Talk:Advocatus

merge proposal: vogt
vogt seems to be a complete overlap?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:12, 1 August 2019 (UTC) I have starting making a merge draft here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Andrew_Lancaster/Advocatus --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:18, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I don't think the merge was a good idea. In Polish language, at least, wójt and adwokat are totally different concepts. I suggest undoing the merge, also as I don't see any rationale above outside the claim of "complete overlap", which is clearly wrong (in Polish language). Ping User:Volunteer Marek and User:Nihil novi. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 01:22, 25 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Aleksander Brückner, Słownik etymologiczny języka polskiego (Etymological Dictionary of the Polish Language), reprint of 1st ed., Kraków, 1927, pp. 629–30, derives the Polish word "wójt" from (under "wokować") the Latin "advocatus" via the German "Vog(e)t". The word "wójt", writes Brückner, in Poland "fell from a high municipal office to [a] village [office]."
 * Regardless of medieval etymologies, the Polish term "wójt" should have its own article, under that title.
 * Nihil novi (talk) 05:34, 25 August 2020 (UTC)
 * I think the terms and concepts connected to the original one are indeed diverse and will eventually justify articles at least in some cases. Also this article is certainly not perfect yet. Note however that treating concepts as completely separate could also be misleading if they evolved from related concepts. We should note connections, and also we should avoid our articles being specific to any one period in history, just as much as they should not be about anyone region. Therefore I think making sure this article covers the origins is an important step.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:05, 25 August 2020 (UTC)
 * There are many modern concepts which have developed from some ancient ones. At the moment the term "democracy" comes to my mind, but you can readily find more. Therefore there should be a reasonable balance between common and specific. At this moment, it is good that everything is merged into a single page, without duplication (I hope no info was lost during the merge). Now that we have the full picture, we can see how the page may be split. In particular, I agree with Nihil novi that "Wójt" can have a separate atricle, because the concept has its own history. Also, the current article looks confusing. In particular, Was advocatus used synonymously with vogt? When the meanings started changing/diverge" (because "wójt" and "advocatus" certainly have nothing in common now, just like "hetman"  and "Hauptmann"). Staszek Lem (talk) 16:54, 25 August 2020 (UTC)
 * P.S. While writing this rant I have almost forgotten what I really wanted to say. Please take a look at pl:Wójt. You do not have to know Polish to immediately see that our redirect to "Advocatus" is simply ridiculous. Staszek Lem (talk) 17:10, 25 August 2020 (UTC)
 * I am not seeing anything ridiculous, except of course that this present article indeed needs tidying up. Yes the word vogt would be written in Latin as advocatus. Right from the beginning the term could be used different ways, in all the languages it was used in. Most generally it is someone who speaks on behalf or represents, and that is why it came to be used for delegated "management" positions - people who worked for the church or a lord, or later for new types of institutions - but naturally these also then became heritable property in some cases. I also have no big problem with the idea of separate articles but I fear we'll end up with several articles all saying overlapping things? At least the current Wojt article is not strikingly different from what happened in many places influenced by the Holy Roman empire. We don't want to give the impression this was a local invention if it wasn't? We don't have articles for democracy in every country I suppose. The term also existed in France and England of course BTW, but there it evolved more towards legal representation in courts. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 22:15, 25 August 2020 (UTC)
 * "Ridiculous" was referring to Wojt being a redirect. The current Wojt article is what I managed to scramble of out of my amateurish knowledge, to be expanded with the current meaning, which I don't want am lazy to do. Yes the word vogt would be written in Latin as advocatus -- sure thing, and I am telling you, the word Wojt and advocatus were actually used synonimously at some time, so what?. At that time the meaning was the same, but this changed over time. We don't want to give the impression this was a local invention -- sure thing, and that's what "History" and "Etymology" sections are for. Some overlap is perfectly tolerable per Summary style. Of course, time and again a student with a Wikipedia assignment jumps in and starts rewriting an article into an essay starting from Romulus and Remus, but that's what we'all are here for: to keep subjects focused. We don't have articles for democracy in every country -- don't be so sure :-) On a final remark, please avoid generic kinda reductio ad absurdum arguments. We all have common sense, right? If you have a specific objection to a specific editing action, you are welcome, otherwise let's trust each other that we want to do the best. Staszek Lem (talk) 02:00, 26 August 2020 (UTC)
 * PS (offtopic blurb) I looked into my edit history and lo! funny how brain works: I started writing an article Wojt and ended with creating "Šatrija" -- via a chain of connected edits Reminds me the "Wikipedia Game", but not so useless and stupid. Staszek Lem (talk) 02:14, 26 August 2020 (UTC)
 * I wrote my response a bit badly as the last thing before going to bed. My point about mentioning extreme cases was to say "I have no objection unless it would be like X". On the other hand, the starting wojt article is pretty much describing a vogt from any part of the Holy Roman Empire, so perhaps it is only describing the early phase and not yet going into what makes Polish wojts different? To me the biggest problem seems simply to be that the articles need some love and attention, and like you I'm not planning to do this soon. Once someone works on these articles more, it might look quite different. With that being the situation I can't really see why you used the word ridiculous. I am also not sure what you mean by distinguishing what should be in a history section. I was thinking that these articles are all about historical topics, so are you making an artificial distinction here between one part of history being history and another part not? Or is wojt a term still used in Polish governmental terminology? In German, French, English and Dutch the equivalent terms now have different every day meanings, that don't necessarily need separate Wikipedia articles. (In Dutch for example, voogd is now the everyday word for a legal guardian, except in discussions about history.)--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:43, 26 August 2020 (UTC)
 * yes, wojt is currently an official term. It has a naturally migrated meaning. OK, I will write up a bit more, since it was unclear from my stub. Staszek Lem (talk) 16:22, 26 August 2020 (UTC)
 * I concur the merge should not have done - as I see it was performed in April, don't know how I missed this, maybe the page was not on my watchlist? -, since i.e. Advocatus also synonimous with Schultheiß in Upper Hungary, which was called in German Richter, Hungarian bíró.(KIENGIR (talk) 01:03, 27 August 2020 (UTC))

I think, still, that everything is fine except that all these articles are in an early draft phase. Please check my thinking. I think the nationally distinct meanings, where they exist, are from more recent times. (In many countries in and around the HRE, new terms developed because the number of different types of delegated governors increased. It seems like Poland kept a derived term and focused on the sense which in late medieval Dutch was specified as landvoogd) In some cases these will probably justify a separate article, and it seems from what you say that Poland is such a case. No problem. However, the earlier medieval meanings tend to overlap a lot, and need an article as well. I do disagree that the merge was a problem, but only because, at the time, the ONLY material WP has for now is about the one medieval concept, there clearly needed to be a merge of that material. Some amount of overlap would then be expected of course, [with the new article you are proposing/starting]. In other words, for now there is no article about modern meanings of Wojd? (You have created a stub, which for now disagrees with itself about towns, and does not mention anything about the later specifically Polish developments. No problem, but perhaps make notes there to explain to editors what the eventual aim is.) OTOH, perhaps you could both look at Voivodeship and Voivode. Are these really separate slavic terms? I would have thought they derived from Polish practice and terminology?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:07, 27 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Just to be clear by the way, the merge which I was involved with recently was a merge with Vogt. Staszek Lem redirected Wójt to there in 2004. The discussion above might imply something else. The merge I made concerned two articles which are linked to by many articles about people from areas which are now in Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands, and they were clearly both developed as articles about the same topic. There was no article called Wójt from 2004, until 2 days ago.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:24, 27 August 2020 (UTC)
 * OK; you have twisted my arms despite my reluctance :-) : behold the power of Wójt! Staszek Lem (talk) 18:02, 27 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Well, telling people you actually agree with them tends to be very persuasive. :) Did you look at Voivodeship and Voivode? --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:48, 27 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Just now. I do not see much overlap to warrant merge. Of course the artices suck, but not deadly bad. I have no interest in these things. I wrote up Wojt per WP:ARS ideology. Staszek Lem (talk) 19:31, 27 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Good work I think. I just did a quick look around and the similarity of the word Voivode seems to be a coincidence. Interesting. I also find it interesting that in a sense Polish has kept one of the old imperial meanings of 'advocate', whereas I think most languages around the empire developed new terms, although see the Swiss and Dutch cases.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:22, 28 August 2020 (UTC)