- Hillary Rodham Clinton (talk|edit|history|logs|links|archive|watch) (RM)
Regarding the recent requested move (RM) at Hillary Rodham Clinton;
Background
On March 30, 2014, it was proposed that Hillary Rodham Clinton be moved to Hillary Clinton.[4] After the minimum one week period, on April 7, the discussion was suspended,[5] so a panel (User:TParis, User:Adjwilley, and User:BrownHairedGirl) could determine whether there was a consensus. On April 21, the panel declared no consensus.[6]
Complaint
The editors filing this move review assert that the panel's finding of "no consensus" in this RM was in error. Based on the RM discussion, consensus in favor of the move should have been recognized per WP:RMCI#Determining consensus. The panel's closing and other statements indicates that panel both failed to recognize consensus among respondents to the RM and failed to adequately assign due weight to the arguments presented.
Disregard of participant preference
In a somewhat rare case of general agreement among the participants in a requested move on a high profile aritcle, a large majority of respondents supported the proposed move. According to the panel's own analysis a full 70% favored the move.
The panel aptly noted that WP:COMMONAME was the rationale cited by a large number of supporters of the move. Again, according to the panel's own analysis, of participants who used WP:COMMONNAME as a rationale for their position, approximately 90% favored the move.
In closing, the panel failed to even acknowledge the high level of support the request move had garnered, instead saying merely that it was not the panel's role to "count heads". More remarkably, in considering the WP:COMMONNAME rationale, the panel seemingly ignored the virtual unamity pointing to WP:COMMONNAME favoring the move and instead applied their own unique interpretation of the policy to claim that WP:COMMONAME arguments had lost "much of their strength".
While closers are bound to measure the strength of arguments, they are also bound to give due deference to any obvious consensus formed. The closing in this instance failed to give due deference to an obvious consensus.
Failure to adequately evaluate and provide due weight to presented arguments and applicable policy
The panel failed to appropriately assign due weight in five key areas.
- a) insufficient weight given to WP:CRITERIA analysis
- A number of editors pointed to "Hillary Clinton" being the more recognizable, natural, precise, concise, and consistent" title, most notably in the detailed analysis presented by Obi-Wan Kenobi.[7] Accordingly, WP:CRITERIA should have lent substantial weight in favor of the proposal. The closing panel apparently ignored WP:CRITERIA in their analysis, as they neglected to mention such analysis at all in their closing statement.
- b) insufficient weight given to WP:CONCISE argument
- Again, according to the panel's own analysis, a remarkable 9 out of 9 editors who cited WP:CONCISE argued that the policy supported the use of the name "Hillary Clinton". Despite this, the panel decided that "the CONCISE argument did not receive an amount of support that would indicate a clear consensus". They went on to say that there were "many valid counter examples of articles where we (correctly) use less concise titles, including articles about royalty, several U.S. presidents, laws, etc." The panel erred in ignoring or overlooking the counterpoint that in each of those "counter examples" there were strong CRITERIA/policy based reasons (like consistency with similar titles) to use the longer names, and that there were no strong CRITERIA/policy reasons favoring the longer name in this case. The panel was swayed by "counter examples" that were not that at all.
- c) undue weight given to "quality" RS argument in relation to WP:COMMONNAME
- In disregarding the aforementioned consensus around the COMMONNAME argument, the panel's rationale (i.e. that there was "a split in the sources" and this was "not a name change case") was far from adequate to override participant preference in this case.
- The panel relied on an arbitrary split of reliable sources into two groups and declared HRC was used more commonly in one of those groups. No basis in policy or convention was provided for even making such a split, and the strong evidence that HC was used more commonly in all reliable sources, which is what COMMONNAME calls for considering, was disregarded without explanation.
- The panel also unduly discounted usage in more recent sources on the mistaken belief that because COMMONNAME explicitly states more recent sources should be given more weight in the specific case of name changes, and should not be given more weight in other cases. This position flies in the face of WP:COMMONSENSE and convention. The point of COMMONNAME is to determine which name is most commonly used, not which name was most commonly used. COMMONNAME determinations often hinge on giving more weight to recent sources, because more recent usage drives user expectations.
- Neither policy nor participant preference indicated that the argument that "Hillary Rodham Clinton" was more commonly used among "higher quality" sources, yet the panel indicated this one of the two "strong" arguments that swayed them towards "no consensus". It is striking that support arguments based in policy and having 9 explicit supports were insufficient to sway the panel, while for oppose arguments, a novel argument not based in policy, convention or evidence, and being mentioned by only two editors was enough to make it "strong". Normally, for a novel creative argument like this to be given serious consideration, a majority of participants would have to support it.
- d) undue weight given to WP:TITLECHANGES
- WP:TITLECHANGES discourages title changes when there is "no good reason to change it". WP:RM always has many examples of proposals based on much less than this one. To deny that COMMONNAME, CRITERIA, and conciseness are good reasons to change a title is to completely ignore the reality of title changes on WP. To give any weight to TITLECHANGES here required totally dismissing all of the good reasons favored by the majority of the participants involved in the discussion.
- e) undue weight given to "past consensus" favoring HRC
- Per the record of all RM discussions regarding this title, the only case in which consensus was found was the one that found consensus in favor of Hillary Clinton.[8] The panel erred in thinking that Hillary Rodham Clinton was favored by "past consensus".
Conclusion
In deciding there was "no consensus" regarding this title, the panel made the following serious errors:
- Failed to duly consider the preferences of the participants, who clearly supported the move for good [policy-based] reasons per WP:COMMONNAME, WP:CRITERIA and WP:CONCISE
- Failed to reasonably evaluate the arguments which were based on WP:CRITERIA and WP:CONCISION with due consideration
- Assigned weights to the support arguments with a different scale (undue weight) than that used for the oppose arguments
- Failed to give due consideration to community consensus as reflected in WP:CRITERIA and WP:CONCISE
- Failed to give adequate consideration to both participant preferences and community consensus as demonstrated by the panel giving significant weight to the "quality sources" and WP:TITLECHANGES oppose arguments despite the former have no policy basis and very little participant support, and the latter being inapplicable since good reasons for the move were articulated by the participants.
- Mistakenly assumed that the current title has had consensus support in the past.
Accordingly, we seek that the panel's "no consensus" decision be overturned and the clear consensus to move to Hillary Clinton be recognized and executed accordingly.
- Responses
- Overturn - As nom. NickCT (talk) 18:47, 20 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse close as a clear no-consensus situation. Omnedon (talk) 18:57, 20 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse own close Title changes is clear "Changing one controversial title to another is strongly discouraged. If an article title has been stable for a long time, and there is no good reason to change it, it should not be changed." There is no good reason to change this, now.--v/r - TP 19:04, 20 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- @User:TParis, I believe that policy is a good argument to make among the participants in a requested move discussion, but is a very dangerous reason for an administrator to invoke in closing such a discussion. It has no boundaries, and could easily become a reason to decline any page move, no matter the consensus of the community. As administrators, we have to let the community be "wrong" when their views differ from our own. bd2412 T 19:29, 20 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- I don't have a view to differ from the community on, which is why I offered to close it. This isn't a matter of preventing a move because someone didn't like it. It's a matter of not moving a thing because the topic will continue to be brought up for move reviews. The COMMONNAME argument failed to actually support the argument with valid stats. Stats were cherry picked to show recentism, but the policy only supports recentism for major changes by the subject in their name.--v/r - TP 19:34, 20 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- I accept your neutrality on the matter. I am baffled, however, by the proposition that stats were "cherry picked to show recentism". I have studied this specific question more thoroughly than anyone reasonably should, and I don't think that there was more cherry picking on one side or the other. Sources going all the way back to the beginning of the subject's notability have predominately used the more concise form, and this trend has increased in recent years. Because of the sheer volume of publicity received by this subject, it's hard to demonstrate this in a way that does not allow the signal to be overwhelmed by anecdotal noise, but the evidence was presented. Moreover, there was a major change by the subject, in her most recent political campaign, which basically established her name on the widest possible scale. To say that the argument was not supported with valid stats is both myopic and quite frankly a bit insulting. bd2412 T 20:02, 20 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- The long term stats showed equal usage. You're analysis was heavily used, I even specifically linked to it in my own collection of relevant arguments user sub page. As far as a substantial change, there was no evidence that Hillary, rather than her election team, used the shorter version. In fact, Jimbo's personal emails would seem to suggest the latter and not the former.--v/r - TP 20:07, 20 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- What Hilary herself used is irrelevant, however, as subject preference is not part of titling policy,and COMMONNAME overwhelms that. I agree with BD2412, the fact that one of the closers thinks the COMMONNAME evidence was cherry picked is somewhat insulting.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 20:15, 20 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Perhaps we are getting too deep into the weeds here, but it seems unlikely that Jimbo's email was itself answered by the subject herself, as opposed to a member of her "team"; and it seems equally unlikely that the subject was a bystander when the decision was made how to prosecute the campaign. In any case, neither question matters, since the campaign established the subject's common name, irrespective of the email exchange. The fact that the latter is given any weight over the former is troubling, from an encyclopedic perspective. bd2412 T 20:17, 20 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- It's a bit over the top to be offended by a cherry-picking reference. Image is carefully crafted during elections. Using ballots or campaign literature as a majority indication of common name isn't more valid than stationery or official titles or personal preference or book author. The most recent uses are her Senate testimony and it is quite clear that HRC is her name on the paper and she personally isn't moving away from Rodham even if her campaign is simply "Hillary!". It's not a particularly convincing argument that a crafted campaign image is the common name appropriate for the encyclopedia. Her appearance and image in 1992 was nothing like her image after the election including the Arkansan accent that mysteriously disappeared. John F. Kennedy, for example had shorter names such as "Jack Kennedy." He was well known as "JFK." Most people can recall his middle name. What I found more convincing as her common name was the full use of "Rodham" when she was addressed, similar to "Martin Luther King." "John Kerry" is common, "John F. Kerry" is formal, "John Forbes Kerry" is full. There is no "Hillary R. Clinton" as there is with nearly every distinction between formal and common names, though. It's not compelling to me that one form is common while the other is not. Nor do we choose one particular form over another (see Kennedy vs. Kerry) in articles as some are more formal and others less so. Rather there is campaign material and personal use and public appearance as well as the peculiar use of the full name "Rodham" that all need to be weighed. Ignoring, even unintentionally, any piece in the presentation is indeed a form of cherry-picking and can be a valid conclusion in weighing evidence. It is not a slight to the person to view the data in that way. It's not an accusation of dishonesty and shouldn't be taken that way. The connection I make to Martin Luther King is that even though he is addressed as Dr. King or Reverend King or MLK. It's never Martin L. King. To the extent that "Rodham" is never shortened makes it much more of a common name attribute and it is not afoul of either the commonname or concise guidelines. Looking beyond campaigns and evaluating the entire scope and usage is broader than ballots almost by definition. --DHeyward (talk) 11:09, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- My pique is not related to the ballot issue, but to the body of evidence that I had been gathering for a future proposed move, which was barely noted here. I did a very thorough job in putting this together, and might have done much more if this anon move proposal had not short-circuited my efforts. bd2412 T 15:24, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse Close This move review request has no merit. Move reviews are supposed to be about process, not about re-arguing the closed discussion. In this case, the process was suggested at the beginning of the discussion by one of the chief proponents of the move: "In order to avoid any appearance of undue influence on the closing admin, a neutral and uninvolved three-administrator panel has been requested to close this discussion at the appropriate time." Three uninvolved administrators volunteered. Everyone involved in the discussion knew about the panel of three administrators, and no one raised any objection, either to the panel idea or to the individual admins who volunteered. According to the closing administrators,[9] after closure they independently reviewed the evidence, then compared notes and found that all three had come to the same conclusion. It's hard to imagine a more solid result. That was the outcome of a process which had been suggested by proponents of the move, and which was specifically designed so that the result would be stronger and more valid than a single person's opinion. But then when the panel announced their unanimous decision, and it wasn't the result the proponents had wanted, they rejected it and filed this MRV, which amounts to rearguing the closed discussion. IMO this MRV should be terminated with extreme trouting. --MelanieN (talk) 19:14, 20 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- @MelanieN: - Man..... If you're not scolding people, you're trout slapping them. Vindictive much? But seriously, I doubt you'd argue admins are infallible. Yet you seem to seem to be willing to posit that three admins are? NickCT (talk) 20:26, 20 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- @NickCT, Nobody said or thinks that admins are infallible - although three admins working as a team could be expected to be less fallible than one. But that's beside the point. The point at a move review is not "did the admin(s) make the right or wrong decision about what the article title ought to be?" It's "did they follow process properly in reaching their decision?" And clearly the answer to that is yes. --MelanieN (talk) 02:57, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- @MelanieN: "Rearguing the closed discussion"? Did you even read the basis for the move review? Are you aware of all the errors the panel has been alleged to have made? Without even giving a hint that you understand the issues being raised here, how much weight do you think your Endorse !vote should be given? --В²C ☎ 00:20, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- B2C, you're already becoming offensive. Stop it. Omnedon (talk) 00:57, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Sorry, but I'm being defensive. Claiming we're rearguing the closed discussion here is offensive. --В²C ☎ 01:02, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- You're clearly not sorry; and you are rearguing. But do not demean editors with whom you disagree. Omnedon (talk) 01:07, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Now you're being offensive too. I just asked four questions, defensively, rhetorically challenging her baseless and offensive claim (and now yours) that the discussion is being reargued here. You find it offensive because I said it. If it was anyone else, you wouldn't have said a thing. For example, you didn't feel the need to chastise NickCT for being offensive when he referred to Melanie as scolding, troutslapping and vindictive. Leave me alone. --В²C ☎ 01:38, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- B2C, you are attacking Melanie's intelligence. "Did you even read the move review?" "Without even giving a hint that you understand the issues..."? You've crossed the line and won't admit it. Tone it down, please. And as for NickCT, I've asked him to do the same thing in other discussions. Don't be so paranoid. Omnedon (talk) 01:43, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Thanks, Omnedon, but let it go. I feel no need to respond to B2C or to answer his questions. Let the discussion run. --MelanieN (talk) 02:57, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- I understand, but from my perspective B2C went too far to let it pass without comment. The discussion will run in any case. Omnedon (talk) 18:36, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn –
due to no consensus, the discussion should be reopened. Apparently, since WP:COMMONNAME warrants a move, with 70% support (which happens to be a higher ratio than in many elections, should Clinton run for president anytime soon, but that's another story)... Epicgenius (talk) 19:22, 20 May 2014 (UTC) (revised 00:01, 21 May 2014 (UTC))[reply]
- Overturn and move per nom. With that level of support, there needs to be a strong policy-based reason to ignore the majority, and I don't see one. (This assumes the majority has policy-based arguments instead of being an opinion-based mob, and I think we can all agree that was the case here.) --BDD (talk) 19:27, 20 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn - IMHO There was a clear consensus to move it. →Davey2010→→Talk to me!→ 19:30, 20 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse close I had originally voted to move, but the result was clear no-consensus as I see it per TP.I am One of Many (talk) 19:31, 20 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn. 70% being backed by strong evidence from WP:Commonname is a numerical and policy-based consensus that should not have been ignored. Dralwik|Have a Chat 19:32, 20 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn. There was a clear consensus that WP:COMMONNAME applies. You simply can't get a better guidelines-based consensus to move. Msnicki (talk) 19:35, 20 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn - The closers have ignored the consensus that was based on WP:COMMONNAME. GabeMc (talk|contribs) 19:38, 20 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn There was a clear consensus that WP:COMMONNAME, the closers did not take into account that a consensus was achieved in that regard. Cwobeel (talk) 19:39, 20 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn because it should be Hilary Clinton. I'm not going to spend all my time convincing those who disagree; its a pretty clear cut case. I wonder whether the press will ever pick up on this debate and report it, whereupon normal people will overwhelm the debate and the move will happen.--Milowent • hasspoken 19:48, 20 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse close. It was pretty likely that one side or the other in this case was going to dissent no matter which way the closure went (as the nominator agrees[10]); that's the way it sometimes goes with difficult rulings on complex and hotly-debated subjects, which this certainly was. However, there's no basis for overturning the closure. Convening a panel of these three neutral and uninvolved administrators to conduct it was something no one objected to, and was done to bring more consideration, experience, weight, and (hopefully) finality to it than a single editor likely could. The panel returned a unanimous ruling that gave due consideration to the many complex points raised in the debate, and whose rationale was clearly articulated. I see nothing to suggest the closure was careless, unreasonable, inappropriate, or inconsistent with Wikipedia's standards and practices, or that it ignored the divided views voiced by the discussion's many participants; the objections being raised now seem geared more toward rearguing specifics of the request than because of any actual aberration in the process. Put simply: reasonable points were raised both for and against the move, and while more !votes favored the move than opposed it, the panel's ruling was appropriate given the many relevant competing factors voiced in the debate, which the panelists clearly considered. Endorsed. ╠╣uw [talk] 19:49, 20 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse close Their analysis of the policy issues was solid. This is not a nose count, and neither title is disastrous. Time to move on. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 19:51, 20 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse - A very large Wall O' Text, tinkered and fine-tuned for a month by several editors, boils down to "I don't like it", and the "If an article title has been stable for a long time, and there is no good reason to change it, it should not be changed" aspect was never adequately challenged ("I have good reasons" is inadequate). In this project, administrators determine consensus and close discussions accordingly day in and day out. For the discussions that are going to be potentially thorny or controversial, we seek out three administrators to close as a panel, to mitigate the calls from the losing side of "supervote!", "you did it wrong!", and the like. If we have empowered a panel of three to close this discussion, and through their deliberations they found no policy-based consensus to rename the article, then that should be sufficient. Admins, even a group of them, are not infallible; but to support an overturn of a 3-panel close we'd have to see crystal-clear evidence of an egregious mistake or error in judgement. That is not what is presented here in this Move review, it is just a difference of opinion in how to interpret the projects rules. Therefore, the finding of no consensus is endorsed as within the purview of the administrators of the project. Tarc (talk) 19:54, 20 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse close. I voted for the move in the original discussion, but I can't fault the closers for their reading of the outcome, especially for their finding that the systematic split in the usage of reliable sources prevented the "commonname" argument from having more decisive weight. I'll also endorse as a matter of principle, to protest against the hugely overblown amount of energy and time that has been, and is being, invested in this whole enterprise (as evidenced by the sheer size of the review nomination above) and that is totally out of proportion with the real significance of the issue. Just drop the stick, people. Fut.Perf. ☼ 19:57, 20 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse close rationale was sound. In just about every article I have seen, subject's preference is used. Her official title on book covers etc. includes "Rodham". Putting this in as everyone seems to be quoting commonname. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 19:57, 20 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- @Casliber: - re "In just about every article I have seen, subject's preference is used" - What what?!? There's no policy suggesting preference is of any import. I don't think the closing panel even let the personal preference thing influence their decision. NickCT (talk) 20:33, 20 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse close – per MelanieN. This move review, and many commentators here, are fixated entirely on the merits of the move itself. This is not what a move review deal with. Move reviews deal with whether the closure was appropriate. Three independent administrators provided substantial evidence for why the move was closed as "no consensus". Their analysis was vigorous. Their closure should be endorsed, if only because they followed procedure to the letter, and did so in a manner which should be commended. Never have I before seen such a thorough analysis. The merits of the move itself are not to be questioned here. RGloucester — ☎ 20:03, 20 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn I had originally been neutral during the discussion, but I think WP:CONCISE very much applies here. As for WP:COMMONNAME, she is more often referred to these days as "Hillary Clinton" than "Hillary Rodham Clinton". The "support" votes had stronger arguments than the "oppose". XXSNUGGUMSXX (talk) 20:12, 20 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- overturn (nb: I helped draft the move review). The closure was *NOT* an appropriate reading of the consensus. Indeed, there was a CLEAR consensus, that was POLICY-BASED, for a move based on both COMMONNAME and WP:CRITERIA. The analysis by TParis showed overwhelming support for policy-based reasons for a move, while the oppose side had almost entirely NON-policy based arguments (e.g. only high-quality reliable sources should be used for titling, not just all reliable sources - NO basis in policy; or "subject preference" should be taken into account - NO basis in policy). Ultimately the job of the closers is to weigh the arguments made and see how well they align to policy. the only policy-based reason here to oppose, which seems to be one that tipped the scales, is "titlechanges" - but again titlechanges was only cited by a few participants, and more importantly, there is no basis in past consensus in my experience to use titlechanges to oppose a move based on strong policy and strong consensus and a strong super-majority of !voters. It is not the case that a majority simply stated their opinion; instead, a majority of !voters stated a policy-based reason to move, and the vast bulk of oppose votes cited no policy-based reasons at all, or cited policy-based reasons based on a tortuous reading of what the word "concise" actually means. There was a clear consensus for a move here.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 20:13, 20 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse close it is clear that there was no-consensus. Lentower (talk) 20:18, 20 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse The proposal to move did not gain a WP:Consensus because the proposal was not well supported in, and appeared contradicted by the majority of appropriate sources in the field of biography. It is well within discretion of editors to a BLP to look to appropriate sources, not just any source, let alone the Original Research and Undue Weight relied on by the supporters, and the sources evidenced that the proposal would be controversial because it dealt with the use of a living woman to the name she chooses. The article will be found at the current title, where it has long resided, no reader will be confused, and the reader will actually learn more about the subject, under the current title. The supporters demonstrated no basis in the actual purposes of policy for the move from the long accepted title. Thus no consensus, and certainly no abuse of discretion by the three admin panel. Alanscottwalker (talk) 21:09, 20 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn Consensus, not to mention vastly better policy-based arguments have all been ignored.--Shakehandsman (talk) 20:55, 20 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn There was clear policy based consensus strongly supported that COMMONNAME applied and that a move should be enacted. The article's title has never previously found lasting consensus and disregarding such a strong consensus is unwise. Timrollpickering (talk) 20:56, 20 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn - I was quite surprised at the result of the RM, and while I do not in any way wish to denigrate the closers, all of whom I respect as editors and admins, I do think they reached the wrong conclusion by not weighing the results properly. It is abundantly clear that COMMONNAME is the controlling policy, so the 70% who !voted in line with it should have outweighed other considerations. BMK (talk) 21:20, 20 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse close I am not going to re-argue the move itself again here, But I am going to argue that there was clearly no consensus from that discussion and, when that is the case, we stick with the long standing and stable version. Arguing here about why there should have been a move is probably useless as the discussion here does not inovolve the title itself, but whether or not the 3 admin panel came up with the right choice for their closing. When looking at that discussion, there was lot lot of weight to the arguments on both sides but no one had any particular, overriding reason per policy that was absolute, binding and able to persuade the other side. Consensus is not a !vote. It wasn't an election to decide by straight numbers. I really think that editors are just wrong in stating there was a strong policy based consensus. First of all it was a policy based argument and had no consensus of editors. Seriously. Also, it is a matter of opinion and another consensus entirely as to whether or not either version was the most common in use today. Stating that there was a consensus per WP:COMMONAME is simply not accurate.--Mark Miller (talk) 21:41, 20 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn It baffles me that more than two-thirds of participants favored moving this and yet no consensus was declared. I think BMK above puts it much more eloquently than i could. Calidum Talk To Me 21:43, 20 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse own close. My initial quick scan of the debate led me to think there was a consensus to move, but closer scrutiny showed a more complex picture. After very detailed analysis of the arguments, we found strong policy arguments on both sides of the debate. It is a pity that some editors seek to invalidate arguments based on a differentiation between quality of sources, because WP:RS clearly prefers scholarly secondary works.
In those circumstances, WP:TITLECHANGES applies. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:02, 20 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Yes, WP:RS prefers scholarly secondary works, but WP:RS is concerned with article content determination, not title determination or COMMONNAME determination. When the reference to WP:RS was added to COMMONNAME, it was to prevent most common usage determination to come from non-reliable sources like personal blogs. It makes no sense to weight sources based on "quality" in determining the most commonly used name. In contrast, weighting sources based on how highly published they are would make some sense, but this is the opposite of using scholarly or "high quality" sources. --В²C ☎ 23:43, 20 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- @BHG, I think supporters of the move have been taken aback by the closing panel's focus on "scholarly" works, as this is not something that has commonly been considered in title disputes before; would you be open to reopening the discussion to permit the participants to specifically search for evidence of usage in such works? My own brief glimpse at collections of peer-reviewed journals suggests that there is about a three-to-one ratio favoring "Hillary Clinton" over "Hillary Rodham Clinton" in peer-reviewed scholarship overall, and about a five-to-one ratio for peer-reviewed scholarship published in the last ten years. bd2412 T 15:31, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- @BD2412: Thanks for the ping, and for your consistently civil manner in discussing such a contentious topic.
I have been thinking about your request, and haven't decided yet what my answer is. In general, I think that a closure should be a closure of the discussion which actually happened, not of the discussion which anyone thinks might have been more informative or more productive. So it seems to me to be in principle a bad idea to allow fresh evidence after a closure, and in principle a bad idea to allow evidence on only one aspect of the debate. My general view is that either a debate is relisted or it isn't, and that we will get ourselves in strange procedural knots if we try some sort of partial-relisting.
As I say, those are my general views on a re-opening. I can see merit in trying to clarify one particularly important issue, but my concern is that trying to chop up a debate into separate issues can be misleading unless there is also an evaluation of the whole. A change to one aspect can alter the whole picture in unpredictable ways, and I think that a re-opening of only one aspect debars editors from re-evaluating other aspects of their decision in light of new evidence in one area.
So I think that my answer should be a "no", but I haven't yet closed the door. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:53, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- I appreciate your thoughts and your reasoning. Of course, with a subject as widely reported as this one, there will always be new evidence that could come into the picture, and never a process where 100% of the possible evidence or argument for either side is fully captured. I have no doubt, of course, that this issue will be raised again at some future time, and that these points will be discussed to no end when that happens. Cheers! bd2412 T 21:14, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- I too appreciate the way you have responded to those on both the request and review, especially after I came at you(mistakenly) with both barrels in my first edit on the move request. But I am disappointed at both your request for a relisting for more evidence and vote to overturn. No one asked for more time after the request was closed, and editors had 2 weeks to ask. Everyone knew the request would be closed after 7 days unless there was an extension asked for. And opposers had more reason for more time. And you yourself stated there was no reason to push forward with a move review, and council the other move supporters to just wait awhile. In any case, that's my 2 cents. Thanks. Dave Dial (talk) 00:04, 22 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- @User:DD2K, frankly my better judgment on the matter would have been to not bother with this discussion at all. I have to agree, had I been an administrator closing this discussion, I would probably have considered it to have been concluded at the end of seven days, since participation was tapering off and no request was made to extend it. Still, I am troubled that the close seems to have hinged on weighing of sources in a way that participants did not expect because it has not previously been used in move discussions, and which would benefit from deeper investigation. bd2412 T 12:49, 23 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse close per Omnedon. Chris Troutman (talk) 22:21, 20 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse close. That's no surprise, since I argued strongly against the move. But I believe there is an error of fact in the move review complaint above, point e) "Per the record of all RM discussions regarding this title, the only case in which consensus was found was the one that found consensus in favor of Hillary Clinton [5]. The panel erred in thinking that Hillary Rodham Clinton was favored by 'past consensus'." That is not the case. The current title was stable in the early years of 2003-2006 except for some vandalism moves. RM 1 occurred in early 2007 and there was only 1 in support of the move to HC, 10 opposed. It was closed as "no consensus to move" because that was the style back then, regardless of the margin of the result. RM 2 occurred in late 2007 and there were 5 in support of the move and 9 opposed. Again, it was closed in the same style. Then there were three and a half years of (blissful) title quiet. Then in mid-2011 there was RM 3, which had 6 in support and 7 opposed. Then another almost year and a half of quiet. Then since RM 4 in late 2012, we've had this barrage of RM's every few months. But for most of this article's life, there has been a reasonable degree of title stability. Wasted Time R (talk) 22:44, 20 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse (own) close with some further thoughts. Over the past couple of weeks I have had the opportunity to revisit and ponder some of the arguments and objections endorsed by supporters. (See, for instance, this thread on my talk page.) Obviously I disagree with much of what was said by the original posters above, and I still feel that the outcome was merited by the discussion. While a complete response to the above would be TLDR, I would like to make two minor points. First, I don't recall us citing any 90% statistic in our close, and its use here seems a a bit misleading (90% of people using the most common argument for moving supported moving?). Second, above under letter "e)" the filers make the argument that because previous move requests had been closed as "no consensus to move" the panel "erred in thinking that Hillary Rodham Clinton was favored by 'past consensus'." As far as I know, move requests are not like AfDs where you have three options: keep, no consensus, and delete. There is either consensus to move, or there is not. If there's no consensus to move, the article stays put.
Furthermore, I believe our close was in line with Wikipedia:Requested_moves/Closing_instructions which states that, "lack of consensus among participants along with no clear indication from policy and conventions normally means that no change happens (though like AfD, this is not a vote and the quality of an argument is more important than whether it comes from a minority or a majority)." Lastly, I'm not certain how the move review process works, but I hope that this doesn't turn into a rehashing of old arguments by supporters/opposers. I would hope that the admin(s) who consider closing this will take a some extra time to peruse the discussion and close, and not simply take the word of involved parties on either side. And whatever you do, plan on some backlash ;-) ~Adjwilley (talk) 22:50, 20 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- It is true that "If there's no consensus to move, the article stays put" - but that just means the title "stays put" regardless of whether the result of the discussion is "no consenus to move", or "consensus to not move". A "no consensus" result does not mean consensus supports the "stay put" title, which is what your panel statement claimed. In other words, it's possible that in at least some of those previous RMs the result could have been "consensus to not move", and, if that had happened, then there would have been basis for your statement. But that was never the case. That's why you erred in relying on there being consensus support in the past for HRC - there has never been consensus support for HRC, not once in any of the RM history of this article. But there has been consensus support for HC (arguably twice now). --В²C ☎ 23:19, 20 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Are you saying that there was no consensus in this move request? (Sorry, couldn't resist the counterexample.) ~Adjwilley (talk) 23:37, 20 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- No I'm not! I missed that one (did not go that far back). Thank you. --В²C ☎ 23:43, 20 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- I don't think that it makes sense to give weight to past discussions for which no notice was given to previous participants, and for which the discussion was closed early (unless RM discussions had a shorter period at that time). In light of the response of the community when the discussion was well publicized, it is pretty clear that these previous snap votes were not reflective of the community as a whole. bd2412 T 00:23, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- I don't know...that argument depends on the situation I would think. I can think of a number of cases where it would be better to have a small sample of informed people than a large sample of less-informed people. I'm not saying that this was the case here, but I know that before actually reading the move discussion myself I was rather uninformed. For instance, I came into this thinking Rodham was just her middle name. I didn't know that she had chosen to keep her family name instead of taking her husband's surname, or the circumstances of her adopting "Clinton" when the "Rodham" started hurting Bill's political career. If I had been coming into this as a voter, that lack of knowledge probably would have influenced my vote, and I don't know if I would have done enough research to have discovered these details on my own. Again, I'm not trying to say that smaller samples are better, or that the old discussion is more valid than this large one. On the other hand, I'm not entirely convinced that in general opinions offered by ever larger samples of twenty-some-odd-year-old male Wikipedians are always going to be better than a smaller less-random sampling of people who regularly edit an article have at least some familiarity with the subject. P.S. I haven't had the chance to thank you for your contributions to the original discussion...I appreciated the manner in which you presented your arguments there, and even now I appreciate the agreeable way in which you disagree. ~Adjwilley (talk) 04:58, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn (I also helped draft this review). Closing panel member BrownHairedGirl claims just above and on her talk page that there are "strong policy arguments on both sides", but the only policy-based argument clearly supporting HC over HRC is TITLECHANGES. If there were other policy arguments supporting HRC, then it would make sense to apply TITLECHANGES in this case, because the point of TITLECHANGES is to avoid the back and forth. But that's not a risk here, despite the claims of User:TParis to the contrary: "It's a matter of not moving a thing because the topic will continue to be brought up for move reviews."
Once the article is moved to HC, there will be no strong policy-based grounds that can be raised to propose moving it back to HRC. The best only argument that has been offered involves a novel interpretation of COMMONNAME dubiously giving preference to supposedly "high quality" sources, but this argument has achieved nothing close to even significant minority support among participants, let alone consensus or even majority support, and certainly has no basis in community consensus as expressed in policy (the emphasis on source quality at WP:RS is specifically intended for the context of content inclusion determination, not for COMMONNAME determination). On the other hand, COMMONNAME, CRITERIA analysis and CONCISE all clearly favor HC over HRC regardless of which is the title, and, once the title is changed to HC, HC will be supported by TITLECHANGES as well. The only difference is that with the article at HC, there really will be no good (policy based) reason to change it back to HRC. Anyone who thinks I'm wrong about that has been free to identify what that good reason would be since the beginning of the RM - but no such reason has been presented. I'll be happy to rescind this argument upon identification of a good policy-based reason to move HC back to HRC after it is at HC. --В²C ☎ 23:19, 20 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Reply'. It seems that the main argument in favour of overturning the close is that article titles are somehow exempt from the WP:RS principle of attaching more weight to higher quality sources. This is an odd view, and I can see no policy basis for it. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:30, 20 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- No, that's not the main argument in favor of overturning the close. That's the main counter-argument to the novel minority-supported argument that the WP:RS principle of attaching more weight to higher quality sources (normally and understandably used in article content determination) applies in determining which use among two or more is most commonly used in reliable sources. I, for one, have never before seen this principle applied in RM discussions, and it simply makes no sense to do so. --В²C ☎ 23:47, 20 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Besides, your own closing statement said that even giving that novel argument credence, COMMONNAME does not favor either title. So unless you're now arguing contrary to your statement that COMMONNAME favors HRC over HC, my position that with the article at HC, there really will be no good (policy based) reason to change it back to HRC, stands unchallenged. --В²C ☎ 23:52, 20 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- further evidence of inappropriateness of weighing "high quality sources" argument too strongly: Wikipedia:Closing_discussions#How_to_determine_the_outcome states "If the discussion shows that some people think one policy is controlling, and some another, the decider is expected to close by judging which view has the predominant number of responsible Wikipedians supporting it, not select himself which is the better policy." The closing admins did the opposite, giving strong weight to an argument fronted by a very small number of participants, instead of weighing the COMMONNAME case which was proposed by the vast majority of participants.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 16:09, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn I do think that inappropriate weight was given to the various policy-based arguments. And the consensus here seems pretty clear; if this discussion doesn't have a clear consensus to move, then what on Earth does? --Philpill691 (talk) 23:21, 20 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse close. The opposition seems to be based on some algorithm theory of titling, which I'm just not buying. Thanks to the closing team for a thoughtful analysis. —Neotarf (talk) 00:21, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn; from Wikipedia:Closing discussions: "If the discussion shows that some people think one policy is controlling, and some another, the decider is expected to close by judging which view has the predominant number of responsible Wikipedians supporting it, not select himself which is the better policy. He (or she) is not expected to decide the issue, just to judge the result of the debate, and is expected to know policy sufficiently enough to know what arguments are to be excluded as irrelevant. If the consensus of reasonable arguments is opposite to his view, he is expected to decide according to the consensus. He is not to be a judge of the issue, but rather of the argument." This was blatantly ignored by the closers. The close was carefully worded, it was elegant–even profound–but at the end of the day it was a supervote that completely ignored an obvious consensus. Joefromrandb (talk) 01:04, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse close - Although I supported the move, WP:CRITERIA policy supports the move, sources overwhelmingly support the move (yes Books 44,000 "was" results not just 332,000 "was" results, much more so in newspapers), essay WP:WORLDVIEW supports the move, etc. etc. But endorse close per comments of closing panel and "totally out of proportion with the real significance of the issue. Just drop the stick, people. User:Future Perfect at Sunrise". Give it 6 months; present more cogent print and newspaper searches, and move it then. In ictu oculi (talk) 01:05, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn the weight of the evidence presented in the discussion clearly indicates that Hillary Clinton is the common name. There is no strong counter example. Also, common name is based on the current common name. That means, there should always be some weight given towards current sources. Maybe not extremely, but an analysis of the sources at any time after 1980 will show HC as the more common name. In fact, for some years one would probably find over 90% of the reliable source mentions of her for that year only called her HC. Additionally, since for many years HC was most notable as the wife of BC, the fact that more recent sources, which would be from times when she is generally most notable for her own political career, tend to refer to her more as HC than earlier sources did, suggests that more recent sources using HC more often suggests that it is even more prevalent of a case now.John Pack Lambert (talk) 01:52, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse close There was a deliberate decision at the beginning of this move request - suggested by a strong supporter/architect of the move - that a three-admin panel be formed to conduct the close:
Greetings! A proposal has been made at Talk:Hillary Rodham Clinton#Requested move 8 to change the title of the article, Hillary Rodham Clinton to Hillary Clinton. Such a move request has been made in the past, and has frequently engendered very spirited discussion. The last time such a discussion went for the full discussion period, it was closed contentiously by a non-admin, leading to an equally contentious move review. In order to head off any shenanigans, I would like to request that a panel of three completely neutral and uninvolved admins (i.e. not having participated in the conduct or closing of any of the previous discussions) convene to monitor this discussion, make sure that it does not veer off-topic, and close it either at the end of seven days (if no extension is sought) or at the end of fourteen days (if an extension is sought). Cheers! bd2412 T 18:34, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
- The panel was formed and all three members came to the same conclusion, that there was no consensus to move, based on their careful reading and analysis of the arguments on both sides. A move review is not an appropriate place to rehash the arguments - there was no impropriety, no "shenanigans", and no biased reading of the results. The three members of the panel were unanimous in their separately-drawn conclusions. There is simply no basis for this move review, other than that some participants didn't like the outcome. They have spent weeks preparing their move review request, with more text than normal mortals might care to read - it is indeed time to end this, and to institute some timing guidelines for future move requests so that we can get on with writing the encyclopedia. If we don't accept the unanimous findings of a three-member panel, what will we do for the next controversial matter? Tvoz/talk 03:54, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse close Not moved by the sheer numbers. Feel the admins were diligent.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 04:07, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse close While the arguments for the move were strong and numerous, the arguments against seemed similarly strong, TITLECHANGE was specifically raised during the RM so seems balanced to use in deciding the close. It is not the numbers of the votes, it is the strength of the arguments. And in this case I believe the panel made the proper call. ( FWIW while I did not !vote in the RM, I have in a prior move review ( which would have favored HC ) and still slightly favor Hillary Clinton as policy stands currently, though would rather see personal preference be given more weight leading to a slight support of HRC. ) Normally a non-consensus close means that a new requested move can be opened. But given the contention and number of previous request I strongly suggest a longer wait... perhaps waiting until the beginning of the 2016 US election campaigning might be a good time as it would provide more data points. Regardless of which article name is best, I don't see harm in the 2nd best option being used in the interim, so I see no good reason not to wait. PaleAqua (talk) 04:24, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse close. The closers followed Wikipedia:Requested moves/Closing instructions, and there was obviously no consensus for a move. The close was spot on. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 07:58, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse Close, as a reasonable interpretation of the discussion, even though I did support the move occurring. Quite frankly, a good trouting is in order for those continuing to beat this dead horse. You can't win them all, and continuing to appeal and appeal because you can't accept that you didn't win is juvenile and counterprodctive. Lankiveil (speak to me) 08:15, 21 May 2014 (UTC).[reply]
Overturn Endorse (per my second post). I supported the move in the original discussion but was going to endorse the close, or not bother to post here at all per Fut. Perf.'s comment above that this had got way overblown and was basically not that important. However, I changed my mind when I read User:TParis's and User:Adjwilley's posts on this page. I had thought that there was a consensus in favour of the move on a valid basis of WP:COMMONNAME. But TParis's closing was thoughtful and well argued. Although I disagreed on COMMONAME, it's a judgment call and what he said was well within the parameters of reasonableness. Importantly for me, it seemed to confirm that subject preference did not figure in the decision. IMHO, to take subject preference into consideration (other than giving greater weight to recent sources if there had been a change of name per COMMONNAME) is not supported by policy and is contrary to WP:AT and other policies - I know others disagree so please don't anyone bother to respond to that; that's been done to death in multiple forums. But TParis's (to some extent) but, more particularly, Adjwilley's posts on this page suggests to me that subject preference did play a part. WP:MR says "The closer of the Requested Move under discussion should feel free to provide additional rationale as to why they closed the RM" and so I'm taking those posts to be within the scope of that. Maybe I've misinterpreted their posts on this page: if so, and the closers clarify that subject preference played no part I would change from overturn to endorse. DeCausa (talk) 08:40, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- It seems I did misinterpret. Adjwilley has explained on my talk page that subject preference played no part in the closing decision. I've changed to "endorse" therefore.DeCausa (talk) 05:50, 23 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse the close of requested move #
78. The arguments for keeping it as HRC were sound. The review of consensus and arguments was sound. This isn't another argument about why it should change but rather why the close was incorrect in process. The reality is that she initials everything as "HRC" and campaigns as "Hillary Clinton." It is plainly obvious that a "no-consensus" is a reasonable view of two (or more) valid opinions and an objective analysis of the presented arguments (even more detailed than my two). Without a clear consensus that one is clearly the correct common name, the conclusion by the committee is correct and there is no basis to overturn it. WP:IDONTLIKEIT is not a reason to overturn.--DHeyward (talk) 09:07, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse. I don't have an opinion about whether the article should be titled "Hillary Clinton" or "Hillary Rodham Clinton" but it is abundantly clear that both are perfectly possible titles that meet all the relevant policies (including COMMONNAME). Given that the present title is not incorrect or otherwise harmful, there needs to be an active consensus of editors in favour of any change for it to happen. The administrators evaluated all the evidence and arguments given in the discussion with reference to the relevant policies and guidelines. The result that would be obtained by counting heads is irrelevant as that is not how move discussions are decided on Wikipedia. The question for this review is not whether the right outcome was reached, but whether the "no consensus" outcome was a correct interpretation of the discussion. The answer to that question is "yes" - there was no consensus in favour of the move. Thryduulf (talk) 11:22, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Relist. I am hesitant to call into question the determinations of the closing panel, since I have served on several of these for very contentious discussions. However, after reflecting on the question at some length, I think that some issues that the panel felt was important are not things that the participants in the discussion would likely have expected based on past practices. I therefore have concluded that the discussion should be reopened to allow these specific concerns to be explored. As a general rule, an encyclopedia should never not cut off consideration of relevant information because it was not known at the time of the initial writing that it would be important, and the same principle should apply to discussions of encyclopedic issues such as article titling. Since relisting has not been discussed very much here, I would like to know if the panel members (or endorsers of the panel determination generally) would have an objection to a brief relisting for a more thorough review of evidence of the kind with which the closing panel was most concerned? Cheers! bd2412 T 15:41, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse close. To BD2412, you are, unfortunately in my view, free to open a new Requested Move at any time. The proposal at Talk:Hillary Rodham Clinton#A simple solution, by User:Obiwankenobi, that no new Requested Move should be opened for 9 months following the last one, is not enforceable. I personally think it is horrible how much attention of the community is demanded by this, and would prefer that you do not. This kind of nonsense is bringing down Wikipedia, by consuming too much time of editors in cancelling each other out, in an issue that DOES NOT MATTER for readers. Nonetheless, it seems somewhat important, somehow, to fight back against the obtuseness involved here. --doncram 17:02, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- First, you are wrong about the enforceability of the proposed moratorium. I would not advise testing it. Second, I have never filed a move request for this page, and have no intention of opening a new one in the future, but I have no doubt that someone will because large numbers of editors tend to come across this title and find it awkward. There have been many different move proposals by many different editors, most seemingly unaware that the issue has been broached before. What I do, therefore, doesn't matter. Eventually, inevitably, the page will be moved. I just don't see the point in putting that off to the next discussion. bd2412 T 17:09, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- I believe you are mistaken in stating that the many move proposals were started by "many different editors". Most of the recent cases were started by IPs that smelled heavily of old WP:SOCKS, as documented here.The four most recent discussions were all started by IPs, three of whom were known sockers, including one particularly notorious sockmaster. Let's not pretend that these discussions are being started naively, by regular users who just happened to see this title and thought it ought to be changed. Recent experience suggests the proposals are mostly from longtime editors, possibly provocateurs, hiding behind IP addresses. --MelanieN (talk) 17:22, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- This is an urban myth that Tarc and others have been fronting for a very long time - that there is some sort of secret cabal of female-hating IPs that sneakily go around proposing move requests at Hillary Clinton and Sarah Jane Brown - even though this is demonstrably not the case. There is a distinct lack of evidence. We had a small spate of quickly-closed IP initiated moves at HRC, but those had no relation to SJB case. I can promise you that if this move if not overturned, within a year another good faith editor will come along and propose a move, and the article will eventually be moved, it's just question of time.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 18:03, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- I don't know anything about woman-hater allegations, or conspiracy theories, or the Sarah Brown discussion. I based my observation only on this year's discussions at this subject. All four were started by IPs; three of them were speedy closed but the fourth (the one started by the known troll) became the long-drawn-out discussion we are still debating months later. I assume the troll is delighted with that outcome. --MelanieN (talk) 18:25, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- I agree, and would suggest that once an issue has become contentious (i.e. the subject of multiple discussions), it should not be possible for an IP to initiate a new discussion on the topic. The ground for trolling is too fertile. bd2412 T 18:48, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- I actually proposed that, at the link I listed above (Talk:Hillary Rodham Clinton/Archive 20#Proposal: prevent IPs from starting move discussions). The proposal died out without being closed, but was probably not heading for approval in any case. Particularly because some people said they thought a ban like that couldn't be imposed by commenters at one particular page; it would have to be based on wikipedia-wide consensus. --MelanieN (talk) 19:02, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- I supported that proposal! :-) I have just started a general proposal to prohibit IPs from restarting contentious discussions at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Proposal to bar IPs from restarting contentious discussions. Cheers! bd2412 T 19:31, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse close - The 3 admin panel carefully weighed the policies discussed on the move request and came to the (right)conclusion that there was no consensus to move. This is a move review, not another move request, and there are no policy infringements of the close. None at all. I will quote User:Born2cycle at another move review that had numbers(percentage-wise) almost exactly as this one:
Endorse. I see nothing wrong with closer's decision...[m]aybe there were a few more supports than opposes, but WP is not a democracy. ....Good decision and kudos the closer for sticking with policy supported by broad community consensus rather than capitulating to a few !vote counts.
In other words, it's not a vote. Several of the review initiators also conceded that WP:COMMONNAME was 'a tie'(it wasn't, I think there is little doubt if one reads through the move request diligently they would know that HRC is the definite common name from 1982-2006, and it's "a tie" since then. And since there was no name change, you have to take the totality of the time period into consideration, and that is no doubt Hillary Rodham Clinton), and stated so in the move request. B2C states: Both clearly meet the recognizability criterion at WP:CRITERIA. Neither meets it demonstrably and significantly better. This is obvious...With respect to... WP:COMMONNAME, we have a tie.
So all one has to do is read through the move request to see that WP:TITLECHANGES had to be one of the main deciding factors. You don't change a title that has been stable for 13 years, with a common name, just to be concise. That's not policy. Let me close by stating the supporters of the move and initiators of this review were not very WP:CONCISE in their drafting. Thanks. Dave Dial (talk) 23:43, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Again, TITLECHANGES only applies when there is no good reason to change the title. CONCISE is a good reason to change a title. It's used as justification for RM proposals all the time, including at least these currently:[11][12] Nobody is using TITLECHANGES as an
excuse reason to not move those articles. CONCISION is a generally accepted good reason to change titles. --В²C ☎ 00:40, 22 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- You lost that argument at the move request. This isn't a move request, it's a move review. Also, we do not change article titles just to be "concise". We don't move John F. Kennedy to JFK, or Oprah Winfrey to Oprah just to be more concise. It states on the WP:CONCISE policy that we do not "omit family names for conciseness". That should be the end of that. Dave Dial (talk) 01:52, 22 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- That just means we would not shorten Hillary Clinton to Hillary due to conciseness. It's not talking about family names that are sometimes used as middle names.
Much more importantly, the vast majority of those who commented on the applicability of CONCISE in the original discussion agreed it favors HC over HRC. This is one of the errors that the panel made - an aspect of participants' views that they ignored or dismissed. --В²C ☎ 18:01, 22 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Uh, no. That is not what it means. And just because you(and perhaps some others) place no value in a woman's family name and refer to it as 'her sometimes used as middle name", doesn't mean that's a fact or the policy. Any unbiased reading of WP:CONCISE can tell you that. As if having her common name as Hillary Rodham Clinton is some affront, as if we must remove 'Rodham' to be "concise" when there are multiple articles of persons with dozens upon dozens of longer names. But this is my last post about the move request, this is a move review. Any reading of WP:CONCISE should tell you that it does not apply here, and directions are given at the end of the paragraph to Multiple and changed surnames - patronymics and matronymics. So your insistence that it applies to HRC is not backed by policy. Dave Dial (talk) 18:29, 22 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- The CONCISE argument in favor of the move was presented at the RM, and supported by virtually everyone who mentioned it. The rebuttal you present here was not made there. It's out of scope to debate here, though I and probably others would have responded to it had it been made at the RM. This is a review of the closing, not a chance to continue the debate. One of the many errors the closers made was in dismissing the CONCISE argument, especially in terms of deciding TITLECHANGES applied in spite of this good reason policy based argument, and COMMONNAME, presented in favor of the move at the RM. --В²C ☎ 20:19, 25 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse. There is no substance to any complaint that the process followed was improper, or with the closers, or with their explanation. A three member panel of uninvolved admins taking a contentious discussion very seriously is a pretty good process.
- So why the continued contention? My take is that this is a proxy ideological WP:BATTLE, pushed by proponents of a theory of article titling. This theory as at odds with basic global principles of the project, principles such as "Wikipedia should be guided by its sources" and core policy WP:NOR. The theory is superficially appealing, but of little depth, and if accepted, it is a step away from decision making by community consensus, where all editors' opinions are valued, and evidence is found in third party sources.
- Superficial, and erroneous aspects of the theory, seen oft repeated at the RM and here, include misinterpretation of "concise", and WP:COMMONNAME. Concise, as in concise writing, is obviously desired, but when written into "policy" in simple terms, some have read an aberrant, non-scholarly, meaning of "shorter is always better". No, concise means not word, not containing redundancy, not containing of meaningless phrases. Never in the real world would someone be considered inconcise for not shortening peoples names in titles. WP:COMMONNAME is also misinterpreted as meaning "common name". It is very unfortunate that policy is propagated by these dumbed-down shouty buzzwords. The policy linked does not refer to to "common name", as commonly used on the street, but what is commonly recognized in reliable sources. Nowhere is there a credible argument that "Rodham" diminished recognizability in the light of reliable sources. Indeed, in the most reliable sources for a biography, the reliably published biographies, "Hillary Rodham Clinton" dominates as the subjects name in titles. "Hillary Rodham Clinton" is therefore the best fit to the "WP:COMMONNAME" linked policy text, being by far the most recognizable title in the titles of reliable sources.
- The closers apparently, appropriately, ignored a flagrant abuse of WP:NOR, the presentation of multitudes of copies of non-scholarly primary sources, namely the ballots. However, many of the "support" !voters, making up that majority that appropriately didn't sway the close, cited these and other non-suitable sources for what they perceive as a "common name".
- The supporters also frequently denigrated opposers positions as being less "policy-based" than their own. What they fail to appreciate is that when challenged about why something should be done, "because of the rule" is a very weak response. The don't appreciate Wikipedia:The rules are principles, and that policy text should explain the reasons, and not be the reasons. There is, in fact, no reader- or quality-based rationale for omitting "Rodham", omitting reference to the pre-Clinton notable subject, and creating the first reliable biography of the subject to be titled without "Rodham".
- In short, Titling Policy is off the rails with respect to community consensus. It is awkwardly written, using unfortunately inaccurate buzzwords, and is readily misinterpreted for community consensus when tightly paraphrased. It is no surprise that when uninvolved Wikipedians put in substantial effort to review the discussion, they find minimalist titling theorist position to be shallow.
- There is little merit even in a "relist" decision here. Virtually everything has already been said, and repeatedly. A break is more appropriate. There is anticipation of HRC declaring a presidential run in coming months, something very likely to result in an abundance of new reliable sources. Better to wait and see. In the meantime, titling HRC, as per the existing reliable biographies does no harm, unlike continuing this. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:06, 22 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- re - "in the most reliable sources for a biography, the reliably published biographies" - Right...... So perhaps you can point to the section of WP:COMMONNAME or WP:RS that says "reliably published biographies" are the "most reliable sources". Both you and the panel made the rather weird and unsupported assumption that some particular set of RS that you happen to like are more important than the others that don't support your opinion. That's not how COMMONNAME works. Read the second line - "Wikipedia prefers the name that is most commonly used ...... in reliable English-language sources". Where does it say "most commonly used in reliable biographies"? NickCT (talk) 02:04, 22 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
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- To me, it is an obvious and necessary consequence of preferring reliable, reputable, scholarly sources. As for guidance, on anything, for guidance you look to something similar. Reliable, reputable, scholarly biographies exist, so refer to biographies. I use "biography" broadly, as per Biography, and would include this one, even prominently, as it others, reliably and reputably published, naming the subject. It's acceptably scholarly. Independent real scholarship will come later. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:38, 22 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- The book to which you point is described as one that "collects all the scandals of her husband's presidency and her early legal career and focuses on whatever role she was supposed to have had in them". In other words, it's a partisan hit piece, and hardly "reliable". I wouldn't trust it as a source for an encyclopedia any more than I would trust a partisan pro-Clinton blog or book for the same purpose. Works that have a biased goal of either promoting or denigrating the subject should be given the least weight. As for "independent real scholarship", plenty of that already exists - just look at JSTOR or a similar compendium of peer-reviewed published articles. bd2412 T 17:05, 23 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- @SmokeyJoe and BD2412: - re "it's a partisan hit piece" - Lolz. Good point BD. Smokey, the fact that you'd even put the word "reliable" close to a link like this suggests you got some serious, serious POV issues. Perhaps you have more to worry about here than you views on titling articles. NickCT (talk) 19:14, 23 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- That book, is partisan, biased, POV, yes, but it shows how political opponents refer to her. It's a reliable source for that. It was an example of how widely one might look, among secondary sources for guidance on titling. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:08, 24 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- I think this raises an interesting point. There are some people such as otherwise little-known Revolutionary War generals for whom the only sources of information will be "reliably published biographies", and some people for whom there will be no such documents. I tend to agree that scholarly publications (though not necessarily "biographies") should be given a bit more weight than either newspaper and magazine accounts or government publications. However, in a case like this, where there are perhaps a few dozen biographies, and hundreds of thousands of other reliable sources, any extra weight given to that small number of biographies is utterly drowned out by the sheer volume of other sources to consider. bd2412 T 02:48, 22 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- For a biography, scholarly biographies are excellent sources. Of your "hundreds of thousands of other reliable sources", how many are secondary sources that introduce the subject generally? If you improperly count primary sources, yes, you'll find multitudes of them, but review WP:NOR. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:21, 22 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
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- SmokeyJoe, you should read the essays you link to - for example, that one has a section called WP:PRIMARYNOTBAD. There is NO PROBLEM whatsoever with using primary sources, anywhere on wikipedia, provided it is done carefully. The primary source evidence from ballots was simply that - what name did she use on the ballots, and required no interpretation, and thus is perfectly acceptable.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 14:01, 22 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- "NO PROBLEM whatsoever" does not come from that essay. There are always problems with using primary sources in Wikipedia. Sometimes there are good reasons, usually is sourcing highly specific information in a narrow context. You seem to place insufficient importance on "carefully". Use of ballots and auto-collected data such as ghits and ngram without care, is at odds with WP:NOR. Your use of "perfectly" is the most worrying part of your post. The use of non-independent primary sources, without interpretation (without thought?) is perfectly acceptable? Nonsense. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:59, 22 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- SmokeyJoe, you seem to misunderstand completely the meaning, purpose, and intent of WP:NOR - NOR applies to ARTICLE CONTENT, not to TALK PAGE DISCUSSIONS. People are constantly conducting original research in talk pages, especially in titling discussions - finding how different biographies refer to Hillary Clinton is the very definition of original research, but you don't seem to worried about THAT bit of OR. And using ngrams and ghits is PAR FOR THE COURSE in a titling discussion, I agree it should be done with care but calling is NOR is just a way of throwing around a big nasty word that has no applicability to a titling discussion, whatsoever. As for the ballots, additionally, a number of SECONDARY reliable sources discussed at length the issue of Clinton's name and how it would be or was put on the ballot, that itself was a topic of discussion, so bringing in actual ballots was not a contravention of WP:NOR in any way, shape, or form, because we weren't using those ballots to make some claim in the article, we were using those ballots as reliable sources for how this person is commonly named. It's unorthodox, to be sure, but there's nothing wrong with it.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 16:53, 23 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Obi-Wan, there's a bit of gross hyperbole there.
Using primary sources, such as ngrams and ghits, and ballots, without care, is exactly what WP:NOR speaks against. If used without care, the use fails WP:NOR. A problem with ballots, for example, is that how her name appears on ballots may represent one isolated arbitrary decision. Was it even her? And it may be made to appeal to the most uneducated of voters. How to interpret data is the province of secondary sources, not editorial discretion. Now, if you have secondary sources that comment on ngrams, ghits or ballots, that would be highly interesting and relevant. "a number of SECONDARY reliable sources discussed at length the issue of Clinton's name and how it would be or was put on the ballot, that itself was a topic of discussion" - can you link to that please? Examining and distilling secondary sources and other tertiary sources is not crossing WP:NOR, it is encouraged by WP:NOR. The title is content. Not only is it content, it is the most important phrase of content. The constant original research driving titlings discussion is one root of the problem of titling discussions. Editor behaviour in titling discussion is off the rails with respect to Wikipedia's principles of use of sources, no wonder so many Wikipedians find titling discussions distasteful. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:32, 24 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- I would point out that it is only unorthodox because it's a kind of very direct evidence that we usually don't have available in move discussions. I can't imagine a stronger piece of evidence for the "common" name of a subject than what is used to represent that subject directly to the people in a series of elections held throughout the United States. bd2412 T 16:59, 23 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- bd2414, true, the ballots show, or even create, the "common" name, but policy, WP:COMMONNAME, doesn't ask for "common" name. The shortcut is quite unfortunate. Evidence suitable for decision making in an encyclopedia should, as we seem to agree, come from scholarly sources. If the ballot's name use is interesting, it will be reflected in scholarly sources. A better discussion than this reviewed RM discussion would compare and contrast differing scholarly sources. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:32, 24 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- (e/c) What's "weird" is your claim that you don't choose to rely on reliably published biographies for writing a Wikipedia biography. Your lack of attention to, or it seems even knowledge about, what is being written here – a biography of this living person – and blindness to appropriate sourcing for such a biography, shows a fundamental misunderstanding of Wikipedia, and shows a fundamental misunderstanding of writing biographies, none of which is made any better by taking snippets of parts of policy out of context and without regard to their purpose. Alanscottwalker (talk) 03:08, 22 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- I am only making a philosophical point here about the title, not the article content. As it stands, NickCT correctly points out that title policy makes no allowance for the kind of source, so long as it is a "reliable" source. For this reason, we have tens of thousands of biographical articles for which the titles reflect common use across all reliable sources without considering the use that would be found in a biography (which is similar to having an article titled Plains zebra rather than the Equus quagga that might be found in a reliable zoographical source). My point was that it should make some allowance, but that this would not outweigh a far more substantial body of other sources. I would also point out that a biography published as a book does not necessarily require peer review - any hack can get a completely partisan biography published as a book through the right channels. The most reliable sources to which we can turn will always be peer-reviewed scholarly articles. bd2412 T 03:17, 22 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- WP:AT incorporates NPOV, NOR, V, BLP and RS, all concerned with the appropriate weighting of sources. We don't outweigh better sources because they aren't outweighed by poorer sources. We don't use Latin names because we use English. We follow good biographers with good publishers (including encyclopedic biographies), because they're deemed more reliable than Wikipedian's judgments based on poorer sources, and they are better fit for purpose. encyclopedic biography - not news, not political tract, etc. Alanscottwalker (talk) 11:15, 22 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- @Alanscottwalker: - re "you don't choose to rely on reliably published biographies for writing a Wikipedia biography" - You're putting words in my mouth Alan. I never said you can't or shouldn't use "reliably published biographies" as sources. All I said was that "reliably published biographies" are one type of source among many. If you're going to contend that "reliably published biographies" are somehow better than other sources, do you think you could cite the policy which states as much? NickCT (talk) 13:42, 22 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- I already explained this, we don't write things like, Australopithecus sources are better sources for Australopithecus, but it's still the case. Policy is written broadly, not in the specific (because we don't want policy creep). Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:08, 23 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse. A team of three admins followed policy and kept the page at a reasonable title. No one who lands there by following a redirect is going to be astonished that Wikipedia is using the same name for the subject that the publisher of her own book uses. Jonathunder (talk) 00:21, 22 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
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- It's not, neccesarily, but no one is going to be surprised to see us use the same name that is on her work. My point is that the three admin panel reached a perfectly reasonable conclusion. Jonathunder (talk) 15:56, 22 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- I don't think we're arguing the curent title is "unreasonable". I'd agree with you that HRC might be called a "reasonable" article title. But calling it "reasonable" doesn't mean it's the title that the community's consensus formed around. NickCT (talk) 16:21, 22 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- There's no consensus for any other title. The panel's decision should stand. Jonathunder (talk) 16:36, 22 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- re "There's no consensus for any other title" - Isn't there though? Have you read through the RM? Did you see the 70% of folks saying HC was the right title? Did you see the 90% of folks who argued it was the commonname? What exactly is your definition of consensus? NickCT (talk) 17:34, 22 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- First of all, it wasn't 70%, especially with the vote change and IP probably being another editor who voted. In any case, if 67% of editors came in and stated "Hillary" was the common name, and 80% of those editors just stated no other reason, how much weight should be given to that kind of argument? Never mind the fact that other policies prevent that from being the Title, and that it's not actually her common name. But look here, the Google results! The fact is, the common name for HRC is HRC. Not HC. You have to take the totality of the time period, not just recent examples. Unless there is a name change or other significant event. Which there was not. In other words, just because 67% of editors believed it was a common name, doesn't make it so. And the discussion on the article showed that. I do not understand why you are arguing about this when you know for a fact that it's not a vote. Policy decides move requests, not numbers. What policy was violated that you can state was violated, without pointing to the vote? Because that is what a move review is, not for re-arguing the move request. Dave Dial (talk) 18:18, 22 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- If a Google search of "Hillary Clinton" yields about 285,000,000 results, and "Hillary Rodham Clinton" yields about 8,280,000, how is "Hillary Clinton" not the common name if the HC:HRC ratio is over 34:1, with roughly 280 million not including "Rodham" at all? XXSNUGGUMSXX (talk) 18:26, 22 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- I am NOT going to keep arguing the move request, this is a move review. If you wish to know the answer to that, go back and diligently read the move review as the 3 admin panel did. Both your question here and your !vote above belong on the move request, not the review. Dave Dial (talk) 18:31, 22 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- You made the claim about the google results. Don't complain if people point it out as fallacy. NickCT (talk) 18:38, 22 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Sigh....
 Facepalm Dave Dial (talk) 19:16, 22 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- @DD2K: - re "it wasn't 70%" - Look at the closing panel's table review the count. According to them, it was. Is that something else they got wrong?
- re "But look here, the Google results" - Dave, as far as I know, you are the only person to have concluded search engine testing supported HRC. While I'm glad you took the time to test it (something that few of the other HRC's did), I hope you'll realize your interpretation is pretty "unique". NickCT (talk) 18:36, 22 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Am I the only person here who understood that "But look here, the Google results!" was sarcasm? It was a parody of how the move proponents responded to "Never mind the fact that other policies prevent that from being the Title, and that it's not actually her common name." "But look here, the Google results!" No wonder Dave responded with a facepalm. I would too. --MelanieN (talk) 19:35, 22 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- It could have been a bad attempt at sarcasm.
- So, as a serious (non-sarcastic) question, is anyone seriously asserting that the search engine results supported the idea that HRC was in fact the commonname? NickCT (talk) 20:00, 22 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- A reminder: "this is not a forum to re-argue a closed discussion". ╠╣uw [talk] 20:32, 22 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Apparently, you can cite how Wikipedia's naming criteria support a certain title, rather unanimously, and yet a team of closers can absolutely ignore that. WP:COMMONNAME is policy. WP:CONCISE is policy. This is not rearguing the move, but every single move closure is meant to see which WP policies and guidelines are most applicable. Apparently the naming criteria on WP are not applicable to naming articles on WP. Overturn is the only policy-supported option. Red Slash 19:50, 22 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- WP:COMMONNAME doesn't say to use the most common name. WP:CONCISE doesn't say drop consistently used names from peoples' names. Ignoring repeated superficial cites to these misleading shortcut buzzwords does not make for "rather unanimous". --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:15, 23 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Reasonable people can and did argue about whether COMMONNAME and CONCISE support HC over HRC. A full indisputable consensus of those who weighed in on these questions said they did support HC over HRC. But that's all besides the point, which is that COMMONNAME and CONCISE are very good policy-based reasons to move an article, reasons that the panel failed to recognize as good reasons to move (since they decided TITLECHANGES applied here). --В²C ☎ 01:17, 23 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- There is room to further discuss whether WP:COMMONNAME and CONCISE support HC over HRC. My considered view is quite firm that they don't. I think my position is fully stated in the RM. WP:COMMONNAME, taken as the name most often recognised name in the best sources, supports HRC, and CONCISE does not mean shortening what is already a single unit phase. There is room to discuss this at WP:AT, to clarify the oft misread policy text. "A full indisputable consensus"? You don't understand "consensus". Your "very good policy-based reasons to move", even if they're true, don't amount to good reasons if there is no benefit to readers, enough to overcome WP:TITLECHANGES. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:33, 23 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- SmokeyJoe, you (and a vanishingly small minority of editors here) are perfectly within your rights to claim HRC is the COMMONNAME, but when a vast majority of experienced editors says COMMONNAME points the other way, closing admins must take that into account. Your position on COMMONNAME is uncommon, and not used in any other titling discussions I'm aware of. The fact that a minority interprets policy in a completely different way than it has been interpreted in hundreds of move discussions all over the wiki means that YOUR reading of policy doesn't have consensus, while the COMMON reading of COMMONNAME policy, no matter how much you rage against it, DOES have consensus.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 16:57, 23 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn, move, and then relist. A "no consensus" conclusion could never have been reached without assuming a large number of very experienced editors (and even other administrators), many of whom seem to have dug pretty deep on this particular question, didn't understand what they were talking about. The proposal made at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (people)#RfC: Subject preference, to weigh the sort of subject preference that many opposers relied on, was rejected. Of course, the closing group could not have known at the time that weighing subject preference would immediately be considered and rejected in this manner, but opposers relied on the idea that this was a weighty factor when it turned out not to be an accepted one. The decision should be overturned and the page moved, and then relisted to see if there is consensus to move it back based on the same information. - WPGA2345 - ☛ 23:54, 22 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (people)#RfC: Subject preference closed as no consensus. Even apart from the fact that many of the opposes supported the principle in some cases, it's absurd to claim a no consensus there (where no wording was even proposed) means there is a consensus in the discussion under review. Alanscottwalker (talk) 10:51, 23 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Subject preference was irrelevant to the closing. Adjwilley has confirmed it didn't form part of the rationale. DeCausa (talk) 11:04, 23 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- That would only make the WPGA2345 overturn rationale even more baseless. Alanscottwalker (talk) 11:11, 23 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- That was my point (!?) DeCausa (talk) 12:26, 23 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- I mistook your indent, sorry. Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:08, 23 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- - WPGA2345 - 's point was worth making. What little support the "Don't Move" position got in the RM was often offered by folks who were claiming that WP:BLP somehow said we had to respect Hillary's wishes. Given that essentially everyone agrees that's a bad argument, the number of "Don't Move"rs offering even semi-legitimate policy based arguments was very very small. NickCT (talk) 12:40, 23 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- I don't follow. That seems like a red herring. If it didn't figure in the closing decision how can it be relevant to a review of that decision? DeCausa (talk) 12:44, 23 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- The review is going to assess whether consensus was measured correctly. It's going to be hard to do that without taking a look at what the consensus actually was. Pointing out that many arguing against the move were doing so on the foundation of a baseless argument makes consensus for the move look at little stronger, no? NickCT (talk) 13:15, 23 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Her preference was presented as HC by some move supporters. Even the plethora of images that BD2412 posted all over the move review seemed to insinuate that HRC preferred to now be addressed as HC. The argument about 'preference' for move opposers(in general) was for the woman's right to keep her family name. I don't know if there are editors here that are 40+ years old, but I cannot believe that anyone that went through the late 80's, 90's and early 2000's doesn't believe that Hillary Rodham Clinton is her common name. It's just impossible for me to believe that people didn't hear that name ad nauseam over the years. The 'preference' portion of any move opposers was the fact it seemed as if move supporters were purposely targeting HRC just to remove her family name. Despite that it's a common fact that it's her common name over the years. One that she wanted to be addressed as. It offends some people that she didn't take her husbands family name right away, and still uses her own family name. That is what is going on here. That's the elephant in the room. We have a group of editors dedicated to remove Rodham from her name just for spite. There is no other reason to dedicate so much time and energy to subtracting 6 characters from a Title of an article. And you can see that by some of the move supporters comments. You can also see that in the history of your move review draft, when describing the 'timing issue' in the Timing of close section. Why would move supporters want more time after Jimbo stated her preference was to be addressed as HRC? Other than to have more people who did not like HRC using that to !vote to take it away? Sorry, but there is just no other reason to devote so much time on this non-issue. Either Title is going to be the article, and historically her name has been HRC. Showing recent trends towards HC is not policy for WP:COMMONNAME. The panel decided that correctly. Dave Dial (talk) 15:03, 23 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- re "That's the elephant in the room. We have a group of editors dedicated to remove Rodham from her name just for spite" - What's you're evidence for this. If you don't have something pretty solid to back that up, you're wildly out-of-line with WP:AGF. You "don't movers" keep lodging these quirky and vaguely paranoid accusations about the "nefarious intent" of the folks arguing to move.
- Remember you've dedicated just as much time and energy to preserving 6 characters.
- Re "timing issue" - The timing issue was just that people were still commenting on the RM, so you'd think it should have been left open to allow for comment. I'm not sure how the timing related to Jimbo. NickCT (talk) 16:03, 23 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- I think it's also quite a US-centric perspective, and there was a large body of non-US participants in that discussion. There are a couple of things that might be worth pointing out (from my own British perspective, just as an example). The retention by a woman of her original family name alongside her married name doesn't have the same feminist resonance in the UK as it appears to have in the US, IMO. It's not wideļy done (and is even unusual): much more common, and not at all unusual in my experience, is simply not to adopt her husband's family name at all, and just to continue to use her original name. The other point (and this may be related) is most British people, again IMO, will be unfamiliar with Rodham. I was aware if it, but it would never have occurred to me that it was widely used in the US before seeing this discussion. I think many (most?) British people would not even have been aware of it. I give the UK only as an example of a non-US perspective which may be the sàme in several other English speaking countries. I mention it only in the context of AGF: even if it exists, don't assume this ideological "Elephant in the room" applies to everyone. DeCausa (talk) 19:31, 23 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Hillary herself is a U.S. citizen. Doesn't it make sense that her name should be styled in the American way - just as the spellings used in her article are American spellings, and the date format is American style? The fact that Brits may not be familiar with this naming tradition is irrelevant; it's the tradition she uses and is common where she lives. Respecting this is not US-centric, it's subject-centric, fully in accord with Wikipedia policy; think of it as a form of WP:ENGVAR. --MelanieN (talk) 19:57, 23 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- I hope you believe me when I say that I do know that, and agree with everything you stated in your post. I even tried stating in the move request that I knew in the UK and other parts of the world that it's unusual for a woman to use the name as HRC does, and that I understood that Wikipedia is an international project. My plea to that aspect of the issue was that even though HRC is an international figure, that American sources(and tradition) should be given consideration because HRC is American. And that I thought the same applied to UK politicians(UK sources have more weight) that had international recognition. I do apologize if editors believe I am grouping all move supporters into a category, I honestly don't want to do that. And I do not believe it's true. I also believe that many editors that are younger than 30 don't understand the significance of HRC's name. They probably do not remember the Clinton Presidency, "Home baking cookies", Hillarycare, Whitewater, etc....when it seemed as if the name Hillary Rodham Clinton was in the news constantly. Dave Dial (talk) 20:02, 23 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Note: Further discussion regarding the proportion of American women who use their maiden name has been moved to the discussion section. Cheers! bd2412 T 17:31, 24 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
User:MelanieN, you completely missed my point. I was addressing the issue of AGF. The point that was raised was that there was an ideological "Elephant in the room". I was pointing out that for Americans that may be the case (I don't know) but for the rest of us that was not the case. (I'm not going to get into the point you were making...but bringing in ENGVAR as an analogy is just wrong) DeCausa (talk) 20:39, 23 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Sorry for misunderstanding you, DeCausa. —MelanieN (talk) 20:43, 23 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- This is rearguing the merits of the move, and once again, isn't really appropriate here. I will say, however, that I don't buy the bunk about British people not knowing about the Rodham, as I've always known her that way, and am British. That's irrelevant here, though. Let's move past the merits of the move, and onto the conduct of the administrator panel. RGloucester — ☎ 02:11, 24 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Once again you've misunderstood. My point was nothing to do with the merits (I endorsed the close), it's about AGF. DeCausa (talk) 06:06, 24 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse Ultimately I think the finding of no consensus was within the bounds of administrative discretion. I do not consider that the panel made any errors of principle that would justify interfering with their decision. The amount of weight to be given to particular arguments is pre-eminently a matter for the panel, and we should not overturn their decision unless it is unreasonable. I am not persuaded that it is. Consensus is about arguments, not just numbers, and there were strong arguments both ways. Neljack (talk) 06:29, 25 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse. I think given the contents of the discussion, this was a reasonable conclusion for the panel of admins to come to. I would be more hesitant in saying that a panel decision should be overturned than I would if the closer was a single admin. I don't see anything in this instance which militates towards overturning it—all I see are strong AFD-style arguments in favour of the move, which are countered by strong AFD-style arguments against doing so. I didn't participate in the AFD and have no strong views on the merits one way or the other. Good Ol’factory (talk) 05:03, 27 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse closure - the three admins were well within normal discretion to reduce the weight of the COMMONNAME arguments. There are of course other policies that should be considered along with COMMONNAME, which of course does not trump all other considerations. And as many have said before, this discussion should be about the process, not a rehash of the move request. Parsecboy (talk) 16:34, 29 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse closure it was a very considered opinion by a qualified panel. The reasons suggested for reversal are insufficient, it was clear that the panel had considered those arguments. Put this one to bed. --Bejnar (talk) 15:53, 30 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Discussion
- comment All of those !voting "Endorse" and "It's not about counting heads" should recall that the same rules apply to this discussion, and the bulk of endorse !votes have simply expressed an opinion on the outcome and have not tackled the detailed reasoning provided that analyzed the policy-based arguments for and against the move and standard closing policy. Any admin closing this discussion would do well to discount any !votes that don't making an argument based on a reading of the discussion.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 14:16, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Good point Obi. Hopefully the admin closing this discussion will following the previous closing panel's example and waits till community consensus strongly supports the "endorse" position then just ignores that and closes using his/her own personal rationale. Wouldn't that be ironic.... NickCT (talk) 14:20, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Just like DRV isn't round 2 for XfDs, Move Review isn't Round 2 for a Move Request. This isn't about how good your argument is, how much time you put into the M.R., or any of that; it is about checking the actions of the 3 admins to see if there was a misstep or error in how they reached their decision. Y'all spent a lot of time crafting an argument that most here won't feel is all that relevant. Tarc (talk) 15:00, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- useful reading material Anyone !voting here would do well to review the overview prepared by TParis here User:TParis/Clinton_naming#Votes, and noting that at least 34 of those !voting to move said it was per commonname, while another 9 said it should be moved per WP:CRITERIA. In judging application of a policy, closers are specifically requested to look at the policies most often invoked by participants, to determine which policies should be determinant, which they failed to do here. OTOH, the most common refrain from the oppose side was "Subject preference", which garnered 9 !votes, which is not part of titling policy and thus would only apply if we ignore all rules, but no-one made a cogent argument that IAR here made the encyclopedia better, especially since Hillary Clinton is no worse a name than HRC, and indeed it fulfills WP:CRITERIA more than HRC. Indeed, the only other common argument made by oppose in significant numbers was "high quality sources prefer Hillary Clinton", but this was not sufficiently demonstrated either, as it depends on your definition of "high quality" - a great number of books, for example, use Hillary Clinton in the title, not Hillary Rodham Clinton. Thus, the oppose !votes did not muster a significant response to the overwhelming support for commonname, WP:CRITERIA, and WP:CONCISE, instead their opposition was all over the map, most of it not based on policy - the !voting table demonstrates this quite clearly. I suggest you read through that breakdown before considering your !vote here. It's far too easy to see a hotly contested discussion and declare no consensus, but we need to look at how the arguments put forth apply to policy as written and as practiced, which the closers unfortunately failed to do.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 14:24, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- That's not exactly how guidelines and policy work. !votes are based on the strength of the arguments which is not exactly the same thing as being enshrined in policy. Arguments that are used convincingly several times might eventually become policy or guidelines. So just because subject preference is not currently a guideline doesn't mean those arguments can't be considered. PaleAqua (talk) 15:22, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- True, but as a closing admin you have to weigh 9 people saying "subject preference should matter" against evidence that subject doesn't seem to care since she ran for president as Hillary Clinton (thus, demolishing the "subject preference" argument) Further would have to show WHY taking into account some vaguely claimed preference here would make the wiki better, which IAR arguments MUST make; meanwhile you have a much larger number of editors demonstrating that Hillary Clinton adheres better to policy, is MORE recognizeable to readers, is MORE likely to be searched for, and is MORE commonly used everywhere in any sources our readers choose to read. So the subject preference argument fails, and if the closers took that into account, which isn't clear, then they failed in their analysis of consensus.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 15:30, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- HC as the dominant form everywhere in every source was not demonstrated; to the contrary, it was noted that some (encyclopedias, government sites, etc.) favor HRC. ╠╣uw [talk] 19:06, 30 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
In reply to this edit, this text added by DD2K/Dave Dial
"About 3 percent of American women "use an alternative such as a maiden name as middle name" -Bernice Kanner, Are You Normal About Sex, Love, and Relationships? (2004), p. 74. It is not the norm in the United States either. (Personal disclaimer: when I got married, I convinced my wife to do exactly this, rather than dropping her maiden name altogether, in order to maintain a link to her cultural heritage; however, she does not use this name outside of her business cards). bd2412 T 20:25, 23 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- I don't believe that for a minute. In my generation it was absolutely standard, upon marriage, to change one's name from "Nancy Marie Smith" to "Nancy Smith Jones" - taking the husband's last name, dropping the given middle name, and using the maiden name as middle name. My mother's generation did the same - every one of them that I was aware of. That's what I did, and that's what everyone I knew of my generation did. You yourself acknowledge this tradition, since your wife uses it. According to a less cherry-picked source,[13] about 90 to 95% of American women take their husband's last name upon marrying; "between 3 and 25%" use their maiden name as their middle name, and the trend to do so is increasing. This etiquette book says "most ladies do choose to drop their middle name in favor of their maiden name when they marry".[14] --MelanieN (talk) 21:09, 23 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- That is not a book, that is a blog post. It cites no sources or studies. By contrast, here is a New York Magazine article that does cite sources:
For the last two decades, the already small portion of American women who keep their maiden names has been shrinking. The highest that figure was was 23 percent in the nineties. By the early aughts, it had dropped to 18 percent. In 2011, TheKnot.com surveyed 19,000 newlywed women and found that only 8 percent kept their last names; 86 percent took their husbands' names, with the remaining 6 percent presumably modifying or hyphenating.
- The facts are the facts, no matter what we choose to do with them. I do note, however, that one person interviewed for the article is named "Melanie" - perhaps this option is more popular with people named Melanie? Cheers! bd2412 T 21:24, 23 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Irrelevant statistics. These studies are about women who continue to use their maiden name as their surname. 8 to 18 to 23 percent to whatever "kept their last names," as in, continued to use their birth name as their surname and did not take their husband's surname. (In contrast, 68 percent took their husband's surname and 6 percent used some other surname.) Hillary actually did do this at first - like the 8/18/23 percent, she retained her birth last name as her surname for the first several years of her marriage, using "Hillary Rodham" as her professional and social name - until political reality forced her to add "Clinton" as her surname while retaining "Hillary Rodham". The "facts" you just quoted say nothing at all about how many women retain their maiden name while adopting their husband's surname, and shed no light on Hillary's current name. Whereas her stubborn retention of "Rodham" throughout her life, first as her surname, later as her middle name, DOES shed some light. --MelanieN (talk) 17:50, 24 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- The statistics are relevant to the question of whether there is an "American" style by which married women tend to present their name. One of the interesting points that the article makes is that women may prefer to use different presentations of their names for different purposes, using one version of their name in business dealings, another with family members, another with friends, and perhaps another in public activities like politics. For example, Elizabeth Dole is known as "Liddy Dole" for some purposes and "Elizabeth Hanford Dole" for others, including her positions as a United States Senator, and as a United States cabinet secretary. Of course, men do the same thing with nicknames and middle names. You never hear "Bob Dole" referred to as "Robert J. Dole", except in relation to things like the Robert J. Dole VA Medical Center and the Robert J. Dole Institute of Politics. bd2412 T 20:00, 24 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Yes, and it says the majority of American women take their husband's surname. It says nothing either pro or con about how many of them use their maiden name as a middle name after doing so. So it offers no help or insight here. --MelanieN (talk) 20:37, 24 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- That's what the first source addresses, with the assertion that 3% of women use their maiden name as a middle name. I read the statistics from the second source about whether women "keep their maiden names" to mean keep at all, in any capacity (i.e. as a surname, hyphenated name, middle name, etc.). I grant that it may well only refer to use as a surname, but that article relevantly describes people using different names for different purposes. Plenty of women who keep their maiden name as a middle name (and use that for some purposes, but not every purpose) do not have their maiden name in their article title, probably because their usage is inconsistent. As for the question of whether it is the normal practice in the United States for a woman to keep her maiden name as a middle name, I think that we can agree that the sources indicate that somewhere between 75% and 97% of women do not do this at all. bd2412 T 00:53, 25 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- I think it is normal for a woman to keep using her maiden name, whether as surname or preceding new forename, if she published before marriage. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:58, 25 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Can you find a source to support that proposition? About.com (though not a reliable source for our standards) seems to suggest that this is one of a range of considerations. bd2412 T 02:33, 25 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- No source at hand, it is just a personal observation/impression. Find a woman publishing with her maiden name, and more than likely she first published before marriage. I don't think we need/want a source for it, because I don't think it matters. What matters is not why, but how, how the woman names herself, and how others name her, in reliable sources. I don't think editors should be judging reasons. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:30, 26 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- You guys, who cares if it's the 10%(that incorporate their family name into their married name) or the 25%? Or whatever percent. The fact is, HRC did it, and you guys are talking past one another. And even if it's only 10%, that almost 7 million women. Or about the total population of London. Dave Dial (talk) 21:31, 23 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Fewer than one percent of Clintons are named Hillary. More than 99% of the Universe is empty. And most of this discussion is completely beside the point. Jonathunder (talk) 22:17, 23 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Whether or not she "dropped" it, I do think she stopped using it - right? --MelanieN (talk) 17:36, 24 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- compromise: randomization?. An option not considered yet is to contract that X percent of the time the article will be named HRC, and (100-X) percent of the time it will be named HC. Perhaps the percentage be implemented as the !vote percentage in the last RM? And new RM's would change the percentage? And to be implemented at the year-level, with the first X percent of days in the year using HRC? It's an option here because the article name really does not matter to readers, who will get to the article either way by redirects, and no links would be broken by a move. I am sort of joking, trollishly. But, any such contract would be easily implemented by the very-interested parties, and this kind of randomized solution can sometimes really be a help as a compromise in many real world situations. :) cheers, --doncram 19:46, 24 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- comment we are passing through the looking glass of idiocy. The reality is that no one really cares whether it's HRC or HC. There is no offense for either version. There is no clear, consistent use that one is better or used more often. There is no evidence that one or the other is derogatory. In reality, the argument is between political handlers that believe "Hillary Clinton" appeals as a positive to more traditional voters with little negatives to more progressive voters. "Hillary Rodham clinton" appears to be the everyday use by the subject that also has no negative connotation. really, the only policy is that because neither name is derogatory in any sense and both arguments for and against the move have valid reasons which leads to "no conensus." There is no need to count !votes. The arguments for and against are both cogent under all policies. therefore, the only policy that really remains is to not gyrate the article name. The decision not to change isn't an endorsement of either argument, rather it's the recognition that the change is not valuable and only extends the discussion. Absent a legal name change through a divorce or some other change that creates a clear distinction, leave it alone. Don't leave it alone for 6 months, or a year. Leave it alone until something fundamentally changes. --DHeyward (talk) 05:19, 25 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- I give it 6 weeks before a "new user" shows up for another RM. I really hope more eyes will remain on the HRC talk page once this MR wraps up, as I do not wish to be the only one there to revert such disruptive nonsense on sight. Tarc (talk) 20:40, 25 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- @Tarc, there is currently a proposal on the article talk page to impose a nine month moratorium on new move requests, for which support is running two-to-one in favor of having such a moratorium. If that is deemed to have the consensus of the community, than any "new user" RM before that nine months passes can be shot on sight. bd2412 T 20:51, 25 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
All - Given that there are a limited number of folks continuing to comment on this MR over the past couple days, I plan to request closure in the near future. Let me know if there are any objections. NickCT (talk) 19:35, 28 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Not hearing objection I've requested closure. NickCT (talk) 00:25, 30 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- I'll also ping User:Number 57 and User:Armbrust who have each closed a few recent move reviews, to see if they'd be willing to participate in this one as well. ~Adjwilley (talk) 00:55, 30 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- @Adjwilley: - Sounds good. Thanks. NickCT (talk) 01:36, 30 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I do note, though, that people are still weighing in on endorse/overturn. What's the standard time? Tvoz/talk 17:41, 30 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Tvoz, seven days after opening as per WP:RM/CI. I don't recall having opined on this before, and I've been off-Wikipedia most week so I haven't read this discussion before today. Anyone object to (a) me closing it and (b) issuing a <length of time, probably 1+ year> moratorium on revisiting the discussion? (User:NickCT and User:Adjwilley especially). My current plan was to close it myself, as I'm not a huge fan of this three admin panel business that has sprung up recently, but if others want to join me I'm happy with that. NW (Talk) 18:51, 30 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- @NuclearWarfare: - a) no objection, b) minor objection. Would prefer a period no greater than 9 months per a past discussion. NickCT (talk) 19:23, 30 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Praise jeebus for a moratorium (1 year is fine) on this affair, that will make all but the IP users happy. Tarc (talk) 19:33, 30 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- No objections from me. Thanks! ~Adjwilley (talk) 22:25, 30 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Thanks for volunteering. A single closer is fine with me. If we keep asking for three admin panels we might run out of uninvolved admins! 0;-D MelanieN (talk) 22:58, 30 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- I object to a moratorium and to anyone closing who thinks that's a reasonable thing to do in such a contentious situation. We resolve conflicts and build consensus through discussion on WP, not by stifling it. And no, you can't have serious discussion about a title when everyone knows no RM can be filed for one year or more. Nobody bothers to participate in such a situation. Such moratoriums smack of WP:Status quo stonewalling. But my opinion about the moratorium holds just the same even if User:NuclearWarfare (or whoever closes) finds in favor of overturning and the title is change to HC. But that's because I'm confident that if that happens there will be no need for a moratorium, it will occur naturally as there will be no strong policy based argument to move HC to HRC, and everyone will know it, and everyone will move on. That is, once the title is changed to what is supported by community consensus as expressed in policy (in this case HC), there will be no need for a moratorium. Once again, this is very similar to Yogurt/Yoghurt. Yes, the specific policy-based reasons in play were different, but the essence of the situation is the same: the controversial title (Yoghurt/HRC) was not clearly supported by policy (despite protestations to the contrary), and the proposed title (Yogurt/HC) was supported by policy (undisputed). A moratorium is only necessary when people are trying to defend a title against consensus.
Maybe I'm wrong. Well, change the title to HC, without a moratorium, and see what happens. If there are strong policy-based arguments for HRC that are favored by significant numbers, I'll be proven wrong, the title can be changed back to HRC, and I'll even support the moratorium. But the HRC supporters are not willing to risk that, because deep down they know they've got nothing. --В²C ☎ 23:39, 30 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- I hate to break it to ya, but you're probably going to lose this Move Review, and we will finally, thankfully, get a bit of peace and quiet on this subject matter. What we have on "our side" is common sense, which is far from nothing. Tarc (talk) 00:55, 31 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Way to refute the central point Tarc. Another example of your ability to produce cogent arguments. NickCT (talk) 03:01, 31 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks NW - if a week is standard, then closing now is fine with me, and I have no objection to your handling the close, and appreciate your taking it on. I also endorse the idea of a minimum 1 year moratorium on move requests here, and longer even better - we have wasted an inordinate amount of time doing this over and over again with the same result. We need to build an encyclopedia here, not count how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. And B2C, I have to say that I find your closing sentence insulting, and wish you would stop making pronouncements about what is or is not controversial, and what will or won't happen in the future. You're entitled to your opinions of course - and that's all they are, opinions - but beating everyone over the head with your view is really getting tedious. Tvoz/talk 00:12, 31 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment - Once again all; there is a lengthy pre-existing discussion on a moratorium on the HC talk page. You might want to read the discuss prior to rehashing it here. NickCT (talk) 03:04, 31 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
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