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Latest comment: 11 years ago62 comments8 people in discussion
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: No consensus to move. Strong arguments based on usage in sources and policy on both sides, but clearly there is no consensus support for either position. Therefore, no move. Something to consider is a multi-move of several of these, with the proposal suggesting they all use the "Central Station" or they all use the "Hauptbahnhof" name, if consistency among them is the desired result. (non-admin closure) B2C23:10, 1 June 2013 (UTC)Reply
Oppose. The city's web site gives the name of this subject as "Leipzig Central Station." There are several ways to translate this name, but English-language RS generally do translate it. The "Foo Central Station" format is a wiki-convention for German stations as you can see from Category:Hauptbahnhof_in_Germany. The purpose of a title is not to teach the reader a foreign language, but tell him the English-language name of the subject, per WP:NAMINGCRITERIA. Kauffner (talk) 11:09, 13 May 2013 (UTC)Reply
The purpose of the article should be to inform the reader about Leipzig Hauptbahnhof, not to try to change English usage. There is no "wiki-convention"; the Hauptbahnhofs were called by their usual names until someone changed them to Central without discussion. DB thinks Leipzig Central is a theatre (just as Berlin Central is a hotel). I'll believe things have to be given linguistically-cleansed "English" names when the article on the Arc de Triomphe is renamed! Wheeltapper (talk) 12:07, 13 May 2013 (UTC)Reply
True, www.leipzig.de does indeed say "Leipzig's Central Station is traditionally one of the most important junctions of the German rail network." (next to a picture saying "Hauptbahnhof-Promenaden"). However such usage was recognised in the move/restore nomination. In ictu oculi (talk) 14:31, 13 May 2013 (UTC)Reply
Look at it again. The heading says, "Arrival by train: Leipzig Central Station." "Leipzig's Central Station" is just a trivial variation anyway, not a reason the call the station by a German name. The Deutsche Welle site has several examples of "Leipzig's Central Station".[1][2][3] This site yields no English language examples for "Leipzig Hauptbahnhof" site:www.dw.de. Kauffner (talk) 15:14, 13 May 2013 (UTC)Reply
Surely you mean "the German Wave site has..." And shouldn't it be Leipsic rather than Leipzig? As well as the obvious publications like Lonely Planet, Rough Guides, Frommers et al (which will no doubt be rejected as sources because they are read by people who might meet a boche), trivial searches show that "Maintaining and Improving Britain's Railway Stations" by Britain's National Audit Office uses Hauptbahnhof, just like "Roaming Ghostland: The Final Days of East Germany" or "Art In The Making: Aesthetics, Historicity And Practice". As does "Brandscaping: Worlds of Experience in Retail Design" - although personally I'm not 100% convinced that brandscaping is a real word.Wheeltapper (talk) 15:43, 13 May 2013 (UTC)Reply
Oppose. Google books reveals that "Leipzig Central Station" is the most common English name with 319 hits, compared with "Leipzig Main Station" (a literal translation) at 256 hits. Yes "Leipzig Hauptbahnhof" gets 1,870 hits, but an analysis of every single listed entry (not all get listed) reveals that only 21 are from English books, 89 are from German-language books and 19 are not relevant (e.g. Wikipedia compilations, etc) So 1) it is far more usual to translate the name into English and 2) of the 2 options "Leipzig Central Station" is the more common. Furthermore Leipzig's official English website calls it "Leipzig Central Station" too. Add to that the importance of USING ENGLISH on English Wikipedia and the case for retaining the current name (with the German name as a redirect and clearly cited in the lede) seems very strong. --Bermicourt (talk) 16:36, 13 May 2013 (UTC)Reply
If we use the real name then we don't even need the German name in the lede. At present we need it there so that readers know what the heck the article is actually about... Wheeltapper (talk) 16:48, 13 May 2013 (UTC)Reply
It's the other way around. Every English speaker knows what "Leipzig Central Station" is; that's why guides and sources like the official city website use it. Only a tiny fraction of our readers will understand what a Hauptbahnhof is... We're privileged in that regard, but Wikipedia is for the general reader, not us. --Bermicourt (talk) 17:01, 13 May 2013 (UTC)Reply
I'm a native English speaker, and I wouldn't know what Leipzig Central station was - certainly on my one visit to the place I don't remember their being one, and DB doesn't know of one; I've just tried, and it asked me if I meant Nijmegen Centraal! I'm vaguely aware of the cross-city tunnel project, so maybe it is a new station on that (a bit like the central station in Munich, on the line from Hbf)? Equally, I've no idea what Atocha means, but I don't need to know. "Foo Hauptbahnhof is the main/a closed/future station in Foo" is useful information. "Foo Central is the main station in Foo" is utterly useless without including the real name so people know what is being discussed. Will "every English speaker" know what Manchester Central station is? Wheeltapper (talk) 22:41, 13 May 2013 (UTC)Reply
Support as the name most likely to be recognized even by English speakers. Additionally this avoid the pitfall of choosing one imperfect translation (central station) over another (main station) and thus prevents confusion to some extent. Pichpich (talk) 18:15, 15 May 2013 (UTC)Reply
Support. I am not a native speaker of English (but a frequent user of EN-wikipedia), so I know the other point of view. Fully agree with Pichpich and most points mentioned by Wheeltapper. Whatever the final decision will be: as of now things are definitely not consistent. For some good reasons Leipzig's oldest preserved railway station (Leipzig Bayerischer Bahnhof) has obviously been accepted in EN-wikipedia with its german name for years now. --Kleeblatt187 (talk) 21:52, 16 May 2013 (UTC)Reply
Comment And thousands of Bahnhof Foo articles are named "Foo railway station", so comparison with other articles is not, of itself, a strong argument. Bermicourt (talk) 19:33, 17 May 2013 (UTC)Reply
Right, but looking just with a focus on the city of Leipzig it is definitely not consistent. If you start your research by clicking through categories (which happens every once in while, if you you aren't a native speaker and don't know the proper keyword (or don't find such a thing as Leipzig main station) then you might end up in category Category:Transport in Leipzig. Looking at the results there it is simply not consistent to find one station fully with german words and one with english words. That's why I mentioned it. But I know that this aspect has not originally nothing to do with the move request. --Kleeblatt187 (talk) 22:35, 18 May 2013 (UTC)Reply
Official info: DB's information system doesn't recognise "Leipzig Central" as a location. Leipzig Hauptbahnhof is an option if I enter "Leipzig", but not if I add Central. If I enter "Leipzig Central station" it opens its guesses with "Leipzig, Centraltheater (Kultur und Unterhaltung)". Hbf is not suggested.
English-language version of DB's official station profile: Station profile > Leipzig Hbf ("Leipzig Main Station" appears in some of the text).
Travel books: Lonely Planet, Rough Guides and Frommers use Leipzig Hauptbahnhof.
Language: Germany For Dummies, Donald Olson, 2009: "The Leipzig Hauptbahnhof (main train station), Willy-Brandt-Platz, is the largest on the Continent."
Official UK publication: Maintaining and Improving Britain's Railway Stations, by Britain's (English-speaking) National Audit Office uses Hauptbahnhof: "... we visited the following stations in Germany: Bischofswerda; Dresden Hauptbahnhof; ... Leipzig Hauptbahnhof;..."
Translated German book (which I read a while back): After The Wall: Confessions from an East German Childhood and the Life that Came Next By Jana Hense: "...I took the tram from Leipzig Hauptbahnhof to the edge of the city..." (p28). This is the English version of a German book, so at least one professional translator clearly thinks readers will understand what it means without needing to come up with an "equivalent" term.
Books: Brandscaping: Worlds of Experience in Retail Design "Leipzig's Hauptbahnhof (main railway station). ... The Leipzig Hauptbhanhof 'Promenaden'. a trend-setting retail and commercial centre..." Note that they put Promenaden in quotes, but are happy with the name of the station being Hauptbahnhof.
More books: Roaming Ghostland: The Final Days of East Germany: "And as usual, rain and biting cold greeted my arrival in Leipzig's Hauptbahnhof." and Art In The Making: Aesthetics, Historicity And Practice" think people can cope with a German station having a non-English name.
And here are a few examples of books and websites, old and new, from a wide range of sectors, that demonstrate the name Leipzig Central Station has been in use for at least 100 years and is still widely used, including by the official city website:
I don't find that list too convincing. Just a few comments on individual entries.
The Czech site [4] actually uses Leipzig Hbf. and only proposes "Central Station" as a translation. If anything, this would constitute an argument in favour of using Hauptbahnhof.
The TripAdvisor link is a user-submitted question. As far as establishing usage in reliable sources, this is about as interesting as an anonymous comment of a random blog. It's not hard to find similar questions on the same web site that use the term Hauptbahnhof. More interestingly, the page provided by TripAdvisor in their list of landmarks in Leipzig uses the title "Hauptbahnhof Leipzig". So once again, the analysis of TripAdvisor would seem to favour Hauptbahnhof.
When did touristlink become a major tourist site?
RailDude often doesn't sell train tickets directly. If you want to buy a ticket to Leipzig, RailDude will in many cases redirect you to the websites of SNCB (Belgium), SNCF (France), DB (Germany) and NS Hispeed (Netherlands). All of them use Leipzig Hbf. And when RailDude does use its own interface, "Leipzig central station" is not even recognized as a valid station name: only Leipzig HBF is recognized as correct.
Even setting aside the absurdity of using a German crash course to establish usage, it's quite obvious that a book focused on translating German would, well, translate German words as much as possible. Pichpich (talk) 19:02, 16 May 2013 (UTC)Reply
Two of those are the same site - which also uses Hauptbahnhof as the title. So on the one hand we have "Hauptbahnhof" used by Lonely Planet and Rough Guides, trusted books produced and professionally edited by some of the world's biggest and best-known travel publishers. On the other hand, we have "Central" in a random user's comment on a Trip Advisor (actually a US company) forum (which attracted no follow-up comments - maybe no-one understood!); there is rather more content on Trip Advisor's Things to do in Leipzig > Hauptbahnhof Leipzig (sic). DB uses Hauptbahhof and doesn't recognise the term Central station, but we do have "Rail Dude", some random and largely content-free website in broken English; and a Czech travel agency(?) which links to Wikipedia from its page - which is called "Leipzig Hbf". I'm not familiar enough with the Indian travel market to know how major Touristlink.com is, but I'm pretty sure the Petronas Towers are not "Around Leipzig Central Station"!
The Times was talking about (Munich) Hauptbahnhof in 1913, and in the 1930s the German Railways Information Bureau obviously thought people wouldn't be put off the country by the prospect of a Hauptbahnhof. A letter in 1976 mentioned something "in the Hauptbahnhof (main railway station) in Munich". Hamburg Hauptbahnhof appears in a 1985 article. A 1973 letter refers to "the central European Hauptbahnhof" in a generic sense, clearly assuming the reader understands without needing to be told "a station like there is in Gainsborough". Wheeltapper (talk) 19:05, 16 May 2013 (UTC)Reply
Wheeltapper, your points aren't convincing either and fly in the face of common practice. Yes there are articles that fail to translate the station name, but there are plenty that do including the City of Leipzig. It would be better for all of us if we stopped this pointless crusade to turn these article names back into German, which is wasting time and energy, and focussed on creating and improving articles instead. Bermicourt (talk) 20:49, 16 May 2013 (UTC)Reply
Come on Bermicourt... Wheeltapper is not the only one in favour of the move. How would you like it if I asked you to drop your your crusade (or something equally pejorative like "silly resistance") in favour of "Central Station" and asked you to return to creating and improving articles rather than wasting my precious time and energy? There's a disagreement and we're debating it. That's the wiki-way. Pichpich (talk) 21:31, 16 May 2013 (UTC)Reply
Improving articles is exactly what I am trying to do - in particular by supporting Wikipedia's common practice with regard to the use of real-world wp:commonname, wp:verifiability and wp:reliable sources, while opposing confusing, misleading or simply made up stuff. Perhaps Bermicourt could lobby Deutsche Bahn or Lonely Planet or The Times or Trip Advisor or obscure Czech travel agents, and tell them they aren't convincing - they might change their policies, and then the article could reflect that. Yes, there are some web forums and things where people invent or guess names or assume the world is the same as where they are - but there are plenty of rather better sources which don't. Even the Daily Mail feels its Little Englander readership can survive the sight of the word Hauptbahnhof. Wheeltapper (talk) 21:54, 16 May 2013 (UTC)Reply
So what you are saying is that DB uses Hauptbahnhof in things aimed at the general public. Germany's largest scientific organisation uses Hauptbahnof with every mention of the station; presumably so that people know what on earth is meant by "Central station". How are we going to treat the new Markt station, a central station in the British sense? Wheeltapper (talk) 14:47, 17 May 2013 (UTC)Reply
The links show clearly that DB uses "Central Station" in information aimed at the public, whether formal reports or marketing their deals. Their travel software uses German names, presumably because it's not cost-effective to develop multiple software packages for every foreign language. Re other stations, if they're not a Hbf we normally use "Foo railway station" as you know. AFAIK no Wikipedian has ever suggested that centrally-located stations should be renamed. HTH. Bermicourt (talk) 19:26, 17 May 2013 (UTC)Reply
The links show the opposite, unless journey information, signage, timetables, tickets and announcements are bizarrely considered not for public use. The software is available in lots of languages - I was specifically using English!
Let me be clearer: the links I listed to the various DB web pages show that they use "Central Station" in a wide range of publications aimed at business and the travelling public. Their ticket booking software uses German names, it is true. However, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a ticket booking system, so it makes sense to follow the former, not the latter and, at the same time, conform to WP:USEENGLISH as well as WP:RELIABLESOURCES.
So in sum we have several pretty authoritative sites using "Leipzig Central Station", including:
While very authoritative WP:RELIABLESOURCES use Leipzig Hauptbahnhof, as listed above - including Deutsche Bahn (or should that be "GR"?), which doesn't recognise central station as a valid place. I'd trust Lonely Planet and Rough Guides and The Times over random websites linking to Wikipedia, or forum postings, or German-speakers trying to translate things while not knowing what most native speakers would do.
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not an attempt to change or purify the English language. It should be noted that WP:USEENGLISH says "The title of an article should generally use the version of the name of the subject which is most common in the English language, as you would find it in reliable sources" and "Where there is an English word, or exonym, for the subject but a native version is more common in English-language usage, the English name should be mentioned but should not be used as the article title." There is also the fall back "follow the conventions of the language in which this entity is most often talked about (German for German politicians". There is absolutely nothing to say that we have to ignore foreign words and any sources which use them. I see the WP:USEENGLISH talk page has some discussion of "Neander Valley Man" and the "Third Kingdom".
"Leipzig Central station" is useless as a stand-alone name. Leipzig Hauptbahnhof is simple, unambiguous and follows common English-as-a-first-language usage (at least in the UK). Wheeltapper (talk) 21:57, 17 May 2013 (UTC)Reply
Wheeltapper has already mentioned the new station "Leipzig Markt", which will be opened in December 2013 as part of the Leipzig City Tunnel. No matter whether we will name the article in EN-wikipedia about this station "Leipzig Markt" or "Leipzig Market station", this station will definity be the most centrally located station in the city centre. I wouldn't be surprised if locals, which are mostly not native speakers of English, would refer to this station as "a central station" or if hotels and offices would claim that they may easily be reached from the "new central station at the Old town's square". Or whatever. Similar things could be written in tourist guide books or an various websites. And I wouldn't be sure, if people always watch out for the difference between "central" and "Central", between "central and centrally". In my personal opinion it is quite likely the Hauptbahnhof whould broadly be referred as "main station", "Hauptbahnhof" or "Hbf" rather than "Central station". And as I do not expect that this article Leipzig Central Station would be moved to Leipzig main station, I do also for these reasons strongly support moving this article back to Leipzig Hauptbahnhof. WP is also for the common people, confusion should be prevented. --Kleeblatt187 (talk) 22:35, 18 May 2013 (UTC)Reply
Like Zentralbahnhof', the former name for Hauptbahnhof, the term "central station" does not necessarily have anything to do with geographical location - see the debates over central station. In English, a Central Station was typically the primary station in a city where there were more than two stations and this appears to be European practice in several countries including Germany in the early days. So "central station" is the equivalent of Hauptbahnhof on two counts - usage and original name. That is reflected in dictionaries and the literature. Inevitably some sources do translate these names as "Main Station", but I suspect that is largely in ignorance of English practice (almost no stations worldwide are called "Foo Main"), Germany railway history and a tendency to go for a literal translation, but they are in the minority. Of course there is nothing wrong with saying things like "Leipzig Central is the main railway station in the city of Leipzig". Bermicourt (talk) 04:10, 19 May 2013 (UTC)Reply
Central station has no generic meaning in English, as a quick check of real-world examples would show. Central station means nothing more or less than a station which the owner has called Central, rather than Town, Victoria, Union, Atocha, Hauptbahnhof, Montparnesse, or whatever. Are there any examples of stations in the English-speaking world which are called Central and are not at least one of a) centrally located/had ambitions to be centrally located b) once used by a company with Central in its name c) serving a thing called Central?
In English speaking countries a centrally located-station might be described as being central, but that doesn't mean Birmingham New Street is called Birmingham Central. Exeter Central, Liverpool Central etc etc are clearly not their cities' main stations, and Sheffield Midland or Hull Paragon have never been called Central station.
"Leipzig Central is the main railway station in the city of Leipzig" is confusing, because it it doesn't tell you what the article is about, and so further information is needed - whereas "Leipzig Hauptbahnhof is the main railway station in the city of Leipzig" provides accurate, verifiable and useful information. Wikipedia should not be trying to define terms for the real world to follow.Wheeltapper (talk) 09:53, 19 May 2013 (UTC)Reply
The argument that "central station" has no generic meaning achieved no consensus in the recent AFD debate for that article. And, as a more detailed check of real-world examples shows, there is a clear pattern to the use of the term. No, it is not laid down by law or policy, nevertheless it is common practice. But we've been round that buoy endlessly and the result has been stalemate.
As to the 2nd point, it's simply untrue that the statement "Leipzig Central is the main railway station in the city of Leipzig" doesn't tell a reader what the article's about - it's about the main railway station in the city of Leipzig! There is no difference between the two sentences except that one has the English name used by key sources and one has the German name. But let's nail it in a wunner and say "Leipzig Central (German: Leipzig Hauptbahnhof) is the main railway station in the city of Leipzig". Leipzig Central is not a Wiki-defined term, it's used by, I hate to say it again, DB, the city of Leipzig, Leipzig Airport and a wide range of other sources, including modern travel guides but also those going back at least 100 years. Bermicourt (talk) 17:19, 19 May 2013 (UTC)Reply
The spurious claim that Central station has a generic meaning (beyond the obvious everyday English meaning of the two words) won little support. If there were a generic meaning, it would have been possible to demonstrate this without having to rely on argument by assertion rather than evidence. It doesn't help that you won't specify what variety of English you claim this alleged practice exists in - although I think it is agreed(?) it is not British or Irish (Exeter, Liverpool, Gainsborough have secondary stations called Central; while Birmingham, Dorking, Edinburgh, Dublin don't have any Centrals) or North American (all those Unions). Germans translating things into English seems to be about the only example.
How about we take the simple, proven, guideline-following option of using Hauptbahnhof as is unambiguously used in reliable sources, and is used for pretty much every other station. Then we can concentrate on improving the articles, and/or lobbying to get Birmingham New Street given its "English" name, and the articles on September Festival and Under the Lime Trees and Bavaria Munich AFC freed from the yoke of Teutonic linguistic oppression? Wheeltapper (talk) 20:21, 19 May 2013 (UTC)Reply
Bermicourt is correct to bring up the recent (and somewhat instructive) debate: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Central station. However, it should be pointed out that there was no consensus on deleting or radically overhauling the article. Claiming that "the argument that "central station" has no generic meaning achieved no consensus" is misleading at best. (People interested should just read the debate and make up their mind.) Pichpich (talk) 02:19, 20 May 2013 (UTC)Reply
Our guidelines say to WP:USEENGLISH, and the word "hauptbahnhof" is not given in any English-language dictionary that I have checked. See Merriam Webster, American Heritage, Oxford, or even WordNet 3, which boasts the “largest English dictionary and thesaurus”. If English-speakers want to know what a "hauptbahnhof" is, they need look it up a bilingual dictionary like Collins German-English Dictionary. It's nice that the German word is "unambiguous", "accurate" and all, but when do Japanese stations get Japanese names? Kauffner (talk) 17:26, 22 May 2013 (UTC)Reply
Proper names are not generally included in conventional dictionaries. "Leipzig" itself doesn't seem to be in the OED, but that's not a reason to come up with a new name for it. What does your dictionary say for Mumps? If an English speaker wants to know what St Pancras was they would need a suitable book of religious information, but I doubt many fans of Victorian stations really care. "Hauptbahnhof" is part of the actual name, it is not a description (just as New Street forms part of the name of a major British station, it is not a reference to a recently-created way of accessing it).
The guidelines say "Where there is an English word, or exonym, for the subject but a native version is more common in English-language usage, the English name should be mentioned but should not be used as the article title." It seems usage of the alleged "English" name is by foreigners such as Czech travel agents trying to work in English; native English speakers (as listed above) don't bother.
As for Japan, are there any stations which have been given "English" names in Wikipedia rather than just Romanised? Looking at random, Ariake-tennis-no-mori Station has that name, even though the article says it could be translated to "Ariake Tennis Forest". We do have an article on Shinkansen, and a whole category of "Japanese words and phrases". Plus all non-Hbf German stations have their normal names rather than "translated" ones. Wheeltapper (talk) 22:52, 22 May 2013 (UTC)Reply
There is no rule against translating proper names. We can certainly translate a book title like War and Peace. The word "station" is of course translated and not Japanese. Something like "Leipzig Hauptbahnhof (main train station)", which is being counted as an example of a native English speaker not bothering to translate, actually shows that the author recognizes that "hauptbahnhof" is a non-English word in need of translation. The New York Times has a full length on this subject which refers to it as a "station" or a "train station", but never as a "hauptbahnhof." As I noted above, Deutsche Welle can also write about this station in detail without using German. If we recognize that this name needs to be translated, "Leipzig Central Station" appears to be the form preferred by the city itself, and is certainly used by other sources as well. Kauffner (talk) 02:31, 23 May 2013 (UTC)Reply
No rule, however there are guidelines against it. And we don't translate Under the Lime Trees and Neander Valley Man, for example. The 1996 NYT article provides no support for the theory the station ought to be called Central, it doesn't actually give it a name. Articles which do name it say things like this 2006 article "...the enormous shopping arcade in the main train station, the Hauptbahnhof"[5], and there are about 172 results for searching the NYT website for Hauptbahnhof (not all Leipzig!). Wheeltapper (talk) 08:28, 23 May 2013 (UTC)Reply
And please don't move this section to the bottom to try and sway the outcome based on counting votes; that's argumentum ad populum and isn't how Wikipedia works - it's consensus and strength of argument that count. Bermicourt (talk) 11:48, 25 May 2013 (UTC)Reply
Record of previous attempts to move "Foo Central Station" to "Foo Hauptbahnhof"
Is the plan that if you repeat this often enough it will gain more weight, or that people won't notice you are misrepresenting DB (don't you mean GR?), which thinks "Leipzig Central" is a theatre? There is a list of solid English-as-first-language wp:reliablesources using Leipzig Hauptbahnhof above, so I won't repeat it.
When people resort to facetious comments and ridicule you know they have given up serious debate. You only have to check out the DB links above to see they use "Leipzig Central Station". --Bermicourt (talk) 11:18, 23 May 2013 (UTC)Reply
Is the "railway station" descriptor part of the official Italian name? I don't see how this example supports your case. Kauffner (talk) 15:10, 23 May 2013 (UTC)Reply
Finding sources is a difficult task, I guess... barring the lack of reliable sources either way, I have to oppose per WP:USEENGLISH. And I see the arguments against it, but man, if you don't speak a lick of Deutsch the proposed title is completely unintelligible. Red Slash03:51, 1 June 2013 (UTC)Reply
WP:ENGLISH pretty clearly supports the use of Hauptbahnhof, as that is the name used by reliable English language sources (rather than forum postings, Czech translations and the like). Simply ignoring the sources won't make them go away. Using "Central station" for a station which is not called that, does not translate as that and is not central is pretty much unintelligible. It needs to be stressed that WP:USEENGLISH is about following English usage, not about ridding English of foreign words. I notice that no-one is trying to create "English" names for Deutsche Bahn, Oktoberfest, TGV etc, and consensus is generally for the commonly-used FC Bayern Munich, rather than the "English" Bavaria Munich AFC. Wheeltapper (talk) 13:28, 1 June 2013 (UTC)Reply
Record of previous attempts to move stations from their common names to "English" names
Nürnberg Hauptbahnhof: More people opposed renaming to Central than supported it, but it was changed anyway. The waters appear to have been muddied by someone making the strange claim that the German name is Hauptbahnhof Nürnberg.
And Koblenz Stadtmitte is a bit of a red herring. It's not a Hauptbahnhof and I don't see much use of its literal English translation in the sources, so it has little bearing on this discussion. --Bermicourt (talk) 21:39, 1 June 2013 (UTC)Reply
Stations under their common names as used by English speakers
(Almost?) every station worldwide which has a Wikipedia article, except those German Hauptbahnhofs which were changed without discussion.Wheeltapper (talk) 08:28, 23 May 2013 (UTC)Reply
A sign which doesn't say Central, because DB didn't ask Wikipedia what their station ought to be called We aren't talking about any descriptor which might be included in the article title (and not every station article has one in its title), we are talking about the name of the station. The name of the structure in Leipzig is "Leipzig Hauptbahnhof", it is not "Leipzig".
What's the sense of using native names on English Wiki without translating them??
You are making a basic error. German uses compound nouns so the equivalent of "Amsterdam Centraal" is "Leipzig Haupt" since "-bahnhof" is the generic word for "station". Compound nouns in German often have a "proper name" element and a generic element. And as for arguing that we should keep Praha hlavní nádraží as an article title on English Wikipedia - it's just laughable - on that basis we should rename Seoul station to ソウル駅 - but both are utterly meaningless to the average English reader. --Bermicourt (talk) 07:11, 1 June 2013 (UTC)Reply
That is such a bizarre "argument" that I'm not entirely sure what to say. German Wikipedians seem to think Amsterdam Centraal is called, er, "Bahnhof Amsterdam Centraal". Can you show us some reliable sources which use the name "Leipzig Haupt" as the name of the station, without the -bahnhof? The English Wikipedia has the guidelines WP:TITLE "follow English-language usage" and "Names not originally in a Latin alphabet, such as Greek, Chinese, or Russian names, must be transliterated", so I'm not sure what Seoul has to do with anything; as far as I can tell the station has no title. Quantum mechanics is pretty meaningless to the average reader, it doesn't mean Wikipedia should dream up something else instead! Should Birmingham New Street be called Birmingham Central, and does St Pancras need a name which doesn't "require" a knowledge of theology? Wheeltapper (talk) 11:35, 1 June 2013 (UTC)Reply
Well you may feel that compound nouns are bizarre, but that's how German works. Cutting to the key question: no of course you don't see "Leipzig Haupt" because German practice is to use compound nouns so it's "Leipzig Haupt-bahnhof" or, in former times, "Leipzig Central-bahnhof" (hyphen merely for emphasis). But the point is that "Hauptbahnhof" means "Central Station" or "main station", depending on the context, as any decent dictionary will demonstrate. The fundamental question here is whether authoritative sources translate "Leipzig Hauptbahnhof" to "Leipzig Central Station" or not? The DB, city of Leipzig and Leipzig Airport (and others) clearly do as I keep pointing out. So WP:JUSTDONTLIKEIT is not a valid line of argument. Bermicourt (talk) 17:11, 1 June 2013 (UTC)Reply
No, the fundamental question is what the article should be called. As this is Wikipedia, the question hinges on whether WP:USEENGLISH and WP:COMMONNAME apply (as they do with every other article), or whether there is an "WP:UseEnglishExceptForSomeGermanStations" which I can't find. Your views on how German works/ought to work doesn't really matter on the English-language Wikipedia, and we can't assume readers will know the "context" which you say German translation depends on (will Markt become Leipzig Central station when it opens?).
Japan is not full of Wikipedians unable to figure out how to catch a train in the absence of a station called Central
There appears to be agreement above that Hauptbahnhof is "unambiguous" and "accurate". We also appear to have demonstrated above that Hauptbahnhof is the commonly used name in native-English reliable sources such as books; the fact that these sources use a "German" word does not invalidate them as English sources. However we have found that some sources, mainly Germans and Czechs translating things into English (and possibly copying Wikipedia to do so), sometimes use Central as well or instead. So the question is whether we are required to avoid German words at all costs. WP:USEENGLISH says "Where there is an English word, or exonym, for the subject but a native version is more common in English-language usage, the English name should be mentioned but should not be used as the article title." Which seems pretty clear to me; follow the English sources, use Hauptbahnhof.
Questions:
Why would German Hauptbahnhofs need "English" names when pretty much all other stations with Wikipedia articles are at their (Latin alphabet) WP:COMMONNAME? (the exceptions appear to be where words for North/South/East/West have been directly translated rather than transliterated)
Why would the word Hauptbahnhof be something to be avoided at all costs, when countless other German things are at their usual untranslated common names (Under the Lime Trees, Neander Valley Man, September Festival)? I note that discussion about the title of Reichstag building didn't even consider giving it an "English" name.
Who benefits from us using a name which needs to be clarified each time it is used so people can understand what is meant?
If a "named" station causes problems for people who don't know the origin of that name, should all named stations be renamed to a standard pattern within Wikipedia (eg Exeter St Davids should be in Wikipedia as Exeter Central)?
(I also observe with interest that you changed one of my previous comments on this talk page to make it say something different to what I wrote) Wheeltapper (talk) 18:41, 1 June 2013 (UTC)Reply
Okay so let's review just some of the many sources that use the name Leipzig Central Station. Note both the authority (ownership, international status and pre-eminence within the city of Leipzig) and the range of sources:
Deutsche Bahn, Germany's national rail carrier and owner of the station:
DB's "Business Travel" news brochure for business travellers in 2001 has a photo of the "Interior of Leipzig central station" and states "Winner in the “City Station” category is Leipzig central station, which was the first railway terminus to convince the jury in the eight years of the competition." and later "“Air and Light”, the motto of architects William Lossow and Max Hans Kühne who designed Leipzig central station, still holds good today..."
DB's Annual Review in 2011 states "•Leipzig central station is named “City Train Station of the Year” by the Pro-Rail Alliance. Halberstadt is named “Town Train Station of the Year.”"
Leading authorities in the City of Leipzig, including the City itself:
Leipzig City: Under the title "Arrival by train: Leipzig Central Station" it comments "Being located right in the city centre Leipzig's Central Station is traditionally one of the most important junctions of the German rail network."
Leipzig Airport: Under the title "Arriving by train" it states "Regular long-distance connections link all larger towns in Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Thuringia with Halle/Saale Central Station and Leipzig Central Station."
The Congress Center Leipzig: Under "Local public transport" states "The regional rail service runs from Leipzig Central station to the Exhibition Centre every half hour." and "The Airport Express service runs between Leipzig Central station and Leipzig/Halle Airport every half hour."
Leipzig Tourism and Marketing: Under the title "Getting to Leipzig" says "Located right in the centre of the city, Leipzig Central Station is long established as one of the key hubs of the German railway network.
Leipzig City's History Museum: Under "Here you can find us" states "Situated directly on the Markt, only a few minutes walk from Leipzig central station, car parks in the city centre..."
The Leipzig Card brochure (English version) has numerous references including "At night, 10 bus routes known as “Nightliners” are available. They all start at Leipzig Central Station (Hauptbahnhof) and serve all areas of the city."
Leading international transport authorities and businesses:
The International Union of Railways ENews article in 2011 states "Allianz pro Schiene, the German rail association that aims to increase the market share of the railways both for passenger transport and freight transport, has chosen Leipzig Central Station as the best large-city station and Halberstadt Station as the most customer-friendly small-town station. Leipzig Central station convinced travellers and the jury with its masterful architecture that integrates a modern two-story shopping mall in the historic building."
Air Berlin states "The FlughafenExpress – an airport express train operated by Deutsche Bahn – runs every 30 minutes (5.22 am – 11.22 pm from the airport, at least once an hour during the night) between Leipzig central station and the airport."
Eurail lists the Reisezentrum Leipzig Central Station as one of its offices.
The International Transport Forum's 2013 Summit takes place in Leipzig. Their site says "Take tram no. 16 from Leipzig Central station to "Messegelände" (the terminus) - the journey takes 19 minutes."
International organisations holding major events in Leipzig:
World Skills International, holding its 2013 event in Leipzig, states "A countdown clock situated in Leipzig Central Station is keeping track of the days until WorldSkills Leipzig 2013 which begins on 2 July."
The Goethe Institute, an authority on German culture and language, states "By train to Leipzig Central Station (Hauptbahnhof). From the Central Station take tram line 1..."
Booking.com, a typical hotel-booking service: "Search hotels near "Central Station Leipzig."
... and many more. Both in the quantity and authority of sources the name Leipzig Central Station has clearly established itself as the leading English title of this station. Bermicourt (talk) 20:10, 1 June 2013 (UTC)Reply
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.
Latest comment: 11 years ago14 comments10 people in discussion
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.
Leipzig Central Station → Leipzig Hauptbahnhof – Following the discussion at Talk:Kaiserslautern Hauptbahnhof, Talk:Berlin Hauptbahnhof, Talk:Zürich Hauptbahnhof there was consensus for using the normal names for stations, even if they contain words of non-English origin. Leipzig Hauptbahnhof would provide consistency with almost every other article on a station which is named Hauptbahnhof, and the naming of railway station articles in general. Wikipedia guidelines WP:useenglish and WP:commonname say we should use the name by which something is usually known in English. Leipzig Hauptbahnhof is a proper noun, and the station is generally called Hauptbahnhof in modern English WP:reliablesources such as the mass media (New York Times), industry media (Railway Gazette International) enthusiast media (Today's Railways), the rail industry (DB's station website, DB's state of the art multi-lingual customer-facing journey planner which doesn't even recognise "Leipzig Central" as a location), books (After The Wall: Confessions from an East German Childhood and the Life that Came Next, Brandscaping: Worlds of Experience in Retail Design, Roaming Ghostland etc), professionally produced and edited English-language travel books (Lonely Planet, Rough Guides and Frommers). While the confusing and ambiguous mistranslation "Leipzig Central Station" does occur in some German sources, it should be noted that simple Google hit counts are complicated by references to "Leipzig's central station" etc, pages derived from Wikipedia itself and unreliable sources (eg forum postings, hotel booking sites) with evidence of citogenesis. Leipzig has the added complication that the use of the non-standard "Central Station" is particularly confusing; Markt station is about to open, becoming unambiguously Leipzig's "central station" in the normal English use and understanding of the term. Wheeltapper (talk) 19:47, 7 October 2013 (UTC)Reply
Oppose - per WP:USEENGLISH, WP:COMMONNAME, the official English name used by DB and the city of Leipzig, and all arguments above. And let's blow the myth that "Central Station" is a mistranslation of Hbf out of the water: just look up major dictionaries like Langenscheidt's Muret-Sanders, Ernst's Technical German-English Dictionary and even the online dict.cc and ask Deutsche Bahn themselves. --Bermicourt (talk) 09:11, 8 October 2013 (UTC)Reply
DB's station page is a bad example as it is inconsistent and poorly structured. On the same page and it's drop down boxes it refers to: Leipzig Hbf, Station Leipzig Hbf (German word order/ mix of English and German words) and Leipzig Main Station! No mention of the proposed title.
The route planner is in German, not English. They're not going to maintain a multi-lingual route planner - too expensive and risky. I thought I explained that before.
If you punch "Leipzig Hauptbahnhof" into the DB search engine you won't find a single English page comes up.
The official signage is, of course, German. But official DB announcements use "Central Station" in Germany
Sources do not have to be contemporary - but for contemporary sources, may I point you to the ones listed above including the City of Leipzig official English website itself and also DB's Winter 2011 Business Traveller brochure uses "Leipzig central station". Yes, we can argue about capitalization, but there is no mention of "Hauptbahnhof" anywhere.
I'm afraid you're proposal is highly misleading and your comments above undermine all credibility. We need to analyse the sources in a balanced way. I am actually not a great fan of the term Central Station, but that's a WP:POV. English sources tend to use a mix of Central Station, Main Station and Hauptbahnhof in varying percentages depending on the station. However Central Station is by far the most common English name and often outstrips the use of Hauptbahnhof in English sources. That's why, on balance, I put personal prejudice aside and argue for Central Station. I have yet to see anyone put forward a counter-proposal with any decent statistical evidence to back it up, although IIO came close in one debate. Bermicourt (talk) 15:13, 11 October 2013 (UTC)Reply
My credibility is irrelevant, what matters is the WP:COMMONNAME in WP:RELIABLESOURCEs. It doesn't matter whether you personally think that DB's approach is "poorly structured", what matters is what the sources say. See WP:JUSTDONTLIKEIT.
Hbf is simply an abbreviation for Hauptbahnhof.
Contrary to your assertion, the route planner is offered in English, French, Czech, Danish, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Polish, Swedish and (of course) German. Just use the drop-down list with flags at the top of the page. Clearly DB does not consider this too expensive and risky! And it happily offers Leipzig Hauptbahnhof. It is some time since I've been to Leipzig itself, but when I was in Germany last month all written/screen sources used Hbf, while English announcements used Hbf and Main seemingly at random.
The claim that "there is no mention of "Hauptbahnhof" anywhere" is demonstrably false - see the sources I have given (and if we want to use very historical sources, why not use the more English Leipsic?). I see the latest issue of Today's Railways Europe, a well-respected in its field English-language publication, uses Leipzig Hbf (Talent 2 EMUs enter service early, Keith Fender, p11, Today's Railways Europe, issue 214, October 2013).
Statistical analysis is probably doomed: a book might mention the station only once, while a Wikipedia-derived hotel site might have a dozen different country pages, and unpicking them all would be a mammoth job.
As for your claim that you are "actually not a great fan of the term Central Station", I notice that you have re-written the introductions to a number of articles about Polish stations which have names which mean "main", without discussion or consideration of Wikipedia:Naming conventions (stations in Poland). I see you haven't got round to trying to rebrand "Warszawa Główna railway station" ("Warsaw Main station") as Warsaw Central Station yet.
Comment Yes and the decision was "keep", but it's been re-opened because the nom favours "Hauptbahnhof", despite no-one really doing an objective analysis of English usage, which is what I called for before the latest mass move. --Bermicourt (talk) 15:21, 11 October 2013 (UTC)Reply
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.
Latest comment: 8 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
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