[WikiEN-l] Policy proposal on dealing with disputes over names

Tue Jun 21 23:14:33 UTC 2005

We seem to have a lot of nationalist edit wars over
placenames. I'm sure not many people will have
forgotten the Gdansk/Danzig fiasco. A similar row is
currently going on at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Macedonian_Slavs
(Greeks and ex-Yugoslavs fighting over names, yet
again; they're actively trolling for votes on
Wikipedia and offline as well). I'm sure we'll have
similar arguments about other disputed names in
future. 

I believe that what we need is a consistent approach
to dealing with such issues. I've put together a
proposal at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:ChrisO/Naming_disputes
which sets out some criteria for resolving naming
disputes.  These boil down to:

* The most common use in English of a name takes
precedence;
* If the common name conflicts with the official name,
use the common name ''except'' for conflicting
scientific and dialect names;
* If neither the common name nor the official name is
prevalent, use the name (or a translation thereof)
that the subject uses to describe itself or
themselves.

Objective criteria that should be considered are:

* Is the name in common usage in English?
* Is it the official current name of the subject
(official in terms of being used in a legal context,
e.g. a constitution?)
* Is it the name used by the subject to describe
itself or themselves?
* If an historic name is mentioned in the article, is
it in an accurate context?

Subjective criteria that should not be used are:

* Does the subject have a moral right to use the name?
* Does the subject have a legal right to use the name?
* Does the name infringe on someone else's legal or
moral rights?
* Is the use of the name politically unacceptable?

Of course, there's more to it than that - notably that
really intractable disputes should be resolved by a
neutral committee of administrators (not the ArbCom,
which shouldn't waste its time on low-level disputes
of this sort). The alternative is to put such
questions to votes that will just end up being pissing
contests between rival POV-pushers, which is what
we're doing at the moment.

Comments welcomed...

- ChrisO

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