Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (disputed place names)

/Archive 1

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Straw poll over naming of disputed territories

Given that there's been much agony and gnashing of teeth over at Talk:Liancourt Islands and Talk:Senkaku Islands, and inconsistent naming, I thought we might have a straw poll.

Add #Support or #Oppose followed by an optional one sentence explanation and sign your vote with ~~~~

Part 1: Disputed places with a name X that is unused by any claimant

(E.g., Liancourt Rocks, Senkaku Islands ("Pinnacle Islands"))

Use the name used by the claimant that currently administers the place

1. Support. This seems logical, or we'd have to rename places like Xinjiang ("Chinese Turkestan", "East Turkestan", "Uyghuristan") or Transnistria, where the administrating claimant's name is overwhelmingly accepted. --Xiaopo ℑ 02:13, 1 May 2005 (UTC)
2. Jiang 09:26, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
3. Partial Support In the case of inhabited areas under dispute. Caerwine 17:31, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

Use X, regardless of how widely used it is in English outside Wikipedia

1. Support - BabyLitigator (Rationale moved below by Xiaopo ℑ 16:48, 4 May 2005 (UTC).)
2. Support except in cases where the name used by the current administrator is overwhelmingly well known (ie. Formosa v. Taiwan). For things like Liancourt, the average man on the English speaking street isn't aware of any of the names of the place, so using the strange, old, neutral name is best. --Carl 07:33, 13 May 2005 (UTC)
3. Support In the case of disputed territories, like Diaoutai/Senkaku Islands, it would be unfair to use one over the other. For the time being, Diaoyutai should not be redirected to Senkaku, as that is a clear violation of neutrality. How would people feel if Senkaku redirected to Diaoyutai?
4. Partial Support In the case of unihabited areas under dispute. Caerwine 17:31, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

Use the name most commonly used in English

1. Support. See above. --Xiaopo ℑ 02:13, 1 May 2005 (UTC)
2. Jiang 09:26, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
3. Oppose. See above -- there may not always be a truly 'common' English name ------BabyLitigator 19:20, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

Part 2: Disputed places with no name besides those used by the claimants

(E.g., Olivenza, Kuril Islands)

Use the name used by the claimant that currently administers the place

1. Support. --Xiaopo ℑ 02:13, 1 May 2005 (UTC)
2. Jiang 09:26, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

Use the name most commonly used in English

1. Support. --Xiaopo ℑ 02:13, 1 May 2005 (UTC)
2. Mostly support. However, name usage should always be somewhat context-sensitive. For example, we have an established (although periodically contested) rule of using "East Sea," as a piped link, for the Sea of Japan in Korean contexts. See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Korean)). I think that it would be equally reasonable to use "Takeshima" as a piped link for Dokdo in Japanese contexts. I don't think we should attempt to reach a one-size-fits-all policy for this sort of thing. -- Visviva 01:39, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Discussion

I want to give some questions and comments on this poll itself.

1. This poll becomes meaningless if native speakers of English language do not participate. Currently, it seems that only participants are Chinese, Koreans or Japanese...
2. This is a "straw poll" so it does not have binding force. It means, the result does not authorize compulsory execution such as page move of some articles. If some one want to move some page and change name of some article, he/she must start discussion for each article. Is it correct? Just for confirmation.
3. I think a discussion for several weeks is needed before this poll. Questionaries of this poll are not prepared well and have unclarified points.
4. The word "common" is frequently used but it is hard to define. As I told at Talk:Liancourt Rocks, Google should not be used for this purpose. You should show some criteria (used by governments of English-speaking contry, etc.).
5. You should add examples not only to questionaries but also to choices. What is difference between the first and seconde choice for the second questionary in case of Tsushima? It seems there is no difference. If so, Tsushima is not good example and you should add a better example which can distinguish choises.
6. What is definition of "name in English"? In the discussion of Talk:Liancourt Rocks, some one said "Dokdo" and "Takeshima" are English word. This is In order to clarify this, I propose to use following categories picking up Senkaku as an example:

• Original English name: Pinnacle Islands
• Based on pronounciation in other language: Senkaku Islands, Diaoyutai Island
• Direct translation from other language: Fishing Islands ("Pinnacle", which means "Senkaku", is excluded because actually "Senkaku" was translated from "Pinnacle".) -- Corruptresearcher 04:29, 2 May 2005 (UTC) Signature added by Xiaopo ℑ 16:40, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

First of all, I am actually a native English speaker. I think Jiang might be too. As for the "common" name, the Google test can be used for this -- it's just that it shouldn't exclusively be used for it. We also need to take into account various factors, such as what name is used by major news organizations in English-speaking countries (in case of the Liancourt Rocks, generally Dokdo or Takeshima, with a few instances of Takeshima alone -- almost never Liancourt Rocks) and so on. And there's not always a difference between the choices for a given example; sometimes there's overlap. Hence you can vote for more than one option. I agree that Tsushima isn't a good example; do you have a suggestion?

And "name in English" is the name most commonly used in the English language (regardless of whether its etymology is English). For instance, "Peru" is the English name of a South American country, although its etymology is Aymara. Thanks for your comments. --Xiaopo ℑ 16:47, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

As a threshold matter, don't you have to ask if there is a 'common' English name in the first place. For example, while 'Dokdo' might be more common than 'Liancourt Rocks,' neither is particularly common (orders of magnitude fewer Google hits than, say, 'Falklands' or 'Malvinas'). I would tend to support using X, as long as there is no other 'common' English name, with some reasonable threshold for 'common' (maybe Google hits, or would the 'average' English speaker have heard of it). A good benchmark is that if wikipedia and mirror hits have more than a negliglible effect on the number of hits for a given name, then there probably is no 'common' English name to begin with. This is my first post, so I apologize for the poor formatting. - BabyLitigator

Welcome to Wikipedia! Note that the poll option said "most commonly used", which means compared to other options for the title, not for other (perhaps more famous) disputed territories. Dokdo, for instance, turns up 98,800 hits, which is significantly more than Liancourt Rocks' 5,230 (excluding Wikipedia and mirrors). Of course, Google isn't the only measure of a name's popularity -- but it's certainly one of them, and one that has a long and noble history in Wikipedia move disputes. ;-) --Xiaopo ℑ 16:53, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the welcome! What I mean is that perhaps 'common' should have an absolute as a relative meaning. So you would compare Dokdo not just to Liancourt Rocks but also to 'William Shakespeare' and 'China.' I tend to think, as someone completely unfamiliar with the Dokdo dispute (I just saw the site when Jimbo Wales brought it up during a presentation), that perhaps none of the names (Dokdo, Takeshima, Liancourt Rocks) reach the necessary threshold of 'common' in the first place, in which case NPOV concerns should be paramount. Then again, I may be wrong on that initial assumption; not sure whose perspective to use to set the initial threshold.--BabyLitigator 19:27, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

Comment. For two reasons, the Tsushima Islands are not an example of disputed places with no name besides those used by the claimants. First, the Tsushima Islands have multiple names in English. Even if various East Asian languages use the Chinese characters that are or historically were the same, they pronounce and romanize them differently, and article titles and names of the islands would be different in English. Second, they are not disputed by any national government as far as I know. The article states that the government of Korea prior to the Korean War requested reversion, but did not state any similar requests from the governments of North and South Korea during the ensuing decades. Moreover, the "claim" in the article is an example of a city declaring something to be part of a province (not the city), and the national government has asked the city to retract the claim. Fg2 02:57, May 1, 2005 (UTC)

Another comment. As well as the dispute for Tsushima Islands has been defunct for many decades, there is a name of Tsushima Islands in Korean language. (Kanji/hanja is the same though.) --Puzzlet Chung 09:28, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

Comment from an American

Responding to this comment (from above):

This poll becomes meaningless if native speakers of English language do not participate. Currently, it seems that only participants are Chinese, Koreans or Japanese...

I am a native speaker of English who has taken college courses in Japanese and Korean and can read about 200 Chinese characters. I also understand Wikipedia's NPOV policy very well.

I have begun a project page at Wikipedia:naming disputes. -- Uncle Ed (talk) June 28, 2005 12:05 (UTC)

Why isn't there an option for "Y/Z"?

Terms like "Liancourt Rocks" and "Pinnacle Islands" are seldom used. Most people searching in Wikipedia, I imagine, type in either "Dokdo" or "Takeshima" and either "Senkaku" or "Diaoyu". I think whoever controls the territory should get the first right to name and the challenger should get the second.

For example:

"Liancourt Rocks" becomes "Dokdo/Takeshima"

"Pinnacle Islands" becomes "Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands"

Of course, there should also be a reference to the "Liancourt Rocks" and the "Pinnacle Islands" in the first paragraph.

Use the name used by the claimant that currently administers the place first, then the next claimant, followed by the English name in parentheses or in the introductory paragraph (Y/Z, then X)

SUPPORT

1. Support.--Sir Edgar 07:43, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

OPPOSE