[WikiEN-l] Naming convention: popularity vs. correctness

Sun Feb 9 21:47:00 UTC 2003

I think we need to change our naming convention to use the more correct  
article title if everybody who knows the history of the term in question  
agrees that it is correct; that is, if everybody who has a coherent POV on  
the matter shares the same opinion. In other words, we should use  
academically correct titles, not those which Google prefers.

Examples:

1) Ockham's Razor should not reside at Occam's Razor (Occam is the  
latinization of the town name Ockham; the town still exists today).

2) Pennsylvania Dutch should be at Pennsylvania German (it is not Dutch at  
all; the word is merely a corruption of "Deutsch" or "Dütsch").

As I wrote on [[Talk:Pennsylvania Dutch]]:

Regarding the title, I agree this should be under Pennsylvania German.  
This is a case where a redirect makes perfect sense. I support anglicized  
article titles, but I do not support using an obviously inccorect title  
because it is more popular among the uninformed. It is not POV for us to  
assert that "Pennsylvania German" is correct if there's nobody who  
disagrees, based on factual arguments and not mere habit, with that  
statement. This "Dutch" has nothing to do with Dutch.

[...]

Linkability is not an argument: People are already linking to this article  
using [[Pennsylvania German|Pennsylvania Dutch]], because obviously they  
do not want to use the corrupt form. Searchability is neither, since  
redirects show up in searches. Google-ability is only slightly reduced,  
since "Pennsylvania Dutch" would still be mentioned in the article body.