Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2011-08/Romanization of languages in ancient scripts

• Voting on: If an ancient, no longer living language was written in a script that is now no longer used or widely understood, and it was not represented in another script that still is used or widely understood, then romanizations of its words will be allowed entries. For example, qino, a romanization of the Gothic word 𐌵𐌹𐌽𐍉, will be allowed.

• Rationale: Many old languages on Wiktionary were written in scripts that are no longer common and the texts in which they appear are more commonly published in romanized form than in the original script. Although the original script was the only script used in contemporary attestations, modern readers will almost exclusively read texts in that language in Latin script. Grammars and dictionaries are written in Latin script as well, and this is the script that people will most likely want to look up words in. So allowing users to look up the terms in Latin script would have far more practical value for users than the original script ever will. The exception is for languages using defunct scripts that were also written in another script which is still in use. An example is Old Church Slavonic (Glagolitic is defunct, but Cyrillic is not), which would not be affected by this vote.

• Vote starts: 00:01, 22 August 2011 (UTC)
• Vote ends: 23.59, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

• Vote created: —CodeCat 21:33, 7 August 2011 (UTC)
• Discussion:

  WT:BP#Romanizations of languages in ancient scripts

  Wiktionary talk:Votes/pl-2011-08/Romanization of languages in ancient scripts

  Wiktionary:Beer parlour archive/2011/March#Gothic entries in Latin script

1. Support - -sche (discuss) 21:03, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
2. Support —Stephen ^(Talk) 22:23, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
3. Support —CodeCat 23:35, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
4. Support, I think. At least, I certainly support for Gothic, because Gothic works are apparently actually published in romanization. Hopefully I support for whatever other languages would be covered by this. :-P   —Ruakh_TALK 02:48, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

   There's a list on the talk page, but beware! it has example entries, and that many strange scripts in one place crashes Firefox, for me. (All the more reason to allow romanisations...) - -sche (discuss) 03:46, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

   Support only for Gothic. —Ruakh_TALK 21:16, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

5. Support MaEr 16:52, 24 August 2011 (UTC)
6. Support Jamesjiao → ^{T ◊ C} 00:34, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
7. Support --Anatoli 00:37, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
8. Support H. (talk) 09:13, 9 September 2011 (UTC) I’m sure the necessary details will be worked out at due time.

1. Oppose , due to the vote being imprecise about what romanizations specifically are allowed, which opens the door to abuse. -- Liliana • 05:02, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

   As I said on the talk page, while that's true I expect it to remain hypothetical. I can't imagine editors making up phoney romanizations, and if they did, we wouldn't stand for it no matter what this vote says. Mglovesfun (talk) 09:36, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

2. Oppose — — 18:41, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
3. I'm not all that happy about including transliterations anyway. (They are findable by search.) But especially without a list, in the vote, of languages and scripts to which this apply, I have to oppose.​—msh210℠ (talk) 20:20, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
4. Oppose except for Gothic. —Ruakh_TALK 21:16, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

1. Abstain Mglovesfun (talk) 09:35, 9 September 2011 (UTC). I've always opposed the romanization of non-Latin scripts as full main namespace entries. However this seems to be the situation where it's the most acceptable and most beneficial, also since it wouldn't affect any languages I edit, I abstain. Mglovesfun (talk) 09:35, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure what the decision is. Ruakh vote seems to be the deciding point now, with his oppose vote it makes it fail 7-4, but for Gothic it passes 8-3? —CodeCat 17:05, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Heh, sorry to cause complications. I'm not used to actually being a deciding vote. :-P   Are people O.K. with passing this only for Gothic? —Ruakh_TALK 17:59, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Fine by me. That seems to be the correct decision.​—msh210℠ (talk) 21:18, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Why is the Gothic case different from that of Sumerian? If Gothic is to be separated from the herd, it needs another discussion and vote. —Stephen ^(Talk) 02:36, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

For me, the reasons that Gothic is different from all other languages, including Sumerian, were:

1. CodeCat (talk • contribs) stated, credibly, that works are commonly published in Gothic in romanization, whereas no such statement was made for any specific other language.
2. The vote only mentions Gothic, and several editors expressed concerns about a vote that applies to members of a broad and potentially vague class of languages rather than to members of a specific list.
3. I feel that, in general, the community should let editors for each language figure out how best to handle coverage of that language. In the case of Gothic, CodeCat (talk • contribs) herself seems to be one of the most interested editors; she's seeking community support for her own desired approach. In the case of all other potentially-affected languages, I think CodeCat (talk • contribs) may be seeking premature consistency (in the form of applying her preferred Gothic norms to all those other languages that she doesn't edit in).

But yeah, you may be right that it needs another discussion and vote, since support for this proposal does not necessarily entail support for an identical-except-only-for-Gothic proposal. :-/

—Ruakh_TALK 03:25, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

I noted on the talk page before starting the vote that "if the proposal fails because users would rather vote on a list of languages or scripts than a rule, we can create another vote. (Vidēte how many votes have been held on attestation in extinct languages.)" We can easily create two votes, one to allow the full list, including Gothic, and one to allow Gothic. - -sche (discuss) 03:40, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Here's a full-list vote: Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2011-09/Romanization of languages in ancient scripts 2. - -sche (discuss) 04:02, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

A second vote is fine for me, too. I feel more comfortable with voting on a list of languages, or even better, voting on a single language, like Gothic. --MaEr 17:59, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

I'm gonna mark this as failed so as to avoid an eventual conflict with the results of Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2011-09/Romanization of languages in ancient scripts 2 and Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2011-10/Romanization of Gothic. Mglovesfun (talk) 16:29, 7 October 2011 (UTC)