Wikipedia talk:Requested moves

When can a new RM be initiated after a controversial RM is closed?

The case that raised the question is 2013 Egyptian coup d'etat. A RM was closed at 15:11, 11 July 2013 [1] on the grounds that 1) it was a coup, 2) the sources use the term, which makes it a WP:POVTITLE, and 3) the proposed alternative was also POV. A new RM was opened on 22:12, 12 July 2013, suggesting a title that (the proposer reasonably believed) was NPOV. A new argument was raised at 01:34, 14 July 2013, that the title is a descriptive phrase and POVTITLE applies only to names.

At 20:50, 14 July 2013, the RM was speedy-closed, on the grounds that any new RM was disallowed for a substantial period -- a "couple of months" was mentioned -- after a previous RM had closed.

It seems to me that the right standard is to allow a new RM to be opened immediately, as long as either the grounds for closure do not apply because of the newly-proposed destination, or a plausible new argument is raised that would (if accepted) suffice to reverse the basis for closure; and that speedy closure is inappropriate if a significant new argument is presented in the new RM, even if it was not raised when the new RM was opened. But I haven't found any guidance in the guidelines.

For what it's worth, I'm not seeking to open a new RM for that page, at least for now, because I don't have an acceptable destination to propose (and for other reasons, but that one is sufficient). --Dan Wylie-Sears 2 (talk) 04:53, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

You raise some good points/question. More precise guidelines are needed. My name is Mercy11 (talk) 13:04, 19 July 2013 (UTC), and I approve this message.

This probably comes down to a judgement call over whether the second proposed title Overthrow of Mohamed Morsi was adequately discussed and debated in the first RM, which is already buried in the second of three talk archives opened in a single month. What's with the 7-day auto-archiving there? That seems a bit excessive to me. The word overthrow is used several times, and Overthrow of Morsi a couple times, but the specific title Overthrow of Mohamed Morsi was never proposed in the first RM. Note in contrast the early closure at Talk:Boise State–Nevada football rivalry. Since the discussion of alternatives was short-circuited in that RM, I believe there would be sufficient grounds to open a new RM for an alternate title there. The Morsi situation is somewhat more muddled as to whether a new RM is merited, however. You might consider an appeal of that second close at WP:Move review and ask for it to be reopened. – Wbm1058 (talk) 16:03, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

As to the 7 day archiving, it appears to be a pretty active talk page, so 7 days is not particularly short. Apteva (talk) 04:54, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

I sympathize... but I have to urge caution... the terms used to describe this event are both political and controversial, and the previous RM engendered strong emotions on both sides. Ask yourself whether people are really calm enough (yet) to step back and look at your new suggestion with objectivity. I am concerned that others have become so locked into their stated opinions that they are not ready to consider any alternatives... even good ones. You may find that if you wait a month or so, everyone will be more receptive to your suggestion. In short, you may be shooting yourself in the foot if you start a new RM so soon. Blueboar (talk) 17:55, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

Exactly. Or even 6 months or a year. Apteva (talk) 04:54, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

We develop consensus through discussion. If there is no consensus, that suggests we need more discussion. If there is consensus and a decision, then a moratorium on discussion makes sense. But after a discussion is closed "no consensus"? Interested parties should not be prevented from discussing further, whether informally or as part of a new RM proposal. --B2C 21:48, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

No, interested parties should not (and cannot) be prevented from discussing further. But a new RM soon after a previous RM has been closed is unlikely to be helpful, especially if the closed RM involved extensive discussion. People understandably become weary of discussing the same subject over and over. We've seen this many times recently. Omnedon (talk) 14:28, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

There is no reasonable argument against further discussion based on becoming weary of discussing anything - no one is forced or required to discuss anything. If one participates in a discussion to the point that they grow weary of it, they have no one to blame but themselves. At most, if one feels compelled to participate in every RM on a given title, they can make one short summary of their argument, or refer to someone else's !vote that did that. If someone is too weary to even do that, they might consider a Wiki break. But thanks for bringing our attention to another status quo stonewalling tactic... Wikipedia:Status quo stonewalling#Arguing against more discussion due to weariness. --B2C 21:16, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

Does that mean that you think that raising an identical RM immediately after one is closed as no consensus is OK? That sounds very inefficient to me. It can work, but it would be far better to just not close the RM in the first place. The argument that others can just walk away is invalid, as admins are (collectively) responsible for processing all RMs listed in the Backlog section, so we're not quite as free to walk away as other contributors are, see my comments below (which preceded yours above, note).

If RM discussion is to be allowed to continue indefinitely without consensus (whether by not closing the RM or by allowing an endless succession to be raised) then I'd suggest we need a mechanism to remove these no-consensus RMs from the Backlog section without closing them... perhaps automatically if after two days (say) in the Backlog, no admin has been prepared to close as either move or no move. They could then stay (perhaps indefinitely) in a new no consensus section of WP:RM until one of the participants thinks there is enough of a consensus to relist. As I said, that can work. But we need to tweak the system a little if it's to work well. Andrewa (talk) 00:52, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I think there should be no rule against opening an RM right after another is closed as "no consensus". But any such subsequent RM should be allowed to run its course, with no closing until at least a week of no discussion (or consensus is reached). If discussion has ceased for a week, I suggest closing as "no consensus" is unlikely to trigger another opening.

Also, in such a discussion what I called the WP:Yogurt Principle should be applied. That is, closers should be especially mindful in such a situation that they are determining community consensus about the title based on the arguments presented; that they are not determining consensus of the small sample of self-selected participants. Often in such cases there is no consensus among the participants, but there is a community consensus, because one side is supported by policy significantly better than the other. --B2C 16:21, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

While not wanting to comment on this particular case, I'd like to comment on some of the issues raised. In my (perhaps radical) opinion a new RM based on a previously rejected similar RM should only be raised (ever, no time period) if there is rough consensus on the article talk page to do so, and I'd back any admin who speedy-closed such an RM raised without supporting discussion on the talk page and a rough consensus there to take it back to RM. This is just based on practicalities, as observed by a fairly regular RM-clearer. It's pointless to take it to RM if you can't get consensus on the talk page, isn't it? And even more so if there has been a previous convoluted RM discussion, strongly suggesting that the new RM will be just as convoluted. Raising such pointless RMs wastes an enormous amount of admin time, and I really can't see what they achieve.

There is scope within the RM process for raising alternative names, and for relisting, and anyone can relist prior to closure. And if there are good alternative suggestions, relisting at the time these are made to allow a full discussion period for them is a good course. You don't need to wait until the RM falls into the "Backlog" and closure is imminent.

Yes, discussion is good. It should be directed at reaching consensus rather than disempowering the opposite view, and part of the incentive for this should be that RMs that have no chance of consensus (as demonstrated by a previous similar RM and no subsequent consensus to go back to RM) should just be speedily closed, to save everyone's time. This isn't policy AFAIK but should be.

Note I'm not saying that controversial RMs should not be raised once, or that convoluted RMs can be avoided. They are inevitable, and time well spent, and I'm happy to wade through them when the discussion period expires. It's just the reruns that I'd like to avoid. Andrewa (talk) 18:54, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

"... new RM based on a previously rejected similar RM should only be raised (ever, no time period) if there is rough consensus on the article talk page to do so".

Radical, indeed.

First, if there is a rough consensus on the talk page, arguably an RM is not even needed.

Second, often the only way to get reasonable discussion about a title is with an RM; without an RM it's sometimes difficult if not impossible to get any kind of reading on consensus.

Third, consensus can change and develop through discussion. Without RM, you are likely to not get the kind of discussion through which consensus changes.

Fourth, we're not even talking about cases where an RM had been rejected (your term) - we're talking cases where there was "no consensus" about an RM proposal. And, remember, what we're trying to determine is not whether there is consensus among the self-selected relatively small and insignificant sample participating, but whether there is community consensus regarding the title. The only way to do this is through the presentation of arguments evaluated based on how well they are based in policy. Again, often discussion prompted by an RM is needed to flesh all that out.

Finally, given the way closers often mistakenly evaluate WP:LOCALCONSENSUS, usually coupled with opposers' effective use of WP:Status quo stonewalling tactics, to conclude an RM discussion is "no consensus" simply because both sides are about equally supported in number, it often takes several RMs to establish that only one side is well supported in policy. This is the point of WP:Yogurt Principle. See also WP:Yogurt Title History for an extreme example of how repeated RMs are often needed to finally get to a decision that actually reflects community consensus. (NOTE: last three references to essays here are to essays for which I'm the primary author). --B2C 21:37, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

(Apologies if this stringing isn't quite right, it seems to be a bit confused below) I'll just say that I don't think you have addressed any of the points I made despite quoting one of them, and leave others to judge whether this is an accurate assessment.

Now, I will comment on one little quibble: The question of whether or not an RM has been rejected (my term) when it's closed without consensus and without a move doesn't concern me greatly, so I'll ask, what term would you prefer? Andrewa (talk) 02:09, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

A "no consensus" result is equivalent to when a jury deadlocks and is unable to produce a verdict. Referring to "no consensus" as "rejection" of a proposal sounds much more decisive than it is. I suggest deadlock or stalemate as being more accurate. --B2C 16:35, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

• See Wikipedia:Renominating_for_deletion, which is directed at a very similar question. Note that while B2C makes many justifiable statements, his approach is on the wrong side of WP:STICK, WP:DISRUPTION and WP:BAN. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:51, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

B2C, you continue to tout the yogurt situation as a positive example, and to throw around the word "consensus" in a way that's questionable. In any case, it's quite simple: if there is a discussion on a move request, and there is no consensus to move, then we don't move, and we don't need to go through the whole process again for a while. A freshly-opened RM on the heels of a closed RM is most likely going to be disruptive and not well-received by the community. Omnedon (talk) 01:13, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

Let me raise an example of a situation where a new RM was appropriately held very soon after an old one closed... take a look at the various RMs at Talk:Deadmau5. In the first RM there was a consensus (but not a very large consensus) to move the page. However, this move resulted in a very vocal backlash. A lot of new editors spoke up who had not participated in the first RM... all objecting to the move and, more importantly, giving new policy based arguments for returning the page to the original title. It quickly became clear that, had all these editors participated in the original discussion, the result would have been very very different. Not quickly holding a second RM would actually have been more disruptive than holding it. Blueboar (talk) 03:23, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

I've had a look at the archives... IMO my "radical" suggestion above would have handled this situation perfectly... a discussion on the talk page would have quickly resolved to raise a new RM, the new RM would link to that discussion, and any admin who thought of speedy closure would see that discussion. And in fact that appears to be exactly what happened, perhaps not quite as quickly. So what's the problem? Andrewa (talk) 15:35, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

Again, it is highly unlikely that that kind of discussion will occur without the framework of a formal RM being in place to motivate people to participate. I may have seen such discussion occur without an RM maybe once or twice, but it's very rare. Here again WP:Yogurt Title History provides good examples. Between the eight RMs, there was some discussion, but it was always very relatively limited compared to what occurred during the actual RMs. Certainly a rough consensus was never achieved outside of an RM. --B2C 16:35, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

It seems to me an excellent example of a waste of everyone's time, but I can't see any way that the yogurt/yoghurt discussion could support the wisdom of raising repeated RMs. It does however support a more general and possibly even more radical proposal of mine, which I call Andrew's Principle: If no consensus really is possible, then it doesn't matter which way we go.

The project here is to write an encyclopedia. It's not a debating club. Andrewa (talk) 20:29, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

Agreed, in part. Some editors do spend a great deal of time debating and little time editing. But if we make a change in a situation where there is no consensus to do so, then that's worse than doing nothing. That's why some degree of inertia in the system is helpful. There needs to be good reason to move an article. Omnedon (talk) 20:33, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

Exactly. And further, we don't want to discourage healthy discussion, and some editors are probably better at discussion than at working on articles, and we want to welcome them to the project too. But we also want to particularly encourage those who are working the coalface (remembering that the whole point of the project is the article or main namespace) to bring their experience there to the discussions, where it's a lot more valuable than any amount of theorising would be. It's a balancing act in some ways. Andrewa (talk) 20:49, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

The yogurt title debacle demonstrates the problem with Andrew's principle - closers judging the consensus of the participants rather than the community consensus as reflected through policy and applied to the case in question. That is, people are too quick to assume " no consensus really is possible". Community consensus as reflected in policy was not only possible at Yogurt, it was clear in RM #1.

While self-selected participants often cannot achieve a consensus among each other, the application of policy is usually much more clear. That was the case at Yogurt from RM #1 (of 8), and demonstrated by the closer of RM #2. But the idea that there must be a "consensus of the participants" prevailed in RM #3, which reversed the sound finding in RM #2, and lead to #4, #5, #6, #7 and, finally, #8, where participants finally agreed with policy.

In fact, it was the insistence that it was silly to continue debating the issue that was largely responsible for prolonging it. People assumed "no consensus was possible", and so concluded debate was silly, and did not take the arguments seriously. Even when it was repeatedly shown that moving the article as proposed would result in a title with an unassailable basis in policy (what we have now with it at Yogurt), it was largely dismissed.

To be clear, your principle is sound in theory, but is likely to fail in practice because of premature findings of "no consensus" based on !vote counting rather than argument analysis. --B2C 20:55, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

I interpret this data differently. What (in hindsight) was clear right from RM #1 was that no meaningful consensus could be achieved. Some appearance of consensus was eventually achieved through a process of attrition, which is likely to have discouraged some valuable editors, and achieved absolutely nothing. Andrewa (talk) 21:05, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

Yes, and similar interpretations are at the root of many problematic "no consensus" results that are actually supported by community consensus as reflected in policy.

Attrition? What evidence do you have of that? Especially since RM #8 had almost 50 participants, perhaps a record. Besides, you are again concerned with WP:LOCALCONSENSUS rather than community consensus as reflected in policy.

You deny that the Yogurt is unassailable in terms of policy-based argument and that hindsight was not necessary to see this before the article was moved? --B2C 21:45, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

B2C has a poor appreciation of WP:Consensus and others would be well advised to not trust his interpretations if it. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:56, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

See my personal interpretation at User:Andrewa/creed: I believe in consensus. I don't know what it means either, but I'll try to make it work anyway. Andrewa (talk) 00:29, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

No, I don't deny that the Yogurt is unassailable in terms of policy-based argument. I haven't commented either way and don't intend to. But I do claim that this was a lose/lose result, and that it would be good to avoid processes such as this.

Nor am I concerned only with local consensus. I have no idea what gave you that idea.

There is much concern about retaining editors. We do from time to time get sniping from outside of Wikipedia claiming that Wikipedia is inaccurate, but even these skeptics (who presumably are too old to have learned critical reading at primary school, if they are from my area) rarely if ever criticise our article titles, and nor should they. The article title is merely a handle. We try very hard not to say that just because we spell or style an article title in a particular way, that everyone therefore should, and we have non-judgemental redirects from other spellings.

But we do still have endless and vigorous debates about which title is correct. Whether these are just in terms of policy (which does include WP:IAR remember) or include other evidence, they don't do a lot to improve Wikipedia. If we could somehow curb these, it would be a big step towards retaining editors, in my opinion. Andrewa (talk) 00:22, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Well, we see and seek to solve the same problem: needless bickering about titles. You seem to advocate "walk away". I don't believe advocating "walk away" is a practical or effective solution to this problem because we'll never get everyone to walk away, and it only takes very few to continue a conflict, sometimes only two.

So, I seek something else: policy-based resolution to such conflicts. There are two main prongs to this approach:

1. Doing better at recognizing when one side in such conflicts is clearly supported better by policy than the other, and changing titles accordingly, even if there is no consensus of the small self-selected sample of contributors that happen to be participating in the discussion. We can do this as participants in RM discussions (e.g., my contribution to Talk:DNS today[2], or as RM discussion closers (e.g., Tariq's close of that discussion [3]).
2. Improving title policy through an evolving process that gives ambiguous guidance as to what the title should be in fewer and fewer cases. For example, my attempt to clarify the meaning of WP:PRIMARYTOPIC today[4].

I believe that this is the only practical and effective way to greatly reduce the amount of bickering about titles. So, you will see my commitment to this approach in every edit that has to do with titles, whether it's about a specific title on an article talk page, an edit to a policy page, or discussion about such edits. I'm constantly trying to improve with respect to either #1, #2, or both. Will you join me? --B2C 01:50, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

I entirely disagree that the consensus of those participating in the discussion should be disregarded. Doing so will in no way reduce "bickering" (see Hilary Rodham Clinton). Moving when the discussion has not produced a clear consensus is problematic. And in terms of "walking away" -- you have repeatedly suggested that those who do not wish to continue discussing should "walk away". In any case, I agree with Andrewa that much time and energy is spent on titling, and while the general issue is not unimportant, it does seem to be the source of much of the contention that I encounter. Omnedon (talk) 01:59, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

I note that the edit to which you refer above regarding the primary topic guideline has been reverted [5], and that another editor has applauded the revert [6] in the following terms: Could B2C avoid putting his own, untested views into the guideline, please? Interested to see how that discussion proceeds.

But I'm afraid you don't seem to understand what I'm proposing. Speedy close of repeat RMs raised without supporting talk page consensus was my immediate, practical suggestion above. To describe this as a walk away solution is s bit bizarre. Andrewa (talk) 07:13, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Omnedon, I'm glad you "disagree that the consensus of those participating in the discussion should be disregarded". But who are you disagreeing with? I, for one, never said, implied or even thought that. I don't know if you've read WP:Yogurt Principle, but the reason a key aspect of having a history of no consensus findings before the principle applies is because of not disregarding participant consensus (or lack thereof). But, ultimately, a more accurate indication of community consensus is not the consensus view of a relatively small self-selected group of participants, but an analysis of their arguments in terms of their basis in policy, which reflects community consensus. This is especially true when a number of RM discussions have made it likely that all significant arguments have been presented.

At Yogurt I argued for years that the bickering would end once the title clearly better supported by policy was selected. No one believed me there, but I was proven to be right, at least in that case. I am predicting the same regarding HRC/HC, for the same reason: once an article is moved to solid policy-based ground, the reasons for moving evaporate. It happened with Yogurt, and it will happen with Hillary Clinton. But as long as it remains on weak policy-based ground, which was the case with Yoghurt, and is the case with Hillary Rodham Clinton, instability, controversy and bickering will reign. Sure there will be periods, months, maybe even a year or more, of quiet, but sooner or later someone (perhaps someone who today has not even edited WP yet) will realize that there is good reason to change that title, and they'll bring it up, someone else will agree, and there will be another RM. How is this not obvious?

Andrewa, I apologize for misunderstanding. I thought you promoted "walk away" somewhere. But I did not mean to characterize your speed close proposal as that. I don't think you've addressed my objections to it. First, requiring talk page consensus before opening a new RM is impractical because often without an RM the kind of discussion required to motivate people to participate and develop consensus is not possible without an RM. But perhaps you see that as a good thing? Second, this does not resolve anything - at best it delays resolution. Finally, there are two very different types of cases to consider. In the first case both sides are truly well supported by policy. That is, policy supports the status quo just as strongly as the proposed alternative. I suggest these cases are rare, and, when they exist, indicate a problem with policy. The point of policy and guidelines is to provide guidance - when the guidance tells you its fine to go in either direction, that's not guidance. In such cases closers should suggest the relevant policies be reviewed. In them more common cases one side is clearly better supported by policy, yet the split among the RM participants is still 50/50, and, so, closers are reluctant to "find consensus". I suggest closers grow a pair. Finding consensus is ultimately about determining what community consensus is on the topic. When one side is supported by the policies that have community consensus, and the other side is most JDLI rationalization, the closer should find in favor of the policy-supported side, and such decisions should be supported in RM reviews (contrary to the debacle at the RM review of HRC/HC). --B2C 23:30, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

B2C, here's what you promoted: "...changing titles accordingly, even if there is no consensus of the small self-selected sample of contributors that happen to be participating in the discussion." Absolutely inappropriate. If one participates in a discussion, then that matters. You are saying that in some cases an action should be taken even if there is no consensus among the participants to do so. That's entirely wrong-headed by any definition of consensus-based decision-making. Omnedon (talk) 01:00, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

In the case of HRC, the current title is supported by policy. There are policy-based arguments for HC as well, but the key point with that situation is that one RM was opened (by you) just months after the previous one was closed, which some felt to be disruptive and counterproductive. I believe there should be a delay between RMs. Titles are important, but because of redirects and searches and the like, they are not as vital as content, as long as the content is easily located and the title is not clearly "wrong". Once again, titles are important -- but we spend too much time and energy on discussing them. Improving articles is far more important than debating for years and years over "yoghurt" versus "yogurt". Omnedon (talk) 01:25, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

Some of what you say above is true. But much of it, including your objections to my speedy close proposal, is pure speculation, and I don't think any other answer is possible or necessary.

You are still assuming that the result at yogurt was a good one. It wasn't. I hope nobody wants to reopen that debate, the current title is acceptable. But the process that produced it was horrendous, and the benefit to the article namespace trivial at best. As you've stated, a significant benefit of the eventual decision was to stop the endless discussion. It seems to me that this was the main benefit, and that indicates to me a very poor result, and a problem with the process.

But RM works reasonably well. In my opinion it would work even better under my proposal. You disagree; You like raising repeat RMs rather than building consensus first. There seems little support for this view, but you're entitled to it, and under the current guidelines there seems to be little to stop you from raising as many repeat RMs as you like. (I suppose eventually WP:POINT might be attempted, but I don't think it really fits.) Andrewa (talk) 12:41, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

Yes, Andrew, I think the final result at yogurt was a good one. A stable and non-controversial title on solid policy-based ground. A consensus of RM participants finally confirmed what community consensus about that title really was. As far as I know the applicable policies and guidelines did not change significantly from RM #1 to RM #8. In analyzing each of the RMs, it is obvious that the same basic arguments were made over and over. There is no evidence that community consensus changed over that period - so if it supported Yogurt in the end, it must have supported it in the beginning. That indicates any reading of community consensus to be anything but favoring Yogurt was a misreading of community consensus.

We agree the process that produced the final result was horrendous. I'm unclear as to what you believe was the root cause of that horrendousness. Although there were 8 RMs, that was over 7 years, and so often there was a considerable time between most proposals (e.g., over 2 years between RM #4 in 5/07 and RM #5 in 7/09). I believe the root cause was poor reading of community consensus in most of those RMs. A notable exception is the closing of RM #2 by Mets501 (talk · contribs) [7] in which he correctly observed that "there is clearly a majority who support the move with proper reasoning, so the article will be moved." That that decision was overturned, without consensus, and without proper reasoning, in RM #3[8], is probably the most extreme example of poor reading of community consensus. That particular proposal was even explicitly presented as a vote... "The vote is about ...", even though even the version of WP:CONSENSUS at that time explicitly said: "Precise numbers for "supermajority" are hard to establish, and Wikipedia is not a majoritarian democracy, so simple vote-counting should never be the key part of the interpretation of a debate."

What made the yogurt process horrendous was repeated interpretations of the successive RM discussions in which vote-counting was not only the key part, often (as in RM #3) it was the only part. --B2C 17:05, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

Andrew, I also agree that RM works reasonably well, but it could be improved. But I don't agree with your characterization that I like raising repeat RMs. I do believe that a repeat RM - when previous RMs were closed as "no consensus" - is often the only effective way to produce the types of discussion with the arguments necessary to establish where consensus actually lies. Can you produce any examples where an RM was ever closed as "no consensus", and then consensus was established on the talk page before another RM was proposed? Like I said, I don't doubt that it's possible. I'm just saying it's not very often. The closest one I can think of is regarding the great Sega Genesis/Mega Drive debacle (see Talk:Sega Genesis/FAQ). But even there it was a straw poll that produced what seemed to be a strong consensus, but it still took a formal RM to get enough participation to confirm. Most title discussions, without an RM proposal, simply attract far too few people, not to mention such discussions being heavily biased with people to have an interest in that particular article. Even achieving a consensus of such a self-selected group is not likely to reflect community consensus very well. --B2C 17:33, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

But we aren't talking about discussions without an RM proposal. We're (explicitly) talking about discussions that have already had an RM... perhaps just minutes previously, or perhaps once every quarter on average over a period of two years. That was the original question above. Andrewa (talk) 20:57, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

Agreed, Andrewa (talk · contribs). And that's what I'm addressing. My statements apply to discussion about titles that have already had an RM. Once the RM is closed, it's often very difficult to get discussion going again with even a fraction of those involved in the RM, without starting another RM. How do you develop and establish consensus without getting people to talk. I hardly ever see exceptions to this.

By the way, this is especially true where there is some WP:Status quo stonewalling going on. That is, the defenders of the status quo have no motivation to even get involved unless the status quo title is at risk of being changed, and that's only going to happen within the framework of a formal RM. So once an RM is closed as "no consensus", they see that as a victory (after all, their preference, the status quo, is preserved - never mind that it did not have consensus support, not in terms of !vote counts or in terms of stronger policy based arguments), and have no reason to discuss the issue further. You have to open another RM to make them present arguments based in policy (if they have any) that support the status quo. --B2C 23:05, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Omnedon, when referring to "consensus" in these discussions it's important to be clear on whether we're talking about consensus, or WP:CONSENSUS. In particular, the difference between a consensus of those participating in a discussion, and what the community consensus is about the issue being discussed, needs to be understood and appreciated.

Any given discussion on Wikipedia, even the relatively large RfCs involving dozens, is comprised of a small (relative to the whole WP community) self-selected (not random) sample of the thousands of WP editors that make up the community, and is by no means guaranteed to be a representative sample of the much larger community. This is why determining consensus among the participants of a discussion is not an effective way to determine community consensus about the question at issue. For example, if half of, say, twenty participants favor a proposal and half oppose, that result tells us there is no consensus among the participants, but very little if anything about whether there is community consensus about the proposal, and, if so, what it is. We have to look at and evaluate the arguments to determine that.

This is why discussions closers on Wikipedia have the duty to determine WP:CONSENSUS by evaluating the arguments in terms of how well they are based in policy (which reflects community consensus), rather than by determining what, if anything, is the consensus of the self-selected participants.

You might think this is a radical view, but it's the well-documented view of the community. It is reflected at Wikipedia:Closing_discussions#Consensus, for example, which says:

The closer is there to judge the consensus of the community [not of the discussion participants], after discarding irrelevant arguments: those that flatly contradict established policy, those based on personal opinion only, those that are logically fallacious, those that show no understanding of the matter of issue.

Also at Wikipedia:Deletion_guidelines_for_administrators#Rough_consensus:

Consensus is not determined by counting heads, but by looking at strength of argument, and underlying policy (if any). Arguments that contradict policy, are based on opinion rather than fact, or are logically fallacious, are frequently discounted.

This idea is also reflected at Wikipedia:RMCI#Determining_consensus:

Consensus is determined not just by considering the preferences of the participants in a given discussion, but also by evaluating their arguments, assigning due weight accordingly, and giving due consideration to the relevant consensus of the Wikipedia community in general as reflected in applicable policy, guidelines and naming conventions.

And of course, WP:CONSENSUS says so too, at WP:CONSENSUS#Determining consensus:

Consensus is determined by the quality of the arguments given on the various sides of an issue, as viewed through the lens of Wikipedia policy.

So, yes, per all of the above policies and guidelines (not just my opinion) when when one side in a title conflict is clearly supported better by policy than the other, WP:CONSENSUS about the title should be determined accordingly, even if there is no consensus among the small self-selected sample of contributors that happen to be participating in the discussion. --B2C 18:57, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

B2C, you are inferring something in your first quote that isn't there. In context, it is clear that "the community" refers to participants in discussions; it in no way says that the participants can be ignored. You really should stop talking down to people in these discussions as if they have no idea what you're talking about. I know that we are talking about consensus in terms of Wikipedia; please stop quoting these things to us over and over. Even after your lengthy response, I still entirely reject the notion that, as you put it, titles should in some cases be changed even if there is no consensus among the discussion participants. That is precisely why we have discussions: to come to consensus. If you are going to proceed without that consensus having formed, then you are operating against the way Wikipedia works. Omnedon (talk) 20:04, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

Let's try another tack. What we seem to be discussing is how to help the admins to better do their job of closing RMs. I think that we do pretty well, but that we could do better if there were a better restriction on raising repeated RMs after one has already closed (which was the original subject of this discussion), to avoid wasting time on repetitive arguments, and also to avoid the temptation not to even read these arguments, or at best not very carefully. Andrewa (talk) 20:57, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

• Comment - I would leave this up to editors per WP:CREEP. If there was In my view 1,2,3 months for a case where there is a significant reason (naughtiness, new evidence, changed circumstances,non admin close, closed against policy, closed majority of editors, supervote close by admin known for POV on the subject). 12 months for a rehash of old story against consensus against. There are enough active RM contributors to penalize a too-quick relist for no good reason to need to regulate. And speaking of which, has everyone here made a substantial contribution to article space today? In ictu oculi (talk) 05:32, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Hear-hear. Omnedon (talk) 23:47, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

So, what you're both saying is that it's better under those circumstances to raise a new RM, rather than to start an informal discussion on the talk page?

I'd have to say I still disagree. There seems no good reason not to start a talk page discussion. If there are good reasons for a new RM and the RM has any chance of success, then we'd expect at least a rough consensus on the talk page to raise the RM. Or, in the event of no response at all, after contacting those involved in the previous RM and/or other discussions (which isn't canvassing provided both sides are contacted), then I'd be happy for an RM to be raised based on the silence. But to clutter WP:RM with moves that have no demonstrated support and are repeats seems silly to me. Andrewa (talk) 09:23, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

Generally it is recommended to start a talk page discussion before opening a new RM for a proposed move that has already been discussed. Apteva (talk) 04:54, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

If an RM closes and those that disagree want to discuss it further, then a talk page discussion would be preferable to immediately opening a new RM. When I said "hear-hear" above, it was mainly in support of the idea that we each ought to try and make contributions to the article space as well as to these discussions. Discussions are important; but ultimately it's all about the content. There is, and will be for the foreseeable future, much to be done. Omnedon (talk) 12:18, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

Template:Disputed title

In the alternate universe of Dispute templates there is a somewhat obscure one regarding titles, which tags articles themselves rather than their talk pages. Currently it's transcluded on just five pages:

• Aghstafa River (January 2009)
• Alexandrian pogrom (February 2013)
• Pogroms of 1096 (February 2013)
• End of Communism in Hungary (1989) (June 2013)
• Interstate 88 (east) (July 2013)

These seem like they should use requested moves to resolve their "disputed titles". Rather, they bypass the normal procedure for (potentially) controversial or disputed title moves by using WP:RfC or other discussion alternatives. Is there any good reason for them to bypass WP:RM? Should the requested moves procedure document {{Disputed title}} as an optionally used template for providing article notification of requested moves? Wbm1058 (talk) 17:57, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

In the not-too-distant past, there was a mainspace template notifying of ongoing RMs on a corresponding talk page. I think it got deleted. This might be an issue for TfD, but I'd be happy to see this one deleted. It too easily lends itself to drive-by tagging, because as you say, RM is the process for this. Or we could just slap this tag on that's the subject of repeated RMs.</badidea> --BDD (talk) 16:57, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

Added to WP:TfD. Apteva (talk) 04:31, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

@BDD: Right, see Wikipedia talk:Requested moves/Archive 24#Template:move notice, which links to several other discussions. {{Movenotice}} was the mainspace tag from the now-deleted parallel universe of category:Proposed moves. Its cousin {{Move header}} (now userfied in my space) was also deleted. I intend to post my opinion at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2013 July 31#Template:Disputed title after I sort this out, and I hope you give yours too. Wbm1058 (talk) 15:47, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

The discussion was closed with no consensus while I was still analyzing usage of the four mainspace tags:

• {{Cleanup-articletitle}} – "The name of this article may be improper for Wikipedia." (exclusively populates Category:Wikipedia title cleanup) Currently transcluded in 8 articles.
• {{Inappropriate title}} – "The title of this article seems not to accurately describe the article's subject matter." (one of 16 templates, per documentation, populating Category:Wikipedia articles needing style editing) Currently transcluded in 5 articles.
• {{Disputed title}} – "The current title of this article is disputed." (one of several templates populating Category:Accuracy disputes) Currently transcluded in 3 articles.
• {{POV-title}} – "The neutrality of this article's title, subject matter, and/or the title's implications, is disputed." (one of several templates populating Category:NPOV disputes) Currently transcluded in 27 articles.

Perhaps all four templates should populate Category:Wikipedia title cleanup, which is the only category exclusively dedicated to titles. The other three categories bury the few title-related articles under a mountain of non-title-related issues. All four of these templates tend to linger on articles for months and years. – Wbm1058 (talk) 19:29, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

I did change the templates so they also populate Category:Wikipedia title cleanup. Vegaswikian (talk) 20:13, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for your bold endorsement of my idea. I tweaked the templates to send a parameter to {{Ambox}}. After some wp:Null edits, Category:Wikipedia title cleanup should be fully populated with all the articles tagged with one of these four title-related templates. Maybe you can think of an NPOV title for Misconduct in the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Wbm1058 (talk) 21:22, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

That article has more problems then the title. Vegaswikian (talk) 21:50, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

How can I get outsiders' opinions?

It has been requested that the article about Mathilde of Belgium be moved to Queen Mathilde of Belgium despite the fact that the article about her husband is titled Philippe of Belgium rather than King Philippe of Belgium. Such discrepancy can only make sense to Wikipedia editors who have edited royalty-related articles for years. Ordinary readers, for whom articles are written, can only be confused and misled by such a practice. Usually people seek the opinion of those interested in the subject but in this case I believe it would be beneficial to get opinions of "outsiders", users who do not edit articles about royals. How (or where) can I "advertise" the discussion to get opinion of such users? Surtsicna (talk) 21:49, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

Note this RM is already advertised at Wikipedia:WikiProject Royalty and Nobility – perhaps what you would call an "insiders" noticeboard. In theory, WP:RM, where it is also already advertised, is a more general noticeboard, which is watched by many editors with a general interest in page naming conventions and page moves. That should be sufficient, and interested "experts" are usually best at making page naming decisions. However, if you still want to solicit more uninvolved editors, you could try a request for comment, as I discussed in the previous section, there is a small "alternate universe" of page move discussions using that venue. An RfC about a page move should just link to a requested move discussion, in my opinion, and not a to a fork of such a discussion. Wbm1058 (talk) 01:21, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

Clarification. An RfC replaces an RM, and is just a way of discussing for 30 days instead of for 7 days. They are advertised in different places though, by default, and in the same places, such as relevant wikiprojects. RM templates can be removed when an RfC is open. Apteva (talk) 04:38, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

IMO all the "King" and "Queen" article titles should follow a standard format throughout the encyclopedia. If we have Philippe of Belgium and Juan Carlos I of Spain then, for example, Elizabeth II should be titled Elizabeth II of England and not merely have a redirect such as it currently has (namely the Elizabeth II of England (redirect)). Whether such article titles have "King"/"Queen" in them or not should not matter during a first attempt to standardize, but for Christ's sake let's at least start by making all such titles consistent! My name is Mercy11 (talk) 14:42, 24 July 2013 (UTC), and I approve this message.

• As our Article titles policy notes, choosing the best title for an article involves balancing five key principles. Article titles should be Recognizable, Natural, Concise, Precise, and Consistent ... however the policy also notes that sometimes we can not achieve all five at the same time. In which case we may have to choose between them. If a mindless adherence to consistency results in a title that is not recognizable or natural (for example) we should (and usually do) toss consistency out the window. Blueboar (talk) 14:01, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

• @Surtsicna: There is a guideline Wikipedia:Naming conventions (royalty and nobility) that specifies how articles such as Mathilde of Belgium should be titled. Generally, arguments based on such guidelines are viewed as the strongest arguments in requested move discussions. If this guideline does not support the way that you think these articles should be named, then you could begin a discussion of proposed guideline changes at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (royalty and nobility). I see that you have already started a discussion there. Good luck. – Wbm1058 (talk) 15:49, 25 July 2013 (UTC)
  • The problem is that the guideline is very faulty. Every attempt to change it is ignored and thus nothing ever changes. That is why I requested a mass move and a simultaneous change of the guideline at Talk:Queen Sonja of Norway. I've also placed a request for comment, per your suggestion, Wbm1058. I hope I did it the way you told me to. Surtsicna (talk) 15:52, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Missing instructions

I can find nothing in the instructions about the situation where you want to start a discussion about a name, but you don't know for sure what name you want. I just had to solve this problem at Talk:Prince Harry of Wales. Is there a particular method that should be used? W. P. Uzer (talk) 07:39, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

Use a question mark. I fixed Talk:Prince Harry of Wales for you. This is documented – expand the collapsed Template usage examples and notes by clicking [show] to the far right on that collapsed template bar. It's also documented in the template:Requested move documentation and at Wikipedia:Template messages/Moving. But perhaps it should also be given a mention in the main instructions. – Wbm1058 (talk) 14:21, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

Thank you! I just added it to the instructions. W. P. Uzer (talk) 09:20, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

Backlog

While it is nice to see the backlog gone, and discussions can be closed at any time that consensus is reached, there are normally still discussions in the last date listed that have not reached a full 7 days (opened after the current time). Are we getting a bit over-enthusiastic? Apteva (talk) 21:11, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

Apteva, I see that your eagle eyes have detected that the bot's backlog logic isn't working right. It's not a piece of code that's had much exercise lately. Please give me some time to figure out how it works and debug it, by leaving up the backlog notice for now. I have an off-line project to do right now, hopefully I'll get the bot fixed later today. Thanks, Wbm1058 (talk) 18:33, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

That was a long time ago. I had not even noticed the backlog notice. I had previously been trying to trouble shoot that, but not recently. Apteva (talk) 20:58, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

Right, it was a month ago, relatively not that long, but nobody told me about it and I didn't notice. Anyhow, it's  Fixed now.

There are actually eight days listed, and after seven days of discussion, on the eighth day the administrators close requests, lest they join the backlog on the ninth day. Thus anything on the last day in the list is fair game for closure. – Wbm1058 (talk) 22:39, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

Community consensus (again)

I have asked B2C to explain this edit. In particular, amongst all the recent discussion, is there a consensus for it? Andrewa (talk) 18:54, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

Absolutely not. The concept is right, but the wording is horrible. By referring to relevant policy and guideline in weighing arguments, the closer is choosing the consensus of the community, and we do not just count votes, so yes the concept is right, but it is not properly worded. Apteva (talk) 19:45, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

I would agree that B2C's wording was poor. This is a very tricky issue, and we need to get it right. For one thing, I don't think it is quite accurate to imply that closers should ignore numbers... those do matter. We also need to remember that policy/guidance can occasionally get out of sync with community consensus. If there are lots and lots of people at an RM (or other RFC type discussion) all saying that we should do X ... but policy or guidance says to do Y... there is at least the possibility that all those X votes represent a shift in the community consensus ... and that the policy/guideline page no longer accurately reflects the real consensus of the community, and needs to be amended. Blueboar (talk) 21:45, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

Exactly. Consensus can change.

There are two ways to change policy and guidelines to reflect changing consensus. One is to propose a theoretical change to the rules, citing examples preferably. The other is to establish consensus that the rules do not deal well with particular cases, and then update the rules to accomodate these cases. Both ways are valid and do occur, but the second way is the more productive in my experience. Andrewa (talk) 00:52, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

And the best way to be sure that consensus has changed is to have the policy or guideline updated. Vegaswikian (talk) 00:58, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Exactly, and important. I think I'll incorporate that comment into User:Andrewa/Types of consensus, if you don't mind. Andrewa (talk) 01:19, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

No problem. Vegaswikian (talk) 01:28, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Done. [9] [10] Andrewa (talk) 01:39, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Deletion of DAB pages

Coming here from Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Grouping (disambiguation)

I am fairly sure that DAB pages have been supposed to be discussed at AfD. However, I don't seem to find any explicit instruction to that effect.

Having played around in a few XfD places, it occurs to me that deletion of DAB pages might be better discussed at WP:RM, because DAB expertise/experience/interest is much more concentrated at WP:RM. I don't think that DAB page get listed for deletion very frequently. An idea. What do people think? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 07:30, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

Talk:Masjid_al-Haram

Can someone fix Talk:Masjid_al-Haram ? I've tried twice to fix the bot pickup problem with the rationale, but keep getting reverted by rybec (talk · contribs) -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 15:24, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

As I explained in my edit summaries and on your talk page, you have been inserting text into another editor's comment, and I restored the comment to its original state [11]. Furthermore, this page should not be moved right now because discussion of the move has resumed, with someone giving an argument against it. —rybec 15:31, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

It has nothing to do with moving the page (shorting the discussion), it has everything to do with listing the page at the WP:RM list. User:RMCD bot expects a certain format for RM requests, when it doesn't find it, it will not interpret the nomination properly. Most frequently, this misinterpretation will make it not find the rationale. The fix I put in lets RMCD find a more normally formatted request, and it will pick up the rationale. -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 15:36, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

I think Mr. Appleyard just forgot to substitute the template. Having the request inside his comment looked a little odd. I should have moved it above his comment, rather than deleting it. Sorry. —rybec 16:36, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

Nominators of rename requests challenging closures?

I requested dropping "The" out of the title, The Star Wars Holiday Special. One administrator closed it. Since I requested the move, I couldn't challenge the closure. Someone else boldly added back "The", so I requested protection and revert move. Unfortunately, another move request was made. In order to prevent something like this again, shall I, the nominator, challenge the closure of a request that I made? --George Ho (talk) 16:49, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

@George Ho: Firstly, I'm not aware of any rule saying that the requester of a move can't challenge the closure. But in this case, it's not the closure you want to challenge but the bold reversion. Secondly, on the issue itself, I personally think the move back was not legitimate. I have commented to that effect at Talk:The Star Wars Holiday Special. Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 17:04, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

What about the next time I made? --George Ho (talk) 19:51, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

I'm afraid I don't understand your question, there...  — Amakuru (talk) 19:55, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

I'll rephrase: If I, the nominator, disagree the move, shall I challenge it? --George Ho (talk) 21:48, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

FYI to all – I believe this issue has been resolved now. Someone made an undiscussed move that was contrary to the outcome of a move request that had just closed a few days earlier. That is what George Ho was complaining about. I reverted that unilateral action, so George is now satisfied. If someone doesn't like the outcome of the recent move request closure, they should submit it for a move review – or, if something new has happened, submit another move request. They shouldn't just make a unilateral move that is contrary to the consensus that was just formally established. —BarrelProof (talk) 00:40, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Very overcomplicated page

Can I just leave some feedback that this page is very complicated and confusing. People don't have endless amount of time to read through so much instructions and text. Please just give main, straight to the point instructions at the top. I have a headache. Lesion (talk) 17:00, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

Requesting to move or delete

I can't figure out how to request this, so I'm requesting it here:

Would like to move The Cliff's Edge Derby Trial to Derby Trial Stakes.

Reason for move: Duplicate.

Stylteralmaldo (talk) 13:56, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

Determining consensus - last line about "no consensus" make no sense

The last line of the "Determining consensus" section at WP:RMCI says something other than what it is supposed to mean. These are the last two lines:

Therefore, if the closer feels that no consensus has been reached, they may move the article back to the most recent stable name. If the most recent stable name is itself a matter of dispute, closers are expected to use their own judgment in determining the proper destination.

How can the "most recent stable name" not itself be a matter of dispute? It's the subject of an RM - it's a matter of dispute by definition.

I think this is supposed to say that if there is no recent stable name (no recent title is stable), then closers are expected to use their own judgment. I've clarified accordingly[12].

If I am missing something, go ahead and revert, along with explaining what this is all about. --B2C 03:35, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

Upon further analysis, I just made it consistent with policy as stated at WP:CONSENSUS#No consensus [13], which states:

In article title discussions, no consensus has two defaults: If an article title has been stable for a long time, then the long-standing article title is kept. If it has never been stable, or has been unstable for a long time, then it is moved to the title used by the first major contributor after the article ceased to be a stub.

So the instructions here now say this:

Therefore, if no consensus has been reached, the closer should move the article back to the most recent stable title. If no recent title has been stable, then the article should be moved to the title used by the first major contributor after the article ceased to be a stub.

--B2C 04:05, 26 August 2013 (UTC)