Talk:Qal'at Najm

Najm Castle

Do you think this should be moved to Najm Castle (along with many other non-standard named castles in Syria)? Yazan (talk) 18:35, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

I am not sure what the standard policy is on non-English names for castles. Although I am the one who moved it from Najm Castle to Qal'at Najm (I did that as a beginner editor; I was blissfully unaware of any wp naming policies ;)), I would not oppose a reversal; especially not if that helps consistency. -- Zoeperkoe (talk) 18:48, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Well, your move has merit actually, Google books return 155 results for "Qal'at Najm", and only one for "Najm Castle", the relevant policy is Wikipedia:Article titles#Deciding on an article title here, but in our case there is some kind of conflict between recognizability, and consistency. I'm not really sure how to proceed with this one. Yazan (talk) 02:37, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

It's a tricky one. My guess is that castle that are in the Lonely Planet are better known by their English names, whereas the rest is not. Scientific papers usually tend to use the Arabic names, and I don't think that much else than scientific papers has been written on castles like Najm or Ja'bar (except, of course, medieval Arabic sources, which I can't read, unfortunately). It would be nice to know, since two more Syrian castles are on my to-write list (if I can find sources for them at all) and they would definitely have the same naming problem. I'm fine either way, but I agree that it is not really consistent. I'll think about it a day or two, maybe a solution presents itself. -- Zoeperkoe (talk) 14:57, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

After thinking about this, I think it makes more sense to leave it like this. Since more scholarly sources refer to it as "Qal'at". On another note, do let me know if you need me to translate any passages from Arabic sources. Yazan (talk) 14:16, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

OK, let's leave it as it is then. Saves us some work too. Thanks for the offer on the Arabic, although I don't expect to need it anytime soon. Tracking down Arabic sources would be just too much work for me at the moment, to be honoust. -- Zoeperkoe (talk) 04:07, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion

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• View of Qal'at Najm from the south.jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 14:43, 22 November 2018 (UTC)