Editorial Council Resolution 0010: Romanization

[Martin Baldwin-Edwards]

The period for open comments will start from Friday, 9 May, 07.00 UTC and will end on Friday, 16 May, 19.00 UTC.

The text of the resolution can be found at http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/CZ:Editorial_Council_Resolution_0010

[Milton Beychok]

Did you not mean Frday, May 9 ... instead of October 9?

Milton Beychok

[Martin Baldwin-Edwards]

Did you not mean Frday, May 9 ... instead of Octorber 9?

Milton Beychok

YES! Thanks [now corrected]

[Brian P Long]

Like I said in my private comments on this Resolution, before we adopt this proposal we should make sure it's clear just how Romanization fits with CZ:Naming Conventions and CZ:Article Mechanics. I don't understand what the advantage of adopting a policy on Romanization is if it's unclear how contributors should actually implement it when working on articles.

-Brian P. Long

[Martin Baldwin-Edwards]

Yes, I agree completely, Brian. How is this proposal consistent with the Naming Conventions, which Larry insists should choose the most popular name in English for foreign names? My opinion, as stated on the "Osama bin Laden" talk page is that CZ should use the most accurate transliteration in common usage, and redirect from other common forms. In this way, CZ does not simply follow the masses, but is an educational tool.

[Milton Beychok]

Martin, as a brand new member of the Editorial Council, I need some guidance. Supten's posting about this resolution in the CZ-editcouncil forum says:

... it is opened for vote (without
discussion) for 7 days. i.e., up to Friday May 09, 2008, 03:30 hrs. UTC at [
http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/CZ:Proposal_on_Romanization/Vote ]

That seems to say that we council members should vote between now and May 9th ... is that correct? Or do we wait until the discussion here closes on May 9th?

Thanks in advance, Milt Beychok

[Martin Baldwin-Edwards]

Milton: I think we have managed to confuse a lot of people with the latest resolutions. Basically, we have tried to pass resolutions of uncontroversial things "by acclamation" - that is, without going through the hoo-hah of long discussions and formal voting. Resolutions 9 and 10 were proposed for acclamation, i.e. if nobody objected. A few people did, so we then had to recast the resolutions for voting. Supten suggested simple voting on them, but in fact that was unconstitutional and we have to go through the whole process of discussion phases, formal positions, and then voting.

So, the answer to your question is that nobody can vote on any resolution at this time. We have to finish the discussions first. When these are ended, we will either extend the discussion period (if needed) or move to voting. All Editorial Council members are informed by email of the discussion periods' beginning and ending, and subsequently when and where they should vote. We also send reminders for all of these -- especially voting, as it requires a quorum.

[Milton Beychok]

Thanks for that clarification. Perhaps, Supten should reword his posting in the CZ-editcouncil forum?

Milt Beychok

[Brian P Long]

To get back to the main issue, I think it's become pretty clear over the past couple of months that a bunch of Naming Convention issues have come up, and that we've spent far too much time debating about them. I think the time is fast approaching for an up-and-down EC vote on a lot of these issues. The way things have been going, I think we will probably see an EC vote on Anthony Argyriou's Naming Conventions for Biographies proposal as well.

However much we need some resolution on naming convention stuff, I think it makes sense to separate the Romanization proposal from our Naming Conventions. I.e., we should not try to amend the Romanization resolution to resolve naming issues. I do think it would be meaningful to amend the Resolution to make it clear that the resolution recommends the use of uniform romanization in the text of articles.

Let me know what y'all think,
Brian

[J. Noel Chiappa]

it's become pretty clear over the past couple of months that a bunch of Naming Convention issues have come up, and that we've spent far too much time debating about them.

Could be - we can always change things around later, if we come up with something we like better.

However much we need some resolution on naming convention stuff, I think it makes sense to separate the Romanization proposal from our Naming Conventions. I.e., we should not try to amend the Romanization resolution to resolve naming issues.

I agree completelly. Any time we can bite off a chunk of the naming problem and deal with it separately, we should. Particularly when it's relatively non-controversial (as Romanization is - at least, compared to some of the other aspects of naming).

Noel

[J. Noel Chiappa]

How is this proposal consistent with the Naming Conventions, which Larry insists should choose the most popular name in English for foreign names? My opinion ... is that CZ should use the most accurate transliteration in common usage, and redirect from other common forms. In this way, CZ does not simply follow the masses, but is an educational tool.

I think that's a position that not unreasonable, but at the same time, Anglicization (i.e. taking up foreign words into English) is a real process, and once it's happened, we just  have to live with the results (e.g. 'Plato' for 'Platon').

But I think that the 'when is a name/word Anglicized' is a different question from 'what Romanization system should be use for non-Anglicized words' - which is what I take that Resolution to be about.

Noel

[Gary Giamboi]

As it is written, this proposal says the committee is to "to deal with issues of how to romanize foreign words, place names and so on that are normally written in other scripts."

Up until just now, I assumed that meant we were going to decide on the actual spellings of these words. Now, I see it may mean that we are just going to make a list of "how tos" and when tos."

However, if this proposal means we are going to decide on the "correct" English-Roman spellings of non-Roman words, let's say that.

After all, if it is about just rules for spelling, how would we list the original word? if it is in the original language, not many would recognize it; and, if we list in using the Roman English language, wouldn't we already have given the spelling we want?

Further, if it does mean we are deciding the spelling, can't we then just add these spellings to our spell check and make it part of the guidelines authors must follow? Then, even if they don't use these spellings, it would be a lot easier for editors to remedy the errors.

[Brian P Long]

[...] Anglicization (i.e. taking up foreign words into English) is a real process, and once it's happened, we just  have to live with the results (e.g. 'Plato' for 'Platon').

But I think that the 'when is a name/word Anglicized' is a different question from 'what Romanization system should be use for non-Anglicized words' - which is what I take that Resolution to be about.

As I read the proposal, the idea was to standardize usage across CZ articles. The CZ:Romanization page talks about the example of Guizhou/Kweichow/Kwei-chow, and the need for having a standard Romanization across pages in order to prevent reader confusion.

If it were simple to distinguish 'when is a name/word Anglicized' from 'what Romanization system should we use', I would be all for restricting this Proposal to the latter question. I don't think that's the case, though. There are a few, clearly Anglicized examples, but there are many more which have been Romanized or Anglicized at some point in their history, and the question moves towards distinguishing the two. Furthermore, I think it would be useful to hammer out a resolution to both questions while we have some people thinking about it.

I have made it clear earlier that, where there are two spellings in competitive usage, I think we should opt for the more precise spelling. The sloppy Anglicizations in the popular media are subject to changing fashions, and there is less rationale for imprecise transliteration-- anywhere-- as the technical barriers to doing it the right way fall away.

The question at this precise moment is how much more time we should devote to the Editorial Council discussion. We can either table the Resolution for more discussion, or I can offer an amendment (tonight, if needed) to resolve what I see as the issues with this resolution. (It would a) spell out the relationship between EC Resolution 0010, CZ:Naming Conventions and CZ:Article Mechanics, b) suggest that precisely-Romanized names not be used unless contributors can show that precise Romanization is in active use, and c) offer a mechanism for resolving questions of 'When is a word/name Anglicized?')

-Brian

[Martin Baldwin-Edwards]

Speaking personally, I think the lack of clarity on the relation between Naming Conventions and this resolution is a problem. You should also all note that the Naming Conventions has not been approved by the Editorial Council, and is an ad hoc policy. I propose, therefore, to put the resolution temporarily on hold until a Naming Conventions resolution has been crafted, and is consistent with the content of Resolution 0010. Council members should make concurrence or disagreement with this suggestion on the page for Council members' official comments on Res. 0010. I will also put this suggestion there.

[J. Noel Chiappa]

I think the lack of clarity on the relation between Naming Conventions and this resolution is a problem. ... I propose, therefore, to put the resolution temporarily on hold until a Naming Conventions resolution has been crafted, and is consistent with the content of Resolution 0010.

True (to your first observation), but... Naming Conventions are an enormous sinkhole, and will likely not be sorted out soon. So serializing other things behind that is really problematic.

This is especially applicable as the Romanization proposal applies to all uses of foreign names/words, not just in article titles, and to hold up those non-title aspects because of the title issues would be unsound, in my view.

I would rather handle all these problems by limiting the scope of the Romanization proposal; as I said earlier:

I think that the 'when is a name/word Anglicized' is a different question from 'what Romanization system should be use for non-Anglicized words' - [the latter of] which is what I take that Resolution to be about.

Whether the word in question is used in an article title, or just in the text, if there is no question that an Anglicized version does not exist, there shouldn't (can't) be a problem, right?

So perhaps we can just lightly tweak the Romanization proposal to exclude all cases where there i) is, or ii) might be, and Anglicization, and move forward with the non-problematic cases.

We can then handle the whole question of whether an Anglicized version of a word exists, and which to use, as a separate issue (which it is, although of course it's related).

Noel