Forum:CT:Revisiting adaptation title translations and non-alphabetic scripts

Forums > Consensus track archive > CT:Revisiting adaptation title translations and non-alphabetic scripts
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The result of the debate was support votes 1, 2, and 4. Cade GalacticRepublicEmblem-Traced-TORkit Calrayn 03:53, 14 March 2025 (UTC)
No consensus for vote 3.OOM 224 19:35, 25 March 2025 (UTC)

(Finally) Following up Forum:SH:Revisiting translations for non-English adaptations, this CT is revisiting Forum:CT:Translation, Articles titles tweak's vote on non-English adaptations; it was a plurality vote that was fairly evenly split, and a number of users recently have expressed a desire to reconsider this vote.

Additionally, we've got a vote on how to treat non-alphabetic titles, like the reference PostIt book that Editor found recently with a Japanese title.

Vote 1: Adaptations

This vote is to replace the following bullet point in the Naming policy:

Furthermore, for a work published exclusively in a language other than English and that is the adaptation of another work with known titles both in English and in that other language, use the title in the language of the adaptation, with a parenthetical disambiguation including the media type (example: L'ascension de Skywalker (junior novelization) instead of L'ascension de Skywalker or The Rise of Skywalker (French junior novelization)).

with:

For works that are published exclusively in a language other than English, but are adaptations of an existing work with known titles in both English and that other language, use the English title with a parenthetical disambiguation including the language and media type. (example: The Rise of Skywalker (French junior novelization) instead of L'ascension de Skywalker or L'ascension de Skywalker (junior novelization)).

Support

  1. As nominator; I've spoken at length on this subject elsewhere, but essentially my view boils down to this: requiring these adaptations to be at their native-language titles is valuing our own personal idea of accuracy over the accessibility of our content and the user experience of our readers. Listing L'ascension de Skywalker as "The Rise of Skywalker French junior novelization" is way more informative to both the experienced and casual reader. Cade GalacticRepublicEmblem-Traced-TORkit Calrayn 02:32, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
  2. This is essentially a non-conjecture translation, so I think its best to use it CometSmudge (talk) 02:46, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
  3. This is the English-language Wiki, it only makes sense to prioritize English titles. If not all foriegn-language content then we should definitely use the English title for these. Rsand 30 (talk) 03:05, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
  4. OOM 224 09:04, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
  5. Ayrehead02 (talk) 09:57, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
  6. 01miki10 Open comlink 09:59, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
  7. Imperators II(Talk) 14:56, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
  8. Yasen Nestorov (talk) 16:44, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
  9. —spookywillowwtalk 16:57, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
  10. Tommy-Macaroni (he/they) 14:49, 2 March 2025 (UTC)
  11. Editoronthewiki (talk) 23:43, 4 March 2025 (UTC)
  12. Mor9347 ForPipadaLogo-UserImage (Talk) 21:54, 13 March 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

  1. Per my reasoning last time. Consistency. We can list the item as "L'ascension de Skywalker French junior novelization" imo. NBDani TeamFireballLogo-Collider(they/them)Yeager's Repairs 02:36, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
  2. Per Dani. Bonzane10 Bonzane10-Sig 04:46, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
  3. Per Dani. ThePedantry (talk) 21:42, 1 March 2025 (UTC)
  4. Lewisr (talk) 22:59, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

Vote 2: Non-alphabetic titles

This first vote is to address the issue of スター・ウォーズののりもの 100 (2015) (100 Star Wars Vehicles); the usage of kana in the title poses a technical hurdle to your average editor as they are not characters that can be generated by the standard English keyboard, and redirects don't solve the issue of having to copy-paste the characters any time you want to reference the work outside of a wikilink. Not to mention, your average reader isn't able to read Japanese characters

Thus, I propose the following bullet point after the example list:

  • However, if a work's original title is in a non-alphabetic script such as kana or Chinese characters, the Romanized title should be used instead if Romanization is possible. (example: Sutā Wōzu No Norimono 100, instead of スター・ウォーズののりもの 100)

Support

  1. I think this is the bare minimum we need to do on this issue. Cade GalacticRepublicEmblem-Traced-TORkit Calrayn 02:32, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
  2. CometSmudge (talk) 02:46, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
  3. Rsand 30 (talk) 03:05, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
  4. OOM 224 09:04, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
  5. Ayrehead02 (talk) 09:58, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
  6. 01miki10 Open comlink 09:59, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
  7. Imperators II(Talk) 14:56, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
  8. Yasen Nestorov (talk) 16:44, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
  9. —spookywillowwtalk 16:57, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
  10. Tommy-Macaroni (he/they) 14:49, 2 March 2025 (UTC)
  11. Editoronthewiki (talk) 23:41, 4 March 2025 (UTC)
  12. Mor9347 ForPipadaLogo-UserImage (Talk) 21:54, 13 March 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

  1. TBH, I just don't think we can cleanly do this to a high standard. I also just don't think this hurts readers, as few will ever look these types of books up. Plus seeing them in source lists is more interesting and more likely to attract a click imo. NBDani TeamFireballLogo-Collider(they/them)Yeager's Repairs 03:11, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
  2. We can easily set up a redirect. Bonzane10 Bonzane10-Sig 04:46, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
    • As I noted above - a redirect doesn’t solve the fact that English keyboards can’t generate those characters, and you’d have to repeatedly copy-paste the kana/kanji/etc to repeatedly discuss it in an article. And it does a disservice to our English readers by presenting them with information they can’t read. Cade GalacticRepublicEmblem-Traced-TORkit Calrayn 04:56, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
      • I think you're overestimated how often we'll need to refer to these medias in prose. NBDani TeamFireballLogo-Collider(they/them)Yeager's Repairs 12:07, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
  3. ThePedantry (talk) 21:42, 1 March 2025 (UTC)
  4. Lewisr (talk) 22:59, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

Vote 3: Romanize vs. Translate

This is a supplementary vote to vote #2; ordinarily I'd say just defer to the standard policy, but this feels like a special case because Romanized titles are not the native form/way to express the words of the title, so I personally think it'd be better to just go the full length of the way and translate the title.

This vote is dependent on vote #2 passing, and is to replace the following line from vote #2: "the Romanized title should be used instead if Romanization is possible" with the following:

an English translation of the work's title should be used for the article's title, and the article should use the {{Conjecturetrans}} header template.

Support

  1. Cade GalacticRepublicEmblem-Traced-TORkit Calrayn 02:32, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
  2. Rsand 30 (talk) 03:05, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
  3. As someone whose native language is Chinese, romanizing things just roughly mimics the sound alphabetically and tends to produce meaningless text that neither English speakers nor native speakers of the other language could understand or search for, so I am strongly in favour of translating them instead. OOM 224 09:04, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
  4. Ayrehead02 (talk) 09:59, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
  5. Imperators II(Talk) 14:38, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
    Yasen Nestorov (talk) 16:44, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
  6. Tommy-Macaroni (he/they) 14:49, 2 March 2025 (UTC)
  7. Editoronthewiki (talk) 23:44, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

  1. While I'm still unsure if I support romanizing the text, I've very much against translating them. Consistent with our other foreign language media. NBDani TeamFireballLogo-Collider(they/them)Yeager's Repairs 02:38, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
  2. Per Dani, we should be consistent with either translating or not CometSmudge (talk) 02:46, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
  3. Bonzane10 Bonzane10-Sig 04:43, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
  4. We could include a translation in the text, though. And have redirects from translation(s). 01miki10 Open comlink 09:59, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
  5. —spookywillowwtalk 16:57, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
  6. Yasen Nestorov (talk) 16:58, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
  7. Per Dani. ThePedantry (talk) 21:42, 1 March 2025 (UTC)
  8. Lewisr (talk) 22:59, 4 March 2025 (UTC)
  9. Mor9347 ForPipadaLogo-UserImage (Talk) 21:54, 13 March 2025 (UTC)
  10. Labyrinthine G0B-L1N (talk) 09:14, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

Vote 4: Alphabetic vs. Latin-script

After discussion with Imp, I'm adding an additional vote to change "non-alphabetic script" wording in votes 2 & 3 to the more specific "non-Latin-based script", to future-proof it against potential Cyrillic, Greek, etc. titles. This vote's dependent on vote 2 passing as well.

Support

  1. As proposer. Cade GalacticRepublicEmblem-Traced-TORkit Calrayn 15:14, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
  2. Rsand 30 (talk) 15:17, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
  3. Imperators II(Talk) 15:17, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
  4. Ayrehead02 (talk) 15:36, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
  5. 01miki10 Open comlink 15:43, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
  6. CometSmudge (talk) 16:22, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
  7. Yasen Nestorov (talk) 16:44, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
  8. —spookywillowwtalk 16:57, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
  9. NBDani TeamFireballLogo-Collider(they/them)Yeager's Repairs 17:29, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
  10. OOM 224 21:39, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
  11. Tommy-Macaroni (he/they) 14:49, 2 March 2025 (UTC)
  12. Lewisr (talk) 22:59, 4 March 2025 (UTC)
  13. Mor9347 ForPipadaLogo-UserImage (Talk) 21:54, 13 March 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

  1. As discussed before, I "latin" based is very subjective when actually talking about written languages. Plus I do not think we should treat french and chinese, or german and japanese any differently on the English wiki. ThePedantry (talk) 21:40, 1 March 2025 (UTC)

Discuss

  • Logging note that Vote 1, per Forum:CT:Translation, Articles titles tweak, needs 12 votes to be considered valid due to the two year CON rule, as it is essentially a repeal of that one's formatting poll regarding translation of adaptations with known English names.—spookywillowwtalk 04:47, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
  • Question: assuming that all three of the above votes pass, does that mean that works originally published, say, in French that are not adaptations will remain at their French titles? Imperators II(Talk) 11:50, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
    • Correct. Cade GalacticRepublicEmblem-Traced-TORkit Calrayn 12:28, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
      • Hmm, do have to say it feels strange to me that if we already end up going the route of translation for non-Latin-script-using languages we'd stick to the original language for Latin-script-using ones. Imperators II(Talk) 14:57, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
        • That's been raised, and yeah, I agree, but at the moment we can't revise the entire translation policy as it's under the two-year minimum without getting 20+ votes on the subject. It's definitely going to be revisited when that deadline is up. Cade GalacticRepublicEmblem-Traced-TORkit Calrayn 15:14, 28 February 2025 (UTC)