Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Germany/Archive 15

This is an archive of past discussions. 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.

This archive covers the period September 2010 - December 2010.

The letter ß does not exist in English, so STOP using it, and edit it to standard English usage "ss" in all cases where it has been used to date.

I have had a running battle with Wiki administration over preference and coexistence of German forms with English in English-language articles, and it is bad enough that the ruling faction here has outrageously imposed its ridiculious, unencyclopedic, stupid, yes stupid usage on our product.

But now it is even worse: Where there is a choice between standard English and German the German form is now preferred even in article titles. NCDane (talk) 00:32, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

If kindergarden had an "ß" in it, that should be replaced with "ss". However, if a word is not common in the English language, or at least used in most English-language reliable sources in the anglicized form, i.e. with an "ss", then the "ß" should be retained. An example would be the city of Gießen.  Cs32en Talk to me  01:55, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

I understand Wikipedia guidelines and consensus applying to names (including article titles) to be as follows:

• It is not necessary to transliterate words that are written using a Latin alphabet (e.g. ISO Latin alphabet No. 1), including diacritics and letters not originally used in Latin. Latin characters include: J, W, ß, ä, ö, ü, é, è, ê, etc.).
• When there is an established English name this should be used, e.g. Hanover, Munich.
• When there is no established English name, the local name should be used, including the spelling, provided that it consists of Latin characters (including diacritics).
• There are some special cases where the established name or its spelling differs according to context, e.g. Brunswick is used in a historical context, but the modern town is called by its local name Braunschweig.
• For article titles, appropriate redirects should be provided, and alternative spellings for limited keyboards etc. should be explained (for instance using the appropriate hatnote template).

This consensus appears to be a compromise reached after various disputes that could not be resolved to everybody's satisfaction. I see no point in resuming these disputes. I am in favour of retaining the current consensus.

--Boson (talk) 10:11, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

NCDane, judging from your talk page, I feel safe in asserting that you have absolutely no understanding of Wiki policy regarding foreign names. Please read up on our naming conventions, then if you still have problems, take it up on individual talk pages. Otherwise, your disruptive "This is Amurrica, speak English" requests will be smartly denied. ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 11:49, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

The letter ß is a normal part of the German alphabet; so it's quite useful when discussing German subjects. bobrayner (talk) 16:52, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

NCDane, WP:ITANNOYSME is not an argument for getting rid of the "ß". You need to come up with something more persuasive or just chill out and accept the existing convention at Wikipedia:WikiProject Germany/Conventions#Alphabet. --Bermicourt (talk) 17:30, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

I really do not think the ß is particularly comparable to ä or é. If you don't know what it means, it is incomprehensible, while one can still have a basic understanding of letters with accents even if one doesn't know what the accent means, specifically. When giving the German name of a place, it should be given, but article titles and the like should use "ss". john k (talk) 19:50, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

John, I doubt your example is neutral. I don't think everyone knows what an é is, even if they walk past a café every day on their way to work. Fact is, ß is just as much a Latin alphabet ligature as the rest of the letters not inherently English. The hatnote at work on the random article "Großräschen" is enough. There's no need, when you can type Grossraeschen to get redirected to this article, to re-name it. Jared Preston (talk) 20:09, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

I don't really get your point. Yes, it's a Latin alphabet ligature. So what? Most of the time, you can ignore the accent and still get the basic gist. This is not true of the eszett, which can be completely baffling if you are not familiar with it. It is easy to see that "à" or "ü" are modified versions of "a" and "u". It is not easy to see that "ß" is another way of writing "ss". john k (talk) 06:35, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

I would imagine that those that do not understand would find the link to the eszett's article helpful. The link that is posted before the Gießen article begins. Tiderolls 11:11, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Why should you have to click on another article to understand what an article's title means? john k (talk) 15:36, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

See the third bulleted point in User:Boson's post above. Tiderolls 18:48, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Why? It doesn't explain anything. It simply asserts. What is the advantage of Gießen over Giessen? Just about any book published in English that references the city will use "Giessen." The google books hits in English for the two forms are virtually identical, except that almost all of the visible "English" results for "Gießen" are actually in German. john k (talk) 19:26, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

That would seem to contradict the archived talk page discussion for that article. It may be that you want to raise the issue on the talk page to determine if consensus has changed. By the way, consensus was the point I was making in directing your attention to the previous post. Tiderolls 19:45, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Whilst I would normally go with the original German spelling, in this case there does appear to be established English usage for Giessen. As I said on the talk page, I consulted two geography sources on Germany and two guide books. Three use Giessen; one does not mention it. The 3 sources are: Germany. A regional and economic geography by Dickinson (1968); Germany by Elkins (1972) and Germany by Fodor (1962); and even Gießen's official website uses the spelling Giessen on its English pages. When I joined Wikipedia I questioned why we use "ß". As a German speaker I was quite used to it, but conscious that the average reader would read it as a "B". Interestingly in Switzerland they only use "ss" and in Austria either "ß" or "ss" is acceptable. However I was soon disabused of my thinking when I tried to move articles to the "ss" spelling. In retrospect I don't think it's a major issue and can live with either. But in this case "Giessen" really appears to be the accepted English spelling just as "Munich" is for "München". --Bermicourt (talk) 20:24, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

If I had a preference I would join in the discussion with y'all. My only concern is there is discussion and consensus reached. The originator of this thread couched their words in such a manner that I could not tell if they were interested in discussion or consensus. Tiderolls 20:42, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

This issue has been thrashed endlessly (see Grossglockner, Voßstraße, Federweißer and the various archives). Does anyone know where the final outcome of the debate is and also where the resulting convention that we should use "ß" not "ss" is recorded? --Bermicourt (talk) 21:05, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

If the issue has been thrashed out endlessly and everybody is tired of it, we don't have to discuss it again. NCDane is particularly keen on this issue (in multiple languages), to the extent of earning blocks, but the rest of wikipedia doesn't have to be dragged into it... if NCDane wishes to resolve the problem once and for all, then a more centralised policy discussion would be better, rather than a thousand separate discussions on article and project talk pages.

My personal preference is in line with Wikipedia:WikiProject Germany/Conventions#Alphabet for languages using latin-like alphabets (other alphabets may need special treatment; articles titled 서울 or თბილისი could be inappropriate). But that's just a personal preference.

bobrayner (talk) 21:29, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

A transliteration such as "Giessen" is not an English expression. However, English expressions such as "Munich" or "Cologne" can -- and should -- be used in article titles.  Cs32en Talk to me  20:39, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Disagree with your example. All my English sources use "Giessen". Also there is a strong argument to use "Grossglockner" instead of "Großglockner" since the mountain is in Austria and both spellings are acceptable there. And to back my point the authoritative book by Kev Reynolds, Walking in the Alps, uses "Grossglockner". In fact Reynolds always uses a "ss" instead of "ß" whilst retaining other inflexions like "ü". We need to research the literature, not resort to WP:JUSTDONTLIKEIT and other subjective POV. --Bermicourt (talk) 17:35, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Au contraire! It may be authorative about walking, but I find EU Translator's style guide to be more complete when discussing spelling. However- if someone pays the Maut, I would be willing to do a site visit- just to check! -ClemRutter (talk) 19:17, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Thank you Clem. An official source which doesn't suggest Giessen over Gießen. I understand if it's not possible to write ä, ö, ü, or ß on certain keyboards, but that doesn't mean we should cut out these letters altogether. Jared Preston (talk) 19:31, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Interesting view. The EU guide doesn't mention Giessen; moreover it is completely silent about the use of ß - in fact the letter does not occur once, so no guidance there I'm afraid. And here's another source for "Grossglockner": Rees, Henry, Italy, Switzerland and Austria - A Geographical Study or try the latest Michelin Guide to Austria. Finally all keyboards should be able to produce ü, etc, using Alt codes. --Bermicourt (talk) 19:41, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

• I would like to recommend to make a visit on the database interface of the U.S. National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency website and to enter Gießen, then try another time Giessen – there we have an official source how the town's name should be spelled in English and those are names approved by the United States Board on Geographic Names (BGN). Stop ignoring ß, a, ö, ü and other latin letters, and respect the outcome of the Eighth United Nations Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names. Thanks. --Matthiasb (talk) 12:17, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

Well done, you've found a source that calls it "Gießen", but so do most road maps for obvious reasons. What do other respectable sources say? I'm not fussed either way - I speak German - but we need to find the right logic for what we do, based on a range of suitable sources. Even on the town's authorities calls it "Giessen" on the English pages of their official website. Pity the EU guide isn't more detailed... --Bermicourt (talk) 12:51, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

The "right logic" results from what I said. Because of the specific UN body on this conferences (and several other before) came to the opinion in the purpose of standardization endonymic names should preferred. The reason is obvious: it does not make sens, that each language maintains its own version of a towns name, so a "standard" name is needed. So which one will be taken? The local name of course because why another name should be taken and imposed to the local people? That won't make sense. Though even the UN Conference ackownledged that exonymic names are part of a specific language, e.g. Munich, Cologne or Dusseldorf are established names in the English language, many smaller town's names are not, so Duren or Giessen are not commonly used names.

The BGN is approving names according to the rules established by the specific UN body. We see this development also in Germany. For example, the traffic signs on motorways in the area of the Niederrhein which ten or fifteen years ago showed the way to Arnheim or Nimwegen have been replaced through signs wiht Arnhem and Nijmegen like those towns are written in the Dutch language. BTW, your conclusion so do most road maps for obvious reasons is IMHO wrong. It is rather the contrary which is true: Google Maps and many other online available map services take their data directly from the NGA database. -Matthiasb (talk) 22:55, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

So are the Germans going to use "Cape Town" instead of "Kapstadt" and "France" instead of "Frankreich"? Meanwhile, most English sources use "Giessen" which, under WP:COMMONNAME, suggests that is what we should use unless the UN guidance filters through to the other main sources in the English speaking world. But we aren't going to agree and meanwhile I'm happy with "Gießen" even though Wiki policy suggests, to me at least, that it should be "Giessen". So let's move on. --Bermicourt (talk) 07:11, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

It is so easy to see how a simple need for a policy deteriorates into a stubborn standoff. We now have two reliable sources UN and EU, I am happy to write to EU standards: Which is basically use local spelling unless there is an overwhelming case for an established English usage- however closer examonation of the document shows that Giessen is specifically treated in the Annex: (page 94) where they say that Giessen is both English and EU German!

German usage of ß- has generated a lot of problems within Germany, and I refer to pages 22-24 Duden: Wie Schreibt man jetzt? over the 1998 spelling reforms. In the case of verbs:- we have the example Schuss, aber Schießen- er goss, der Guss aber Gießen. It is all a question of the proceeding vowel length- or what that vowel length may be in the local Mundart.Hessisshpedia on Dialects Why the Stadtrat of this Hessische town has chosen to use one form over the other is probably deeply ingrained in local politics. So lets move on. --ClemRutter (talk) 11:10, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

Well in that case the question wether the vowel is long or short is easy to response on: ie is a very long i, it's like the i in the English word bee; a doubled consonant however is more or the less used like in English, it's shortened and sharpened – therefor Giessen would not be possible to pronounciate correctly in Germany-German (however it would be correct spelling in Switzerland-German). An interesting sidenote is the word Geschoss (in Germany a short o) vs. Geschoß (in Austria because they are pronounciating the o long). Both variations are official and included in dictionaries like Duden). --Matthiasb (talk) 11:33, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

And then we have muss and Fussel, but Fuß and Muße. How does that work?! --Bermicourt (talk) 13:08, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

It is generally simple. After long vowels and diphthongs, there is an ß in German, after short vowels, there is ss instead. However, this is only useful if you know the word and its pronunciation. --Madcynic (talk) 15:02, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

No Matthiasb- that is only part of it. Stay on focus, we are here to clarify a policy- not to defend a corner. Duden new examples succeeds in obfuscating. Duden 'clarifies' current German thinking, we are looking at defining a workable system- that reflects a international perspective on that debate that leads to a consistent English solution. So EU Translators guide or UN BGN- which is more suitable for a encyclopedia? Maybe one for titles and the other for flowing text? --ClemRutter (talk) 14:11, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

I don't think using two different standards, one for the article prose and another for its title, is helpful at all. If we must settle upon one, I'd simply suggest continuing as is, namely, use the common English spelling (Nuremberg, Munich, Hanover) where there is one, use the spelling used on official English sites of the place in question (Giessen), or use native spelling where neither common English spelling or official site exist. --Madcynic (talk) 15:02, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

No, the middle variant with the "official" website is no option; first there are only few towns who maintain englisch language websites, second the spelling there, if different isn't "official" at all since English is no official language in Germany. The only official English spellings, if some exists, are those which are approved by the BGN. However, when you try it, you'll find Nuremberg, Munich, Hanover there. So there might be an easy rule. Check the BGN database entry. If there exists an conventional spelling take it. If there isn't such a spelling take the approved spelling. That's it. KISS.

The EU style guide supports this approach though it views the issue through a slightly different angle. In Rule 1.29 it states:

Many place names have an anglicised form, but as people become more familiar with these names in the language of the country concerned, so foreign spellings will gain wider currency in written English. As a rule of thumb, therefore, use the native form for geographical names (retaining any accents) except where an anglicised form is overwhelmingly common. If in doubt as to whether an anglicised form is in widespread use, use only those given in the following sections and in Annex 1.

While I did not browse through the "following sections", annex 1 contains the names of the regions. So the style guide, while it states to use Giessen as the name for the governmental region, it does not state to use Giessen as spelling for the town. (It does not make sense perhaps, but in some of the Länder in Germany the governmental region is named for the city in which the regional government sits, in the rest it has names which are more conventional resp. are derivated from the historical regions). --Matthiasb (talk) 21:10, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

PS: However, both the BGN and the EU approaches are consistent with the wikipedia guidelines which were mentioned much much more in the top of the thread, I guess as the third entry into the discussion. --Matthiasb (talk) 21:12, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

I would be very wary of any proposed guideline on German place-names which relies on the BGN alone; if our current rules need to be changed (and I'm not sure that they do), I'd prefer a guideline that considers sources more generally. bobrayner (talk) 16:59, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Why?--ClemRutter (talk) 17:05, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Bob-Genuine question-why?--ClemRutter (talk) 22:40, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Well, actually the names according to the BGN guidelines are, at least in the U.S., the only official versions to write geographical names, not only in Germany, but world-wide. For not-Latin letter using languages there exists a bunch of BGN/PCGN romanization conventionsm which are used by the BGN and the British counterpart, the Permanent Committee on Geographical Names for British Official Use. I didn't check that so far but won't be surprised if also the spelling conventions in the BGN and the PCGN for other languages are identical. However there is no romanization, because of German and most European languages (e.g. Icelandic) use Latin letters. Funnily, the Islandic ð was part of the English alphabet some couple of years ago (okay, many couples of vears) and today is used in the IPA for the voiced dental fricative as in English the. --Matthiasb (talk) 21:00, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

For interest the BGN/PGCN agreement on German lettering states "The special letter β, known as eszett, is a standard letter of the German alphabet and occurs in wordmedial and word-final positions but never occurs word-initially. It is a lowercase letter only, but when a word and/or a name is written entirely in uppercase letters, it is always rendered as SS. As a result of the orthographic reform of German, implemented in August 1998, the β is now rendered ss if it follows a short vowel. However, it is still being used if it follows a long vowel or a diphthong. In those instances where β cannot be reproduced, the digraph ss will be substituted for it. For alphabetization and sorting purposes, β should be treated as ss. In those instances when the vowel letters ä, ö, and ü cannot be reproduced, the alternate spellings ae, oe, and ue may be substituted." --Bermicourt (talk) 21:30, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

That's absolutely fitting with the official orthographic rules. However, as said many times above, in the WP ä, ö, ü and ß can be reproduced therefor must not be substitued, except for Switzerland where the ß was abandonded in 1927, IIRC. --Matthiasb (talk) 23:34, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Ugly, ugly, ugly — and smacking of Lebensraum, to boot (to jackboot, precisely). I am a great admirer of the modern Germany, but I detest "ß," which I will hold at arm's length and wall off with quotation marks. We did not fight World War II to have this foreign abomination imposed upon our language. Excuse my dudgeon. Sincerely, GeorgeLouis (talk) 19:47, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

It seems unlikely, to me, that World War 2 was fought over control of transcription rules. Therefore who won and who lost should have little effect on the rules that we adopt for writing words down. It is irrelevant and inflammatory rhetoric.

ß is a letter in german. It is commonly part of german words. If you find it intrinsically ugly, that is not wikipedia's problem; the best solution might be that you avoid looking at articles on german subjects.

Please don't use such inflammatory words. bobrayner (talk) 12:55, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Also WP:JUSTDONTLIKEIT is not accepted by Wikipedia as an argument. --Bermicourt (talk) 14:51, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

"ß" is here to stay. Deal with it. There is no POV in the character itself. The only POV here is in your ignorant, xenophobic, and highly offensive post. ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 05:20, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Ehm, aren't we overreacting here? I suspect GeorgeLouis intended to mock (admittedly not very tastefully) this rather heated discussion about a ligature. Markussep ^Talk 07:25, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

This rather heated discussion was, itself, triggered by an angry English-language-only editor (who made similarly inflammatory ww2 comments on a different article, but I doubt this is sockpuppetry).

Can't we all just be nice to each other? Do we need a heated discussion at all? bobrayner (talk) 13:18, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

I second that. Let's all take a chill pill. --Bermicourt (talk) 18:54, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Well, actually it was a highly offensive psot made here, the whole section should be blanked according to WP:RPA. --Matthiasb (talk) 21:28, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

What part of George's comment was a personal attack? While it was a bit of uncivil hyperbole, it does not appear to attack anyone. --Chris (talk) 06:15, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

The article Kohoutek-Kometenmelodie has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

Single songs generally do not meet the requirements of WP:N, no mention of notability no references

While all contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. The speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. Jeepday (talk) 16:30, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

I've noticed that state elections in Germany have been neglected. Maybe we ca nset up a task force for Germa nelections? Kingjeff (talk) 22:28, 5 December 2010 (UTC) _{Subscript text}

Category:American people of German-Jewish descent, which is under the purview of this WikiProject, has been nominated for deletion, merging, or renaming. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the Categories for discussion page. Thank you. IZAK (talk) 12:58, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Category:German Jews who emigrated to the United States to escape Nazism, which is under the purview of this WikiProject, has been nominated for deletion, merging, or renaming. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the Categories for discussion page. Thank you. IZAK (talk) 12:58, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Category:Jews who emigrated to the United Kingdom to escape Nazism, which is under the purview of this WikiProject, has been nominated for deletion, merging, or renaming. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the Categories for discussion page. Thank you. IZAK (talk) 12:58, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

There are discussions at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2010 December 10 and Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2010 December 9 to delete a number of German town categories. These include: Aukrug, Nortorf, Langenzenn, Rothenburg ob der Tauber, Hallenberg, Odenthal, Bergen (Landkreis Celle), Wittingen, Braunlage, Sankt Andreasberg, Bad Salzdetfurth and Dassel. --Bermicourt (talk) 21:51, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Please have a look here. Skäpperöd (talk) 20:27, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

A number of people, including myself, feel the article serves no useful purpose as well as never beening complete and correct. Discussion at Talk:List of twin towns and sister cities in Germany if anyone wishes to comment on proposed new format of the page.--Traveler100 (talk) 09:07, 30 December 2010 (UTC)