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This is the talk page for discussing maintenance of the Guideline about Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Hebrew).
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Archives: Archive 1 — 6 September 2005 to 16 November 2005 — including dicussions of KISS/Common usage, academic standards, pronunciation, eight-step procedure, Unicode Archive 2 — 16 November 2005 to 31 July 2006 Archive 3 — 31 July 2006 to 7 January 2007 Archive 4 — 7 January 2007 to 8 May 2008 — including the upgrade from a proposal to a guideline

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Contents 1 Transliteration issues 2 Ches 3 WP:Naming conventions (Hebrew) and Mechitza v. Mehitza 3.1 Common or regular use in English 3.2 Proposed by RShnike, arguing with above 4 Status as guideline 5 Community RFC on proposed guideline 6 Formatting 7 Hebrew Academy 2006 rules

Transliteration issues

It seems that Tanakh is in violation of this guidline solely because there are more Google hits for it over Tanach, which currently redirects. DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 15:56, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't understand, how is that a violation? -- Ynhockey ^(Talk) 16:46, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

It should be Tanach with the CH, it only makes sense. And BTW, I got more google hits with CH than with kh.--Shuliavrumi (talk) 23:03, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Ches

I HAVE A BIG PROBLEM WITH THIS!!!!!!! A ches is not a hey, A hey makes the same sound an H makes, a ches makes a gutteral CH, not h!I demand a vote, not as the guideline is set, because that is not an option. I propose that we use the artscroll transliteration, that seems to be a solid transliteration, the "academy of Hebrew"'s romanazation scheme makes no sense whatsoever, ayin sham, and has no place in a encyclopedic site that aims to allow people understanding, there is no havonoh whenwords are mistransliterated. --Shuliavrumi (talk) 23:03, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

WP:Naming conventions (Hebrew) and Mechitza v. Mehitza

Earlier today, an editor renamed the Mechitza article Mehitza on grounds that the change is required by this naming conventions guideline. Some questions:

• Is this really a guideline? Did it ever get consensus in the relevant part of a community, or was it labeled a guideline on agreement of a small number of users? I'm not going to change the status without discussion but I'd like to know what the community thinks.
• Should it be clarified that it doesn't apply to this type of case? The general WP:Naming conventions guideline says to use the term most commonly used in English based on general rather than specialized use. A guideline that imposes a specific standardized transliteration scheme based on specialist opinion resulting in commonly-used words being spelled in unused and possibly unrecognizable ways would seem to go against the spirit of the guideline. The main guideline reflects a philosophy that because article names are the way users look up subjects, they need to reflect the search terms (and spellings) actual users are most likely to employ in their searches. Given this situation, I personally don't think an approach that bases article names on any standardized spelling method not reflecting actual English use is consistent with the overall guideline. Such an approach may be permissable for words that have almost never been spelled in English, but I don't think Wikipedia's overall WP:Naming conventions guideline makes it a permissable option for words that have tens of thousands of ghits, regularly appear in English-language newspaper articles, and show other evidence of common use in English. Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 02:34, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Note: This page was upgraded from a proposed guideline to a guideline in this edit: [1] The edit summary noted that there had been no discussion for some time. However, lack of discussion is not necessarily evidence of consensus. The prior discussion, appeared to involve a handful of editors, and there doesn't seem to have been any WP:RFC (See {{RFC error}}) or similar action bringing the proposal to the attention of the general community for discussion/approval. Would recommend placing this before the community to make it a guideline. Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 02:54, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Hi Shirahadasha! About your question regarding Mehitza, the guideline does not say it should be Mehitza. It is actually ambiguous, because the topic does not pertain to modern Israel. The relevant sections are When a topic originates before the Diaspora and When unsure of the Jewish subset/time period the subject pertains to.

Regarding the status as an official guideline: there is no policy mandating an RFCpolicy for every proposed guideline I'm aware of. RFCpolicy should be used as much as possible for guidelines where outside input would be useful. In this case, because most Wikipedia do not speak or read/write Hebrew, their input would generally not be useful, except in relation to other Wikipedia policies, which isn't really the dispute about this guideline. To that end, WikiProjects with likely Hebrew speakers were notified numerous times of this discussion when it took place (WP Israel, WP Judaism and WP Jewish History), especially the first which I personally notified at least 3 times, at various stages.

The guideline is not a result of a consensus by a 'handful of editors', but basically the entire Hebrew-speaking community on the English Wikipedia at any given time (the discussion was ongoing for 3 years). The fact that most of these editors did not insert their opinions does not mean that they were not aware of this discussion. This has been exactly the problem with this guideline - each time consensus was reached, some new editor who miraculously was not aware of the discussion joined in and dispute a certain minor point and the entire discussion started over. It went on for over 3 years, and sometimes it has to end, don't you think? New opinions and comments are always welcome, but they should not disrupt this page's status as a guideline.

Currently, it does not seem like you have made suggestions to change anything in the guideline (see my reply to your single suggestion below), so I don't understand why you insist on moving the discussion back several years. All the issues have been touched upon, trust me.

Cheers, Ynhockey ^(Talk) 22:33, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Common or regular use in English

Propose the following addition to this guideline for conformity with WP:Naming conventions

Common or regular use in English

Even if a subject does not have an accepted standard Anglicized name, if it is in common or regular use in English, the most common English spelling of the term should be used. Evidence of common or regular use in English includes, but is not necessarily limited to, appearance in English-language dictionaries, large-scale use on the Internet (e.g. thousands of ghits), or use in regular-publication English-language newspapers, journals, and periodicals directed at an audience which is not expected to know Hebrew.

Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 02:45, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

(Margin Note: I am said editor referenced above as making the move) Thanks for reopening discussion. Firstly I would note that the guidelines (specifically the consonant chart) as they stand now in my opinion represent, for the most part, the most effective way to transliterate each letter distinctly without introducing too much confusion with sounds that do not exist in English. Ideally, ח כ צ ע ט etc. would have appropriate replacements, but practically, using ḥ in article titles is cumbersome. I do contend though that within articles it should be encouraged, perhaps even more so than the guidelines currently do.

Secondly, to deal specifically with the matter at hand, as to whether "mechitza" is more common in english than "mehitza," in fact google does find many more results with the "ch" spelling however, the internet does not have a standardized way of transliterating hebrew. Wikipedia should. A person attempting to find an article should be able to correctly guess what the title of said article is based on a set of rules. And while common spellings for common words that do not fit the rules should stand as exeptions to the rule, the list of words that fit that category is, and should remain, quite small. "Mechitza" has not penetrated the english language. Within the world of Jewry, the mehitza is known like many other Jewish concepts. Outside the Jewish world, not so much. It belongs as "Mehitza" for clarity purposes, with of course a redirect at "Mechitza."

Also, without being too blunt, be careful with what you call a "specialist's" opinion. The proposed changes represent a desire to maintain clarity without causing confusion. Unfortunately, pronunciation of the language has diverged a bit over the years, but without being too rigid, the rules proposed here are the most effective way of transliterating.

I disagree that 'mechitza' hasn't penetrated the language, When a New York Times article uses the term without italics, that's pretty good evidence. See e.g. [2], a search shows 13 articles in the NYT alone, see[3]). But that isn't the inquiry. The inquiry is what a person who wants to look the term up in the English-language Wikipedia is most likely to use as a search term. If there is an established English use among people who would likely look the subject up, it doesn't matter if those people aren't a majority of the population. By way of analogy, if a majority of English-speaking scientists use a spelling of a Russian or Chinese technical term that represents a really poor transliteration, it's no concern of Wikipedia if a Russian or Chinese-speaking editor interested in proper use of the language complains that their transliteration is lousy, and it simply doesn't matter whether the term has penetrated the general population. I think the analogy to this situation is very close. Maintaining language purity or teaching correct pronunciation of the original language term simply is not Wikipedia policy's concern when it comes to article names. The concern is using a term, including its spelling, that an English-speaking user interested in looking up the underlying subject is likely to enter into a search engine. I believe this requires using the common English term if it has substantial use, whether or not that use is enough to have "penetrated the language." I think this is particularly so if use in 13 New York Times articles isn't considered enough "penetration" to qualify. Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 05:17, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

A person wanting to use the convention would need to know (1) the term's original Hebrew spelling (which requires knowing Hebrew), and (2) the requirements of the convention. Whether or not that's "specialist" knowledge, I do think it's more than can reasonably be expected of a general English speaker who's seen the word "mechitza" in the New York Times and is simply interested in knowing what one is. The word "mehitza" never appears in the New York Times. See [4]. Quite a difference, isn't it? How could an ordinary English speaker be expected to know that the way the major media outlets spell the word is "wrong", and the "correct" transliteration is one that almost never appears in print? Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 05:24, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Not necessarily. A redirect page from mechitza to mehitza would solve that problem just fine, allowing the uninformed who encountered it in an article to still find the page just as easily. Making the main article title uniform just adds an additional level of uniformity across wikipedia seemingly without detriment at all. RShnike (talk) 18:11, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Oppose adding that section: we already have Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Hebrew)#Standard Anglicized name, and I don't see the problem with it. If there is a problem with it, then the solution is to fix the problem within that section, rather than adding another one with an unclear relationship to it. —Ruakh_TALK 13:50, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

I take a bit of fault here because this isn't really organized the right way as is, but not quite sure which section you're opposing to. Please clarify if possible. RShnike (talk) 18:11, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm opposing Shirahadasha's proposal, for the simple reason that the existing guideline already says the same thing. I'm pretty confident that Shirahadasha hasn't read this guideline, or else (s)he wouldn't have made this proposal. —Ruakh_TALK 01:30, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

• Very strong support This seems like a common-sense interpretation of Wikipedia:Naming conventions:

Generally, article naming should prefer what the greatest number of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature.

This is justified by the following principle:

The names of Wikipedia articles should be optimized for readers over editors, and for a general audience over specialists.

Wikipedia determines the recognizability of a name by seeing what verifiable reliable sources in English call the subject.

Also, see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English): "Names not originally in a Latin alphabet, as with Greek, Chinese or Russian, must be transliterated into characters generally intelligible to literate speakers of English. ... Do not use a systematically transliterated name if there is a common English form of the name." — Malik Shabazz (talk · contribs) 23:52, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm assuming you haven't actually read the existing guideline? Please do so before advocating changes to it. —Ruakh_TALK 01:30, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

• Very Strong Support I have read the existing guideline, and wikipedia's article naming guidelines, the article should be Mechitza, not mehitza, there are around 16,100 more hits for mechitza than mehitza on google. --Shuliavrumi (talk) 21:15, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

• Comment - Shirahadasha, you aren't proposing anything new, the guideline already clearly states what you have said (you're talking about an Anglicized name or a name commonly used in English). Another related guideline for this is WP:COMMONNAME. -- Ynhockey ^(Talk) 22:17, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Proposed by RShnike, arguing with above

• Require the use of inline ḥ to represent ח
• Promote more stringent following of the guidelines: As the guidelines state, if a topic is related to a specific part of Jewry, may it use that part's specific rules of transliteration. Otherwise, follow the rules. Hebrew, as it stands now, is a mess, with each article and editor choosing what letters to use on the fly.
• Unless any significant opposition is raised, effect the guidelines as they stand now as policy. Thanks. RShnike (talk) 03:32, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Very strong oppose for the first one. It doesn't show up on a lot of computers, so users are just left with a box. Nothing wrong with just using h. пﮟოьεԻ 57 07:55, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose Wikipedia's general naming conventions guideline imposes limits on what individual WikiProjects can have as guidelines. That guideline says that the primary consideration is making it easy for users to look subjects up using search engines, and to do this articles should use the most common name in English. Given that English users are notorious for transliterating foreign words willy-nilly, this guideline would seem to cast some doubt on the whole concept of requiring foreign-script words to be transliterated in a specific way. The whole endeavor of trying to get English speakers to transliterate Hebrew in a consistent way, whatever its underlying merits, may not be a good fit with Wikipedia's mission of an English-language encyclopedia that tries to be accessible to English-speaking users as they currently are. It's especially problematic if project memebers make proposals, like requiring use of a non-English character many keyboards can't easily accommodate, that not only fail to make accessibility and ease of use their top priority, but don't even seem to be taking them into account. Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 23:29, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
• Very strong oppose As Number 57 wrote, it doesn't show on all systems. This proposal seems contrary to Wikipedia:Naming conventions. Please see my comments above. — Malik Shabazz (talk · contribs) 23:54, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
• Speedy oppose, I think Shirahadasha explained it well, regarding special characters. Even if consensus is reached on this page, the special character cannot be used per other well-established Wikipedia policies and guidelines. -- Ynhockey ^(Talk) 22:15, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose A key that all cannot see is not a good idea. Epson291 (talk) 15:30, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose If it matters so much to distinguish how the name is spelt out in Hebrew, then spell the name out in Hebrew. Perhaps the guideline should be clearer that we do not use ISO 259 - ie we don't write Shin as šīn, Tet as ṭēṯ, etc. Transliterations like this are sometimes found when people have sourced material from very academic papers. Jheald (talk) 11:03, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Status as guideline

Tomorrow is one week since Shirahadasha asked to remove this guideline's official status. In this week, (s)he has not commented on any of the issues raised after July 30, or proposed any concrete additions to the guideline. Are there any other reservations about this page? Any open disputes? If so, I'd like to address them quickly, gain concensus, and move on. If not, I don't see why we shouldn't restore the page's status as a guideline. Thoughts? -- Ynhockey ^(Talk) 15:51, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm justing putting in my two cents, l'moshol with the table for the tzioni transliteration, if you were to ask any Ashkenazi Israeli with a strong background in the english language and the ability to transliterate Hebrew, they will say that, common usage is a ch for a ches and a chof, not the kh/h (The markings only show half the time on my computer), but L'maaseh, everything needs to be looked over, the "Particular subset of Diaspora Jewry" section is in need of tweaking, and b'chlal, u'chlal, we need to set up an editing group for Judaism articles. --Shuliavrumi (talk) 02:47, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

A policy RFC gets general community input. The RFC lasts 30 days unless consensus is reached earlier. I'll start the process below.--Shirahadasha (talk) 05:20, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Can't see any reason why this shouldn't be a guideline. Has anyone identified themselves as unhappy with it? Jheald (talk) 11:08, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Community RFC on proposed guideline

• I see nothing wrong with the present text. The section on abbreviations may want to say something about CamelCase abbreviations, like RaMbaM. (Maimonides mentions only Rambam, which may be good enough.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:42, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
• I believe the exception should be somewhat broader, including not just words with standard anglicized spellings but other words commonly used in English, given WP:Naming conventions' preference for using terms likely to be used in searches over consistent transliterations. See my proposed addition, as well as discussion on the controversy over spelling "Mechitza" vs. "Mehitza", above. Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 17:45, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

As I said in the previous section, the 'standard Anglicized name' already covers that. I'm really not sure how to make it easier for a reader to understand; I personally understand it pretty well, but if you could draft an easier explanation, and everyone agrees it's better, we'll use it. -- Ynhockey ^(Talk) 17:50, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

I think the Mechitza/Mehitza controversy is some evidence of confusion. "Standard" can sometimes imply something normative or officially recognized by authorities. Such a connotation may perhaps be a bit more likely in a guideline that is itself using a normative approach and attempting to establish a normatively standardized method of spelling. "Common" conveys that the prevalence of the spelling may be a matter of empirical, descriptive observation rather than authority. Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 03:53, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

To pmanderson, Camelcase abbreviations are an eyesore, I don't think it deserves recognition, but we can't establish a guideline until all opinions are heard and recognized. --Shuliavrumi (talk) 00:28, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I also think the abbreviations should be treated as a normal word, it is quite ugly and confusing to write RaMbaM, and writing in that manner is not even a part of the English lang. Epson291 (talk) 23:41, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Any proposals, there has not been anything here in over 10 days? Epson291 (talk) 00:52, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Let's give it the full month (until September 6). I am just as eager as you to do something about this guideline, but Shirahadasha is entitled to the procedure (s)he initiated. -- Ynhockey ^(Talk) 02:36, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

I've changed the tag from {{Guideline}} to the proper subcat, but perhaps you'd like to consider {{Proposed}} instead, as being more accurate. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:16, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. It appears that 30 days expire the day after tomorrow, so hopefully we will also be removing the proposed tag soon. -- Ynhockey ^(Talk) 18:57, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Formatting

Hi. Would someone who is familiar with formatting please drop me a line regarding how hebrew text can be right aligned, thanx. DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 13:50, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Try <span dir=rtl>Hebrew here</span> for inline text and <div dir=rtl>Hebrew here</div> for a Hebrew paragraph. Dan Pelleg (talk) 20:39, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Hebrew Academy 2006 rules

Is anyone aware of the Hebrew Academy 2006 rules?[5] - Gilgamesh (talk) 19:22, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes. I believe this page was already presented in this discussion, and in any case the Academy rules came up many times. As the guideline says, it is loosely based on these rules, but they are certainly not binding. A good essay on the issue can be found at WP:OFFICIAL. -- Ynhockey ^(Talk) 19:46, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

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