Talk:Kadi (Ottoman Empire)

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. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: not moved. No consensus to move, and when disambiguation is necessary WP often uses natural disambiguation (in this case, an orthography that is not necessarily the most common in English sources) in preference to a parenthetical qualifier. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:10, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

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Kadı → Kadi (Ottoman empire) – WP:ENGLISH states that we should use whatever spelling is used in English language sources. English sources use "Kadi", not the Turkish spelling "Kadı". Kaldari (talk) 06:48, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Oppose; Kadı is the more accurate spelling, and it's still used by anglophone sources. Most of this article is based on Malcolm's book, which uses "Kadı" exclusively. bobrayner ] (talk) 14:05, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

What is your evidence that "Kadı is the more accurate spelling"? As consideration is being made for the article title it is common usage in all English language reliable sources that should be under consideration, not the usage in the sources used within the article. Normally the usage of both will reflect each other but that is not always the case.-- PBS (talk) 09:31, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Until somebody demonstrates that "easily googled" is an acceptable substitute for "all", the books on my shelf will continue to influence my opinion on how sources spell this word. bobrayner (talk) 10:47, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

I am not clear on what you mean. What is commonly used on your bookshelf in your reliable English language sources? -- PBS (talk) 12:24, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Oppose, no one typing "Kadi"-with-ordinary-"i" in the URL will end up on this page by accident, which is what disambiguation was invented to prevent, but not really applicable here. Lack of a dot on the "i" does not hinder legibility for anyone unfamiliar with the Turkish alphabet, and does not hinder searchability in Google either. The disambiguation page at Kadi seems to be well set up. I'm just not convinced that there's some problem here that needs solving. -- P.T. Aufrette (talk) 16:07, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Your argument can be reverted no one typing "Kadı"-with-ordinary-"ı" in the URL will end up on this page by accident. "Lack of a dot on the 'i' does not hinder legibility for anyone unfamiliar with the Turkish alphabet" what is your source for that statement? Do you have any evidence that "Kadı" is the more common identifier for the subject of this biography than Kadi? -- PBS (talk) 09:31, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Oppose given that there's a bluelink in lede under "judge" to the Arabic concept (Arabic: قاضي qāḍī), this is clearly related to a specifically Turkish concept and the difference between Dotted and dotless I is helpful to disambiguation, in addition to pronunciation, as well as "consistent with related articles" per MOS - this is part of a series on Ottoman taxation. The only added value I can see of the proposed change would be precision/clarification, in which case Kadı (Ottoman empire) would do the job just as well. Dotted and dotless I might be a little challenging to someone with no interest in Turkey randomly browsing, but to anyone who would be actually interested in the subject it is helpful. In ictu oculi (talk) 23:16, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

The idea that "ı" and "i" "is helpful to disambiguation" contradicts what P.T. Aufrette has written. -- PBS (talk) 09:31, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Not at all, in fact it's the same thing I wrote. It's like pointing out you don't need the Wikipedia parenthesized-disambiguation mechanism to distinguish Cl and CI either. -- P.T. Aufrette (talk) 14:53, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Usefulness in disambiguation is a secondary concern. The primary criteria is which spelling is used most often in English language sources. Kaldari (talk) 05:20, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Comment. The only criteria that should be used to decide the correct title is which spelling is most prevalent in English language sources. Of the current sources used in the article, one uses "kadi" and one uses "kadı", so we should consult Google to determine which is more prominent. Of the first 20 reliable sources I could find on Google that were unambiguously discussing the Ottoman empire kadi (besides the 2 already mentioned), 13 use "kadi", 6 use "kadı", and 1 uses "ḳāḍī":

Use "kadi":

• History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey
• Approaching Ottoman History: An Introduction to the Sources
• The Ottoman Empire and Early Modern Europe
• Convivencia under Muslim rule: the Island of Cyprus after the Ottoman Conquest (1571-1640)
• Daily Life in the Ottoman Empire
• Women in the Ottoman Empire: Middle Eastern Women in the Early Modern Era
• Crime and Punishment in Istanbul: 1700-1800
• Ottoman Past and Today's Turkey
• Natural disasters in the Ottoman Empire‬
• The Ottoman Empire And the World Around It
• The Cambridge History of Turkey: The Later Ottoman Empire, 1603-1839
• State, Society, and Law in Islam: Ottoman Law in Comparative Perspective
• Subjects Of The Sultan: Culture And Daily Life In The Ottoman Empire

Use "kadı":

• Frontiers of Ottoman Studies: State, Province, and the West
• ‪Local Court, Provincial Society and Justice in the Ottoman Empire‬
• Consumption Studies and the History of the Ottoman Empire, 1550-1922‬
• A Monetary History of the Ottoman Empire
• Ottoman-Dutch Economic Relations in the Early Modern Period 1571-1699
• The Ottoman Empire: A Short History

Use "ḳāḍī":

• ‪Palestine in the Late Ottoman Period‬

This is more than a 2 to 1 ratio. Kaldari (talk) 04:22, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

Hi Kaldari, we don't apply "majority" searches criteria to whether sources use UTF-8 fonts or not, if we did that 100,000s of articles would be moved, that prevalent criteria is for sorting out between spellings like Elsinore and Helsingor. Personally I'm staggered that any English language histories use kadı, which increases support for kadı or second kadı (Ottoman Empire). In ictu oculi (talk) 01:07, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Iio we do follow usage in reliable English language sources (see WP:AT). If you are "staggared that any English language histories use kadı" then why are you opposing the move which you clearly think is following Wikipedia policy? -- PBS (talk) 09:31, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Philip, "staggered" is spelled with an e. Otherwise I'm not sure I want to reiterate here the pointless discussion after you tried to delete the diacritics section from WP:MOSPN. We've been through this before. I await your answer there as to whether article Lech Wałęsa follows the orthography and MOS of majority English tabloid sources as you understand en.wp should. Then we can discuss there further. In ictu oculi (talk) 07:03, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

@In ictu oculi: I don't see anything in the guidelines that reflects your claim. If we did, in fact, exclude titles with non-latin characters from the Title guidelines, I think it would say that somewhere. Plus if that were the case, wouldn't qadi belong at قاضي (or qāḍī)? Kaldari (talk) 05:25, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Hi Kaldari,

I didn't say anything about guidelines I said: (quote) "we don't apply "majority" searches criteria to whether sources use UTF-8 fonts or not, if we did that 100,000s of articles would be moved," (unquote). Guidelines can be unilaterally pulled around by editors at the drop of a hat, with far more ease than doing an RM on kadı. I was simply stating a fact. As a case in point look at Lech Wałęsa, does that follow tabloid orthography? (The reason Arabic isn't treated as Lech Wałęsa and kadı is because it isn't a Latin alphabet, see WP:UE) In ictu oculi (talk) 07:03, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Then what criteria do we apply? Should we just flip coins in such cases? The guidelines were established to deal with precisely this sort of case so that we don't have to spend years arguing over who's favorite spelling will be used. Please tell me what criteria should be applied here. Kaldari (talk) 06:01, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Kaldari, did you see what I just said "Guidelines can be unilaterally pulled around by editors at the drop of a hat, with far more ease than doing an RM on kadı." My question would be in what way are guidelines "established"? The WP:AT section on source accuracy has been deleted for 7 days, I just restored it. The WP:MOSPN section on diacritics has been both unilaterally deleted and played with over the last month. The coin flips every day it seems depending on who is using the guidelines as a sandbox. Plus of course guidelines are easily misread, as for example you just asked me "exclude titles with non-latin characters from the Title guidelines, I think it would say that somewhere. Plus if that were the case, wouldn't qadi belong at قاضي (or qāḍī)?" but you cited WP:ENGLISH in your nomination that specifically distinguishes Arabic and Chinese from Turkish. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk is at Turkish spelling since Turkish is a Latin alphabet. This is the norm on en.wp, if not exclusive use for Turkish personal names and place names. The only difference here is that this is a terminus technicus for a role in the Ottoman taxation system. According to WP:AT (the restored status quo version) we go by accuracy of a minority of sources even when otherwise reliable sources are in the majority but unreliable about a certain aspect. In ictu oculi (talk) 03:07, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

As an entirely irrelevant aside, I would argue that the kadı was primarily a judicial rather than a fiscal office. Needless to say, though, there's a lot of overlap between the two in many premodern states, particularly the Ottoman empire. bobrayner (talk) 11:09, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

• Support A search of Google Books on kadi is not of much use as Kadi is also the name of an author and other things not related to this article. But a Google Book search on [ "kadi of Basra" ] returns 12 for all books in published in English, and 2 since 1990. None are retuned for [ "kadı of Basra" ]. Searching on [ "kadi of Jerusalem" ] returns 72 English language books, 44 since 1990. None are retuned for [ "kadı of Jerusalem" ]. BTW Iio these searches have nothing to do with UTF-8 fonts, but are from the contents of old books and books published in the last 22 years. Also Google Scholar returns 17 for [ "kadi of Jerusalem" ] and 1 for [ "kadı of Jerusalem" ]. Unless some evidence to the contrary can be provided this requested move should succeed, as it is based on WP:AT policy while the objections do not seem to be based on the advise given in Wikipedia article titling policy and naming conventions. -- PBS (talk) 10:11, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
  • Did you check other sources and not mention the results, or this purely a selective Google search? bobrayner (talk) 10:59, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
    • NO, I did not check other sources, not mentioned in the results other than first I tried searching Google Books on [ kadı -kadi ] which seemed to work OK. The trouble was that a search the other way around ( [ -kadı kadi ] ) threw up inappropriate sources (eg books by the author "Joanna Kadi" and titles such as "The day Kadi lost part of her life") So I looked at what I could do to limited it to a more specific range on of the texts. One of those returned by the more general search was "kadı of Basra" so I used that. The use of a date or 1990 was to make sure that the use of Kadi/Kadı was not obsolete. I then did a search on another city I knew was in the empire, to see if the returns were somewhat similar (as a check that the first search was not idiosyncratic). It may be that all three searches give untypical returns and I would welcome other searches by other people to either confirm or refute my findings. -- PBS (talk) 12:24, 21 May 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. No further edits should be made to this section.