Talk:La Religieuse (novel)

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Requested move 11 September 2015

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: no consensus. Reasonable arguments have been made by both sides and there isn't anything close to agreement about what the most common name for this book is in English-language reliable sources. Jenks24 (talk) 17:00, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

La Religieuse (novel) → The Nun (novel) – Otis Fellows in his book Diderot(1977) and P.N. Furbank in his book Diderot: A Critical Biography (1992) call the english title of the book The Nun. I think wherever possible the english title of any book should be used as far as possible. In this respect, please see the WP page of Water Margin for a case of a chinese novel with six different english titles in usage one of which is selected as the page name. We need to respect the fact that wikipedia is an encyclopedia for generalists, not specialists, and for this the english titles are preferable since the chinese or french (or other language) titles would come across as gibberish to most people. Further, although this is a request for move for this specific page, the issue really involves all books written by Diderot and in fact all books written by other writers who did not write their books in english. A general discussion about this issue, not about this particular book but related to another book by Diderot, has taken place at User talk:Ritchie333/Archive 30. This is a relevant discussion since the problem we are confronted with is the same: do we retain the original french title of Diderot's book or do we use the equivalent english title(s) used by other scholars. Soham321 (talk) 21:16, 11 September 2015 (UTC) Relisted. Jenks24 (talk) 13:05, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Oppose - When I conduct a database/book search for just English sources, I still get more hits for 'Diderot "La Religieuse"' than 'Diderot "The Nun"'. The difference is not as stark as the other example I looked at, Supplément au voyage de Bougainville, but per WP:ENGLISH the title should be the most used name in English sources rather than using a translation for its own sake. &mdash;  Rhododendrites talk  \\ 21:46, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
 * The Chinese name of the book Water Margin is Shui Hu Zhuan which is also spelled as Shui Hu Chuan. Could you please do a database search for these three names (Water Margin, Shui Hu Zhuan, and Shui Hu Chuan) and count the number of times these three names occur in the literature.I don't know which database you are searching otherwise i would have done this myself. Soham321 (talk) 21:56, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't mean to make it sound like I did anything fancy or complicated. I just did a university library search (which goes through a bunch of databases of journals, ebooks, metadata, etc.). I plugged the other terms in and found 87 articles and 14 books for "Shui Hu Zhuan", 123 articles and 8 books for "Shui Hu Chuan", and 1204 articles and 13 books for "Water Margin". Without an additional term for the latter, though, I don't know how helpful that could be as "water margin" or "water-margin" looks to be a term used in other contexts e.g. "Male burrow digging in a sex role-reversed spider inhabiting water-margin environments". &mdash;  Rhododendrites talk  \\ 01:43, 12 September 2015 (UTC)


 * CommentI have one more question: is there any english book which does not give the english title of this work. If most or all books in english (these would include biographies of Diderot like Diderot's biography by Fairbanks and Diderot's biography by Wilson) give the english title (along with the french title), and most or all journal articles give the french title only then what should be done according to you? Soham321 (talk) 00:27, 12 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Presuming we would only bother looking at the first substantial mention of the name (i.e. discounting instances where it uses the French name throughout but mentions the translation as a minor aside), from a quick look through the first few sources I came across, it looks like they all omit the English: Diderot Studies, Framed Narratives, New Essays on Diderot, Enlightenment and Pathology. I don't want to pretend as though I've done a very thorough search, but as far as I'm concerned, all signs are pointing to the French name being dominant. &mdash;  Rhododendrites talk  \\ 01:53, 12 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Please tell me the name of any books which use the french name throughout while mentioning the english title as a minor aside. I think if books are placing emphasis on the english title and journal articles are placing emphasis on the french title then we should go with what the books are doing because wikipedia is an encyclopedia for generalists and not specialists. Soham321 (talk) 04:51, 12 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Comment - Though I appreciate the idea behind it, a requested move is really just for discussion of whether a page should be moved according to current policies and guidelines. This thread can't really be used to make decisions about other articles or changes to policy. If the guidelines are not clear (I agree they could be clearer), perhaps the best way would be to formulate a concise WP:RFC at one of the Village Pumps or at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (use English). &mdash;  Rhododendrites talk  \\ 21:49, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I realize that any discussion here will not be binding on other WP articles; that was just a general comment i made. Soham321 (talk) 21:57, 11 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Comment - Sorry for the multiple comments here, but I do also want to raise the issue of the requested target. The Nun is a disambiguation page. Are you proposing e.g. The Nun (book) or also proposing that The Nun be moved to The Nun (disambiguation)? (The latter, for what it's worth, seems extremely unlikely). &mdash;  Rhododendrites talk  \\ 21:52, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
 * The current title of the page is La Religieuse (novel). My proposed title for the main article is The Nun (novel). Soham321 (talk) 21:56, 11 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Support per Penguin Classics and Oxford Classics editions. However The Nun (Diderot novel) would be helpful to readers since (a) there is an English-language novel The Nun from 1833 and (b) anyone searching Religieuse + Diderot will still easily find it if we give the author name. In ictu oculi (talk) 07:12, 12 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Comment I agree. Another option could be The Nun (Diderot). I am ok with either of the two names. Soham321 (talk) 11:55, 12 September 2015 (UTC)
 * What is your interpretation of the guidelines for this. It sounds like you're basing your decision on whether there exist translations which also translate the title (in the same way). But isn't the questions about what sources about the subject of an article call it? &mdash;  Rhododendrites talk  \\ 13:05, 12 September 2015 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.