User talk:Crackpot54

Welcome!

Hello, Crackpot54, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful: I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on discussion pages using four tildes ( ~ ); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place  before the question. Again, welcome!
 * The five pillars of Wikipedia
 * Tutorial
 * How to edit a page and How to develop articles
 * How to create your first article (using the Article Wizard if you wish)
 * Manual of Style

Борщ
I'll explain you the problem in detail (it is not only Борщ, have a look into holodomor title). But please do not change transliteration for now. Materialscientist (talk) 02:55, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
 * In short, wikipedia decided to use names, which are most widely used in English-language literature, even if they deny common transliteration "rules" (there are no rules, there are a few conventions, and some letters have several versions). Borscht and holodomor are two appealing examples. I tried to change them to a reasonable spelling, but consensus was against it. Materialscientist (talk) 03:03, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I understand, but "their" argument is that borsch has become international, and is called differently in different countries. (I've personally heard Americans pronounce it with t, maybe because of the Jewish influence, as in Israel it is also with t). It's not just objects, even names are "messed up", if you wish: Tchaikovsky is a widely accepted spelling, though there is no t in chai either. Materialscientist (talk) 03:18, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
 * My problems is that I actually agree with you (that transliteration should be an adequate phonetic representation), but I see too many violations to be bothered. Holodomor is simply another meaning of the word, yet all books use it. It is hard to fight for claims like "borsch is original spelling and the whole world should pronounce it so" - no, unfortunately, other nations have their ideas about how to call something. Russia is not better (perhaps worse, especially in the past) in this regard. Forget subjects, take people names and look at Russian transliteration/pronunciation of foreign names (Einstein, Brown, etc.). Materialscientist (talk) 03:45, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
 * No, because the problem is not in the "right" pronunciation, but in that other countries chose to pronounce it differently. Materialscientist (talk) 04:04, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Perhaps the problem is in your seeing it as a "mistake", which "must be corrected". How about fixing Броуновское движение in the Russian literature, + a few thousand names like that :-). Frankly, I had similar ideas as you some time ago - it takes time and patience to understand how things work. Materialscientist (talk) 04:17, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
 * First, take some time to meditate on what is "right" and "wrong" here. Second, the primary idea of wikipedia is to document reliable and notable information. It has very little space and tolerance for personal analysis, i.e. it is meant to help teaching, but not teach. Materialscientist (talk) 04:29, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't want to teach you facts - you know them better than I, I just wish you see that there are many opinions about different problems, and wikipedia has very limited resources to decide - instead it documents (notable opinions). (Yes, wikipedians do discuss a lot, but I consider this a waste of time which should be spent on building articles). To illustrate my point, holodomor occurred in the Soviet Union, a country where the only official language was Russian. Yet, books used Ulrainian transliteration before USSR disappeared and Ukraine started rolling back all names. I.e., there is no logic behind many choices, or if there is, it can be twisted different ways. As to Wkipedia=Bible, we can't stop people from believing, but we can make wikipedia better so that people get more reliable (and neutral) information. It is easy to learn to edit wikipedia, but there is a vast amount of work to do here. Materialscientist (talk) 05:08, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, I was inaccurate, there was no real official language in the USSR until 1990. Russian was only de facto official language. Anyway, our last arguments only support the statement that most naming arguments are debatable. Cheers. Materialscientist (talk) 06:23, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Well, it was I who moved borscht to borsch, and got reverted. In the following discussion at talk:borscht the current name was kept. Read it ("Move to Borsch" and "Requested move" sections) to understand the facts behind the move, but it will take time to understand and accept the logic behind them. Materialscientist (talk) 06:57, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
 * No, there are no conspiracy theories for borscht on wikipedia. Most people simply do not care. The crucial point was that it became borscht in Israel, brought to the US, and remained as borscht in the US for too long. During that time, too many books used borscht, and by now the majority of them use borscht. Nearly all Americans use "borscht", and it is hard to beat that now. Like a few other Russian/Ukrainian words (samovar, etc), borscht got borrowed into the English language, and it's too late to change that. Materialscientist (talk) 07:09, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
 * No, geographical names can change any time, and most Indian cities did change names recently, and India is an English-speaking country'. The situation is opposite with objects, like borsch, where the older the word, the more difficult it is to change anything. Materialscientist (talk) 07:16, 22 January 2012 (UTC)