Talk:Voivodeships of Poland/Archive 2

Please stop the madness and deal with mass renaming of articles against NC/GN now

 * — LMK3 (talk) 06:05, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

The English language forms province (województwo) names differently than the Polish language. Polish uses the adjective form (e.g., "Warmińsko-mazurskie", which some render in English as "Warmian-Masurian"). English uses the noun form ("Warmia–Mazury").

For "Warmińsko-mazurskie", Google gives "Warmian-Masurian", 1,070,000; "Warmia–Mazury", 2,400,000.

Nevertheless, without checking all 16 Polish provinces on Google, I doubt that Google is going to give us a coherent set of English equivalents.

Two consistent approaches do come to mind, for rendering the Polish province names in English:

1. Use the original Polish adjectival versions, as just introduced by Spacejam2 ("Warmińsko-mazurskie");

2. Use the Polish-noun forms ("Warmia–Mazury").

Either approach seems preferable to the present arbitrary, inconsistent set of names on Wikipedia. Of the two approaches, the second is more consistent with normal English-language practice. Thus, in Canada there is no "Quebecian", "Nova Scotian", "British Columbian" or "Prince Edward Islandian" Province.

Nihil novi (talk) 07:51, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
 * There may be something to be said for changing these names, but it needs to do through a proper discussion and decision process, not just one editor deciding to change them all unilaterally. I've reverted the moves back to the names they were all at before; if anyone has a proposal to change them, please make it through the normal channels.--Kotniski (talk) 09:05, 10 August 2011 (UTC)


 * The main problem with the above given searches is that just putting "-wiki" doesn't do crap to screen out Wikipedia mirrors, LLC books and the like. It doesn't even screen out hits that have the word "wikipedia" in them. Looking at google books is much more illustrative. Just as an example, take "Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship" -wiki" vs. "Warmińsko-mazurskie Voivodeship" -wiki. "Warmińsko-mazurskie Voivodeship" gets only 9 hits, but all of them are legit outside sources. "Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship" appears to get 312 hits, but every single one is a Wikipedia reprint . As with other cases, these "hits" are too an (erroneous) Wikipedia invention, not to anything that can be called "English naming".
 * Additionally the European Union and other English speaking organizations use the "Warmińsko-mazurskie Voivodeship" format for all these. Hence, the moves are in fact applying NC/GN.
 * And frankly, I disagree with Kotniski. Naming conventions are a god awful mess that do nothing but cause trouble and nobody that isn't paying attention to them 24/7 knows exactly what the hell is going on with them, and even then they're ridiculously confusing and often self-contradictory. Moving all of them in this way is just applying "be bold" in a constructive manner.Volunteer Marek (talk) 09:20, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Also agree with NN that the "Warmian-Masurian" format is about the worst possible. Why not "Wyomingian state"? "Suffolkian county"? Volunteer Marek (talk) 09:22, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
 * It's not constructive to make lots of moves which you know are controversial and are likely to be reverted. We have a system for proposing and deciding this sort of thing without creating drama - let's use it.--Kotniski (talk) 09:36, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Google Books advanced search, not a eureka moment

 * — LMK3 (talk) 18:14, 10 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Response (as of 22:04, 10 August 2011 by User:Volunteer Marek)
 * Commented in green by LMK3 (talk) 05:15, 11 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Let's not split hairs. — LMK3 (talk) 05:15, 11 August 2011 (UTC)
 * ? Volunteer Marek (talk) 09:12, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Google Books, Google Scholar and general search summary (sample)

 * That's how Betamax died. — LMK3 (talk) 17:49, 12 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Again, the two gbook hits for "Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship" in fact are PoD/Wikipedia mirrors.Volunteer Marek (talk) 09:14, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

As you probably already know, Google results are often greatly overestimated. When you add a word at the end of the phrase (e.g. "and"), and choose the option of showing 100 results every time, you get more reliable results:

"Warmia-Masuria Province and" = 8

"Warmian-Masurian Province and" = 6

"Warmia-Masuria Voivodeship and" = 31

"Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship and" = 57

So the differences seem to be less than 10-fold, rather than 1000-fold Sylwia Ufnalska (talk) 20:20, 12 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure what "option of showing 100 results" means, but my personal favorite, ""Warmia-Mazury Province and", gets 96. So someone at least shows good sense. Nihil novi (talk) 06:23, 13 August 2011 (UTC)