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"ABN Amro" would seem consistent with both normal English usage and our general practice on these issues. In addition that seems to be the form used by the preponderance of reliable third-party sources. [[User:Christopher Parham|Christopher Parham]] [[User talk:Christopher Parham|(talk)]] 04:58, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
"ABN Amro" would seem consistent with both normal English usage and our general practice on these issues. In addition that seems to be the form used by the preponderance of reliable third-party sources. [[User:Christopher Parham|Christopher Parham]] [[User talk:Christopher Parham|(talk)]] 04:58, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
:Remember that '''every''' English language legal document about this Dutch financial institution identifies it as ABN AMRO. It seems that only anal retentive English language editors who are '''not''' present or former ABN AMRO customers or clients insist on identifying this company as "ABN Amro." [[User:Steelbeard1|Steelbeard1]] ([[User talk:Steelbeard1|talk]]) 10:32, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Revision as of 10:32, 6 August 2008

Cluster bombs

Removed the part regarding 'INSYS/cluster bombs' since the most recent report by Campagne tegen Wapenhandel [1] shows that ABN AMRO has sold their shares. bFunk 12-Nov-2004

Merger or acquisition?

I just changed the header 'Build up to acquisition' to 'Build up to Barclays Group' becuase that is more neutral. Whether this is a merger or an cquisition is not to clear. Barclays has a majority share, but only just. The staff are mostly from Barclays, but the headquarters are in Amsterdam. This gives off a clear hint that it should be regarded as a merger. But are there no unequivocal definitions of these terms? DirkvdM 06:04, 25 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The Barclays acquisition or merger is not certain. Look at the RBS bid that has come out.

the outcome of the ABN story is still very much up in the air. Therefor we only need to 'report' the facts as they come--tonyberge april 27TVB 19:18, 26 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed move to ABN Amro

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was move. JPG-GR (talk) 04:45, 25 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Not entirely sure, someone else can check on this: but the aritcle notes ABN AMRO is an acronym. However, I thought acronyms are actually able to be able to prnounced, not simply saying the letters aloud? so AMRO would be an acronym, but ABN is not? I suppose its not a huge deal, doesnt really have anything to do with the article but anyone who knows definately shoudl probably change it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 150.203.2.85 (talk) 03:37, 7 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Both parts of the bank's name were originally abbrieviations and so AMRO should be written with capitals aswell ABN Amro is wrong ABN AMRO is right. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.102.34.7 (talk) 19:41, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
ABN and Amro are both abbreviations. ABN stands for Algemene Bank Nederland and Amro for Amsterdam-Rotterdam (Bank). The relevant English language rules are as follows (rules and examples taken from our article acronym and initialism):
For ABN - Pronounced only as the names of letters
  • BBC: British Broadcasting Corporation
  • DNA: deoxyribonucleic acid
  • LED: light-emitting diode
  • USA: United States of America
For Amro - Pronounced as a word, containing non-initial letters
  • Amphetamine: Alpha-methyl-phenethylamine
  • Gestapo: Geheime Staatspolizei ("secret state police")
  • Interpol: International Criminal Police Organization
  • radar: radio detection and ranging
The all caps style for Amro is a commercial typeset that is not an official part of English (or even Dutch for that matter). I suggest moving the article accordingly. gidonb (talk) 22:47, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I wish to add that ANB Amro is also the common name used in the media, so ABN Amro is also the correct name per WP:UCN. A few searches:
gidonb (talk) 03:03, 13 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move

ABN AMRO → ABN Amro — Above detailed English capitalization rules and use common names — gidonb (talk) 16:58, 14 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Also requested per WP:MOSTM: Follow standard English text formatting and capitalization rules even if the trademark owner considers nonstandard formatting "official" gidonb (talk) 08:43, 22 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's naming conventions.
  • Disagree. Since it's a proper name it depends on how the owner brands it. Bengasalam 05:53, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Discussion

Any additional comments:

Preferring brand names above English language rules seems to be against our explicit guidelines:

  • Follow standard English text formatting and capitalization rules even if the trademark owner considers nonstandard formatting "official":
  • Using all caps is preferred if the letters are pronounced individually, even if they don't stand for anything. For instance, use SAT for the (U.S.) standardized test.

Please see WP:MOSTM for more details. gidonb (talk) 07:20, 21 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Official name

Moving this article to "ABN Amro" was stupid, but so is the policy behind it. I'd love to argue this in more detail, but frankly I'd probably be wasting my time.

Anyway, I corrected the spelling of the official names. Please do not "correct" them back. You can see the articles of association for yourselves if you don't believe me:

[2] [3]

217.149.210.16 (talk) 00:04, 3 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Anon, I have looked at the linked documents by ABN Amro. They do not replace English spelling rules, our guidelines and our community decisions. Please respect our policies and do not revert again. gidonb (talk) 03:53, 3 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Then I propose the official names be removed completely, since spelling them incorrectly is worse than not mentioning them at all. As you may have noticed, I only edited the name in those cases where it was referring to the name of an N.V. Honestly, this is just as ridiculous as renaming the article "The Beatles" to the "The Beetles" and using English spelling rules to justify it would be. 217.149.210.16 (talk) 11:13, 3 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Anon, the preferred typeset by the firm is already reflected in its logo. As for The Beatles, if you believe The Beetles is correct, you would have to raise it there. Look out, however, for WP:POINT. Also, The Beatles and ABN Amro are the correct English form. An analogue to AMRO is TIME. Just like the quality press, English-language Wikipedia does not automatically follow preferences of multibillion dollar companies. Regards, gidonb (talk) 04:12, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
While the magazine's masthead says "TIME" the corporate name is Time Inc. You can easily look this up. On the other hand, ABN AMRO is always the corporate name. You can look this up as well. Steelbeard1 (talk) 11:06, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'll remove "N.V." from both names since that seems to be the only way to live up to that policy without providing information that is factually incorrect. 217.149.210.16 (talk) 09:10, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Have any of you who favoured "ABN Amro" looked anywhere in the ABN AMRO web site? They always use ABN AMRO in all-capital letters. Offically, the institution is ABN AMRO. Steelbeard1 (talk) 10:35, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Anon, please do not remove information from the article. gidonb (talk) 20:12, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The media is split on what they call it (which means "ABN Amro" is what we should use): [4] --NE2 10:42, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If the media is split, then what the company calls itself should be the tie-breaker. The company calls itself ABN AMRO in all-capital letters. Steelbeard1 (talk) 11:01, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Anyone tried a company register? There should be a free search somewhere. I'm not familiar with any of them other than the Australian one, and it doesn't have a separate Australian subsidiary. JRG (talk) 12:33, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Is this link [5] sufficient proof? Also, check out the Hoover's directory at [6] which also identifies the company as ABN AMRO. Steelbeard1 (talk) 12:40, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This has been listed as a lame edit war at [7]. Steelbeard1 (talk) 17:07, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Steelbeard1, the community has decided only a few days ago on the name of the article, according to our policies and procedures. You are of course welcome to differ in opinion and suggest another name, but please do respect our policies and procedures. Please stop this edit war immediately! gidonb (talk) 17:35, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    • No no, I precisely followed the procedure, even taking the "longest road" upfront in order not to get into situations as we are getting into now. The person who closed the discussion also followed our procedures. I am a bit disturbed that a decision by procedures and policies is being cancelled out by the force of assertivesness or edit warring. This is simply not done. gidonb (talk) 20:03, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
        • [1] You can open a new discussion of course, but there are procedures to do so much. Until another decision falls ABN Amro is the name that en.wikipedia has selected. What you are doing in the meantime is edit warring and not according to our rules. The name that has been decided should be restored. [2] It is OK to be a client of a bank or to provide services to a bank and to participate in the discussion here. However, keep in mind that the kind of judgement we make here is according to our policies. One should not edit under conflict of interest. If one cannot divide between business relations with a firm and editing here, it is wise to refrain from making statements about the desired name. [3] The case of ABN Amro is very straightforward according to WP:MOSTM. We do not capitalize according to the wants of commercial firms (with all due respect), but according to English spelling rules. The explicit policies are quoted in the shaded discussion above. gidonb (talk) 20:19, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Use form that prevails in reliable sources

We should be guided by whatever form prevails in reliable sources. In general, this means secondary publications of high editorial quality. Primary sources, such as company and regulatory publications, are inferior and should carry little weight. From my brief perusal of references to ABN in secondary sources (e.g. Google news), it seems that "ABN Amro" is the preferred style and therefore should be the form we use at WP. Ronnotel (talk) 13:06, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Those sources are very inconsistent and even one notable source can't agree on what form to use. See [8] from BBC News to see what I mean. Steelbeard1 (talk) 13:20, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Open their website - http://www.abnamro.com/en/home.cfm - and look at the browser title bar. Look at the email footer in mail from their employees, if you have any. Look at the usage on their site, which is consistent as far as I can tell. As far as the name of the company goes, you don't get a much more reliable source than the company itself - the fact that other people get it wrong is not really a great argument for us doing likewise. Guy (Help!) 15:34, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Guy, you, of all people, shouldn't need a lecture on what is and what isn't a reliable source. The company's marketing literature is just that, marketing literature. We are required to use whatever form is prevalent in independent sources. In addition, as you have acknowledge that they are a client of yours, should you not disqualify yourself from this issue as per WP:COI? Ronnotel (talk) 17:35, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • COI? That is one of the most absurd things I've ever heard. They are a customer of my company, so I know that they always use the capitalised form. W appear to be telling the subject that they are wrong - I don't think it's our place to do so. If they call themselves ABN AMRO, then we call them ABN AMRO. As usual, we respect people's self-identification. Or are you going to go through changing all references to John Wayne to be Marion Morrison? Really, it is particularly silly to go around "correcting" a company's own statements in the name of our manual of style. Guy (Help!) 18:40, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes they are. Even the BBC can't decide as already mentioned above at [9]. Steelbeard1 (talk) 19:29, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think we'd be in good company to reject their capitalization. --NE2 19:36, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Is it Wikipedia policy to correct the subject of the article? The company is, for the umpteenth time, officially ABN AMRO. Steelbeard1 (talk) 18:18, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

WP uses reliable sources to substantiate it's information. Burma styles itself Myanmar. However, because the preponderance of reliable sources refer to it as Burma, so it is called in WP. Ronnotel (talk) 18:23, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A couple of points:

  • Someone else will have to look it up, but I'm quite sure I've seen a policy or guideline somewhere that says that we can use primary sources to determine basic things like dates of birth, etc. Company name should surely fall into that category.
  • Secondary sources seem to disagree on the capitalization. Even more reason to go to the primary source to break the tie.
  • Consensus can change; now that more people know, and care, about this, a new consensus should be developed; don't just say "we decided this already".
  • If the promary source wanted to spell it "ABN дΜЯØ", I can see how we'd default to the MOS. But for something simple like this, where the company clearly calls itself ABN AMRO, I see no reason to default to the MOS in spite of this.
  • Probably shouldn't use "Burma/Myanmar" as an example showing the way things should be. There's actually no consensus there, it's split fairly evenly last I looked, and it's only where it is now because of various users playing chicken with 3RR and wheel warring.
  • COI is a red herring; it's not in Guy's best interest to change this, he just thinks it gives him better information. If his info couldn't be verified, we wouldn't say "COI", we'd say "WP:RS". But since it can be verified, this particular point doesn't matter.

--barneca (talk) 20:19, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

According to WP:MOSTM:

  • Follow standard English text formatting and capitalization rules even if the trademark owner considers nonstandard formatting "official":
  • Using all caps is preferred if the letters are pronounced individually, even if they don't stand for anything. For instance, use SAT for the (U.S.) standardized test. gidonb (talk) 20:24, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I get it. Not to speak for everyone else who thinks it should be AMRO, but I think we all understand what the MOS says. What we're (or at least I'm) saying is that the MOS should not automatically trump a clear primary source. I'll trot out the old chestnut that the MOS is a guideline, not a policy; not because I think that line just automatically always wins, but because a guideline can be broken if there's a good reason for it, and in this case I think there's a good reason for it. --barneca (talk) 20:29, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
And another thing: in your examples, they're all trademarks. "Time, Inc." is the actual name of the company, "TIME" is their trademark, so having the article at "Time" or "Time, Inc." or whatever makes sense. In this case, ABD AMRO is the actual name of the company, not a trademark. --barneca (talk) 20:31, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm happy either way. Amro/AMRO, both seem pretty clear. However, whatever the decision, hopefully we follow policy so that we can minimize the drama should this flare up again. I'm happy to support whomever makes the best case. Ronnotel (talk) 20:33, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Not that I don't believe you, but can you show me a source for that being the actual name? (Their website doesn't count, or we'd use REALTOR.) --NE2 21:01, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It depends, NE2. Will it affect your opinion if I can find a different source? I'm not going to go to all that trouble if, at the end of the day, you're going to say "Well, it still violates MOS". --barneca (talk) 21:07, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I have much more to say on this topic and I will be happy to continue the discussion after apologies for the diguisting personal attacks on me are offered and the article is restored according to the previous decision. Wikipedia should not become a lawless battle ground where people who are ruder have it there way. We can take it from there. gidonb (talk) 21:09, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Gidonb, if you're withholding your opinion until someone apologizes for something, you're punishing no one but yourself. I agree the article shouldn't have been moved then locked in place, but it doesn't matter too much what title the article is at while consensus is reached. Let's just come to a decision, and if the consensus is to move it, it will get moved back. As far as "disgusting personal attacks", I haven't seen any. Please point them out to me. --barneca (talk) 21:23, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know, but it would certainly be a useful data point to have. --NE2 21:10, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
How about the SEC? Every PDF link I've opened so far uses ABN AMRO. [10]. --barneca (talk) 21:12, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Also, Steelbear1 provided this link above; the Netherlands is where the company is headquartered: [11]. --barneca (talk) 21:15, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The guideline says to use the most standard source that appears in sources. It appears that "Amro" is pronounced "am-row," not A-M-R-O, and that the letters don't stand for anything. Therefore, capitalizing each letter is a non standard style. The more standard style more than appears in sources: it seems fairly common, if not very common. It appears that the arguments against are just "we should do what the company wants," which is SPECIFICALLY what the guideline says we should NOT do. That argument is analogous to saying that we should capitalize all the words in a section title (for instance, that we should use "See Also," not "See also" in this article) because "it looks better." That subjective judgment (looks better, we should do what the company does) goes against the MoS, which is a guideline supported by a wide consensus of editors. Yes, it's "just a guideline," but that doesn't mean that you can simply ignore it because it suits you: the burden is on you to explain why this case merits an exception. Why is this different from what the guideline is intended to address? Croctotheface (talk) 03:23, 6 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You are wrong. AMRO was derived from "Amsterdam-Rottingham" which was the merged bank name before it merged with ABN, itself the result of a merger. Another major reason is something you are ignoring--legal reasons. For example in the United States: [12] and in the United Kingdom: [13]. Steelbeard1 (talk) 04:05, 6 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Also, look at the Dutch Wikipedia articles: [14] and [15] as ABN AMRO is a Dutch financial institution. Steelbeard1 (talk) 04:23, 6 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm wrong about what? That it's pronounced letter-by-letter? If it is, then it should stay here. Am I correct that it's pronounced as a two-syllable word where the first part rhymes with "ram" and the second rhymes with "beau"? If it's not pronounced letter-by-letter, then I don't see why combining words that way, where the M and O don't stand for anything, should qualify it for special treatment. It's not an initialism. I have no idea what "legal reasons" you refer to. WP:MOSTM is very explicit that we are not bound by the style used by the company, even if they use them in legal (or religious, or any other) documents. Multiple styles exist in the sources, so we choose the one that most resembles standard English. All caps is not standard here, so we go with "Amro." What other Wikipedias do is not our business, as they have different style guidelines. Should we write this article in Dutch because the bank is Dutch and that's the language that the Dutch WP uses? Croctotheface (talk) 06:46, 6 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"ABN Amro" would seem consistent with both normal English usage and our general practice on these issues. In addition that seems to be the form used by the preponderance of reliable third-party sources. Christopher Parham (talk) 04:58, 6 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Remember that every English language legal document about this Dutch financial institution identifies it as ABN AMRO. It seems that only anal retentive English language editors who are not present or former ABN AMRO customers or clients insist on identifying this company as "ABN Amro." Steelbeard1 (talk) 10:32, 6 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
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