I recently asked for the letter wynn (Ƿ) to be added to the virtual keyboard for the Latin script, which Xavier has done. It appears on English coins in the names of the kings Eadwig, Edward the Martyr, Edward the Confessor, William I and William II (as well as some of the moneyers), representing the sound “w” before the adoption of “vv”, later replaced by the letter “w”. At present, this character is mostly represented by “P” in the lettering, which is obviously very similar to “Ƿ”. A few coins (such as this one) use the letter thorn, “Þ”, which also looks similar.
I requested that the “P”s be replaced by “Ƿ”s for this coin but the request was rejected by the referee, who stated that “the P's on the images don't look like Ƿ”. It's certainly true that there appears to be no difference on the coins between the two letters, so the question is whether we should use our knowledge of the names on the coins to give the correct letter or use "P" to represent all letters that look like “P”, regardless of what they actually were intended to be?
Xavier has set up the search to consider Ƿ and P as the same, so there's no argument against using the correct letter from an accessibility perspective.
Former Numista referee for banknotes from Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales and Saint Helena.
Hmm, tricky. We usually want to write it like it is written on the described object (errors included).
Are there coins from roughly the same time period where Ƿ is written differently and the P is just an error or was it just always written like P and everyone who could read knew what was meant?The issue here could be attributed simply to the font because Ƿ derived from the rune wynn ᚹ which is very near to the P.
Personally I would be for a retry because P doesn't make any etymological sense. On the same ground your request was rejected the C should be replaced by a [.
Feature to use here is appeal, with your arguments :-)
Yes, I considered that. The concern I have is that this is just one of many English coins that have this character on them. I'd much rather convince the referee that this is the correct thing to do. I've sent them a couple of messages but not succeeded. I fear using the appeal system might end up in an edit war, something no one can be happy with.
Former Numista referee for banknotes from Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales and Saint Helena.
Feature to use here is appeal, with your arguments :-)
Yes, I considered that. The concern I have is that this is just one of many English coins that have this character on them. I'd much rather convince the referee that this is the correct thing to do. I've sent them a couple of messages but not succeeded. I fear using the appeal system might end up in an edit war, something no one can be happy with.
Its perfectly fine to have launched a discussion here and to use it to back future ones.
My point here was more to formally “finish” the topic, as we admins do not have specific actions to take.
Its perfectly fine to have launched a discussion here and to use it to back future ones.
My point here was more to formally “finish” the topic, as we admins do not have specific actions to take.
I see your point. If it's alright with you, I'd like to give the referee a little more time to respond on this thread (I've let them know about it), just in case they're on holiday. If there's nothing, I'll appeal the rejection and we'll go from there.
Former Numista referee for banknotes from Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales and Saint Helena.
Appeal accepted. Menwhile, a lot of the coins have already been changed. It's easy to find the kings' names but a thourough check of the moneyers' names will take a while.
Former Numista referee for banknotes from Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales and Saint Helena.
