Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2007-01-15 Ataturk High School of Science, Istanbul

Mediation Case: 2007-01-15 Ataturk High School of Science, Istanbul
Please observe Etiquette and Talk Page Etiquette in disputes. If you submit complaints or insults your edits are likely to be removed by the mediator, any other refactoring of the mediation case by anybody but the mediator is likely to be reverted. If you are not satisfied with the mediation procedure please submit your complaints to Wikipedia talk:Mediation Cabal.

Request Information

 * Request made by: Onganer Onganer 16:48, 15 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Where is the issue taking place?
 * "ü" is not a part of the English alphabet but people are trying to include it on English Wikipedia articles. I request the changes done to be reverted.


 * Who's involved?
 * Baristarim, Khoikhoi


 * What's going on?
 * I am accused of vandalism whereas it is them who have started changing without warning. And this act caused links to break.


 * ''What would you like to change about that?
 * The article should be moved from "Ataturk High School of Science, Istanbul" back to its original reference to "Atatürk High School of Science, Istanbul". Secondly the non-English characters in the article should be removed.


 * Would you prefer we work discreetly? If so, how can we reach you?
 * Yes. On my Talk page.

Mediator response
WP:NC offers a potential answer to this situation that I will refrain from interpreting here until all parties have offered their opinions. Flakeloaf 05:04, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Compromise offers
This section is for listing and discussing compromise offers.



Comment by Baristarim
I will reply when I have more time, but the issue is basically this: this user is very protective of this article that he wrote, blanked its talk page citing this reason (and this talk page for that matter along with my lengthy posts where I tried to explain to him in good faith how Wikipedia worked, how diacritics worked etc) and doesn't want to allow that Atatürk be spelt with the u with the two dots on the u (in the article or the title), and insists on changing them back to the without dots version. The page was moved to Atatürk spelling by an administrator. He also insists on creating redirects by linking Kadikoy instead of Kadıköy, which is where the page is at to begin with. I will find the diffs for all that I said in due time, but I am busy trying to fix something else at the moment. The "breaking of links" doesn't mean anything - I fixed them using AWB in two minutes. I really don't know what more I can say... I will try to check back soon though. Baristarim 05:20, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Comment by Khoikhoi
Yeah, well...to start things off, I just wanted to note that there is no official policy that says "only letters in the English alphabet should be used for titles". If there was, we wouldn't have articles at titles like Nguyễn Minh Triết, Andris Šķēle, Thomas Häßler, Anker Jørgensen, Antonín Dvořák, François Mitterrand, Lech Wałęsa, Þorsteinn Pálsson, and Davíð Oddsson. Naming conventions (use English) even states:

"If a native spelling uses different letters than the most common English spelling (eg, Wien vs. Vienna), only use the native spelling as an article title if it is more commonly used in English than the anglicized form."

Furthermore, the Atatürk article has used the diacritics for for years now. The Britannica article also spells it as "Kemal Atatürk", which shows us that the "ü" is definitely acceptable use here. Khoikhoi 05:34, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Response by Mediator
I think I understand both sides here.

To begin, I'd like to make sure everyone is familiar with WP:OWN, WP:Assume Good Faith and WP:BOLD. These three policies together encourage users to freely modify any page, and to assume edits made to any page here were made in good faith and without malicious intent to the page, the article's subject or any other editors. Further, edits to any non-protected page require no one's permission, and no offence should be taken if another editor boldly makes a dramatic change. I say "editor" instead of "author" here because each of us has just as much stake in any page as everyone else, no matter how much (or little) text we contributed to it.

Take a look at the talk page for Wikipedia Naming conventions:use English, specifically, the discussion on diacritics. It's a long, circular discussion leading only to frustration. Existing Wikipedia guidelines appear to be at odds with each other; WP:UE states we should use the English spelling while WP:NAME prefers the "common spelling". There is a guideline in the works that seeks to address specifically the problem of diacritics, but until that guideline is official we're on our own. Relying on something that might someday eventually become a guideline to resolve a present-day dispute would be unwise.

That same talk page points out how Wikipedia:WikiProject Ireland solved this issue on their own by coming up with a manual of style to enforce specific formatting across all articles in that Wikiproject. The best recommendation, for the sake of this individual article (my primary concern here) is to deflect this discussion to your own WikiProject and come to a consensus on a manual of style.

Suggestion #1

1. All three editors mutually apologise for any perceived offence, as none was probably intended.

2. WikiProject_Turkey begins work on a Manual of Style intended to address, among other issues, proper spelling and use of diacritics across all articles belonging to WP:Turkey.

3. Edit warring on Atat%C3%BCrk_High_School_of_Science%2C_Istanbul immediately stop, with a quick note on the Talk page redirecting discussion on the use of diacritics to the aforementioned Manual.

4. Continued attention be paid to The protoguideline on the use of diacritics on Wikipedia, just in case they finish their job before you do.

Flakeloaf 11:54, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Silence is agreement except in Ontario. Case closed. Flakeloaf 07:43, 19 February 2007 (UTC)