Talk:Unofficial collaborator

Renaming the entry: Removal of (East Germany)

@Charles01: you created this article with (East Germany), I understand to distinguish "inoffizieller Mitarbeiter" or "informeller Mitarbeiter" from more common uses: https://www.google.com/search?tbo=p&tbm=bks&q=%22Informal+collaborator%22&num=10 which seems reasonable. An editor removed that, I restored it, it has been removed again. You should perhaps express your own view. Cheers. In ictu oculi (talk) 09:16, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the alert. I'm afraid I'm a bit preoccupied with a family bereavement right now, but renaming under these circumstances is certainly something to be disscussed on the talk page. That's a matter of simple courtesy.

And hmmmmmmm

As you doubtless realise, this started as a translation from German wiki, though as so often once you land on a couple of juicy sources - for better and maybe sometimes worse - a translation becomes more than simply a translation. I simply cannot remember what was in my mind when I selected the title. I'm tempted to think "Inoffizieller Mitarbeiter" does the job better than any English term, and of course that makes clear that it's a German subject simply by being in German. But there are plenty of monolinguals out there who think that English language entries should have English language titles (well, not for Latin names, of course, because there was a time when here in western Europe we mostly wrote and read in Latin or else not at all). Those guys have a point, I guess. So stick with an English language name, yes, ok.

After that, yes, I think "Informal Collaborator (East Germany)" gets the message across most accurately and minimises the risk of misunderstanding - even short term misunderstanding. After all, we write this thing not for our own egos and /or our nerdy selves, but for the reasonably intelligent general reader. He or she is the one we should have in mind when deciding what title most quickly and accurately tells the reader what it's about.

So yes, if you will organise a vote - or if a vote will arise - my vote is for "Informal Collaborator (East Germany)". And my justification is to think of the reader trying to figure out quickly and correctly what the entry is about.

And I've not really seen a coherent counter argument, though I realise thaat could simply be because I've not looked in the right place.

I probably could have been more succinct with that tour round my mental processes.

Regards Charles01 (talk) 15:57, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

@Charles01: very sorry about the bereavement. More important things to worry about than titles, now or later. Will try and get your title restored later. Take care In ictu oculi (talk) 17:29, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

Parentheses are used in Wikipedia article names for disambiguation, not clarification. Otherwise, perhaps we should rename the article Walter Ulbricht to "Walter Ulbricht (East German guy)". Korny O'Near (talk) 19:34, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

Equivalents in other countries

I tried to reword it so as to add links to other countries in the wikidata record of this article. More specifically, I thought of linking to this: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q25416381

The Tajny Współpracownik program is its Polish equivalent. For the time being I have quickly added this item to the See Also section, but it needs to be better wikified and elaborated. Zezen (talk) 07:30, 25 June 2018 (UTC)