User talk:Family Olofsson

Dear Olofssons, As to the whole Vistula case: the problem is that the river is called Vistula in both latin and English. The fact that plenty of people were also taught Germanic names (AFAIR Weichsel is a 16th century translation, earlier it was called Weisel in German and Vistula in Goth) does not change the fact that the English name is Vistula.

Of course, one can argue that it would be very informative to insert all possible foreign language names in the article, but it barely has any sense. Especially that any encyclopedia must be consistent and we'd have to use this policy with all articles. If you don't know the name of the place in english, there's always interwiki at the top of the page. Regards, Halibutt 22:53, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I'm not really sure what you mean by this Expatriates in the US, people from countries of the European Union, the generally curious internet surfer remark. Could you explain it a little?

When it comes to the EU countries - the German name of the river is used by four countries (D, A, NL, DK), while the latin name is used by many, many more (S, UK, P, I, F). Other names are used in the Slavic countries and in Hungary. Therefore your argument about not focusing on the EU countries seem a little curious to me.Halibutt 19:59, 11 Apr 2004 (UTC)

OK, I'll try again:

In Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland the Latin name is not known (or at least not among people I know), not even among students of Latin, which, as I pointed out to you, is explained by us studying classic Latin authors, who haven't written about things that far North. When I went to school, the name used was Weichsel - I think mostly pronounced, and sometimes spelled "Veisel". I checked, for your convenience, the most recent big encyclopedia in Sweden, one from Finland that was printed 15 years ago, and two other Swedish post-war encyclopedia. None of them use the latin name, the newer directs from Weichsel to Wisla. Wiswa and Veisel are noted as alternative names, Vajksel and Viswa as translitterations/pronounciations. Other litterature lags behind in political correctness. Maps over 1st millenium migrations of Goths, etc, and over trade contacts for Vikings and the Hanseatic League are more likely to use older names, i.e. Weichsel. In my history book from school, there was a paragraph on Sigismund's move of the capital from Krakow to Warszawa, where it was noted as a move "to further down along Weichsel."

People here study English often for 9 years, sometimes more. But that doesn't mean that we learn geography or history in English. Some people, i.e. those with special interests, might memorize English names for locations and historical persons, but as I wrote, I'm not one of them. For me, your small change of the article was, as I hinted at, downgrading it from having one signal that was recognizable and could arouse interest for people from Scandinavia and Finland, to having none such signals on the first screen length. And if the first screen seems uninteresting, I belive many people do as I do: jump to another page that seems more interesting.

Your legalist answer gives the loud and clear signal to us, your northern neighbours, that at this moment in history, when Poland is about to enter into EU, the Poles are proud and couldn't care less if we and the Swahili speakers are interested in you or not. You write for people with English mothertongue. And which people with English mothertounge might be interested in wikipiedia articles on Poland? My thought is: Expatriats from Poland and their ancestors.

Is that any clearer?

Yes and no. I understand that there are languages that use other names than Vistula or Wisła. However, the fact that English books use the name of Winnie the Pooh and do not even care to mention Nalle Puh or Olle Brumm, does not mean that the Brits are legalists, separatists or nationalists.

The only reason why the Wikipedia: Naming conventions have been set like they are is consistency. If you believe that there might be a confusion among our northern neighbours who use Weichsel, our souther neighbours who use Visla or our eastern neighbours who use ポーランド, then perhaps you could create a List of rivers with alternative names, just like there is a List of European cities with alternative names. Alternatively, you could create an interwiki page on your local native wiki for all who do not speak English well enough or do not know English geographical terms. That would be much more useful than just stating all alternative names in the header.

Oh, and the English wiki is not only for Polish emmigrants, you know? You are the best example. :)

Regards, Halibutt 09:00, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC)

And my point had nothing about confusion to do. And nothing about rules. I answered one single question by you in Talk:Winter-War. I then, out of curiousity, I checked out "who you are" by the link "User contributions". I there saw plenty of edits on Warszawa and Katyn, I looked at the "hist" list, at the "last"-links, and noted that your edit on the Vistula article had removed the one single signal from that article's introduction that had capacity to arouse any interest or recognition from someone with my background. And I saw that your motivation for your action was to purify Wikpedia of German. And I can understand that, which I also wrote, with a reference to Finland. But I wanted to inform you that your action had effects also for other neighbors of Poland. People reading a Vikipedia text where Vistula is mentioned in passing might click on that link. And then, the reader learns that it is "a river in Poland", that probably was exactly what the reader might have guessed before the detour, due to the context. There are many rivers on the European continent; more than one can burden one's memory with. But in the earlier version of the article, one got quite another impression. Your tiny edit removed the link to what we have learned before. The river Vistula is just one of many rivers in Europe, but river Weichsel, that is one of the rivers so important that even for us the name might ring a bell in the back of the head. Vistula might be an important Polish river, relevant for people actively interested in Poland, but old river Weichsel is an echo from what we learned in school and, so to say, important in a continental perspective - one of them standing out together with Dnepr and Volga, Rhen and Donau, and maybe that Riga-river I always forget the name of...

Already your remark that we are as important to you as the speakers of "Swaheli, Yoruba and Chinese" made me startled. And your use of "consistency" and "so are the rules of Wikipedia" (which is a transparent excuse - you don't have to navigate long here to see that), and the positioning of Scandinavia or Sweden together with them calling Wisla for "ポーランド" doesn't improve the impression. Nor your "do it yourself, in your own little language." That is beside my point, which is all about which readers you've in your mind when editing.

If I didn'te believe in writing the Wikipedia also for people who don't have English as their mothertongue, I'd never have cared to write to you.

If you truly believed in writing for people who don't have English (or Polish) mothertongue, and in taking into account the consequences of using English as a lingua franca, then you hadn't dismissed my comment legalistically.

OK. Now I'm finished.

I guess your lingua franca touches the point. I guess you agree that putting all the alternative toponyms in all articles would lead us nowhere. Some articles would have headers longer than the body, just because the river is important or the city has got a different name in almost every language on earth (Constantinople...). Of course, one can argue that some languages are more important than the others (like languages of the neighbouring countries or languages of the countries who originally had something to do with the place. However, this way we still come up with too many names as per one article. Just take the Istanbul as an example: following your logic the present version of the article should be offensive to some since it doesn't mention the Nordic name of Miklagard and as such, makes it harder for all the Scandinavians to use the wikipedia.

I understand that you'd like to facilitate the usage of wikipedia to your fellow Scandinavians, but do you really think that we should put slavic names in all articles related to cities in Sweden just because the Slavs live nearby? As a gesture of goodwill? I do not understand this.

I did not erase the German name just because I don't like Germans. Nor did I erase it to offend my Scandinavian friends (of whom I have many). It was a simple struggle for simplicity. Of course, a trend among some hot-headed wikipedians to put German names in all articles related to Poland pisses me off, but this was not the main cause of my edit.

So, there's no need to get offended. I wrote about consistency and the rules not because I wanted to find excuses but because that's how I see the purpose of an encyclopaedia. Nor did I wanted to downgrade any language (I'm studying language studies myself). I simply find your arguments, although understandable, a little... well... strange. And please note that my proposal of creating an article in Swedish should not be read as go to hell. This was not my intention and I'm sorry you understood it that way.

Finally, let's make some conclusions: do you think that we should put all possible toponyms in all articles? Perhaps it's an idea worth discussing at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions?

Kind regards, Your Southern Neighbour

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