Talk:Gdańsk/Archive 10

message: The Gdansk/Danzig naming problem is the core of a whole lot of other problems. Since so far there was no sucess in achieving a compromise (despite numerous attempts!), I believe a vote is needed for deciding the issue, and have in cooperation with a few other users prepared a vote on Talk:Gdansk/Vote. The vote has not yet started and is in the discussion phase. The planned voting period is two weeks from Monday, February 21 0:00 to Monday, March 7 0:00. Constructive comments are welcome -- Chris 73 Talk 03:48, Feb 16, 2005 (UTC)
Voting has just ended and I noticed that there's a problem with the survey.  Someone has suggested, incorrectly, that a majority (50%) has some meaning. It does not.  We do things by consensus on Wikipedia.  A working consensus, at a minimum, is taken as 2:1 or 67%. A more acceptable figure is 80%.
In the circumstances, anyone trying to make policies based on the 50% figure stick is likely to experience severe problems. In particular, I shall follow the dispute resolution process with anyone using administrator powers to block someone using the "wrong" spelling of Gdansk, Danzig, whatever as simple vandalism as implied by item 10 (also repeated reverting would fall under WP:3RR).  There is a 50/78 (64%) majority, somewhat short of a rough consensus.  And we would require a pretty convincing consensus to justify changing the definition of simple vandalism. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 00:11, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: In retrospect I would have changed the wording of the vote #10. My goal was to have reverts that comply with community consensus excempted from the 3RR, and only persistent reverts against community consensus despite multiple warnings may require further action. My goal was not to label this vandalism, as was also expressed by many voters. Results are on Talk:Gdansk/Vote (counted everything twice, hope there are no mistakes). The last vote was adjusted slightly, see Talk:Gdansk/Vote#Results on VOTE: Enforcement. Overall 44 voters agreed with the vote, and 28 opposed. Quite a number of voters on both sides opposed the label vandalism, which I should have worded differently at the beginning of the vote (Hindsight: 20/20, i guess ;). Many of the opposing voters also stated that they would have agreed to a 3RR exemption. The results are trying to incorporate these views. Comments are very welcome. Since I protected the vote page to avoid accidential voting after the vote ended, comments may be added on Talk:Gdansk/Vote/discussion. -- Chris 73 Talk 02:24, Mar 4, 2005 (UTC)
I still have a concern regarding the post-1945 naming.
The cross-naming votes Talk:Gdansk/Vote#VOTE:_Cross-Naming_Gdansk.2FDanzig and Talk:Gdansk/Vote#VOTE:_Cross-Naming_General really should have distinguished time periods rather than broadly applying across all time periods, or at least should have distinguished between historical and purely modern contexts. Supporting a post-1945 qualification required a "write-in vote", and in most elections a "write-in" candidacy fares more poorly than an equivalent explicit ballot option.
In view of the definitive treaties signed following German reunification and membership of both countries in the European Union, and the present-day linguistic demographics, it seems very unlikely indeed that border issues will ever be reopened, and the status and naming of Gdansk in purely modern contexts is at least as settled as that of Strasbourg.
The endless edit wars over the years were all about the usage in historical contexts, they never spread to articles in purely modern contexts.  But theoretically that could now happen, creating a brand new problem while solving old ones.  Hopefully, this will remain a purely theoretical concern. -- Curps 04:38, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

text: Yes, I should have included these options, too. Hindsightis 20/20, I guess. At least I hope that the vote solves more problems than it makes. My feeling is also that if there is a local consensus on an article, the rules in this vote do not have to be followed strictly. Best regards, -- Chris 73 Talk 05:01, Mar 4, 2005 (UTC)
----
After all the debates, it's a pleasure to read an article about this city that accurately reflects its fascinating ethnographic history but avoids value judgments offensive to either side.
Danzig, which existed for some six centuries, is not lost to history, but this in no way should be taken as any suggestion that the status of Gdansk today should in any way be "revised." There was more than enough of that in the past.
As one who has visited Gdansk, my hat is off to Poland for restoring the city center so beautifully.
For anyone who is interested in what the city previously was, I strongly recommend reading Nobel laureate Günter Grass's second novel, "Dog Years." Grass is in no way a German "revanchist" -- he is a humanist, and a very great novelist in the "prophetic" tradition. For Poles, let me say that he in no way exculpates the Germans for what they did during the Nazi era. Quite the contrary.
Sca 19:37, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Voting proposal 

message: The pronunciation of "Gdansk" is listed in English dictionaries, and that information should be included on this page. Nohat 20:12, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: This is not a dictionary. English dictionaries also list pronunciations of ordinary words like "chair", which we don't. And those "English pronunciations of Gdansk" are no different. As evidenced by the fact that there are three of them, those just reflect the ignorant man on the street's attempts to "pronounce it as it's written." There is no encyclopedic value to it whatsoever. The only correct pronunciation is the original Polish one. Once you know that, it's best to use that, and if you don't, you can figure out a wrong pronunciation by yourself. NoPuzzleStranger 21:29, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: We don't remove information here unless it's wrong or indisputably irrelevant, neither of which are true about the English pronunciations of Gdansk. There is no such thing as a "correct" or "incorrect" pronunciation in English, and I don't see any reason why we shouldn't report to our readers the various ways that the name is pronounced in English. This deletion seems motivated by some kind of misguided desire to stamp out what you perceive to be "corruption" of the original Polish. Frankly, in the English Wikipedia, I find that how to pronounce the name of something in English to be far more valuable than how to pronounce it in some other language, particularly for some other language that I don't speak. 02:06, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pronunciations 

message: Any of the further reading which is not in English should be removed. The list has a place on the German and Polish pages for the respective books in their languages but not here. A few English language titles and/or translations with ISBNs would be useful though. -- Philip Baird Shearer 17:29, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Removed none English reading list Philip Baird Shearer 22:50, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Further reading 

message: How it was possible that before my edits  history chapter missed:
*Westerplatte and the Post Office resistance
*The faith of Polish and Jewish minorities during WW2 (including Stutthof and Pisanica)
*Destruction of the city by the invading Red Army
*the date of annextion of the city by Hitler?
*what happenned during ww2?
Moreover nonsenses that I tried to tame long, long ago were in place?
Numbers: 385 000 pre war population, 100 000 died during the war, 285 000 in Germany 1950 contain factual errors:
* 385 000 obviously is the population of FSD not the city,
* 100 000 we don't know really. This number is obviously calculated by aritmetic substraction. The factors that are not included:
** In 1950 German POW's were still imprisoned in SU. (number unknown)
** The unknown number of citizens were FSD were positively verified and stayed in the city (at least 20 000)
** natural growth of population is not taken into account (11 years - theoritically 22% of children should have been born)
**The big number of people directly emigrated to Australia and other countries.
PLease discuss the miniumum what history chapter should include? Cautious 05:53, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  History 

message: # Support --Witkacy 28 June 2005 15:41 (UTC)
# Support -- Britannica is an English encyclopedia too Space Cadet 28 June 2005 15:44 (UTC)
# Support ...Sicherlich talk 28 June 2005 15:48 (UTC)
# Support. What we ignorant English-speakers see as squiggles are an important part of the spelling. — Chameleon 28 June 2005 15:50 (UTC)
# Support.  The accent is commonly dropped in English merely out of laziness.  There's no reason for us not to use it.  dbenbenn | talk 28 June 2005 15:51 (UTC)
#* If it is only laziness why does the BBC use "ń" for its Polish pages but not for its English pages? Philip Baird Shearer
# Support; also for the reason stated by User:Dbenbenn. Halibutt June 28, 2005 15:58 (UTC)
# Support (if this vote is not implicit in my proposal). Just because most English speakers don't know how to type "ń" doesn't mean we shouldn't. — Ливай | ☺ 28 June 2005 16:35 (UTC)
#* If common English usage is not to use "ń" then why vote agains the guidelines? Philip Baird Shearer
#Support. See below. Nohat 28 June 2005 17:37 (UTC)
#Support. But this really shouldn't be discussed on a case-by-case basis. This is a general question that should be settled once for all cases of this kind. But then, it already has - all evidence of actual use points to a wide consensus to use diacritics. Thus any attempt to oppose them in individual cases, as Philip Baird Shearer likes to do, should be overruled without a vote, unless it can be established that the case in question is in any way unusual. But Gdańsk is no different than Düsseldorf or São Paulo or thousands of other cases. It would be incumbent upon Philip or any like-minded user to establish a general consensus to remove all diacritics from Wikipedia. Until then, they should all stay, and votes like this should be considered invalid. The supporters of the diacritics cannot be expected to express their support again and again wherever Philip tries to start a vote about the same thing. NoPuzzleStranger 28 June 2005 18:22 (UTC)
#*Gdansk is different from Duesseldorf and Sao Paulo, because the accents needed to reproduce those latter names correctly are much more commonly found in English than the diacritical over the "n".  German, Spanish, French, and Portuguese (and perhaps the Scandinavian languages, as well) are familiar enough to English-speakers that there is a general tendency, in English, to use the diacritics in names from those languages.  I am fairly certain that this is not the case with diacritics in Polish.  Now, I don't think this is necessarily an argument not to use the diacritics, but we ought to be clear that it is at least a somewhat different issue. john k 28 June 2005 19:09 (UTC)
#**It's true that there's a somewhat greater tendency in English to use German, Spanish, etc. diacritics than Eastern European ones, but still it seems clear that there won't be a consensus on Wikipedia to make such a distinction. Polish, Czech, etc. diacritics are overwhelmingly used, given that the relevant articles are often written by people from those countries. And most of the opposers here probably would like to get rid of all "funny foreign squiggles", just see how Philip managed to move Úbeda to Ubeda (any admin reading this may help move this back!). NoPuzzleStranger 28 June 2005 19:42 (UTC)
#**** FYI I take no credit for proposing the move. That was done by user: Fbriere on  18:56, 26 March 2005 Philip Baird Shearer
#***I think the key words in what you say are "seems" and "won't" - I agree with you that it is unlikely, but this has not yet been tested yet.  My only issue here is that I'd like to see a clear and explicit policy laid out on this issue, rather than just assuming that this is what would be the policy, assuming we bothered to figure it out.  If that makes any sense. john k 28 June 2005 21:48 (UTC)
#****Well, there's an explicit policy proposal at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (use English). The vote stands at 32-18 in favour of using diacritics in cases like this. NoPuzzleStranger 29 June 2005 10:47 (UTC)
#Support.  The article was and is about Gdańsk (see the first paragraph of it), only the name of it was Gdansk due to technical issues. So why do we have a discussion here anyway? --Akumiszcza 28 June 2005 18:45 (UTC) 
#Support. See also straw poll at: Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions %28use_English%29#Proposal and straw poll regarding place names with diacritical marks Przepla 28 June 2005 19:20 (UTC)
# Support / tsca ✉ 28 June 2005 19:29 (UTC)
# Support. We have long used French letters which are not part of normal English alphabet, and I think I saw some German/Swedish and such as well (o with two dots above...). Why oppose Polish letters? Besides, Gdańsk is the right name, Gdansk is not. --Piotr Konieczny aka 
Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 28 June 2005 20:08 (UTC)
#Strongly support. This isn't like Zürich/Zurich, where the diacriticless form is well established in English, or like kielbasa, which is an established loanword into English from Polish. Gdańsk has no English name, we just use the Polish name. Now that Wikipedia titles can take diacritics, there's no reason to misspell the Polish name. --Angr/ 29 June 2005 09:31 (UTC)
#* Is the statment "no reason to misspell the Polish name" your own opinion or do you have a source which says that it is a misspelling in English to spell Gdansk as Gdansk. If that is true , then why does the BBC, Gardian, CNN, Washington Post and the Times all use Gdansk in their English publications? Philip Baird Shearer 1 July 2005 17:58 (UTC)
#Support Radomil talk 29 June 2005 10:35 (UTC)
#Support Vuvar1 29 June 2005 11:56 (UTC)
#Support --SylwiaS 29 June 2005 13:07 (UTC)
#Support. "English" does not mean "ignorant". Lysy 29 June 2005 14:38 (UTC)
#Support With the new software version hundreds of articles are moved to versions with diacritics.  Why should Gdańsk be any different? Plus, there is redirect at Gdansk. Balcer 29 June 2005 15:25 (UTC)
#* Only those articles where the name is commonly spelt with diacritics should be moved otherwise where does one draw the line? Should hotel be spelt hôtel and General as Général? It is not common to spell Gdansk as "Gdańsk" in English publications. Philip Baird Shearer
#Support Just because English typesetters usually don't have access to ń doesn't mean we have to follow suit. DopefishJustin (･∀･) June 29, 2005 16:42 (UTC)
#* The BBC web site does but they only use the Gdańsk spelling on their Polish pages. Why are you voting against common English usage? Philip Baird Shearer 1 July 2005 17:58 (UTC)
# Support – Kpalion (talk) 29 June 2005 17:21 (UTC)
# Support Guess what, Poznań already moved! Datrio 30 June 2005 10:47 (UTC)
# Strongly support "Gdansk" is plain wrong, the name of the city is "Gdańsk". Obsolete character sets like ASCII and ISO 8859-1 don't define correct English spelling. Taw 30 June 2005 11:40 (UTC)
#* It has nothing to do with character sets. Most English pages use Gdansk because that is common usage in English. See the examples in the discussion section. Philip Baird Shearer 1 July 2005 17:58 (UTC)
# Support. James F. (talk) 1 July 2005 18:10 (UTC)
# Support. As far as I know the only reason why the article wasn't at Gdańsk already was because of the lack of support for diacritics. This move shouldn't be contentious. -- ChrisO 2 July 2005 18:06 (UTC)
# Support. Backed up by the print Britannica and two Eng-lang atlases I just checked. –Hajor 2 July 2005 18:19 (UTC)
#Support. --Uppland 3 July 2005 12:27 (UTC)
#Support as per various others who have commented, as well as the general principle that diacritics should not be dropped in English-language publications on the grounds of ignorance. (The constant talk of "funny foreign squiggles" is not really helping the opposition here!) — Trilobite (Talk) 4 July 2005 18:57 (UTC)
#Support. --Ttyre 10:15, 15 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Support