Talk:Lü Lin (table tennis)

Requested move 04 September 2014

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. 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.

Moved to Lü Lin (table tennis). There is a clear lack of support for the proposed removal of the diacritic based on the distinction between ü and u as vowels, but no specific opposition to the addition of a disambiguator. bd2412 T 18:13, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

Lü Lin → Lu Lin (table tennis) – or Lu Lin (ping pong); there are two references on this article, and neither uses "Lü", they both use "Lu". Further WP:PINYIN dissuades using diacritics with people names 65.94.169.222 (talk) 04:44, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's policy on article titles.

• And every single reference on the page of Žydrūnas Ilgauskas uses "Zydrunas Ilgauskas". WP:Pinyin discourages tone diacritics, not "ü", that's a different pronunciation (not tone) from "u". Timmyshin (talk) 07:00, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

User:Timmyshin what you say is correct, and 65.94 has made a forgivable error in reading what WP:PINYIN says (it could be written better), but still 吕林's name is 吕林, his is not a Latin alphabet name. We represent all 100,000s of Latin alphabet names accurately and consistently on en.wp, except for one Serbian woman at least, so Žydrūnas Ilgauskas is how we do it. But Arabic, Chinese, Korean, Russian, Japanese names we don't write as is because they aren't in Latin script. In ictu oculi (talk) 11:36, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

• The example of Ilgauskas is merely to illustrate that English-language references are unreliable when it comes to diacritics, even for someone whose original name was in Latin and whose page has over 25 references. There is no guideline saying that Arabic, Chinese, Korean, Russian, Japanese names cannot have diacritics, and as long as that is the case, inconsistency will invariably occur if people only look at a few English-language references (and a lot of these people don't have many). For example, I don't think it's a good idea if there are 2 吕林's and one is titled "Lü Lin" and the other "Lu Lin" just because one has a reference whose author knows about "ü" vs. "u" and the other doesn't. Therefore I absolutely cannot accept this proposal, Strongly oppose, unless a guideline is established to restore all "Lü"'s in titles to "Lu". As far as the other non-Latin languages go, some of these languages you mentioned (e.g. Korean, Russian) no longer use diacritics for the most commonly adapted romanization systems, but I know for a fact that many Japanese titles on en.wp use macrons. In fact, Empress Jingū had a quite lengthy discussion not too long ago to restore the macron. Timmyshin (talk) 18:54, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

User:Timmyshin, I agree with you. I misread the proposal as Lü Lin → Lü Lin (table tennis) until Zanhe alerted me of my mistake below. In ictu oculi (talk) 06:06, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose - (would Support → Lü Lin (table tennis)) - WP:PINYIN counts 6 vowels "The tone mark is added to the vowel in the syllable that comes first in this sequence: a o e i u ü." fact is that we do use the pinyin "umlaut" for closed u, and should continue to do so. However the pinyin umlaut is not a real umlaut like German, and therefore to the non-informed reader probably insufficient for WP:PRECISION. In ictu oculi (talk) 11:36, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

Why is it not a real umlaut? The Chinese ü is pronounced exactly the same as the German ü. -Zanhe (talk) 05:58, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

@In ictu oculi: Are you sure your vote is correct? Your comment seems to suggest that you oppose the move, yet you voted support. -Zanhe (talk) 05:42, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

User:Zanhe thanks for pinging me, corrected, obviously I would only support Lü Lin → Lü Lin (table tennis) I didn't see nom had removed the "umlaut" (the only reason I say not as real as German is that pinyin is only a romanization). In ictu oculi (talk) 05:58, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

• I'm not entirely sure what support or oppose actually represent here, but I'd like to add my two cents that Lu and Lü are not interchangeable in any romanized form. The umlaut/diaeresis over the "u" does not indicate tone. User:Timmyshin is correct to say that we do not add tone marks to titles or in the flow of prose (mostly), but this has nothing to do with that. It indicates a different vowel: "Lu" and "Lü" are as different as "Lu" and "Li" or "La". The umlaut in the title works perfectly for other figures like Lü Buwei and Lü Bu. I've never encountered an issue of confusion on this topic that cannot be easily remedied with either a disambiguation or redirect page.  White Whirlwind  咨  23:02, 4 September 2014 (UTC)
  • Edit: It appears that oppose is the one I want. We generally romanize Chinese names in pinyin: if one does not distinguish "u" and "ü", one is not using pinyin, but something else entirely.  White Whirlwind  咨  17:16, 5 September 2014 (UTC)
• I oppose eliminating the distinction between Lü and Lu since as most people here have rightly pointed out they are entirely different. If we want to get rid of the umlaut for whatever reason (which I am not convinced that we should), I should point out that Chinese passports now use "Lyu" to stand in for Lü (source) (before it was "Lv"). _dk (talk) 06:11, 5 September 2014 (UTC)
• Comment: I don't think the two are interchangeable. In Chinese, "u" and "ü" are completely different things, and diacritics are not the same as tone marks. The purpose of ü is to represent a 6th vowel sound that's completely different from the sound "u" makes, so it makes sense to retain the diacritic even if the tone marks have to be removed. Quite often in English texts, we keep diacritics for French, German and Polish people as long as technology permits, so the same should apply here.

  In case there are people who come across this discussion and are unfamiliar with diacritics, as a comparison, the German Führer can also be acceptably rendered as Fuehrer where writing umlauts is not possible (in German "ü" makes an English "ue" sound), however "Fuhrer" is never correct or academically acceptable; similarly in Spanish the "ñ" in Jalapeño is nowhere close to a "n", and "façade" is the proper way to write the word in French, and one of two acceptable ways to write the word in English. Diacritics are important for accurately representing a word or name, and in the case of Chinese, by dropping the diacritic and using "Lu Lin", this represents a completely different set of sounds and meanings. --benlisquare_T•C•E 06:15, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

• Support: It's of little importance is u and ü. We use English here and in English we don't make this distinction. The above examples of diacritic use in English are extreme outliers and each of those examples is both perfectly acceptable without the diacritic in English and more common. For this reason the diaresis above the u is no better a natural disambiguator than tone marks, which we also don't use. The fact that the written guidelines don't mention the diaresis is an unimportant oversight. It seems obvious that the idea of telling people not to include tone diacritics also applies to the diaresis above the u, regardless of the unimportant fact that it is not used to mark tones. Just as English doesn't have a second tone, it also has no distinction between the two pronunciations, so again, use English, don't rely on diacritics to disambiguate. - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 11:42, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

User:Metal.lunchbox can you please provide evidence from Google Books? Because it appears that in English books we do very much make this distinction. This distinction is always observed in quality print sources for pinyin exactly as if it was a German umlaut. In ictu oculi (talk) 06:01, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Fine, Do you think Routledge is a respectable book publisher, and [1][2][3], etc. There just isn't a proponderance of major English-Language sources discussing these topics, so there's not a real strong standard of how to deal with the diaresis above the u, but it's not hard to find reputable sources which omit it. Many books include the mark, many don't. let's not create a rule for the English language, where one doesn't exist. It isn't our place to do so. - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 18:48, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

There is a strong standard, which is called pinyin, the standard in China since the 1950s, which became an ISO standard in 1982, and was adopted by the United Nations in 1986, and Taiwan in 2009. In pinyin, Lü is the only correct way to spell the surname. In the absence of compelling reason to do otherwise, we should stick with the well-established international standard, as we've always done. -Zanhe (talk) 19:20, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

The ISO doesn't rule over the English language or WP, We do. From Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English) "do not substitute a systematically transliterated name for the common English form of the name". I don't think it could be more clear. - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 19:29, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Nobody rules over the English language, but in the absence of compelling evidence, there is no reason to discard the ISO standard and long-standing Wikipedia convention. -Zanhe (talk) 02:18, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose: ü is a different vowel from u, period. Sports sites (and phone books) are well known for mangling the names of people from non-English speaking countries (his name is actually written as Lin Lu in both refs). We should not lower Wikipedia's standard to their level. -Zanhe (talk) 17:23, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia standard is to repeat whatever is conventional usage in English, regardless of what we think is higher or lower level. - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 04:52, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

So we should move the article to Lin Lu then? Both refs are from a single amateurish website www.databaseOlympics.com, and more clueful websites would use Lü. For example, cctv.com and tabletennista.com. And unlike sports websites, we need to take into consideration Wikipedia-wide consistency. Most academic publications preserve the Lü spelling. See, for example, China: A History and Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Women. -Zanhe (talk) 05:54, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing some actual sources into this discussion. Naturally, I'm not proposing that we write a standard usage based on a single mediocre source. Consistency is a consideration, but it isn't an imperative. Unfortunately, I don't know how to advance this discussion because, it has spread over three articles. I'd like to propose that we not try to solve the slight ambiguity of the written style and naming conventions here, but instead try to discuss on this page only the topic of this article, Lu Lin. - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 06:11, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

And as for clue-having. The website you cite as evidence for the "correct" spelling of the name tabletennista.com has 5 articles about Lu Lin, only one of them uses the spelling with the diacritic that you are defending. While, I couldn't find a single other source using the spelling with diacritics from CCTV, I did find several that did not ([4][5][6]), Clue having indeed. You cite two examples, and they both serve to prove the opposite point. Picking cherries is easy. We do not need to take into consideration wikipedia-wide consistency. That is not a policy of wikipedia, at all. using the common English name is, see WP:AT, and every single other article about naming guidelines. - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 00:10, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

We very much do need to take into consideration en.wikipedia-wide consistency, which is why we have WP:CONSISTENCY, also we have a MOS and the MOS uses full fonts as in sources reliable for the statement being made. In ictu oculi (talk) 00:22, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

What are you talking about when you mention reliable sources? I just showed that the sources you've so far mentioned mostly don't use the spelling you are defending. How can you still use them to support your argument. Neither of the articles you are citing are even about Lu Lin. I will concede that WP:AT mentions consistency as one consideration among many, contrary to one of my claims above. And then it says, "These should be seen as goals, not as rules" - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 00:41, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for striking the above, but that's the underpinning of your argument here. You should now withdraw the RM on the Lithuanian bio Talk:Žydrūnas Ilgauskas for the same reason, WP:CONSISTENCY. That is perhaps the most inappropriate overflow from a China-MOS discussion I have seen. Unless you intend to drag WikiProject Lithuania editors into deciding whether to represent pinyin's sixth vowel. In ictu oculi (talk) 00:48, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but that article is not related to this discussion. There is no way that those editors could make a decision about that page and somehow bind this discussion. It doesn't work that way. Please discuss the merits of the above move request. You are changing the topic. Also, If you think that's the underpinning of my argument then it seems like you haven't read my argument. - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 01:16, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

If Talk:Žydrūnas Ilgauskas is not related to this discussion what moved you to suddenly propose it? In ictu oculi (talk) 01:20, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

My motivations are described in detail on that page. Stay on topic, please. - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 02:01, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

It clearly is overspill from here, Žydrūnas Ilgauskas was mentioned above by TimmyShin as example of the European BLP corpus and you went from here to there and with no reference to the MOS and guidelines related to Lithuanian bios nominated it according to the same argument you're using here. I will restate the guidelines again:

En.wp uses all six Chinese vowels, including Results 1–500 of 9,720 for Lü Chinese

MOS:CHINESE The tone mark is added to the vowel in the syllable that comes first in this sequence: a o e i u ü.

WP NC-CHINA: The titles of Chinese entries should follow current academic conventions, which generally means Hanyu Pinyin without tone marks.

as all 496 articles with Lü in title. These are the guidelines in use. In ictu oculi (talk) 02:10, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

Please stop pasting this in the six or so talk pages you insist on having this discussion with me on. Stay on topic, This is a discussion about the title of the article about Lu Lin the tennis table player. - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 02:58, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

The Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Chinese) and MOS:CHINESE guidelines need to be clearly visible on all pages where they are being challenged. If you "insist" (your word) on spreading this discussion and arguing further against the guidelines, therefore the guidelines will need to follow those challenges. In ictu oculi (talk) 03:21, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

Please stop. You are the one who tried to change the MOS:CHINESE] guidelines, not me. Consensus was against it, let's move on. I have no interest in challenging them. Let's talk about Lu Lin instead. - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 03:32, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

Not so, evidently, as unanimous consensus of all the China editors on all these discussions. The guidelines as I am citing have been stable for years. I was simply suggesting a clarification to prevent good faith mistakes such as 65.94 who misread WP:PINYIN in the nom because the difference between a vowel and tone isn't spelled out. The wording of the guidelines above is the long-standing stable version universally applied on en.wp. Why do you think our China article corpus has WP NC-CHINA: "Hanyu Pinyin without tone marks" because that is what Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Chinese) says. You do know the difference between a "tone mark" and a vowel, yes? In ictu oculi (talk) 03:43, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

No one was confused about the difference. For some reason you though they were and wanted to change the MOS wording. This is going nowhere. - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 03:53, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

65.94.169.222 evidently was wrong-footed by WP:PINYIN because the nomination above here says "WP:PINYIN dissuades using diacritics with people names", which it doesn't does it, since it clearly says we use a e i o u ü, six vowels.

MOS:CHINESE The tone mark is added to the vowel in the syllable that comes first in this sequence: a o e i u ü.

In that sentence "tone mark" means tone mark and "vowel" means vowel, yes? In ictu oculi (talk) 04:01, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

Discussion

Any additional comments:

• Propose move to Lü Lin (table tennis). Timmyshin (talk) 19:09, 4 September 2014 (UTC)
  • Support as per nom and per original suggestion and rationale @In ictu oculi:. ( I wish there was a user here called "Pong" who I could also ping. Gregkaye ✍♪ 11:26, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
• Please join the discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_(Chinese)#Lu_vs._L.C3.BC_in_titles. Timmyshin (talk) 17:13, 5 September 2014 (UTC)i

Well I said I'd support a modified proposal, but now I think it would be simpler to just close this move as having no support and contrary to project MOS. In ictu oculi (talk) 15:14, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

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