Identity thief

I defiantly don't want to get involved in an area that I'm not needed/wanted. I got enough on my plate as is. I do however have a good understanding of medieval languages and am more than happy to share my knowledge.

I worry that on Geni we tend to be too anglocentric so this is my main concern. Just because "Charlemagne" is in the display field and not the name field, doesn't mean he won't come up in matches anymore or that people won't understand who he is.

Victar, we here in America and other English speaking countries my be a little oriented to England , Scotland , Wales and Ireland, considering we were started , the 13 colonies by the English and that's who we separated from after a long bloody War. However many of us have other connections such as French Italian, Spanish and Dutch as the country added territories to make what is now the U.S.A. but never the less we were started by England! I am sure if we were in France and were French we would be all about the french as would we if we were in Italy be all all about Italy. I don't think we are Anglocentric. Most of us know where France , Itally . Soviet Union,Republic of Soviet Staes, whatever it's going by now, or just plan Russia. We even know where the middle East is and Egypt is not in the middle East. It's in Affica

Sorry tyo on Africa. Your exposise are I am sure welcom by everyone. But I for one don't like you condesening attitude. By the way I googled you. Your in oil .huh. Sounds very important. Victar. Anyway back to your good understanding of Mid evil languages, that's a good thing to know and share. I think you don't like it when anyone disagrees with you, who does, and you take that as being unwanted. Nay nay.

Hi Judith:

The Middle East is considered the historical Near East, which includes parts of Africa - specifically Egypt. I've also seen the region described as MENA (Middle East / North Africa), but the Middle East is not restricted to its Asian components.

With reference to Carolus Magnus, Charlemagne is the preferred reference for England and France, but not outside the English and French speaking world. (Well, double checking myself before posting, I guess not outside the Vietnamese speaking world either, though the reference to him as Charlemagne there is probably based on their French colonial history.) If you want to see all the variations he is known by, find his entry in English Wikipedia, then click on the different language options on the right-hand side of that page.

The concern about Anglocentrism expressed by Victar is not an insignificant one. Many of the more famous historical figures are frequently anglicized by users. I find a lot of the early Russians often have their Cyrillic names removed and replaced by their Latin transliteration. To me, it seems compromise enough to have the Latin (read: English) transliteration in with the Russian form of the name, but complete replacement with Latin letters... it would be as if someone had taken your profile and replaced your name with Юдит Юбрис (the closest Russian equivalent - this actually reads Yudit Yubris if to transliterate the name back).

How would I handle this sort of issue? What seems best to me is to ask how are the majority of the people that would be interested in the profile going to refer to this person. Then name the person accordingly. In some cases, a person needs to get used to titles, etc., being in another language. After all, when you run across such titles, remember that other language is part of your heritage as well.

I know it's considered part of the middle east but it's still in Africa. You a missing my point. Victar stated that a lot of us are Anglo-centric, which means people who are only interested in English based history( this is loosely how the description of the word read. It also sarcastically stated in America they don't know where France is. I was sarcastically making the point that most of us do know where France and many other places in the world are. And again yes, is considered the Middle east even tho it's in Africa! Also as I was taught the Far is is Asia, which includes India , Pakistan( I got that info forn another former co worker) and all of what use to be called the orient,China , Korea ete. Even Afghanistan is considered Asia, I got that from someone I worked with , who was born there.

I sometimes find myself slipping into Anglo-centric thinking, which I think is a product of my U.S. background. Unlike a lot of cultures in say Europe, it is fairly easy for Americans to become focused on what is correct in English, etc. As a result, I try to be careful with that tendency in myself - particularly since most of my work here is not so much for me, but for my child, who was born and is a Belarusian national. That was where I was coming from in my response.

Well, I am coming fro American point of view. I am sorry you aren't evidently pound of this country. I am . I get really tired of the U.S, bashing. I think their is good and everywhere. I use to think maybe some day I'd get o france as well as England , which would be my focus still 90 or more percent of my ancestors came from the British Isle. Then I though maybe a tour of a good section of Europe would be nice but now after all this I don't think so. Why waste my hard earned money on an area that obviously doesn't like us. They like our money but not us. When ever there's a problem , they sure want us to help. Well, a lot of people need help. The wallet is about empty. Too bad I would have liked to seen where some of the ancestors roamed in France and some of the other places even if I am not connected. . Anyway anyone I know who's been there wasn't that impressed. I still have several nat'l Parks to see hear.

There are some nice national parks I still have good memories about, particularly in the western states.

As to the bashing, I think a person has to keep hope that things will get better with time. At least in the study of my tree and the history of the lands that my ancestors come from, I do find some hope that things will get better. A person sees good and bad just about everywhere - no place has a monopoly on either.

By the way I don't mind helping other people but the Lord said Charity begins at home. We need to take care of our own and then what left over, and most likely there would be plenty left over,then share it. But we have people starving. Down South in the mountains they have nothing, Indian Reservations have nothing. They don't all have casinos you know. Old people need help here. We have disaster too. we have oil we send it over sea and we buy from over sea. I know this is com muse but it's stupid. Our wheat and cotton is sailing away. So out food goes up and our cloths go up. If we'd get off the proverbial stick and start using other energy, and we have it but we're afraid of the oil companies,We knew about alternative energy way back when I was in the 8 th grade. We talked about in school. We talked about marketing. It's a high stakes game, that no ones winning. All our produces are being made in third world countries, it's cheep and junky. most of what we manufacture leaves the county. All business. All economics . all politics. People here are getting mad, people hear are getting Ticked off! And yes I know ZEuope is going through much the same. Isn't it belgium that's gov. has closed down. The Euro is doing well. Good thing England didn't join them. or they're be worst off. Yet, with all the problems we have I'd still rather live here.

Well, my 22nd cousin through an English lord whose sister married a Swedish king....

it gets easy to slip into English mode because that's the most commonly shared language among our users. One of the things we share is the love of home; I've lived in the US, and my children's US friends were astonished that anyone could think that it's better in another country, and that they were glad to be going back.

But of 7 billion people on this planet, 6.75 billion of them live outside the US. And given the lack of written records in pre-Columbian America, all of the deep search into genealogy will eventually lead one off that continent.

So let's respect those from different cultures, and ask those from different cultures to respect ours.

I just get bummed when I connect back in geni to all these cool European ancestors and I can't read anything about them because there's nothing in English, not even a name somewhere, and google translate is still very immature as an application.

So as long as "Charlemagne" is ***somewhere*** in the profile or associated Project, I'm good.

Erica, Google Translate is pretty good, and getting better. I agree that names should be in multiple languages including English - that's the standard adopted in much of the tree - for example the Biblical tree.

Check out Freetranslation.com I use it all the time!

http://translate.google.com for those that don't feel like looking for the translator. If you have a google toolbar, you can also use the translator from there.

David

I have *not* found Google translate to be very good and I started in the old babelfish days with french, which in theory I know a bit anyway.

I am finding the emphasis on leaving out Charlemagne as a "name" ***or something somewhere** of one of my ancestors exclusionary of the less educated and / or technically oriented and am getting quite discouraged from working on this site as a result.

Too elitist.

Erica

1. Vous ne pensez pas que "Google Translate" est très bon? Chacun à son goût.

My point is that if you put that into Google Translate it's passable. I recently helped a user sort out some profiles. She wrote to me in Dutch because she was more comfortable with that than English, and I understood exactly what she meant, even if the resultant English was quite passable.

2. It would be a tragedy if you were discouraged from working on this site.

Don't know if it helps, but see my comment at

http://help.geni.com/entries/468451-rename-nickname-field-to-also-k...

where Victar asked "Can we rename the Nickname field to Also Known As? This would better describe its current use and promote its usage as such."

I commented "For historic profiles, I would take "Also Known As" to include both what they were "Also Known As" when they were alive and what they are known as now - and to allow for inclusion of what they are known as now in diverse languages and alphabets that may have been alien to them."

Also Maria's comment: "If there's room, put it on the main profile page. Might help to prevent bad merges from the users who actually look at profiles before merging" which I x-referenced to http://help.geni.com/entries/468218-move-nickname-field-to-basics-tab

Display name is also a good place to put names in multiple languages. With curator help from Yigal, I am now doing that with all the profiles at http://www.geni.com/projects/people/Sephardic-Luminaries. Besides all the great work Shmuel has done on the Biblical tree.

Where would we be if we didn't call Biblical characters by English names that were not in use at the time? It would be incomprehensible to most, and ridiculous beyond words.

In an attempt to please as many people as possible I have Charlemagne set to look like this at the moment:
Charlemagne

Comments are welcome, but as it has been locked by another curator, can I ask curators to give me a heads up before they change the name.

You forgot Russian, Greek, Japanese, Chinese, Hebrew etc....

In my opinion that is what you have the also known as field for, - the exception for mixed names is when we have international known people with main focus from people using different alphabets.

Sharon,
why not stick to the name standards.
If curators do not stick to that how can you expect any other person to do that.
To safeguard the name on popular person you have to have to lock it.

Okay guys, if it's going to be 'damned if I do, and damned if I don't' I may as well change it and lock it on how it suited me! Give me a break!

Have neither of you read the discussion previously? Bjorn, I said I'd add in the names he is most well-known under to try and please everybody. These, on a little research, appeared to be them. Apparantly not that that many Chinese people are descended from him!

Knut it isn't clear how you think I've deviated from the medieval naming standards, and my point was that the profile was locked and was still having the name changed by curators who disagreed with one another!.

Sharon, you are correct: you will not be able to please everyone. I think you've developed a very good compromise that addresses the competing agendas. I could quibble with this or that, and left to myself I might have developed a different compromise, but in a collaborative environment we have to compromise. I think you've done an excellent job, and I applaud you for the effort!

Thanks so much Justin - it is really hard to please everyone, so the vote of support is very much appreciated. (As are those from people who inboxed me.) I am happy to change the name to whatever the general consensus would like it to be.

Charlemagne name compromise No 2!
Charlemagne / Karolus Magnus / Karl der Große, Rex Francorum & Imperatori Romanorum

/me pokes his head behind from a rock.

This is what I would do:
Display Name: Charlemagne, Roi des Francs
Name (First, Middle, Suffix): Karl thie Mikili, Frankana Kunink OR Carolus Magnus, Rex Francorum OR Karlus li Magnus, Regis de les Frankes
Nickname: All alternatives

Just my two cents into the matter.

Victar behind the rock. Thanks for responding. I've been feeling as though my sense of humour failure above has meant that Bjorn is now too nervous to ever speak to me again ;-> (I think he may have gone under the mountain ;-)

Questions (These are genuine questions - I do want to go with what is most logical and most useful according to Geni users. They are direct because that’s a quicker way to write, and there is so much to say, and I am an INTP and honestly trying to find out – not because I’m trying to be rude)

1) In the display name.
First, help me with an explanation of what useful function you see the Display name as performing that isn’t gratuitous? (unnecessary extra). I’m not opposed to it, it just seems to me to duplicate the problems we’re having with the naming fields - ie it is applied with no single logic outside personal idiosyncratic whim that I can see.

In the case of this profile - why use any title at all, if you are only going to use one of the two most important titles? And why have a modern name paired with an archaic (not modern) title in Display?

2) In the First & Middle Name fields (Deferring until later the discussion of which field to use when):

You are suggesting names that are closer to the original name he might have called himself, instead of the contemporary (today) English/French ‘Charlemagne’. Erica has called this elitist (specialist), & others have asked for acknowledgement of the other most well-known forms of his name: eg the German, ‘Karl der Große’

So, how do we justify on a popular (mass) Merge-Site Programme, the use of names that non-specialists are unlikely to recognise, and then still ask people not to make duplicate profiles?

Useful extra info: Charlemagne titled himself:
'Carolus serenissimus augustus a Deo coranatos magnus pacificus imperator, Romanum gubernans imperium, qui et per misericordiam Dei rex Francorum atque Langobardorum'

Google translate:
Charles August, the most serene – crowned by God of Peace, is a great commander, who governs the Roman empire, & who also, by the mercy of God, is the king of the Franks and the Lombards

Sharon - maybe put that in the suffix field - both in its original form and in translation in 20 languages ;-)

Description of Charlemagne’s crowning by the Pope on 23 December 800, in the Frankish Royal Annals (the earliest description we have, probably written c 801 by Angilbert the chaplain). Note: this is subtly different from the papal description given in Liber Pontificalis, which is written to suggest a far greater authority vested in the Pope than the Frankish point of view, here:

'On that very and most holy day of Christmas, when the king at Mass before the confession of the blessed Peter the apostle, was rising from prayer, Leo the pope put [a/the] crown on his head, and acclamation was made by all the people of the Romans: ‘To Charles Augustus, crowned by God, great and pacific emperor of the Romans, Life and Victory!’ And after the ‘praises’ (laudes), he was ‘adored’ by the apostolic [bishop] in the manner of ancient princes, and discarding the name of patrician, he was called Emperor and Augustus.' Davis, RHC: A History of Medieval Europe, Longman 1977 p149-50

David, I'm on it. It might take a little while. If Geni crashes - y'all will know why ;-)

Especially to coax Bjorn out from under the mountain - a peace-offering: Charlemagne's titles in Chinese:
查尔斯八月，最宁静的和平之神冠是一个伟大的皇帝，罗马帝国和支配，谁也由上帝，法兰克人和伦巴底国王怜悯，