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

Sun Feb 9 23:03:54 UTC 2003

Redundancy is an accepted principle of good design, expecially for indexes
(which is what we're talking about). So both should be titles if both are in
use by the public (our masters).

Correctness is best avoided in any event as it is a source of friction.
Perhaps there is some preference by the Pennsylvania Dutch, perhaps not, but
the term is in general use. It also referrs to German immigrants who arrived
during a certain time frame and share certain cultural characteristics, not
to German immigrants in general.

Fred

> From: erik_moeller at gmx.de (Erik Moeller)
> Reply-To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
> Date: 09 Feb 2003 22:47:00 +0100
> To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] Naming convention: popularity vs. correctness
> 
> 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.
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