Talk:Gdańsk/Archive 10

This is an archive of past discussions about Gdańsk. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 5

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Voting proposal

The Gdansk/Danzig naming problem is the core of a whole lot of other problems. Since so far there was no sucess in achieving a compromise (despite numerous attempts!), I believe a vote is needed for deciding the issue, and have in cooperation with a few other users prepared a vote on Talk:Gdansk/Vote. The vote has not yet started and is in the discussion phase. The planned voting period is two weeks from Monday, February 21 0:00 to Monday, March 7 0:00. Constructive comments are welcome -- Chris 73 Talk 03:48, Feb 16, 2005 (UTC)

Voting has just ended and I noticed that there's a problem with the survey. Someone has suggested, incorrectly, that a majority (50%) has some meaning. It does not. We do things by consensus on Wikipedia. A working consensus, at a minimum, is taken as 2:1 or 67%. A more acceptable figure is 80%.

In the circumstances, anyone trying to make policies based on the 50% figure stick is likely to experience severe problems. In particular, I shall follow the dispute resolution process with anyone using administrator powers to block someone using the "wrong" spelling of Gdansk, Danzig, whatever as simple vandalism as implied by item 10 (also repeated reverting would fall under WP:3RR). There is a 50/78 (64%) majority, somewhat short of a rough consensus. And we would require a pretty convincing consensus to justify changing the definition of simple vandalism. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 00:11, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

In retrospect I would have changed the wording of the vote #10. My goal was to have reverts that comply with community consensus excempted from the 3RR, and only persistent reverts against community consensus despite multiple warnings may require further action. My goal was not to label this vandalism, as was also expressed by many voters. Results are on Talk:Gdansk/Vote (counted everything twice, hope there are no mistakes). The last vote was adjusted slightly, see Talk:Gdansk/Vote#Results on VOTE: Enforcement. Overall 44 voters agreed with the vote, and 28 opposed. Quite a number of voters on both sides opposed the label vandalism, which I should have worded differently at the beginning of the vote (Hindsight: 20/20, i guess ;). Many of the opposing voters also stated that they would have agreed to a 3RR exemption. The results are trying to incorporate these views. Comments are very welcome. Since I protected the vote page to avoid accidential voting after the vote ended, comments may be added on Talk:Gdansk/Vote/discussion. -- Chris 73 Talk 02:24, Mar 4, 2005 (UTC)

I still have a concern regarding the post-1945 naming.

The cross-naming votes Talk:Gdansk/Vote#VOTE:_Cross-Naming_Gdansk.2FDanzig and Talk:Gdansk/Vote#VOTE:_Cross-Naming_General really should have distinguished time periods rather than broadly applying across all time periods, or at least should have distinguished between historical and purely modern contexts. Supporting a post-1945 qualification required a "write-in vote", and in most elections a "write-in" candidacy fares more poorly than an equivalent explicit ballot option.

In view of the definitive treaties signed following German reunification and membership of both countries in the European Union, and the present-day linguistic demographics, it seems very unlikely indeed that border issues will ever be reopened, and the status and naming of Gdansk in purely modern contexts is at least as settled as that of Strasbourg.

The endless edit wars over the years were all about the usage in historical contexts, they never spread to articles in purely modern contexts. But theoretically that could now happen, creating a brand new problem while solving old ones. Hopefully, this will remain a purely theoretical concern. -- Curps 04:38, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I should have included these options, too. Hindsightis 20/20, I guess. At least I hope that the vote solves more problems than it makes. My feeling is also that if there is a local consensus on an article, the rules in this vote do not have to be followed strictly. Best regards, -- Chris 73 Talk 05:01, Mar 4, 2005 (UTC)

After all the debates, it's a pleasure to read an article about this city that accurately reflects its fascinating ethnographic history but avoids value judgments offensive to either side. Danzig, which existed for some six centuries, is not lost to history, but this in no way should be taken as any suggestion that the status of Gdansk today should in any way be "revised." There was more than enough of that in the past.

As one who has visited Gdansk, my hat is off to Poland for restoring the city center so beautifully.

For anyone who is interested in what the city previously was, I strongly recommend reading Nobel laureate Günter Grass's second novel, "Dog Years." Grass is in no way a German "revanchist" -- he is a humanist, and a very great novelist in the "prophetic" tradition. For Poles, let me say that he in no way exculpates the Germans for what they did during the Nazi era. Quite the contrary.

Sca 19:37, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Pronunciations

The pronunciation of "Gdansk" is listed in English dictionaries, and that information should be included on this page. Nohat 20:12, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

This is not a dictionary. English dictionaries also list pronunciations of ordinary words like "chair", which we don't. And those "English pronunciations of Gdansk" are no different. As evidenced by the fact that there are three of them, those just reflect the ignorant man on the street's attempts to "pronounce it as it's written." There is no encyclopedic value to it whatsoever. The only correct pronunciation is the original Polish one. Once you know that, it's best to use that, and if you don't, you can figure out a wrong pronunciation by yourself. NoPuzzleStranger 21:29, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

We don't remove information here unless it's wrong or indisputably irrelevant, neither of which are true about the English pronunciations of Gdansk. There is no such thing as a "correct" or "incorrect" pronunciation in English, and I don't see any reason why we shouldn't report to our readers the various ways that the name is pronounced in English. This deletion seems motivated by some kind of misguided desire to stamp out what you perceive to be "corruption" of the original Polish. Frankly, in the English Wikipedia, I find that how to pronounce the name of something in English to be far more valuable than how to pronounce it in some other language, particularly for some other language that I don't speak. 02:06, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Names with and without diacritics

On other issues, I don't think we use interwiki links in the main article text. See Wikipedia:Interlanguage links. And stripping diacritics doesn't make an English name, so it makes no sense to list "English spelling Gdansk". You could say "without diacritics Gdansk", but that would be rather pointless and self-evident. NoPuzzleStranger 21:29, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Putting in the word with a mention of the native language before the word is a convinient way to list a word with and without diacritics on the first line. It does a way with clumsy (and incorrect wording) of "English spelling" before the diacritic free version.

Including the word in the article without diacritic is important because as on Internet English encyclopaedia, if the word is not spelt both ways, many search engines external to Wikipedia will not find the Wikipedia article. For consistency within articles there has been a tendency over the last year or so for articles to be re-written with diacritics used in all cases. When this happens the word disappears from the radar of many search engines so for many people the Wikipedia article is not easily available. Personally I like to make the article as assessable as possible to the widest audience as possible. So if the article includes all spellings on the first line this will happen even if the rest of the text uses only one version of the word for consistency and style.

Here are some external search engines which differenciate between "Gdansk" and "Gdańsk" http://www.google.com.au http://www.google.co.nz http://www.google.co.uk http://www.google.co.za http://www.yahoo.com http://www.ask.com/ http://www.altavista.com http://www.excite.com

The addition of an interwiki link on the name with diacritics does no harm and may be of help to some people. Philip Baird Shearer 10:50, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I don't think our conventions should be dictated by the limitations of external search engines. If we use the diacritics throughout the article, we shouldn't start the article with a stripped version. And as long as we have to use the stripped version in the title for technical reasons, the search engines will find the page anyway. As to the interwiki links, that is only confusing and against all existing practice. Those links are already available in their proper place. NoPuzzleStranger 11:29, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

If the text is not in a page an external search engine will not find it even if there are redirects inside Wikipedia. It is not just a technical issue it is also a cultural one. Most English speaking people do not use diacritics and insisting that they have to know the use of Polish diacritics to find an article on Gdansk is counter-productive as it marginalises Wikipedia. I suggest that this conversation continues atWikipedia talk:Naming conventions (use English). Philip Baird Shearer 14:24, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Voting - Warschau/Warsaw

[[User:Schlesier/Warsaw/Vote|VOTING for WARSCHAU or Warsaw]] <-- That page is a vote to decide the usage of the name of Warschau/Warsaw--Schlesier 08:27, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Invitation to voting on a subpage to a user page!

Bad! --Ruhrjung 21:00, Apr 6, 2005 (UTC)

Results on VOTE: Period from 1466 to 1793

Latest comment: 19 years ago14 comments2 people in discussion

48 votes for using Gdansk
47 votes for using Danzig

There is no rule of excluding votes due to low edit count ... so what was the reason not to count 12 votes (sic!) for Gdansk? --Witkacy 10:19, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Someone should change the information in the red frame above (For Gdansk, use the name Gdansk before 1308 between 1466 and 1793 and after 1945 )--Witkacy 14:04, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

Low edit counts are usually excluded, as for example in teh vote for adminship. Many of these voters had no edits other than the vote, and some did not even have an login. Excluding low edit count votes is standard practice to avoid sockpuppets and vote manipulatipon. The vote was also a high profile case, and lots of admins looked at the issue and agreed with it. I changed the results summary back. -- Chris 73 Talk 20:36, May 16, 2005 (UTC)

"Low edit counts are usually excluded":

Is there any official (Wikipedia) rule? If not, the excluded votes must be counted. And please take a look on the main page "Welcome to Wikipedia, the free-content encyclopedia that anyone can edit"...--Witkacy 20:49, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Survey guidelines: Where there is a sign of activities intended to frustrate the intent of the survey, those who can opine may be restricted. A lack of restrictions is usually best, so this may be invoked after the polling has started. john k 17:35, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

Anyone can edit, but not everybody can vote. There is a long discussion and lots of comparable situations in "vote for adminship". -- Chris 73 Talk 20:58, May 16, 2005 (UTC)

Look... its very simple IF there is no official rule, so the excluded votes must be counted.--Witkacy 21:13, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

Hi guys, I haven't really been involved with this, but I thought I'd chime in: The relevant policy is Wikipedia:Consensus, which is generally the form used for votes (such as VFD, RFA, FAC, etc.). Though consensus is a loosely defined term, a 48/47 vote is definitely not it; If the people on this talk page can't come up with a consensus policy, I would suggest that each of the cases in which the two terms could be used should be discussed specifically on each page's talk page until a more general agreement can be reached. Cheers, --DropDeadGorgias (talk) 21:11, May 16, 2005 (UTC)

Incidentally, was this poll posted on Wikipedia:Current surveys while it was active? I generally monitor that page, and I don't recall seeing it. In general, it's best to post there when it's active, to ensure the highest turnout. --DropDeadGorgias (talk) 21:14, May 16, 2005 (UTC)

So if the consensus was not reached, the voting is invalid. And by the way the whole voting was not NPOV. Chris organized the voting, was the judge and now... the executioner. ([1]--Witkacy 21:34, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

Can you guys BOTH stop reverting each other's edits until this is sorted out? For one thing, as someone unfamiliar with this whole situation, the edit at [2] seems perfectly fine, as the calendar article's will generally be read for broad content; as I'm not familiar with the specifics of the naming of this town, listing it by the two most common names given for the town seem relevant to me. In either case PLEASE resolve this issue on the talk pages here and for specific articles before reverting further, both of you. --DropDeadGorgias (talk) 22:13, May 16, 2005 (UTC)

"August 14 - Lech Walesa leads the first of many strikes at the Gdansk (German:Danzig) shipyard"

The English name of the city is Gdansk, so there is no reason to add the German name. The the strikes happened in Poland and not in Germany.--Witkacy 22:20, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

Pls look at this one: Bialystok (German: Bialystok) :) see [3] Whats the next Chris? Aleksander Kwaniewski (German: Alexander Kwaschniewsky) or Lech Walesa (German: Heinrich Valesa) ? ;)--Witkacy 22:37, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

A few things for clarification:

) The poll was posted on current surveys, plus a few other voting pages (would have to check which ones if you want the exact list.) In addition, I contacted quite a lot of people that had edits related to that problem. It was also listed on the Wikipedia signpost. A turnout of 100 voters is i think pretty good.
) A clear majority of 46 to 19 voted for double naming of Gdansk/Danzig, and 44 to 17 for general polish/german double naming. The closest vote was for the Period from 1466 to 1793, with 46 votes for Danzig and 36 for Gdansk. This vote also had a number of invalid votes (users with no edits besides the vote page, or not even logged in).

For the Period from 1466 to 1793 - 48 votes for using Gdansk and 47 for Danzig.--Witkacy 23:49, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

) The vote was organized by a couple of people, not only me. If i remeber correctly, the preparation for the vote was announced on this page, with comments and contributions being very welcome.
) I will revert removals of alternative english (usually german) names for these instances. I have promised a couple of voters to enforce the outcome of this vote. There was also a majority of voters that supported a strong enforcement of the outcome of the vote. One thing is that a reversal in accordance with the majority view is excluded from teh 3RR rule. Persistent violators may be blocked. Read Talk:Gdansk/Vote for details.

I would like to ask everybody to accept the outcome of the vote, since german names are still commonly used in english (e.g. everybody knows Auschwitz, almost no english speaker knows Oswiecim). Thanks -- Chris 73 Talk 22:49, May 16, 2005 (UTC)

"since german names are still commonly used in english

Yes, names of German death camps but not of Polish cities.--Witkacy 23:47, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

Could someone stop him please? He reverted again.--Witkacy 23:02, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

Witkacy, please read Talk:Gdansk/Vote to see the community consensus on this issue. -- Chris 73 Talk 23:07, May 16, 2005 (UTC)

Im still waiting for you answer:

"Low edit counts are usually excluded":

Is there any official (Wikipedia) rule?

There does not need to be an official rule, because surveys are not, in any case, official things. They are tools for creating an artificial consensus when a natural consensus doesn't exist, in that even if one doesn't agree with a particular option, there can be a consensus that the poll results are to be accepted as binding. In this case, everyone has (tacitly or explicitly) accepted the results of the survey for a couple of months now. That seems to me to constitute a consensus that the poll results a) should be respected; and b) are to be interpreted in the way that Chris has done. Until today, this issue had finally been put to rest. Do we really want to get into this again? And it's perfectly sensible to exclude votes from users with few edits - even if there is not a specific ordinance saying it is to be done, it is nevertheless a matter of the common law of wikipedia - there is a great deal of precedent for doing this, and no precedent against doing so. john k 02:54, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

Not everyone accepted the results:

"NPOV - In Your opinion this page (organisation at all) is NPOV? No coment! Radomil 11:05, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)"

"I protest against a way the votes for Talk:Gdansk/Vote#VOTE:_Period_from_1466_to_1793 were countedexcluding 13 users on basis of little engagement in en:. As put on Talk:Gdansk/Vote#Poll_interpretation there were general consensus that they shouldn't, only johnK persistently refused to accept it. Also no limits of contribution required were agreed upon before so in many cases exclusion was arbitrary. Thus, result of this point of vote should be changed. -- Forseti 07:49, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)"

"If there's no fixed rule, the voting is simply senseless. You can choose whatever reason for including a user or not in your votes, making the result you choose. This is not fair at all. In my opinion every user who can edit pages, can also vote. That's what democracy is about. People can vote no matter what education they received or what do they know about politics. So why here should be otherwise? Besides, what is important, basing the "good standing" of a wikipedia editor by the number of edits is just STUPID. User A makes many simple corrections (changing commas into semicolons for instance) or even destroys many articles. User B produced several big pages on important topics. User A can vote, B cannot. Stupid enough? --Akumiszcza 12:54, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)"

And by the way, if there is no official rule, then the results are not binding for those who don't participated in the voting.--Witkacy 03:39, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

Trid Trid with 24 edits - his vote was not counted (he voted for.. Gdansk)

Sca most edits on talkpages or reverts [[4]] - vote was counted (because.. he voted for Danzig) No comment...--Witkacy 03:52, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

Yes, a few people protested at the time. Not very many, and they soon quieted down. As to the rest, Scca has, indeed, not made many edits in the article space. That said, he doesn't seem to be a sockpuppet, and has been around for many months commenting on issues relating to Polish geographical names. We did exclude (at least) one vote of those voting for Danzig, because it was a new user. The clear fact is this - if you exclude all the brand-new users, or the ones who came over from Polish wikipedia just to vote on this issue, Danzig clearly wins. If you include them, it's a tie. It seems sensible to exclude them, just so that an actual result can be attained. As to whether "the results are not binding for those who don't participate in the voting." Well, of course in some sense votes are not binding on anyone. But in that case you shouldn't be arguing about this one vote, but simply trying to argue the merits again. Normally when there's been a lengthy and well-publicized vote on something, people aren't that keen to revisit it. john k 14:43, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

As a side note: I think nobody contests the results for 1308-1475. I think the 1475 -17XX results are contested.

Also, remember that Chris consulted voting with me. I wasn't much of help, but he tried to find also Polish judge. Because of lack of time I couldn't help much, but do NOT BASH him. I am Pole, BTW. Szopen 14:52, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Map of Poland

Latest comment: 19 years ago13 comments4 people in discussion

United Nations map of Poland: [5] - Names of cities in Poland (used in the English language). If a compromise is not possible, then we should use only the names (for every period), which are in official use in English-speaking countries.--Witkacy 01:05, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, and the German names should also be mentioned, but only once, in the history section, with an explanation why another name was used, when and by whom.Space Cadet 01:15, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

That's the best resolution--Witkacy 03:14, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

What on earth does the map have to do with anything? Is Witkacy our old friend Caius2ga/Gdansk/Szczecin/PolishPoliticians/Emax? john k 02:58, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

Witkacy is... Witkacy and who are you? :)--Witkacy 03:14, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

Let me add, though, that I don't really think we should have to list "Danzig" at every mention of the city in non-historical contexts, and I don't think that there was really a consensus that we should actually do this. john k 03:01, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

The problem is that apparently User:Chris 73 thinks that. Halibu tt 10:44, May 17, 2005 (UTC)

My understanding is that many polish cities are still more widely known under german names, rather than polish ones. Articles should reflect that so people know what city or place name is discussed. -- Chris 73 Talk 11:04, May 17, 2005 (UTC)

Then your understanding is wrong, especially that you apply the Gdansk/Danzig situation to a plethora of other places. Just compare the modern usage of Szczecin with Stettin. Some 10:1 ratio, with Stettin links leading mostly to a location in the USA. Halibu tt 14:14, May 17, 2005 (UTC)

I think Halibutt is probably more right here than wrong. As I recall, the question was rather broadly tailored - it simply said that both names should be listed. A lot of people, I think, voted for that on the understanding that it only meant in historical contexts. I would suggest that another vote on the issue of the city in contemporary, non-historical contexts should be had, so that we can iron out what the vote really meant. Since the original vote was ambiguous and perhaps overly broad, I don't think this would be disrespecting the results of the original survey. john k 14:16, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

Definitely a new voting with strictly delimited borders and rules would be in place. Halibu tt 14:29, May 17, 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Halibutt. The mandate for including the German name which this vote seemingly established is much too broad. I do not believe, for example, that the users voting had in mind including the German name in articles like Lacznosciowiec Szczecin. As 100% of the current territory of Poland was in Germany/Prussia or in Austria at one time or another in the last 200 years, and so all Polish cities "share some history" with Germany or Austria, irresponsible users or trolls could use the ruling to incite edit wars over any and all articles which mention the name of any given Polish city.Balcer 15:20, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

Silesian, Pomeranian, and East Prussian cities (and perhaps certain West Prussian cities like Danzig/Gdansk which were inhabited by Germans) are clearly different from cities in Posen Province, which are themselves quite different from cities in Congress Poland and Galicia. I don't think there is any cause to include the German name for cities in Congress Poland or Galicia (except in the specific case of Lviv, which was often called Lemberg.) For the cities in Posen Province, I think that the German names should only be mentioned for the period of time when the area was part of ~~Poland~~ Prussia. For the other areas, the German name should be mentioned in most historical contexts, but I still don't think it should be used in discussing the contemporary city. john k 16:27, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

This might be clear to you and me but it is certainly not clear to some other editors who are claiming to be applying the Talk:Gdansk/Vote concensus. Consider the recent attempt by User:Chris 73 himself to add the German name to the article on Bialystok (city located in Prussia for just 12 years, between 1795 and 1807). To me this is just an illustration that rules have to be more clearly specified to prevent edits which violate common sense. Balcer 16:38, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

Oh, I'm not disagreeing that another vote - or, if possible, simply discussion to see if we can arrive at a new consensus without voting - would be a good idea. Just suggesting the lines along which the policy should be revised. The Bialystok thing is just ridiculous, since the German name is "Bialystok" which is, more or less, the same as the Polish name (yeah, I know there's that weird diacritical, but that doesn't seem good enough to me to qualify as a separate name.) john k 04:55, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

The next one... Calton reverted few minutes ago tons of articles to the version of Chris.. also on Bialystok.. [6]--Witkacy 05:06, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

and wrote " The proposal is accepted. Violations against the rule established by the outcome of this vote can be reverted exempt from the 3RR rule. In more complex edits, only the place names can be reverted exempt from the 3RR rule according to the outcome of this vote, additional changes fall again under the 3RR rule. The reverted user should receive a note or link of the vote results on this page. Persistent reverts in violation of the outcome of this vote despite multiple warnings may be dealt with according to the rules in Wikipedia:Dealing with vandalism. [Emphasis mine] Spin all you like. Your changes are against consensus, and are explicitly classified as vandalism. Deal with it."

Could someone stop him please? (a friend of Chris... also from Japan)--Witkacy 05:08, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

Historically Polish city

Historically an important Polish seaport since 10th century and subsequently a principal ship-building centre, next a Hanse city, next the biggest Polish city (15th-18th century), next a German-speaking city (19th century), today's Gdańsk remains an important industrial centre together with the developed since the 1920s of the nearby port of Gdynia. In the 1970s the modern port (Port Północny) in Gdańsk was developed, accessible for much bigger ships, including middle sized tankers.

Gdańsk is a historically Polish city and not historically German city
Gdańsk was a memeber of Hanse in 14th-15th century, and broke with that organization in 1454 (beggining of the 13-years was)
we can talk about German-speaking city in 19th century
Gdańsk was never a German-speaking Hanse city

Why Lithuanian names Dancigas, Gdanskas

Latest comment: 19 years ago4 comments2 people in discussion

Pomeranian Balts lived in Pamarė (Pomerania) since 3,000 BC. Only in aproximetly 8th century BC German tribes came to Pomerania from Scandinavia and mixed with Pomeranian Balts. Dancigas , Gdanskas (Gdansk) is in former Baltic Land now. Zivinbudas 22:13, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

I tried to search of Dancigas in English-language pages via Google and got only one hit, which on closer inspection turns out to be completely irrelevant. So, according to Google at least, Dancigas is a form of the name which is never used in the English language, and so it does not merit inclusion in the header. Balcer 22:38, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

How often are used in English "Wilno", "Kowno", "Szawle", "Poniewierz" etcr.? There are historical reasons. It is only your demagogy. Zivinbudas 23:25, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

Why don't you speak nothing about Gdanskas in Google? Don't play naiv games. Zivinbudas 23:45, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

Here you go: Gdanskas: 24 hits on 8 pages, of which one is a false HTML conversion of a pdf document (which does not mention Gdanskas at all), four are entirely in Lithuanian and two are mirrors of Wikipedia List of European cities with alternative names. Which leaves us with exactly one English-language page of some Lithuanian tourist office to use the name Gdanskas. Halibu tt 00:07, May 30, 2005 (UTC)

It seems someone has atttempted to "repolonize" the introductory part of the Gdansk history section again. Gdansk, as Danzig, was predominantly a German-speaking city for about five centuries longer than merely "in the 19th century." It's ridiculous to speak of it as "the largest Polish city" during the period of its enfeoffment to the Polish crown, because it still was a predominantly German-speaking city during that time. It only became predominantly, indeed totally, Polish after WWII and the expulsion of the Danzigers.

Sca 23:00, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Sca, it was largest Polish city, despite majority of inhabitants was non-Polish. The sentence does not say "Largest Polish-speaking city) but (Polish) as in: belonging to POland and considered by inhabitants to be part of Poland. Szopen 06:44, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Tak, tak, rozumiem, dear Pan Szopen, but for English speakers – and this is the ENGLISH-LANGAUAGE Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia intended for casual English-speaking users – the impression given by the phrase "the largest Polish city" inevitably will be that it was ethnically Polish, which it was not. This point has been made numerous times in the discussions that led up to the vote in which all these issues were finally resolved.

The vote established that for the period of 1308-1945 the city is to be referred to by its German name, Danzig, because the overwhelming majority of its population was ethnically German during that time, and the language of the city was German or dialects thereof.

The vote outcome is being contested Szopen 14:31, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)

A logical concomitant of that decision is not to refer to it as a "Polish" city during that time. The history of

Why? Ethnicity did not matter much in medeival time. Eg. In Prussia, Polish Dzialynscy, despite speaking in Polish and being recent emigrants from greater Poland were leaders of Prussian oposition and called themselves Prussians. It was Polish city, inhabited predominantly by Germans.

Danzig's relationship with the Polish crown must be explained, but the city is to be referred to as Gdansk only before 1308 and after 1945. And I'm sure you know that Danzig's political status vis-a-vis Poland's rulers during that period was more complex than simply being "part of Poland" in the sense of a modern nation-state.

Oh, yes. In sense of modern nation-state Poland was close to be loose confederation of voivodship, some may argue. Szopen 14:31, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)

There's no direct analogy, but we could say for example that Puerto Rico is part of the U.S. politically, but that doesn't mean that San Juan is simply an "American city" like other American cities. Do you get my point?

Is President of US also president of Puerto Rico?

As to whether the German (and largely Protestant) Danzigers actively considered themselves "part of Poland" during the period of Polish suzerainty, or merely viewed it as a pragmatic political arrangement – which may have been more advantageious economically than Prussian rule – I have my doubts, but that's not the issue here. In any case, I don't think they would have identified themselves as "Polish."

Dantyszek, who was born in Danzig, referred to Poland in his letters as "our common mother" despite he learn Polish only in childhood (True, he was then nobilitated and he was writing to Poles, so you could argue he just wanted to please his friends, but anyway in letters he considered himself Polish.) OTOH, to be honest, it was XVIII century when in history of Prussia written in Danzig author said that Prussia privileges were illegally violated by Union of Lublin and hence Prussia legally was not part of Poland - but it was in dark times of Poland. In other times Gdansk was for exmple backing Leszczynski and fighting for him against coalition of others. Szopen 14:31, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Besides, that how it is called in Polish chronicles of the time. I think it was Kromer who called Gdansk chief diamond in Polish crown, or something similar. Poles were using Gdansk. Also, on one occasion, delegation of Gdansk burghers was arrested and almost executed for -what-was-the-word, lesse.. leese being offensive for Polish crown, which means they were considered Polish subject. Legal status of Gdansk was object of competence of Polish parliament, also. You could argue what inhabitants thought, but not what was thought elsewhere. Szopen 14:31, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Sca 19:09, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Sca that "Historically an important seaport for Poland" would be better than "Historically an important Polish seaport." Regardless of the specifics of the term "Polish" (which could refer to Polish language, Polish ethnicity, Polish population, Polish kingdom etc.), I agree that the casual English-speaker would interpret the current "important Polish seaport" as meaning that the city always had a Polish majority. Saying that the city was an "important seaport for Poland" (which it certainly was) seems to be a simpler and more-balanced statement. Also, I agree completely with Sca's comments from 6-13-2005. Olessi 23:11, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Okay, Polish colleague who insists on sneaking in a description of late-medieval Gdansk as "the largest Polish city," etc., thus disguising its historic ethnicity: Tell me what is NOT TRUE about the following version of that paragraph.

Historically a port since 10th century and later a ship-building centre and a member of the Hanse, the original Polish town came to be settled largely by Germans from the 14th century on, and remained predominantly German in ethnic character until the end of World War II. During these centuries it was known mainly by the German version of its name, Danzig, although it was politically linked with Poland prior to 1772. After its transformation into a wholly Polish city after 1945, Gdańsk became an important industrial centre along with the the nearby port of Gdynia, which was developed since the 1920s. In the 1970s the modern port (Port Północny) in Gdańsk was developed, accessible for much bigger ships, including middle sized tankers.

nothing wrong in here, i think. Szopen 14:31, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)

To add: "politically linked" may denote a number of things. I think this should stay here. Any clarifications will result in numerous revert wars.

Guys, please calm down. think the result of the vote is reasonable. However, it's quite absurd to add Danzig to articles about things directly related only to modern history of Poland. While I am f* Polish nationalist who as soon as he wakes up starts to think how to mess up Wikipedia, I am quite tired by all of this things. In last few months I don;'t think I did anything constructive, just fighting stupid wars whether Danzig was or was not Polish city, whether Szczecin is Szczecin or Sttettin and whether Polish football club shouldbe called "COmmunicator Danzig".

In OTOH, Guys from the other side of barricade: remember, that most of people we were talking to earlier, used the name of "Danzig", Stettin etc only to denote that the mentioned cities should go back to Germany ASAP, Polish western borders should be changed and in whole, Poles are stupid untermenschen who everything owe to German masters and civilisators. We ARE touchy over the subject, nto because we are jsut like to frustrate wikipedia, but because most of arguments we are seeing here we saw before, justifying revisionist claims.

Szopen 14:50, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Please note that I have corrected your non-English-speaker syntax in several minor instances.

Sca 14:06, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The above blather about those cities going "back to Germany," etc., is completely irrelevant. No one here is advocating any such thing. We're talking about history. They were German cities. Today, and since 1945, they are Polish cities. That's history. What's the problem for Poles with acknowledging history as it was? No one is making any value judgments here. Whether those cities, and the provinces involved, should have been given to Poland in '45 or not is not the issue. The point is, this is what was done.

When Poles insist in disguising the actual history of these cities and territories, it seems to me that they betray insecurity about the morality of what was done. But again, that is not the issue here; The issue is what WAS DONE. Let the readers decide for themselves whether it was right or wrong -- or whether it was more complicated than right and wrong, given German aggression, the Holocaust, etc., etc. History is not black and white. History is complicated, just as most human relationships are complicated. What is important is to acknowledge what happened on ALL SIDES, and move on to: reconciliation, progress, universal human rights, etc., etc.

Germany isn't going to go away, and neither is Poland. You still share a border. Why not become good neighbors and enjoy the 21st century together as much as possible? I speak as an American observer who has affection for both nations. I like Chopin AND Beethoven, vodka AND beer, Gurken AND ogurki, etc., etc. Supposedly I had a great-grandfather from "near Stettin", but no one knows where. It could have been from the still-German side of Stettin, it could have been from the now-Polish side of Szczecin. So what? Stettin was a German city; Szczecin is a Polish city. Interesting! How did that happen? Tell me -- but then, time to move on.

Sca 00:49, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Sca, imagine you discuss with a freak who is holocaust denier. He insist on placing a reference to Bur War in article about concentration camp. Then you have similar discussion with doezn other holocaust deniers and all those discussion are ending with conclusion by deniers that there was no holocaust etc etc. Now someone else, completely nice person came and wants to enter reference to Boer War in history of concentration camp. I bet that large percentage of editors would react allergic, remembering what happened in past. Ok? I bet most Germans don;'t care about history of this places and similar. However, we usually met those, who remember such history only to prove that we are camels: that is, that we are unsure about morality of taking this lands, that they should go back to Germany etc.

Also, While we were occupied, the part of anti-Polish measures was removal of Polish names and replacing them by German names. Which also can explain part of our hesitance to use "Stettin" in description of modern Polish football club from Szczecin.

Szopen 09:00, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

History

How it was possible that before my edits history chapter missed:

Westerplatte and the Post Office resistance
The faith of Polish and Jewish minorities during WW2 (including Stutthof and Pisanica)
Destruction of the city by the invading Red Army
the date of annextion of the city by Hitler?
what happenned during ww2?

Moreover nonsenses that I tried to tame long, long ago were in place? Numbers: 385 000 pre war population, 100 000 died during the war, 285 000 in Germany 1950 contain factual errors:

385 000 obviously is the population of FSD not the city,
100 000 we don't know really. This number is obviously calculated by aritmetic substraction. The factors that are not included:
- In 1950 German POW's were still imprisoned in SU. (number unknown)
- The unknown number of citizens were FSD were positively verified and stayed in the city (at least 20 000)
- natural growth of population is not taken into account (11 years - theoritically 22% of children should have been born)
- The big number of people directly emigrated to Australia and other countries.

PLease discuss the miniumum what history chapter should include? Cautious 05:53, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Requested move

Latest comment: 19 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Gdansk → Gdańsk. Somebody made a redirect at Gdańsk to our existing page at Gdansk (which currently carries the {{titlelacksdiacritics}} template), although clearly it should be the other way around. — Ливай | ☺ 28 June 2005 10:37 (UTC)

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

Support

Support --Witkacy 28 June 2005 15:41 (UTC)
Support -- Britannica is an English encyclopedia too Space Cadet 28 June 2005 15:44 (UTC)
Support ...Sicherlich ^talk 28 June 2005 15:48 (UTC)
Support. What we ignorant English-speakers see as squiggles are an important part of the spelling. — Chameleon 28 June 2005 15:50 (UTC)
Support. The accent is commonly dropped in English merely out of laziness. There's no reason for us not to use it. dbenbenn | talk 28 June 2005 15:51 (UTC)
- If it is only laziness why does the BBC use "ń" for its Polish pages but not for its English pages? Philip Baird Shearer
Support; also for the reason stated by User:Dbenbenn. Halibu tt June 28, 2005 15:58 (UTC)
Support (if this vote is not implicit in my proposal). Just because most English speakers don't know how to type "ń" doesn't mean we shouldn't. — Ливай | ☺ 28 June 2005 16:35 (UTC)
- If common English usage is not to use "ń" then why vote agains the guidelines? Philip Baird Shearer
Support. See below. Nohat 28 June 2005 17:37 (UTC)
Support. But this really shouldn't be discussed on a case-by-case basis. This is a general question that should be settled once for all cases of this kind. But then, it already has - all evidence of actual use points to a wide consensus to use diacritics. Thus any attempt to oppose them in individual cases, as Philip Baird Shearer likes to do, should be overruled without a vote, unless it can be established that the case in question is in any way unusual. But Gdańsk is no different than Düsseldorf or São Paulo or thousands of other cases. It would be incumbent upon Philip or any like-minded user to establish a general consensus to remove all diacritics from Wikipedia. Until then, they should all stay, and votes like this should be considered invalid. The supporters of the diacritics cannot be expected to express their support again and again wherever Philip tries to start a vote about the same thing. NoPuzzleStranger 28 June 2005 18:22 (UTC)
- Gdansk is different from Duesseldorf and Sao Paulo, because the accents needed to reproduce those latter names correctly are much more commonly found in English than the diacritical over the "n". German, Spanish, French, and Portuguese (and perhaps the Scandinavian languages, as well) are familiar enough to English-speakers that there is a general tendency, in English, to use the diacritics in names from those languages. I am fairly certain that this is not the case with diacritics in Polish. Now, I don't think this is necessarily an argument not to use the diacritics, but we ought to be clear that it is at least a somewhat different issue. john k 28 June 2005 19:09 (UTC)
  - It's true that there's a somewhat greater tendency in English to use German, Spanish, etc. diacritics than Eastern European ones, but still it seems clear that there won't be a consensus on Wikipedia to make such a distinction. Polish, Czech, etc. diacritics are overwhelmingly used, given that the relevant articles are often written by people from those countries. And most of the opposers here probably would like to get rid of all "funny foreign squiggles", just see how Philip managed to move Úbeda to Ubeda (any admin reading this may help move this back!). NoPuzzleStranger 28 June 2005 19:42 (UTC)
    - - FYI I take no credit for proposing the move. That was done by user: Fbriere on 18:56, 26 March 2005 Philip Baird Shearer
    - I think the key words in what you say are "seems" and "won't" - I agree with you that it is unlikely, but this has not yet been tested yet. My only issue here is that I'd like to see a clear and explicit policy laid out on this issue, rather than just assuming that this is what would be the policy, assuming we bothered to figure it out. If that makes any sense. john k 28 June 2005 21:48 (UTC)
      - Well, there's an explicit policy proposal at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (use English). The vote stands at 32-18 in favour of using diacritics in cases like this. NoPuzzleStranger 29 June 2005 10:47 (UTC)
Support. The article was and is about Gdańsk (see the first paragraph of it), only the name of it was Gdansk due to technical issues. So why do we have a discussion here anyway? --Akumiszcza 28 June 2005 18:45 (UTC)
Support. See also straw poll at: Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (use_English)#Proposal and straw poll regarding place names with diacritical marks Przepla 28 June 2005 19:20 (UTC)
Support / tsca ✉ 28 June 2005 19:29 (UTC)
Support. We have long used French letters which are not part of normal English alphabet, and I think I saw some German/Swedish and such as well (o with two dots above...). Why oppose Polish letters? Besides, Gdańsk is the right name, Gdansk is not. --Piotr Konieczny aka

Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 28 June 2005 20:08 (UTC)

Strongly support. This isn't like Zürich/Zurich, where the diacriticless form is well established in English, or like kielbasa, which is an established loanword into English from Polish. Gdańsk has no English name, we just use the Polish name. Now that Wikipedia titles can take diacritics, there's no reason to misspell the Polish name. --Angr/_{tɔk tə mi} 29 June 2005 09:31 (UTC)
- Is the statment "no reason to misspell the Polish name" your own opinion or do you have a source which says that it is a misspelling in English to spell Gdansk as Gdansk. If that is true , then why does the BBC, Gardian, CNN, Washington Post and the Times all use Gdansk in their English publications? Philip Baird Shearer 1 July 2005 17:58 (UTC)
Support Radomil talk 29 June 2005 10:35 (UTC)
Support Vuvar1 29 June 2005 11:56 (UTC)
Support --SylwiaS 29 June 2005 13:07 (UTC)
Support. "English" does not mean "ignorant". Lysy 29 June 2005 14:38 (UTC)
Support With the new software version hundreds of articles are moved to versions with diacritics. Why should Gdańsk be any different? Plus, there is redirect at Gdansk. Balcer 29 June 2005 15:25 (UTC)
- Only those articles where the name is commonly spelt with diacritics should be moved otherwise where does one draw the line? Should hotel be spelt hôtel and General as Général? It is not common to spell Gdansk as "Gdańsk" in English publications. Philip Baird Shearer
Support Just because English typesetters usually don't have access to ń doesn't mean we have to follow suit. DopefishJustin (･∀･) June 29, 2005 16:42 (UTC)
- The BBC web site does but they only use the Gdańsk spelling on their Polish pages. Why are you voting against common English usage? Philip Baird Shearer 1 July 2005 17:58 (UTC)
Support – Kpalion (talk) 29 June 2005 17:21 (UTC)
Support Guess what, Poznań already moved! Datrio 30 June 2005 10:47 (UTC)
Strongly support "Gdansk" is plain wrong, the name of the city is "Gdańsk". Obsolete character sets like ASCII and ISO 8859-1 don't define correct English spelling. Taw 30 June 2005 11:40 (UTC)
- It has nothing to do with character sets. Most English pages use Gdansk because that is common usage in English. See the examples in the discussion section. Philip Baird Shearer 1 July 2005 17:58 (UTC)
Support. James F. (talk) 1 July 2005 18:10 (UTC)
Support. As far as I know the only reason why the article wasn't at Gdańsk already was because of the lack of support for diacritics. This move shouldn't be contentious. -- ChrisO 2 July 2005 18:06 (UTC)
Support. Backed up by the print Britannica and two Eng-lang atlases I just checked. –Hajor 2 July 2005 18:19 (UTC)
Support. --Uppland 3 July 2005 12:27 (UTC)
Support as per various others who have commented, as well as the general principle that diacritics should not be dropped in English-language publications on the grounds of ignorance. (The constant talk of "funny foreign squiggles" is not really helping the opposition here!) — Trilobite (Talk) 4 July 2005 18:57 (UTC)
Support. --Ttyre 10:15, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

Oppose

Oppose Common ENGLISH usage is Gdansk not with funny Polish "n" with squiggles. Philip Baird Shearer 28 June 2005 15:08 (UTC)
Oppose, agree with Philip. I would also oppose of moving Tokyo to 東京, or Dusseldorf to Düsseldorf, even though these are just a few squiggles more. -- Chris 73 Talk June 28, 2005 16:51 (UTC)
- The latter article is already at Düsseldorf, as per policy. The former is at Tokyo because we use the Roman alphabet here, and "Tokyo" is extremely well established in English. — Chameleon 28 June 2005 17:02 (UTC)
  - Which policy? -- Chris 73 Talk June 28, 2005 21:41 (UTC)
- Er Düsseldorf is at Düsseldorf
I am ambivalent about this - the question of whether article titles should include characters almost never used in English publications ought to be the subject of a general policy, not a case by case basis. So, oppose, until a general policy is devised. john k 28 June 2005 17:03 (UTC)
- Why does a lack of policy imply an oppose vote? Shouldn't you vote neutral, or support, especially given that the vote on this matter currently has a majority in favour of accents. — Chameleon 28 June 2005 19:51 (UTC)
Strongly oppose. It may be 'laziness', but common English spelling does NOT generally include any accents or other diacritics. Montreal and Quebec (and probably others) lost their accents due to the precendence of the 'common names' policy==it would be inconsistent with both precedence and policy to make an exception here. Niteowlneils 28 June 2005 17:26 (UTC)
- Well, Montreal and Quebec are both in a country with a large proportion of native English speakers and their names are used frequently enough by English speakers to justify having an "English name" for them. The same is not true of Gdańsk. DopefishJustin (･∀･) June 29, 2005 16:45 (UTC)
Oppose. English name is Gdansk. Just because MediaWiki 1.5 allows the page to be called Gdańsk does not mean it should be called that. (And similarly for other places in countries using diacritics. Ho Chi Minh City should not be at Hồ Chí Minh City). --Henrygb 28 June 2005 18:36 (UTC)
Strongly oppose. I really wish people would realise that this is the English Wikipedia. Proteus (Talk) 28 June 2005 22:55 (UTC)
- This is English Wikipedia, and it does not imply it has to ignorant. Also encyclopedia is not a dictionary. Lysy 29 June 2005 19:26 (UTC)
Oppose. The problem is that the diacritical ń can't be entered on a standard keyboard. It can only be added to an article by finding the character elsewhere and cutting and pasting, or by a numerical code reference; and a link containing the numerical code will not link to the article in question. The proposal is to move the page that just about every other page will only be able to reach via a redirect. This is not wise use of the servers. Smerdis of Tlön July 1, 2005 03:53 (UTC)
That's not really true. One can create a direct link by using the "Insert" box at the bottom of every editing page to type [[Gdańsk]], or one can type [[Gdańsk]] or [[Gdańsk]] directly from any keyboard; both will link directly to Gdańsk (no redirect). If someone wants to use the URL line of his browser to find the article, he may need to cut and paste a "ń" in, but he could also just type "Gdansk" since Gdansk will always redirect to Gdańsk. --Angr/_{tɔk tə mi} 1 July 2005 10:37 (UTC)

As Angr says, we have a big special characters box on the edit screen for this very purpose, and in any case there is nothing wrong with redirects, although it is nice if someone goes through what links here every so often to bypass them. — Trilobite (Talk) 4 July 2005 18:57 (UTC)

Discussion

Add any additional comments

Gdańsk is not commonly used in English: Google 2 British Publications:

9 from bbc.co.uk for Gdańsk -Gdansk (All nine of them are for Polish language pages.)
324 English pages from bbc.co.uk for Gdansk -Gdańsk

Gdańsk -Gdansk site:www.guardian.co.uk - did not match any documents.
55 English pages from www.guardian.co.uk for Gdansk -Gdańsk.

Google 2 American Publications:

Gdańsk -Gdansk site:www.cnn.com - did not match any documents.
56 English pages from www.cnn.com for -Gdańsk Gdansk

Gdańsk -Gdansk site:www.washingtonpost.com - did not match any documents.
16 English pages from www.washingtonpost.com for Gdansk -Gdańsk

These were picked as representative here is another:

Gdańsk -Gdansk site:www.timesonline.co.uk - did not match any documents.
46 English pages from www.timesonline.co.uk for Gdansk -Gdańsk

NOT ONE of the above publications has Gdańsk on any of their English language pages. Philip Baird Shearer 28 June 2005 15:08 (UTC)

the artcile had already Gdańsk as name mentioned (i just changed the %$§KLJ" stuff into Gdańsk ... and you dont want to move the page? guys? .. funny ... but time will bring it anyways ;) ...Sicherlich ^talk 28 June 2005 15:46 (UTC)

Characters like this should be a matter of general policy, not a case by case issue. These characters are almost never used in English publications, but they are the proper spelling - and they aren't exactly a different spelling from the way we have it now, so it's unclear if "most common name" should apply. As long as this is being presented on a case by case basis, I'm going to oppose. But if it is agreed that articles like this should generally be moved, that's okay with me. john k 28 June 2005 17:06 (UTC)

For reference, the American Heritage Dictionary spells it Gdańsk. I support changing the title to Gdańsk. I believe that the presence of the {{titlelacksdiacritics|title=Gdańsk}} template implies that the title should be Gdańsk, and that template's presence was never disputed.

Also, the fact that many publications don't use ń cannot be taken as prima facie evidence that it's not spelled that way; in most cases ń is not an available character, so there is no way to determine if the intent was to use ń. Nohat 28 June 2005 17:31 (UTC)

Addendum: Encyclopedia Brittanica also uses Gdańsk. There is strong evidence that reference works that use ń spell it Gdańsk. Nohat 28 June 2005 17:37 (UTC)

Not sure about Britannica, the online version seems to use Gdansk. Could you provide a link to prove your claim? Still, the version with diacritic is used by Columbia Encyclopedia and Microsoft's Encarta. Balcer 29 June 2005 15:34 (UTC)

The print version of the Britannica uses all diacritics. They just seem to have technical problems displaying them in the online version. Depending on your browser, you may see the "n" underlined, indicating a diacritic they can't display properly. NoPuzzleStranger 29 June 2005 17:34 (UTC)

At the risk of sounding rude, no I cannot provide a link to support my claim. Get your lazy ass down to the library and open up a paper copy and see for yourself. :-) Nohat 30 June 2005 15:17 (UTC)

Let me add that the manual of style is completely silent on this issue - there is no guidance whatever about when to use diacritics, that I can find. I do think it's ridiculous to put this in terms of "Gdansk" being the "English name." - That is clearly absurd. Gdansk is simply an approximation used in English because the "ń" is not widely available in English. Whether or not, because we have the letter available, we should use it, is a different question. john k 28 June 2005 19:13 (UTC)

I'd recommend making an official, obligatory policy wheter to use non-standard letters or not. As long as redirects exist, I see little harm in having articles under less known globally but more locally correct names. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 29 June 2005 18:44 (UTC)

I agree with this. If a city has an traditional English name like Munich it should go there instead of München, but Gdańsk has no traditional equivalent. Olessi 2 July 2005 04:03 (UTC)

One observation: everywhere in the article there is Gdańsk, not Gdansk. I can see no edit wars on that issue. So why the title of the article cannot be Gdańsk?? For those more lazy, typing Gdansk would bring them to the article as well... --Akumiszcza 29 June 2005 20:05 (UTC)

I've just checked: the article is about Gdańsk, not Gdansk, since August 2003. Plenty of time for the opponents to change it to correct English... --Akumiszcza 29 June 2005 20:11 (UTC)

Please have a look at my edits. BTW it is not laziness, most English speaking people do not use diacritics and they should not be expected to know which funny foreign squiggles goes with which foreign language. EG 'It is obvious that Gdansk uses "ń" not "ñ". I must be stupid or lazy if I live in Invercargill and dont know that!' Philip Baird Shearer 1 July 2005 18:19 (UTC)

The votes on how to spell the name of the town in diffrent decades was for the "Gdansk" spelling not "Gdańsk". Philip Baird Shearer 1 July 2005 18:19 (UTC)

The Amerian Government and the European Union in the main use Gdansk. Google:

about 32 English pages for -Gdansk Gdańsk site:gov
about 13,900 English pages for Gdansk -Gdańsk site:gov
about 122 English pages from eu.int for -Gdansk Gdańsk
about 539 English pages from eu.int for Gdansk -Gdańsk

--Philip Baird Shearer 1 July 2005 22:40 (UTC)