Talk:Médecins Sans Frontières/Archive 1

message: #This is the area for the proposed move of the article to Doctors Without Borders. I think it should be moved because that's how most of the English world knows it as. I vote move. -- Spinboy 18:43, 17 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Support

message: #Oppose. Might be worth noting that nobody uses the English abbreviation, DWB, only MSF. In the mid-late 1990s MSF-USA started a rebranding effort to try to get everyone to start using their French name, but ran into a brick wall with the American press. Some American publications like the New York Times have a strict policy of translating every foreign word into English.  Cyanide987 11:55, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Oppose

message: Médecins Sans Frontières was created in 1971 by a small group of French doctors, I'd love to see some names attached to that as I've seen them mentioned around the Internet before - with luck we could even wikilink some names. Sherurcij (talk) (Terrorist Wikiproject) 21:09, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Other talk page stuff

message: It seems like there's some editorializing going on here with the photos. For instance :Image:Starved_girl.jpg doesn't seem to be directly related to the content of the article. If it showed someone suffering from kwashiorkor being treaded by MSF doctors then it would be more deserving of inclusion. Theshibboleth 12:33, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Photo editorializing 

message: I went to a lecture about MSF at King's College (Guy's Campus) a fortnight back where surgeons who worked for MSF had a debate; during this they stated that MSF takes approx 45% of it's aid from governmental sources; not as appears on this wiki.Fishystick 00:30, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Percentage of aid given by governments 

message: #Support English title for an English page. --English Subtitle 18:32, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Support

message: :The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 
I just noticed (purely by coincidence) sitting on my desk a promotional world map from the US section of Doctors Without Borders.  The top corner features a logo with "MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES/DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS" beside it.  At the top of the map is a quote attributed to "Nicolas de Torrenté, Executive Director, Doctors Without Borders."  On the reverse of the map is text with the heading "Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)."  In the text, "Doctors Without Borders" is mentioned 16 times, "Médecins Sans Frontières" once, and "MSF" once (not including the web address http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/).  Certainly this is only one example but it is abundantly clear that the English name is perfectly acceptable and copiously used by the organization itself.  Not to be US-centric, it seems this is true at other countries' websites as well.  To suspend WP:NC (WP:UE) in this case is ludicrous.  I'm waiting for the RM for United Nations to Nations Unies. —   AjaxSmack    20:41, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This is not necessarily true at other nations' websites (see http://www.uk.msf.org/ ) nor in other nations' media (see http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1343542,00.html ). That is why there is a debate. — coelacan talk — 22:02, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

text: The debate appears to be because there is an international organisation called Médecins Sans Frontières which happens to be named in French as it was first started by a couple of Frenchmen. This organisation has national branches in about 20 countries, and the one in the USA is called Doctors Without Borders (The one in Australia is Médecins Sans Frontières Australia for example). Some American editors wish to rename the article about the international organisation to the name of the USA branch of it. --Scott Davis Talk 22:08, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: And some American editors want to keep the page at its current, proper name, fwiw. — coelacan talk — 22:12, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The Austrialian and Canadian websites feature "Doctors Without Borders" on the logo at the top of the page so it is not only an Americanism and not all people favoring English usage guidelines are Americans. —  AjaxSmack    00:08, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Usage goes way beyond logos and domain names.  While most English-language web sites for the organization use a logo bearing Doctors Without Borders, the content on these sites refers to MSF and Médecins Sans Frontières, and almost never to Doctors Without Borders.  Even the US site uses MSF more than Doctors Without Borders and never uses DWB.  It's much more meaningful to discuss what people use or what they expect than what's on the logo.  --Ishu 21:39, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

text: I am just grateful this English Wikipedia and not US Wikipedia :). WJBscribe (WJB talk) 22:16, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I would be grateful if it really were English Wikipedia and not French Wikipedia or Let's be elitist and give articles non-English titles when there is a common English name available Wikipedia. —  AjaxSmack    00:08, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You can keep your personal attacks to yourself, thank you. The article naming guideline concerning English is that in disputed cases, we should use "what would be the least surprising to a user finding the article." There are more English speakers familiar with "Médecins Sans Frontières" than "Doctors Without Borders", so Médecins Sans Frontières is the least surprising choice, and that's what we go with. — coelacan talk — 01:12, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Please don't accuse of personal attacks. WP:AGF. A personal attack is your mother is a fat hairy bimbo. Patstuarttalk|edits 02:10, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Mmm. There are degrees. Accusing other editors of being elitist is something beyond casual conversation. It's certainly not civil. Anyway, Patstuart, what was the reasoning behind closing this discussion and then opening it back up? — coelacan talk — 02:25, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I felt guilty because I thought it might not be my place. But, I will reclose it, upon your request, as it was the right decision. Patstuarttalk|edits 04:58, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, I agree that no consensus to move is going to emerge, under the current WP:NAME policy. Might as well not prolong the agony. — coelacan talk — 06:00, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Why is there even a debate here?

message: WJBscribe has brought to my attention above a section of WP:NAME on organizations that I had not noticed before: the part where it calls for using the English translation unless the native form is more commonly used in English than the English form.  I think this wording contradicts the intent and spirit of the use English policy, in which English and non-English are not given equal consideration.  But just going with whichever is most common is treating them equally.  Anyway, I've proposed a change to the wording in this section accordingly.  See Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions#Organizations (such_as_political_parties) (proposed_change).  --Serge 20:56, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That's actually a good idea, IMO, but I don't think it applies in this situation. As I showed above, we get more ghits for "Doctors without Borders" for English articles than um, the French title. And even if you take all webpages into account (e.g., don't do an English only filter on google), then you still get equal amounts either way. I think what's happening is that people in Britain are assuming that no one ever uses the English title, which is just flatly wrong; I, being in America, had assumed quite the opposite. As per the massive discussion above, it appears to be neatly split among these lines. Patstuarttalk|edits 21:48, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with you Pat.  The problem is that, apparently, the usage within Britain is almost exclusively the French name.  So from their perspective, your argument may seem like (yet another) attempt to dominate with U.S. usage.  I think pointing out that the English translation is to be given priority even when the non-English is more common is more likely to be compelling.  But the current wording in WP:NAME is problematic for that argument.  --Serge 22:25, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Um, there are other countries out there apart from Britain and the USA, for example Australia and, dare I say it, France. English Wikipedia is for all English speakers, not just native speakers. English is a compulsory subject in France. This article is about an international organisation, founded in France and with its headquarters now in the French-speaking part of Switzerland. The local name they have recently assumed in the USA seems of little relevance, frankly. Andrewa 23:26, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposed change to WP:NAME inspired by this RM

message: I found this Google search interesting, especially in the light of the normal bias of Google (reflecting the bias of the WWW itself) towards US English. Of course he's Australian, but he is also the current MSF president. Andrewa 06:03, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure what you are pointing out here. — coelacan talk — 06:27, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Just some more interesting information, based on a little lateral thinking. This guy's the international president, and a native speaker of English, so he probably knows what the organisation is called (in English). Now, these sites aren't under his control, but most of them probably reflect his usage, as the people who do control them have been reading what he writes and listening to what he says (mostly in English). Andrewa 00:10, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

text: The DWB name is also used in Canada, on approximately equal footing with MSF. In any case we have to try to use the names that are least surprising to the reader. Most Americans realize that the organization is international, so it would be surprising to enter "Doctors Without Borders" and end up at a single nation's branch. If the article ever does get so large that the USA branch needs its own subarticle, a good argument could be made for calling that article Doctors Without Borders, USA. — coelacan talk — 06:27, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Good point about Canada. I wonder which was first to translate the name, and why? Andrewa 00:10, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

text: This is indeed interesting.  If we do a search of US government websites for the French term, we actually get 9,360 pages  as opposed to just 730 for the English terms . This is mirrored by the UK government. However, Britannica and Columbia use the English name as opposed to Encarta which uses the French form. The BBC uses both forms, but the French 10X more but this is inversed with cnn.com. Al Jazeera uses both forms equally. Just thought I'd give you some specifics on the usage. --Bob 00:20, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Another Google test

message: There is a similar debate going on at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Scouting/Translations. English Subtitle 22:16, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Cross referencing arguments

message: Image:Doctors Without Borders letter.jpg|US Fundraising letter
Image:Dwb logo.jpg|Logo
They use the English name. --English Subtitle 19:09, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Another source

message: I removed the following passage introducing the "creation" section, as I do not see its relevance:  "Organizations that supply emergency food and medical aid to populations in need, such as Oxfam, existed long before MSF was created in 1971. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), established in 1863, was the primary source of emergency medical aid for populations of countries affected by war and natural disasters." Codik (talk) 14:03, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Oxfam and the Red Cross

message: Not trying to stir the pot, but my uncle once worked with this organization, so I was looking it up. I was stunned to type in "Doctors Without Borders" and be redirected to an article named "Médecins Sans Frontières." As an English-speaker, on the English Wikipedia, this was curious to me, so I did a Google search. I discovered that searching for DWB returns nearly 700K Ghits, while searching for MSF returns between 100K and 200K Ghits (can't remember for certain). How is it that the one (DWB) redirects to the other (MSF) and not the other way around? In every other language, I could see the rationale. But in the English WP, given the Ghits especially, shouldn't the main article be named according to the English name? And please don't point to "Leonardo da Vinci" as someone did above. It's not even apples and oranges, it's apples and Volvos. Da Vinci is a "brand" known across all languages as such. DWB clearly is not in that category. Bellwether BC 18:28, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Name of article 

message: #English Subtitle (talk) 03:42, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Support 

message: *Oppose for many of the reasons given in the previous debates and !votes, and in particular because the English translation is not commonly used in English-speaking countries besides the United States and Canada. -- Avenue (talk) 06:54, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Oppose 

message: The first footnote ("[1]" in the article) has a broken link.  The footnote says, something like this: << ^ (French) "La création de Médecins Sans Frontières". Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors without borders) (2004-October 18). Retrieved on 2007-October 26 >> after recently having had some translation done, from fr [French] to en [English].  The fact that the URL is old, or otherwise broken, applies just as well to the fr [French] Wikipedia article that corresponds to this.  I tried to visit the (http://www.msf.fr) web site, in an effort to try to find a new URL that would still work.  I was not successful.  I also have not been able to find an archived version of the erstwhile web page (assuming that the link did ever work, in the past) by using the "Wayback machine" at http://www.archive.org.  --Mike Schwartz (talk) 09:26, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Broken link 

message: Is it worth mentioning a recent documentary, "Living in Emergency: Stories of Doctors Without Borders"  in this article? Xenophrenic (talk) 18:49, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: It is an excellent idea to mention it, but because there's already the Living in Emergency article about the documentary, it isn't a good idea to have a long summary here in the main article.  I see you have restored the summary I deleted earlier today, and so as a half-way house I have reduced the summary down to the minimum facts but added the  template so the reader is very clearly invited to visit the article about the film.  FYI I have also improved the film article by using more of the Reuters review, and I've added links to it from the "See also" sections here and in the Second Congo War and Second Liberian Civil War articles. - Pointillist (talk) 22:11, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Reducing the content in this article, and providing the Main Article link is appropriate.  Your additions to the film article are good as well.  I restored most of the segment when I noticed some of the content from this article never made it to the film article (i.e.; a showing at Cinequest where it received a top Documentary catagory honor).  I felt a significant mention in the MSF article was warranted until the film makes its theatrical release, since readers of the MSF article are not likely to know of it otherwise.  The changes you made should work well.  I apologize if my initial edits appeared to conflict with yours, that wasn't my intent. Xenophrenic (talk) 02:20, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for replying and for copying the Cinequest award across.  The main thing missing now is an image – ideally PD or GFDL. Do you know any contacts who could release one? - Pointillist (talk) 07:58, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Recent documentary 

message: Since this is the English Wikipedia (not French), and the English name "Doctors Without Borders" is what the organization is best known as, I think it should be moved. Anybody feel like making a request? TJ Spyke 20:28, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it's more or less a United States centric problem.  Looking at the way you spelled organization, I'm guessing this is a problem more with non-US English speakers than with French loving Anglophiles.  In the United States, all I've ever heard is "Doctors without borders."  I also do not believe that many organizations have offical "names" in other languages.  Maybe an offical translation or something, but usually stick with the one name.  I wouldn't expect an article in the French wikipedia on Taco Bell to somehow translate that, and indeed they don't.  Since it started off as a French organization, shouldn't that stand alone as the rationale for keeping the title?  It's a completely non-subjective reason to keep it.  The two reasons you gave seem pretty subjective, or at the least, speculative.  1- AFAIK, there is no such thing as "an offical name of the organisation in English".  That would imply that they have two separate offical names, or that they would consider a translation unoffical. 2- Unless you can somehow poll all English speaking people, you have no way of knowing (and neither does the guy making the original assertation. as such, it shouldn't be used as an argument for one way or the other).  No problem with the end outcome of the discussion, just with the means to which it was accomplished.  Lime in the Coconut 15:49, 29 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  English name again 

message: It can be argued that one of the unique things about MSF is it´s complex structure, a non-monolithic organisation. For this reason, it is relevant to have a whole paragraph on governance (rather than the former factually-incorrect single sentence) right at the start of the article.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Norbertpayne (talk • contribs) 20:22, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Governance in MSF 

message: An editor has introduced some criticism of MSF by a pro-Israel group.  Have these allegations been covered by reliable secondary sources, or are they even that notable?  I haven't been able to find additional information, so I moved this here for now:
::A pro-Israel activist group has accused Doctors Without Borders of an anti-Israel bias, offering as evidence the arrest of one MSF worker for allegedly plotting to kill the Israeli Prime Minister, and a 2001 Vogue Magazine article about MSF's work in the Palestinian Territories.http://blog.camera.org/archives/2007/05/doctors_without_borders_hitman.htmlhttp://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=2&x_outlet=120&x_article=344
I did find the actual news story about the MSF worker here.  I see that the following information from the news article was left out of the sources used for this content:
::Duncan McLean, director of Doctors Without Borders in the region, told The Jerusalem Post that Bashir - who had been working as a translator for the organization in Gaza for nearly five years and since last October as a social worker there - had not shown any suspicious behavior. "We are a humanitarian organization, and if we had felt he was a risk, we would not have employed him," said McLean. All the organization's staff undergo a security check, he said, and Bashir himself had a valid permit for travel to Jerusalem. The Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) decides this, McLean said.
Can someone expand this potential content to any extent? Xenophrenic (talk) 09:01, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  C.A.M.E.R.A. 

message: I'm pretty sure that this article wouldn't pass FA currently.  Just looking at the lead, external links, occasional paucity of inline citations, and relatively high reliance on primary sources, I would think this article is a good candidate for FAR.  Is anyone currently working on mainaining this article? Jclemens (talk) 07:46, 26 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Should this still be an FA? 

message: Why no mention that the name Médecins Sans Frontières is directly borrowed from the massively popular Europe-wide TV programme Jeux Sans Frontières?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.139.167.226 (talk) 13:18, 20 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Origin of the name

message: MSF currently work in about 70 countries in Europe, South America, Asia and Africa, but there is only a section on the projects in Africa.  It might be hard to keep changing the article every time they enter or leave a country, but there is no reason to only document African projects.  (Chris)  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.39.4.178 (talk) 16:21, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Location of current projects

message: From article: "Private donors provide about 80% of the organization's funding, while governmental and corporate donations provide the rest, giving MSF an annual budget of approximately US$400 million."
MSF Financial Report 2009 (http://www.msf-me.org/en/general/downloadFile/file/1524/dId/1850) Reports an income of 665,395€.
-Peter Kagey  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.252.247.45 (talk) 00:38, 4 May 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: It says 665 million actually, not 665 thousand. (75.119.246.210 (talk) 01:36, 30 September 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: And income was 886 million Euros for 2011.  http://www.msf.org/shadomx/apps/fms/fmsdownload.cfm?file_uuid=64C0CCBA-2E37-44D4-B0E8-DA7A4CBE3F61&siteName=msf (75.119.246.210 (talk) 01:40, 30 September 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: MSF Budget

message: The lead section currently says that "The organization is known in most of the world by its French name or simply as MSF, ...". But looking at Wikipedia's Languages column, I notice that native translations of the French name seems to be in common use. And looking at for example the organisation's German and Dutch (and other) websites, they use mostly the native name throughout.
   Here in Sweden, the French name is admittedly known (but not so much the abbreviation), but the native name is used much more, on the organisation's website and as reflected in the Wikipedia article (sv:Läkare utan gränser).
I don't know how to quantify "most of the world", and maybe it is generally true, but perhaps it should rather be "in most of the English-speaking world"? --80.217.2.28 (talk) 13:32, 17 September 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I've marked that as a dubious statement. Localization seems to be the rule, not the exception, in most of the world. 72.200.151.13 (talk) 23:58, 3 December 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Non-English, non-French names

message: I donate to MSF regularly, so I have no grudge against them, but a lot of the text of this article sounded very familiar as I had just been reading articles at their website. There were a number of things lifted verbatim. I feel like I just read an infomercial. Carmaskid (talk) 06:27, 9 November 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Neutral Point of View