Talk:Battle of Kolberg

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is within the scope of the Military history WikiProject. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and see lists of open tasks and regional and topical task forces. To use this banner, please see the full instructions.

Start

This article has been rated as Start-Class on the quality scale.

Additional information and associated task forces:

	This article has been checked against the following criteria for B-Class status: Referencing and citation: criterion not met Coverage and accuracy: criterion met Structure: criterion met Grammar: criterion met Supporting materials: criterion met
Associated task forces (nations and regions):
	German military history task force
	Polish military history task force
	Russian and Soviet military history task force
Associated task forces (periods and conflicts):
	World War II task force

A fact from Battle of Kolberg appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know? column on August 3, 2007.

[edit] Curious article title

While I am aware the city of Kolberg is now Polish and named Kołobrzeg, it seems odd that the article title refers to the postwar name of the city.

The city was German at the beginning of the war and the battle of that period should reflect the actual name the city had that time. For the same reason, it would be odd to have an article titled "Siege of Wrocław" for what occurred at Breslau in 1945.

A like Wikipedia case is my article Battle of Poznan (1945). Poznań was part of Poland in 1939, and although the Germans surely thought of the 1945 siege as taking place at Posen, it is simply more accurate to refer to the city's name in the context of the historical period. Because this is the English-language Wiki, I used the English-language name for the city in the article title (English-character keyboards do not include Polish consonants such as ń and ł.)

My suggestion is that the article name be changed to "Battle of Kolberg" with "Battle of Kołobrzeg" being made a redirect to the article. The change of the city's name postwar can be addressed within the body of the article itself. --W. B. Wilson (talk) 05:09, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

I'll second that per WP:NC(UE)--mrg3105 mrg3105 If you're not taking any flack, you're not over the target. 08:48, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

I guess we may want to do a WP:RM on that.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 18:22, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

There are other articles with same issue where an RM failed recently. This is something that has to be adopted MilHist project-wide as policy and not RM every time someone names or renames an article according to their whim.--mrg3105 mrg3105 If you're not taking any flack, you're not over the target. 03:33, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps. We already have WP:NCGN; I think this article should be under Kolberg indeed but I would like to see if everybody agrees on that before I am completely convinced; a RM is a good way to do so.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 04:12, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

After I had unsuccessfully attempted to RM the Yassy-Kishinev Offensive Operation page I had investigated the issue more. It is clear from all sources that an RM was only intended where there existed a question of the use of alternative English titles for the page, i.e. the French fries vs Chips issue, and not where the English title competed with a non-English one. The Wikipedia designers seemed to rely on common sense in this regard. In fact no English Wikipedia article should have a non-English title unless it consists of a borrowed non-English word or phrase where no English common use exists, for example Samovar.--mrg3105 mrg3105 If you're not taking any flack, you're not over the target. 05:23, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

"Battle of Kolberg" makes the most sense to me as well. Olessi (talk) 04:02, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Given the history of the town and historical context of the action the article is describing, I'd argue that there can be no possible title but "Battle of Kolberg". Esdrasbarnevelt (talk) 13:12, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Naming conventions (geographic names)

People should familiarise themselves with the Wikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic names). Based on this policy, the geographic names need to use naming that reflects English usage, and use during historical period. --mrg3105 (comms) If you're not taking any flak, you're not over the target. 01:36, 17 February 2008 (UTC)