Germany, while they are always used in Austria. So I think that questions should be solved case by case. I know that it's a quite hard job, but in order to avoid inter-linguistic, inter-ethnic and inter-cultural conflicts it should be worth to do so, I think. --Hedorfer 20:32, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

As for historic use: EB 1911 does not know Isarco, but Eisack [25] As the Eisack valley is part of the way to the Brenner pass, the Italian name Isarco might have been one of the few that were not made up by Tolomei in his Prontuario. Any evidence that it was known before him? Hardly surprising, the German-language Meyers Konversationslexikon 1885-1892 does not know Isarco, while the (not yet copy-edited) section about the Etsch mentions Adige and other Italian names. Are there similar Italian lexika of that time available online? -- Matthead ^discuß!     O       05:57, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Matthead, you said "the Italian name Isarco might have been one of the few that were not made up by Tolomei in his Prontuario", and that is where you are dead wrong my "slighty"-biased friend. For example, Brenner is not Standard Italian, but it is certainly Italian. It is an Italian word that Germans use, just as English use the Standard French word Milan. You should actually say that there are only a few names in existence in Alto Adige that Tolomei made up if you really know what you are talking about. For example, Sëlva. The Standard Italian is Selva; you think this is made up? I'll ask you what is made up, the German name of the town: Wolkenstein in Gröden. Where the heck?? Even the example that is brought up often, Nova Ponente, which was indeed Nova Teutenica -- but has always just been Nova has the German name Deutschnofen. Again, the heck?? It is obvious that Nova was "re-imagined" into Nofen. So before you, as many of your countrymen, fall into the trap that Alto Adige is purely German and was renamed by some guy Tolomei 100 years ago... educate yourself a bit. :-) By the way, what motorsports are you into? Maybe that will be a more useful discussion :P Icsunonove 15:50, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

• The original name of the river from Roman times is Hisarcus, if that was your question. I imagine the German name Eisack was invented from Hisarcus, Isarco, Isarc, Hisarc, etc. Icsunonove 15:56, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

As per EB 1911, the river was completely flowing in Austria until WWI. To be honest, as soon as there are all the redirects, both Eisack and Isarco are completely acceptable names IMHO. --Cruccone 16:51, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, of course they are both completely acceptable. My argument was against this bogus POV that the Italian names are somehow imaginary. Note that this move request is here in order to properly implement the consensus found on the communes page. Every name is always in the first paragraph. Icsunonove 17:46, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. 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.

I disagree with this decision not only because there are 2 votes against the move of a total of 10, but also because Wikipedia is not a democracy; there are basically 0 arguments for a name and at least 5 (strong) for the other.--Supparluca 07:43, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, definitely agree. I think these move requests are very often misinterpeted by the one who closes it. Even if it is 1 agree to 20 disagrees, but the one person has the valid argument, it must be moved. Here we have a situation where all these pages were moved from double names to single names based on some methodology, but in this case it was applied incorrectly. Actually, the page should just simply be moved maybe.. Icsunonove 20:44, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Ridiculous move

I've understand that some have recently 'decided' that this article should be called "Eisack". The main argument was supposably that this was because of the linguistic majority around the river. I have have never ever heard about this being done in wikipedia. Maybe we should rename Oder to Odra. After all, more poles than Germans live along it. Talking about linguistic majority. On this wikipedia that's English speakers, so you can go call it Eissack on the German wikipedia but leave this one alone, English speakers say Isarco.Rex 09:37, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Well the consensus was found on the comunes of south tyrol page, by I guess many German speakers. Go figure. :-) I don't see what the big issue is using the Standard Italian language names and then including all the relevant dialects, local languages, German, etc. in the first sentence. Icsunonove 17:16, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Me neither. If it were up to me, it would be "Cuius regio, eius nomen", then again ... Germans are a strange lot. I always get the feeling they're somehow convinced German cannot be translated into English.Rex 21:07, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

The issue has been discussed and voted upon. I am moving this article back to where it used to be. Gryffindor 04:28, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

And even by the language-speaking consensus, this river belongs at Isarco. Not even the basic rules mean anything to you, eh? Icsunonove 05:19, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Prontuario

I think the discussion about who invented what has no sense. All toponyms in all countries are almost always derived from slightly different versions used somewhere in the past, and the way of a name from, say 2000 years ago, down to our days is usually gradual with many intermediate versions. Concerning the Prontuario, it may be sufficient to read section Translation Methodology, better if integrated by section Critiche of its Italian (!) edition. --Hedorfer 14:41, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

They don't want to do this though, they want to imagine that everything here is simply German, end of story. It makes things simpler for them to parse in their minds, I suppose. :) Icsunonove (talk) 08:01, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Talfer

It seems that the name "Talfer" is more commonly used in English than "Talvera": Talvera river: 95 hits; Talfer river: 226 hits. --noclador (talk) 11:47, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

That is funny, because if you do a search with exactly the same parameters as you did for Siusi allo Sciliar you get: Talvera 102hits and Talfer 233 hits... I would like to know which search parameters you used. --noclador (talk) 12:13, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

talvera: 11,300 - talfer: 1,840 - talvera river: 853 - talfer river: 100.

Google books: talvera river 28 - talfer river 5.

The NGIA GNS server finds Talvera but not Talfer.--Supparluca 09:17, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

The above results you get, because you manipulate the search parameters. i.e searching for: "talvera river" -"talfer" -wiki instead of keeping both search terms in line: "talvera river" -"talfer river" -wiki also the google books search is manipulative: "talvera river" -"talfer" -wiki date:1950-2009 Why only books from 1950-2009??? Without that parameter you get Talvera 29 & Talfer 24? (If one applies the same search parameters as with the normal google search the result is: 29 Talvera and 26 Talfer). Furthermore the simple search for talvera and talfer are useless: The results given have nothing to do with the river (there is a band, a Mexican restaurant, a Scotish family, a Mexican family, a pottery, garden tips, and so on) Checking the first 20 results of each search brings forth only 2 real results for each name: 2 hits for Talvera (1x flickr 1x panoramio) and 2 for Talfer (1x picture 1x museonatura.it). We need to agree on a search standard; my suggestion:

• Search must be only English and a total of 4 searches must be made: "name river" -"name river" -wiki and "river name" -"river name" -wiki with the results for both languages added up.

What is your opinion? --noclador (talk) 13:45, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I searched only books from 1950 because we want to know the current name, not the name used a century ago. I know that in this case searching for talvera/talfer alone gives many false results, that's why I searched also for talvera/talfer river. Your suggestion is reasonable, but if you search for "X river" -"Y river" you could get results containing "the Y (sometimes called X) river". Instead, if you search for "X river" -"Y" you simply can't find Y. Of course the most important rule is that you have to use the same standard for both names.--Supparluca 14:06, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

to only search "X river" -"Y" is fine with me. I also saw now on Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(geographic_names)#False_positives "always include "-wikipedia" in the search conditions." so we need to do that. Also I think we should put define what "a widely used English name" is... anything below 100 hits surely isn't. What threshold do you suggest? I was thinking: anything above 250 hits is a widely used. Also what to do, when the result is close? should there be a percentage of how many more hits a name needs to qualify for the one we use? i.e. if one day a search results in 556 to 573... What to do then? --noclador (talk) 14:17, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't know, we could see case by case. I think that 100 google hits are enough, especially if you find the name also on google news, or other encyclopedias, or geographic name servers....--Supparluca 16:00, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

So, Talvera or Talfer? Anyone disputing the name Isarco for this article? Can we move it?--Supparluca 10:38, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Then I'll replace Talfer with Talvera if you don't disagree.--Supparluca 10:15, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Eisack

Despite the outcome of the discussion and the vote above, the page had been unilaterally moved by User:Icsunonove on 27 September 2007, even though he was the only one who voted against the proposal. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 13:53, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

The page was moved previously by another user.--Supparluca 10:35, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

There is no reason for a vote. The established protocol simply calls for English-language usage to locate our pages. That is demonstrated through Google search and also the reference to the Encyclopedia Brittanica (a reference that I note has now been removed -- gee, I wonder why :). Secondly, if English usage can not be established, next is local majority. The local majority along the length of Isarco-Eisack river is Italian (as noted above). So, by either one or two, it should be at Isarco. Also, Wikipedia is not a democracy, so your discussion of votes means you only misunderstand how policy is kept here. Anyway, if you all instead simply intend to blindly make everything in German for this province, well... Icsunonove (talk) 08:00, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Please respect the discussion and the clear outcome of the vote (5.5-1 for Eisack; 2.5-1 against Isarco). Regards Gun Powder Ma (talk) 00:43, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Ok, Gun Powder Ma. Wikipedia is not a democracy, this is a very important point to understand. We have a criteria to follow. You can check on the Ortisei page that it was moved by an Admin, not because of the number of votes, but based on the validity of the argument made. The criteria we use is English usage first and then majority language spoken second. English usage is shown in Brittanica and also Google searches. Secondly, the majority of speakers along the river are Italian, so you yourself should be interested in using the criteria. Or is it only of interest when it shows a page should be moved to a German name? So, these are two points for you to think about. Going and accusing people of disregarding votes makes no sense, and again is offensive and an unnecessary attack. If we get 2,000 PRC citizens to come on here and vote that we should move Taiwan to PRC Province of Taiwan, do we do that? No. Icsunonove (talk) 06:37, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

The vote is clear. Anyone who challenges it has to follow Wikipedia standard procedures, present an unbiased proposal and inform all users who have been participating in the old discussion by a neutral template. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 16:05, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Gun Power Ma, again, Wikipedia is not a democracy. The vote is not what drives decisions, you must really get your hands around that concept. That said, we certainly can re-open the discussion to determine in a neutral fashion 1) what is most commonly used in English 2) if no English usage is used, what language is spoken most around said artifact. Fair enough? Icsunonove (talk) 23:57, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Page move

• Google: isarco 37,400 - eisack 4,180 - isarco river 573 - eisack river 331 - isarco river bolzano 348 - eisack river bolzano 182 - isarco bolzano 23,400 - eisack bolzano 865.
• Google news: isarco 2 - eisack 0.
• Google books: isarco river 116 - eisack river 28.
• Google scholar: isarco river 18 - eisack river 1.
• The NGIA GNS server finds Isarco and Eisack as a variant.
• TGN uses isarco.

"Isarco" is clearly the name most commonly used in English, it's not a good idea to move a page without discussion, citing only a vote held 20 (twenty) months ago. Can you give logical reasons for moving the page?--Supparluca 10:35, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Supparluca, we can setup a move vote again and make sure there is an Admin to look at it and see the validity of the arguements, not the number of votes. My opinion is that Isarco is the most common usage in English and also my numbers above show that there are more Italian speakers along the river. Of course you know that these editors blindly believe that any case we make anything in the Italian language as proof of our goal to Italianize. @_@ It is just too bad I picked a username with Italian words, so they blindly lump me you, Checco, etc. I could of just as easily picked an English or German name.  :) Icsunonove (talk) 06:40, 23 January 2009 (UTC)