Wiktionary talk:Votes/2018-03/Showing romanizations in italics by default

Rationale

The stated rationale is "consistency, clarity, and professionality." Further details as for rationale are in Wiktionary:Beer_parlour/2018/March#Unifying the display of romanisations in links and headwords: italicise romanisations by default, starting at "Italicising romanisations of non-Latin", where examples of academic practice are given. --Dan Polansky (talk) 08:02, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

Procedural rationale

A separate vote page is the best place to vote. This is to ensure visibility, to make sure people have it easy to notice the issue is being decided. --Dan Polansky (talk) 08:02, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

A note on visibility: A vote stays on a radar screen at least for 5 weeks: one week before the vote starts, and then 4 more weeks. And the vote lands on watchlists. By contrast, the referenced Beer parlour discussion was started on 1 March 2018 and was "closed" by Wyang on 17 March 2018, 2 weeks and 3 days later. It was "closed" at the moment at which a real discussion developed; at the beginning, there was no discussion, just nods. "Closing" a developing discussion is bad form, by my lights. Let's discuss further, and let's use this high-visibility venue. --Dan Polansky (talk) 16:13, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

I'm curious, what accounting is made of the votes on the relevant Beer Parlor thread? Not all of those have been replicated on the Vote page. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 16:21, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

I'm not sure what kind of answer you're looking for, but just as reminder, we don't solicit votes. --WikiTiki89 17:13, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

My point, I guess, is that some folks may feel like they've already voted. I personally find it disturbing when any discussion thread includes votes, then spawns a formal vote that covers the exact same issue and framing as the initial discussion thread, but the vote page doesn't include anything from those who posted votes to the initial thread. It feels inaccurate, and somehow dodgy. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 17:54, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

As for: "vote page doesn't include anything from those who posted votes to the initial thread": What should the vote page include? The vote page includes the wording of the proposal. The rationale is on the talk page. Those supporting the proposal could have expanded on the rationale on the talk page, or in their vote comments. My point is to increase visibility, and have the issue opened for a longer period of time; by contrast, the original proposer indicated that the increased participation is a bad thing, and, from what he had done, he seems to be happy being the proposer, the main argument supplier and the discussion closer judging which arguments are strong in one person.

I don't object if you ping all the people who took part on the BP discussion. However, I find it unlikely that they failed to notice the vote since votes are on people's watchlists. --Dan Polansky (talk) 18:15, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

Hittite

@Dan Polansky One question, how would this affect Hittite? Sumerograms and Akkadograms are distinguished in Hittite transliterations by the use of italics (e.g. "A-WA-TUM" Akkadogram, "LUGAL-us" Sumerogram).--Tom 144 (𒄩𒇻𒅗𒀸) 03:02, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

From the wording of the proposal, it seems that both would have to be italicized. Or why am I wrong? --Dan Polansky (talk) 06:54, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

Divergent use cases?

I suspect that part of the disagreement on this issue may arise from different use cases.

For Japanese, having all romanizations in italics would produce better consistency throughout entries, and make the entries easier to scan quickly -- anything un-italicized could be immediately identified as not a romanization. However, I don't know if this use case would apply to all languages equally.

Can any editors for other languages present their use cases for italics / non-italics? ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 19:54, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Relatedly, if it were somehow possible to make language exemptions (for Hittite, for example), I might support this again. --Per utramque cavernam (talk) 19:57, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

In general, non-italicized transliterations are easier to read. With italics, depending on the font, some characters may even overlap with the surrounding parentheses: e.g. Greek μπολ (bol), Russian мать (matʹ), Arabic بَدْء (badʔ); this is even more difficult to read for single letters: Greek λ (l), Russian ь (ʹ), Arabic ء (ʔ). However, within running English text, such as in etymologies and usage notes, for the same reason you gave, it is better to have italics to differentiate the transliteration from the running English text. --WikiTiki89 20:07, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

It is consistent already: things produced by {{m}} are italicized, and things produced by {{l}} and {{head}} not so; this is the same italicization or its lack that you get when you use {{m}} and {{l}} for, say, Spanish. That said, I would be okay with having romanizations produced by {{m}} without italics. --Dan Polansky (talk) 18:18, 30 March 2018 (UTC)