Category talk:Heroes' Cemetery in the Philippines

Discussion about this category and Category:Heroes' Cemetery

Archives *Categories for discussion (2024-01)

JopkeB (talk) 12:11, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

RfC: Cemetery name

I have decided to reopen the discussion regarding the name of the cemetery, as it appears that most of my fellow PH-based Wikipedians don't agree that "Libingan ng mga Bayani" isn't the most common and recognizable English name for the cemetery that doesn't have an official English name.

Libingan ng mga Bayani, or Cemetery of the Heroes, has been the subject of multiple discussions within Wikimedia-verse, both on Commons and on English Wikipedia:

Wikimedia Commons

• Commons:Categories for discussion/2024/01/Category:Heroes' Cemetery in the Philippines: mainly a request by me to delete the former redirect so that "Heroes' Cemetery" would be moved to "Libingan ng mga Bayani", which I believed was the most appropriate category name based on the logic of my 2020 move request on English Wikipedia (see below).
• Commons:Village pump/Archive/2024/08#Is renaming categories with an English name to local language names a good idea?: questioned the usage of Libingan ng mga Bayani as the category name, on the basis that it is not an English name and that "Heroes' Cemetery" is used as an English name of the cemetery (despite the argument of one Pinoy user that it is also used in many English-language Philippine sources here).

English Wikipedia

• w:en:Talk:Libingan ng mga Bayani/Archive 1#Requested move 25 July 2020: my 2020 move request on English Wikipedia to move "Heroes' Cemetery" to "Libingan ng mga Bayani", which was successful.
• w:en:Talk:Libingan ng mga Bayani#Requested move 26 November 2024: my 2024 move request to undo my 2020 proposal, based mainly from the recent Commons discussion; not moved because Pinoy users demonstrated that Heroes' Cemetery is an unofficial name (Libingan ng mga Bayani prevails in English-language sources).

We should have an official consensus on the permanent Commons category name for the cemetery, as it is evident that my fellow wiki-colleagues are still of the opinion that "Libingan ng mga Bayani" is not only the official English name of the cemetery but also the common name used by English-language sources here. "Heroes' Cemetery" and the variation "Cemetery of the Heroes" are just mere translations, not recognized Philippine English names of the cemetery. We also have Category:Batasang Pambansa Complex and Category:Lupang Hinirang (the latter of which has an English name, Chosen Land, but as a national anthem the English language should not be used as the category name of the subject).

The fundamental policy of category names is Commons:Categories#Category names, which states: "Category names should generally be in English (see Commons:Language policy). However, there are exceptions such as some proper names, biological taxa and names for which the non-English name is most commonly used in the English language (or there is no evidence of usage of an English-language version)."

Ping every user involved in the four discussions (from both Commons and enwiki) mentioned above (regardless of their account block statuses). From two Commons discussion forums: @Joshbaumgartner, JopkeB, B25es, Seav, Jmabel, Geohakkeri, Nakonana, Enhancing999, Adamant1, Prototyperspective, MGA73, Broichmore, Immanuelle, DarwIn, Donald Trung, Rudolph Buch, and Matthiasb: . From two enwiki discussion pages: @Peacemaker67, Yaksar, Austronesier, HueMan1, Howard the Duck, Ganmatthew, Borgenland, Roman Spinner, and Hariboneagle927: .

This inconsistent issue concerning the premier military cemetery of the Philippines is reopened as a higher-level requests for comment forum, because I felt the entire PH Wikimedia community wasn't well represented in the earlier (August 2024) forum at the Village Pump (only Seav and I were the PH-based participants in that forum). JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 06:11, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

Posted now a message on the Village pump, avoiding breaches to policy concerning the prohibition of canvassing and forum shopping. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 06:17, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

•  Support Thanks for the ping. Just rename it. I think that makes the most sense at this point. @JWilz12345: Can you see if Simple English Wikipedia will rename their article though? --Adamant1 (talk) 06:19, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

   Support I think it should be renamed. But @B25es's proposal for a thing like the wikidata Q system would be great in the future. I proposed a simple english move.

  We need an official policy on this though. Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (please tag me) 07:54, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

  simple:Talk:Heroes'_Cemetery#Move_proposal Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (please tag me) 08:36, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

  Simple was moved according to consensus Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (please tag me) 20:30, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

I don't have a problem with that. There was some categories for military bases in the United States that were renamed recently where the categories were moved to the new names even though essentially none of the other projects besides English Wikipedia had renamed their articles, which isn't great. So it's something that would probably benefit from a policy or guideline. --Adamant1 (talk) 08:33, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

I'm not sure I follow what is being said here. "PH-based Wikipedians don't agree that 'Libingan ng mga Bayani' isn't the most common and recognizable English name" is very hard to follow with the double negative. Is that saying that they agree that it is the most common and recognizable English name, or just that there is no consensus that it isn't? - Jmabel ! talk 18:40, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

The former is true; see w:en:Talk:Libingan ng mga Bayani#Requested move 26 November 2024. Most Engliosh-language Philippine sources use the Tagalog name when referring to the name of the cemetery, such as this (Philippine Star), this (Rappler), this (Philippine Daily Inquirer), and this (Daily Tribune). These are some of the sources presented to counter my 2024 move request on enwiki. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 06:06, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

• Filipino English is a well-documented language with many differences from other varieties from English, it is not uncommon for words and phrases in Filipino English to include loan words from Philippine languages, mostly Tagalog. I've seen many such phrases be used beforehand, even if a different term was used during the American colonial period, for example: Punong barangay instead of barrio lieutenant; kagawad instead of barangay councilor, Etc.

Even assuming that the title is in Tagalog and not in English, it is not uncommon for the Wikimedia Commons to prefer a local name over an English name, Andrieskerk instead of "St. Andrew's Church", Boomkerk instead of "Tree Church", Kaplica Dzieciątka Jezus w Warszawie instead of "Chapel of the Infant Jesus in Warsaw", and the Iglesia de San Sebastián instead of the "Church of St. Sebastian". It's best to simply redirect the English name to the Tagalog name, if people type in the alternative name they will automatically be redirected to the correct name. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 13:52, 20 July 2025 (UTC)