Talk:Kirnitzschtal tramway

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Untitled

OK, I tried to tidy this, but my brain melted trying to work out what it was saying.

"The vehicles were built by shrubs in Bautzen."

Erm, OK... Kisch 13:21, 25 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

i corrected it. By the way: used the author of this text Zonk43 a google translator or something else for translating the german wp article? "LOCK joke valley course" is really a joke! if the rest of the article was translated the same way it would be better to write again from the beginning. 2nd by the way: he did not mention the copyrights of the writers of the german wp article. --BLueFiSH ✉ 23:13, 28 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was moved to Kirnitzschtal tram. Aervanath (talk) 05:17, 15 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Is it just me, or does the name of this article seem over-translated. Granted this is the wp:en, and we should use English proper names where they exist and are well-known. But that is a long way from decomposing German proper names into their component bits, and translating each seperately. As a native English speaker, I'd be much more comfortable with Kirnitzschtalbahn or, at a push, Kirnitzschtal railway than this artifical name. -- Starbois (talk) 13:29, 23 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well at least nobody has objected. I cannot just rename the article because of its history, so I'm going to start the requested move process. The article should be renamed from Kirnitzsch Valley railway to ~~Kirnitzschtalbahn~~Kirnitzschtal tram. -- Starbois (talk) 14:40, 9 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Move to Kirnitzschtal tram per PMAnderson's observation below and WP:UE. ~~Support~~ The current title is over-translated – Kirnitzschtal appears to be the name of a place with no English equivalent in common use and does not need translating. To me, separating "bahn" and translating into the English word "railway" makes sense as an English language equivalent, and would aid comprehension for English users but Google suggests English sources do not do this. --Rogerb67 (talk) 02:08, 10 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- This google result suggests that what they do say is Kirnitzschtal tram, because it is one. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:44, 10 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  - Perfect. I didn't think to search for that. I'll change my vote. --Rogerb67 (talk) 00:27, 11 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Not supported We need to be careful before moving this willy-nilly because it conflicts with suggested wiki practice on the Rail transport in Germany task force site. We need to be consistent and name them all ...talbahn and ...bahn or translate them fully. Wiki guidance suggests it should be understandable to the layman which those terms are not. It is quite normal for railways in English-speaking counties to be called xxx Valley Railway. Bermicourt (talk) 22:16, 11 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Except that it's not actually called that in reliable sources, as demonstrated by the Google search above; to use that name would be original research, and thus against a core Wikipedia content policy. --Rogerb67 (talk) 02:01, 12 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

And decomposing place names and translating the bits is plain daft. If we went down that road, we would have to rename our article on Dusseldorf to Dussel Village or even Twit Village. If the suggested practice on the Rail transport in Germany task force site implies we should do that, it is clearly wrong. -- Starbois (talk) 11:33, 12 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It does (Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Trains/Rail transport in Germany task force#Rail transport in Germany conventions), but it's discussion on a wikipedia talk page of a taskforce with 3 members, with only one contributor and one example; this page. I think we can consider this move request as the first test of this. Note also that WP:CONSENSUS says "Consensus among a limited group of editors, at one place and time, cannot override community consensus on a wider scale. ... [S]ilence can imply consent if - and only if - there is adequate exposure to the community." --Rogerb67 (talk) 13:26, 12 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

- Support as originator - Changed the target in line with Septentrionalis's suggestion and research. I'm cool with Kirnitzschtal tram. It is the over-translation of Kirnitzschtal to Kirnitzsch Valley that offends me. -- Starbois (talk) 11:27, 12 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Decomposing place names is not sensible and I would not support that, nor does the task force site. However Kirnitzschtalbahn is not a place name, it is a compound word very typical in German, with only Kirnitsch being a proper name. You have the choice therefore of leaving it in the original and explaining what it means or translating the element which is ordinary German and not a proper name, then giving the German name in the text. Neither approach is wrong - this is not a black and white issue - but my preference is for the latter as clearer for English speakers and less clumsy. I'm very comfortable with others having a different view and will not engage in a flame war. However the current proposal is neither one way nor t'other: translating bahn as "tram" (which it isn't) and not translating tal falls between 2 stools.

BTW Google searches reveal that both spellings are used; however it is notable that most of the Kirnitschtalbahn hits are German language sites. The English sites are often railfan or amateur sites. An overwhelming majority of the Kirnitsch Valley Railway hits are professional tourist sites. Why? Because they're dealing with ordinary English speakers like the average Wikipedia enquirer. --Bermicourt (talk) 22:02, 12 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm insufficiently expert in German to say definitively whether the German term bahn encompasses the English word tram, although this site [1] of unknown accuracy suggests it does. Additionally, the entity to which it applies here is clearly a tram, which also leads me to rather suspect it does. Bahn appears to be an overarching term, further specified where necessary in the usual German manner; Eisenbahn for railway and Straßenbahn for tram. It's not uncommon for a word to require different translations into another language in different contexts. All this leads me to suspect that the fact a particular site uses "railway" to describe this may be an indication it does not check its facts sufficiently well to be a reliable source. In any case, per WP:UCS we should not call it a "railway" in the title when it's clearly a tram. --Rogerb67 (talk) 13:40, 14 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You make a good point; ...bahn is a generic term meaning "way, path, railway, tramway, train, tram, lane" according to my Langenscheidt Muret-Sanders dictionary (the largest produced by that firm). This article is about a tramway or tram line and its associated operations. So a more accurate translation would be "Kirnitzsch Valley Tramway" not "Railway". However most of the internet tourist articles use "Railway" perhaps because its the more common word. Some do talk about catching the "Kirnitzsch Valley tram" which is okay, but I think if the German version of this article was referring to the trams themselves, the article would be entitled something like Kirnitzschtalbahnfahrzeuge or Triebfahrzeuge der Kirnitzschtalbahn in German. Translation is not an exact science! :) --Bermicourt (talk) 16:35, 14 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

My English is rather better than my German, and I'm quite certain that tram can be used as a synonym for tramway; indeed as far as I can see, this is precisely the way it is being used in the sources that call this the Kirnitzschtal tram; in general they're not talking only about a single vehicle (a few use the plural trams, which suggests those particular sources are discussing only the vehicles). I'd be happy with "Kirnitzschtal tramway", but it seems "Kirnitzschtal tram" is more common. --Rogerb67 (talk) 23:42, 14 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.