Talk:Pinsk
Cluttering the lead
A note to those who keep re-adding the Polish and Yiddish names.
The logic behind the additional names in the first line is two-fold:
- To provide the native spelling of the city (actually, I do not see the overwhelming need for this either, especially if the native name is non-Latin (one can always click on the wikilinked native WP article and find it out. But there is some logic behind it and, anyway, this became a wiki-wide tradition and part of the naming guidelines)
- Provide the names one may encounter reasonably likely in the English language literature.
Note, that historic possession by some nation at some point of time may result in point two being the case but it does not always happens so. Speaking of Polish name, one is likely to find the Polish name for Navahradak in the English language literature but one is unlikely to encounter the Polish name of Kiev or Moscow in any English language sources even though Poland controlled both this cities at some periods of its history and you don't see the Polisn names in the first line of those articles as you don't see Template:Lang-ru pasted in the beginning of the Warsaw article despite Russia controlled the coty for quite a while.
No one is going to forbid using the Polish name inside the articles and History of Kiev uses Kijow Voivodship in the text as well as the Smolensk article mentions Belarusian based Smalensk for the events connected with the announcement of the Belarusian People's Republic there. However, what matters is the scholarly usage in academic sources and not the possession in the past (or lack of it).
As such, if someone just can't sleep without the Polish name being somewhere in this article, please expand on the appropriate period of the place's history and introduce it there rather than through a quick but sloppy adding it to the first line where the result is the mere cluttering of it. If the desire to introduce the Polish name for Pinsk is just overwhelming and there is still no interest in doing something meaningful for the article, the quickfix solution is to add an entry to Cities' alternative names#P list article. At least there it is harmless and may be even useful.
Having a Yiddish name there is even more ridiculous and unjustified clutter. Yi-wiki is the place for such name as well as the list article. By all means, expand on the Jewish history of the city of course.
Finally, note that I removed the Russian name for the very same reason. The English language reader is unlikely to encounter the Cyrillic Пинск anywhere, it transliterates into the Latin in exact same way as the BE-name and ru:Пинск is just one click away. --Irpen 23:19, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
Example of the use of Polish name in English
Merriam-Webster's Geographical Dictionary (see Google Print link). So, the Polish name should be there at least. Balcer 00:32, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
Incidentally, I would also prefer the general policy on Wikipedia to enforce the use of modern names only. However, right now that is quite simply not the case. Every single article on Wikipedia about a Polish town that used to be part of Germany before 1945 has the German name given. I don't see why the same policy of giving recent former names should not apply to towns which were part of Poland before 1939. Balcer 00:35, 12 August 2006 (UTC)