Talk:École des ponts ParisTech

Untitled
The first (and the oldest) institution of technology was founded in Selmecbánya (that time Hungary) in 1735.

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 no consensus. &mdash;harej (talk) 17:14, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

École nationale des ponts et chaussées → École nationale des Ponts et Chaussées &mdash; — Per copyright notice seen at http://www.enpc.fr/fr/enpc/historique/histoire_ecole.htm; it is the Common name (Ponts and Chaussées are often capitalized). — Jappalang (talk) 01:23, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Basically I Agree. I'm not that familiar with French grammar, but in English proper nouns are generally capitalized throughout, with the exception that conjunctions usually are not (See: WP:CAPS). Using the English "rules" then (and in accordance with WP:TITLE/WP:CAPS), the title should probably be "École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées". I know that Spanish, French, German, etc... generally have much stricter protocols then English does though, so I'll leave it to those of you who are more knowledgeable with French to decide (with the stipulation that this is the English Wikipedia... should the article name actually be "National school of Bridges and Roads" IAW WP:TITLE?). — V = I * R  (talk) 11:22, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
 * French capitalization rules for names are pretty messy—there are conflicting conventions. I'd estimate that the most correct and widespread one is to capitalize the first letter, and then capitalize only proper nouns within the name. That's not universal, though. However, the copyright notice does say: "Les marques École des Ponts ParisTech, Ecole nationale des ponts et chaussées, ENPC ainsi que les logos figurant sur le site sont des marques déposées et enregistrées en France et sont la propriété exclusive de l’École des Ponts ParisTech." That would seem to imply that "École des Ponts ParisTech" is the current name, and that "Ecole nationale des ponts et chaussées" is an equivalent—note the capitalization. (Also, although it is acceptable, and doesn't change the meaning to not accent a capital letter, the É character should probably be used.) TheFeds 23:03, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Based on that, the fact that there are (currently) no verifiable sources in the article (their all French), and the fact that a quick survey of the references that are included shows a lack of consensus, I think that the rule of thumb here should be to use Wikipedia house style. The result then is that the page should be titled National school of bridges and roads based on the name construction portion of WP:TITLE and Naming conventions (use English). — V = I * R  (talk) 23:23, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure if the English translation would be adequately recognizable—I suspect that even in English, variations on the French name are used (if other French companies and schools are any indication). I think I'd prefer one of the French options, formatted according to some acceptable convention (maybe choose from among WP:TITLE, WP:FRMOS, WP:CAPS, fr:Wikipédia:Conventions typographiques, etc., which all differ on the details). The school's own usage probably ought to count for something as well, in the absence of a de facto standard. TheFeds 02:48, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Ah, there is a French MOS... I was looking for it earlier, and couldn't locate it for some reason. Based on my reading of that guideline I'm right back to my position above, though. According to WP:MOS-FR, the first guideline is to defer to WP:ENGLISH. The later sections basically restate the lack of consensus which you have outlined here, which is understandable... incidentally, I'm purposely ignoring the French Wikipedia convention, since what is done on other language versions of Wikipedia can and quite often does differ significantly from what we do here. I understand the desire to "run home to mommy" and attempt to copy native speaking style when it comes to issues with language translation, but that road inevitably leads to increased conflict and chaos (see any of several concurrent discussions regarding either Japanese or Russian romanization issues, for example). Regardless, there will be (and should be) a redirect from some version of "École nationale des Ponts et Chaussées", so I'm not sure if recognizably is really an issue. — V = I * R  (talk) 16:32, 10 August 2009 (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.