Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2011-02/Romanian orthographic norms

• Voting on: Romanian orthography of the letters ş and ţ (with cedilla — more common online) versus ș and ț (with comma — considered more correct). These are currently used interchangeably in Romanian entries. While they are not visually identical, they are only as different as the apostrophe (') and the right single quotation mark (’). There are two rival proposals: (1) use only cedilla forms for Romanian; (2) use only comma forms for Romanian.

• If this vote is successful, the page title using the rejected letters (either ş and ţ or ș and ț) may exist as redirects, except when there is another language section in that page, in which case the template {{also}} should be used atop the entry, as described at {{also/documentation}}.

• Vote starts: 00:01, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
• Vote ends: 23.59, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
• Vote created: Mglovesfun (talk) 12:56, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
• Discussion:

  Wiktionary talk:About Romanian

  Wiktionary:Beer parlour archive/2010/August#Orthographic Change in the Romanian Wikipedia Project: Its Effects on Wiktionary

  User talk:WernescU#graniță and graniţă, User talk:WernescU#restricție

  Wiktionary talk:Votes/pl-2011-02/Romanian orthographic norms

1. Support --Robbie SWE 12:14, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

   Just to elaborate why I support this proposal:

   1. Wiktionary isn't Wikipedia. Even if the Romanian Wikipedia has unanimously adopted the comma version, it does not mean that we have to do the same thing. Wiktionary has other premises; while Wikipedia provides language versions of a topic or phenomenon we provide specific words which may exist in over 400 different Wiktionary editions. Who will take it upon themselves to change the orthography in all of them? That's why I chose to keep using the cedilla version back in the Romanian Wiktionary. I also received no help from the Romanian Wikipedia foundation to make the change, even if pleaded them.
   2. Almost all computers are able to represent the cedilla forms, but only the ones with the latest encoding system can represent the comma version. Personally, accessibility is more important to me than modernity and my goal is that everyone, regardless of technological capital, should be able to use this valuable tool.
   3. Last but not least, I've noticed something interesting at Uni. My personal computer at home makes a visible distinction between cedilla and comma, but the computer at Uni converts the cedilla version automatically to look like the comma version (I think they have Windows 7 or something like that). But the computer still made a difference between articles created with a cedilla and articles created with a comma. For instance; even if let's say şapte looked like șapte, the second one was still regarded as a nonexistent entry. If we continue using the cedilla, we will still end up with a comma in the end thus indirectly accepting the guidelines inducted by the Romanian Academy. --Robbie SWE 12:30, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

   Thanks! --Dan Polansky 17:58, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

2. Support —Ruakh_TALK 15:41, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

   Caveat: I do not support overriding any consensus of the Romanian editors. I'm casting this vote under the impression that they haven't formed such a consensus, even after several discussions of the subject, and I think it's best to standardize so that there are clear (if provisional) guidelines for new editors and non-Romanian-speaking admins. If and when the Romanian editors reach their own consensus, it should supersede the result of this vote. —Ruakh_TALK 19:39, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

3. Support. This falls along the lines of the ambiguous single quotation mark used as an apostrophe, not typographically correct but as used online. It's not my favorite option but does parallel current practice there. DAVilla 05:40, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

1. Support —Ruakh_TALK 15:41, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

   Caveat: I do not support overriding any consensus of the Romanian editors. I'm casting this vote under the impression that they haven't formed such a consensus, even after several discussions of the subject, and I think it's best to standardize so that there are clear (if provisional) guidelines for new editors and non-Romanian-speaking admins. If and when the Romanian editors reach their own consensus, it should supersede the result of this vote. —Ruakh_TALK 19:39, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

2. Support Prince Kassad 22:46, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
3. Support as the more typographically correct of the two options. We should likewise support typographically correct entry titles and headings to use an apostrophe, and leave it to the intelligence of the search menu to correct the ambiguous single quotation mark along with other such approximations. DAVilla 05:43, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
4. Support Ƿidsiþ 09:17, 28 February 2011 (UTC) (from what I can tell of the issue)
5. Support --Vahag 15:30, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
6. Support. I don't speak this language but, as this voting seems to proceed to its end without a consensus, I will try just to express my thoughts. Romanian words need a uniform system and wiktionaries like wikipedias will be forced sooner or later to adopt a certain typographical convention. My impression is that letters with "comma" do gain ground on cedilla forms. Newer operating systems support better these comma forms and it's just a matter of time for them to prevail. It's self-understood that redirects should be created (perhaps by bot) on a regular basis as soon as possible after the creation of every new entry. --flyax 19:48, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
7. Support —Stephen ^(Talk) 11:52, 7 March 2011 (UTC) I go along with the decision of the Romanian Wikipedia.
8. Support Mglovesfun (talk) 12:41, 7 March 2011 (UTC) per my comment below
9. Support I really wish we could go back to the days before the "with comma" forms, and convince the Romanian standards body not to make a typographical feature an encoding feature, over the best judgment of Unicode people. But that's water under the bridge, and like the Unicode people, we should defer to the Romanian standards body in using these characters.--Prosfilaes 18:53, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

1. Although I actually do like consistency (so might have voted for both proposals) and do like the idea of having whichever pagetitles Turkish has (so might have voted for that option after reminding myself which it is), I think it's more important to let the Romanian editors decide on this on their own.​—msh210℠ (talk) 15:53, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

   Oppose Dan Polansky 07:58, 28 February 2011 (UTC) I am switching to oppose. If the vote ends like it is now, both options to impose one spelling or the other as the standard for Wiktionary lemmas are going to gain a supermajority of 3:1, meaning 75%, with only one Romanian native speaker having taken part on the vote. The supermajority has been achieved by Ruakh and DAVilla supporting both options. There are two Romanian contributors who have not taken part on the vote--WernescU and Baican XXX--and have been contributing to English Wiktionary Romanian entries spelled with comma: ș, ț. The result of this vote as it appears now is not a result of a discussion of Romanian contributors but rather mostly an accident. --Dan Polansky 07:58, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

   Then invite them in! (Though, WernescU does not speak English, try communicating with him in Russian...) -- Prince Kassad 08:54, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

   Sorry to spoil the mood, but the Romanian Wikipedia blocked Wernescu with the motivation "sockpuppetry" (see ). It was proven that Wernescu is BaicanXXX’s alias. Haven't any of you perceived it as odd that Wernescu who was active on a daily basis, has been inactive since the 16th of February around the time BaicanXXX returned from a period of prolonged inactivity? I don't have the authority to check if this is true, but the similarities between Wernescu and Baican are striking. Anyway, I think that involving Word dewd543 (another English/Romanian contributor with an impressive track record) should be encouraged to participate and even Dick Laurent should receive an appeal. --Robbie SWE 13:03, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

   Word dewd and Dick have been notified on their respective talkpages (not by me).​—msh210℠ (talk) 16:38, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

   I notified WernescU and Baican of this vote on 23 February 2011; see their talk pages. I am afraid they speak no English. However, Robbie SWE can be right in suspecting the two users of being the same person. --Dan Polansky 15:12, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

   I am switching to abstain again. The vote no longer looks like an accident, given 9 votes now support proposal 2 while only 3 votes support proposal 1. While only one Romanian voter has taken part on the vote, the position of other Romanian contributors who supported comma over cedilla in their edits is well represented by the non-Romanian voters; this position is also represented by the winning proposal being the one that is supported by Romanian Wikipedia. Okay with me. --Dan Polansky 08:33, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

1. AbstainAbstain Dan Polansky 14:16, 23 February 2011 (UTC) But I am actually inclined to oppose the vote and thus both proposals. I have been told that Romanian Wikipedia has chosen to use Ș, ș, Ț, ț, but I do not know what other descriptive facts are relevant to the decision and have not been stated here in the vote itself. It is unclear what the proposals entail. If, say, proposal 1 succeeds, will the other spellings be (a) deleted, (b) redirected, or (c) turned into "alternative spellings"? My default understanding of the proposal is (a): the other spellings will be deleted, of which I am far from sure this is a good idea. --Dan Polansky 14:16, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

   That's an interesting understanding. Do you see that in the text of the vote somewhere, or is it pure invention? Mglovesfun (talk) 14:55, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

   Perhaps we could restart the vote a few days from now? Mglovesfun (talk) 15:02, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

   I guess I should have been more careful with my phrasing. By default understanding, I mean one that I would choose if I had to in the absence of other information, no matter how reluctantly so. Then again, "it is unclear what the proposals entail." Can you say what your default understanding is, if any? Can you clarify the expected impact of the proposals? Is this vote meant merely as a preparatory discussion, a poll of sorts? --Dan Polansky 15:10, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

   Logically, redirects like we do for the right quotation mark in entry titles as opposed to apostrophes, as in je t’aime versus je t'aime. When this is not possible, the template {{also}} would be used. Mglovesfun (talk) 15:14, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

   To me that's not what "use only ____" implies. If that's what you meant, then I think you should update the vote text to clarify. —Ruakh_TALK 15:18, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

   That's what I personally meant. Thought someone else might have some input. But no... Mglovesfun (talk) 15:20, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

   I often give an early input to votes, but I am already rather tired of this, so I made an exception with this vote. I dislike this vote anyway. --Dan Polansky 15:29, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

   On the contrary: Lmaltier (talk • contribs) explicitly suggested (on the talk-page) that the proposal endorse redirects, and you replied "Yes. No question about it", but then you never updated the proposal accordingly. —Ruakh_TALK 15:40, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

   Please, also comment about my 2nd suggestion too. It is about the major issue about this vote, and I don't agree with teh current version of the proposal about it. Lmaltier 17:52, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

   If you feel strongly enough about that, then I think you should either oppose both options (since they both forbid wrong-spelling entries in such cases), or else support only option #1 (since such cases are more or less impossible under that system). —Ruakh_TALK 19:36, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

   It's not a wrong spelling. I would support option 2, but only if the other writing is always available. Lmaltier 20:49, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

   That's because I personally have nothing invested in this vote, I just prefer a consensus over no consensus at all. At worst, this vote ends in no consensus and we are no better but no worse. My plan was to hope one option gets well ahead, and then support it no matter which one of the first two it is. Mglovesfun (talk) 22:59, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

   I am switching back to abstain again. See the section "oppose" for an explanation. --Dan Polansky 08:33, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

The voting was 3-9-1-1. Therefore, the second option passes with a supermajority. -- Prince Kassad 00:05, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Just to be sure, does this mean that the comma versions become standard and the cedilla versions will be transformed into redirects? --Robbie SWE 11:33, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Correct. The comma versions become the standard, the cedilla versions will redirect to the comma forms. -- Prince Kassad 14:41, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Ok, thanks. I'll implement the same standard in the Romanian Wiktionary. --Robbie SWE 15:10, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Well, yes and no. The comma versions become standard for Romanian. The cedilla versions hard-redirect except such as exist in another language, which use {{also}}.​—msh210℠ (talk) 15:59, 14 March 2011 (UTC)