Wikipedia talk:Usage of diacritics/Archive 3

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Proposal featuring the differentiation of diacritics and extensions

Summary: A proposal that advocates usage of diacritics in many cases but that differentiates letters with diacritics from "extensions". It calls for relatively wide usage of diacritics but allows for exceptions that cover a number of cases where their use is controversial.

Editorial comments: I am a strict proponent of adhering to WP:UE at Wikipedia as my record can attest. However, unless a placename is a true exonym or a person's name is truly "English" (e.g., that person is notable primarily in an English-speaking country or is naturalised in such a country), most place or personal names cannot be said to have an English form at all. Many "English verifiable reliable sources", especially web sources but also many older print sources, are or were limited by technological considerations from using diacritics but these do not exist at Wikipedia. (In some cases, the comparative method can be used to determine whether diacritics are dropped for techinical or conbvenience reasons but even this is not fool-proof. For example, the Economist style guidelines mentioned above are the worst of geo-bias — they deem Western European languages worthy of carrying diacritics but not others [e.g., Gerhard Schröder but Abdullah Gul ]).

Therefore, since an encyclopedia is a reference work of higher calibre than a wire service news story and should aim to be marginally more "highbrow" (for lack of a better word), Wikipedia should, to a degree, reflect the underlying native names of persons and places when these are variations of the Latin alphabet.

The current situation works surprisingly well but there are cases such as Vietnam's Bac Kan Province (with no diacritics like the articles on many other Vietnamese places) where there are few English speakers versus Pūpūkea, Hawai'i that, like many placenames in Hawaii (where WP:UE has been vetoed) carry diacritics despite rarely if ever being used in English.

The proposal below attempts to standardise diacritc usage at Wikpedia while acknowledging some of the problems that can occur. It assumes regular diacritics do no "harm" to the unfamiliar reader — the name can be read by ignoring them — whereas "extensions" render a term unpronounceable to the unfamiliar reader. — AjaxSmack 00:21, 18 June 2008 (UTC)]

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Proposal

For the placename or person that is well known in the English-speaking world, i.e. is widely mentioned in English-language sources:

1. When person or place has a name in the Latin alphabet including letters with diacritics (or some ligatures), e.g., Å, Œ, Ř, Ŵ, names should be spelt with them. (e.g., Ngô Đình Diệm)
2. When a name includes Latin "extensions" (and other more obscure ligatures), e.g, Ŋ, ß, Ʌ, Þ, the name should be spelt with the normal Latin substitute for these extensions (e.g., Abülfaz Elçibay, not Əbülfəz Elçibəy)
3. Certain letters with unusual circumstances follow national conventions. For example, Đđ (D with stroke) is rendered "Dj" in South Slavic contexts following usual English conventions but is rendered "Đ" in Vietnamese contexts. Ðð (eth) is rendered as "Dh" in Icelandic, Faroese contexts due to the complication of the lowercase form, "ð".

(This results in Meissen, but Göttingen and Tudjman but Dvořák.)

For the placename or person that is not well known in the English-speaking world, i.e. is not widely mentioned in English-language sources the preferred style on Wikipedia is to use diacritics, as this provides maximum information to the reader. This includes article titles; alternatives without diacritics should be set up as redirects.

— AjaxSmack 00:21, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Discussion

I would be interested in comments on the above proposal and in hearing from others on is how one would differentiate "well known in the English-speaking world" and not well known. I don't consider Google hits from computer generated Weather sites and such to be evidence of usage in English. Even mere mentions in traditonal printed texts don't hack it. I prefer "critical commentary" (to borrow a phrase from WP:FAIR) on a subject before it can be considered to be well-known.— AjaxSmack 00:21, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Your proposal is exceedingly complex, so complex as to be unworkable. Aside from that insurmountable problem, I think you need a new project page for this proposal. This project apparently has been closed because no consensus in favor of it emerged. Tennis expert (talk) 02:51, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Compared with most Wikipedia policy, this proposal doesn't seem particularly complex at all. Moreover it seems to be a) quite easy to follow in practice, and b) quite in line with what already happens.--Kotniski (talk) 06:34, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Why isn't this just the reopening of the closed discussion where it was apparent that the suggested policy was no where near gaining consensus? Haven't we spent enough time on all the various permutations of the suggested policy already? The previous proposal was to change existing Wikipedia policy. Where there is no consensus to change a policy, the policy stays as it is. You (or others) can repeatedly open new project pages every day to achieve what could not be achieved the previous day. But what's to be gained by that? Aren't you just trying the community's patience with these repetitious debates? "Give it a rest" is my recommendation. Tennis expert (talk) 07:03, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

By the way, I oppose this proposal, for the reasons that innumerable others provided during the previous discussion. Tennis expert (talk) 07:06, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Strange that you should suggest creating a new project page in one comment and then attack the idea in the next. Anyway, consensus has not been reached, so we have to keep trying. Please be constructive in doing so. This is a much better-thought-out proposal than the previous one (mine), so may well be a step on the road to such consensus.--Kotniski (talk) 07:27, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

I suggested nothing of the kind. I was simply saying that the new proposal could not go on the previous project page because it had been closed due to a clear failure to reach consensus. For some reason, you seem to believe that it is OK to keep hammering away to try to obtain consensus for a policy change that the community just rejected the day before. Perhaps you're trying to rely on the "silence equals agreement" principle and hope that the opposition will become silent (and, hence, agreeable) just because of fatigue. Anyway, I personally believe that reopening this debate one day after it was closed is abusive, regardless of whether you have the right to do so. Perhaps my opinion will turn out to be the consensus here. Tennis expert (talk) 07:43, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

You seem to be taking a similar position, making "failure to achieve consensus" equal to rejection. I believe this proposal is much better than the previous one and, though it may not get consensus exactly as it stands, is a valid subject for continued discussion. If you don't want to join in, you don't have to. --Kotniski (talk) 07:55, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

When a proposal is to change an existing policy and when a consensus is needed to adopt the proposal (and hence change the policy), then the proposal fails if the consensus does not exist. That is a rejection of the proposal. Clearly. Tennis expert (talk) 08:02, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

I think previous proposal was closed too soon. The discussion just started. And this proposal is not to change existing policy. It about making it clear for everyone.--Irić Igor -- Ирић Игор -- K♥S (talk) 08:39, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

We need to have a policy page about this. Either we use diacritics or we don't, but either way, there needs to be a working guideline. Generally I support using diacritics as titles as long as there are redirects, thus the first president of South Vietnam should have all those funny diacritics in the title, and the non-diacritic name will be a redirect, and similarly Novak Djokovic should redirect, etc. Yechiel (Shalom) 19:38, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

We have a working guideline: Use diacritics in those words in which English generally uses them. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:30, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

This proposal is the closest yet to what I'd consider a good solution for the diacritics. It is closest not only (and not necessarily) in end results, but also in principle, i.e. in the way these end results are obtained. I don't understand objections that it is "exceedingly complex": for one thing, determining the compliant spelling for any given name is made possible almost off the top of one's head - unlike the current policy, where research is required, with somewhat unpredictable results.

The formulation "not widely mentioned in English-language sources" is indeed open to interpretation. This is a problem with WP:UE too. To give a tennis example again: a relatively obscure pro tennis player whose name is originally rendered with diacritics could, per policy, retain these diacritics in Wikipedia. However, there's www.atptennis.com, and if the player has played at the ATP Tour, he will be listed there, no matter how obscure. Their data has no diacritics at all, so this would effectively stonewall diacritics from most (all?) of Wikipedia's tennis biographies, because it could always be argued that atptennis.com is an authoritative English source. (Still "authoritative" ≠ "widely mentioned"!) At the same time, a person with the exact same name who is not a tennis player might get to keep the diacritics. I'd say this is not desirable. GregorB (talk) 10:13, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Not only the ATP website. There's also the New York Times, the Sydney Morning Herald, the New Yorker, the London Daily Telegraph, the International Tennis Federation, the French Open, the Australian Open, Wimbledon, the US Open, the Times of India, the Gulf News (Bahrain) and many more that do not use diacritics concerning tennis players. The forumlation of this new policy would require the ignoring of well established English-language usage in favor of an artificial, "well, if his name has diacritics in the native language, then Wikipedia must have them, too, even if all the English-language sources say not to use them." That's the major problem with the new policy. Unencyclopedic WP:OR running amok. Tennis expert (talk) 13:34, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

I have modified the proposal so that it does not contradict WP:UE. It is still rough and needs more work, but ultimately I think this guideline is not needed, as the use of Ŋ, ß, Ʌ, Þ, can if need be added as a short paragraph to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English)#No established usage --Philip Baird Shearer (talk)

I think it is important to note here that the same end result (e.g. "Tudjman" instead of "Tuđman") can be achieved through ostensibly very different guidelines. It would be interesting to produce some examples where this proposal yields different solutions than those of current WP:UE. To Tennis expert: I have explained already why WP:OR does not apply to this discussion - WP:UE itself isn't sourced (nor it should be), and that does not make it original research. Furthermore, an encyclopedia does not and should not copy every aspect of English usage: for example, Wikipedia does not emulate newspaper/magazine article tone and style regardless of how widespread it is in English publications. GregorB (talk) 15:41, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Ngô Đình Diệm, most obviously. Widely discussed in English, and there is real problem finding an English source which ever uses that form. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:30, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

After reading all the pages and all the convoluted discussion going around, I think this proposal looks good on the right direction. Although I think we should use diacritics always, in the sense that we should write people's names the same way they do using a Latin alphabet (think the names on football jerseys), I do think this is a good compromise.

To counter the argument used by Tennis expert (talk · contribs) about the news sites, I come from a country with diacritics (Brazil) where our keyboards have the ability to type them correctly, but even then, there are programs that do not accept, and there are sites where people don't put it thanks to encoding problems with browsers. But neither of those should be an excuse not to use diacritics when such restrictions do not occur. And if the argument is with WP:UE I think it should change to amend for this case. Samuel Sol (talk) 15:50, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Why do you think that we should not use reliable English language sources to decide content? It seems to me from that you have written that you wish to ignore WP:V and WP:NC. Is that true? --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 18:33, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, while we're citing Wikipedia guidelines: WP:AGF. Indeed, I don't see anyone saying Wikipedia guidelines should be ignored; rather, they should be changed. They are not set in stone, I believe. Also: judging by the current de facto situation with diacritics, I'd say that ignoring the guidelines (mind you, by pro- and anti-diacritics folks alike) has worked quite well... I'm joking, of course, but there's quite a bit of truth in it. GregorB (talk) 20:19, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

WP:V and WP:NC are Wikipedia policies not guidelines. Is it proposed that this is a policy or a guideline? If it is a guideline then surly to implement as it is one would have to ignore those Wikipedia policies. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 21:36, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Talk about gratuituos attack Philip. No, I'm not saying that we should ignore WP:V, far from it. I said that we should probably change WP:UE to account for diacritics. Simply because if the name use it on the Latin spelling of the language, we DO have a verifiable source. Simple as that. Samuel Sol (talk) 16:25, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Strong oppose—This is unnecessary creep. This proposal would allow "ǚ" but ban "þ" ... as if thorn were the more "foreign" of the two. WP editors can be trusted to be big and bold enough to know how to spell. JIMp _talk·cont 00:22, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

As an encyclopedia, I believe we need to be as precise as possible. This is a similar argument as using logical quotation marks. Granted, the dividing line for accepted English usage is arbitrary, but even though it would be silly to move the article on China to Zhōngguǒ, I feel that where names are inaccurately transcribed merely due to typographic problems, as in our tennis examples, we owe it to our readers to use the original form. I just don't like the added level of arbitrariness introduced by segregating letters into acceptable and unfamiliar categories, and then getting into endless debates over what to do with the latter. kwami (talk) 09:46, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Extensions

I'm still not okay with substituting "ss" for "ß" every time. If there's no exonym, we can't create one by simply dropping the extended Latin letters. —Nightstallion 19:59, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

We should not do it every time we should only do it if the English language sources on the subject do. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 13:35, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

That is (just ) your opinion which I disagree. We should the validity of information- that are not necessary in English --Anto (talk) 19:37, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

See WP:V and WP:NC. It is not just my opinion it is Wikipedia policy. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 21:43, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

What is an extension, other than a table on an unsourced Wikipedia article? What is the difference between Əbülfəz Elçibəy and Ngô Đình Diệm that we should applaud one and deprecate the other? (And, as a metapoint, we will have exactly this argument if we try to apply this proposal and any Azeri cares; this is not an end to division; it's the beginning.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:26, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

I also dislike (3). The distinction between a recognizable diacritic/letter and an unfamiliar diacritic/letter is completely arbitrary. I'm happy with "Peking" as the capital of China, because it is (or was) well established. But I don't feel we should create some sort of arbitrary hybrid for e.g. Azeri names: The choice should be an anglicized form or the standard orthography, not a bastard of the two. Just look at the crazy "rules" we have on substituting for Đ! This will lend itself beautifully to endless conflict, draining time that we could be spending on more useful endeavors. kwami (talk) 09:33, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Weak Oppose I guess my overall question is "why have a special policy for diacritics?" There's a general and consistent rule: Wikipedia is the mirror, not the lamp. We just follow what other sources say. When the world realizes that it's being silly and "does it right", then Wikipedia will follow. We could have a separate rule for each condition, but that's just creepy. Somedumbyankee (talk) 17:56, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Individual project exemptions

I see the discussion above, going back and forth on whether Wprojects should be able to have exceptions. I propose a new idea: individual projects may have exceptions, subject to individual approval. For example: the Wikipedia:WikiProject Hawaii works with specialised diacritics, using macrons and okinas that aren't much used outside of Hawaii, and not many other projects are affected by their use or non-use, especially with okinas. If a version of this proposed policy becomes official, wouldn't it be reasonable to tell the Hawaii project that they would be the ultimate authority on the use of Hawaiian (or Hawaiʻian :-) diacritics in a Hawaiian/Hawaiʻian context? Nyttend (talk) 14:29, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

The method for doing this is pretty simple, actually, since there is a process under WP:MOS for having project-specific style guides. The more vicious arguments in this discussion mostly circle around the title of the article itself, which some see as a matter of policy and not a question of style. Somedumbyankee (talk) 16:22, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Closing this discussion

It appears that no one has convinced anyone of anything and there is no consensus to adopt this, so does anyone mind if I mark this proposed policy as rejected? SDY (talk) 02:07, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Not so much rejected, as failed to gain consensus. But you're right, it doesn't look like anything's going to be solved by continuing this discussion (though the problem remains).--Kotniski (talk) 08:08, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Treating these as four (four and a half?) problems

Potential cases where an English name and the native name are spelled differently:

• First, spellings where the only difference is presence or absence of a diacritic: Tomáš Šmíd vs. Tomas Smid.

• First.1, quasi-diacritics such as ñ which the native language treats as a separate character but function like a diacritic and are printed as the "base character" when anglicized: El Niño vs. El Nino (not a great example, the tilde-less version is extremely rare).

• Second, spellings that use a diacritic where common anglicized spellings add characters.: Tuđman vs. Tudjman.
• Third, spellings that use one or more characters that are incomprehensible to monoglot English speakers.: Alþing vs. Althing
• Fourth, spellings that consist wholly of characters (or otherwise) that are incomprehensible to monoglot English speakers.: These have always been transliterated into anglicized spellings and are not contested.

Pudeo's proposal handles the first case in a fashion that hasn't encountered any opposition so far, and the fourth case is not controversial, so let's talk about the second and third cases. I would prefer to retain existing WP:UE standards on these, resulting in Tudjman and Althing. Somedumbyankee (talk) 22:25, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, but how would Pudeo's proposal handle the first case? If he is proposing that "Tomáš Šmíd" be used even when reliable English-language sources use "Tomas Smid," then I am completely opposed to that proposal. Tennis expert (talk) 04:45, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

All the problems disappear if one uses the current guideline WP:UE, which is largely based on the policies WP:NC and WP:V. In the first case use the most common English version and if there is not one, use the last stable version used in the article. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 07:18, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

I guess the question is ultimately whether it's worth the blood, sweat, and tears to move all of these articles that are currently at the wrong location per current policy when, as has been pointed out, there isn't much of a barrier to comprehension. The reality is that the current policy is more honored in the breach than the observance. I'd really rather have the pages be consistent, but if there really is no meaningful barrier to comprehension, I don't see how it's that different from English/British spelling difference. I'd prefer to have them meet the current WP:UE standard as well, but current reality is more of a status quo than current policy. Somedumbyankee (talk) 14:45, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

All the problems will disappear if we show a bit lingustic tolerance. Even if we strictly follow the rule about "common English nonsense" we will have problems. Because, if you want to explore something about certain topic we should know whether we talk aout vegetables or movies.--Áñtò | Ãňţõ (talk) 19:22, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

The most intolerant people here are the people who can't tolerate the titles as they are in most cases, and must change them to another form despite the fact that's not the English form.--Prosfilaes (talk) 18:54, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Bingo! Here we go ! 99% of the articles related to issues from non-anglophone countries use diacritics! Same thing applies for all other wikis in Latin script. So , instead of inveneting some non-existing "rules" pay attention to the accuracy of information. Including the names-for the most reliable sources are persons themselves!--Áñtò | Ãňţõ (talk) 16:23, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

There are customs on English use, however, and while they aren't absolute they do exist. Since they aren't documented, we're left with following what custom has laid out for us in reliable sources. Self-identifying usage has its own problems (mainstream use or what he calls himself}? Regardless, in the debate between what should be and what is, wikipedia must stick with what is. Should English language publications use diacritics? We don't care. All that matters is whether they do. Somedumbyankee (talk) 16:47, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Customs are not laws/rules! Instead of inventing new "rules" pay attention to the accuracy of the information. If some person chnges his names from A.A. into B.B. then he is B.B. (born A.A.) -end of discussion! That is the rule for all other wikis. --Áñtò | Ãňţõ (talk) 11:23, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Your stance about English use against original/normalized forms remains problematic. Imagine a writer/journalist writing a paper about a German guy named Georg Busch. S/he decides to anglicize this name to ‘George Bush’ because a) ‘Georg’ is non-English – translations or transpositions of first names are not uncommon – and b) the ‘c’ in ‘Busch’ is totally unneeded in English. S/he has probably some ulterior motive about media coverage and visibility, e.g. a line on the disambiguation page would be needed, but said writer/journalist dutifully adds ‘(from Germany)’ for disambiguation purposes. The initial paper can be considered as a reliable source, since the facts mentioned can be retraced in German sources. English speaking media commenting the initial paper take/cite the name as used and the form ‘George Bush (from Germany)’ becomes the generally used and recognized form in English, maybe just because one person wanted to boost his/her paper. According to your criteria, there is no reason to reject the form ‘George Bush (from Germany)’: it is English and it is used in most reliable English sources. Would you feel comfortable in this scenario? If not, why would removing a letter (‘c’) be more serious than removing a diacritic, remembering that what we call a diacritic may constitute a separate letter in other languages (just refer to the example higher up where 'Q' could be a 'O' with diacritic)? Clpda (talk) 19:40, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

English has always done this, and English speakers are used to names being spelled differently in English, even when there isn't much logical reason to do so. The problem is when English speakers wouldn't recognize Georg Busch and assume that the article is about someone else. Take, for example, Cristoforo Colombo, the man's probable birth name, or Cristóbal Colón, likely what his patrons called him. Who is this guy? Most English speakers wouldn't recognize him by those names, though I'm almost certain they know who he is. That's why the criteria for WP:NC is "most recognizable", not official name or self-identifying name. It's not a big deal, and I think that trying to move articles based on rigid interpretations of guidelines is a waste of time when there are already redirects and such, but new articles should be placed not where they "should be" but where people will find them. SDY (talk) 20:44, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

I see your point and do not basically disagree but since there are redirects that would lead from all possible forms which people would enter, shouldn’t the title page reflect some standard, i.e. with most accurate information? Think also about interoperability. Clpda (talk) 21:07, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

There is a standard (most common use), it's just that some people don't like it. SDY (talk) 21:23, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't call that a standard! a standard requires rules - there aren't any as you said yourself earlier - or statistics that would allow to recognize the 'most common use' - and there aren't any either (google having already been denied this role above) - so, it's only bias. Clpda (talk) 22:11, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

There are caveats to the guideline for when there isn't an obvious common use, and there are clearly rules (e.g. "use the spelling that the article's sources use"). It isn't prescriptive, nor should it be. I don't see how it's biased when it's essentially just "the common spelling of the name is a fact, follow the same rules you would follow for other facts." SDY (talk) 22:22, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Err, where does the citation "the common spelling of the name is a fact, follow the same rules you would follow for other facts" come from ? I couldn't see it on the page you cited. Clpda (talk) 22:48, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

(dropping indents) The phrase you're quoting is just my synthesis of the topic, but the argument is generally that the current WP:NC convention meets both WP:NPOV and WP:V because it defers to sources instead of relying on editors.

"Wikipedia does not decide what characters are to be used in the name of an article's subject; English usage does. Wikipedia has no rule that titles must be written in certain characters, or that certain characters may not be used. Versions of a name which differ only in the use or non-use of modified letters should be treated like any other versions: Follow the general usage in English verifiable reliable sources in each case, whatever characters may or may not be used in them."

is the relevant section. SDY (talk) 23:01, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

I couldn't find that quote in the pages you referenced but that doesn't matter too much to me anymore - see also below. Clpda (talk) 00:08, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

So you say the press decides what names should be used, and they can change someone's personal name? Thank god we have a regulator in Finnish so tabloids don't dominate language usage here. :) Anyone can point to several media websites that don't use diacritics. But we can also point out to legal documents which use diacritics. In the case of Räikkönen, several news websites call him 'Raikkonen'. Legal documents don't, as well as authentic sources such as FIA (governing F1) use diacritics everywhere in English [1]. I don't see anyone changing that by giving us a link to The Sun or New York Post.. --Pudeo⺮ 14:09, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

In that case, retaining the diacritics there seems very reasonable. In the case that brought up this particular question, there was overwhelming evidence against their use. Milosevic has overwhelming evidence against use of diacritics. I don't think that many people have problems with using them when they are commonly used, it's just cases where they are almost never used in English publications and someone insists that they be included. SDY (talk) 16:53, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Another issue is between ‘frequency of use’ vs. ‘reliability’. About the example above:

• In the Library of Congress Subject Headings, a source that I wouldn’t expect you to deem unreliable, diacritics are retained; and no way of saying that the LoC is elitist or radical about original forms, the popular ‘Hutchinson Encyclopedia 2000’ does retain diacritics as well.
• [Later addition from Clpda (talk) 22:24, 4 July 2008 (UTC)] The Spanish WP - a language for which you announce a good level of knowledge - keeps diacritics as well [for Milošević]. Both letter+diacritic combinations are absent from that language, i.e. hacek totally unused, acute accent used on vowels only. Doesn't this show a different perspective?
• Inputting diacritics used to mean some technical difficulties (and partly still do so) as has been already mentioned on this page;
• Having that name spelt ‘Milosevic’ is actually an accident of history: he was a Serb; Serbian is mostly written in the Cyrillic script and his name would then have needed to be transliterated into English as ‘Miloshevich’. We ‘inherited’ a downgraded Latin version only because he was spoken about at the time of former Yugoslavia, where both scripts were equally in use. It is legitimate to keep the Latin script but not the downgraded version.

Clpda (talk) 21:07, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

The LoC is a reliable source, I agree. The Spanish wikipedia has its own rules, and there is a rule-making body for Spanish, so the rules are probably substantially different. Inputting diacritics isn't prohibited, but it's still not particularly convenient for many users (hunt and peck on the editing page). English has always butchered the spelling of foreign names when anglicizing them, and those changed spellings are the accepted form (q.v. Columbus). It's exactly the same problem as Munich vs. München vs. مونی: English, like Farsi, spells it differently. It's not "wrong" it's just "how it is spelled in English." SDY (talk) 22:38, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

You did not convince me against a general adoption of foreign diacritics but I give up. The pages I intend to update on the English WP are not at all controversial on the diacritics issue. I entered this debate only because of my interest and knowledge about diacritics use - not that much in display but in indexing, processing and access. This input having been ignored or unwelcomed, I'm leaving the scene now, just keeping an eye on what is discussed and maybe coming back only to counter blatantly wrong statements. Clpda (talk) 00:08, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Sadly, the non-arguments against diacritic use seem to have precisely that end effect on most people who get involved. I have been following the discussion but have been less involved as my efforts are needed more in article space. Agreed in general with the issues you have raised though (as would be mostly obvious from my own input at various stages and places.) Orderinchaos 01:42, 5 July 2008 (UTC)