Talk:Gdańsk/Naming convention

message: :My assumptions when preparing this list of thoughts were:
*A naming convention needs to be established
*A naming convention needs to be followed strictly and without exceptions
*There's no way to decide what is the official English name of the city since neither USA nor UK have an official geographical naming commity.
*Both names are in use and equally popular (   )
*Some encyclopedias use Gdansk for all references (Brittanica and Columbia) while others use both names (MSN Encarta, infoplease.com)
*our main goal is not to make all possible nationalists happy
**No, it isn't. Our main goal is to write an encyclopedic article which is as informative, accurate and easy to use for all as possible - and don't let us forget about it. Making nationalists happy is at most a secondary goal. --Kpalion 16:54, 28 Mar 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Naming proposals

message: *Voting: 
**7 - YES
**5 - NO
**1 - abstention
====pros====
*quite easy to handle as the timeframe is set so the confusion shouldn't be too big
*john - Undoubtedly many/most inhabitants of the city throughout the ages used German language and German name of the city
====cons====
*User:Yeti, User:Space Cadet - What about other cities with similar history: Vilnius, L'viv, Wroclaw, Kaliningrad, Bratislava, Krakow, Derry, Lefkosia and many others.
*Mestwin of Gdansk - Polish name used in the Free City in the 1918-1939 period (both Polish and German being the official languages of the state)
*john - No apparent consensus over the web and other encyclopedias on how the city is called now
* Only ONE name should be used to reffer to one object; in this case the English names seems to be Gdansk Mestwin of Gdansk 23:30, 29 Mar 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: the city referred to as '''Danzig (Gdansk)''' in the 1793-1945 period, '''Gdansk''' otherwise

message: *User:Yeti, User:Space Cadet - What about other cities with similar history: Vilnius, L'viv, Wroclaw, Kaliningrad, Bratislava, Krakow, Derry, Lefkosia and many others.
*Mestwin of Gdansk - Polish name used in the Free City in the 1918-1939 period (both Polish and German being the official languages of the state)
*john - No apparent consensus over the web and other encyclopedias on how the city is called now
* Only ONE name should be used to reffer to one object; in this case the English names seems to be Gdansk Mestwin of Gdansk 23:30, 29 Mar 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: cons

message: *Szopen - addition of the alternative name in parantheses to avoid confusion.
*1918-1939 and pre-1793 usage should be discussed
*There is no need to repeat "Gdansk (then Danzig)" alternatively "Danzig (Gdansk)" each time the town is mentioned, but as a rule of thumb I would propose: for each chunk of text under a headline (a "section") (or maybe for each chunk of text between blanklines, a "paragraph"), the first time the city's name is mentioned, if another name is used than the page's title, then that name is to be added in brackets. --Ruhrjung 21:45, 1 Apr 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: remarks

message: *Voting:
**5 - YES
**4 - NO
**0 - abstention
====pros====
*quite simple and avoids confusion
*quite fair only if other names are mentioned in the headline
====cons====
*what names should be added in the headline? Polish and German for sure, but should latin, kashubian or french be mentioned?
*john - similarily we'd have a Battle of Volgograd instead of Battle of Stalingrad
====remarks====
*unless there are strong reasons to use a historical name in a certain context, this is my favorite — but when the alternative is as categorically worded as here, then it's hard to support --Ruhrjung 21:48, 1 Apr 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: all cities referred to with their current official names

message: *unless there are strong reasons to use a historical name in a certain context, this is my favorite — but when the alternative is as categorically worded as here, then it's hard to support --Ruhrjung 21:48, 1 Apr 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: remarks

message: *Voting:
**3 - YES
**3 - NO
**0 - abstention
====pros====
====cons====
*unacceptable for most Polish users
*German transcription would have to be used for many languages (i.e. Kirow instead of Kirov) which is different from the English transcription.
*not in accordance with English usage. --Ruhrjung 21:49, 1 Apr 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: using German names whenever English names are unavailable

message: *unacceptable for most Polish users
*German transcription would have to be used for many languages (i.e. Kirow instead of Kirov) which is different from the English transcription.
*not in accordance with English usage. --Ruhrjung 21:49, 1 Apr 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: cons

message: ====pros====
*see: User:Halibutt/Gdansk#pros
====cons====
*see: User:Halibutt/Gdansk#cons
* There is only one city, with one history, one geographical location. The only problem is there is no English name of the city; In multi-ethnic times many names were used; in Prussian/German times only the German name was enforced, but this is no English Mestwin of Gdansk 23:25, 29 Mar 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Two separate articles; one focused on Danzig and the other on Gdansk

message: *see: User:Halibutt/Gdansk#cons
* There is only one city, with one history, one geographical location. The only problem is there is no English name of the city; In multi-ethnic times many names were used; in Prussian/German times only the German name was enforced, but this is no English Mestwin of Gdansk 23:25, 29 Mar 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: cons

message: *Are we trying to set a naming convention for all historic cities or for Gdańsk only? At first glance it may seem that a general naming convention would be a great thing. But then, every city is a separate case. You can't really compare Gdańsk, Lviv, Istanbul and Mumbai. I suggest that what we agree (or not) here should only apply to Gdańsk.
*This issue could be actually broken into a number of separate conventions:
**Article title - Gdansk or Danzig? - It seems that right now nobody really questions that the title should be Gdansk.
**Opening paragraph - see: "Beginning of the article" below.
**Rest of the article - if most possible names are listed in the opening para, then throughout the remaining paragraphs we can use them interchangeably (depending on period) or stick to only one. This we have to decide.
**Other articles where the city is mentioned for some reason. Here we've got a plethora of possibilities: 
***Gdańsk everywhere, 
***Danzig everywhere, 
***either Gdańsk or Danzig where appropriate, 
***either Gdańsk (formerly Danzig) or Danzig (now Gdańsk) where appropriate, 
***either Gdańsk (German name Danzig) or Danzig (Polish name Gdańsk) where appropriate, 
***etc.- this we have to decide as well. Remember that whatever we decide on, both Gdansk and Danzig will link to Gdansk where the reader will be informed that the city was once known by its German name Danzig. 
*One more thing: it is technically possible to use diacritics in Wikipedia. So please do not write Gdansk (apart from the article title where this is impossible). It's always Gdańsk (Gdańsk). And when you link, please write: Gdańsk.
**Please, don't get hurt, but no - that is not to be expected. Also if the current combatants agree on this, next generations of wikipedians won't understand that. Particularly not English speakers. If you haven't studied the language, it is not likely you'll put the diacritics there. But if the article isn't perpetually reverted, that's no problem, really. When someone knowledgeable have corrected it to Gdańsk, we foreigner have no incitament to change it back again.--Ruhrjung 22:01, 1 Apr 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Some more general remarks

message: Judging by the present discussion on Talk:Gdansk, it seems that there is now more or less a consensus on the following periods:
*before 1308 - Gdańsk
*1308-1454 - Danzig
*1793-1945 - Danzig
*after 1945 - Gdańsk
The question is how to call that city between 1454 and 1793 when it was part of the Kingdom of Poland but had a big German (or German-speaking) population.
--Kpalion 13:43, 2 Apr 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: The 1308-1454 usage is not so obvious, but I think I could back down on this one.Halibutt 10:29, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: The 1454-1793 period