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::Lets wait until other editors voice their opinions and decide on what this title should be. Of course, if someone feels too strong about this and can't wait, s/he can move the article back anytime. I will not do anything further with the title until we conclude this discussion. In the meantime, I will try to fill the section stubs in the city history with useful information and hope other editors will help. Cheers, [[User:Irpen|Irpen]] 01:26, Mar 29, 2005 (UTC)
==On WP naming conventions==
After reading more carefully [[Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English)]] and it's talk page, I would like to elaborate a little on how I would interpret it as applicable to this discussion. Here is what the policy says (''italicization'' is mine):
:"If you are talking about a person, country, town, movie or book, ''use the most commonly used English version of the name for the article (as you would find it in other encyclopedias)''. This makes it easy to find, and easy to compare information with other sources. For example, Christopher Columbus, Venice.
:''If there is no commonly-used English name, use an accepted transliteration of the name in the original language''. Latin-alphabet languages like Spanish or French should need no transliteration, but Chinese names can use Pinyin, for example."
The question we have is what is meant by "most commonly used English version of the name". Several interpretations are possible and we should simply choose how to interpret these words. Some names entered English through other means than transliteration of what's their today's name. Examples are Moscow, Warsaw, Germany, Finland, etc. Everyone agrees that there is no question what name to use for these places in English WP. Should we interpret the policy as applying only to those names and everything else should be transliterated from native language?
I interpret the words of the policy differently. The words ''"most commonly used"'' either apply only to the word "English" in the sentence or to the combination "English version of the name". Now, are ''Dnipropetrovsk'' and ''Dnipropetrovs<nowiki>'</nowiki>k'' two different English versions of the same name or they should be treated just as two different transliterations of one name? I think that while they certainly are two different transliteration of the same name, they are also two different versions of the name in English. The question is whether we accept that the way the place is most commonly called by the English media and among English speakers is the "most commonly used English version of the name". Or should we call all these versions "not English" because they originate from another language. Basically it comes down to this: "Does ''Днiпропетровськ'', the town in Ukraine, have its own English name (or several English names for that matter)?". Or perhaps it has only a Ukrainian name and, when the journalist writes about it in English, he transliterates ''Днiпропетровськ'' each time on the fly. I think the answer is that he uses an accepted English version, which for this city is a transliteration of its Ukrainian name.
Now, what about the ''"If there is no commonly-used English name..."'' clause in the policy? I think it applies to places that are so infrequently mentioned that the standard way to call them did not crystallize. I do believe that serious media sources do not transliterate each time they mention the name of the foreign place. They have specific names to use. Those may evolve. Like the name ''Gypsy'' evolved into ''Roma''. Like ''Dnepropetrovsk'' evolved into ''Dnipropetrovsk''. Like Kiev may evolve into ''Kyiv''. I think that for very similar reasons what Britannica chooses for the article names matches the results of my LexisNexis search. The policy also says ''"as you would find it in other encyclopedias"''. I am not saying that LexisNexis, Britannica is a bulletproof authorities to answer the question about usage. But they are strong indicators. A simple Google search is more prone to errors for the reasons well known and, I think, Google results mean anything only when the difference is overwhelming.
So, I think we should transliterate in WP only for relatively obscure places which are not mentioned much in English texts. I hope this is going to crystallize into a less ambiguous text of the policy. And only for the names that are used in English very infrequently the discussion on the best transliteration rule should come into play. Of course this all is just my opinion. I am not a specialist in the field, not a veteran of WP and not a native speaker of English. But this is how I understand what is meant by the Policy. Luckily, the policy is not as rigid as constitutions, which are so hard to change that high courts spend all their time figuring out the "correct" way to interpret the text. I do not have skills to write a new version of the policy to propose to the community but I think this is going to happen sooner or later. Regards, —[[User:Irpen|Irpen]] 06:24, Mar 29, 2005 (UTC)
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