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Revisionism
i've seen quite a lot of rename requests, that seek to change a filename, which is correct as of the time of creation or upload of that file, to a new name that's adopted later. a rather notable example is changing "god save the queen" to "...king".
these file renames should generally be declined. this practice should be mentioned in the guideline.
non-latin languages may have plenty of romanisation schemes. they should not be regarded as "wrong" and therefore renamed. even if someone titles a file of shinzo abe "anbei jinsan" (hanyu pinyin for the kanjis as if they were in the chinese language), a file of beijing "peking" (postal romanisation)... they are still valid names. they are not wrong. they are not meaningless. they are not typos. they are not spelling mistakes. RZuo (talk) 19:52, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
There is certainly an underlying principle that romanization schemes should not be categorically prioritized over each other, in the same way that the choice of which language a file is named in should never be preferred under policy. However, unlike the complete deference to the uploader's choice when it comes to the language of a filename, being consistent in the romanization of a particular name is ab initio a good practice unless given a compelling reason to name a particular file differently than the default romanization from its category and its other files - e.g. the title of an artwork uses "Bombay" while depicting a scene in "Mumbai", or the image is taken from a government report on expats living in "Peking" instead of "Beijing". Having the spelling in filenames consistent with the romanization used for the other files about the subject and the subject category can be important when guiding editors into recognizing that an image actually represents the subject they are writing about when creating wiki content.
For this particular instance, it was certainly in good faith asking for this rename under obvious error, even though it is debatable whether it truly qualifies. The fact that the image itself includes a spelling from a different romanization means this can't be firmly considered wrongly applying correcting an obvious error. It fundamentally was nevertheless harmonizing a filename with others, even though it is out of the technical bounds of criterion #4.
Now whether there should be a larger conversation on harmonizing the romanization when spelling a particular name is definitely one that might yield some additional clarity for this guideline, and I would absolutely welcome a robust conversation on whether that should be explicitly included here. VanIsaac (en.wiki) 21:01, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
the initial filename is picked by the uploader.
users often do not have knowledge of all the romanisation schemes in the world. they only know of the ones associated with their language, the ones they use.
suppose a german speaking user uploads a photo of Volodymyr Zelenskyy, but the german language has a unique way of latin transliteration of cyrillic: Wolodymyr Selenskyj. can other users claim that it's wrong? it should be renamed because it differs from other files in the category?
also, even if they know of the other romanisation schemes, they are still free to choose the ones they prefer.
i dont think filemovers should pick which ones should be preferred over the uploaders' choices, as long as the filename makes sense for some people (not all people. romanisation schemes often only make sense for a specific group of users in a specific language.) RZuo (talk) 10:18, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
Alternative romanizations can go into the description field, and be found there with a search. As a child, I accepted my parents' names for an item from "Bombay" and a dish named "Peking Duck" at a Chinese restaurant in New York City (hey, that's what it said on the menu). — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 14:49, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
That's kind of exactly the question. What is the point of filenames? If it's simply to have an ID for accessing the file, then it doesn't matter what the filename is as long as it's unique. I think we can all agree that the existence of this guideline proves otherwise. So what are the other considerations we should be taking into account? I think that there is an argument that "Wolodymyr Selenskyj" is a less than ideal part of an English language filename whose subject is normally rendered in English language contexts as "Volodymyr Zelenskyy". If the filename is in German, e.g. "Wolodymyr Selenskyj auf einem öffentlichen Platz.png", then you're not just talking about simple romanization of the name, you're talking about the language of the filename, where deference to the uploader is much more important. VanIsaac (en.wiki) 19:55, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
There is no English rule for filenames (just categories). They don't need to be romanized in the first place. I would tend to agree that any romanization the uploader wants is fine. The actual criteria is To harmonize the names of a set of images so that only one part of all names differs (noting that simply being in a category does not cause it be a set), meaning that type of rename is outside the policy. However, that particular policy rule has long been, um, generously interpreted to change filenames that people want to. I would tend to prefer to keep the original filename far more often. Carl Lindberg (talk) 21:56, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
I think you will find that I explicitly said it falls outside of criterion #4, and I have been pretty clear that this would either be an explicit expansion of that criterion or a new one. That's fine that you think original filenames should be deferred to more often, but do you have an actual reasoning behind that beyond just a mechanical application of the guidelines as currently written? If we are talking about what the rules should be, I really can't know if my perspective is truly as strong as I think it is unless I know your "should" as well. VanIsaac (en.wiki) 00:19, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
One of the project goals is to provide images elsewhere -- as the guideline notes, we aim to provide stable filenames. If someone links to a file externally, it breaks on a move. The redirects do not help them, I don't think. Maybe that has changed, but the general goal has always been to keep renames to a minimum. Fixing incorrect information makes sense, but getting into stylistic arguments over the filename usually doesn't. If the uploader had it one way, it's usually best to leave it. It's not like moving article names. Adding a file redirect if we want an additional alias should always be fine. But yes I tend to prefer minimizing breaking stuff. Perhaps I've just been annoyed too often at other people renaming my uploads :-) Carl Lindberg (talk) 00:48, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
That's a very good point - filename stability is certainly a valid goal to have in our priorities. I didn't realize there were issues with file redirects when used outside of wikimedia projects. If that remains an issue, it could very well be important enough of a reason to forgo an expansion of file renaming criteria. Do we know if this is still an issue or if it's been solved? I still think the original file move that brought on the conversation was pretty justified by not matching the literal writing in the image, but maybe that's really the only thing that might be justifiable as incorporating into the guideline in some way. I'd still like to see some others' thoughts, though. VanIsaac (en.wiki) 01:58, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
Third Geneva Dialogue (18 June 2014) (14457713365)
here's a picture that captured french names of countries. does that mean, if the filename were to include those names but written in english, german, arabic, japanese..., that will be not ok, because the filename "not matching the literal writing in the image"? RZuo (talk) 15:39, 4 March 2024 (UTC)
Third Geneva Dialogue (18 June 2014) (14271076979)
would it therefore be a problem, if i rename this to "representatives of cook islands and of sri lanka..."? RZuo (talk) 15:46, 4 March 2024 (UTC)
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