Talk:Bač, Serbia/Archive 1

Disambiguation
A disambiguation page should be created to avoid confusion with the article on Blood Alcohol Content (BAC)

Name
According to Hungarian sources the first mention was in 1111 as "Castrum Bache". Give any evidence that it was called Bač under Iustinianus - not a Roman castrum but THIS name in the 6th century. Zello 20:37, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, I have no doubt that Hungarian sources claim that World was created in 1000 AD, but you should read this: http://www.bac.co.yu/english/Pocetna.htm Eh, I should read it too, because I read only Serbian version of the site, so I will expand article with new things written there. PANONIAN  (talk)  20:48, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

And also about your addition: "In the early Árpád era Bács was a common Hungarian personal name, derived from the Old Turkic baya dignity. Hungarian historians assume that the town was named after the first comes of county, Bács ispán". I do not object that Bács could be a name used by Hungarians in that time, but claim that it derived from word baya is ridiculous. It is linguistically impossible that letter "y" is changed into "cs" like that. The most logical explanation (provided by Milica Grković and she is a linguist) is that name "was spread into other languages by the Vlach shepherds". That explain how this name is found in both, Hungarian and Slavic. And I already told you that theory about Hungarian origin of the name is impossible because name is found in the areas where Hungarians never lived, while areas that you claimed to be "Hungarian linguistic territory" were in fact inhabited by Vlachs and Slavs before Hungarians came. Also, claim that "Hungarian historians assume that the town was named after the first comes of county, Bács ispán" is neither convincing neither proven. If somebody assume that Aliens from another planet came and gave name to the city, should we include it here? Besides this, my source say that name of the first prefect of the county was Vid, not Bács. So, only thing that is certain is that town is most likely named after person with name Bač/Bács but who was he, when exactly he lived and what was his ethnicity is disputed. PANONIAN  (talk)  21:10, 31 August 2006 (UTC)


 * And finally the validity of source that use name "Delvidek" is highly disputed too. PANONIAN   (talk)  21:22, 31 August 2006 (UTC)


 * And I forgot this: the places in Macedonia, Montenegro and Slovenia mentioned here have exactly same name - Bač. If we would mention all other places beginning with "Bač-" or "Bacs-", we would have a very long list. PANONIAN   (talk)  21:52, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Almost every second Hungarian sources will use the name Délvidék because that is one of the accepted names of Vojvodina. I know that Serbs don't like it but the Hungarian language won't change from that. Also I'm not linguist but I accept what linguists said about the changes of sounds. I'm not able check them (similarly to the 99 % of people). The link you gave doesn't says anything about the name. Zello 21:57, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

What we need is not that the region was populatid by Slavs in the 6th century (that's obviously true), but evidence about such early usage of the name, before the 11th century. Zello 22:08, 31 August 2006 (UTC)


 * The link: http://www.bac.co.yu/english/Pocetna.htm Go there, and on the left you have link to history section where you have data when name was mentioned. Second thing, linguistically, the vowels in the names usually change, not consonants, no matter that "baya" and "Bač" "sound similar" to you. Finally removing the sentence that "name was recorded among Vlachs, Slavs and Hungarians" with that "was a common Hungarian personal name" is an outrage POV with the purpose of fact twisting. And now please tell me, if the name is of Hungarian origin, how it can be recorded in Montenegro and Macedonia? And Delvidek was never name for Vojvodina. It was name used to designate part of the KOH in the south from where you was in that time and have nothing to do with Vojvodina. Sites that use that word instead of Vajdasag are irredentist. Also, no matter if name was first used in the 6th or 11th century, the Hungarian origin is impossible because name is founded in the areas where Hungarians never lived. PANONIAN   (talk)  22:20, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

"The first reliable written document about Bac dates back to 1094. When Zagreb bishopric was founded ,the name of Archbishop of Bac,Fabian was also written down." - it is copied from you source. The other sentences are absolutely ambigous about the name, they speak about a town or castrum. Where is the name that Iustinian used in his letter? What form?

(I won't argue about Délvidék, it is used in Hungary until now and it will be used as a synomym for Vajdaság. There are travel guides, books etc, the language doesn't follow the changes of the borders)

What you really don't seem to understand that that nobody disputes that there is a Slavic word "bač". But these three sound in that same order can appear INDEPENDENTLY in other languages also, and in Hungarian it appeared as a personal name in the 11th century. Hungarian linguists claim that this wasn't borrowed from Slavic but Old Turkic. I don't think there is any nationalistic reason behind their claim as they don't deny the other hundreds of Slavic words that exist in Hungarian. Zello 22:45, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Here is something you cannot call revisionist propaganda, a simple guide about personal names and their origins for parents to choose in a Baby Magazin :)

http://www.babaszoba.hu/services/names?letter=B;nid=1-133

It says: "Bács - personal name of Hungarian-Turkic origin, originally a dignitary" It is living name even today although seldon used. Probably irredentist warriors occupied the editorial office of the Baby Magazin... Zello 22:57, 31 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, you first decide - is name of Hungarian or of Turkic origin? (it cannot be of both). Also, in the time when KOH was created in the 1000 AD, the majority of its population were Slavs, so if name existed there and among other Slavs as well, guess again did name emanated independently in two languages or not. The book written by Milica Grković is about names in medieval Serbia (and it mention name Bač), thus if name existed in that time in two neighbouring countries that were mainly inhabited by Slavs, the theory about "independent" origin do not seems likely at all. Besides, name "bač" means nothing in both, Hungarian and Turkic. Comparing it with similar names like "baya" will lead us nowhere because I could say then that name came from Serbian words "bara", "bačva", "buka", "buna", etc, etc... That is not linguistics, but pseudo-linguistics. Regarding this baby-name guide, it obviously took that claim from another source that is itself wrong. PANONIAN   (talk)  23:11, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

The source is the same I think, simply the Hungarian Etymological Dictionary. You can see that the Pallas Lexicon also writes the same. We can't decide about what group of linguists are right, because we are no linguists. There are complicated rules of sound changes etc. The Hungarian language borrowed a lot of words from Turkic in the 6-9th centuries and they changed radically, this is the reason because the word is called of Turkic-Hungarian origin. But NPOV doesn't mean we have to decice in this question, if there are reliable sources than the question is presented as disputed. There are two linguistic theories, that's all. Zello 23:36, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

You first explain why you replaced sentence "the name was recorded among Vlachs, Slavs and Hungarians" with "Bács was a common Hungarian personal name" and then we will discuss other things. PANONIAN  (talk)  23:39, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

I haven't replaced, it is there even now next to each other!

I found an example for a similarly "impossible" sound change, sayi (Turkic, means number) -> szám. y->m Zello 23:47, 31 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Ok, you should know that I reported you for 3rr violation. Since I do not want to follow your steps I will remove entire name section after 24 hours. I would rather see entire section removed than to tolerate nationalistic propaganda. PANONIAN   (talk)  23:58, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

I doubt that it was 3RR because at last time an anonym user appeared from the nowhere with 0 edit and deleted the disputed section. I can assume only two things: 1, that's an unknown new vandal, 2, you are using sockpuppets to evade 3RR. I assumed good faith I decided that a vandal appeared (not communicating on the talk page of course). Also removing the whole section is absurd because both theories are well sourced. Zello 00:05, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

That's absurd - a compromise is not the same as deleting the disputes. Both theories are well sourced so there is no reason to delete them. By the way you really not able to bear the possibility that a name in Vojvodine CAN be of Hungarian origin? There dozens of Slavic place all over Hungary and nobody makes such show about them... Zello 00:21, 1 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, the anonymous user is my friend from irc chat (he edit Wikipedia from time to time), But the question is who is another one. Should we compare his IP adress with yours? :) PANONIAN   (talk)  00:22, 1 September 2006 (UTC)


 * You should :)) 195.56.12.45 00:25, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, of course, why not. I don't have any socks. That anonymous friend is not Bonny by the way? Zello 00:23, 1 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Well ask him, he read this page too, but anyway to answer last one: some other names in Vojvodina are of Hungarian origin, but not this one. The claim that "bač" came from "baya" is so ridiculous that it is same as we write that humans derived from the pigs. I proposed that we should remove section instead to write science fiction theories. PANONIAN   (talk)  00:29, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

WHY is ridiculous? Because the sound change seems impossible to you? That's not enough. The only evidence can be the Iustinianus letter. If he used the name in some Latinized (but recognisable) form then I would accept the certainty of Slavic origin. Until that there are only two linguistic theories. Zello 00:33, 1 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I suggest that we remove both, Slavic and Hungarian theories and left only Vlach (the name "bač" as such have meaning only in Romanian). And it is also not enough that you (or your source) claim that "bač" came from "baya". That also should be proved by some facts. PANONIAN   (talk)  00:44, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

That's not a game that if you are not able to win then delete your part and my part. Obviously the two theories are widely accepted among the linguists of the two countries. They disagree that's it. Take a look at the Origin of the Romanians article - do you think that the NPOV version would be to delete both theories??? Zello 00:50, 1 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I am sorry, but what you call a "theory" is a nationalistic propaganda developed by Hungarian irredentists who have goal to prove that everything in neighbouring countries was Hungarian. Therefor, they invent such ridiculous name theories. One single reson to remove it: it is not a "theory" but irredentist propaganda. PANONIAN   (talk)  00:57, 1 September 2006 (UTC) etc. They obviously used

Another personal name guides strictly for commercial use not "propaganda": http://www.babaruhazat.hu/fiunevek.php, http://www.cardxpress.hu/nevnapferfi.htm, http://www.bebinfo.hu/cikkek.php?uid=340&cikkmegnez=1 etc. They obviously used the Hungarian Etymological Dictionary as source. That's the ONLY theory you will find about the name in Hungarian sources. Zello 01:07, 1 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Ok, I offer compromise. We will achieve nothing with this, so I suggest that we make new article named Bach (name) (with English "ch" instead of Serbian "č" or Hungarian "cs") where even such ridiculous theories about origin from "baya" could be mentioned, while this article will mention only that name of the town came personal name and nothing more. As anybody can see, this is article about town, not about name, so there is no reason for destroying this article because of one separate subject. PANONIAN   (talk)  01:12, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

That English version never existed so it's absolutely misleading as an article title. The town gave its name to the county and indirectly to the whole Bačka region. The name theories should be placed in these three articles as relevant information. That section didn't "destroy" the article, it is an NPOV version because doesn't claim that one or another theory is true. Such disputes are only solved like this or doing more research. There is a clear way for this to you - look up the Iustinian letter in some publication and present the form he used. That will be important new info. Zello 01:17, 1 September 2006 (UTC)


 * No, IT IS NOT A NPOV version. It is an false theory THAT PRESENT two totally unrelated names "bač" and "baya" as related with propagandist and irredentist purpose. That is unacceptable for decent Wikipedia article. I proposed that you remove propagandist POV to new article simply to prevent that you further vandalize this one. PANONIAN   (talk)  01:23, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

You really don't seem to understand the core of NPOV - even those theories should have a place in articles that the another group of people don't like. Do you think that followers of Daco-Romanian theory accept the other theory as a real possibility? No, they call it Hungarian-inspirated propaganda. You can see that the Turkic theory is more than 100 year old and it is accepted by a lot of commercial websites who certainly not interested in Vojvodina at all. Zello 01:33, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

The only proposal I have: delete the half sentence that the name was derived from baya. I will create a normal article about Bács (name) where the Hungarian personal name will be presented together with this Turkic theory. Zello 01:40, 1 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, now we going somewhere, but more things should be changed: if the Hungarian sources claim that name is of Turkic origin, then we should write that it is of Turkic origin, not of Hungarian, right? Second, the name was indeed used in several languages, so the sentence that "In the early Árpádic era (11-13th centuries) Bács was a common Hungarian personal name" is unacceptable because in that time it was also common Vlach and Slavic name, thus the NPOV and correct version of the sentence is that "name was recorded among Vlachs, Slavs and Hungarians" (With the previous sentence you certainly want to impose your POV that name was only Hungarian). And the words "Hungarian linguistic territory" are also unacceptable because Slavs and Vlavhs lived there as well, so you want again to imply that name was Hungarian instead Vlach or Slavic. PANONIAN   (talk)  01:48, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

No, you won't wipe out the other theory from the article. There should be two clearly distinct point-of-view next to each other. The name in that form was Hungarian, only derived from old Turkic, but wasn't Old Turkic in the 11th century. The two other sentence are two argument proving the possibility of the theory. There are absolutely similar arguments about the Slavic placenames in Yugoslavia and the Russian connection. Zello 01:55, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

There is a way to clearly separate the two theories: "In the past, Bač was a personal name either of Slavic [1], Balkanic [2] or Hungarian origin. Serbian historians presume that the name of town is either Slavic or Vlach origin, as it was probably spread into other languages by the Vlach shepherds. In Southern Slavic linguistic territory places with the name Bač could be found in the Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro, and Slovenia. The similar name Bača was recorded among old Russians, which imply the possibility of Slavic origin. [5] On the other hand Hungarian historians presume that the name of the town is of Hungarian origin because Bács was a common Hungarian personal name in the early Árpádic era (11-13th centuries). There are also several place names with the word "bács" in the Hungarian linguistic territory. They think that the town was named after the first comes of county, Bács ispán [4]." Zello 02:15, 1 September 2006 (UTC)


 * See this: both Vlachs and Slavs lived in what you claim to be "Hungarian linguistic territory", while Hungarians never lived in parts of Yugoslavia where this name existed. This is a clear example that "your" theory is wrong. So, why you insist on it? PANONIAN   (talk)  02:26, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

This is not my theory but the accepted Hungarian one. As I already said the words can be absolutely independent from each other. And there are a lot of other possibilites: probably Slavs also borrowed the name from Turkic peoples living in Balkan that time etc. That's not our task to resolve this dispute only to present the two point of view. You cannot write in such a way in wikipedia that only the Serbian theory exists. Zello 02:32, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Your friend has dozens of names... Zello 02:42, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

The Name
I admit that I didn't bother to read the comments on the talk page, but it appears that there's a dispute over the origin of the Name. I don't think anyone here is going to convince one another of who is "right" here, the point is that if a theory can be supported by a verifiable source, then it deserves to be mentioned. The sources don't have to be neutral, as long as they're attributed properly (i.e. "according to Hungarian historians..."). There was a similar dispute at the Karbala article, and I hope that we can apply the same sort of method over here, and make it work. &mdash; Khoikhoi 05:04, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

This certainly makes a candidate for WP:LAME. As Khoikhoi said, the solution is to include all theories as long as they can be cited and attributed. As a suggestion, I'd prefer the section to be in Bačka article (as the region is far more important than the town, regardless of the fact that the town name is older than the region), with a cross-link from here to there. Duja 08:25, 1 September 2006 (UTC)


 * The origin of the name of Bačka is clear: Bač + ka, meaning "the land of Bač", thus problem about origin of the name Bač itself belong here. PANONIAN   (talk)  11:42, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Important notice
Just to say that I accepted inclusion of such ridiculous theory that "bač" came from "baya" only to prevent that this article is further vandalized, but this theory is same if we include theory that "humans derived from pigs" into humans article. This "baya origin" theory exist only because of Greater Hungarian nationalism and nationalistic claims that everything in Central Europe is Hungarian. When Hungarians came to Central Europe, Slavs and Vlachs already lived here and most of the words that Hungarians borrowed from other languages are Slavic (mostly) or Vlach (almost all Hungarian words that designate life in civilized society are of Slavic origin, and that say all). Now, we have problem that Hungarian historians simply DO NOT LIKE the fact that these words and names are Slavic or Vlach, thus when they search for the origin of the name, they do not search with the purpose to find a true origin of the name, but with the purpose to "prove" that name was not Slavic or Vlach (this is because of Greater Hungarian aspirations towards territories inhabited by Slavs and Romanians). Even for such obvious Slavic names they search origin in Turkic or even Iranian languages. Here is very good example: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Csob%C3%A1nka&diff=59286831&oldid=57871485 Such clean and clear Slavic name Csobánka (čobanka - female shepherd, while čoban is male shepherd in Slavic) was explained as derivate from Iranian word suban!!! (No matter of the existence of the Slavic word "čoban", and no matter that this village is still partially inhabited by Slavs). Of course, I do not accuse for that Wikipedia editor that added this, but I accuse the historian who wrote book where this Wikipedia editor found this data. Same thing is with name Bač. The Hungarian historians had a mission to prove that this name is Hungarian (this in fact had much larger geo-political implications than simply to describe origin of one small town, because such implications transfer from here to the entire Bačka region), thus in order to prove Hungarian origin of the name Bač, they searched for meaning of this name in Hungarian. When they saw that it means nothing in Hungarian, they searched in Turkic, and when they saw that it means nothing in Turkic too, they searched for any word in Turkic and Hungarian that have at least two (!) similar letters with word "bač" (I am sure that they were very happy when they found Turkic name "baya"). Interestingly, they never searched in Romanian (the only language in which this name have meaning), or in Slavic where you have a dozen of "similar" names ("similar" to "bač" like "baya" is), like bačva (very similar indeed), bara, baka, baba, bala, etc, etc. Of course, they simply DID NOT WANT to explain origin of name as Vlach or Slavic. And finally, I have nothing against Hungarian names. In fact, you can see my edit here: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Telep&diff=55048218&oldid=55030008 I even explained original Hungarian version of this name there (because name is clearly Hungarian), but to claim that name "bač" is Hungarian or Turkic only because Hungarian historians think that it is "similar" to old Turkic word "baya" is completelly ridiculous and was invented with a geo-political purpose to prove "Hungarian historical right" for inclusion of Bačka into Greater Hungary. PANONIAN  (talk)  12:56, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

The personal name Subanus was first mentioned in written sources in 1177... Today Serbs moved in Csobánka only in the 18th century. Zello 13:01, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Again
Seems that Zello again demonstrates his nationalism: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ba%C4%8D&diff=73215843&oldid=73210046 Your sentence "In the early Árpádic age (11- 13th centuries) Bács was a common Hungarian personal name" is ALREADY COVERED with the sentence that "its existence was recorded among Vlachs, Slavs and Hungarians in the Middle Ages". You AGAIN want to imply that name was USED ONLY AMONG HUNGARIANS, WHICH IS AN OUTRAGE LIE! Do you want to say that Árpádic age was not during the Middle Ages??? And also claiming that name is "scattered all over the former Kingdom of Hungary" instead that it is "scattered all over the Balkans and Central Europe – in the countries of former Yugoslavia, Hungary, and Romania" is ANOTHER LIE because such places exist in the parts of former Yugoslavia that WERE NEVER PART OF THE KINGDOM OF HUNGARY. PANONIAN  (talk)  14:22, 1 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Let me just add that it also exists in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Bulgaria, Russia etc. and the alleged "Hungarian" name is very probably a Slovak one (from Slovak counties). I am blocked, but I just would like to point this out. User:Juro


 * Well, this certainly put some light on it: http://fallingrain.com/world/a/B/a/269/ PANONIAN   (talk)  20:49, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

No, that article is about the Hungarian personal name which exists today. From the etymology section it is clear that the word was know among the Slavs and Vlachs also. As for the other sentence do you really not understand that this is the same as you wrote? AND THE BALKAN - this is the regions what were never part of the KoH. But I won't use the expression of Yugoslavia speaking about the Middle Ages. By the way I still didn't see any evidence that the word not only existed in Slavic and Vlach but was used as a personal name also. The Romanian sentence only says that it means shepherd - that's not a personal name. Is there anybody in Serbia and Romania who is called Bač now? Zello 14:49, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

(Calling loudly somebody a liar in a content dispute is a personal attack) Zello 14:51, 1 September 2006 (UTC)


 * What is problem with you? Do you understand that this what you doing is a POV PUSHING. Again: THERE IS NO SINGLE PROOF THAT NAME WAS ORIGINALY HUNGARIAN OR THAT PERSON AFTER WHOM THIS TOWN WAS NAMED WAS A HUNGARIAN. Either prove this, either stop your nationalistic edits. Second, the places are located in the territory of former Yugoslavia, but if you want, we can mention ALL countries of former Yugoslavia where these places exist instead. Regarding, the evidence that name existed as personal name among Serbs and Vlachs, the evidence are "dečanske hrisovulje", the medieval Serbian documents from the 14th century where this personal name is documented (The entire book of Milica Grković is about these documents). PANONIAN   (talk)  15:08, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Stop labeling my edits propaganda, lie, vandalism, POV-pushing etc or I will report your behaviour to an admin. I lost my patience seeing you are not able to argue in a non-agressive way. If the name was used by Serbs in medieval times you can mention this fact in the name article. Balkan is a geographic entity - much better to use it speaking about the Middle Ages then present-day countries. The Kingdom of Hungary also not-anachronistic. Zello 16:28, 1 September 2006 (UTC)


 * "If the name was used by Serbs in medieval times you can mention this fact in the name article." Yes, I mentioned that there, as well as you can mention Arpad in the name article as well. To analyse your edit here again: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ba%C4%8D&diff=73231658&oldid=73210046 The sentence "In the early Árpádic age (11- 13th centuries) Bács was a common Hungarian personal name" is 100% covered with sentence that "its existence was recorded among Vlachs, Slavs and Hungarians in the Middle Ages". Árpádic age was part of Middle ages, and name was not only Hungarian, so with this sentence you basically repeated part of the previous sentence and pulled it out of context. I can here elaborate much about mention of the name in Serbia in the 14th century too, but I have to remind you that this is article about town, not about names, thus name articles are proper place for such elaborations. Finally, the list of place names mention place names that exist TODAY (not those that existed in medieval times, because names are from Auto atlas that was printed in Zagreb in 1972), so the names of the present countries are only names that we can use here. PANONIAN   (talk)  16:45, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

1, We are speaking about the Middle Ages when these names were given, not the present. In this region where present-day countries are absolutely different than medival ones your usage is misleading. Speaking about the origin of a name it is irrelevant what present-day countries have the given villages now. 2, The name article is about the Hungarian name because that's the only one that exists today (since the Middle Ages). The sentence you disagree with is true and veryfiable. I won't delete any other true and veryfiable information about the same medieval Serbian name. Zello 16:52, 1 September 2006 (UTC)


 * The "name" section have two paragraphs: one speak about origin of the name and the second one speak about other geographical locations that have same or similar names. Please explain why you deleted sentence about 3 same names. It is not same if name is similar or same. PANONIAN   (talk)  20:27, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

That's a more concise version and it consists every important info about locations. Zello 22:48, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Linguistic study
Here I found at last a good explanation about the difference of the two theories. There were two words with different origin in medieval Hung. language. 1, Bácsa later Bács personal name of Old Turkic origin. 2, bács - chief of the shepherds, borrowed from Slavic-Vlach languages. The same three sounds but not the same words, similarly than vár - "to wait" and vár - "fortress". So nobody tries to deny the existence of the Slavic word and names, place names derived from it. But Hungarian place names of early Árpádic origin were derived from the personal name. In the case of this given town NOBODY can decide what happened because both possibilities are realistic. The town and the county was re-established by the first Árpáds (Stephen or one of his followers) but there was a local Slavic population. Only the Iustinian letter can prove something. Zello 23:34, 1 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, my historical atlas claim that town was called Bagasin in the 9th century. I hope this will not cause new revert war about origin of that name. :)))) PANONIAN   (talk)  23:40, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Bagasin? It seems far enough from Bač, Bácsa or anything like that. Zello 23:43, 1 September 2006 (UTC)


 * It does not mean that current name derived from it. It might be that name from Iustinian letter, however. PANONIAN   (talk)  23:48, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

That seems very probable. By the way my contribution wasn't nationalistic propaganda and you gave an example of NOT assuming good faith in the whole debate. Zello 23:55, 1 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I had a bad day, what can I do? I currently have some personal problems in my life, and I need somewhere to empty all negative energy that I collect during a day. You should not take it personal. PANONIAN   (talk)  00:30, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm not a crybaby it doesn't matter. Despite the many nice wiki-rules the whole thing is somewhat like a sport match but better to play fair. Zello 00:36, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Puppetry
Regarding this revert - Some people around here seem to have started thinking that using sockpuppetry or meatpuppetry is a good idea. It is not. As long as I have no strong clue as to who their master is, I'll use my 3 opportunities per day to revert such users' edits (even though I know 3RR is a restriction, not a privilege), and I'll also bring the matter to WP:AN/I as I feel appropriate. "You have been warned." KissL 15:26, 1 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, I already warned about these sockpuppets here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Magyarization#Sockpuppetry And not to mention that certain users revert page 6-7 times per day using same nickname (such users even do not need sockpuppets to broke 3rr). Very sad indeed. PANONIAN   (talk)  20:53, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Vid/Vitus
Zello, as you found about name Bač/Bacs, name Vid/Vitus also have two origins. Sveti Vid (Saint Vid) was old Slavic god and Vid is a name of Slavic origin (meaning "the one who can see" or "the one who have knowledge"). Another name Vitus is of Latin origin ad two names are later often confound. My source claim that this prefect had name Vid. Do you have some other source that claim that name was originally written as Vitus? PANONIAN  (talk)  13:01, 2 September 2006 (UTC)


 * And regarding year when town was first mentioned under this name, this source claim that it was in 1094 when the name of Archbishop of Bač, Fabian was mentioned: http://www.bac.co.yu/english/Pocetna.htm PANONIAN   (talk)  13:08, 2 September 2006 (UTC)


 * And this too: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bács-Bodrog#History "Bács county arose as one of the first comitatus of the Kingdom of Hungary, in the 11th century". If the county was first mentioned in the 11th century that is also evidence about existence of town under this name because county was named after town. PANONIAN   (talk)  13:12, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

I also found now the 1094 date as the first mention of the short-lived archbishopric that was amalgamated with the Archbishopric of Kalocsa in 1135. I haven't found that earliest name variant yet. Zello 20:12, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

As for Vid I looked up hu-wiki where the article says that it is the South-Slavic variant of Guido and Guido is the Latinized variant of the German Wido. So the name is German-Latin-Slavic, and the original meaning was "woodman". The article mentions another theory: it was derived from the Latin Vitus. Then the original meaning is "ready, willing". On a Hungarian forum about names (certainly not a scientific source but generally quite good) - see http://forum.index.hu/Article/showArticle?t=9056730&la=53223724 - I found that Vid is a diminutive form of the Latin Vitus and as such it was probably evolved in the Slavic languages. The Hung. commercial sources - as Vid was also borrowed and still used as a Hungarian name - simply claim that it is of German-Latin-South Slavic origin. It seems quite complicated. Zello 20:12, 2 September 2006 (UTC)


 * No, man, as I said Vid was Slavic god. See article about him and all variants of his name: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svetovid "Sventevith, Svetovid, Suvid, Svantevit, Svantovit, Svantovít, Swantovít, Sventovit, Zvantevith, Świętowit, Sutvid, Vid". PANONIAN   (talk)  23:56, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't doubt that it is one possible theory but here we have at least to other theories also the one with Wido and the other with Vitus. They are also Slavic partially but not exclusively. Zello 01:27, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Romanians
Zello wrote: "I don't think it existed as a place name, Romanians never lived there in the past hundreds of years"


 * Well, check the demographics section: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bač#Ethnic_groups_.282002_census.29 According to the 2002 census, Romanians are relatively large minority in the city and their language is official in Vojvodina, so why we should not include Romanian name? PANONIAN   (talk)  20:35, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

I looked up the town in my toponymical lexicon and I found only the South-Slavic, Hungarian and German names. It is possible that a Romanian name exists, bur are you sure? That's not the same that the word baci exists. Many times smaller minorities simply use the other common names. Zello 20:39, 3 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, user Ronline explained that Romanian "ci" is same as Hungarian "cs" or Serbian "č", thus I believe that "Baci" is a correct version of the name of the town written in Romanian. Of course we can ask user Ronline to clarify this. The current presence of Romanian minority in the town is a good reason that we also include Romanian name (although we should see what is a correct version of the town name used by Romanians. I do not believe that they use name "Bač" because they do not have letter "č" in their language). PANONIAN   (talk)  20:45, 3 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure what the Romanian version is. I will find out, however. "Baci" is read in Romanian exactly the same as "Bač", so it's sort of a Romanian phenotic rendition of the Serbian (in the same way that Niš would be written "Niş" or "Miloševič" would be written "Miloşevici". UPDATE: I have done a little bit more research and have found out that while Bečej is known as "Becei" in Romanian, Bač is known simply as "Bač". At least, it is used this way by the Government of Vojvodina, of which Romanian is an official language. See these official sources:,, . [[Image:Flag of Europe.svg|20px]][[Image:Flag of Romania.svg|20px]] Ronline ✉ 06:54, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

That's a presumed name - the word with Romanian orthography. But we don't know whether it really existed as a place name. I don't think because the toponymical lexicon mentions all existing variants (of course mistakes are always possible). If there isn't an accepted Romanian version they certainly use the Bač version similarly that Hungarians call the town of Niš to Niš, not Nis, although we don't have š. Zello 20:57, 3 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, we do quite opposite thing in Serbian with foreign names: New York is Njujork in Serbian, Paris is Pariz, etc. I do not know what Romanians do, however (But Serbian language have Serbian name for every city in the World) :) PANONIAN   (talk)  21:55, 3 September 2006 (UTC)


 * In Romanian, we generally tend to use native names for foreign places (just like in English). In the context of globalisation, this is becoming an increasing tendency in Romania. So, in Romanian, we would use "New York", "Paris", "Sydney", "Vancouver", etc. However, cities that have historically had Romanian populations, are of historical significance or that often have hard-to-pronounce names are given Romanian names - i.e. Budapesta, Belgrad, Varşovia (Warsaw), Debreţin, Seghedin, Giula, Vârşeţ. I don't think Bač may have had that historically-significant a Romanian population, and thus the Romanian name may other be identical to the Serbian name or, in the context of Vojvodinian language rights, simply a phonetic rendition: Bač. This is happening in Romania quite a lot as well, where, for example, the Romani language versions of Romanian toponyms are simply phonetic transcriptions: the city of Budeşti is known as "Budeshti" in Romani, and Iaşi is known as "Yashi". AFAIK, the Slavo-Baltic languages tend to "localise" or "naturalise" foreign names to a greater extent than the Romance or Germanic languages (Hungarian is probably in between). [[Image:Flag of Europe.svg|20px]][[Image:Flag of Romania.svg|20px]] Ronline ✉ 07:06, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

In Hungarian the situation is exactly the same as in Romanian. Zello 16:38, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I know, but I think that's quite unusual. Zello 23:47, 3 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Tell me one thing: what is the most common name of Bač in Latin? PANONIAN   (talk)  00:58, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't know, but very probably Bacs because of the county name. Zello 02:30, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Bacsensis County is a bit strange mix for me. Comitatus Bacsensis is an attributive form, translating into English the -ensis should be dropped. So Bacs County or Comitatus Bacsensis would be better.Zello 02:35, 4 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, what about this: http://mars.elte.hu/varak/aacikkek/354vajdasag.htm Bács – Bač – (Castrum Bachiense). Is it Bachiense a Latin name for the town then? PANONIAN   (talk)  03:02, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

And this one is most interesting: http://rds.yahoo.com/_ylt=A0geuqF_mftEsHkAceFXNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTEwbTllOWlmBGNvbG8DZQRsA1dTMQRwb3MDMTMEc2VjA3NyBHZ0aWQD/SIG=12m1c3osc/EXP=1157425919/**http%3a//mnytud.arts.unideb.hu/nevarchivum/szotar/doc/07betuhmut.doc


 * Bacchienses Bács
 * Bach Bács
 * Bách Bács
 * Bacha Bágya, Bata
 * Bachachiensis Bács
 * Bachaciensi Bács
 * Bachana Bakonya
 * Bachasiensi Bács
 * Bachatiensis Bács
 * Bache Bács
 * Bachfolua Bácsfalva
 * Bachiense Bács
 * Bachiensem Bács
 * Bachienses Bács
 * Bachiensi Bács
 * Bachiensibus Bács
 * Bachiensis Bács
 * Bachini Bács
 * Bachu Bács
 * Bachy Bács
 * Bachya Bágya
 * Bachyenses Bács
 * Bachyensi Bács
 * Bachyensis Bács
 * Baciense Bács
 * Baciensi Bács
 * Baciensibus Bács
 * Baciensis Bács
 * Baciensy Bács
 * Bácsa Bácsa
 * Bacsiensi Bács

I think we should just pick one. :))) PANONIAN   (talk)  03:18, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

brrr - there are a lot of attributive forms among them. Castrum Bachiense means Castrum of Bács where the "of" is the same as the -iense ending. For example Colonia Ostiensis is the Colonia of Ostia. To get the real name you should drop the ending but I think every Latin priest tried to express somehow the same three sound he heard Bač/Bács. In Latin the cs/č sound doesn't exist so they had a huge problem and tried every possible version: Bach, Bacs, Baci, Bachi, Bachy, Bachi (and some more extreme forms). Zello 04:19, 4 September 2006 (UTC)


 * But we still should pick only one of those names to use it in the article. If form Bach is the one from which other forms derived (town was first mentioned as Bache), then we should use Bach as a most common Latin name of the city. PANONIAN   (talk)  02:41, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Medieval name
Here is a list of name versions with dates:

Bács 1. ’település és vár Bács vm. Ny-i részén a Mosztonga mellett, a vm. központja’ +1158/[1220 k.]//403/PR.: in Baac˙, 1192/374/425: Baac, [1192]>394, [1230]/231, 1234/550 (VRH. 26: 20), 1333 (Sztáray 1: 79), 1341 (Kállay 1: 608): Baach, 1201: Bahc, 1212/231 (EO. 1: 43), 1226/550, 1250 (EO. 1: 214), 1274 (EO. 1: 334), 1325, 1333 (Z. 1: 417), 1346 (MiskOkl. 37–8): Bach, 1214/550: Bachu (Gy. 1: 210–2), 1234/550: Bách (VRH. 26: 20) | ~i 1337: Petrus de Bachy (A. 3: 347, Kállay 1: 514) | Lat. 1111 (DHA. 385), 1113 (DHA. 396): Bache, 1233/PR.: Bathie, 1316: Bachini ¦ 1124/666 (DHA. 416): Baacensis, 1134 (DHA. 261): Baaciensem ~ Baaciensi (Gy. 1: 210–2), 1134/227: Baatiensi (DHA. 261), +1135/[XIII.]: Bachasiensi, 1142/XVIII., 1192/374/425, 1229, 1233, 1234, 1237, [1241 u.], 1244, 1247, 1252, 1254, 1256, 1263, 1265/466/476, 1267, 1270, 1272, [1274 e.], 1275, 1279, 1280, +1282/346, 1289, 1297, 1297/332, 1299, 1301, 1328/335: Bachiensis, +1158/[1220 k.]//403/PR.: Bachyenses, 1163/XIV., 1181/288//XV., 1197/XVIII., 1198, 1198/226/PR., 1199/272, 1200/XIV., 1202, 1208, 1211, 1218 P./PR., 1222, 1229, 1234, 1234 P./PR., 1235 P./PR., 1237, 1238/377, 1240, [1244 e.], 1263, 1266 P./PR., 1270, [1274 e.], 1317 P./PR., 1323: Bachiensi, +1171/[XII–XIII.]: Baasiensis, [1177 k.], +1186/[1270 k.]: Baaciensis, 1179: Bahasnensis, 1181, 1199, 1199/227/PR., 1234: Baciensi, 1183/226/270, [1185]/XV., 1307 P./PR.: Bachiensem, 1192/374/425, 1192/XIII., 1237/279/385, 1263, 1270: Bachyensi, castr., [1192]>394, 1266/379, 1272, 1275, 1279, 1280, +1282/346, 1289, 1297, 1297/332, 1299, 1301, 1311/340, 1328, 1328/335: Bachyensis, 1193, 1199/315, [1230]/231, 1233: Baachiensi, 1197/XVIII.: Bacsiensi, 1198, 1332–7/PR., 1338–40/PR.: Baciense, 1206, 1234: Bááchiensi, 1211: Bahachiensibus, 1211, XIV./1071-re, XIV./1074-re: Bachiensibus, 1215>PR.: Baciensibus, 1217/227/PR.: Bachatiensis, 1217/272: Bachachiensis, 1223 P./PR.: Bachaciensi, 1227 P./PR.: Baatiensi, [1230]/231: Baachiensem, 1233, 1320 P./PR., 1332–7/PR., 1338–40/PR.: Baciensis, 1241 P./PR.: Baziensi, 1244, [1244 e.], 1247, 1252, 1254, 1255, 1263, 1263/466/476, 1270, [1274 e.]: Bachiense, castr., 1263: Bakachiensi, 1276/641: Batatinio [ƒ: Bacacinio], 1282 P./PR.: Batiensi, 1290: Bakachyni, 1309 P./PR.: Batiensis, 1332–7/PR.: Baciensy ~ Waciensis [ƒ: Baciensis], XIV./1074-re: Bacchienses ~ Bachienses ~ Wachienses [ƒ: Bachienses] | Arab [1154]: Bak(a)sŁn | Gör. [1180–83]/1164-re: Pag©tzion | Ol. 1309–11: Baccia (Gy. 1: 210–2).

That lexicon gives data only until 1350. Obviously the orthography of the name changed with times, in the 18th century the cs-version was used (see the county name). That's part of the bigger problem with place names of the KoH. There is a constant fight about this question but I think we are on the right way when looking up the versions used in written documents of the administration of the age. Basically we are searching for the HISTORICAL official name, not the present-day one or the modern Hung form. Latin is not a real solution because only a handful bigger towns had any real Latin names (like Cassovia). What makes things more complicated that there weren't one, clearly set name but a dozen more or less different version. We will be able to establish the most often used of them but I don't think we have to stick to the ever changing old orthography. Now the name itself is not a problem - obviously it was always Bač/Bács in every language. For the orthography I don't know the practical solution. Taken another village: nobody would write Abawyvar instead of Abaújvár. Without the ethnic dimension the old orthography itself is not a problem. French, German, Italian orthography changed a lot from the Middle Ages but nobody cares. This is not the same as using anachronisms like Istanbul for 13th century. Zello 21:54, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Latin names?
If you reverted my corections, and you pretend to use Latin names, then use real Latin equvalents. Mayebe Baach or other Latin spellings. Neither Kalocsa is written with Hungarian "cs" in medieval sources. --Koppany 12:36, 28 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I used those Latin names that I found in available sources, if you know different Latin names, please present them here. PANONIAN  If you want peace and prosperity for your country then you are a patriot, but if your patriotism is bigger than the borders of your country then you are a serious threat to World peace. 16:39, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Adding the Slovak name to the infobox
Hi. I'm not sure why there is such a big controversy over here regarding the addition of the Slovak name to the infobox. In Bač, Slovaks make up more than 15% of the population which, according to Serbia's minority rights laws, makes Slovak an officially-recognised language in this locality, while also permitting the use of bilingual signs. Wikipedia should be a reflection of reality, and in places such as Bač, the reality is that both Slovak and Serbian are in official use. It doesn't matter that Serbs are a majority, what matters is that, because Slovaks make up more than 15% of the population, their language is in official use. Consequently, I believe that the Slovak name should be included in the infobox, in the same way that the Hungarian name is included at Romanian localities such as Oradea (27% Hungarian) or Satu Mare. This is not a political act, and, despite what Panonian said, does not imply any "territorial claim" or "irredentism". This should also be applied to all Vojvodinian localities where a given non-Serbian ethnic group makes up more than 15% of the population. For example, the Hungarian name should be included at Novi Bečej, Novi Kneževac and Srbobran. What do you think? Ronline ✉ 01:39, 18 May 2007 (UTC)


 * You're mixing up the municipality (19%) with the town (2%)--91.120.77.7 02:32, 18 May 2007 (UTC)


 * The article refers to both the municipality and the town, as does the infobox. Ronline ✉ 03:20, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

I got those percents from the "demographics" section of this page. The whole town is a municipality? Then something is wrong in the article, or itself mixes the town and the municipality, and it drew us wrong :) --91.120.77.7 03:28, 18 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Bač refers to both the town of Bač, and the municipality of Bač, which includes the town and several other villages. In the town itself, Slovaks form less than 15% of the population. In the municipality as a whole, however, Slovaks form more than 15%, meaning that Slovak is officially-recognised in the municipality. Ronline ✉ 06:13, 18 May 2007 (UTC)


 * It doesn't matter how many Slovaks, Hungarian, Croats, ect... some municipality has. In Serbia, every municipality can have additional official languages. For example, Subotica municipality uses, beside Serbian, Croatian and Hungarian. I think that we must use these languages as well, because they are official in that particular municipality, and not to look how many Slovak, Hungarians,... does it have. --Göran Smith 13:06, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

I absolutely agree with Ronline's proposal that minority names should be included in the infoboxes BUT I still have a problem with the issue of municipalities/villages and, in Romanian relation, communes/villages. Bač is a good example because here - probably - nobody will accuse me that I'm biased. So here we have a town with an insignificant Slovak population, and a municipality which indeed a small district with a couple of villages like a Romanian commune. One village in the municipality Selenča has an absolute Slovak majority. Hopefully nobody will deny that Selenča needs a bilingual infobox. We can discuss about that the whole municipality needs a bilingual infobox or not. But I have to agree with Panonian - rare case, indeed - that Bač town with its absolute Serb majority is better without a bilingual infobox. But do we have an article about Bač town? No, it is the same as the municipality. I think this is the core of the problem. If you take a look at our discussion about Unirea with Alex there was a similar problem - the demographic history of the centre of the commune and the whole commune was different. There was a lot of debate about which data should be included in article. I think that administrative units (municipalities) and natural settlement units (villages, small towns) are different things and better not to mix them. I propose to copy paste the data relating to Bač town into an independent article and re-write this article as a short summary about the administrative unit similarly like the French cantons or arrondissiments (for example Arrondissement of Blois. The Bač town article will have a monolingual Serb infobox while the municipality - probably - a bilingual one but it will be obvious for the reader that Bač town has a Serb majority. Zello 13:18, 18 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't agree. All data in infobox are official data from municipality, and not from Bač as a town. All data from municipality must be official one. So, if Bač municipality uses Slovak language as co-official, it must stand in infobox. There is no need to count how mane Slovak, Serb,.. there are in municipality. For an example, in Pakistan there is cca. 1% of people who speak English, but English is one of the official languages, so there is English in infobox, it is very simple and logic, right? --Göran Smith 13:36, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Q: Why do you all look how many Slovak vs Serbs are there ??? that is not important here. --Göran Smith 13:38, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

In Serb laws there is a 15 % limit as far as we know. Zello 13:48, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree that Serbian laws have that, but that info is not very relevant. You must focus in local government. Every municipality has, in their statute a sentence "Municipality NAME uses Serbian, Slovak, Hungarian, ... language in local use". If Bač has that, I think it has (somebody must check that info), then it's ok; otherwise, NO. I really don't know why you make such a fuss about that, for me it's simple. Official > YES, No-official mention > NO.... easy --Göran Smith 13:57, 18 May 2007 (UTC)


 * According to Duja, 15% is used as a level beyond which a language is made co-official, including on bilingual signage. However, I have also heard, like you say, that municipalities themselves allocate co-official languages not necessarily based on demographics. If so, how do we know if Bač recognises Slovak as co-official? I agree with you here: if the language is co-official, the name should be included, if not, then it shouldn't be included. I just thought that languages becomes co-official once the 15% level is reached (in Romania, for example, it is like that, with the level coming in at 20%). Ronline ✉ 14:18, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

People: you again mixing here scientific and political arguments. There is no single word in the Serbian law that minority names should be used in Wikipedia infoboxes and I really do not see of what relevance to readers of English language Wikipedia these names would be. All these names are mentioned in the "Name" sections (where English readers can to find them and therefore to gain information about these names) and we can also create "Language" section where we can writte about official languages used in each municipality. If you people have goal to inform English-language readers about these names and about their official usage, please tell what possibly could be wrong with my proposal? Regarding split of articles about town and municipality, I do not agree because that will just create two bad stub-type articles instead one good and large. And we certainly should not split these articles only because of the question of the names in the infoboxes. The one thing that I can agree is that infoboxes could have minority names if minority groups make absolute or relative majority either in the municipality or in the town/village. For example, Nova Crnja article that speak about both, village and municipality have Hungarian name in the infobox because Hungarians form majority in the village, no matter that whole municipality is majority Serb. PANONIAN 16:11, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

I was encouraged to drop by this talk page, but I am not very familiar with articles about Serbian municipalities. Is there any rule or custom regarding inclusion of names in infoboxes or this discussion aims to create such a rule? It is not completely clear from this discussion, as it already focuses on specific numbers and Serbian laws. Tankred 16:53, 18 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Well, as I sad, we primarily writte an scientific encyclopaedia for readers who speak English language. It is not up to us to implement any official state policies including those about usage of minority nalguages. The whole purpose of such infoboxes is to inform Wikipedia readers about some basic facts about municipality or town. In fact, I agree that we can describe in the infobox which languages are considered official at the municipality level, but we should do this by adding new section into the infobox, which will say something like this: "Besides Serbian language, local authorities also officially use Slovak, Hungarian, Romanian, Croatian, or Rusyn" depends which language is used in which municipality. PANONIAN  17:26, 18 May 2007 (UTC)


 * So, if there is no rule, I do not think it is a good idea to include the Slovak name in an infobox. A comprehensive Names section of the article seems perfectly sufficient to me. Tankred 17:50, 18 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Panonian, every data in "Template:Municipality of Serbia" is data of Bač municipality, and not Bač-town (except for one thing, population of town itself), that's why its called Municipality and not town template; I know we talk about that a couple of mounts ago. I'm not for splitting municipality and towns, but you must keep a notice, that template represent all of municipality, and not just a town in the article. So, if NS chooses to make Bulgarian an official language of a town, beside all others, you wouldn't put it on Wikipedia, alto, there are no significant majority of speakers of Bulgarian language ??? --Göran Smith 19:40, 18 May 2007 (UTC)


 * But these kinds of questions are a logical fallacy: statements that "if municipality use an language as official at local level we should put place name from this language into Wikipedia infobox" is same like statement that "if sky is blue we should seat in the chair". So, the connection between state policy and Wikipedia infobox in the first sentence is same as connection between sky and a chair in the second one. Our goal is to present information in the best way we can and, as I said, I do not see that Wikipedia readers would have any use of names listed in the infobox without explanation of usage of these names. Therefore, the infobox that contain an description about official usage of languages in the municipalities is much more useful to readers than list of place names without any description of reasons why these names are written there (and readers could guess all sorts of reasons why these names are there without such description). Regarding infoboxes, you may notice that most of these articles begin with "is a town and municipality", so the infoboxes are there for both, municipalities and towns (no matter that they mostly contain data about municipalities). The towns that are not municipalities also have their infoboxes (for example Palić). Of course, question whether infoboxes are for town or municipality is really not so important because if ethnic minorities are in majority in any of these two (town or municipality) we can post minority name into infobox. PANONIAN  19:58, 18 May 2007 (UTC)


 * You fail to see one very important point: that in fact there is a connection between official use and infobox use. Infoboxes reflect official usage, and this is an established custom at Wikipedia. The Republic of Macedonia infobox, for example, lists the name of the country in the two official languages of Macedonia, "Republika Makedonija" (Serbia) and "Republika e Maqedonisë" (Albanian). The Wales infobox lists the name in English and Welsh. The Oradea infobox lists the name in Romanian and Hungarian. The Bautzen infobox lists the name in German and Sorbian. The Christchurch infobox lists the name in English and Maori. There are many more examples of this. The infobox is very much about official usage rather than about demographics. In fact, in none of the examples above does the "alternate" name in the infobox make up a majority (in fact, in Bautzen, Sorbian speakers make up a very small proportion, as do Maori speakers in Christchurch). So, my argument is this: if Slovak is co-official in the municipality of Bač, which I believe it is, then the Slovak name should go in the infobox. Aside from this, of course we can implement sections about Names and Languages, but these are a different issue altogether. In terms of the infobox, the name of the place, be it a city, country or region, should be written in all the official languages of that place. It is frustrating that we are going through this argument because I fail to see why Vojvodina must be an exception for everything: no alternative official names in infoboxes, no alternate names in the lead, no this, no that. Why so? Ronline ✉ 01:30, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Perhaps we in fact should change these other Wikipedia articles that you mentioned and make them more similar to Serbia-related articles. The basic fact is: there is no Wiki rule about usage of these names in the infoboxes, we can have infoboxes with them or without them. And of course, there is still question what is relevance of these names for readers of English Wikipedia. The fact that you (or several other users) say that "there is a connection between official use and infobox use" does not mean that it is correct - this is just your own opinion that there is a connection (or that there should be a connection, because it is just question of opinion). In fact, claim that "there is a connection between official use and infobox use" is another logical fallacy - if there really is a connection, please prove it, but not with "examples" of usage in other articles that is disputed as much as usage in this one, but with arguments on what exactly is that connection based. There are really many various ways in which we can edit these infoboes: we can mention only most common English name or all names in official languages or even all names in all languages no matter if these languages are official or not, but as I said, such names would not be useful to readers of Wikipedia because simple usage of name without explanation of status of this name is simply futile and it does not serve to the scientific purpose of Wikipedia but just to the political wievs of certain people. PANONIAN  09:44, 19 May 2007 (UTC)


 * There is no official policy on infoboxes as far as I'm aware. I am only saying that the overwhelming majority of infoboxes are guided by the principle that the infobox includes the names of the locality in all official languages, as well as, sometimes, English. I really see it is as an example of stubbornness and bad faith that you just dismiss all of the examples I have given you. These examples are taken from a wide spectrum of situations, and, perhaps with the exception of Macedonia, none of them have so far generated controversy to this magnitude. No users have expressed their disappointment that the Maori name is used at Christchurch, or that the Sorbian name is used at Bautzen, or that the Irish and Scottish names are used at Belfast or Aberdeen. These names are relevant because the very function of the infobox, as established by Wikipedia custom, is to show "official" names of a locality, in official languages. Unlike the lead sentence, which should list the most common name in English, the infobox lists the official, full name. For this reason, I believe that it is best to write names in official languages, which in this case is Serbian and Slovak. This very much serves the scientific purpose of Wikipedia by providing information as to what the name of this locality is in its official languages, in a clear and easy-to-see manner. I fail to see why you are so opposed to this, other than the fact that you are interpreting the non-Serbian names as some sort of irredentist political act. If you are concerned about confusion, the names can be tagged as per the Scotland article. This should not be a problem. Ronline ✉ 11:21, 19 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Fine you won, but the only way that these names could be included into infobox is in the version of the infobox proposed by me where we should clearly mention that these names are not used because of irredentist territorial pretensions, but because of minority rights. However, although general idea about usage of names in this form could be acceptable (with minority names written with smaller letters than Serbian ones), we still do not know which names are official in which municipality because 15% limit is really not implemented in practice, so we should refrain from editing these infoboxes like this until we do not find valid source which say which language is official in which municipality. PANONIAN  13:18, 19 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Panonian, this is not about me winning, since I'm not seeking to undertake a personal vendetta here or anything like that. What I don't appreciate is that you keep on bringing up these new conditions everytime we reach an agreement. I have never ever seen in Wikipedia any disclaimer of the like you have proposed below. We should not add a disclaimer about irredentism simply because it is absurd to infer from the infobox that the Slovak name, or any other non-Serbian name, serves an irredentist function, particularly when Wikipedia is meant to be a neutral encyclopedia that does not enforce any political agenda. So, it is natural for people to think that the name is there because it reflects reality, rather than serving some irredentist ideal. Finally, I fail to understand why the minority name should be written in smaller letters. I wouldn't be opposed to this per se, but I fail to see why you're trying to get as much as you can out of this agreement. If we make these names smaller, then the Hungarian names at Hungarian majority articles would also have to be made smaller. The last point you raise is a valid one: if what you say is true, then it may be difficult to ascertain what languages are official in what localities. But this should not be used as an excuse for dragging our feet on this matter. Ronline ✉ 14:44, 19 May 2007 (UTC)


 * If we want to have correct data then we should not writte confusing things so that people "think" or "guess" why these names are here, but we should exactly describe the nature of these names and why are they here. Also, the minority names should be written with smaller letters because minority languages do not have same status as Serbian - Serbian is only official language of the country, and these names are only co-official in certain areas and only in addition to Serbian, so smaller letters also "reflect reality" as you say. Regarding official languages used in municipalities, nobody stopping you to search for information which languages are official in which municipality and to writte that information in the infoboxes if you find it (in accordance with my proposal how such infobox should look). But, until you find exact information, I do not think that it would be good to include such names into infobox because in that case it will be only our "guessing" of the reality and not reflection of our knowledge about it (and I believe that there is Wikipedia rule that say that Wikipedia is not a cristal ball, right?). PANONIAN  15:09, 19 May 2007 (UTC)


 * And just a note that I only agreed about change in the infoboxes, but not in the first sentences of the articles. PANONIAN  15:23, 19 May 2007 (UTC)


 * as for the Bač municipality (this is its talk page anyway), the official municipality web site have only Serbian and English versions, but not Slovak one: http://www.bac.co.yu/ PANONIAN  15:40, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Proposal by Ronline
Here are various models we can use:

proposal by PANONIAN
Let see:the only acceptable version of the "new" infobox would be this one: PANONIAN  13:07, 19 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Just my opinion, but that version looks terribly awkward. Why not just list the three names in the infobox (as in Ronline's proposal) but add a sentence or two to the "Name" section clarifying the official status of the Slovak language? K. Lásztocska 16:46, 19 May 2007 (UTC)


 * It is really strange, giving the reader a long lecture in the infobox why there is another name. I would say that this version is almost worse than the monolingual one. Infoboxes should contain only a summary of the important facts. Zello 17:37, 19 May 2007 (UTC)


 * And besides, "Wikipedians are smart enough to find the Name section by themselves." ;-) I like Ronline's second version best. K. Lásztocska 17:39, 19 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I am sorry, but if other names are included then explanation why these names are included is very much needed - most readers are not able to know that for themselves and names without this explanation could imply that names are there because of irredentism instead because of minority rights. But, I bet that some users that visit this talk page (I will not say which ones) would object to my proposal exactly because it completelly destroy the irredentist nature of these names (and that was exactly its purpose). PANONIAN  17:50, 19 May 2007 (UTC)


 * ...yes, an explantion is needed, but the explanation should go in the "Name" section. It's already a pretty long section, another sentence or two clarifying the reasons for the use of the Slovak name wouldn't hurt anything. My objection is from a purely aesthetic standpoint--cramming it in the infobox looks, pardon my bluntness, grotesque. P.S. I really wish you would stop playing the irredentism card. I'm not an irredentist and I actually don't know anyone here who is. K. Lásztocska 17:56, 19 May 2007 (UTC)


 * No, only if names are in the "Name" section then explanation should be there, but if names are in the infobox, the explanation should be there too. And regarding irredentist card, it is not me who playing it here. It is fact that names used in the infobox without proper explanation of their usage indeed would also contain an irredentist purpose and that is what I want to avoid here. And by the way, we do not talk here about Slovak names but about Romanian and Hungarian ones. Slovaks and their country never had territorial pretension towards Serbia, thus Slovak names here do not have irredentist character (unlike some other names). PANONIAN  18:00, 19 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I thought we were talking about the Slovak name. What do Hungarian and Romanian names have to do with anything? And if the Slovak name has no irredentist connotations, why do you insist on that big ugly explanation in the infobox? K. Lásztocska 18:07, 19 May 2007 (UTC)


 * No, we do not talk at all about Slovak names. It is quite clear that this is not at all story about Slovak names because the whole purpose of this discussion is that certain users would push certain "compromise" and then they would use this "compromise" as a model to edit other articles. Therefore, I am very well aware that such "compromise" would apply to other articles as well, so it should be suitable for these articles as well. PANONIAN  18:12, 19 May 2007 (UTC)


 * (edit conflict--sorry for interruption, Zello). Panonian, I think you're making a mountain out of a molehill. I am talking about the Slovak name, and believe it or not, I'm *not* actually plotting to use a massive Wikipedia-editing campaign to take back Transylvania from those dastardly Romanians. ;-). You frequently seem to see conspiracies where none exist--please remember WP:AGF. I've added a brief explanation of the use of the Slovak name in the "Name" section, make any additional explanation you see fit. (you know the Serbian minority rights law better than I do...) K. Lásztocska 18:18, 19 May 2007 (UTC) Wait, I didn't mean you should delete it! Geez, sorry for trying to help. K. Lásztocska 18:21, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Sorry for my observation, but articles about Transyvanian cities just look exactly like that Hungarians already "took them back from Romanians". I am not saying that exactly you is involved in this job, but there are those who are. Regarding official name, just see my discussion with Ronline in previous section on this talk page. PANONIAN  18:31, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Your irredentist concern is ridiculous and tells much about your way of thinking. In fact you are the one who have such fears and tries to hide minority names behind special sections and long paragraphs. There is no connection between the territorial integrity of a country and minority rights, including the usage of place names. Zello 18:15, 19 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Ridiculous? How so? Yo want to say that irredentism does not exist? If there is no connection between irredentism and these names then why you object to my proposal. Why it is bad according to you? And I am not "trying to hide minority names", but I am trying to find acceptable model under which such names could be used (at the present moment they are not used at all, right?). PANONIAN  18:31, 19 May 2007 (UTC)


 * What's getting ridiculous is your habit of screaming "The irredentists are coming! The irredentists are coming!" whenever there is a proposal to add a minority name in any language anywhere in the Balkans. WP:AGF. WP:AGF. WP:AGF. And I still think putting the explanation in the infobox is ugly. K. Lásztocska 18:40, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

You think that articles about Transyvanian cities just look exactly like that Hungarians already "took them back from Romanians". OK you are absolutely right, this is what happened in the past weeks. You discovered the secret. And Vojvodina will be the next if you are not hard enough to defend it. And we bought Ronline. I sent him a box of sweets, and he became a traitor. That's how the Hungarian mafia works. Zello 18:43, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

*giggle* yeah, it was an offer he couldn't refuse. Long Live the Magyar Cabal! ;-) K. Lásztocska 18:47, 19 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Well, Ronline just made a first step towards full Magyarization. Soon, you will not have to use English to talk with him. :))) PANONIAN  18:53, 19 May 2007 (UTC)


 * You see, Panonian, this is where you absolutely fail to get the point. How exactly is adding Hungarian names alongside the Romanian ones a form of "Magyarisation"? Magyarisation would mean when you replace the Romanian language by the Hungarian one, not when you use it alongside Romanian and Romanian is still listed first. I'm concerned because you raise this point, because it means that you regard, for example, a bilingual infobox at Vrsac, as an example of "Romanianisation", or a bilingual infobox at Bač as an example of "Slovakisation". Stop trying to think in terms of historical, WWII-era paradigms. Finally, the policy applies equally with regard to Romanian articles, not only to Hungarian but also to Serbian, Ukrainian, etc. So are you saying that Sviniţa right now is an example of "Serbisation" and it looks like the Serbs just took it back from the Romanians? Ronline ✉ 01:47, 20 May 2007 (UTC)


 * It was a joke and you did not understand it - I said that you are magyarized as a person, not these articles (although these articles go in same direction as well). The main problem is that you believe here that God himself sent you here to implement new Wiki infobox policy that is indeed seen as POV pushing by various Serbian, Slovak and Romanian users and your refusal to see the point of view of these users why such policy is POV is not a good way towards any compromise or agreement and it will just lead to constant revert wars (you already have a dispute with Romanian user Roamata who do not agree with your POV pushing). And by the way, what is really problem now when I accepted your suggestion that minority names could be added to the infobox? My proposal how such infobox should look contain 90% of your proposal with 10% my addition to the whole idea, but now you do not want to accept even this 10%. Is that how you see a compromise? (it must be 100% how you say, right?). PANONIAN  09:52, 20 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Hmm but how exactly am I Magyarised as a person? :) I don't speak Hungarian, even. I'm definitely not anti-Romanian, anti-Serbian or anti-Slovak (in fact, you whole reference to Magyarisation is odd because a second ago you were accusing me of pushing a pro-Romanian POV on articles like Vrsac). Don't worry, I get a lot of this. When I'm defending Roma rights, people immediately say "oh, he must be Gypsy". When I'm defending LGBT rights, people say "he must be gay". And so, naturally, when I'm defending the usage of Hungarian names here, I would expect to be called Magyarised :)) My intention is not to particularly defend Hungarian or Romanian interests, but rather to ensure that minority names are represented so that they reflect reality. It's interesting that you imply that I'm not compromising - until now, you were the one who would not compromise one inch. But, whatever, what exactly have you agreed to? How would your accepted proposal of the infobox look? Ronline ✉ 13:32, 20 May 2007 (UTC)


 * But that is exactly the point: you believe that Wikipedia is a place where you should defend rights of somebody. But, as I said many times, it is not purpose of Wikipedia. The purpose of Wikipedia is a pure science and the reason why accepted possibility of minority names in the infoboxes is that you convinced me that it could be useful to readers from scientific point of view. However, since names for themselves are not of much use, I proposed compromise version of the infobox where names would be written together with explanation of reasons for their usage, which is only way in which they could be useful to readers, and in which way nobody could think that these names are used because of any other reasons than those that are described there. PANONIAN  15:25, 20 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Milyen csodálatos! :) Getting back to all seriousness now--the text you just deleted from the article was your own text from your version of the infobox. In other words, you reverted yourself. If we don't know if Slovak is official, then why did you write in the infobox that it is? K. Lásztocska 18:58, 19 May 2007 (UTC)


 * As I said, the infobox is not only about this article, but about general usage in Vojvodina-related articles. Infobox on this talk page was made in the case that Slovak language is official in this municipality and it was Ronline who created it first, not me. I really do not know is Slovak official here or not because sources about this contradict one to another, but if somebody find correct information about official usage of languages in the municipalities then we can implement this infobox in practice. Of course, such infobox is meant only for majority Serb municipalities and I do not insist that we use it in municipalities with Hungarian majority. PANONIAN  19:47, 19 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Oops, my mistake then. I honestly thought the various infoboxes proposed on this page were specific to this article, not examples for general usage, that's why I got so confused. (I must have missed something somewhere.) Looks like this was much ado about nothing then, my apologies. K. Lásztocska 20:53, 19 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Lásztocska, you are sometimes really naive :) Zello 21:18, 19 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Better naive than cynical. K. Lásztocska 21:23, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
 * It wasn't meant to be an insult. I hinted to the fact that all of us are playing Panonian's game, so there is nothing you should have to apologize about. Zello 21:33, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, I apologized mainly for wasting everyone's time by starting another argument based (as it turned out) on my misunderstanding of the situation. You're right that I fell right into his trap again though--I should have learned by now. Anyway, no hard feelings. K. Lásztocska 21:49, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Dehogy, you haven't misunderstood the situation at all. Panonian would like to see as few bilingual infoboxes as possible while we would like to see a lot of them. It is so simple, I think.Zello 21:53, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Ajjajjajjaj, this is giving me a headache....K. Lásztocska 21:58, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
 * What you talking about? What game? But, didnt I just accepted the whole idea that minority names could be used in the infoboxes if they are official? So, what is problem again? If I accepted your general idea and if my infobox proposal contain 90% of your idea, why you do not want to accept my 10% addition to this idea? PANONIAN  09:52, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Do what you want Panonian. This is not so important for me that I would like to argue about it a lot. Indeed - in spite of your fears - I didn't intended to try to do any changes in Serbian and Slovakian infoboxes. These debates consume too much energy. Zello 12:22, 20 May 2007 (UTC)


 * But Zello, those are not "my fears" - it is a political reality in Vojvodina. Read this text about Vojvodina as example: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/mar2002/voj-m22.shtml The text say that the "question of Hungarian influence (in Vojvodina) is explosive". So, do you really do not understand some things or what? You may notice that I was totally tolerant towards views of Hungarians users when they wrotte about places in Vojvodina where Hungarians are in majority. Of course, the problem come from the fact that some of them want also to push certain POV into articles about places where Serbs are in majority. So, if we again move from scientific to political area, we can ask these self-proclaimed "defenders of minority rights" what happened with the rights of Serbs? And not with the rights of Serbs who live as minority in neighbouring countries, but with rights of Serbs who live as majority in their own country. If certain way of usage of certain names for places in serbia with serb majority could be seen as irredentist by Serbs who live there and therefore could be also seen as insulting for them or as violation of their rights, then I do not understand why somebody would continue to do that instead to find model that would be equally acceptable for Serbs who are majority in these places. PANONIAN  15:52, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

If you read the whole text you will realize that the context of this sentence is totally different what you try to present here. But even if Hungarians in Vojvodina were separatists or dangerous not a rapidly decreasing community on the verge of disappearance, their minority rights were inalienable (until they exist). There is a 15 % limit in Serb laws, nobody asked for more, and it is quite a reasonable number. Under this percent minorities are almost invisible, above there is a presence that we should show somehow. Seeing place names as a danger is a typical symptom of political phobia. Place names indeed have a symbolic meaning, you are right. A bilingual infobox mean exactly what anybody without political fears would think - a settlement with a mixed population. I think it is a reasonable claim that in places with Serb majority the other name should be smaller to express its lesser importance. Zello 16:07, 20 May 2007 (UTC)


 * But I am trying to tell you that Serbs in Vojvodina are not so much concern about separatism among Hungarians in the municipalities in which Hungarians form majority - they are much more concern about Hungarian, Croatian and Romanian irredentist claims towards parts of Vojvodina in which Serbs form majority. Therefore, in most municipalities of Vojvodina in which Serbs form majority, Serbian Radical Party is the largest political party exactly because of these irredentist claims. Also, as I said, Wikipedia is not a place where state minority policies should be implemented. We can show here such policies as you said, but in this case we just have to find a model in which we would show only these policies and not some other things. Regarding mixed population, there are very few settlements in Vojvodina with trully mixed population like Subotica or Bečej, while most other settlements have a clear (50%+1) majority of one ethnic group. PANONIAN  18:29, 20 May 2007 (UTC)


 * And by the way Zello, the real problem for Serbs in Vojvodina was never Hungarian Regional Autonomy proposal of some ethnic Hungarian politicians. Problem is a map proposed by "64 counties" movement that want to place numerous ethnic Serbs settlements under ethnic Hungarian rule and therefore usage of Hungarian names for such settlements could be seen as a connection to their proposal. PANONIAN  18:55, 20 May 2007 (UTC)


 * (edit conflict)It's not really our problem if a few Serbs get pissed off by multilingual infoboxes, is it? Our concern should be to present facts with as much accuracy as possible, not necessarily in the most politically correct way, and our goal should be to inform readers, not just to make them feel safe and cozy. If some Serbs want to think that Hungary/Croatia/Romania are trying to take over Vojvodina because some Wikipedians put minority names in infoboxes, that's their problem not ours.K. Lásztocska 18:59, 20 May 2007 (UTC) PS none of us here belong to the 64 Counties movement, so no need to worry about that.

This is a straw man, Panonian, even if some Serbs in Vojvodina believe in it. 64 counties is a fringe group with no real public support. European integration, international law and demographic realities make the present-day borders unchangeable. Both of us know that the ethnic map of Vojvodina will significantly change in the next 30 years mainly because of the consequences of Hungarian immigration. I don't really understand Serb fears, Vojvodina is not like Kosovo. Zello 20:47, 20 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Well it is not "few Serbs" that we speak about. In fact, you have so many Serbs frustrated by this politics that Serbian Radical Party won in every elections in Vojvodina. Few years ago, members of "64 counties" movement were involved in giving papers with map of Greater Hungary to citizens of Novi Sad. Soon after this, Serbian Radical Party won in local elections. Also, I 100% agree that our job is to present correct facts, so my proposal how infobox should look not only present such facts, but it also do not insult anybody (including Serbs). And to answer Zello: Serbs do not fear that Vojvodina might be another Serb Kosovo, but that it might be something like Serb Abkhazia (I hope you know what about I speak here).  PANONIAN  22:12, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Why don't you put this sentence in a footnote? This version is really crazy. Zello 22:23, 21 May 2007 (UTC)


 * But I already explained that (what we discussed the whole time???) - If we post minority names WE HAVE TO provide explanation why these names are there. If we do not provide such explanation, somebody might think that these names are there because of some other reasons. Names posted without such explanation are not of any use to readers of Wikipedia, because if they see such names without explanation they would not be correctly informed about usage of these names. PANONIAN  22:39, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

But you can put this explanation in a footnote without this brutal interruption of the infobox Zello 22:43, 21 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Nobody read footnote and the effect would not be same. PANONIAN  22:46, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Some sources
Let me offer a 2c of sources (ZOMG, I'd better not, that's how I entered this whole mess). The municipal Statute (kind of Constitution) is not available online, but there are few accompanying documents:


 * http://www.dnevnik.co.yu/arhiva/15-05-2002/Strane/mozaik.htm (Dnevnik, 2002-05-15, "Usvojen statut opštine")
 * Deputees of Municipal Assembly of Bač adopted the new municipal Statute, according to the new Law on Local Autonomy... 


 * http://www.bac.co.yu/srpski/SO-e/OdlukaOpsUpravi.pdf (the Decision on Municipal Administration)
 * §5. "U radu Opštinske uprave u službenoj upotrebi je srpski jezik i ćirilično i latinično pismo i slovački i mađarski jezik i pismo, u skladu sa Statutom opštine Bač."
 * §5. "In the operation of municipal administration, in official use is Serbian language of Cyrillic and Latin script, and Slovak and Hungarian language and alphabet, according to the Statute of Municipality of Bač."


 * http://www.chris-network.org/attachment/000000090.pdf (NGOs "Center for multi-culturality" and "Vojvodina center of human rights"): A report based on §25 of the General Convention of Protection of Rights of National Minorities (March 2003, rather outdated).
 * Page 51 "Slovački jezik":"Na slovačkom jeziku ispisani su nazivi samo 3 mesta i to Bački Petrovac, Gložan i Kisač. Ova tri mesta nalaze se na teritoriji 2 opštine od 10 posmatranih u kojima je garantovana službena upotreba slovačkog jezika. U osam opština koje su bile u uzorku istraživanja, a u kojima se garantuje službena upotreba slovačkog jezika, nazivi mesta nisu obeleženi na tom jeziku."
 * P. 51, "Slovak language""In Slovak language only 3 placenames are written: Bački Petrovac, Gložan and Kisač. Those 3 places are on territory of 2 municipalities out of 10 observed, where the official use of Slovak language is guaranteed. In 8 municipalities included in the research sample (Bač apparently not in the sample, op.trans.), in which official use of Slovak is guaranteed, placenames were not marked in that language."

Duja ► 07:52, 21 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I tried to change infobox in the article in accordance with sources that you presented, but seems that there are certain technical problems with this infobox. Can you fix them? Why infobox on the talk page works fine and one in the article not? PANONIAN  22:31, 21 May 2007 (UTC)


 * ZOMG and you realy wanted a full sentence of text in the infobox title??? It can be placed in the article text, as an article footnote, or as a small footnote below the infobox (I can do it right now), but for Christ's sake?! I fixed the alignment issues in the sandbox and I can apply them as we agree, but this is awful. Duja ► 08:34, 22 May 2007 (UTC)


 * But usage of minority names without full sentence is not useful to readers - they should have an explanation why these names are here. What is wrong with sentence anyway? Also, I fixed the problem by myself (problem was about usage of Serbian name in Latin script), so nothing should be changed in the infobox template. PANONIAN  08:38, 22 May 2007 (UTC)


 * What is wrong with sentence anyway??? It looks... awful, can't find a stronger word, in the midst of the infobox title. Anyway, I have a draft now at User:Duja/Temp with examples at User talk:Duja/Temp. I can add a footnote if you wish, just I don't see why is it necessary: if the additional language names are in the infobox title, it's fairly obvious that they're there because the alternate languages are in official use as well. Duja ► 08:41, 22 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Well, there are many things in Wikipedia that looks awful to me, but I had to accept them. Also, footnote is a bad idea, because nobody ever read such footnotes, thus it would not have same effect and readers would not know why these names are written here (It is really not obvious that these names "are there because the alternate languages are in official use as well" - if we want to present correct facts then we should not force readers to think or guess why these names are there, they can guess very wrong things). PANONIAN  08:51, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Anyway, I did agreed that we can add minority names under certain conditions (together with the text), but if you like more, we can remove both, names and the text from the infobox and writte the whole thing somewhere in the "Language" section. PANONIAN  08:53, 22 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Infobox is there to provide a standard set of data about an entity, not a place for exhaustive discussion why the said data are there. There's the article text and a zillion other options. Both Zello and Lastoczka above expressed the same opinion. But now, you're behaving WP:POINTy, aren't you: "OK, I compromised but you can add it only under my terms, i.e. to make it so ugly that we all wish the old version." I know it's not polite to link to this article in reference to another editor, but I can't express it differently. Duja ► 09:01, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
 * But text that I added is a part of "standard set of data about an entity", not some "exhaustive discussion". And Duja, please try not to twist things here claiming that other users expressed here "same opinion" - there is a long discussion about that on this talk page and I sugesst that you read it. The version of the infobox that I proposed here is a COMPROMISE version. Now, when I accepted possibility of usage of minority names in the infobox (but togetrher with the text, which was the thing what could be called compromise here), you want to trick me and to forse me to accept 100% of the version that was proposed by other users (who did not proved their point of view on the talk page) and that version is POV and unacceptable (as I proved on this talk page, but you just do not like to read, do you?). PANONIAN  09:13, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
 * And of course, there is text of the article, so by all means, we can move both, sentence and minority names to the text, or we can move both to the footnote, but where minority names are, the sentence should be too. PANONIAN  09:17, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
 * And also, please do not make false accusations about "WP:POINT" in my case. I NEVER EDITED ANY ARTICLE WITH PURPOSE OF PROVING POINT. But again: if you read the whole discussion on this talk page (and on other pages where the issue was discussed) you will clearly see my explanation for this version of the infobox - the fact that you did not read such discussion does not give you right to accuse somebody for WP:POINT. PANONIAN  09:23, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
 * By the way, I proposed that compromise version, but nobody forcing you or anybody else to accept it - we can simply use old version of the infobox and continue this discussion until end of days... PANONIAN  09:43, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
 * You were told that the compromise version you proposed s*cks. The version User talk:Duja/Temp I proposed is similar to Ronline's, only with shorter and smaller language links. You keep on insisting that the full sentence in the infobox title is necessary for reasons that escape me (and the only reasonable conclusion I could reach is that it's inat); the alternative you offer is that we "continue this discussion until end of days". Thanks, I have better things to do, and I wasted the entire morning already on this WP:LAME. Duja ► 11:55, 22 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I did read it. Here's what Zello said . Here's what Lastoczka said . I didn't see anyone endorsed the version you call "compromise". Duja ► 10:39, 22 May 2007 (UTC)


 * It is really not question whether you think that infobox version sucks or not - for example, I think that the whole infobox sucks, but I accepted that you replace old infoboxes in the municipality articles with this one (no matter that I still think that old one is better). If you do not agree with my proposed version, then why you do not propose another compromise version (but not so similar to version proposed by Ronline. The proposed version should be something between my version and one proposed by Ronline - that one from User talk:Duja/Temp is just same as one proposed by Ronline and I very well explained reasons why that version is not acceptable. If you want I can repeat these reasons, but you just have to read my previous posts in this talk page to find them). And, my intentions are not "inat" or "proving point" and as an admin you should refrain yourself from such serious accusations against somebody without any proof. My intentions is to have one correct and NPOV infobox that would correctly inform readers of Wikipedia about something and that will not be insulting for anybody. And no, it is not me who offer "continuation of this discussion until end of days", but it is what will happen if we do not reach some compromise about this (And I repeat: version proposed by user Ronline IS NOT A COMPROMISE!!!). But, as an example of good will, I can propose another compromise: would a shorter sentence be acceptable for you? Or you have another compromise idea to present? PANONIAN  13:26, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Arbitrary section break
No, I don't accept any kind of sentence in the infobox title, and I don't see why is it necesary. I'd just note that all South Tyrol articles use both German and Italian name in infoboxes and in lead, even in non-fixed order (Altrei has German first, La Val Ladin, and Bolzano Italian), and no one seems to make a big deal out of it nor write long contrieved explanations why they're all there. Why is even a footnote not acceptable? Why is it mandatory that the (self-evident, I repeat) legal information stays in so prominent place? What horrible happens if no one reads it? I think you're trying a false middle ground here. Duja ► 14:34, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

...If you insist on "proposing the compromise", I wouldn't mind leaving the infobox as is, and putting only the official minority names in the lead section (the "Name" sections stay as is). However, what will you do with infoboxes where the minority name already is in the infobox, such as Subotica or Kanjiža. It's a half-solution. Duja ► 14:37, 22 May 2007 (UTC)


 * You don't accept any kind of sentence in the infobox title? But why? Any reasonable reason? The problem is that we cannot compare article about Bač with articles about Sout Tyrol - these are very different cases. We even cannot compare it with Subotica or Kanjiža because it is very different from these articles as well. Usage of minority names cannot possibly be same in one municipality where minorities are in majority and in one municipality where Serbs are in majority. In another words, I really have no intention to change infoboxes in the articles about Subotica or Kanjiža, but in the case of Bač and other municipalities with Serb majority I want to ensure that minority names reflect only local policies of official language usage and not irredentist claims. Minority names without explanation why they are used as such could be seen by some people that they are posted there because of irredentist purpose, while from the scientific point of view, it would be much more useful to readers to have explanation why these names are there instead to think or guess for themselves about such reasons. Perhaps one shorter sentence like this one could be added: "Names in local minority languages officially used by local administration". What possibly could be wrong with that sentence? PANONIAN  16:29, 22 May 2007 (UTC)


 * It's plain ugly. It's awful. It's legality creep. No infobox uses anything similar. Please, either put the alternate names plain and unadored with contrived explanations, or don't put any at all.
 * I don't see why it isn't comparable with Subotica or Kanjiža, or with South Tyrol. All those names are official in local level. If the title can stand on a traffic sign on the town entry, I don't see why it can't stand in the infobox. But if you won't accept that, please just omit it and put a sentence in the article body.
 * I (and other good faith people above, apparently) still think that your fear of irredentist claims is irrational. I know you've been bitten by nationalists of all sorts, but I think you're seeing irredentists everywhere now.
 * "Minority names without explanation why they are used as such could be seen by some people that they are posted there because of irredentist purpose,... it would be much more useful to readers to have explanation why these names are there instead to think or guess for themselves about such reasons."
 * I couldn't disagree more. The thing I probably hate the most of all, and which seriously pisses me off (as you probably noticed, no offense intended), is when software/media/whatever treats its user as an idiot, and feels it is necessary to restate the obvious a zillion times. This is supposed to be an informative, brief, up to the point encyclopedia, not an exercise of entering legality details in an excruciating manner. Duja ► 07:14, 23 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Fine, do you have any other proposal then? (I really would like to hear it). Anyway, your claim that "no infobox uses anything similar" is really not in the place because it suggest that nothing new should not be accepted anywhere (if humans have thinking like that in the past, we would still live in the cave). So, what are real reasons why you do not like this version of the infobox? I do not see that infobox is ugly (and even if it is ugly, you will not marry it, would you?) But what exactly make it ugly and why? Regarding similarity with Subotica, Kanjiža or South Tyrol, I already told you: those are places where minorities are in the majority and this one is not, so if cases are not same, I do not see how can we use same infobox model. The whole point is that these names do not reflect only official status of the language, but many other things in demographic, historical and political domain. Therefore, claim that these names representing only official names used by local authorities is simplifistic and totally wrong. Since these names indeed represent many things, and since we want that they represent here only their official status (without their historical or political meaning), then we simply have to writte that these names represent ONLY official language policies of the municipalities. I really do not care are these names written in the infobox or in the article text, but I just wanted to make some compromise with users that think that these names should be in the infobox. So, what compromise solution you propose (if any)? PANONIAN  17:01, 23 May 2007 (UTC)


 * No, the situation is not substantially different from South Tyrol: the province is officially tri-lingual (like Vojvodina), although German speakers are in majority there (unlike Vojvodina). For example, in Bolzano there are 73% Italian speakers, and 23% German speakers. Both languages are official in all segments of society, as well as small Ladin language, where substantial number of speakers is present. All infoboxes, regardless of ethnic majority, do mention both names.


 * However, the point of arguing seems to be the question whether the infobox name reflects the "claim that these names representing only official names used by local authorities...". In the case of Bač, we don't have entire statute available online; the (secondary) source I cited above does reference the said statute. In addition, in the source you will also find:


 * Statuti opština sa područja APV49 uređuju službenu upotrebu jezika i pisma na području lokalne zajednice, na osnovu i u okvirima zakona (vidi dodatak o Statutima opština
 * Statuti opština doneti su u prvoj polovini 2002. godine, posle usvajanja Zakona o lokalnoj samoupravi kojim su lokalne zajednice – opštine – obavezane da donesu svoje statute kojima uređuju organizaciju vlasti i ostvarivanje nadležnosti lokalne zajednice.
 * Ako bi se poštovalo slovo zakona, sve državne institucije bi trebalo da budu obeležene na srpskom jeziku ćiriličnim pismom, latiničnim pismom gde je to regulisano statutima opština i na jezicima nacionalnih manjina koje garantuju statuti opština.
 * Jedan od načina primene službene upotrebe jezika jeste i isticanje naziva mesta na jezicima čija se službena upotreba garantuje statutima opština.
 * And, the most importantly, on page 77, you will find a detailed table with official languages per municipality, as guaranteed by their respective municipal Statutes.
 * Yes, I heard you (and to an extent agree) that Serbian Laws don't dictate what we will do on Wikipedia. But then, I argue that those official documents are the sole and NPOV hard line we could possibly draw to grant languages officialdom. Currently, the line is drawn at equally arbitrary line of 50%. Why Nova Crnja, with 19% Hungarians, but not e.g. Temerin then, with 30% Hungarians? Why simply not respect the Law which tells what languages are official where, and avoid any accusations of POV or oppression? Aren't we supposed to be a cosmopolitan province?
 * I already presented my suggestion at User talk:Duja/Temp: list all the official names in the infobox, along with a small language icon so that it doesn't pose a visual distraction; explain the situation and officialdom in article's "Name" section. In cases where the spelling in different languages coincide, either put it twice, or put two language icons along: like:
 * Subotica(sr)(hr)
 * (it's currently not feasible with the current version of the template, but it's fixable)
 * I understand that it's much closer to Ronline's version than you'd like to, but I still fail to see how it "encourages irredentist pretenses", "confuses the reader". And, maybe you don't like my explanation that your proposal is ugly, but I don't buy your argument that, quote "Minority names without explanation why they are used as such could be seen by some people that they are posted there because of irredentist purpose, while from the scientific point of view, it would be much more useful to readers to have explanation why these names are there instead to think or guess for themselves about such reasons"
 * As a compromise, maybe we can put the disclaimer such as:
 * "The following names are also in official use according to the Law and municipal Statute. However, it should not be treated as an endorsement of any irredentist claims that might result by their inclusion here. According to international law and Constitution of Serbia, the municipality is a sovereign part of Republic of Serbia."
 * (I'm kidding, of course). Duja ► 09:39, 24 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Ok, one by one: the situation is very different from South Tyrol because of several reasons. For example, in South Tyrol the minority (German) ethnic group is in majority, while in Vojvodina minority ethnic groups are not in majority and also in South Tyrol there is an true bilingualism (de jure and de facto), while in Vojvodina minority names are used only in some places and only in addition to Serbian, in another words, both, demographic relations and language policies in South Tyrol and Vojvodina are very different. Regarding those official documents that you showed, they exactly claiming that these languages are used as official because they are languages of local ethnic minorities and therefore I do not see a reason why you object to the sentence that explain this. As for Nova Crnja, I already said that these articles and infoboxes are about both, places and municipalities, and therefore Hungarian name in Nova Crnja infobox representing the demographic fact that Hungarians are in majority in the village of Nova Crnja, no matter of their percentual participation on the municipal level (If you think that you can solve this problem better, please propose another solution). Regarding Temerin, that is also specific case because Hungarian name for this town is same as Serbian one, so we may say that Hungarian name is already there. :) Of course, no matter of that, I already said that Hungarian names are already written in the infoboxes of the places or municipalities in which Hungarians form absolute or relative majority of population and it is something with what I do not see a problem. The problem is how we would writte minority names in the infoboxes of the articles about places and municipalities where Serbs form absolute or relative majority. In another words, until now, all minority names posted into infoboxes of the articles about places and municipalities of Vojvodina were posted because of one single reason: a demographical one (an none of them was not posted because of official language usage). Now we have new task, to post names because of official language policies and that is something very different from the previous issue. Fact is that we cannot use same principles for everything here because we have de facto 3 diiferent types of municipalities in Serbia: 1. municipalities where Serbs are in majority and where only Serbian is in official use, 2. municipalities where Serbs are in majority and where minority languages are also in official use together with Serbian, and 3. municipalities in which ethnic minorities are in majority (no matter of official language). So, if we have 3 different types of municipalities, we also have to use 3 different principles for them and the main problem that we discuss here is the usage of minority names in the articles about municipalities where Serbs are in majority and where minority languages are also in official use together with Serbian. However, my basic point here is that if we want to reflect such reality, we should not reflect it only partially (i.e. just to writte names), but to reflect it fully (i.e, to writte both, names and description of the reasons for their usage). Since the purpose of Wikipedia is not to implement official state policies, but to describe them, my proposal is exactly the best possible description of the policy, while your proposal from User talk:Duja/Temp is an implementation of the policy (not a description of it), which is not quite in accordance with scientifical purpose of Wikipedia. I simply do not agree that these names are posted into infobox without description of the reasons for their usage - it is not only that it is not useful for readers, but names posted without clear description of the reasons for their usage (official usage and demographics), could have a implication that they are posted there because of very different reasons, i.e. the historical ones (with allusion to the former Kingdom of Hungary) or irredentist political ones (with allusion to the Greater Hungary). And I am not guilty because you do not understand how these names used in the way you proposing could be seen as reflection of the irredentist politics, but believe me, they can be seen in such way (perhaps the problem is the fact that your family was not so "lucky" to have experience with irredentist usage of these names in the past, so you indeed cannot understand the whole emotional dimension of this problem). PANONIAN  12:18, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Ok, let see:
 * (1.) There was already a long discussion about usage of the names in the first sentence, and the basic fact is that it is infobox that reflect official usage of names and not the first sentence of the article, thus if article already have these names listed in the large "Name" section there is absolutelly no reason to repeat these names in the first sentence of the article, which should be brief and should provide only basic informations about the subject,
 * (2.) The minority names that are used in the infoboxes could have as much as four different meanings:
 * 1. official
 * 2. demographical
 * 3. political
 * 4. historical

Since these articles are about present-day administrative entities, it is clear that we will not use these names in their historical meaning as well as we will not use them in the political meaning especially if it reflect politics that is not in accordance with existing social-political system. This mean that we would use these names with two meanings: official and demographical. Minority names used in the articles about Subotica and Kanjiža are posted there because of the demographical reason, i.e. they reflect names used by largest ethnic group that live in these areas. In Bač, we have very different case: here we have intention to include names as reflection of their official status, thus we encounter very different problems than those in Subotica or Kanjiža. So, the basic task would be the question how we can use these minority names to reflect their official status (and partially demographic one, since these names are used by some local inhabitants), but also to inform readers that these names are used because of official and demographic reason, but not because of political or historical one. My thought was that infobox with a sentence that explain such official and demographic reality would be best solution, but since argument opposite to this is that infobox with such sentence is "ugly and awful", I would really like to hear any other proposals how we can achive this task. PANONIAN 20:09, 23 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't see how you really separate the first three: the official names come from a political decision (in the case at hand, by Serbian government and parliament) to grant certain rights to ethnic minorities on the basis of demographical criteria. Historical names may or may not coincide with the former, but no one is really suggesting to put Latin name in Sremska Mitrovica or historic Hungarian name on Bela Crkva infobox; I assert (yet) again that the mere presence of other-language name in an infobox makes it blindingly obvious that it's one of its official names. Duja ► 11:11, 25 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Fine, perhaps I did not used correct terms: I did not had in mind "official state politics", but "unofficial irredentist politics" (please read some of this crap before claiming that "noboby would have this in mind": http://www.hunmagyar.org/taj/delvidek/index.html or http://www.hacusa.org/hac/press/990730.html - those are only examples, but you have plenty of these sites on the Internet and everything could be found there from claims that "evil neighbours stole ancient Hungarian lands" (the Hungarians are seen as descendants of ancient Sumerians, of course) to presentation of false demographical data and proposals for "certain" political future of Vojvodina). So, what happen here in fact? Somebody who surf on the Internet could perhaps first read some of these web sites and then when he visit Wikipedia, he would think that names used in the way you proposing are written here because of the "information" that he saw on these web sites. Also your claim that "no one is really suggesting to put Latin name in Sremska Mitrovica or historic Hungarian name on Bela Crkva infobox" is exactly the heart of the problem because if you do not say that these names are there because of official language policy and demographics then they indeed could still have their historical or irredentist political dimension and that is something that we should avoid. PANONIAN  12:42, 25 May 2007 (UTC)


 * hunmagyar.org is a stupid website and I doubt it gets much traffic. Also if you read that HAC petition carefully you will see that it only refers to the strongly Hungarian-populated northern 1/4 of the region, and it calls for autonomy, not union with Hungary.
 * Once again, I state my position on this broader philosophical issue: if we present all the facts about something as clearly and accurately as possible but some ignorant reader still misinterprets things and gets the wrong idea, that is his problem, not ours. Our only concern should be factual accuracy, clarity, and academic neutrality; there is no good reason to waste so much time worrying about what a handful of people might think if they happen to visit one certain website before reading Wikipedia and don't bother getting any further information anywhere. K. Lásztocska 20:10, 25 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Well, HAC petition in fact refer to whole Vojvodina with main part of the petition connected to "northern 1/4" (which is not entirely Hungarian-populated by the way). And the "autonomy" that it calls for is a forced type of "autonomy" because I do not see that HAC petition say that it would ASK citizens of predominantly South Slavic-inhabited municipalities of Novi Kneževac and Subotica whether they WANT to live within such "autonomy" or not - that is a basic problem. The "autonomy" they refer to is "autonomy" forcibly established by international military and not by the will of local inhabitants. Regarding factual accuracy, I do not see that version of the infobox that I prosed is factually inaccurate. On the contrary, it exactly present facts in most accurate way and does not leave space for wrong interpretations of these facts. PANONIAN  04:57, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Another suggestion
I still don't think you're being rational, but never mind. I made another proposal here. It contains "official languages and names" (short enough for me, I hope long enough for you) in a separate section of an infobox, with a list below it. Sold? (although I'll have to run in a while and won't be around until Monday). Duja ► 13:15, 25 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Well, you have to be very good merchant to sell something to me. Anyway, general idea of your proposal would be acceptable, but we have to work more about details. Since official languages and official names are in fact two different things, it would be better for us to have two separate sections instead just one (one named "official languages in the municipality" and other named "official names of the municipality"). Both sections should list all official names and languages (including serbian) and there should be also footnote connected to both sections with a sentence that will further describe usage of these languages and names. PANONIAN  05:05, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Perhaps we can list both, names and languages, in the same section, but I do not know how to add a footnote that further explain their official usage. PANONIAN  08:11, 26 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I disagree with this proposal, because it is far too forced and borders on WP:POINT. Panonian, you said a while ago that you would agree to have multilingual infoboxes if we can prove that Slovak and Hungarian are official in Bač. You said that it would be difficult to determine this. Well, it has now been determined that indeed Slovak and Hungarian are official. For this reason, the two names should be listed in the title of the infobox, as is the convention all over Wikipedia. There is no rational reason for Vojvodina to be an exception. You don't own this article, and frankly, if the majority of people here agree to include the Hungarian and Slovak names in the infobox, then tough luck. Too many users have spent too much time trying to seek compromise with you, and every time something is reached, you just push the conditions further and further. I agree with Duja's proposal to tag the names in the infobox using superscript - like this: Szabadka (hu). Ronline ✉ 06:52, 26 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Ronline, it was not my guilt because compromise cannot be reached here. I agreed that minority names could be written in the title of the infobox, but user Duja think that my proposal about compromise version of such infobox is "awful and ugly" while you do not like solution proposed by Duja. In another words, I was very flexible here and accepted views of both of you, but seems that you two are not able to find a middle solution about this question. PANONIAN  08:07, 26 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Duja was referring specifically to the inclusion of the long disclaimer in the infobox as "awful and ugly". I am in favour of the previous proposals of Duja, but I believe that this most recent one is a forced attempt at compromise (with you) and goes against common conventions established at Wikipedia. It is your insistence on including disclaimers in the infobox, and your continued arguments about "irredentism", that have resulted in the stalemate here. All the other users seem to be agreement about the multilingual infobox titles. Your opposition in itself is not a problem - the problem is that you keep on changing your position and pushing the conditions further and further. Ronline ✉ 09:14, 26 May 2007 (UTC)


 * No matter if somebody think that sentence is "awful and ugly" (I for example do not think that), infobobox without that sentence is POV, and it is obvious that ugly technical solutions are much less damage for Wikipedia than POV presentations. In another words, I do not care at all for technical solutions and I will accept usage of these names in any part of the infobox or in any part of the article, and the only thing that I ask for is that wherever these names are written that they should be written in the NPOV manner. That is certainly not against Wikipedia conventions because NPOV presentation IS an Wikipedia convention. And how ridiculous is your claim that problem here is the fact that I "keep on changing my position". Of course that I changing my position as attempt to find compromise with you and Duja. How you intent to make any compromise if you do not change your position? I really would want to know the answer. PANONIAN  16:24, 26 May 2007 (UTC)


 * You have an excellent knack for changing the meaning of my words. What I meant was that every time people try to engage in a compromise, you change the conditions and push further and further, to the extent where any attempt at compromise is diluted. Initially, the debate was about the infobox, but then you refused to accept the alternate names link. On the Hungarian Wikipedians' notice board, you then said that you would accept bilingual infoboxes, but that this would anyway apply to only a few localities. When I attempted to carry this out, you stated that you would no longer accept this, because we do not know if Slovak and Hungarian are really official in Bač. Now that we have sources for that, you're saying that you want that ugly disclaimer included. The NPOV solution in this case is to present the Serbian, Slovak and Hungarian names all in the title, on an equal standing, since they are all official languages of both Vojvodina and Bač. Your solution, aside from being WP:POINT, is also not used anywhere else on Wikipedia. It is not a "POV presentation", or otherwise all the other infoboxes on Wikipedia would be POV. Ronline ✉ 01:16, 27 May 2007 (UTC)


 * First: IT IS NOT disclaimer (but scientific description) and IT IS NOT ugly. Second: Slovak and Hungarian names are not equal to Serbian, because Serbian is the single official language of Serbia (and Bač is part of Serbia), while Hungarian and Slovak are just regional languages. Third: my proposal IS NOT a WP:POINT - I will repeat: I NEVER EDITED ANY ARTICLE WITH PURPOSE OF WP:POINT and my only intentions here are to have NPOV presentation of facts in the article. Also, if you object to my proposals for compromise, would you like more that I still proposing my first opinion that no alternate names should be in the infoboxes? I changed my stance in order to make a compromise, but "if I gave you one finger, why you think that you can take my whole arm?" No, my friend, it is time for you too "to give your finger" if you want a compromise. That is how things work in this world. Also, the fact that my proposed solution is "not used anywhere else on Wikipedia" (as you said), does not mean that solution is bad or that it will not be widely used on Wikipedia in the future. And indeed, many other infoboxes on Wikipedia are POV, but I have no free time to make all of them NPOV.  PANONIAN  11:31, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Conclusion
Now, since this discussion lead nowhere, this is my modified comprose version: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Duja/Temp02 Let stop discussing things that are not related to the subject, but if somebody think that this version is bad please elaborate why, if somebody think that it is ugly, please elaborate why as well. PANONIAN 12:22, 27 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I have one alternative proposal as well: we can simply remove all these names from the infobox (including Serbian Cyrillic name) and we can leave only most common English name (Bač), or we can remove all names (including most common English name), so we would have something like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Duja/Temp03 (I hope this is not ugly to anybody). PANONIAN  12:33, 27 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I could live with something like that; however,
 * Removal of Cyrillic name from the infobox title would most likely bring objections from other Serbian users; after all, Cyrillic is official in every single municipality, esp. those in Central Serbia. I'm inclined to move it below the Latin ("English") name though.
 * The wording "Languages and names officialy used by local authorities" is clumsy and slightly misleading; the languages are also used on traffic signs, street names etc. I suggest "in official use"; that's the actual wording in Statute of Subotica, §7, ("U službenoj upotrebi u Opštini su istovremeno srpski, hrvatski i mađarski jezik sa svojim pismima.") and probably in all others (Ruma has "U Opštini je u službenoj upotrebi srpski jezik i ćirilično pismo"). (The wording you used comes from the Decision of Municipal Government of Bač, which is the Statute's subordinate document pertaining only to the administration, and we don't have the statute available).
 * It's still missing the municipal name in minority languages; that's the point where the contention actually started. Duja ► 09:10, 30 May 2007 (UTC)


 * But why you object to my first proposal that we describe official usage of minority names with a short sentence? Other users said that my proposal could be acceptable for them and only you object with claim that it is "ugly" (and that is rather an subjective opinion). PANONIAN  04:32, 1 June 2007 (UTC)