Talk:Andrej Gaćina

Page Moving
Diacritics is a hot topic on Wikipedia, so please - don't move this article from its created title, without benefit of an RM. GoodDay (talk) 16:49, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

WP Policies related to article names containing diacritics
I was going to transclude all this, but I see that an [Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikiproject English|MfD discussion] has been started to try to delete this and related pages (apparently not being sufficiently pro-diacritic is a problem on Wikipedia), I therefore have to waste time and space and likely slow the loading of this page for every editor; sorry. Oh well, the following are the relevant sections of English Wikipedia's policies regarding the naming of articles and a brief partial list of past discussions regarding diacritics demonstrating the millions of productive hours forever lost on this topic. —  Who R you?  Talk 03:07, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Policies

 * WP:EN: 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&hellip;
 * If an examination of the sources in an article shows that one name or version of the name stands out as clearly the most commonly used in the English-language, we should follow the sources and use it. &hellip;
 * Names not originally in a Latin alphabet, as with Greek, Chinese or Russian, must be transliterated into characters generally intelligible to literate speakers of English. &hellip;
 * The native spelling of a name should generally be included in parentheses, in the first line of the article, with a transliteration if the Anglicization isn't identical. &hellip;


 * WP:UCN: Wikipedia does not necessarily use the subject's "official" name as an article title; it prefers to use the name that is most frequently used to refer to the subject in English-language reliable sources. &hellip;
 * &hellip;The term most typically used in reliable sources is preferred to technically correct but rarer forms, whether the official name, the scientific name, the birth name, the original name or the trademarked name. &hellip;


 * WP:DIACRITICS: The use of modified letters (such as accents or other diacritics) in article titles is neither encouraged nor discouraged; when deciding between versions of a word which differ in the use or non-use of modified letters, follow the general usage in reliable sources that are written in the English language (including other encyclopedias and reference works). The policy on using common names and on foreign names does not prohibit the use of modified letters, if they are used in the common name as verified by reliable sources.
 * WP:COMMONSENSE: Why isn't "use common sense" an official policy? It doesn't need to be; as a fundamental principle, it is above any policy.
 * WP:BURO: &hellip; Written rules do not themselves set accepted practice. Rather, they document already existing community consensus regarding what should be accepted and what should be rejected. When instruction creep is found to have occurred, it should be removed.
 * WP:CONSENSUS: &hellip; Editors usually reach consensus as a natural and inherent product of editing; generally someone makes a change or addition to a page, then everyone who reads it has an opportunity to leave the page as it is or change it. When editors cannot reach agreement by editing, the process of finding a consensus is continued by discussion on the relevant talk pages.


 * &hellip; unless they can convince the broader community that such action is right, participants in a WikiProject cannot decide that some generally accepted policy or guideline does not apply to articles within its scope.
 * Wikipedia has a higher standard of participation and consensus for changes to Policies and guidelines than to other types of articles. This is because they reflect established consensus, and their stability and consistency are important to the community. As a result, the best practice is to propose substantive changes on the talk page first and then allow sufficient time for thorough discussion before implementing the change. &hellip;
 * Raising the same issue repeatedly on different pages, to different admins, or with different wording is confusing and disruptive. It doesn't help to seek out a forum where you get the answer you want, or to play with the wording to try and trick different editors into agreeing with you, since sooner or later someone will notice all of the different threads. &hellip;


 * WP:UE: The choice between anglicized and local spellings should follow English-language usage&hellip;
 * there are too few English-language sources to constitute and established usage&hellip;
 * Editing for the sole purpose of changing one controversial title to another is strongly discouraged. If an article title has been stable for a long time, and there is no good reason to change it, it should not be changed. If it has never been stable, or unstable for a long time, and no consensus can be reached on what the title should be, default to the title used by the first major contributor after the article ceased to be a stub.

Past Discussions

 * There are currently 2,285 pages in Article Talk, 833 in Wikipedia, and 615 in WP:Talk namespaces (excluding redirects) containing the word "diacritic". A brief sample of some of these ad nauseam discussions on diacritics, selected from the first 50 found in WP:Talk, include:


 * There is not now, nor does there ever appear to have been, consensus on changing the existing policies on the use of diacritics; there is, however, a policy on the use of diacritics; it basically boils down to this:

WP Policy regarding diacritics is to follow the majority of the (English) RS!


 * No, there is no consensus on what the policy on diacritics is. Policy also follows usage, and there is no consensus in the actual usage either. --OpenFuture (talk) 06:31, 15 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Exactly. The problem here is that Wikipedia is unique in that it refuses to adopt an in-house style such as the ones used by newspapers, news agencies or paper encyclopedias, leading us to pointless debates about (inconsistent) usage in RS which boil down to a huge waste of time, documented above. If this was Britannica we'd use diacritics every single time (Pavelić, Milošević, Mesić), and it would be pretty difficult, if not plan ludicrous, to argue that Britannica is confusing for English-speaking readers because of this.  Timbouctou ( talk ) 09:31, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
 * The Grauniad and the Torygraph also both insist on the use of diacritics in names of people. The Guardian also uses them for names of places, but the Telegraph apparently doesn't. This makes the appeal to RS somewhat dubious, because what you are actually reviewing (particularly in the case of sportspersons) is the newspaper in-house styles. We could short cut that and just agree on one guide. Elen of the Roads (talk) 13:16, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Very good points. A problem in discussions about diacritics is that WP:RS is presented as the be-all and end-all principle, but this is simply not true: it is quite possible to say diacritics are (not) used as a matter of in-house style, simply because that's apparently what other (reference) works do. That's what WP:MOS does, after all. Imagine what kind of hell would we have here if WP:MOS had this to say on every style issue: "do what the majority of English sources do". GregorB (talk) 14:06, 15 November 2011 (UTC)