Talk:Buôn Ma Thuột

Requested move: → Buon Ma Thuot

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Buôn Ma Thuột city → Buon Ma Thuot –, per New York Times, Associated Press, GeoNames, VOV Online, Saigon Times, Viet Nam News, and the book Coffee Culture Destinations and Tourism. Britannica and Rough Guide give the variant "Buon Me Thuot". "Buon Ma Thuot" gets 121 post-1980 English-language GBook hits, "Buon Me Thuot" 46. "Buôn Ma Thuột city" gets zilch, although "Buôn Ma Thuột" does appear in one book, Education in Vietnam. On Highbeam for the last two years, it is 30 for "Buon Ma Thuot", 6 for "Buon Me Thuot", and zero for "Buôn Ma Thuột". Kauffner (talk) 17:45, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Survey

• Oppose, move to Buôn Ma Thuột minus "city" per WP:EN "Turkish for Turkish rivers". Re "city" Buon Ma Thuot "City" gets 165 results in GBooks, but that isn't the real issue here. The issue is that en.wp uses full Vietnamese spelling in Vietnamese place names; we have had 3 RMs on Vietnamese geo names on Talk:Cà Mau 2010, 2011, 2012 all with supporting the same approach that en.wp take to every other Latin alphabet language place names. A recent RfC had a significant majority for full use of Vietnamese spelling 23 vs 16, or 23 vs 9-11 removing canvassing. Doing searches in books that don't have Vietnamese/Polish/whatever fonts is completely meaningless, "Bahar Ic-Caghaq" (Malta) and "Hagatna" (Guam) ‎will always get more results than "Baħar Iċ-Ċagħaq" and "Hagåtña" ‎but en.wp's editors have decided to represent Latin alphabet names correctly. Unless there's a community decision to make Vietnamese the one exception, and so far there hasn't been - the decisions have been to treat Vietnamese towns like Czech, Polish, Polynesian or Maltese town names. Or indeed per WP:EN "Turkish for Turkish rivers". In ictu oculi (talk) 02:11, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

The relevant guideline is NCGN, which says to follow sources like other encyclopedias, GBooks, and major media, i.e. the kind of sources I gave in the nomination. Kauffner (talk) 02:56, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Kauffner, you've made your proposal, I've made my oppose. Now let's not fill this WP:RM with pingpong chat please, let's both let others say something. WP:NCGN says Vietnam "A naming convention is under discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Vietnam." 5 July 2010 which relates to Talk:Cà Mau 6 July 2010. In ictu oculi (talk) 03:09, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

I don't see any reason to connect the note at NCGN to the discussion at Talk:Cà Mau. There have been various RMs on the issue of Vietnamese diacritics with various results, for example Talk:Vo_Chi_Cong or Talk:Bun cha. The status of this RM is equal to that of any previous RM. Kauffner (talk) 03:46, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

• Comment Why was this page moved during the midst of ongoing move discussions on this exact topic, for which you are both involved? In ictu oculi, you must have known that your long list of moves would not be uncontroversial; How many did you move 100!?! (Special:Log/In_ictu_oculi) Kauffner, I see your edit history is no better on this subject[1]. Let me make this clear so that there is no confusion, name changes of Vietnamese diacritics are not uncontroversial moves. So stop moving them, any of them, on that basis without some sort of community (e.g. WP:VIETNAM naming convention agreement.--Labattblueboy (talk) 04:49, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Labattblueboy, FYI we have just had an RfC on this. I restored only around 80 out of 800 of the undiscussed geo moves per reverting undiscussed move contrary RM1, RM2 and recently RM3 Talk:Cà Mau, these are the only VN geonames RMs. city per source In ictu oculi (talk) 05:32, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

That RfC came to no conclusion or consensus and most article histories I examined indicate they were moved in the July-Oct 2011 time frame, not during the recent RfC. That's not to say those initial moves were appropriate, just that I didn't see any that were during the most recent RfC. Either way, direction from the administrator notice board but a couple days ago on this exact issue was to take it to WP:RFC, not to start making moves oneself. Whether you call it a revert or move doesn't matter, moving article to or from names containing diacritics is disruptive and needs to stop.--Labattblueboy (talk) 12:28, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

For the record here, the time line is out. The user who objects reverting undiscussed moves counter the VN geo RMs did not take his complaint there until after - and the complaint was not upheld. Albeit no attempt to revert further of the 800 moves counter the VN geo RMs has been made since that was said. In ictu oculi (talk) 01:56, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

• Support I don't particularly care about the diacritics one way or the other, but "city" is not required in the title. This article was moved by In ictu oculi while a number of requested move discussions on Vietnamese names were/are taking place. The reasoning for the move may very well be valid but the execution was not appropriate, and certainly not uncontroversial.--Labattblueboy (talk) 04:59, 12 September 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose per In ictu oculi, use the correct spelling. ༆ (talk) 04:31, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

• GeoNames doesn't give "city" as part of the name. As far as diacritics go, it gives both forms without indicating preference. See here. Kauffner (talk) 05:03, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

Agreed with User ༆ Yig Mgo above, "city" not wrong but not ideal. It only was necessary because of redirect edit lock following move counter RMs. One of several 100s of redirect locks securing undiscussed moves made in July 2012 In ictu oculi (talk) 01:56, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

• Support: It's important that complex diacritics not be used in article titles for accessibility and usability reasons. Mixing foreign words and English words (like "city") creates a ridiculous mishmash. Both forms, with and without diacritics, can appear in the lede. LittleBen (talk) 02:23, 16 September 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose; current spelling is more accurate. I am very much in favour of accessibility, but cannot support LittleBen's interpretation on that link to a talkpage thread. Alternatively, Buôn Ma Thuột would be fine by me. bobrayner (talk) 14:33, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
• Comment: regarding accessibility, a Google search for "buon ma thuot" does indeed return this article which suggests to me that the presence of diacritics does not hinder search engines. Provided a diacritic-free redirect exists, I am not particularly convinced there is an accessibility issue with using diacritics in article titles. 46.126.76.193 (talk) 19:58, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

• Re. Comment: The subject of accessibility and SEO is discussed here. Jakob Nielsen coined the phrase above the fold. He discovered that the majority of web users take only about 15 sec.—looking at only what is visible on screen (without scrolling) [this is what he means by "above the fold"]—to decide whether a site or page is relevant to what they are searching for, or not. You can easily measure this (time to bounce) using Google Analytics or the like. The majority of users spend only about 15 sec. scanning what they can see without scrolling—like the article title and headings—to decide whether it is relevant to what they are searching for. If they can't even read the title (complex Vietnamese diacritics are not taught in schools in English-speaking countries) then they are gone. (This is easy to show by A/B tests with web analytics).
• Major publishers don't use foreign language titles on English language books for the same reason—have you looked on Amazon? Of course publishers don't use mishmash mixtures of two languages (like Buôn Ma Thuột city) in titles either. Apparently IIO caused this mishmash-title problem by moving the article to diacritics without any discussion. You can't easily avoid such problems (the need for language-mishmash disambiguation) if you are stuck on stupid and insist on always adding diacritics to article titles—regardless of usability, regardless of usage in up-to-date English-language sources like English newspapers and web sites, and regardless of established publishing-industry practices.
• Diacritics and other foreign-language words in the body of an article—or in the contents of a travel book—are a different matter. I'd draw an analogy to a map: in many countries, a map is useless if it is not bilingual. You need the English, and the taxi driver (or whoever you are asking directions of) needs the foreign language. Having both English and foreign-language versions in the body is often useful.
• WP:AT says quite clearly that (quote) "Article titles are based on what reliable English-language sources refer to the article's subject by. A good Wikipedia article title has the following characteristics: Recognizability ... and Naturalness : Titles are those that readers are likely to look for or search with ... Such titles usually convey what the subject is actually called in English". The Common names section of WP:AT says "The most common name for a subject, as determined by its prevalence in reliable English-language sources, is often used as a title because it is recognizable and natural". LittleBen (talk) 01:41, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose per bob. Lose the city by all means. Agathoclea (talk) 05:44, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose by exactly what bob said. Go ahead and remove the city though. -DJSasso (talk) 16:50, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose removal of diacritics because the correct name includes them and there is no technical reason they can't be included. I have no objection to the removal of the word "city". Thryduulf (talk) 05:18, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
  • You could say the same about hieroglyphics. Britannica and other published encyclopedias do not use Vietnamese diacritics. Nor does the Vietnam-based English-language media. Maybe there is a reason. Jimbo's thoughts on the issue of Dang Huu Phuc vs. Đặng Hữu Phúc can be found here. "Although Vietnamese is written in the Latin alphabet, the number of accent marks can be distracting and may therefore be omitted", according to "National Geographic Style Guide". This is quoted at User:Prolog/Diacritical_marks. It is the only mention of Vietnamese on this much-cited page. The title should give the common name of the subject, not mislead the reader as to what English-language usage is. We should "follow the general usage in reliable sources that are written in the English language" as WP:DIACRITICS says. Kauffner (talk) 17:57, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose I genuinely find the vietnamese diacritics set intimidating, and National Geographic has not yet seen fit to embrace this transcription-based language set despite them having taken up using most other Latin scripts. Having said that, I am in favour of accurate reproduction and representation of place and people names; I am also finding this crusade being undertaken by Kauffner rather tedious, so I'm voting for the status quo as far as diacritics go. I'm in favour of losing 'city' if this word is not part of the official name. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 16:28, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose, drop only "city" from article title. Monni (talk) 04:21, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
• Comment. Since the ASCII form is the one used in the state media, it can be considered an official English-language name. Are we trying out Vietnamese the Vietnamese? This form is also given in travel books, so adding diacritics does not serve even the traveler. Kauffner (talk) 03:34, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Comment WP:PRIMARY for state media, like in the other discussion... Clearly says you can't interpret primary sources yourself. Also, like I mentioned in that same discussion, this isn't WikiTravel, we are not solely serving travelers, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. Encyclopedia is supposed to contain accurate non-biased information that can be used by any person no matter if it's for job, hobby or personal research. Monni (talk) 03:57, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
    • Britannica doesn't use Vietnamese diacritics. Nor does any other English-language encyclopedia. They don't use Chinese characters either. Kauffner (talk) 04:42, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
• Support. Round up the diacritics (in any language) on this site and destroy them with fire. --Nouniquenames 05:03, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Counterproposal: restore to Buôn Ma Thuột

• The ideal solution, would be restore to Buôn Ma Thuột (in accord with the upgrade of WP's Vietnam articles to full Vietnamese spelling in 2008-2009 and consensus in WP:Vietnam before one user moved 800 Vietnam geo articles counter the geo names RMs at Talk:Cà Mau. This would satisfy ༆ (Yig Mgo), and Labattblueboy's comments above. The solution "city" while supported by sources, is not as ideal as the original state of the article. However it could not be restored to the original state due to edit to redirect "locking" undiscussed move 15 July 2012, one of several 100s of redirect locks (cf. the Hockey Names saga) in July 2012 locking the 800 undiscussed geo articles moved counter the counter the geo names RMs at Talk:Cà Mau. As regards sources:

"On my first visit in 2004, it was a small rural town that functioned only as a stopover station along a busy traffic route northward to Buôn Ma Thuột. An official master plan aims at, in the words of its advocates, transforming the small sleepy town of Gia Nghĩa into a city as grand as Buôn Ma Thuột and as charming as Đà Lạt." Jonathan D London Education in Vietnam 2011 - Pages 178-179

This book (2011) appears to be 100% of recent English texts in Google Books enabled to carry Vietnamese fonts, to argue that a name appears without Vietnamese full name in books that don't use Vietnamese fonts is equivalent to arguing that we should follow USA Today/Daily Express/etc. to name French, Czech, Turkish cities (which of course we don't do, 100% of en.wp geo articles are at local Latin alphabet spellings despite the limits of more popular sources). For older books, as per Keith Weller Taylor The Birth of Vietnam Page xv (1991) "I have relegated Vietnamese diacritics and Chinese characters to the glossary to avoid expensive composition. It is impossible to identify and pronounce Vietnamese words without diacritics, so readers familiar with Vietnamese are encouraged to consult the glossary for the correct spelling of a Vietnamese word upon its first occurrence in the text." - "avoid expensive composition" (1991) no longer applies in printing nor applied to the crowd-sourced way en.wp's Vietnamese geo articles were created and upgraded 2007-2011 before the undiscussed moves. During this period, as far as I know, no article was moved from Vietnamese to a-diacritic stripped spelling. As the Talk:Cà Mau RMs show.

Also, Google Books isn't the only source:

• Journal of Geology (2009) "However, the water demand of households residing in type A houses is close to consumptions reported for the Vietnamese city Buôn Ma Thuột.
• Governance, Development, and the Responsive–Repressive State in Vietnam (2010) - Taylor & Francis "The next day, thousands more marched from several directions toward Buôn Ma Thuột, the capital of Đắc Lắc, the province adjacent to Gia Lai."
• Death, Buddhism, and Existentialism in the Songs of Trịnh Công Sơn JC Schafer - 2007 "... His father, active in the resistance, was imprisoned in Buôn Ma Thuột, and Trịnh Công Sơn lived with him in Thừa Phủ Prison for a year in 1949 when he was ten years old."

In ictu oculi (talk) 04:44, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

• You cite books, and they all have plain English titles without diacritics (except for the last one, which is surely not a widely-read book—remember that Wikipedia is supposed to be a widely-read, usable, and accessible website). You are saying that the books use diacritics in the body text. That is not what is being discussed here. We are discussing whether it is appropriate to use diacritics in the title of an English article (or an English book, for that matter). LittleBen (talk) 04:51, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

• Amazon's top selling book on Vietnam is the Lonely Planet travel guide. They give this subject as "Buon Ma Thuot" and use diacritics only in an appendix. VGP News recently dropped these Viet-lish marks and now publishes in normal English. So I don't see any trend in favor of greater use. Wasn't Talk:Cà_Mau a "housekeeping" RM? Kauffner (talk) 10:48, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

• As might be expected, the J. C. Schafer book (with the diacritics in the title) does not exist on Amazon. There is a similarly-named book by one David Loy. Amazon says that people who read David Loy's books also read books by Thich Nhat Hanh and also books by Thîch Nh?t H?nh (if you look to the right of the Thich Nhat Hanh bio.) ;-) LittleBen (talk) 15:53, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

• It is quite misleading to claim that Buôn Ma Thuột is a "stable version" when the article has not been at this title for more than a year. It was "Buon Ma Thuot" from its creation in April 2006 until July 2008, and again from July 2011 until this month. The word "city" was never in the title until IIO added it on September 5. Kauffner (talk) 00:20, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

K. You're right, "stable" isn't the word (removed), "consensus" would be the word. en.wp's 900 or so VN geo articles were created with/upgraded to diacritics 2006-2008. Seems to have been a natural process, all going one way and lots of geo article creators working together. And as per the Talk:Cà Mau RMs 2010, 2011, 2012. And as per the majority on last month's RfC - there's no point holding a RfC if you're then going to say "but that isn't the result I wanted." In ictu oculi (talk) 00:51, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

You have cited VGP stories to support the use of diacritics in several RMs. Now that they have switched to a diacritic-free style, you may reconsider your position. VGP was based on the prime minister's website. Perhaps Dung was dissatisfied with VNA and decided to create his own news agency. Now even Dung must endure with an anglicized name, as you can see here. Kauffner (talk) 02:28, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

Kauffner, do you understand the difference between 23 and 16? If even by canvassing WikiProject Conservatism for your RfC last month you couldn't raise a majority for removing full Vietnamese spelling then you do not have a mandate to remove all the VN geo articles. Do you understand that 23 is not the minority here? In ictu oculi (talk) 04:07, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

All of a sudden, you don't know how an RFC works. Perhaps WP:RFC can help you out. If you believed this argument yourself, you have made it in the edit summary for this move.[2] Geography titles come under WP:PLACE, as I have explained before. Kauffner (talk) 06:13, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

I would support dropping "city" in the title simply because there is no province, town or village with this name, and also the official name doesn't inlcude "city" like Ho Chi Minh City, Mexico City. ༆ (talk) 20:12, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Reverse canvassing

See here. Kauffner (talk) 17:35, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

• Absolutely, you're damn right that was reversing canvassing. User Kauffner you have been warned on at least 4 separate RMs and RfCs that WP:CANVASS can lead to ANI and a block. In ictu oculi (talk) 10:26, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Have you heard of notification? Accusing of me of things doesn't make it OK for you bully other editors. Kauffner (talk) 12:36, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
    • Kauffner, it is blatantly evident that in this RM you broke the rules, again. I can only judge by the pattern in the RMs and RfCs I have seen where other users have objected to your selective notification. Yes it is possible there have been RMs and RfCs where you notified appropriately, and you are welcome to provide counterbalance by linking to notification of any RM or RfC where you did not contravene the below:

Votestacking is an attempt to sway consensus by selectively notifying editors who have or are thought to have a predetermined point of view or opinion (which may be determined, among other ways, from a userpage notice, such as a userbox, or from user categorization), and thus encouraging them to participate in the discussion.

In the case of a re-consideration of a previous debate (such as a "no consensus" result on an AFD or CFD), it is similarly inappropriate to send an undue number of notifications specifically to those who expressed a particular viewpoint on the previous debate. For example, it would be votestacking to selectively notify a disproportionate number of "Keep" voters or a disproportionate number of "Delete" voters.

Posting an appropriate notice on users' talk pages in order to inform editors on all "sides" of a debate (e.g., everyone who participated in a previous deletion debate on a given subject) may be appropriate under certain circumstances on a case-by-case basis.

In ictu oculi (talk) 12:44, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

• So you can't even be bothered to address the issue. You're here to rehashed the same old, same old. Does a civilized human being threaten colleagues with "a bitey cesspit"? Kauffner (talk) 13:27, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.