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Is there no requirement for potentially controversial page move requests to be phrased neutrally? If not, there should be (with reference to the RM Template talk:Countries of Europe on 13 October 2010). I understood them to be the basis of discussion about whether a move is a good idea or not. Both sides of the discussion should be noted, and in neutral terms. Daicaregos ( talk) 09:45, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
Is bordering ridiculous, not nessecarily because of the content, but I estimate least 6 x A4 pages with the actual information on how to make a simple, unproblematic page move request buried somewhere, in the middle, in the smallest section. I had to search the forest for that tree. It caused me to go and complain to someone else that they weren't doing something right. This is a page of requested moves. This is not a compendium of guidelines on requesting page moves, or is it? I might try to shuffle it around and move most of it to a subpage in a manner that nothing is left out, but the simple and important bits, such as posting here not being the way to request a page move!, become the prime feature. Maybe I wont, there seems from this to be so many related guidelines, and at least one obvious mistake I noticed, that there might be a bit of a mess or instruction creep going on that I don't have much of a knowledge on. ~ R. T. G 19:58, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
Yesterday I successfully corrected a number of improperly capitalized article titles via "move". Today when I tried to address the stylization for a song, ALL CAPS by MF Doom, I was met with a "The page could not be moved" message. That's strange, because I had no issue altering case yesterday. For some reason Wikipedia did mind the redundant (but not actually) alteration today. I foolishly attempted a workaround by creating ALLCAPS with the idea I'd just change it to the final title in a second move, but please look at what happened. Please also tell me if this discussion page is not a normal means of requesting such things. Pixel Eater ( talk) 23:53, 23 October 2010 (UTC)
Of probable interest to all closers and regular participants in WP:RM discussions, the significance of page view counts in determining primary topic is at issue in this (precedent setting?) reversal decision which is discussed here and at this ANI. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 00:50, 28 October 2010 (UTC)
This move looks questionable. Look into the close on the Talk:Jessica_(entertainer)#Move.3F as there are many other pages with last names in the title of the article please see Nicole Jung, Park Ji-yeon and Krystal Jung for examples. Jessica Jung's Wikipedia article refers to her as Jessica Jung several times already. It doesn't make sense seeing as her full stage name is Jessica Jung, especially when her own article addresses her as so. 94.46.3.202 ( talk) 09:45, 28 October 2010 (UTC)
Traditionally, there seems to usually be a bias in favor of keeping an article where it is, especially when it's been there for a long time. That is, in a proposal to move an article, unless it can be shown that there is consensus to move the article, the article is not moved. This means those who support a move have the burden to show it should be moved.
However, it is my understanding that this burden is reversed in situations where primary topic is in question. That is, regardless of whether the discussion is about moving an article to or from a disambiguated plain name, the article should end up at the plain name only if it is shown that it is the primary topic for that name.
So, if the discussion is about an article that is already at a plain disambiguated name, and even if it has been there for years or even forever, unless it is shown that the article is the primary topic, it should be moved.
Anyway, this has been my understanding and how I've been making close decisions. For example, at Talk:Stockman (Australia), I found no consensus that that topic was primary, so found consensus in favor of moving that article away from the plain undisambiguated name at Stockman, despite the majority of those participating favoring no move. That decision was challenged, and it was supported by an uninvolved admin here. So, I recently found similarly at Talk:Cambridge, but that decision was reversed. I've tried to discuss this with that admin, but that discussion is not productive.
So, is there consensus among RM closing admins than in decisions where primary topic determination is at issue that those claiming primary topic have the burden regardless of which direction -- to or away from the plain disambiguated name -- the move is proposed? Or is the burden always on those in favor of the move? Regardless, where can we clarify this point in the guidelines? -- Born2cycle ( talk) 21:52, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
Yes, it's true that we don't have a definitive objective way to determine primary topic, so that's ultimately subjective too, but generally "is it the primary topic?" is a question that can be answered much more objectively than can "should this or that be the name of this article"?
In the end, if there is no clear consensus on whether a given use is the primary topic for some term, then I believe it's much more likely that it's not the primary topic than it is, and pages should be placed accordingly, regardless of status quo. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 18:40, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
In other words, if there are significant numbers who believe there are topics sufficiently likely to be sought with that term for the topic in question to not be primary, I think it's much more likely to be true than not. That is, I would expect a high correlation between people thinking that a given topic is not primary for the term in question and users not being much more likely to be looking for that topic rather than any other when searching with that term. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 20:16, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
It's worth noting that this issue is also relevant at Talk:New York, where, again, I think it's quite obvious that there is no primary topic and so the dab page should be at New York, regardless of whether there is a clear consensus specifically to move among those participating.
Another closely related issue is relevant there, that being the relevance of a "competing" use being at a disambiguated title already. Here it's argued that the city being at New York City somehow reduces its "claim" on New York and so leaves New York free to be used by the state. Similar arguments have been made about English cities like Plymouth and Cambridge because the "competition" in the U.S. is disambiguated (by state). However, it seems obvious to me that Being at a certain title does not reduce a topic's "claim" to being a competing (or even primary) use for another name used to refer to it. In fact, every time we redirect a name to an article we're saying the topic of that article is primary for that redirected name as well as for the name that is its title. Primary topic determination is, or should be, independent of which article happens to be using which name for its title. Primary topic determination is about how often that name is used to refer to the topic in question vs. other uses, and that has nothing to do with how Wikipedia articles happened to be named. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 21:48, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
I understand your concern about giving too much power to those who reject the concept of the primary topic, but remember we're only talking about cases in which there is "no consensus" about the topic being primary, meaning that a significant number believe other uses are sufficiently important/popular to prevent the main use from being primary.
As far as the city being the primary topic for the name New York, consider that New York gets over 450,000 hits per month. Are some of those intended for the city rather than the state? Probably, but note that California gets over 550,000 and Pennsylvania and Texas got 270k and 350k respectively. No matter how you slice it, the state is good for a few hundred thousand intentional hits per month. No matter how popular a particular use is, I don't see how it could be primary if there is another use of the same name that gets hundreds of thousands of page hits per month. How you could say that readers entering New York in the Search box are much more likely to be looking for the city rather than the state, which of course is the definition of primary topic? At any rate, I contend that if there are enough people like me who believe that the state is sufficiently popular for there to be no primary topic such that no consensus is established on the question of whether there is a primary topic, that we should err on the side of putting the dab page at the name. Why should it matter whether the name previously redirected to the city or was the dab page? If what it was in the past doesn't matter, then why give preference to status quo? -- Born2cycle ( talk) 17:35, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
So it appears that consensus is that:
Personally, I think this favors status quo in a way that is detrimental to Wikipedia, especially considering, as PBS noted, that change is favored over maintaining status quo with respect to the vast majority of moves (which are "uncontroversial"). That is, as long as no one notices and cares, editors can move around articles all they want, and, that, ultimately, establishes the status quo that requires consensus to change, even when an article is at a plain name and there is no consensus that it is the primary topic. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 23:33, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
Coan should be changed to Coen.
Is the discussion at Talk:Nelly 5.0#Requested move ready for closure/action? -- Lil_℧niquℇ №1 | talk2me 01:28, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
FYI, I've created a Toolserver report that groups mainspace page moves for the last day, week, or month by user. This was inspired by User:Schwyz/ TigreTiger/ Tobias Conradi/etc., etc. who has been using socks for years to perform literally thousands of ill-considered, undiscussed moves. The tool has already helped us catch a couple more of his socks and I believe is forcing him to behave. Anyways, if anyone is interested, here it is: http://toolserver.org/~jason/mv/move_stats.php -- JaGa talk 00:24, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
Unless this is adequately addressed, the entire move operation is going to be completely botched. __ meco ( talk) 09:24, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
{{movereq|multiple=yes |current1=Challenger Financial Services|new1=Challenger Limited}}
Challenger Financial Services → Challenger Limited — Company has changed its name. 202.92.123.163 ( talk) 00:53, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
Can someone please close this?
Also, shouldn't there be a procedure for requesting a close? e.g. if after 7 days a request is uncontested or consensus is reached but the move still requires an admin. Perhaps moving to uncontroversial requests or adding a flag to entries in the backlog list. This would probably help cut down on the backlog considerably. OzW ( talk) 21:05, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
Please see Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#WP:Requested merge. Reh man 06:48, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
My move proposal involves 40 articles. When I first set up a multi-move template I listed all 40, but when I did a "show preview" it listed only the first 20, so I broke it up into two proposals of 20 each:
There seem to be two bugs:
So, it looks like the template supports up to 20 entries, but the bot ignores everything after the 10th entry. Or, did I do something wrong? Thanks. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 20:13, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
I followed the instructions as best I could, but there's eight sections here instead of one, for the eight times I used "current1" for the talkpage each item was on; don't know how to clean that up, please advise. Skookum1 ( talk) 05:38, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
==Move discussion in progress==
There is a move discussion in progress on [[Talk:Name of first article#Requested move|Talk:Name of first article]] which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you.--RM bot, Time stamp
I have remove the entries from seven of the eight. RM Bot should now do the listing. Cheers.-- Fuhghettaboutit ( talk) 14:41, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
Currently, RM bot ( talk · contribs) automatically notifies the talk pages of articles that are included in a multimove discussion, which is a great feature. However, since the edits are marked as bot edits, they don't show up by default on watchlists, which kind of defeats the purpose of posting notifications. Wouldn't it make more sense for the notifications to be posted by a non-flagged bot? Would that be allowed by the bot policy? Obviously it would be more useful if the notifications would show up on the watchlists of people who are involved with the article. Jafeluv ( talk) 08:54, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
While we're talking about multimoves... I should note that it really only works 100% for up to 9 (not 10) items in a list. No notification is made on the talk page of the 10th item on the list, or any beyond that. While I agree there is no reason to support lists of unlimited length, I would like to see it work for at least 40, ideally up to 100. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 17:01, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
Hello. I've been following with some interest the three parallel discussions at the pages of Messrs. Wałęsa, Schröder and Mitterrand. It's this issue of diacritics in personal names, and to a lesser extent in place names. Anyone who is a regular knows that WP:DIACRITIC is an oft-cited and oft-disagreed-with bit of project-space, whatever its status (I have to assume: guideline?).
We've seen this discussion played out time and time again in every human language. Can't we somehow settle it in a general setting, and avoid most if not all of the repetitive arguments? This is all subject of course to the fact that things change, and who knows where we'll be next year? All of that granted, the following proposal is, I hope, not too short on, ah, usefulness.
Suggestion - Let's add optional flags to the RM banner in which people can specify that the move belongs to a certain general class of requests. Flags I imagine would look like: diacritics=yes, trademark=yes, official-name=yes, use-english=yes, etc. Things would keep on working as usual, but after some time, if someone wants to look at the last six months of moves dealing with performers' stage names, they could just call that up in the category structure.
What do people think? - GTBacchus( talk) 05:55, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
While I hope I haven't been forgotten, I've been away from this page (and the rest of Wikipedia) for about a year. I've noticed that the backlog is extensive, and I'm anticipating having some time to help out beginning around the middle of next month. I'd appreciate hearing about what has changed procedurally here over the intervening period and whether there are any new trends that have developed--or resolutions that have been adopted--as regards finding consensus, moving disambiguation pages, using macrons, et cetera. If you have the time, I'd appreciate hearing from the RM crowd so hat I don't muddle everything up when I come back. Could you jot down a few notes here or on my talk page? Thanks in advance! Dekimasu よ! 07:14, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
Am I actually answering your question, or simply venting? Who can say...? - GTBacchus( talk) 00:10, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
Logistics at the Battle of Pusan Perimeter just showed up for an A-class review. Logistics is, roughly, the management of personnel and materiel. I'm leaning toward a recommendation of "in" instead of "at" or "of"; thoughts? - Dank ( push to talk) 15:17, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
Why won't the bot pick up the timestamp from the move request at Talk:Loose candy? I can't make it work. :/ - GTBacchus( talk) 21:35, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
What on earth is going on here [3]? Personally I think the mosaic meaning might be primary, but these moves just seem to be floundering around. Johnbod ( talk) 19:54, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
I closed these two requests, but the bot won't delist them. What's up? - GTBacchus( talk) 06:54, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
Yes, RMbot appears to be down. The test message I added at the bottom of the backlog section 20 minutes ago is not yet cleared out. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 07:28, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
Wouldn't it be better to just point users to {{
db-move|page to be moved here|reason for move}}
instead of having a duplicate list?
Marcus
Qwertyus
09:16, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
Page was moved from Rosemarie von Trapp, and for some reason is was considered uncontroversial. I have a real problem with this, for the following reasons:
I request that the article be returned to its proper name pending some real proof. I think we are aiding in perpetrating a hoax. MSJapan ( talk) 07:39, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
Ok, we've got a live example. There's a request to move Security Now back to Security Now!. It was moved on December 23, not quite unilaterally, but by placing a request in our "Uncontroversial moves" section. Everyone agrees that the uncontroversial move was requested and completed in good faith, but now we see that it's not uncontroversial. In the discussion, one editor has requested: "Unless the closer sees consensus to leave the title alone, I request that the closer move the page back to the original title. In other words, please default to move in the absence of consensus."
So, this is a bit like what we were talking about the other week. If there's not a positive consensus for the new title, nor for the old one, should the move be reverted? It wasn't reverted prior to the discussion, as BRD might have it, and that didn't seem to bother anyone. However, the question is what to do now? My take is that, since there's not a clear consensus in either direction, then we should go with the title for which the better arguments have been offered. Any other thoughts? - GTBacchus( talk) 16:57, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
Technical question this time - is there any reason why the {{ RM top}} and {{ RM bottom}} templates (used when closing move requests) need to be subst'ed, as is recommended? Couldn't we just transclude them? That would save some typing and keep the resulting wikitext neater.-- Kotniski ( talk) 10:18, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
We also transclude templates, such as nav-boxes, when we want to be able to update them all at once. Again, there's no reason that every {{ RM top}} template has to look like the latest version.
Does that answer your question? - GTBacchus( talk) 23:25, 25 December 2010 (UTC)
See Talk:Halifax,_West_Yorkshire#Requested_move_2010, as what does "no consensus" mean, when a consensus is clear, but it is still closed "no consensus". 65.94.232.153 ( talk) 06:48, 24 December 2010 (UTC)
Moves are different from deletions, where we need a consensus to delete, and "no consensus" means "keep". That situation is very asymmetric, whereas moves are symmetric: whatever is decided, the article stays on Wikipedia, and it has some title. Therefore, it's about choosing the best one, and sometimes you can't get a consensus for one. We still go with whichever is best. - GTBacchus( talk) 23:29, 25 December 2010 (UTC)
Can someone close, please? It's going on two months, and this is the oldest request in the back log. Two editors have noted that Mandarin and Standard Chinese are equally valid as a name, which is true enough (though only Standard Chinese is unambiguous, as Mandarin is commonly used for Northern Chinese), but they never actually argued for moving to Mandarin instead of Standard Chinese. Regardless, there is not a single cogent argument for keeping the article where it is now, just votes for unstated reasons and false claims that Mandarin isn't the standard language of China. — kwami ( talk) 23:42, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
Proposal 1:
I suggest that RMbot add talk page notices to all pages of a multimove, since many editors screw up the multimove template, making RMbot place notices on the page where the discussion is taking place, and not place it on one of the other pages. If all pages are equally notified, then none will be left out. 65.93.14.196 ( talk) 03:47, 16 January 2011 (UTC)
Proposal 2:
I suggest that RMbot place a {{ movenotice}} banner at the top of the section of the talk page notice that it automatically adds to talk pages for multimoves, for added visibility, and remove it when the corresponding RM section template is removed, to indicate that the discussion indicated by the RMbot notice is no longer active. 65.93.14.196 ( talk) 03:47, 16 January 2011 (UTC)
Proposal 3:
As requested splits and mergers both use article page templates, I suggest that RMbot place articlepage {{ movenotice}}'s as well, this would better inform the community that something is happening, and RM's last much shorter periods than splits or mergers anyways (which seem to stay on article pages for months on end), to gain a better consensus. 65.93.14.196 ( talk) 03:47, 16 January 2011 (UTC)
Proposal 4:
Also, add a talk page notice to the target's talk page when the target of a move request (and multimoves) is not a redirect, so people there know someone wants to overwrite the article with another one. If the target is a redirect, then add the notice to the talk page of the article the redirect points to.
If it is not possible/easy to program it to process redirects, then go ahead and add notices to redirect talk pages.
65.93.14.196 ( talk) 13:07, 16 January 2011 (UTC)
When you request a move that requires a disambiguation page to be moved as well, should that be posted as a single or multiple page move request? I have seen it done both ways. With the single move request the other move is usually just part of the explanation. – CWenger ( talk) 05:16, 21 January 2011 (UTC)
I'm somewhat confused about when to use {{ move}} and when to use {{ movenotice}}. After seeing the size of the backlog here, and not wanting to make it worse, I've been using the movenotice template, and it has been successful. After all, most situations don't need community-wide support, but that's not to say they would be unopposed. The advice on this page seems to indicate that if you think anyone might oppose the move, then list it here.. that doesn't seem like good advice, does it? I think encouraging the use of {{ movenotice}} to get feedback first is probably good advice; then if no consensus is reached there, they can bring the issue here.
Or maybe I'm misunderstanding the intended uses of these templates? Mlm42 ( talk) 22:45, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
I would discourage skipping the RM process for any potentially controversial move. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 05:26, 16 January 2011 (UTC)
There are users who have strongly held opinions about article names, views which likely prevent them from evaluating move discussions neutrally. I suggest that we add a few words to cover that situation as well. Perhaps something like "...they participated in or about which they cannot act neutrally except if..." Will Beback talk 23:53, 20 January 2011 (UTC)
But my involvement with royalty names has been nil, especially five months ago and earlier. For example, if you search for "born2cycle" in the archives at WT:NCROY, you won't find me. I'm not sure if I ever participated in a royalty related RM discussion prior to when I made that decision about Juan Carlos I. So I suggest you would have to make the criteria pretty restrictive before it would have applied to me in that case. Basically, you would have to exclude anyone who shows an interest in naming conventions. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 07:39, 21 January 2011 (UTC)
Here is the WP:SNOW close I referred to: Talk:Acetylene#Move.3F. I did close that early (after one day), but it had nothing to do with my alleged bias about naming - unless you think requiring proposals to give reasons for the move is a problem. Wasn't it good to get this off the radar? If there was a legitimate reason for the move (which I later realized might be the case), wouldn't it be better if the proposal was resubmitted with that reason specified? Here are some others I did recently (not cherry picked, these are the last 5, including Acetylene, that I've closed):
See any problems there? Would WP be better off if I was not helping with WP:RM backlog in this way? -- Born2cycle ( talk) 18:52, 21 January 2011 (UTC)
I'm not sure that the proposed language is specific enough to be meaningful. If the concern is editors who close RMs when they've expressed opinions, why not say that? Something like "...participated in, or which concerns a topic (whether of substance or policy) about which they have expressed an opinion in the last six months except if..." might work. Of course, if the concern is solely Born2cycle, couldn't that be taken up in a different forum? Dohn joe ( talk) 01:33, 22 January 2011 (UTC)
With no backlog, why is the page still tagged as having a backlog? Vegaswikian ( talk) 19:37, 23 January 2011 (UTC)
$wprm = str_replace("{{adminbacklog|bot=RM bot}}", "{{adminbacklog|bot=RM bot|disabled=yes}}", $wprm);
Well if you do want to re-add it it's a simple change to the bot - just ask harej to change the bot at the same time. Dpmuk ( talk) 10:37, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
I think I closed something like 40 to 50 requests in and around the weekend. Hope we can keep the backlog empty, at least for a while. Deacon of Pndapetzim ( Talk) 12:01, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
People (especially any passing admin) may want to check this AN/I thread about what we do about the RMs started by this banned user. There is some disagreement on one of the RM discussions and I think it could do with a neutral admin taking a look. Dpmuk ( talk) 11:02, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
This seems to happen from time to time - someone boldly moves an article (sometimes "not realizing" that the title is or has been the subject of discussion), and then tampers with the resulting redirect (with the "accidental" effect that it's impossible for other editors, if not admins, to revert the bold move). To prevent anarchy, and to avoid giving admins (or just the consensus-immune) more power than ordinary editors, can we ensure that anyone is effectively able to perform the "R" step of BRD in this situation - by allowing requests to undo such unilateral moves to be listed as "uncontroversial"? -- Kotniski ( talk) 17:22, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
I feel strongly that we should not reverse unilateral moves. It adds moves to the history without any content-based reason. I'm not worried about "rewarding" anything, because we don't function on reward-and-punishment; we're single-minded about providing a quality encyclopedia.
I would note that moves are not like deletions, in the sense that "no consensus" means "no move". In the case of titling, the title has got to be something, and we try to find the best possible title. There is no reason that this should require undoing bold moves. If people are upset about a bold move, that's all the more reason for them to contribute to the discussion in a constructive manner.
Lots of people seem to work with the assumption that bold moves should be reverted as a prerequisite to having discussion. This is a lawyerly impulse that we should discourage in the strongest possible terms. - GTBacchus( talk) 18:14, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
In my experience closing moves, "no consensus" does not always mean no move. There's not always a consensus for any particular choice, but one is determined to be "best" in some way, and we move there.
People trying to "get their way" can be dealt with in the usual manner. I see no argument for purely procedural reversal of unilateral moves. - GTBacchus( talk) 18:38, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
Regarding moves, I can't agree that BRD is our culture when it's clearly impossible in many scenarios. Our culture regarding unilateral moves is for some people to ask for a reversal of the move prior to discussion, and for others to disagree. That's the culture I've observed. - GTBacchus( talk) 19:00, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
But anyway, this serves to show that it's already possible to use the uncontroversial moves mechanism for reverting controversial unilateral moves, at least in some cases.
Currently, the Uncontroversial Requests section starts with the following statement:
Having read the above, I still strongly disagree with the proposal, in any form presented here. Automatically reversing unilateral moves makes us more bureaucratic and officious, and does not improve the encyclopedia. It sends the message that we're somehow rule-bound, and that we care about doing things "by the book". This flies in the face of our fundamental, foundational policy: Ignore all rules. Reverting a move, just because the consensus wasn't clear yet, smacks of some kind of Robert's Rules of Order mentality, and I oppose it from the bottom of my soul.
The proper way to handle these situations is to note in the discussion what happened, and then let people come to consensus about the title. Until that consensus is clear, we shouldn't move it anymore, not even to revert someone else's move. Reverting is edit-warring. The zero-revert rule is an example of Best Practice, and we should exemplify it.
It would be fine to decide that the presumption, if no consensus is determined, is to move back to the original title at the end of the discussion, but I cannot support automatically reverting a move to a title that we may move it right back to a few days later. When that happens, we all lose. - GTBacchus( talk) 23:21, 25 December 2010 (UTC)
Regarding 0RR, it's what I abide by, and I find it best. I can efficiently defend the status quo, when that's called for. Why not try it yourself? If your experience is anything like mine, you'll find it a stronger position than any other. Negative changes can be dealt with in many ways; reverting is best in the case of clear vandalism.
I accept your clarification about "automatic reversal", and I still oppose the proposal. I do not think that we should encourage any type of page move until we know there is sufficient support for it. That includes reversals of moves for which there is no sufficient support.
These "move warriors" will be discouraged just as well if they're reverted at the end of a week. There is no need for the revert of a bad move to happen before the discussion runs its course, and I see no argument here for such haste. Why not let the discussion occur before performing any more moves? - GTBacchus( talk) 18:53, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
By the way, if we are not governed by rules, then we are governed by whim. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 21:16, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
If you think we're governed by rules, then WP:5P and WP:IAR need updating. Rules are anathema to Wikipedia.
In reply to the rest of your post, see below. - GTBacchus( talk) 23:00, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
I'm not proposing that bad moves sit for a couple of weeks. I'm proposing that they be dealt with at a common-sense pace, where we get to the point and get the title fixed after determining which name is best. When it takes a couple of weeks to do that, neither title is clearly bad. If one title is clearly bad, it doesn't take two weeks to determine that. - GTBacchus( talk) 19:40, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
Only you can prevent revert wars.
harej
19:22, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
I'd say consensus is achieved in favor of Kotniski's proposal, which is good, because it's already there. This is from the "Uncontroversial" section:
So... should we bold a section to make it more prominent? Or do a rewrite? -- JaGa talk 03:00, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
To clarify: this is my counter-proposal: If someone unilaterally moves a page without consensus, when the move is controversial, then after the completion of the RM discussion, if no other consensus is arrived at, it is reasonable to revert to the previously stable title. The important difference is that I think we should wait for the discussion to run its course, rather than reverting while it's still going on. - GTBacchus( talk) 19:10, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
If there isn't an RM discussion, then whoever disagrees with the move can do the following:
By the way, I'm bothered by something you wrote above: "It sends the message that we're somehow rule-bound, and that we care about doing things 'by the book'. This flies in the face of our fundamental, foundational policy: Ignore all rules. Reverting a move, just because the consensus wasn't clear yet, smacks of some kind of Robert's Rules of Order mentality, and I oppose it from the bottom of my soul." WP:IAR is not, literally, "ignore all rules" (which would mean there is no point to having any rules, which is clearly not the case at WP). WP:IAR does mean to go ahead and ignore rules when there is a good reason to do so. But that just recognizes that rules are inherently flawed and sometimes contradict each other, especially when they move away from being general principles to being specific and precise. By no means should WP:IAR be interpreted to mean that we don't care about following the rules. We do encourage doing things "by the book", just not to the point of absurdity, or when doing so is contrary to making the encyclopedia better.
But what's most relevant here is that controversial issues are discussed and decided by WP:consensus, and that consensus is then reflected in the rules (policy, guidelines, conventions, and sometimes even essays). Consensus is not what any small group of editors that happen to be involved in one particular discussion decide. That's why we're supposed to give arguments that are based in the rules more weight than mere expressions of opinion are given... it's about which argument reflects the consensus of the overall community best. That's why we're so supposed to publicize proposed moves at WP:RM - to ensure that arguments based on community consensus are likely to be represented in the comments.
Kotniski's proposal is not about following the rules for the sake of following the rules. It's about following the rules to encourage behavior that is consistent with community consensus. It's about following the rules so that behavior that is likely to result in changes contrary to community consensus is discouraged. It's about encouraging respect for, and compliance with, community consensus.
No one should move a page unilaterally if there is any question that it might be against community consensus to move it. The mere challenge of such a move is therefore evidence that it should never have been moved in the first place. We should have a system in place that makes this more clear, not less clear. Kotniski's proposal does the former, this counter-proposal does the latter. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 00:28, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
You needn't link policy to me; linking the same policy twice is actually insulting; please don't do it. If someone moves a page unilaterally, and it's a bad move, then it will be reversed, under my proposal as well as under the other one. You have not explained what's wrong with the model I've presented. Why is a reversal after a few days less of a deterrent than a swifter one? Nobody has answered this.
I agree 100% that controversial, unilateral moves are a bad idea. I just favor a more patient reversion of this bad idea. What's wrong with more patience?
Reversing a unilateral move after a few days in no way encourages unilateral moves. It ensures that they don't stick; what further deterrent is necessary? If they lose, they lose, no? - GTBacchus( talk) 08:44, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
Perhaps it would help to talk about specific cases? We might be advocating nearly the same thing, and seeming to disagree because of the way we phrase it.
What I oppose is this: There's an RM discussion in progress, someone goes ahead and moves the page, and then people say it has to be restored to the previous title as a pre-condition for further discussion. I've seen this happen, and I think it's wrong. If the new title is clearly wrong, then that's clear, and we fix it right away. If the new title is possibly good, then we don't have to move the article back in order to keep talking.
Do you agree? - GTBacchus( talk) 19:40, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
Yes, in the particular context of an ongoing WP:RM discussion I do think a unilateral move is confusing and should usually be reversed. But even for that there can be exceptions. Someone might unilaterally move stable A to controversial B and then, minutes later, in an apparent move to "protect" or hide the move from A, propose a move of B to C. Unlikely? It happened at Carmel-by-the-Sea just the other day. In such a case, I support moving B back to stable A and changing the proposal to be A to C (or A to B).
I agree that even a few days could be problematic and enough to encourage undesirable behavior. And, again, in the current climate, just a few days is unlikely. Look at the backlog. Even ignoring the current backlog, the minimum time before an RM discussion is closed is usually a week.
Speaking of unilateral moves, I normally don't engage in them, but yesterday I noticed someone moved an article to make it consistent with a convention, I noticed three more, and moved them too. One of those three was reverted, and, so, I chose to initiate an RM discussion. If my move could not have been reverted by a non-admin, Kotniski's proposal would have allowed that person to ask for a revert by proxy, and it would have been granted, and rightfully so. I didn't know it was a controversial move, but it turned out to be, and, so, it should not have been moved in the first place. An honest mistake, to be sure, but still, it's better that it be reverted and the burden remain on me to decide whether to make an RM proposal and all that entails (the involvement of many others), rather than shift it to someone else. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 15:55, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
Here is a situation which could be dealt with the mechanism that Kotniski proposes: Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Page_moves_and_subsequent_abusive_move_protections_by_Ruud_Koot But since we currently don't have that mechanism, an ANI is filed instead. Isn't that overkill? Wouldn't a non-controversial revert be better? -- Born2cycle ( talk) 22:19, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
There is nothing wrong with discussion, but as long as the goal is swift consequences for undesirable behavior in order to discourage that type of behavior, requiring discussion before executing the revert is counter-productive in terms of making reverting of unilateral moves an effective consequence. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 02:25, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
If the mover refuses to revert despite discussion... that would come down to individual cases. If they refuse to discuss, then they have an incredibly weak position, and that's easy to overrule. If they do discuss, and they have actual points to make, then it's not clear that the move needs quick reverting. I still haven't seen an example of a case where the proposal made here is necessary or helpful. Until I see one of those, there no chance that I'll support what's proposed here. These examples should be easy to produce, if it's a real problem. Otherwise, I see this as pure bureaucratic instruction-creep. - GTBacchus( talk) 06:15, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
But I suspect by "clearly wrong" you mean something other than "unilateral without discussion"; I presume you mean the new location is "clearly wrong" for that article without regard to how it got there. In that case, yeah, if the new location is "clearly wrong" it's not so hard to get the move reverted, but how often does that often?
The problem is that with few exceptions there is no way to objectively determine whether a given title is "right" or "wrong" - we make these determinations by consensus. For example, the underlying issue about the rightness or wrongness of a given title often hinges on whether a topic is the primary use of that title. Yet primary topic is defined to be determined by discussion. Therefore, without discussion, there is no way to determine if a given title in such a case is "clearly wrong". And it's really no different in cases that don't involve primary topic determination.
Now, in the extreme case of Al-Kindi today the move was reverted, but that's mostly because it involved abuse of admin powers (a process issue). Though the edit summary for the revert refers to "English common name" as justification, the title it held temporarily is arguably correct - that is, this title, like new titles in most moves, was not "clearly wrong". Yet the move was "clearly wrong" and it was right to revert it, and the revert would have been just as right even if no admin power abuse was involved here, simply because the original move today was a unilateral move that was potentially controversial and done without discussion... that's why it was "clearly wrong", not because Yaʿqūb ibn Isḥāq al-Kindī as the title of that article is "clearly wrong". Yet it probably would have been difficult to get it reverted had the admin powers not been abused.
So, I have to disagree about it currently not being so hard to revert a move that is "clearly wrong", unless the new title is "clearly wrong", which is very rare. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 07:32, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 15 | ← | Archive 17 | Archive 18 | Archive 19 | Archive 20 | Archive 21 | → | Archive 25 |
Is there no requirement for potentially controversial page move requests to be phrased neutrally? If not, there should be (with reference to the RM Template talk:Countries of Europe on 13 October 2010). I understood them to be the basis of discussion about whether a move is a good idea or not. Both sides of the discussion should be noted, and in neutral terms. Daicaregos ( talk) 09:45, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
Is bordering ridiculous, not nessecarily because of the content, but I estimate least 6 x A4 pages with the actual information on how to make a simple, unproblematic page move request buried somewhere, in the middle, in the smallest section. I had to search the forest for that tree. It caused me to go and complain to someone else that they weren't doing something right. This is a page of requested moves. This is not a compendium of guidelines on requesting page moves, or is it? I might try to shuffle it around and move most of it to a subpage in a manner that nothing is left out, but the simple and important bits, such as posting here not being the way to request a page move!, become the prime feature. Maybe I wont, there seems from this to be so many related guidelines, and at least one obvious mistake I noticed, that there might be a bit of a mess or instruction creep going on that I don't have much of a knowledge on. ~ R. T. G 19:58, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
Yesterday I successfully corrected a number of improperly capitalized article titles via "move". Today when I tried to address the stylization for a song, ALL CAPS by MF Doom, I was met with a "The page could not be moved" message. That's strange, because I had no issue altering case yesterday. For some reason Wikipedia did mind the redundant (but not actually) alteration today. I foolishly attempted a workaround by creating ALLCAPS with the idea I'd just change it to the final title in a second move, but please look at what happened. Please also tell me if this discussion page is not a normal means of requesting such things. Pixel Eater ( talk) 23:53, 23 October 2010 (UTC)
Of probable interest to all closers and regular participants in WP:RM discussions, the significance of page view counts in determining primary topic is at issue in this (precedent setting?) reversal decision which is discussed here and at this ANI. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 00:50, 28 October 2010 (UTC)
This move looks questionable. Look into the close on the Talk:Jessica_(entertainer)#Move.3F as there are many other pages with last names in the title of the article please see Nicole Jung, Park Ji-yeon and Krystal Jung for examples. Jessica Jung's Wikipedia article refers to her as Jessica Jung several times already. It doesn't make sense seeing as her full stage name is Jessica Jung, especially when her own article addresses her as so. 94.46.3.202 ( talk) 09:45, 28 October 2010 (UTC)
Traditionally, there seems to usually be a bias in favor of keeping an article where it is, especially when it's been there for a long time. That is, in a proposal to move an article, unless it can be shown that there is consensus to move the article, the article is not moved. This means those who support a move have the burden to show it should be moved.
However, it is my understanding that this burden is reversed in situations where primary topic is in question. That is, regardless of whether the discussion is about moving an article to or from a disambiguated plain name, the article should end up at the plain name only if it is shown that it is the primary topic for that name.
So, if the discussion is about an article that is already at a plain disambiguated name, and even if it has been there for years or even forever, unless it is shown that the article is the primary topic, it should be moved.
Anyway, this has been my understanding and how I've been making close decisions. For example, at Talk:Stockman (Australia), I found no consensus that that topic was primary, so found consensus in favor of moving that article away from the plain undisambiguated name at Stockman, despite the majority of those participating favoring no move. That decision was challenged, and it was supported by an uninvolved admin here. So, I recently found similarly at Talk:Cambridge, but that decision was reversed. I've tried to discuss this with that admin, but that discussion is not productive.
So, is there consensus among RM closing admins than in decisions where primary topic determination is at issue that those claiming primary topic have the burden regardless of which direction -- to or away from the plain disambiguated name -- the move is proposed? Or is the burden always on those in favor of the move? Regardless, where can we clarify this point in the guidelines? -- Born2cycle ( talk) 21:52, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
Yes, it's true that we don't have a definitive objective way to determine primary topic, so that's ultimately subjective too, but generally "is it the primary topic?" is a question that can be answered much more objectively than can "should this or that be the name of this article"?
In the end, if there is no clear consensus on whether a given use is the primary topic for some term, then I believe it's much more likely that it's not the primary topic than it is, and pages should be placed accordingly, regardless of status quo. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 18:40, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
In other words, if there are significant numbers who believe there are topics sufficiently likely to be sought with that term for the topic in question to not be primary, I think it's much more likely to be true than not. That is, I would expect a high correlation between people thinking that a given topic is not primary for the term in question and users not being much more likely to be looking for that topic rather than any other when searching with that term. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 20:16, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
It's worth noting that this issue is also relevant at Talk:New York, where, again, I think it's quite obvious that there is no primary topic and so the dab page should be at New York, regardless of whether there is a clear consensus specifically to move among those participating.
Another closely related issue is relevant there, that being the relevance of a "competing" use being at a disambiguated title already. Here it's argued that the city being at New York City somehow reduces its "claim" on New York and so leaves New York free to be used by the state. Similar arguments have been made about English cities like Plymouth and Cambridge because the "competition" in the U.S. is disambiguated (by state). However, it seems obvious to me that Being at a certain title does not reduce a topic's "claim" to being a competing (or even primary) use for another name used to refer to it. In fact, every time we redirect a name to an article we're saying the topic of that article is primary for that redirected name as well as for the name that is its title. Primary topic determination is, or should be, independent of which article happens to be using which name for its title. Primary topic determination is about how often that name is used to refer to the topic in question vs. other uses, and that has nothing to do with how Wikipedia articles happened to be named. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 21:48, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
I understand your concern about giving too much power to those who reject the concept of the primary topic, but remember we're only talking about cases in which there is "no consensus" about the topic being primary, meaning that a significant number believe other uses are sufficiently important/popular to prevent the main use from being primary.
As far as the city being the primary topic for the name New York, consider that New York gets over 450,000 hits per month. Are some of those intended for the city rather than the state? Probably, but note that California gets over 550,000 and Pennsylvania and Texas got 270k and 350k respectively. No matter how you slice it, the state is good for a few hundred thousand intentional hits per month. No matter how popular a particular use is, I don't see how it could be primary if there is another use of the same name that gets hundreds of thousands of page hits per month. How you could say that readers entering New York in the Search box are much more likely to be looking for the city rather than the state, which of course is the definition of primary topic? At any rate, I contend that if there are enough people like me who believe that the state is sufficiently popular for there to be no primary topic such that no consensus is established on the question of whether there is a primary topic, that we should err on the side of putting the dab page at the name. Why should it matter whether the name previously redirected to the city or was the dab page? If what it was in the past doesn't matter, then why give preference to status quo? -- Born2cycle ( talk) 17:35, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
So it appears that consensus is that:
Personally, I think this favors status quo in a way that is detrimental to Wikipedia, especially considering, as PBS noted, that change is favored over maintaining status quo with respect to the vast majority of moves (which are "uncontroversial"). That is, as long as no one notices and cares, editors can move around articles all they want, and, that, ultimately, establishes the status quo that requires consensus to change, even when an article is at a plain name and there is no consensus that it is the primary topic. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 23:33, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
Coan should be changed to Coen.
Is the discussion at Talk:Nelly 5.0#Requested move ready for closure/action? -- Lil_℧niquℇ №1 | talk2me 01:28, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
FYI, I've created a Toolserver report that groups mainspace page moves for the last day, week, or month by user. This was inspired by User:Schwyz/ TigreTiger/ Tobias Conradi/etc., etc. who has been using socks for years to perform literally thousands of ill-considered, undiscussed moves. The tool has already helped us catch a couple more of his socks and I believe is forcing him to behave. Anyways, if anyone is interested, here it is: http://toolserver.org/~jason/mv/move_stats.php -- JaGa talk 00:24, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
Unless this is adequately addressed, the entire move operation is going to be completely botched. __ meco ( talk) 09:24, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
{{movereq|multiple=yes |current1=Challenger Financial Services|new1=Challenger Limited}}
Challenger Financial Services → Challenger Limited — Company has changed its name. 202.92.123.163 ( talk) 00:53, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
Can someone please close this?
Also, shouldn't there be a procedure for requesting a close? e.g. if after 7 days a request is uncontested or consensus is reached but the move still requires an admin. Perhaps moving to uncontroversial requests or adding a flag to entries in the backlog list. This would probably help cut down on the backlog considerably. OzW ( talk) 21:05, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
Please see Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#WP:Requested merge. Reh man 06:48, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
My move proposal involves 40 articles. When I first set up a multi-move template I listed all 40, but when I did a "show preview" it listed only the first 20, so I broke it up into two proposals of 20 each:
There seem to be two bugs:
So, it looks like the template supports up to 20 entries, but the bot ignores everything after the 10th entry. Or, did I do something wrong? Thanks. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 20:13, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
I followed the instructions as best I could, but there's eight sections here instead of one, for the eight times I used "current1" for the talkpage each item was on; don't know how to clean that up, please advise. Skookum1 ( talk) 05:38, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
==Move discussion in progress==
There is a move discussion in progress on [[Talk:Name of first article#Requested move|Talk:Name of first article]] which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you.--RM bot, Time stamp
I have remove the entries from seven of the eight. RM Bot should now do the listing. Cheers.-- Fuhghettaboutit ( talk) 14:41, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
Currently, RM bot ( talk · contribs) automatically notifies the talk pages of articles that are included in a multimove discussion, which is a great feature. However, since the edits are marked as bot edits, they don't show up by default on watchlists, which kind of defeats the purpose of posting notifications. Wouldn't it make more sense for the notifications to be posted by a non-flagged bot? Would that be allowed by the bot policy? Obviously it would be more useful if the notifications would show up on the watchlists of people who are involved with the article. Jafeluv ( talk) 08:54, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
While we're talking about multimoves... I should note that it really only works 100% for up to 9 (not 10) items in a list. No notification is made on the talk page of the 10th item on the list, or any beyond that. While I agree there is no reason to support lists of unlimited length, I would like to see it work for at least 40, ideally up to 100. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 17:01, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
Hello. I've been following with some interest the three parallel discussions at the pages of Messrs. Wałęsa, Schröder and Mitterrand. It's this issue of diacritics in personal names, and to a lesser extent in place names. Anyone who is a regular knows that WP:DIACRITIC is an oft-cited and oft-disagreed-with bit of project-space, whatever its status (I have to assume: guideline?).
We've seen this discussion played out time and time again in every human language. Can't we somehow settle it in a general setting, and avoid most if not all of the repetitive arguments? This is all subject of course to the fact that things change, and who knows where we'll be next year? All of that granted, the following proposal is, I hope, not too short on, ah, usefulness.
Suggestion - Let's add optional flags to the RM banner in which people can specify that the move belongs to a certain general class of requests. Flags I imagine would look like: diacritics=yes, trademark=yes, official-name=yes, use-english=yes, etc. Things would keep on working as usual, but after some time, if someone wants to look at the last six months of moves dealing with performers' stage names, they could just call that up in the category structure.
What do people think? - GTBacchus( talk) 05:55, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
While I hope I haven't been forgotten, I've been away from this page (and the rest of Wikipedia) for about a year. I've noticed that the backlog is extensive, and I'm anticipating having some time to help out beginning around the middle of next month. I'd appreciate hearing about what has changed procedurally here over the intervening period and whether there are any new trends that have developed--or resolutions that have been adopted--as regards finding consensus, moving disambiguation pages, using macrons, et cetera. If you have the time, I'd appreciate hearing from the RM crowd so hat I don't muddle everything up when I come back. Could you jot down a few notes here or on my talk page? Thanks in advance! Dekimasu よ! 07:14, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
Am I actually answering your question, or simply venting? Who can say...? - GTBacchus( talk) 00:10, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
Logistics at the Battle of Pusan Perimeter just showed up for an A-class review. Logistics is, roughly, the management of personnel and materiel. I'm leaning toward a recommendation of "in" instead of "at" or "of"; thoughts? - Dank ( push to talk) 15:17, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
Why won't the bot pick up the timestamp from the move request at Talk:Loose candy? I can't make it work. :/ - GTBacchus( talk) 21:35, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
What on earth is going on here [3]? Personally I think the mosaic meaning might be primary, but these moves just seem to be floundering around. Johnbod ( talk) 19:54, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
I closed these two requests, but the bot won't delist them. What's up? - GTBacchus( talk) 06:54, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
Yes, RMbot appears to be down. The test message I added at the bottom of the backlog section 20 minutes ago is not yet cleared out. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 07:28, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
Wouldn't it be better to just point users to {{
db-move|page to be moved here|reason for move}}
instead of having a duplicate list?
Marcus
Qwertyus
09:16, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
Page was moved from Rosemarie von Trapp, and for some reason is was considered uncontroversial. I have a real problem with this, for the following reasons:
I request that the article be returned to its proper name pending some real proof. I think we are aiding in perpetrating a hoax. MSJapan ( talk) 07:39, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
Ok, we've got a live example. There's a request to move Security Now back to Security Now!. It was moved on December 23, not quite unilaterally, but by placing a request in our "Uncontroversial moves" section. Everyone agrees that the uncontroversial move was requested and completed in good faith, but now we see that it's not uncontroversial. In the discussion, one editor has requested: "Unless the closer sees consensus to leave the title alone, I request that the closer move the page back to the original title. In other words, please default to move in the absence of consensus."
So, this is a bit like what we were talking about the other week. If there's not a positive consensus for the new title, nor for the old one, should the move be reverted? It wasn't reverted prior to the discussion, as BRD might have it, and that didn't seem to bother anyone. However, the question is what to do now? My take is that, since there's not a clear consensus in either direction, then we should go with the title for which the better arguments have been offered. Any other thoughts? - GTBacchus( talk) 16:57, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
Technical question this time - is there any reason why the {{ RM top}} and {{ RM bottom}} templates (used when closing move requests) need to be subst'ed, as is recommended? Couldn't we just transclude them? That would save some typing and keep the resulting wikitext neater.-- Kotniski ( talk) 10:18, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
We also transclude templates, such as nav-boxes, when we want to be able to update them all at once. Again, there's no reason that every {{ RM top}} template has to look like the latest version.
Does that answer your question? - GTBacchus( talk) 23:25, 25 December 2010 (UTC)
See Talk:Halifax,_West_Yorkshire#Requested_move_2010, as what does "no consensus" mean, when a consensus is clear, but it is still closed "no consensus". 65.94.232.153 ( talk) 06:48, 24 December 2010 (UTC)
Moves are different from deletions, where we need a consensus to delete, and "no consensus" means "keep". That situation is very asymmetric, whereas moves are symmetric: whatever is decided, the article stays on Wikipedia, and it has some title. Therefore, it's about choosing the best one, and sometimes you can't get a consensus for one. We still go with whichever is best. - GTBacchus( talk) 23:29, 25 December 2010 (UTC)
Can someone close, please? It's going on two months, and this is the oldest request in the back log. Two editors have noted that Mandarin and Standard Chinese are equally valid as a name, which is true enough (though only Standard Chinese is unambiguous, as Mandarin is commonly used for Northern Chinese), but they never actually argued for moving to Mandarin instead of Standard Chinese. Regardless, there is not a single cogent argument for keeping the article where it is now, just votes for unstated reasons and false claims that Mandarin isn't the standard language of China. — kwami ( talk) 23:42, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
Proposal 1:
I suggest that RMbot add talk page notices to all pages of a multimove, since many editors screw up the multimove template, making RMbot place notices on the page where the discussion is taking place, and not place it on one of the other pages. If all pages are equally notified, then none will be left out. 65.93.14.196 ( talk) 03:47, 16 January 2011 (UTC)
Proposal 2:
I suggest that RMbot place a {{ movenotice}} banner at the top of the section of the talk page notice that it automatically adds to talk pages for multimoves, for added visibility, and remove it when the corresponding RM section template is removed, to indicate that the discussion indicated by the RMbot notice is no longer active. 65.93.14.196 ( talk) 03:47, 16 January 2011 (UTC)
Proposal 3:
As requested splits and mergers both use article page templates, I suggest that RMbot place articlepage {{ movenotice}}'s as well, this would better inform the community that something is happening, and RM's last much shorter periods than splits or mergers anyways (which seem to stay on article pages for months on end), to gain a better consensus. 65.93.14.196 ( talk) 03:47, 16 January 2011 (UTC)
Proposal 4:
Also, add a talk page notice to the target's talk page when the target of a move request (and multimoves) is not a redirect, so people there know someone wants to overwrite the article with another one. If the target is a redirect, then add the notice to the talk page of the article the redirect points to.
If it is not possible/easy to program it to process redirects, then go ahead and add notices to redirect talk pages.
65.93.14.196 ( talk) 13:07, 16 January 2011 (UTC)
When you request a move that requires a disambiguation page to be moved as well, should that be posted as a single or multiple page move request? I have seen it done both ways. With the single move request the other move is usually just part of the explanation. – CWenger ( talk) 05:16, 21 January 2011 (UTC)
I'm somewhat confused about when to use {{ move}} and when to use {{ movenotice}}. After seeing the size of the backlog here, and not wanting to make it worse, I've been using the movenotice template, and it has been successful. After all, most situations don't need community-wide support, but that's not to say they would be unopposed. The advice on this page seems to indicate that if you think anyone might oppose the move, then list it here.. that doesn't seem like good advice, does it? I think encouraging the use of {{ movenotice}} to get feedback first is probably good advice; then if no consensus is reached there, they can bring the issue here.
Or maybe I'm misunderstanding the intended uses of these templates? Mlm42 ( talk) 22:45, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
I would discourage skipping the RM process for any potentially controversial move. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 05:26, 16 January 2011 (UTC)
There are users who have strongly held opinions about article names, views which likely prevent them from evaluating move discussions neutrally. I suggest that we add a few words to cover that situation as well. Perhaps something like "...they participated in or about which they cannot act neutrally except if..." Will Beback talk 23:53, 20 January 2011 (UTC)
But my involvement with royalty names has been nil, especially five months ago and earlier. For example, if you search for "born2cycle" in the archives at WT:NCROY, you won't find me. I'm not sure if I ever participated in a royalty related RM discussion prior to when I made that decision about Juan Carlos I. So I suggest you would have to make the criteria pretty restrictive before it would have applied to me in that case. Basically, you would have to exclude anyone who shows an interest in naming conventions. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 07:39, 21 January 2011 (UTC)
Here is the WP:SNOW close I referred to: Talk:Acetylene#Move.3F. I did close that early (after one day), but it had nothing to do with my alleged bias about naming - unless you think requiring proposals to give reasons for the move is a problem. Wasn't it good to get this off the radar? If there was a legitimate reason for the move (which I later realized might be the case), wouldn't it be better if the proposal was resubmitted with that reason specified? Here are some others I did recently (not cherry picked, these are the last 5, including Acetylene, that I've closed):
See any problems there? Would WP be better off if I was not helping with WP:RM backlog in this way? -- Born2cycle ( talk) 18:52, 21 January 2011 (UTC)
I'm not sure that the proposed language is specific enough to be meaningful. If the concern is editors who close RMs when they've expressed opinions, why not say that? Something like "...participated in, or which concerns a topic (whether of substance or policy) about which they have expressed an opinion in the last six months except if..." might work. Of course, if the concern is solely Born2cycle, couldn't that be taken up in a different forum? Dohn joe ( talk) 01:33, 22 January 2011 (UTC)
With no backlog, why is the page still tagged as having a backlog? Vegaswikian ( talk) 19:37, 23 January 2011 (UTC)
$wprm = str_replace("{{adminbacklog|bot=RM bot}}", "{{adminbacklog|bot=RM bot|disabled=yes}}", $wprm);
Well if you do want to re-add it it's a simple change to the bot - just ask harej to change the bot at the same time. Dpmuk ( talk) 10:37, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
I think I closed something like 40 to 50 requests in and around the weekend. Hope we can keep the backlog empty, at least for a while. Deacon of Pndapetzim ( Talk) 12:01, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
People (especially any passing admin) may want to check this AN/I thread about what we do about the RMs started by this banned user. There is some disagreement on one of the RM discussions and I think it could do with a neutral admin taking a look. Dpmuk ( talk) 11:02, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
This seems to happen from time to time - someone boldly moves an article (sometimes "not realizing" that the title is or has been the subject of discussion), and then tampers with the resulting redirect (with the "accidental" effect that it's impossible for other editors, if not admins, to revert the bold move). To prevent anarchy, and to avoid giving admins (or just the consensus-immune) more power than ordinary editors, can we ensure that anyone is effectively able to perform the "R" step of BRD in this situation - by allowing requests to undo such unilateral moves to be listed as "uncontroversial"? -- Kotniski ( talk) 17:22, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
I feel strongly that we should not reverse unilateral moves. It adds moves to the history without any content-based reason. I'm not worried about "rewarding" anything, because we don't function on reward-and-punishment; we're single-minded about providing a quality encyclopedia.
I would note that moves are not like deletions, in the sense that "no consensus" means "no move". In the case of titling, the title has got to be something, and we try to find the best possible title. There is no reason that this should require undoing bold moves. If people are upset about a bold move, that's all the more reason for them to contribute to the discussion in a constructive manner.
Lots of people seem to work with the assumption that bold moves should be reverted as a prerequisite to having discussion. This is a lawyerly impulse that we should discourage in the strongest possible terms. - GTBacchus( talk) 18:14, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
In my experience closing moves, "no consensus" does not always mean no move. There's not always a consensus for any particular choice, but one is determined to be "best" in some way, and we move there.
People trying to "get their way" can be dealt with in the usual manner. I see no argument for purely procedural reversal of unilateral moves. - GTBacchus( talk) 18:38, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
Regarding moves, I can't agree that BRD is our culture when it's clearly impossible in many scenarios. Our culture regarding unilateral moves is for some people to ask for a reversal of the move prior to discussion, and for others to disagree. That's the culture I've observed. - GTBacchus( talk) 19:00, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
But anyway, this serves to show that it's already possible to use the uncontroversial moves mechanism for reverting controversial unilateral moves, at least in some cases.
Currently, the Uncontroversial Requests section starts with the following statement:
Having read the above, I still strongly disagree with the proposal, in any form presented here. Automatically reversing unilateral moves makes us more bureaucratic and officious, and does not improve the encyclopedia. It sends the message that we're somehow rule-bound, and that we care about doing things "by the book". This flies in the face of our fundamental, foundational policy: Ignore all rules. Reverting a move, just because the consensus wasn't clear yet, smacks of some kind of Robert's Rules of Order mentality, and I oppose it from the bottom of my soul.
The proper way to handle these situations is to note in the discussion what happened, and then let people come to consensus about the title. Until that consensus is clear, we shouldn't move it anymore, not even to revert someone else's move. Reverting is edit-warring. The zero-revert rule is an example of Best Practice, and we should exemplify it.
It would be fine to decide that the presumption, if no consensus is determined, is to move back to the original title at the end of the discussion, but I cannot support automatically reverting a move to a title that we may move it right back to a few days later. When that happens, we all lose. - GTBacchus( talk) 23:21, 25 December 2010 (UTC)
Regarding 0RR, it's what I abide by, and I find it best. I can efficiently defend the status quo, when that's called for. Why not try it yourself? If your experience is anything like mine, you'll find it a stronger position than any other. Negative changes can be dealt with in many ways; reverting is best in the case of clear vandalism.
I accept your clarification about "automatic reversal", and I still oppose the proposal. I do not think that we should encourage any type of page move until we know there is sufficient support for it. That includes reversals of moves for which there is no sufficient support.
These "move warriors" will be discouraged just as well if they're reverted at the end of a week. There is no need for the revert of a bad move to happen before the discussion runs its course, and I see no argument here for such haste. Why not let the discussion occur before performing any more moves? - GTBacchus( talk) 18:53, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
By the way, if we are not governed by rules, then we are governed by whim. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 21:16, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
If you think we're governed by rules, then WP:5P and WP:IAR need updating. Rules are anathema to Wikipedia.
In reply to the rest of your post, see below. - GTBacchus( talk) 23:00, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
I'm not proposing that bad moves sit for a couple of weeks. I'm proposing that they be dealt with at a common-sense pace, where we get to the point and get the title fixed after determining which name is best. When it takes a couple of weeks to do that, neither title is clearly bad. If one title is clearly bad, it doesn't take two weeks to determine that. - GTBacchus( talk) 19:40, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
Only you can prevent revert wars.
harej
19:22, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
I'd say consensus is achieved in favor of Kotniski's proposal, which is good, because it's already there. This is from the "Uncontroversial" section:
So... should we bold a section to make it more prominent? Or do a rewrite? -- JaGa talk 03:00, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
To clarify: this is my counter-proposal: If someone unilaterally moves a page without consensus, when the move is controversial, then after the completion of the RM discussion, if no other consensus is arrived at, it is reasonable to revert to the previously stable title. The important difference is that I think we should wait for the discussion to run its course, rather than reverting while it's still going on. - GTBacchus( talk) 19:10, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
If there isn't an RM discussion, then whoever disagrees with the move can do the following:
By the way, I'm bothered by something you wrote above: "It sends the message that we're somehow rule-bound, and that we care about doing things 'by the book'. This flies in the face of our fundamental, foundational policy: Ignore all rules. Reverting a move, just because the consensus wasn't clear yet, smacks of some kind of Robert's Rules of Order mentality, and I oppose it from the bottom of my soul." WP:IAR is not, literally, "ignore all rules" (which would mean there is no point to having any rules, which is clearly not the case at WP). WP:IAR does mean to go ahead and ignore rules when there is a good reason to do so. But that just recognizes that rules are inherently flawed and sometimes contradict each other, especially when they move away from being general principles to being specific and precise. By no means should WP:IAR be interpreted to mean that we don't care about following the rules. We do encourage doing things "by the book", just not to the point of absurdity, or when doing so is contrary to making the encyclopedia better.
But what's most relevant here is that controversial issues are discussed and decided by WP:consensus, and that consensus is then reflected in the rules (policy, guidelines, conventions, and sometimes even essays). Consensus is not what any small group of editors that happen to be involved in one particular discussion decide. That's why we're supposed to give arguments that are based in the rules more weight than mere expressions of opinion are given... it's about which argument reflects the consensus of the overall community best. That's why we're so supposed to publicize proposed moves at WP:RM - to ensure that arguments based on community consensus are likely to be represented in the comments.
Kotniski's proposal is not about following the rules for the sake of following the rules. It's about following the rules to encourage behavior that is consistent with community consensus. It's about following the rules so that behavior that is likely to result in changes contrary to community consensus is discouraged. It's about encouraging respect for, and compliance with, community consensus.
No one should move a page unilaterally if there is any question that it might be against community consensus to move it. The mere challenge of such a move is therefore evidence that it should never have been moved in the first place. We should have a system in place that makes this more clear, not less clear. Kotniski's proposal does the former, this counter-proposal does the latter. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 00:28, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
You needn't link policy to me; linking the same policy twice is actually insulting; please don't do it. If someone moves a page unilaterally, and it's a bad move, then it will be reversed, under my proposal as well as under the other one. You have not explained what's wrong with the model I've presented. Why is a reversal after a few days less of a deterrent than a swifter one? Nobody has answered this.
I agree 100% that controversial, unilateral moves are a bad idea. I just favor a more patient reversion of this bad idea. What's wrong with more patience?
Reversing a unilateral move after a few days in no way encourages unilateral moves. It ensures that they don't stick; what further deterrent is necessary? If they lose, they lose, no? - GTBacchus( talk) 08:44, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
Perhaps it would help to talk about specific cases? We might be advocating nearly the same thing, and seeming to disagree because of the way we phrase it.
What I oppose is this: There's an RM discussion in progress, someone goes ahead and moves the page, and then people say it has to be restored to the previous title as a pre-condition for further discussion. I've seen this happen, and I think it's wrong. If the new title is clearly wrong, then that's clear, and we fix it right away. If the new title is possibly good, then we don't have to move the article back in order to keep talking.
Do you agree? - GTBacchus( talk) 19:40, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
Yes, in the particular context of an ongoing WP:RM discussion I do think a unilateral move is confusing and should usually be reversed. But even for that there can be exceptions. Someone might unilaterally move stable A to controversial B and then, minutes later, in an apparent move to "protect" or hide the move from A, propose a move of B to C. Unlikely? It happened at Carmel-by-the-Sea just the other day. In such a case, I support moving B back to stable A and changing the proposal to be A to C (or A to B).
I agree that even a few days could be problematic and enough to encourage undesirable behavior. And, again, in the current climate, just a few days is unlikely. Look at the backlog. Even ignoring the current backlog, the minimum time before an RM discussion is closed is usually a week.
Speaking of unilateral moves, I normally don't engage in them, but yesterday I noticed someone moved an article to make it consistent with a convention, I noticed three more, and moved them too. One of those three was reverted, and, so, I chose to initiate an RM discussion. If my move could not have been reverted by a non-admin, Kotniski's proposal would have allowed that person to ask for a revert by proxy, and it would have been granted, and rightfully so. I didn't know it was a controversial move, but it turned out to be, and, so, it should not have been moved in the first place. An honest mistake, to be sure, but still, it's better that it be reverted and the burden remain on me to decide whether to make an RM proposal and all that entails (the involvement of many others), rather than shift it to someone else. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 15:55, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
Here is a situation which could be dealt with the mechanism that Kotniski proposes: Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Page_moves_and_subsequent_abusive_move_protections_by_Ruud_Koot But since we currently don't have that mechanism, an ANI is filed instead. Isn't that overkill? Wouldn't a non-controversial revert be better? -- Born2cycle ( talk) 22:19, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
There is nothing wrong with discussion, but as long as the goal is swift consequences for undesirable behavior in order to discourage that type of behavior, requiring discussion before executing the revert is counter-productive in terms of making reverting of unilateral moves an effective consequence. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 02:25, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
If the mover refuses to revert despite discussion... that would come down to individual cases. If they refuse to discuss, then they have an incredibly weak position, and that's easy to overrule. If they do discuss, and they have actual points to make, then it's not clear that the move needs quick reverting. I still haven't seen an example of a case where the proposal made here is necessary or helpful. Until I see one of those, there no chance that I'll support what's proposed here. These examples should be easy to produce, if it's a real problem. Otherwise, I see this as pure bureaucratic instruction-creep. - GTBacchus( talk) 06:15, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
But I suspect by "clearly wrong" you mean something other than "unilateral without discussion"; I presume you mean the new location is "clearly wrong" for that article without regard to how it got there. In that case, yeah, if the new location is "clearly wrong" it's not so hard to get the move reverted, but how often does that often?
The problem is that with few exceptions there is no way to objectively determine whether a given title is "right" or "wrong" - we make these determinations by consensus. For example, the underlying issue about the rightness or wrongness of a given title often hinges on whether a topic is the primary use of that title. Yet primary topic is defined to be determined by discussion. Therefore, without discussion, there is no way to determine if a given title in such a case is "clearly wrong". And it's really no different in cases that don't involve primary topic determination.
Now, in the extreme case of Al-Kindi today the move was reverted, but that's mostly because it involved abuse of admin powers (a process issue). Though the edit summary for the revert refers to "English common name" as justification, the title it held temporarily is arguably correct - that is, this title, like new titles in most moves, was not "clearly wrong". Yet the move was "clearly wrong" and it was right to revert it, and the revert would have been just as right even if no admin power abuse was involved here, simply because the original move today was a unilateral move that was potentially controversial and done without discussion... that's why it was "clearly wrong", not because Yaʿqūb ibn Isḥāq al-Kindī as the title of that article is "clearly wrong". Yet it probably would have been difficult to get it reverted had the admin powers not been abused.
So, I have to disagree about it currently not being so hard to revert a move that is "clearly wrong", unless the new title is "clearly wrong", which is very rare. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 07:32, 29 December 2010 (UTC)