Wikipedia:Move review/Log/2012 July 10

Côte d'Ivoire (talk|edit|history|logs|links|archive|watch) (RM)

There was no consensus for a move. The closing admin appears to have made his decision based on what users might type in the Wikipedia search box. This argument hasn't been made during the move request and it's not clear that this fact alone is enough to rename an article. Laurent (talk) 05:02, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

• Comment. Per WP:MRV, there was discussion with the closer on their talk page prior to filing this move review (which I might have done if Laurent hadn't done so first). — P.T. Aufrette (talk) 05:51, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

• endorse own close The argument that "Ivory Coast" is the name most of our readers would be familiar with was in fact the central point of most if not all of the arguments to change the name. That I expressed it slightly differently in an attempt to clarify the logic behind the close does not mean I made up myself or used a "supervote" to force my own desired result. . If I cared one way or the other what this article was called I would have participated in the discussion instead of closing it. Was it a slam dunk? No, but I endeavored to make it clear that if we factored in concern for our readers (you know, the people we do all this for, the ones who want information, not a demostration that we know how to argue chapter verse of some policy they have never heard of and don't care about) then the argument to move the article had greater strength. As I mentioned in my close, if I had been so inclined I could have just looked at the number of bolded endorsements and said "no consensus" for the sixth time, but instead I actually read this monstrous debate, twice, and carefully considered every argument made before writing up the close. i remain convinced this was the right move for Wikipedia and its readers. Beeblebrox (talk) 05:38, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Confirmed huge discussion & result: Thanks for that explanation, and I suspected the huge discussion required extensive analysis. I read for 2 hours and confirmed your conclusions, and endorsed the move, below. June 2012 pageviews also confirm reader preferences, as you noted: most (84%) request "Ivory Coast" (370/day) and 16% request "Cote..." (71/day). See pageview stats:

·grok.se Cote_d'Ivoire - 2,118 for June (71/day)

·grok.se Ivory Coast - 11,097 for June (370/day)

The prior 6 months show similar 80% preference for Ivory Coast, and even 13 February 2012 logged 2,000 views (stats-2012-02) for "Ivory Coast" versus 147 for "Cote..." on that day. Most readers request Coast. Again, thank you for the analysis. Well done. -Wikid77 (talk) 03:56, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

The argument that the name might be more familiar to some readers is weak in my opinion since whether they type "Côte d'Ivoire" or "Ivory Coast" they'll get to the same page. Also we base our articles on reliable sources, not on what people may or may not know, and sources show no clear preference for "Ivory Coast". You talk about our readers, well yes we should provide accurate information. Doesn't this start by naming countries correctly? Encyclopedia Britannica and the Oxford Dictionary use "Côte d'Ivoire" because, like Wikipedia, they aim to be neutral and reliable. If users don't know that the country name is Côte d'Ivoire - despite how widespread it is -, then they will learn it here. Laurent (talk) 07:02, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Im sorry but if people know something as one thing over the other, that is largely down to the sources. As shown in the debate a huge number of major news organisations, (which are used to source much of the article and a huge number of the articles on the English Language wiki) use Ivory Coast. It is because they all use Ivory coast that people know it as that and are confused when they are confronted with a french language version of the name on wikipedia. BritishWatcher (talk) 07:08, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

As for naming country articles via their official name, that is not something that always happens on wikipedia with most not at their official country name, Burma being the closest example to this case but of course even things like North Korea. Wikipedia is meant to go by the common name for the country in English, well in this case the sources show that is Ivory Coast and the closing admin by talking about most known by people reflects the fact the sources use it, so its what people are use to. There is nothing neutral about using a french language name on the English language wikipedia. BritishWatcher (talk) 07:11, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Given your name, I assume you probably won't accept the fact that "Côte d'Ivoire" is in fact part of the English language (check your own country's dictionaries). Laurent (talk) 07:22, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

I do not believe that Côte d'Ivoire is an english language name, although i accept regrettably some english language sources use it, possibly to appease or be politically correct (seen as those of us who support the article change have basically been compared to colonialists, it comes as no surprise) and of course international bodies have to go with the official name demanded by the country. The government of this country has no right to demand that its spelling of its country name is imposed on every language in the world, that is what i see as more like colonialism and its notable that numerous other different language wikis see no need to put the french spelling of it and bow to such an undemocratic decree. However despite some using the french version, far far more respected news organisations for the English language (which if they did not exist, nor would wiki considering how dependent they are on such organisations for sources), use Ivory coast. That is the Common name of the country in English as reflected in the sources that have been presented in the debate. So the change is justified. BritishWatcher (talk) 07:30, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Well, consider the neighboring country of Burkina Faso, formerly Upper Volta. The modern name is an English name now, even if it originated from a different language. But anyways, per WP:MRV, "this is not a forum to re-argue a closed discussion" [emphasis in original], so let's focus on evaluating the closing process itself. — P.T. Aufrette (talk) 08:01, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Ive not read the details about Burkina Faso but from the sounds of that it is the new name of the country and known as it in English and would be as problematic as Los Angeles. That is all very different to a country decreeing that a blatant French version of the name is suddenly to replace the English known name/translation Ivory Coast. But yes im happy to get back to the issues of the closing procedures, waiting for confirmation that a RM can be closed with a move even if there is no consensus. BritishWatcher (talk) 08:15, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

• See note, below: "#Consensus agrees with policies not votes". -Wikid77 06:24, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

@Beeblebrox - It's true that many editors supported the move by arguing that "Ivory Coast" was more familiar. But unfortunately your close isn't clear on the key point of why "Ivory Coast" would be more familiar. Nearly all editors justified the argument with the premise that it was a) the widely used English language name (while you concluded that it was unclear what the common name was); b) inherently more familiar due to being "real" English (ie words that had been borrowed from foreign languages before they were born); or c) gave no justification at all. Hopefully we agree that a) is unclear, b) is nonsense and c) is unhelpful. So then why is Ivory Coast more recognizable? Given that other resources that our readers are likely to encounter (encyclopedias, dictionaries and atlases) almost unanimously use Cote d'Ivoire, it's hard to understand why Ivory Coast would be any more familiar. Perhaps you could clarify which arguments/evidence convinced you that Ivory Coast would be a more familiar name? TDL (talk) 18:14, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

@Beeblebrox One thing we may want to consider is that while our readers may be more familiar with the colloquial name and not the actual name, if we use the actual name as a title they may just walk away from the article having learned something important about both the country and perhaps their own linguistic centrism. I won't deny that "Ivory Coast" is more well known (it is the way I learned it) , but people don't go to an encyclopedia to learn what they already know. I would feel better about teaching our readers the correct name; the old redirect from Ivory Coast assures that they won't not find the article. Sædon^talk 01:50, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

• RE: "Confirmed huge discussion & result" (above)

Excellent proof of lies, damn lies, and statistics. I believe that those numbers are strongly influenced by incoming links within wikipedia itself, which may have more internal links to Ivory Coast. In any case, user search density is not our standard for determining common names.--KarlB (talk) 04:05, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Actually, Wikid77 spelled "Côte d'Ivoire" wrong. The correct spelling gives

·grok.se Côte_d'Ivoire - 91,298 for June (3043/day)

·grok.se Ivory Coast - 11,097 for June (370/day)

or 89% in favour of "Côte d'Ivoire". TDL (talk) 04:11, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Be real, no one is typing in "Cô" (as the search for "Cote"), as those are mostly machine-links to the page, not people using the search-box. Once the old links are fixed, then pageviews of cumbersome "Cô" will drop drastically, as they have for other non-keyboard names. -Wikid77 (talk) 05:24, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

hehe. nice catch. In any case, I nonetheless stand by what I said above; these numbers are rather meaningless due to redirects; we're not comparing apples to apples here; I expect after this page move those numbers will switcheroo. If we did care about user search volumes, we would look at google analytics as well as other search engines popular in other english-speaking countries (did you know there are more english speakers in China than in the UK?) - but search is not the standard; reliable sources is...--KarlB (talk) 04:29, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

• Endorse close [ (Note: this editor participated in the requested move discussion.) Dohn joe (talk) 21:08, 10 July 2012 (UTC) ] As someone that missed the current round of the debate/vote that led to this outcome, i fully support the actions taken by the closing admin to resolve the situation. Whilst the vote itself was close, more were in favour of change than maintaining the status quo, and those who argued this time round the change was needed put together a very strong case, based on a lot of evidence with sources to demonstrate the common name for the country in English is Ivory Coast. The use of the french language name for the article has plagued the article for years and there has never been clear majority support for that version, merely a lack of consensus preventing much needed change despite one side provided far stronger arguments. The closing admin assessed the issues and openly stated parts of the arguments that they had ruled out. They then came to a conclusion that helps settle the matter and allows people to move on. The closing admin clearly operated in the way encouraged, rather than simply basing something on pure numbers of voters and should be commended for taking the time to try and resolve something knowing the potential negative backlash from some. Those who oppose the change that has been made have already made out like this is colonialism, a claim that is offensive and could not be more further from the truth. If this close is overturned, far from resolving the matter we will simply be back to square one with a need for another RM in the coming months to fix the article name to the common English language name, So i hope that does not happen as the right decision has been made. BritishWatcher (talk) 05:53, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
• Overturn. In requested-move discussions, it is not uncommon to have a finding of "no consensus"; that is a legitimate and acceptable outcome. However, Beeblebrox appears to have prematurely ruled out a "no consensus" finding, or even rejected it out of hand at the outset of his analysis. For this reason, a fresh look at the archived move discussion — this time with an outlook that is open to the possibility of a "no consensus" finding — would be helpful. In his closing statement Beeblebrox wrote:

if we went by straight numbers we would arrive at yet another "no consensus" result. That is, in my opinion, not acceptable.

and later he says:

there has never been a consensus on this issue

(and does not go on to claim that this time was any different). In the discussion on his talk page he goes further:

After so many lengthy discussions over a period of eight years it is not acceptable to still not be able to come to some sort of conclusion.

Taken together, this suggests that even he might have given a finding of "no consensus" if this requested-moved discussion had been analyzed in isolation on its own merits (i.e., ignoring any prior RMs), but for philosophical reasons or perhaps simple frustration he deliberately made a different choice. I think that is a procedural error. In various places (his closing statement, the discussion on his talk page, and his statement above), Beeblebrox states repeatedly that his choice was strongly motivated by his view of what is best for Wikipedia's readers; however, all good-faith participants in a requested-move discussion have that very same goal in mind. A subjective interpretation of what's best should be set aside. In summary: we should reanalyze the archived requested-move discussion and be open to the possibility of a "no consensus" finding. If that is where the analysis takes us, that's where we should go. — P.T. Aufrette (talk) 06:29, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

• See note, below: "#Consensus agrees with policies not votes". A consensus can be reached regardless of vote counts. -Wikid77 06:24, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

IS every close of a RM that results in a page move when there is no consensus wrong in principle and not allowed under the rules? BritishWatcher (talk) 06:52, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Well, if a no-consensus persists even after carefully weighing arguments (to give less weight to mechanical me-too voting, for instance), then a closing admin should tread very carefully to avoid the impression of casting a tie-breaking vote. But the issue here is that the closing admin seems to have begun his analysis with the determination that "no consensus" was an unacceptable outcome. — P.T. Aufrette (talk) 09:36, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

So the answer to my question was no. it is not against any rules regarding procedures around RMs. If there is no consensus, a closing admin can weigh up the options, and that is what the admin did, recognising the case that Ivory Coast is what people know the country as more in the English language, (because it is widely used by numerous sources), making it the common name, and that argument came with far more weight than some of the opposing arguments. if it was impossible to form a conclusion as was made regarding the known name, then it would have been impossible for there to have been any change, the status quo would remained with no consensus. But in this occasion, those arguing for change made a stronger case that has been accepted. So i fail to see how the closing admin has done anything wrong. Either wikipedia bans closing admins from weighing up the options which would mean it is just a direct vote and democracy, something wikipedia goes out of its way not to be, or on occasions where no consensus is held despite the issue being live for years and gone over multiple times, a closing admin steps up and helps resolve the case. As has happened in this case and has in the past gone a way to the opposite of my own views, but that is the system. BritishWatcher (talk) 12:24, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

P.T., I am wondering why you continue to make the claim that I prematurely ruled out a no consensus result when we already discussed this on my talk page and I explicitly told you I did not. Of course in the cherry picked, out of context portions of those remarks you reposted here that is not evident. I can imagine only three possibilities:

• You did not understand my answer
• You think I am lying
• You understood my answer and believe it but it is not in the interest of your position to acknowledge it so you persist in making the claim anyway.

I would appreciate it if you would indicate which of these situations best describe your position or if there is a fourth possibility I have not envisioned. Beeblebrox (talk) 13:43, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

• Endorse close. (Note: this editor participated in the requested move discussion.) Dohn joe (talk) 21:08, 10 July 2012 (UTC) A title serves its purpose to the extent that readers recognize it as the name of the subject, per WP:NAMINGCRITERIA. Such recognizability allows a reader to pick the correct item from a list of search engine results, and also reassures him when he arrives at the article he is seeking. English-speakers are more likely to use "Ivory Coast" as a search term by an overwhelming margin of 17-1. There is a history of editors posting comments to the talk page along the lines of, "Why is this title in French?" So the previous title clearly surprised many readers. Every major English-language media organization uses "Ivory Coast," as you can see from the chart in the nomination. According to NCGN, "Consult major news sources, either individually, or by using Lexis-Nexis, if accessible." Note: Not Google News, which in this case includes numerous non-English reports. Kauffner (talk) 06:32, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

  Per WP:MRV, "this is not a forum to re-argue a closed discussion" [emphasis in original]. Rather, we should evaluate the contested close itself, based on our own independent assessment of the archived requested-move discussion, the closer's statement, possible errors in the closing process, etc. — P.T. Aufrette (talk) 06:47, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

• Overturn close (Note: I opposed the RM)
  • Based upon the closing admin's comments that another close of no consensus was "not acceptable" (and elaborated upon on the user's talk page with "After so many lengthy discussions over a period of eight years it is not acceptable to still not be able to come to some sort of conclusion"), I can't help but conclude that the closer has ignored WP:RMCI which states "lack of consensus among participants along with no clear indication from policy and conventions normally means that no change happens". I see no policy based reason to insist that a consensus must be found one way or the other. Nor do I understand the logic that forcing a consensus on a situation where one clearly doesn't exist will somehow make the dispute disappear.
  • The closer also claims the close was motivated to achieve a "better result for Wikipedia's readers" and that "it was the right decision for Wikipedia" (reiterated above). I assume that we're all trying to make the right decisions for Wikipedia, however it's not the closing admin's right to decide for the community what's best for it, the responsibility is simply to assess the consensus of the community. If the consensus doesn't align with what you think is best for the project, admin tools shouldn't be used to force through the "right" decision.
  • While the closing admin (rightly) dismissed several of the obviously bogus arguments both for and against the move, the close was completely silent on the strongest arguments (IMHO) against the move. In particular, there was no explanation of why Wikipedia:NCGN#General_guidelines (which states that official names should be used if there is no clear common name [which the closer concluded]) and Wikipedia:NCGN#Use_English (which states that the local name should be used if there is no clear common name) were ignored. TDL (talk) 06:43, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

IS every close of a RM that results in a page move when there is no consensus wrong in principle and not allowed under the rules? BritishWatcher (talk) 06:47, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

See WP:CON: "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." Both the stable and original namer is "Cote d'Ivoire". TDL (talk) 18:14, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

If there is a regularly occurring RM on an article, that is not "stability". That indicates that there is a problem that needs to be resolved. "Stability" should never be an excuse for not considering the needs of English-speaking users of the encyclopedia and should never be an excuse for not improving that usability. --Taivo (talk) 18:31, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

And how exactly does this resolve the problem? Congratulations, you got your desired title, but that certainly doesn't make the dispute go away. If you think that stability shouldn't be considered, you're welcome to take it to WT:CON. Otherwise, this is one of our WP:5P and shouldn't be ignored just because you don't like it. TDL (talk) 18:41, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

My point was that you cannot invoke "stability" as a reasoning for not moving the article. There was no actual stability, only an illusion of stability. While there will still be problems with those who want to the use the French name rather than the English name, this is not insurmountable. Check out the constant attempts to move Kiev to "Kyiv", for example. This is another case where a more common English name is used over the native name. But a constant state of "no consensus" is still no excuse for admins to avoid making a careful evaluation of Wikipedia policy, an assessment of the relative weight of the evidence, and a clear judgement based on improving English-speaker usability. That's why we have entrusted them with greater responsibility for maintaining the encyclopedia--editors cannot always come to a consensus. --Taivo (talk) 20:24, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

No, that's not how it works here. Can you point me the policy that states admins can make decisions in the absence of consensus? TDL (talk) 00:17, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Yes, TDL, that's exactly how it works here when a discussion has stalled and not consensus has been reached. The "status quo" is not a consensus. I've been involved in many move requests and when consensus fails, this is an admin option. --Taivo (talk) 02:52, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Link to the policy please? TDL (talk) 02:56, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

• Endorse close. (Note: this editor participated in the requested move discussion.) Dohn joe (talk) 21:08, 10 July 2012 (UTC) While Wikipedia prefers to run on WP:CONSENSUS, there are times when consensus is simply not possible. In this case, the choice was to either use the French name for the country or the English name for the country. There is no middle ground and, therefore, the two sides in the discussion simply argue one way or the other interminably. Thus, "consensus" building is a failure. There was sufficient evidence presented both for the move and against the move (although, obviously, based on different aspects of Wikipedia's evidence policies). This happens often in my experience. At this point, therefore, the issue of "consensus" becomes moot when it comes to determining a closing action. The closing admin must therefore evaluate the policy-based arguments and envision which solution is better for Wikipedia as a whole. This is what happened in this case, the closing admin evaluated the competing solutions and determined that using the common English name follows Wikipedia policy better and that the usability issue for English-speaking readers is superior by using the English name of the country rather than the French name of the country. This is not uncommon practice at all in my experience in Wikipedia. The close was appropriate since WP:CONSENSUS was an impossible target and the closing admin properly adjudicated the policy arguments and usability issues for English speakers. --Taivo (talk) 09:03, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

But there is a middle ground (between two possible English names): a finding of "no consensus", as explicitly provided for in WP:RM. Reading your statement above, you are quite literally agreeing with me that there was no consensus in the present case; the only difference is that, like the closing admin, you reject the possibility of making that the actual determination. I think that is a procedural error. — P.T. Aufrette (talk) 09:36, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

First, there are not two English names, there is only one English name and a French name. And, yes, there was no "consensus" in the proper meaning of consensus as "a coming together of the minds". There was a vote in which a slight majority expressing their opinion favored the English name, but that's not a proper consensus. And, yes, there are cases in Wikipedia where consensus is impossible because there are simply two diametrically opposed choices and no middle ground. That's when the closing admin must evaluate other factors such as which of the two options follows policy better, which of the two options is a better choice for readers, etc. The closing admin did exactly that. Since consensus on this issue appears to be impossible, he evaluated Wikipedia policies and Wikipedia usability for English-speaking users and came to the decision that the English name was the proper answer. It was not a procedural error at all. You may disagree with that admin's evaluation, but that's not a question of a procedural error, that is a content dispute. --Taivo (talk) 10:36, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

• Overturn; the close reads a lot like a supervote, and the reasons for moving are uncompelling. In lists of official English names for countries it is referred to as Côte D'Ivoire. We should use the official English name per Germany, France, etc. To highlight this note how we use we use croissant not "crescent" and Déjà vu not "already seen" --Errant ^(chat!) 10:00, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

ErrantX, this is not the place to discuss the content or to make your argument for or against the move. The only question here is whether the closing admin followed policy or not. --Taivo (talk) 10:41, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! I had no idea what this page was for. --Errant ^(chat!) 12:54, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

I have had a look at this list of official English names, and it includes several cases where we are not using this name on Wikipedia, including cases which have been discussed and there is a consensus against, e.g. "Timor-Leste", or a few oddities which I doubt if anyone wants to use e.g. "Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic of)". PatGallacher (talk) 12:14, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

• Overturn close.(Note: this editor participated in the requested move discussion.) Dohn joe (talk) 21:08, 10 July 2012 (UTC)There was no consensus in that discussion, so standard procedure would be to keep the status quo ante (and with mixed usage in English, we usually default to official local name anyway). —Kusma (t·c) 10:39, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Actually, that's not standard procedure when a consensus cannot be reached. It is one possible route that the closing admin can take, but not the only one. The closing admin has the option to evaluate the situation based on Wikipedia policy as well as ease of use for the average English-speaking reader. --Taivo (talk) 10:41, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

• Overturn; (Note: this editor participated in the requested move discussion.) Dohn joe (talk) 21:08, 10 July 2012 (UTC) while most of the closer's arguments were sound, they proceeded from an untenable premise: that no consensus was not an acceptable result. Administrators do not have the authority to substitute their own judgement (no matter how considered) for the community's because they deem it incorrect; the job of a closer is to evaluate whether there is consensus, not impose a decision. — Coren ^(talk) 12:44, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

That is not what I did. As I explicitly mentioned in the closing statement and in the discussion on my talk page, I accept that if you look soleley at the numbers, there is no consensus, but if you do what we are supposed to do and consider the arguments and not just the numbers, I believe there is one position with a stronger argument. Apparently my choice to add a remark that I would not consider a no consensus result acceptable has caused everyone to assume that I did not even consider the possibility. It was more of an aside, an editorial comment if you will, that I clearly should have just kept to myself because it has been misinterpreted and taken out of context ever since. That's four times now, once at the RM, once on my talk page, and twice here that I have tried to clarify this point. Hopefully it is now clear to everyone. Beeblebrox (talk) 13:56, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Your position is clear, but I don't believe it is correct. Strength of argument evaluation apply to policy, not issues of fact; that you had an opinion on the substantive issue like every participant is quite okay – imposing it on the result against a clear lack of consensus is not. I am quite certain you are not arrogant enough to believe that your own personal evaluation of the facts is intrinsically better than that of the other participants, so I am at a loss you understand why you might think it appropriate to "upgrade" what would have been a cogent argument in the discussion to a veto over the entire discussion! — Coren ^(talk) 17:37, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

• Overturn to no consensus. This was a discussion where, as Beeblebrox recognised, there was clearly no consensus, and positions hadn't changed significantly since the last discussion (although he considered this irrelevant). In such circumstances, it can be appropriate for an admin to close the discussion in favour of one side or another on the grounds that one side's arguments are much stronger/better grounded in policy. However, this was not one of those cases. Both sides' positions have some policy support, and the key question of what is the common name in English has not been conclusively determined. Given that both sides' arguments are equally strong, I think it was inappropriate for the closing admin to side with one of them on dubious grounds of avoiding confusion (an argument which was brought up by some in the discussion and dismissed by others). This should have been closed as 'no consensus'. Robofish (talk) 14:57, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

By saying no consensus it is supporting the status quo which the other side supports. No consensus would simply duck resolving the matter after half a dozen RMs, this whole naming issue needs to go all the way to arbcom at this rate seen as this review is basically suggesting the others have enough numbers to block any alteration with arguments irrelevant. BritishWatcher (talk) 15:17, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

"No consensus" should never be an excuse for leaving content that does not meet policy standards or consider the needs of the majority of our English-speaking users. The admins have the authority (and the duty) to evaluate discussions, not just count opinions and respond robotically. --Taivo (talk) 18:28, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

• Question: where does someone go to review this appalling review where people are misinterpreting the motives and reasoning of the closing admin. Also how many people who are replying to this page demanding an overturning have read the WHOLE debate. This is basically half a dozen editors doing their own closings which imposes one option without even knowing the full facts. Disgraceful stuff. BritishWatcher (talk) 15:04, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Also. If this close is overturned, the RM should be reopened so that the current discussions can continue. Otherwise when does the next RM take place? It has now got to the stage where simple RMs are not enough, this needs to go up the chain because theirs some fundamentally flawed thinking on display and this Review if results in an overturn will have decided that the same editors can permanently block the change to the article with the numbers they have. So much for wikipedia not being a democracy/dependent on numbers instead being about the case and argument made. BritishWatcher (talk) 15:09, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

• Comment: this repeated move request has been beaten to death, and IMNSHO it has now been done in an inadequate partial manner. Try All pages with titles containing d'Ivoire and see what you see. That is good? That is productive? The proponents when I closed a previous discussion were asked to do an RFC to do a holistic move and they have not done so, they just keep bashing this one page in what I see as a short-sighted manner. There are some who address this rename with a level of belligerence, and are determined for "their way!" I do not believe that solely moving this one page is a step forward. — billinghurst sDrewth 15:32, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Note that I opposed a rename but I am not weighing in on this move review. In any case, and perhaps this comment is beyond the scope, almost all other pages containing Côte d'Ivoire will need to be moved, depending on the outcome of this discussion. In addition, we cannot end the changes with the page move. The text of Ivory Coast will need to be changed from Côte d'Ivoire to Ivory Coast for most examples. Any future moves should contain name modifications in text as well. Ryan Vesey Review me! 15:38, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

thanks, it is clear from the responses above that this is far wider in scope than a single article RM then. So what ever happens with the review, where should it be taken for a full debate on wikipedias use of Côte d'Ivoire, to get a decision one way or another on if ALL articles and text should use the English language name Ivory Coast or the French one. BritishWatcher (talk) 16:25, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

The discussion I closed was about what to call one article. I hapen to agree with Billinghurst that a more comprehensive discussion would have been a better idea, but unfortunately that is not the discussion that took place. Regardless of the results of this process I believe an RFC on the wider issue, noted at all pages that concern this issue and have either term in their title, would be a better way to move forward than to continue having RMs on the same page where the same people endlessly argue the same points. since the close I have skimmed some of the previous RMs and one thing that is clear to me is that a wider sampling of users, espescially those who have not previously taken a position in this dispute, would be helpful. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:33, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

• Comment - WP:polling is not a substitute for discussion is disputed, and there is current consensus that the guideline be demoted into an essay. Well, numbers vs. arguments is getting old and tiresome anymore, and... I wonder if anybody notices. --George Ho (talk) 17:37, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
• Overturn to no consensus. TDL (Danlaycock)'s argument above is spot on. There was no consensus to close, and the rationale amounted to a supervote. Furthermore, it irks me whenever we replace an "official name" with a "common name" unless the official name is obscure. That's what redirects are for. ThemFromSpace 18:37, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

I have to admit I did not consider whether or not you would be irked when making the close. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:03, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

• Overturn to no consensus (Note: this editor participated in the requested move discussion.) Dohn joe (talk) 21:08, 10 July 2012 (UTC) The closer has specifically stated that he ruled out closing it as a no consensus close because "a decision had to be made". This immediately means that he was biased in whatever close he would make before he even began reading the discussion. Combine this with the close arguments that were not expressed (or not expressed strongly at all) in the discussion itself and how it was worded as a vote would be, making it a supervote. Looking at the discussion, it's quite clear that the arguments were at a standstill, with both sides expressing numbers and facts that merely evened out the results. There was no Keep or Delete close anywhere in the discussion, leaving no consensus as the only option. That is why it must be closed as no consensus. Silverseren^C 20:51, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
  • You're spot on about "keep" or "delete" being different from "support" or "oppose". Right now, we're discussing titling, not article content. What starts out as simple becomes less than simple. --George Ho (talk) 20:57, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
• Dohn joe, do we must notify everybody that others participated in prior discussion? DRV people do not do that. --George Ho (talk) 21:11, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

  I think it's useful to know where people are coming from. I've proposed something along those lines on the talkpage if you want to take it there. Dohn joe (talk) 21:14, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

  Link, please? Either MR or DRV, but I would prefer DRV first before MR, which is a very young baby. --George Ho (talk) 21:19, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

  Here. Dohn joe (talk) 21:26, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

• Overturn to no consensus (Note: this editor participated in the requested move discussion.) Dohn joe (talk) 21:36, 10 July 2012 (UTC) The closer made it very clear that the discussion had no consensus. Allowing a supervote to decide the outcome will lead us into the situation that not the discussion, but who is faster at the draw in closing, will decide the outcome of a RM. This in turn will make the admin into some kind of super editor being content arbiter - which is exactly what we never wanted. An alternative outcome due to the far reaching effects of this page move would have been a recommendation for an RfC and since that has been suggested before shame on the RM proposer for not going down that route. Agathoclea (talk) 21:33, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
• Endorse close - due respect to people from other language communities does not magically turn Côte d'Ivoire into English; nor should the preferences of some politicians override our basic rules. The closer gave due weight to the arguments on each side of this discussion, which was not a vote; and made the close based on our basic rules. This is not Côte d'Ivoire for the same reason that we don't have an article on William Henry Pratt. --Orange Mike | Talk 21:39, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

  WP:STAGENAME? Agathoclea (talk) 21:44, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

• Overturn TDL summarizes things quite nicely. Arbitrarily declaring that no consensus is not acceptable makes this close a supervote. In this case, there was no consensus, and if the closer thinks moving the article is in the best interest of our readers he is free to voice an opinion about that, but he is not free to decide the discussion supported that when it clearly did not. AniMate 21:47, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
• Comment: This discussion is on the verge of becoming simply the next Move Request, with useful comments devolving into "me too" statements by dissatisfied editors. This is, of course, not a vote either and will end with neutral admins making a decision based on the stated policy arguments, not upon the number of "me too" comments (from either side) which are placed here. --Taivo (talk) 23:38, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

I want to know how you review this review because it is blatantly flawed when you have people casting votes for reasons that the admin that closed has categorically denied. After this farce is over and any review of the review if one is possible, we need a full wiipedia wide discussion on renaming all mentions of the french language name to the English language name, including all titles, and content in the articles. It needs fully resolving one way or another, not just the article. This is how many RMs now, i remember the last one which ended in a complete joke too. Theres no point just having another, it needs to be bigger and more wider in scope. BritishWatcher (talk) 23:44, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps it is time for an ArbCom? --Taivo (talk) 23:56, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Maybe we should write a nice letter to the Ivory Coast's Government and United Nations asking them to sign off the proposals so we can be sure their view is respected. Id hate to be accused of being a colonialist here. BritishWatcher (talk) 00:10, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Wooops sorry where were my manners (and a keyboard with the correct keys...) The Côte d'Ivoire Government. BritishWatcher (talk) 00:12, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

That isn't particularly helpful BritishWatcher. Also, ArbCom doesn't set policy they examine behavioral problems. If you want policy changes, you'll have to start an RfC at the appropriate venue. Be warned, that involves debate and the two of you seem quite keen on shutting this one down since the page is at your preferred location. A policy change might not and probably will not go your way, so good luck with that. AniMate 00:36, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Im happy for extensive debates to happen, i thought that is what the RM was for and whilst i did not take part in this current one i certainly have the scars from a previous attempt which ended in a bit of a mess too. what i am not happy about is a decision being made, then it being taken to this place for this "review", which has all sorts happening on it i dont know where to start. Weve got people reminding us we must be respectful of foreign governments, there is the taking the previous RM outcomes and comparing it to a supreme court verdict. We have people saying they want this overturned because of something the admin has categorically denied. We also appear to be at a position where if there is no consensus it must ALWAYS be no change, so you may as well do away with closing admins and make it a vote. The word chaos would be an understatement.BritishWatcher (talk) 00:45, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

ArbCom can, indeed, be part of policy decisions. I was involved in the ArbCom that yielded WP:MOSMAC and if the editors agree, ArbCom can yield more than just a slap on the wrist for bad behavior. --Taivo (talk) 02:52, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

• overturn to no consensus (participated in RM) Several issues in this close concern me.

1. First, the statement by Beeblebrox that a finding of no-consensus was "...in my opinion, not acceptable." - he attempted to clarify this, stating on talk "After so many lengthy discussions over a period of eight years it is not acceptable to still not be able to come to some sort of conclusion." - he then goes on to say this was a conclusion he arrived at *after* having read the arguments (so no-consensus *was* at one point on the table, then was taken off the table). While I AGF, this is nonetheless a procedural error, and I commend him for sharing his thinking, and responding on the talk page to explain his thinking, but I think it illustrates the essential problem - there was a bias, whether before reading or after reading, that a close one way or the other *had* to be made, for the good of wikipedia. I disagree. The article was perfectly *fine* where it was. The fact that several people over the years have proposed a rename (see Yogurt for another example) does not mean that a *different* decision *had* to be made - there is certainly no harm to the reader in the CI name, especially given major encyclopedias made the same exact choice. In fact, a solution I had proposed (I think) was that after the discussion closed, the name be salted for 1-2 years, to avoid constantly bringing this back to RM. There are other solutions to keep the wiki going besides a rename a majority wants; one of them would have been "no consensus, salt renames for 2 years"
2. Second, in terms of the substantive arguments, Beeblebrox seemed swayed by the arguments using news sources which were presented in a nice table, but the NGRAMS for books showed the opposite result. Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(geographic_names)#Widely_accepted_name, which is the relevant guideline here, lists a number of possible searches, but does not prioritize news searches over all others; it also suggests encyclopedias (on which CI wins), books (CI wins), google scholar (basically a tie), standard histories and taxonomies (CI wins) . In addition, the news sources chosen where cherry-picked, as far as I can tell; in other words, the experiment was not "choose news sources first, then add the search volumes" - it was "find a news source, do the search, if the result is favorable, add to the table"; I note that allAfrica.com, a major news source for all African news, was left out of the table, as were many others. In any case, we have a conundrum; according to policy, we're supposed to evaluate the sources; when we look at major english news sources, several big ones do prefer IC, while several other big ones prefer CI; when we look at other metrics, such as books, encyclopedias, scholarly articles, or library of congress taxonomies, the evidence leans more towards CI. Kauffner added search volume to the argument, which should be discarded as not within guidelines. So at that point, the metrics and numbers cease to matter, and it comes down to the editors. Was there a consensus amongst the editors, that given the conflicting numbers and metrics, there was a clear solution? No. So the default is, no consensus.
3. Finally, there is this statement: "The majority of people who are not editors of this page are more likely to be familiar with the term "Ivory Coast." When they type that in they will see exactly what they were looking for right away and will know they are in the right place." That is, to me, the very definition of a supervote. He is making an assertion, that is (a) not backed up by policy and (b) not backed up by data. How do we know who is viewing this page, and from where they hail, and from what sources they get their news? Are we really that confident that Ivory Coast is a majority name? And even if we accept that it is more recognizable, that is not the standard we adhere to here! It's not based on what users are used to seeing, it's based on what reliable sources use - we are an encyclopedia, not a populist forum. While I appreciate the effort to serve the users, redirects do that job perfectly well. The *name* of an article, esp a wikipedia article, is especially important; I wouldn't be surprised if a news organization wrote a story *about* this rename. Thus, a conclusion to rename, based mostly on rather specious and cherry-picked news sources (and ignoring all the *other* types of sources presented during the argument) is not a fair reading, and I maintain no consensus was the only reasonable read.
4. As an aside, for those who stated that the name Cote d'Ivoire was somehow the result of a despot, I suggest you read a little more into the history; the name change to Cote d'Ivoire (as the official name) was decided by the Democratic party's 8th congress in 1985; it was not purely a move by the president. In any case, regardless of what happened or who was behind 1985/86, the fact is the official name in English is Cote d'Ivoire, and use of that term is not kowtowing but simply a sign of respect for self-determination.--KarlB (talk) 23:43, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

"a sign of respect for self-determination" is precisely not one of the things to consider in determining the name of an article in Wikipedia. Else we would have renamed Kiev to Kyiv, Prague to "Praha", Moscow to "Moskva", Burma to "Myanmar", etc. That is precisely the reason WP:COMMONNAME is in place--we choose the most common name in English, not the name that "shows respect". "Showing respect" is an argument that we specifically reject throughout Wikipedia in favor of WP:COMMONNAME. --Taivo (talk) 23:54, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

I wasn't making that argument; I was simply *refuting* the argument made here and elsewhere that using Cote d'Ivoire was somehow bowing to a despot. It's not. The argument *for* using Cote d'Ivoire is that many reliable sources (dictionaries, encyclopedias, and yes even some major news sources) use it. But this is not RM in any case. WP:COMMONNAME should be read in the context of Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(geographic_names)#Widely_accepted_name; my read of the arguments for whether CI or IC was more *common* were not persuasive in either direction; if you think news is most important, then IC has a strong argument; if you think books and encyclopedias and dictionaries of the english language are more important, then CI has a stronger argument.--KarlB (talk) 00:11, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

It not about bowing to a despot, its about bowing at all. What right does a politician, dictator or country have to dictate the english language translation or name of something. Yes the country can set its official name. NOBODY has ever claimed it is officially ivory coast today, the argument is despite the view of the government at some point, the common name of this country as reflected in most sources is Ivory Coast. If President Obama tomorrow issued a presidential decree saying that hence forth the United States of America must be known as the USA in ALL languages. What would happen? BritishWatcher (talk) 00:24, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Well you're clearly passionate about this. My only response is, a country has the right to do whatever the F it wants, and can get away with (read about Anarchy (international relations)). Want to invade another country? Go for it. Drop bombs on villages from drones? Have fun. Why you're up in arms over a small African country requesting that people stop making quirky translations of it's name (like the German, which is literally Elephant-bone coast) is beside me. The government of Cote d'Ivoire is free to request whatever they like, and they requested to the United Nations in 1986 that the short form of their name, in English, be changed to Cote d'Ivoire. They have similarly requested other governments to do the same in their dealings with them. Most governments have chosen to comply - why? Well, why not? We could say "screw it - Sierra Leone, from now on you are Lion Mountain; and Costa Rica, you are now the Rich Coast" - but we don't; a lot has to do with history and tradition, some has to do with simple diplomacy. As to your example of Obama, it is not a decree that would matter, it would be a request to the United Nations, and to our partner governments, to start calling us USA or whatever, and I bet you they would comply. So then the question is, what happens to the sources? If you look at the NGRAMs, in books, starting in 1980s and up till 1993, Cote d'Ivoire starts to take over Ivory Coast. So it seems the efforts of the government to change their name in English were successful, at least as far as books and encyclopedias are concerned. News sources continue today, in many cases, to use Ivory Coast. So we're left with a conundrum; wikipedia policy seems to state that in this case, you really have to go to editor consensus, which sadly wasn't there for either option, so you stick with the old result.--KarlB (talk) 01:09, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

• Strong overturn (Note: this editor participated in the requested move discussion.) Dohn joe (talk) 00:04, 11 July 2012 (UTC) Consensus for the name existed, and therefore take true consensus to move - the argument as it did not have strong enough arguments for the move, and indeed IMHO had stronger arguments in favour remaining as it is. Supervotes such as this one CANNOT take precedence here. As I have said elsewhere: is "Transport" an English word? No. Is Status quo an English word? No. Is Naive an English word? No. Is Netherlands an English word? No. Indeed, even Jesus is an acceptable (according to the English Wikipedia) transliteration. Cote d'Ivoire is similarly an acceptable transliteration of the Côte d'Ivoire ... so perhaps we should have simply removed the diacritics? "Ivory Coast" is a region that includes portions of the country now known as Côte d'Ivoire ... but is not the name of the country itself in English or French, or any other language (✉→BWilkins←✎) 23:48, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

There has never been a consensus for using the French name, that's why there have been repeated RMs. --Taivo (talk) 23:54, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

And there is no more reason to think that "Ivory Coast" cannot refer to the country because it historically referred to a larger area than to say that "Germany" is inaccurate since that term also formerly referred to a larger area. --Taivo (talk) 00:00, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

• Let me add what a gigantic fuckup this is now going to be for ALL articles/templates/maps/etc that have the word "Cote d'Ivoire" in it. THAT is your appropriate gauge of naming consensus, not the RM by a disruptive editor. (✉→BWilkins←✎) 23:52, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Comment I asked a friend the following question: "If you were to visit the WP page for the country Ivory Coast, what would you expect the name to be, Ivory Coast or Cote d'Ivoir?" His response was: "for Americans Ivory Coast because most Americans are retarded. For the rest of the world Cote d'Ivoir." I'm not meaning this to be a personal attack on Americans (I am American), this is just literally what my non-WP involved friend said. Not much of an argument, but it's an outsider's perspective, take it for what it's worth. Sædon^talk 23:51, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Well its not just Americans that know this country as Ivory Coast. Most of the mainstream western English language media use it so it is what most know. that is why it is the common name. Although commonname which is meant to be what this site goes by does not appear to matter, we must make sure we are respectful to certain politicians who think they have a right to dictate names/translations in different languages. BritishWatcher (talk) 23:55, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't mean to defend my friend's comment or even argue his point, just wanted to put out there what someone outside of WP thought about the whole thing. Sædon^talk 23:58, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Overturn - no consensus I originally posted this to Jimbo's talk I was surprised by this, though I didn't get involved. It seems to me that if the arguments haven't changed then the consensus cannot have changed since consensus is based upon arguments. So if there was no consensus before, then there should have been no consensus now. There are good points on both sides, but ultimately this came down to what convinced the closing admin. Now obviously this is how it works, but consider that the same exact arguments failed to convince the previous closing admins. I count 3 or 4 failed requested moves in the past (there may be more or less, I'm just shallowly searching), which means that if we consider the opinions of all closing admins we have a 3-4 vs. 1 ratio. If this were a 3 admin close this would have been a failed proposal. Sædon^talk 00:01, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Well that is certainly an interesting way of looking at it in terms of the 3 vs 1 which i hadnt heard yet on this page before. I happened to think your previous comment regarding the views of your friend was more along the right line, the only mistake being he thought it would just be americans, when infact it is most people who will have been influenced by the media, who use IVORY COAST, they wont get their information from looking at the name of a plaque at the United Nations. BritishWatcher (talk) 00:06, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

You mean the millions of people that read AllAfrica, which uses Cote d'Ivoire? Not to mention a number of other news sources. Really, Ivory Coast is mainly just contained within the US and, to some extent, the UK. Most other English news sources outside of this use Cote d'Ivoire. Silverseren^C 00:15, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

I mean the overwhelming majority of English language media sources, without whom wikipedia would hardly exist as they are so heavily used for sourcing. This has been gone into in depth during the debate, but you see this highlights part of my concern. This is a new vote on if the article should be where, yet it is with people making their choices without seeing all the facts which were contained in the extensive debates that have happened previously. BritishWatcher (talk) 00:21, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

KarlB properly explains above the issues with what was went into in the debate, in that the news lists supporting Ivory Coast were purposefully leaving out certain major news sources (like AllAfrica) because they don't use Ivory Coast. Thereofre, the lists are not proper examples of what the real major use is. Silverseren^C 00:38, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

I grant that if we made a list of the top 100 english newspapers and news websites by circulation, and then checked the stats, that Cote d'Ivoire might come in second place. However, Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(geographic_names)#Widely_accepted_name is very clear that newspapers are not the primary or sole determinant of widely accepted name; indeed, several other sources are proposed, and my read of the evidence presented at RM is that CI would dominate all the other fronts (books, encyclopedias, dictionaries, library classification schemes, even major geo-databases) - the only weak point seems to be news (but again, we don't know for sure, because the sources were cherry picked). Given that, my argument is, based on policy, at that point it has to come down to the editors consensus; the online sources aren't giving us enough to go on, since they're sending mixed messages.--KarlB (talk) 00:48, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

• Endorse. Closer gave a solid rationale for their decision, based on the arguments in the request. BTW, I like this new venue. "Move review" gives forum shoppers somewhere else to go after running to Jimbo fails. Resolute 00:12, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

• His rationale isn't, however, represented in the discussion, as described well by KarlB above. Silverseren^C 00:14, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

• KarlB is very passionate in his efforts to re-argue the RM. I respect his position, but do not see a policy reason to overturn the result. And, FWIW, I have no opinion on what the correct title should be. Resolute 00:26, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

• Your response isn't addressing what I said. The closer's argument via "the majority of people" thing isn't one well represented in the discussion, nor is it an argument that would or should apply to such a naming discussion. In fact, it's one of the weakest arguments, yet the closer is using it like it's the strongest and in a very "This is my opinion" manner, which is evident. Silverseren^C 00:31, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

OR you are all reading too much into the wording the closing admin used to summarise briefly the judgement. By majority people, it is clear the closing admin is talking about what most people would know as the commonname of the country, and that is fundamentally a major part of what is meant to be taken into account. Does the closing summaries grammar get graded soon too? After this mess perhaps anyone closing a RM should write a 100 page closing statement to cover themselves from this sort of unfair criticism. BritishWatcher (talk) 00:58, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

The reason we have Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(geographic_names)#Widely_accepted_name is to avoid this sort of hand waving of what most people would know as the commonname of the country. The fact that you state this as if it is *so* obvious makes me think perhaps to you, most people means most people I know, who live around me, who are like me, as opposed to most english speakers on the planet.--KarlB (talk) 01:14, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Im sorry but the common name is the approach taken across wikipedia, numerous articles can be pointed to as examples of that. Ive not asked my friends, this is about the fact most people get use to names like this via the media, and as the debate showed, the overwhelming majority of western media use Ivory Coast, helping to make it the commonname, something based on sources. Which is more valid than not wanting to be sensitive about what a government might think. BritishWatcher (talk) 01:20, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Right, but again this isn't RM; you seem to be making the argument that news sources should be given more weight than encyclopedias or dictionaries or books in deciding the answer here. Our policy very clearly doesn't say that, and that argument wasn't made during the RM; if there had been consensus around "news is more important than books in determining the correct name in this case" then this would be a different discussion, but no such consensus was found. Again, my points above were not that we should choose CI b/c the government wants us to; just that the fact the government wants us to is also *not* a reason to discard it as an option - the only arbiter is sources, and in this case the sources conflict.--KarlB (talk) 01:26, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

The sources clearly justified the fact the Ivory Coast is the commonname of the country, the overwhelming use of that name by media sources is a hugely important factor for sure, because it is directly relevant to what people consider the commonname (it gets back to "the majority..." bit again. But the detailed research done on sources sadly s being entirely overlooked in this debate anyway.

Which is a great shame because it highlights the clear trend, yet quite a few of the people voting here over the wording used by the closing admin wont even be looking at the actual material and sources, which highlights this review is rather flawed. BritishWatcher (talk) 01:36, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

What's the purpose of posting this table here? This is not a move request but a move review. Moreover, if you want to start posting statistics and be neutral about it, you should either post all of them (including usage in dictionaries, books, encyclopedia, etc.) or none of them. Laurent (talk) 02:32, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Concur. BW, I'd kindly ask you remove this table; it was misleading at the RM, it's even moreso here (esp given that I don't think it would be appropriate for me to post (in order to balance) statistics around books, book titles, journal articles, encyclopedia entries, etc, which tell a very different story.) Let's not turn this into RM - can you please delete the above?--KarlB (talk) 03:53, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

I can count multiple posts below and above the table of people making specific claims which would seem more appropriate for the RM rather than a review so im sorry but i do not intend removing that table. It was an example of information that is valid and based on sources which sadly is being overlooked like the rest of the debate. BritishWatcher (talk) 10:50, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Respectfully, I don't think I am re-arguing the RM; my arguments above are based on the close, and why I think the analysis of the consensus was improper; I'm not trying to bring new arguments or sources to the table. If consensus was clearly there, based on strong policy arguments, to rename, I would be voting the other way; however, procedural errors were made (e.g. decision that a decision must be made), and evidence besides news was ignored. Thus on a policy basis I feel overturn to no consensus is the right option here.--KarlB (talk) 00:52, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

I'd just like to point out once again that I have repeatedly refuted the notion that I closed this the way I did because I felt a decision had to be made one or the other. I said it would not be an acceptable result. That is not the same thing. Sometimes these things are in fact closed with unnaceptable results and if I saw no other way I would have closed it that way. I would once again request that those arguing this point clarify if they have simply not read those previous explanation or if they are calling me a liar. It pretty much has to be one or the other. Beeblebrox (talk) 03:15, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

I've read your statements several times; I don't think you are a liar, but you are playing with very fine shades of meaning and perhaps I just don't understand your explanation. Your early posts were clear that a no-consensus close was unacceptable. So I guess I'm confused as to what the word 'unacceptable' means to you - to me when someone says "this option would be unacceptable", then to me that's a sign that they are not willing to choose that option. --KarlB (talk) 03:53, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

ok, I will try one more time to clarify this point:

• I responded to request for closure and came into this discussion with no preconceived notions whatsoever. Until I began reading the RM I didn't even know there was a naming dispute on this topic
• I read the entire debate all the way through, walked away from it for a few minutes, and then came back and read the entire thing again to make sure I had not missed anything important.
• It was at this point I arrived at the conclusion that the argument to change the name was slightly stronger than the argument to retain it where it was. At no time before that did I feel certainty about the result.
• While writing up the close I said this:

  There is certainly a lot to be considered when evaluating this discussion. I haven't actually counted but at a glance if we went by straight numbers we would arrive at yet another "no consensus" result. That is, in my opinion, not acceptable. Of course we don't do things that way anyway, but I wanted to be clear from the outset that strength of numbers was not a contributing factor to this close.

• So what I wanted people to take away from that but apparently did not express properly was that if I had done nothing but count heads we would have had another no consensus result but since I instead evaluated the strength of arguments I felt we did have an actionable result. At no time did I say I never considered the possibility. If you take those two sentences in isolation I could see how you might interpret them the way they have been interpreted here, but they were part of a larger point. Beeblebrox (talk) 10:45, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

• Endorse - Much like WP:DRV is at times, this appears to be little more than a whining ground for those that didn't like how the move was decided. And just like DRV, "I don't like what you did!" is not a valid rationale to reassess. For the record, I did not participate in the initial discussion. Tarc (talk) 00:51, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

• Add more comments below at: #Ivory Coast break 2. -Wikid77 06:12, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Avoid forum shopping

This is a reminder that this page is for discussing the validity of the closure of the RM, not a forum-shopping venue to re-debate the argument about the move-rename of the article "Ivory Coast" back to the prior name. The topics focus on whether the rationale for closing the RM was based on evidence presented, in agreement with current WP policies, or whether the rename-move was based mainly on other opinions not expressed during the debate. For simplicity, the table of name-usage evidence is repeated here, from the RM discussion page, to confirm that extensive evidence was presented which meets the needs of policy points to favor the move. -Wikid77 06:12, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

That's ludicrous, of course if you cherry-pick the data, 100% of evidences are going to favor your preferred name. Should I delete the ridiculous table above and replace it with one showing usage in dictionaries, encyclopedia and international organizations? We'd then have "extensive evidence which meets the needs of policy points against the move" Laurent (talk) 06:20, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

• I think the data in the table, above, is not "cherry-picked" but rather, representative of all major reliable sources. Most people still say "Ivory Coast" beyond the vast majority of books written in 1910, 1940, 1960, 1980 or 1990. In the past 5 years, more websites say "Ivory Coast". The data is not cherry-picked, and other sources, such as The Washington Post can be searched for similar cases, where "Ivory Coast" is used almost 70% of the time. All of those sources will outweigh a few dictionaries printed with the official nation's name. Daily newpapers, instead, really reflect the wp:COMMONNAME in recent years, as the name used in common reports about the nation, "Ivory Coast". -Wikid77 (talk) 07:02, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

The relevant guideline is Wikipedia:NCGN, which gives more specific guidance than WP:COMMONNAME. In that guidance, no preference is given to news sources; of course there will always be more news articles than encyclopedia entries, but that doesn't mean 1000 news articles saying X is worth more than 1 encyclopedia article saying Y. And the data is cherry picked. If Kauffner had said "I'm going to choose the top 5 circulating english language news sources in the top 20 countries with an english speaking population" and then run the numbers, they wouldn't be cherry picked. Instead, he ran a bunch of searches, and kept the ones that supported his POV. In spite of that, I accept that if we did to the experiment properly, e.g blind and using sampling, IC may still win in news. But it's a moot point - newspapers are not the only deciding factor for common name; I don't want to re-argue the RM here, but if you go to worldcat.org and search for english-language books, over 3x as many english language books since 1986 use Cote d'Ivoire vs. Ivory Coast.--KarlB (talk) 14:16, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Consensus agrees with policies not votes

This is reminder that, in 2012, wp:Consensus is based on agreement with written policies, rather than agreement with a large majority of user opinions or "!votes". In fact, the policy outweighs the total opinions of all participants, and determines the decision to move-rename an article. If many people think the policy is improper, then the policy page should be updated in consensus with other policies and a large group of other editors. Again, wp:Consensus, in 2012, means agreement with policies, rather than a "rough consensus" of user opinions during a discussion. Policy rules outweigh personal opinions about the issues. -Wikid77 06:12, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

No, as proven in the RM, it does NOT agree with policy; hence this review. (✉→BWilkins←✎) 09:00, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Ivory Coast break 2

• Comment - This discussion ain't becoming another RM, is it? Anyway, I'm still undecided on this, as I've not involved in this discussion. The debate of using either X or Y as one title of an article... where does the world come down into? --George Ho (talk) 01:15, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

• Strong endorse move as uninvolved editor: Not involved in the initial debate, I found out about the RM, after closure, and read the discussions which actually do support the rationale used in the move-rename for the article. I do not think the closing admin did anything improper there. In fact, by closing a hostile debate which has continued for "8 years" with strong evidence to justify the move, the admin has done a great service for WP, to properly close this long, unproductive debate, easily settled by extensive examination of the evidence. No wonder the name "Ivory Coast" has continued in use in newer books, at almost the same level as the official name "Cote d'Ivoire", because "Ivory Coast" was vastly, vastly, vastly preferred during 95% of the 20th century, up until 1995. Reliable sources continue to state "Ivory Coast" at levels similar or higher, and the wp:COMMONNAME since 1910, through 1960, into 2008 has remained "Ivory Coast". For 108-year evidence, see the Google Ngram Viewer analysis comparing the 2 Coast/Cote names: Google-ngrams-Coast-Cote-108-years. For evidence during the past 5 years, see Google-links in the table above. I endorse the move as proper, based on the evidence presented at the discussions, still current now. -Wikid77 (talk) 03:03, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Please see WP:MODERNPLACENAME: "For articles discussing the present, use the modern English name (or local name, if there is no established English name), rather than an older one.". What the place was called in 1910 is irrelevant to this discussion. TDL (talk) 03:11, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Exactly, the modern English name is "Ivory Coast" as used in most newspapers, and many TV or radio broadcasts, as of this month. How much more modern do we need to get. The fact that the name has been vastly preferred as "Ivory Coast" since before 1910, into 1940, 1960, 1970, 1980, and 1990, shows the momentum to explain the continued use as being the wp:COMMONNAME, rather than some "rare Anglicized form". -Wikid77 07:38, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

• Overturn (As noted later, I did participate in the moe request but only by leaving a single comment not expressing a preference.) As a participant in a? previous discussion, I was invited to participate in this move debate. Based on my reading of the discussion at the time, it seemed to be that the move was heading towards another 'no consensus' and my view that the article remain at "Côte d'Ivoire" wasn't changed by what I read although I was less sure. However I made the concious decision not to participate other then leave a single comment not expressing a preference. When I noticed a comment on Jimbo Wales's talk page, I came back to see what happened. Looking at the discussion, it seems clear to me no consensus was reached. While consensus is not determined by strength of numbers, numbers do matter particularly when both there are many well informed editors with a good understanding of policy on both sides who have looked at the discussion and evidence. In closing a discussion, an admin's ability to decide whether an editors interpretation of policy or evidence is correct is rightfully limited. It seems clear to me that the closing admin went too far in substituting their own judgement for the good faith interpretation of policy and evidence of other editors, effectively a supervote. No consensus may not be an ideal decision, but for a variety of reasons it's not an uncommon one in contentious issues particularly in binary cases like this one, were there is only two possible outcomes each of which will infuriate a fair amount of people. We shouldn't ignore the requirements for consensus, just because we're sick of no consensus outcomes, unless consensus is achieved for a different decision protocol. The simple fact is, in many cases such as this we have no good way to decide and so we get these endless arguments with little hope of achieving consensus. (To give a related example Myanmar which is currently at Burma also has the same problems. Incidentally I continue to support Myanmar and believe the close a few years back was flawed which I mentioned not long after I found out about it but made the decision not to bother to fight, partially based on the fact that although I felt Myanmar was the better title, Burma was the original article name.) I wouldn't necessarily be opposed to moving away from requiring consensus in a select number of cases but as I said, we need consensus before we do that. Nil Einne (talk) 07:44, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
• Comment. Much as I hate to say it, this a good case for those who think that original participants in the RM should not be allowed to vote in the MRV. I participated in the RM and voted support, so it will come as no surprise that I endorse the closure. I think it was well within admin discretion and followed the guidelines laid out at WP:RMCI and WP:CONSENSUS. The fact that the term "supervote" has been bandied about by some above suggests that they did not even read the closure and instead want the decision overturned simply because they don't like it. It is interesting, to me, to note that, as far as I saw with a quick scan, every uninvolved editor who has voted at this MRV has endorsed. Per discussion below, my quick check was obviously incorrect. Jenks24 (talk) 07:51, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

• Well my own 'quick scan' (it's fairly easy, just search for 'overturn' and look for anyone not tagged who !voted and then confirm on the discussion page that they weren't a participant) finds 5 people who I would count as not involved, i.e. didn't participate in the move discussion before it was closed, who !voted overturn. Namely Aufrette, ErrantX, Robofish, ThemFromSpace, AniMate, Sædon. I'm not counting myself since I technically participated in the move discussion even if I just left one comment without expressed a preference. On and by the same token, the number of people who !voted endorse but were not participants is 4, Orange Mike, Resolute, Tarc, Wikid77. I'm not counting the closing admins endorse of course, and since which was just a quick search by looking for the word 'overturn' or 'endorse' and excluding everyone who was tagged it's possible or even likely I missed something. There are of course also people like you who left comments, sometimes even leaning one way or the other but not expressing a clearcut view. I'm not of course suggesting these raw numbers mean something, but since you raised the point, I think it's helpful we get some actual gauge of the numbers. Nil Einne (talk) 08:11, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

• Thanks for pointing this out. I was just going off who I could personally recall had been involved in previous RMs, so I'm not surprised I missed one or two, but five is disappointing. I was under the impression P.T. Aufrette had voted, but it appears he only made an edit to the RM, but did not vote. AniMate has participated in previous discussion on this issue and I would not classify him as uninvolved. ErrantX, Robofish, ThemFromSpace and Sædon are uninvolved, though, so that last sentence of mine is obviously incorrect. I've added a small note, but I'd be happy to strike it instead if you'd prefer. Jenks24 (talk) 08:21, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

• Which is why I stayed out of this move review. I !voted and commented at the rm but it seemed to me that a review on the move itself would melt down to the same factions if those involved in the rm would be commenting here. I figured it would be talked about by administrators and a few uninvolved long-time editors. Looks like I was wrong. I've seen plenty of 60/40 votes go both the no consensus and move routes since I've been on wiki, and I've seen administrators move articles on 10-8 head counts too (literally saying they moved by majority vote). So nothing will surprise me when this is all said and done. Hey it's the wikipedia way these days. :-) Fyunck(click) (talk) 08:42, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

I agree that it would make more sense to not have those involved commenting, but at the same time what exactly is being reviewed needs clarifying. The admins closure is being based on a brief summary of how they came to their conclusions which is being taken out of context. Some people vote voted to overturn the change stating something about the closing admins view that the closing admin has categorically denied on several occasions, yet those votes may stand. This is not going to be as simply as just factoring out those who were involved in the vote. BritishWatcher (talk) 10:55, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

I am always a bit amused whenever editors on Wikipedia talk about "voting". Wikipedia procedures are clearly not voting, but editors continually get the impression that the more they get their buddies to show up and write "Support" or "Oppose", the more likely they are to get their way. "Polling" is nothing more than an opportunity for the closing admin to gauge the relative strength or weakness of a particular policy argument. Even here, at a place where the more experienced editors should be, we have the flybys showing up to "cast their vote" for overturn without discussing any policy issues, but simply placing a "me too" comment and moving on. As Beeblebrox correctly did for the Move Request, a closing admin will eventually read the issues and policies here, note that there are policy arguments being made on both sides of the issue, note that there is "no consensus" among the editors commenting, weigh the policy issues carefully, and make a decision which will satisfy a certain number of editors and dissatisfy the rest. But that decision will not be based on counting heads. --Taivo (talk) 11:20, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

I agree that it should not simply be about numbers it should be about the points made in the debate and weighing them up. Sadly the conclusion that many are making in this review is that if the "vote" is split fairly evenly it must be closed as no consensus. So in future if closing admins can not weigh up the issues and make conclusions sometimes determining an outcome when there is split views, its pointless evening having closing admins and it should simply be a formal vote with "no consensus" deemed to be a specific number of votes either way when the vote formally ends. I hope it does not go down that path, but based on many of the overturn comments above that seems to be what people think should happen. I am deeply unhappy about this review for many reasons, but the two particular concerns are the fact that people are making assumptions on the closing admins view based on a brief summary or someones comments here, including views the admin categorically denied. And the other problem is the fact people on both sides put in weeks of work in the recent RM (which i missed sadly), and all those arguments are being completely ignored in this debate by some of the people commenting which is a great injustice. BritishWatcher (talk) 11:31, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

• Overturn. The close is seriously flawed in these respects:

1. The closer opens by saying that they roughly judge the result to be no consensus, but that this will not be the finding because it is (for some reason) not acceptable. This is completely invalid. A no consensus result is always acceptable if it represents a fair reading of the discussion. Moreover, the formulation "this looks like a no consensus but that's not what I'm going to do" effectively says that a decision has been made against the status quo before considering any arguments or evidence, which is obviously not acceptable.
2. The closer then states that they have entirely disregarded numbers on either side of the debate. They probably imagine that this is permitted under WP:VOTE, but this is not the case. A closer should at least consider all arguments made as well as the varying strength of support those arguments have received in discussion.
3. The closer rejects or ignores all arguments made in the discussions and substitutes a reason for the decision that is entirely of their own creation. This is obviously not acceptable. The job of a closer is to judge consensus, not to directly decide what the best answer is. The argument given (that the title should be the phrase most likely to be typed into the search box) is not policy-based and does not even hold up under its own logic. The closer says that this is "about how to best serve our readers". But if the name likely to be typed in is inaccurate, as contended by a slim majority here, then the best way to serve readers who type it in is to draw their attention to the inaccuracy by way of a redirect.
4. Important arguments put in the discussion were ignored by the closer. It was not explained why WP:NCGN should be ignored in this case (particularly, but not only, it was not explained why WP:MODERNPLACENAME, which appears specifically designed for this type of case, should not apply) and it was not explained why the (seemingly) exclusive use of the name "Cote d'Ivoire" in reference works comparable to Wikipedia should not be considered persuasive.
5. Overall, the closer gives a very strong impression of having decided the question before considering the discussion.

Formerip (talk) 11:58, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Break 3 Question for Beeblebrox Beeblebrox has explained above that his reading of the argument was that move had a stronger argument. IMHO the detailed reasoning has not been detailed here, so I think it would help if Beeblebrox would be willing to provide a more detailed, policy-based argument for the move. It seems he was convinced by the preponderance of news sources, but did not address the issue of books, library taxonomies, journal articles, encyclopedias, or dictionaries, all of which seem to (as presented in RM) prefer CI. I think the relevant guideline is Wikipedia:NCGN, especially here Wikipedia:NCGN#Widely_accepted_name, which states that the following should be considered, with no preference for one over the other:

1. Consult English-language encyclopedias
2. Consult Google Scholar and Google Books hits
3. Consult other standard histories and scientific studies of the area in question. (We recommend the Cambridge Histories; the Library of Congress country studies; Library of Congress Subject Headings; and the Oxford dictionaries relevant to the period and country involved
4. Consult major news sources

Note that nowhere in this guideline is there mention of what users are used to seeing, or what search terms they use. In addition, note that by their very nature, news sources will *always* be more numerous than any of the other entries above. This however, according to my reading of the guideline, does *not* mean they should be given more weight, and I think the evidence presented is clear that CI would win 3 out of the 4 above. We have an odd situation here, in that books, encyclopedias, libraries, geodatabases, all prefer one version, while news seems to prefer another.--KarlB (talk) 14:27, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Sorry to butt in, but WP:NCGN is simply a guideline. It exists to supplement WP:AT and if the two are ever in conflict, the wording in AT is of far more importance. "Note that nowhere in this guideline is there mention of what users are used to seeing, or what search terms they use." – irrelevant, because recognisability and naturalness (in other words, "what [readers] are used to seeing" and "what search terms they use") are given very prominent places in AT. If a RM comes down to a choice between following AT or following NCGN, the closing admin should always give far more weight to the AT arguments. Jenks24 (talk) 15:35, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Yes, but even WP:AT says: "In determining which of several alternative names is most frequently used, it is useful to observe the usage of major international organizations, major English-language media outlets, quality encyclopedias, geographic name servers, major scientific bodies and scientific journals." Note that priority or preference is *not* given to news outlets; indeed, encyclopedias, name servers, journals, and international orgs are *also* noted as important sources. The issue is, and something that was never argued deeply in the RM, is that these sources seem to conflict. Arguments were not brought forth as to why news media should be preferred over encyclopedias; there is no reason to default to news sources over any other source (e.g. books, etc), especially given that coverage in news sources will *always* be more than that in other sources, but volume doesn't seem a good argument for unequal weighting; an argument has to be made *why*, and such an argument was not made; thus no consensus is the only reasonable outcome, or perhaps a relist with guidelines to make policy based arguments from WP:AT and WP:NCGN. WP:AT btw also refers to other specific naming guidelines, and that they should be used. I don't think there is a conflict here between WP:AT and WP:NCGN; we don't have a good way to determine the widely-accepted name in this particular scenario, except editor consensus.--KarlB (talk) 16:14, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

• I wholeheartedly agree that it is an odd situation the way the sources are split. We have to choose one or the other for the title. Wikipedia is written for a general audience, and I believe a compelling argument was made that said audience would expect to find the information they were looking for under the title "Ivory Coast". It also logically follows that those searching the French term would already be aware that it is also referred to by this term. Beeblebrox (talk) 16:00, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

I asked you this above under your endorse, but you haven't replied. You close gives no explanation for why you think that the readers would expect to find the article at "Ivory Coast". Can you clarify which arguments/evidence convinced you that Ivory Coast would be a more familiar name? TDL (talk) 17:20, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

I think this is a bit of a red-herring. Who cares where most readers will expect to find it? That's nothing to do with how we are supposed to name articles. Formerip (talk) 17:35, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

The " readers would expect to find the article" is another way of saying it is the commonname as far as im concened. I do not see the difference in meaning, it is just worded differently. BritishWatcher (talk) 18:57, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

I just want to say that in my opinion current reliable news sources from the major English speaking countries should be given priority over other sources in determining what most English users are likely to expect and use. Why? Because, at least for most topics, these news sources are the very sources that most accurately reflect and shape current actual usage! While neither AT nor the guidelines actually currently say this, they don't preclude applying it in such cases. I, for one, think they should say it explicitly.

More to the point, endorsing arguments implicitly based on prioritizing sources like this is no reason to overturn. --Born2cycle (talk) 20:39, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Your opinion might be better placed at WP:AT. Regardless of what you believe, that is not the guideline, and there is zero evidence that news sources alone "most accurately reflect and shape current actual usage", and that argument was not mooted during the RM. There are many other influencers of the English language. For a while, USA today would say things like "today, the president of the USA" or "The USA foreign policy is that...", but that didn't reflect english usage.--KarlB (talk) 21:12, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

You're a pyromaniac in a field of straw men, Karl. No one said news alone. But the argument that usage in worldwide major English news sources takes priority with respect to accurate reflection of actual usage was so obviously implied in the opening sentence of the proposal, which was followed by backup from usage in books, there was no requirement for anyone to state it explicitly. And no one is arguing that unusual usage in one newspaper accurately reflects and shapes current actual usage, so your hypothetical USA/USA Today example is just another target in your burning field. --Born2cycle (talk) 22:21, 11 July 2012 (UTC) struck out hypothetical --Born2cycle (talk) 23:01, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

Once again, you're making up policies and playing with language to suit your argument. Bottom line, the guidelines and policies around article titles do not say anything about prioritizing news sources over any others - they are mute on the matter. No matter how obvious it seems to you, or what wonderful conclusions you think are implied (and thus don't need to be stated - that's a new one!), net net you're still proposing something different than the guidelines, and this is the wrong forum to change those guidelines. I suggest you take your ideas over to WP:AT and bring your straw with you. (ps: the story about USA today wasn't a hypothetical example, it was a real example, of the largest circulation newspaper in the US, regularly using a term, for a country, that had nothing to do with actual global english usage, which handily defeats your flawed and unsourced assertion above that news sources are the best source for current actual usage.)--KarlB (talk) 02:45, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

More strawman dousing. What policy did I make up? What guideline change am I proposing (here), much less one that is different from the guidelines?

RM proposals are always short. It's impossible to explicitly state all underlying assumptions. Many are necessarily implied, some more obviously than others. In this particular RM proposal the assumption that news sources are most important/relevant was clearly implied. Whether you agree with that or not is a separate issue - but you cannot seriously deny that it was clearly implied, and accepted by many if not the majority of those who participated.

I repeat, a closer endorsing arguments implicitly based on prioritizing sources like this is no reason to overturn. --Born2cycle (talk) 23:01, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

News sources above are flawed I don't want to rehash the RM here; but since British Watcher has refused to remove the contentious list of news sources, I just want to briefly respond. You'll notice that the news sources are *all* from United States, UK, Australia, or South Africa. There are no other news sources listed from countries where there are millions of English speakers, such as Canada, Nigeria, Pakistan, India, Ethiopia, Philippines, Egypt, Ghana, etc. It should be obvious that there is a bias in the sources chosen, instead of a bias towards an inclusive global view of english speakers. I'd ask again that the table be removed, as it is misleading and cherry-picked.--KarlB (talk) 17:53, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Just where do you think the majority of the English speaking wikipedia come from? But if you want we can look at sources for those other countries too, whilst the table has limited number of countries, it isnt limited to those places at all (there were more sources under the table that i didnt copy too). Ill remove that informative table when all the other contents on this page which try to claim the article should belong at the french language name is removed, i fail to see why it should be so one sided, nor do i think it fair people are voting without seeing important information. Also accusations or claims against the closing admins actions which has been categorically denied by the admin are very unhelpful on this page, yet i count several people saying the decision should be overturned because of such things. I know that those against the use of Ivory Coast dont like that table, its because it sums up what this entire debate is about. English language sources overwhelmingly use Ivory Coast, and because of that it is the commonname most people know it by as reflected in the page stats for the different news sites. BritishWatcher (talk) 18:03, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Why do we give preference to media sources? Because that is the contact that most English speakers have with Ivory Coast--through media sources. We listen to the radio in our cars, we read newspapers, we read the internet news, we watch television. And those sources are overwhelmingly using the English name "Ivory Coast". Do a search at NPR and the most recent report is very telling. The NPR interviewer introduces the piece with "Ivory Coast" and asks all her questions about "Ivory Coast". The scholar she's interviewing uses "Cote d'Ivoire", but the interviewer never switches to "Cote d'Ivoire", she keeps saying "Ivory Coast" right up through her summation. That's what we're dealing with here. Scholars might use "Cote d'Ivoire", but the common people (who rarely, if ever, read those scholarly works) consistently hear "Ivory Coast" from the media outlets which are going to constitute 90% of their "contact" with that country. That's why we give preference to media sources--they are way that the world touches most English speakers.

Why do we give priority to US and UK media sources? While a broad-based survey of all countries where English is the primary language would be "fair", the simple fact is that the great majority of native speakers of English in the world live in the US and the UK. A proportional distribution of media outlets will always have the most sources from the US, followed by the UK with ever smaller representation from Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Belize, Jamaica, the Falklands, etc.

Usability, Usability, Usability. In all this hashing over "consensus", "no consensus", "WP:COMMONNAME", "WP:NCGN", etc., we have to keep first and foremost the aim of Wikipedia--to help people find information. We're not here to teach them something they don't want to know, we're here to give them information that they are looking for. If the majority of our readers are looking for some information about "Ivory Coast", then it's our job to give them the answers to their questions about "Ivory Coast", not some French place they've never heard of. If we're getting our panties in a wad over X policy or Y policy, then we've forgotten the very reason for Wikipedia's existence--to give our readers the information they're looking for with the least fuss and bother to them. --Taivo (talk) 18:19, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

(ec)The table is (a) inaccurate (b) biased but most importantly (c) inappropriate in an MRV, especially since the only way to make it fair is to allow the other side to start adding other tables of other journalistic sources and encyclopedias and books and so on - at which point it really does become the RM all over again. The table illustrates that *some* english languages sources, which are cherry picked, use IC. But you didn't look at major english-language news sources like AllAfrica.com, or sources from Nigeria or Ghana or Ethiopia or any other African countries, who might be going to that article more frequently than people from Australia! Did you know Nigeria has 150M people? That's a heck of a lot more than Australia! As to your other whining about it's not fair, people *can* see the debate, that table has a prominent place at the top of that debate, so there's zero evidence it was missed. If we follow your logic, we should just start copying over all of the arguments from RM here, so that people can see them. That's not the point of this forum. Nobody else copied over a big table full of links and information, you're the only one, and you should just undo it - it's the honorable thing.

As to Taivo's point, what are you talking about?? List_of_countries_where_English_is_an_official_language may help. Besides, wikipedia doesn't cater to native english speakers, we cater to english speakers, and I reckon there are a lot more english speakers in India than in the US + UK combined! --KarlB (talk) 18:28, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

The other points above, re: preference to news media, would apply to almost every article in wikipedia. But the guidelines specifically aren't written that way, and such arguments were not significantly advanced during the RM. Thus, they are invalid here. If you want to change WP:AT to say news should take much more weight than any other sources, go for it, but it doesn't say that now. --KarlB (talk) 18:32, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Karl.brown, I know very well the countries where English is spoken as a native or official language. And your outrage is simply misplaced. US and UK users will always be the primary "customer base" for the English Wikipedia, although certainly not the only users. If you have hard data otherwise, I'd be happy to consider it. And since you are clearly one of the people with their panties in a wad over the legal print in X or Y policy, then I'll just reiterate that if we forget usability as the bedrock of all our decisions here, then why are we even creating an on-line encyclopedia? --Taivo (talk) 18:35, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

The whole debate is on the RM, my concern is some of the people are reading the brief summary of the closing admins statement and making assumptions, without knowing all the facts either from the RM or clarification the admin gave. BritishWatcher (talk) 18:37, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

You mentioned India, well far more Ivory Coasts on NDTV than for Côte d'Ivoire. I got 923 compared to 3 on google search. BritishWatcher (talk) 18:42, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

So what? Shall I create a new table, summarizing all of the pros/cons, and paste it here, so that no-one has to read the RM? Would that be fair or appropriate? No. Nor is your table. Please delete it. It's one sided, and the only way to make it two-sided would be for the CI side to add *more* material to it, which means we're now participating in an RM in the wrong place. Your cites for India are meaningless; because the experiment is flawed. You can't do a search then report the results if you like them. You choose what sample you are going to take, then you report the results, whatever they show. How do I know that other Indian websites might give different results? How did you chooose NDTV? That's not what happened with the table, and it's too late to do it now, as RM is over.--KarlB (talk) 18:45, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

And on the times of India.. 5,750 for Ivory Coast vs 1,550 for the french name. And i would be happier if people had the basic points off the case, both sides case. The problem with the whole review is that does not seem to be happening. We have people pratically grading the closing admins brief summary statement and making assumptions. The facts of the actual case are not being properly reviewed at all. BritishWatcher (talk) 18:48, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

ibnlive.in.com 8,200 Ivory Coast, 2,230 French language name. I accept that the table above and these 3 are just a selection (although they happen to be the major news sources for english Wikipedia by far), but they simply highlight a trend that does exist which i believe shows Ivory Coast is the common name for this country in English. BritishWatcher (talk) 18:54, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

This is not RM! Plz stop with your unsourced, unscientific and flawed numbers.--KarlB (talk) 19:02, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

I only posted the table as an example and stopped there. Then you made claims about it and wanted to knnow about other country media sources so i gave 3 Indian sources as you specifically mentioned India too. If this is not a RM i wish i could understand why many parts of this page looks like its one. BritishWatcher (talk) 19:29, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

No, I didn't ask for other sources; I asked for the table to be removed. If we are to start adding other news sources, we would do so properly and scientifically, not haphazardly. But this is not the forum.--KarlB (talk) 19:44, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

But, Karl.brown, we are simply replicating exactly the process that Beeblebrox said he followed in order to determine if his judgment was appropriate or not. The evidence at the RM very clearly favored "Ivory Coast" as the most common English name when scholarly works were excluded. Only scholarly works (encyclopedias, atlases, scholarly texts) showed the opposite trend. Beeblebrox then judged that usability was more important than simply counting "votes" or counting scholarly references. He judged that media usage was more important to determining the common name than academic usage. That's what this comes down to. Did Beeblebrox's judgment reflect positively on Wikipedia or not? Beeblebrox gave more weight to usability in his consideration of the various and sundry options available to him in WP:COMMONNAME and WP:NCGN. These policies are toolboxes of options, they are not absolutist one-size-fits-all measures. Since Beeblebrox's judgment has been called into question by this Move Review, then it is appropriate for editors who are simply dissatisfied with the result to be presented with the facts that Beeblebrox considered to be the most relevant. And I agree with BritishWatcher, this page was becoming RM version X long before he posted the list of media sources. --Taivo (talk) 19:34, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Yes, and that judgement was the equivalent of a supervote. Hence, the main reason people are opposing this close. The closing admin should weigh the arguments as given, not pick and choose which parts of the policy suit his fancy. That's the job of those debating. As to this point: "it is appropriate for editors who are simply dissatisfied with the result to be presented with the facts that Beeblebrox considered to be the most relevant", that is absolutely inane, and I refuse to sink to your level and "present the facts that Beeblebrox ignored" in a massive linked table-form. In any case, I'm done discussing with you - go bunch your panties elsewhere.--KarlB (talk) 19:44, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

For Usability, the page title is relatively irrelevant, as redirects exist. So usability is at most a minor argument in this debate. And for a scholarly work like an encyclopedia, correctness must always trump usability. —Kusma (t·c) 07:56, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

• Overturn move. Most reference works, including those in English, use the name Côte D'Ivoire, this includes Britannica and The World Almanac. "Côte d'Ivoire" is also used on online atlases such as Google Maps and Bing Maps, as well as in the newer paper atlases I have read. Indeed, the World Almanac says: "The name was officially changed from Ivory Coast, Oct. 1985." The argument that putting the article at Côte D'Ivoire is analogous to putting the Germany article at "Deutschland" is a complete red herring. All English reference works use the English name Germany when describing Germany. These same English reference works do not use an outdated name when describing Côte D'Ivoire. The argument given in the closing rationale, that readers will have trouble because they are familiar with "Ivory Coast" is extremely minor, given that a redirect will bring them to the correct article instantly. There was no consensus for the move to the pre-1985 name, as acknowledged by the closer, and since there is no policy based reason to mandate a move to a title that is out of date, the move should be overturned and reversed. I see many people who endorse "Ivory Coast" refer to media sources. However, Wikipedia is not a newspaper, or a news broadcaster. Since there are more newspaper articles lying around than there are encyclopedia articles lying around, a Google-hit count will give an inflated figure for "Ivory Coast". But since we are an encyclopedia, we follow the standard of encyclopedias and similar reference works, instead of sources that are dissimilar in nature. Sjakkalle (Check!) 19:59, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

What does this have to do with whether procedure was handled correctly? This belonged back in the rm not here. EB also has tennis player Ilie Nastase at a name not used here at wikipedia so that means little. I could go on the other way and talk about how incredibly common Ivory Coast is compared to CotedIvoire but that ship has sailed way back at the RM. This is a review on closing procedure and whether it was within reasonable parameters. Fyunck(click) (talk) 20:23, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Indeed. I presume commentary regarding the original proposal is ignored in evaluating this discussion. --Born2cycle (talk) 20:25, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Trying to argue why arguments that disagree with your viewpoint should be ignored or discounted seems to be a popular exercise. I think I pointed out that there was no consensus for the move, that the new title is obsolete, and that the arguments given by the closer for implementing the move are unconvincing. But I will point by point go through why the procedure was handled incorrectly:

• The closer started off by saying that "no consensus" was an "unacceptable" outcome. That is a poor premise for a close. If there is "no consensus", consensus doesn't magically appear just because a single user finds "no consensus" is "unacceptable".
• The closer said he closed the discussion on its merits, yet many of the arguments that were presented for moving (such as this being analogous to moving Germany to Deutschland) were complete strawmen.
• The closer said a strong argument for moving was that users were unfamiliar with Côte D'Ivoire, but that isn't a problem at all because a redirect will bring them to the correct article.
• Many of the arguments in the rationale are not arguments at all. Let's look at "The core issue here is "what is the purpose of an article title?" All other arguments about colonialism, respecting the locals, what atlases or even other encyclopedias say etc are not entirely without merit but are secondary to that concern." First, Beeblebrox doesn't even attempt to answer what the purpose of the title is, which surely should be to give the current, rather than an outdated, name of the country. Then he says that what other encyclopedias and atlases say are "secondary" to that concern, but since he hasn't mentioned what the concern is, then I don't know what was primary. If it is "familiarity" that is the primary concern, then I have already pointed out that a redirect resolves that instantly, and besides, it isn't the role of a closer unilaterally decide which concerns are "primary" or "secondary" unless he has a solid foundation in policy are a solid reference to a consensus of what is most important.

Sjakkalle (Check!) 05:10, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

• Endorse (and I supported the RM proposal). First, I note that all of the commentary above does not distinguish between local consensus and community consensus. The job of the closer is to determine community consensus with respect to the proposal, which incorporates the strength of the arguments and relevant policy as well as local consensus. The lack of local consensus in a given discussion does not necessarily indicate a lack of community consensus.

  Second, when there is no local consensus, the determination of community consensus is often not easy, and sometimes impossible. The easy answer in such cases is to close as no consensus, and that's certainly acceptable and appropriate, at least the first time a given proposal is made. But once "no consensus" has been a discussion result more than once, for a variety of reasons, I suggest repeated "no consensus" results often indicates that community consensus actually lies with supporting the proposal in question. The most extreme example of this I know is eight "no consensus" decisions over nine years, before stability finally was achieved by moving the article in question.

  Third, a closer is well within his purview if he finds community consensus support in policy and strength of arguments for the proposal even in a situation where there appears to be no consensus among those participating.

  I reject the supervote argument. Beeblebrox took into account the arguments made and weighed them judiciously - as he explained above (and I endorse without repeating except to authenticate his reasoning reflected mine and that of many others), he did not make a new argument. We can't fault a closer for using a "new argument" simply because he explains his decision by summarizing the arguments of others in his own words. In fact, we should be encouraging more of our closers to do this.

  Finally, unless a closing decision is clearly against community consensus (e.g. contradicts local consensus and policy), and that's not at all the situation here, I contend it's an abuse of this review process to overturn. --Born2cycle (talk) 20:25, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

• Overturn as no consensus. Really the sheer length of the RM discussion and this huge one indicate that there's no consensus, so put it back where it was. I am especially concerned about this part: many of the sources that use Côte d'Ivoire are not journalistic sources but rather governments or NGOs. It would be impolitic of them to use Ivory Coast, but we do not need to worry about that. Really? Government and NGO sources are deprecated? It is the journalistic sources that are focused on their local audience's world views, while the Government and NGO sources would be speaking authoritatively. And note what's really going on here: anti-diacritic POV. We just had an ArbCom case over this. (note, I did not participate in the RM.) Br'er Rabbit (talk) 20:44, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

I think people get confused about standards for content and standards for naming. For content we do favor the more authoritative sources, but for naming we must remember we are trying to use names that our readers will expect and find natural - when news sources and "authoritative sources" differ on naming, the news sources generally reflect what readers use and will expect much better. Now, if news sources vary on a given name based on locale, that complicates matters. But that was not the case here. Major English news sources for the major English speaking countries indicated a strong preference for the name proposed in the RM. So yes, Government and NGO sources are deprecated for determining the most natural and commonly used names when they conflict with major reliable English news sources, and there is no reason to overturn a decision in which the closer recognized this was implicit in what many were arguing. --Born2cycle (talk) 21:03, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm not buying that. It is catering to the lowest common denominator. We should give more weight to the more authoritative sources and not feed the anti-diacritic POV pushers. Br'er Rabbit (talk) 21:13, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Well, to be clear, we're not talking about following usage in Facebook posts (if we were, then your "catering to the LCD" remark might have relevance). We're talking about following usage in reliable sources, and preferring (when there is a conflict) usage in reliable current secondary sources (like newspapers) to official names and usage in reference books (usage in the BBC, New York Times, AP, The Guardian, and CNN hardly represents the LCD).

For better or for worse, this principle of reflecting actual common usage (as reflected in reliable sources) has been a hallmark of Wikipedia naming since its outset; it has been consistently reflected in usage as well as policy from its earliest days. There are exceptions, to be sure, but no one argued that this should be one, much less why. --Born2cycle (talk) 22:29, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Quit badgering; I'm not talking Facebook posts, that's a strawman. I'm talking about what's on un.org, what's on the little sign in front of their ambassador to the UN. The Govs and NGOs are authoritative while the media are catering to the LCD-types. Your "preferring" mass media sources is simply a rationale for the end you want. Br'er Rabbit (talk) 23:01, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Please pay attention. I did not say you were talking Facebook posts. You suggested my argument catered to the LCD. To that I replied if I was suggesting following usage in Facebook posts, then your LCD remark might be relevant, the implication being it's not relevant since usage in major newspapers - which is what I am talking about - is not the LCD.

And as anyone who has observed me over the years would be able to verify, I have always consistently recognized, supported and advocated for the WP preference of common names to official "authoritative" names in article titles (e.g., his name is William Jefferson Clinton on the authoritative birth certificate, but Bill Clinton on WP; more to the point it's "Myanmar" on un.org, but Burma on WP). In fact, many would probably say I'm consistent about this to a fault. Anyway, this is not "simply a rationale for the end" I want in this particular case - it's a position that follows logically and consistently from WP:AT WP:CRITERIA. I can provide countless examples where I've made the same or similar arguments, and I can assure you I've never argued to the contrary. Can you do the same? Perhaps it's your preference that "is simply a rationale for the end you want"? --Born2cycle (talk) 00:46, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

No one disputes that we should use the common name. The problem is that you're blatantly making stuff up to support your opinion of what the common name is. Where is the policy that says "usage in newspapers is preferred over other reference material"? That's what you are arguing. That's not what the guidelines say. In fact, the guidelines say: "Consult English-language encyclopedias (we recommend Encyclopedia Britannica, Columbia Encyclopedia, Encarta, each as published after 1993). If the articles in these agree on using a single name in discussing the period, it is the widely accepted English name.". In our case, every encyclopedias consulted uses "Cote d'Ivoire". Either show me the guideline which says newspapers should be preferred over other reference works or stick to policy based arguments. TDL (talk) 01:10, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Nothing Br'er Rabbit has argued in this thread discussion about his !vote is based on COMMONNAME or NCGN. He simply discounts the value of reliable news sources as "the journalistic sources that are focused on their local audience's world views" (never mind that in this case we don't have journalistic disagreement among the major English news sources - the vast majority favor IC), maligns them for allegedly "catering to the LCD types", and favors the "Government and NGO sources" because they "would be speaking authoritatively". The issues you are bringing up were not raised in my discussion with Br'er Rabbit. We can take that up elsewhere, if you wish. --Born2cycle (talk) 01:41, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

You're not 'discussing', you're badgering. And you're being condescending. Give it a rest. Br'er Rabbit (talk) 04:39, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

The dissatisfied lot who brought this review continually reference WP:AT as some sort of Holy Grail of procedures for choosing article titles. Very well, before the policy ever discusses anything about evidence, the characteristics of an optimal article title are (direct quote): "Recognizability – Titles are names or descriptions of the topic that are recognizable to someone familiar with (though not necessarily expert in) the topic. Naturalness – Titles are those that readers are likely to look for or search with as well as those that editors naturally use to link from other articles. Such titles usually convey what the subject is actually called in English. Precision – Titles usually use names and terms that are precise enough to indicate accurately the topical scope of the article, but not overly precise. Conciseness – Titles are concise, and not overly long. Consistency – Titles follow the same pattern as those of similar articles. Many of these patterns are documented in the naming guidelines listed in the Specific-topic naming conventions box above, and ideally indicate titles that are in accordance with the principles behind the above questions." These primary characteristics argue for the English name "Ivory Coast", not the French name, since it is recognizable, natural, precise enough, concise, and consistent. The dissatisfied editors are cherry-picking what parts of WP:AT they want to take as normative without considering that the first words written about how to entitle an article focus on reader usability, not on whether the name is found in encyclopedias, not on whether the name shows "respect" for the non-English speaking population of a country, not on whether scholars use the name, not on whether Wikipedia is following some politically correct fashion. It focuses on English-speaking reader usability entirely. This is where Beeblebrox was heading--taking the issue of usability from WP:AT and applying it to Ivory Coast. --Taivo (talk) 05:25, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Not this canard again. English is an evolving language, and Cote d'Ivoire is now in english-language dictionaries and used (without translation or explanation) by english language books, maps, articles, and newspapers. So while it originated in the French, it is now quite clearly part of the English language (just like transport, or naïve, or Costa Rica, or Los Angeles, etc) - you simply cannot argue otherwise, and it's rather daft that you continue to do so.--KarlB (talk) 11:22, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

"Being in the dictionary" doesn't make a French term part of the language as a replacement for an English term that is still perfectly usable. It is "naturalized" only when English speakers actually start using the term on a regular basis as a replacement for the English term. This is not the case with "Cote d'Ivoire". The average English speaker still uses "Ivory Coast" and not the French name. You simply don't understand the process of linguistic borrowing if you think that simple presence in a dictionary is enough, media is still overwhelmingly using "Ivory Coast". But your argument is still totally irrelevant for this Move Review. The question is still whether Beeblebrox correctly followed policy in closing the Request for Move and the preamble to WP:AT completely supports his judgment based on reader usability. --Taivo (talk) 11:29, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

sigh. For a professor of linguistics you have some rather odd ideas about language. Are you saying that a word doesn't become part of the english language until a majority of people use it in all cases instead of another word? Nonsense. Your assertion that "the average English speaker still uses Ivory Coast" is in grave need of evidence; there are billions of english speakers, many from places other than the US and the UK; there are many in Nigeria alone! And even if, we took a poll of all of the billions of people who speak english on this planet, and conclude that 7 out of 10 used "Ivory Coast", that still does not mean "Cote d'Ivoire" is not part of the English language, which you have continually (and falsely) asserted.--KarlB (talk) 13:01, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps you need to take some introductory linguistics classes, Karl.brown. A word isn't part of the language and recognized as anything other than a foreign word until a couple of things have happened to it, but this is not the place to give you a basic lesson in linguistic borrowing. The fact that media sources clearly favor English "Ivory Coast" over a French name is evidence enough that most English speakers still use the English name and not the French one. But this is not the RM and your demands for proof are really irrelevant. The question is whether or not Beeblebrox was justified in making his decision to move the article based on Wikipedia policy. As I've clearly shown, WP:AT places reader usability first and foremost in all decisions of article naming and Beeblebrox was clearly considering usability in his decision. It's a very simple issue which the dissatisfied lot of editors has failed to discredit. Beeblebrox plainly and clearly acted in accordance with Wikipedia policy in closing the RM and moving the article. --Taivo (talk) 13:14, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

"Your demands for proof are really irrelevant" - Yeah who need facts and proof when a you've got a strong opinion? The suggestion that the media "clearly favour" Ivory Coast isn't backed by facts. It's easy to cherry picked a few media outlets who prefer your POV, do some unscientific google searches, and make a nice little chart. Here's my chart "proving" that the media favour "Cote d'Ivoire":

Organization	Côte d'Ivoire	Ivory Coast	URLs
The Economist	5,130	3,530	"Côte d'Ivoire" site:www.economist.com "Ivory Coast" site:www.economist.com
CNN	42,100	10,700	"Côte d'Ivoire" site:cnn.com "Ivory Coast" site:cnn.com
Reuters	61,700	45,100	"Côte d'Ivoire" site:reuters.com "Ivory Coast" site:reuters.com
USA Today	5,350	2,730	"Côte d'Ivoire" site:usatoday.com "Ivory Coast" site:usatoday.com
Washington Post	8,640	2,700	"Côte d'Ivoire" site:washingtonpost.com "Ivory Coast" site:washingtonpost.com
AllAfrica.com Alexa	1,590,000	14,900	Côte d'Ivoire site:allafrica.com Ivory Coast site:allafrica.com
VanguardNGR.com Alexa	2080	1900	"Côte d'Ivoire" site:vanguardngr.com "Ivory Coast" site:vanguardngr.com
StandardMedia.co.ke Alexa	221,000	9,720	"Côte d'Ivoire" site:standardmedia.co.ke "Ivory Coast" site:standardmedia.co.ke

While we can debate which name is more commonly used, it's childish to stick your head in the sand and pretend that no average English language speaker would ever have heard of "Cote d'Ivoire". TDL (talk) 18:29, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

tl;dr Br'er Rabbit (talk) 06:43, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Who's cherry picking? I certainly agree that we should follow those five characteristics. The issue is that all you've done is proclaim that these characteristics all support "Ivory Coast". You need policy based reasons why they support "Ivory Coast", not just a strong opinion. In fact, all five of those characteristics argue in favour of Cote d'Ivoire:

• It's just as recognizable and natural (WP:AT#Common_names; "The most common name for a subject, as determined by its prevalence in reliable English-language sources, is often used as a title because it is recognizable and natural." and "In determining which of several alternative names is most frequently used, it is useful to observe the usage of major international organizations, major English-language media outlets, quality encyclopedias, geographic name servers, major scientific bodies and scientific journals." Every single one of these items, except arguably media outlets, overwhelmingly favour Cote d'Ivoire.
• It's more precise (Ivory Coast is also the name for the larger geographic region).
• It's just as concise.
• It's more consistent (It follows WP:NCGN#General_guidelines which states that we should default to the "modern official name" in the absence of a common name)

Do you have any policy based reasons why you think Ivory Coast better meets these criteria better? TDL (talk) 07:10, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

First, Danlaycock, this isn't a rehash of the Request for Move, it is an evaluation of Beeblebrox's decision. Beebelbrox's decision was completely within policy since it can be completely supported from the foundational principles of WP:AT. Second, "Cote d'Ivoire" fails the preamble to WP:AT for the very, very simple fact that it isn't an English name, but a French one, and underlying all these issues is the very simple fact that the average readers of our encyclopedia are going to know English names in preference over French names. You are simply picking at straws if you think otherwise. "Cote d'Ivoire" simply is not a more natural English name than "Ivory Coast", and your argument that it can refer to a larger area is also nonsense since that argument fails when it comes to calling Germany "Germany" and Russia "Russia" (which terms have both referred to larger areas in the past). But your entire argument is useless here anyway since it isn't at all relevant to why Beeblebrox closed the RM. The foundation to WP:AT is reader usability and Beeblebrox correctly judged that the arguments for "Ivory Coast" were stronger in support of reader usability than the weak arguments for a French name that the average English speakers knows nothing about. --Taivo (talk) 11:11, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

I have no desire to rehash the RM. You tried to reargue the RM by citing WP:AT with nonsensical claims that weren't backed by facts, I simply refuted them. If you want to focus on the merits of the close then please do that.

• "it isn't an English name" - Cote d'Ivoire is in virtually every English language dictionary I consulted. That makes it English. Evidently this upsets you, however it's a fact.
• "which terms have both referred to larger areas in the past" - I've highlighted the key phrase here. Ivory Coast is currently used to describe a larger geographic area.
• "a French name that the average English speakers knows nothing about" - Evidence to support this please? Otherwise you're just making things up. TDL (talk) 18:29, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

• Endorse move Though the French-speaking government may want its country to be known by its French name, I have to say I respect Beeblebrox's rationale in the original close. Some governments may wish to have their place-names spelled or titled a certain way when put in English, but I think the fact that we have an article about Kiev (and not Kyiv) shows that this is not always successful. Canuck^{89 (chat with me)} 23:59, July 11, 2012 (UTC)

Break 4

• Endorse move Closing admin decided not to take the lazy way out and declare "no consensus" due to numbers. Disappointed at how many people here are re-hashing arguments for or against the move; this is a discussion of the closure, not the move. -RunningOnBrains^(talk) 06:32, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

  When the RM gets closed with a supervote and the actual outcome of the discussion (in this case "no consensus") is not in question the arguments of the closer have to refuted or supported. Hence the rehash. Hence why supervoting is a bad idea. Agathoclea (talk) 07:48, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

  As with every closure, it really comes down to the closing admin's judgement. I don't know of any policy that governs when "no consensus" should be the ruling, therefore it is a judgement call. People are reading too much into the closing admin's preamble; I believe his reasoning for closure was sound. -RunningOnBrains^(talk) 09:18, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

It is your opinion that there was "supervoting" involved. it is very clear that if there is split views, an admin ca weigh up the options and close the decision a certain way. There is NO rule saying that if things are evenly split it must be ruled no consensus. if you want to go down that path lets do away with closing admins and simply make it a direct vote. BritishWatcher (talk) 09:33, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

• Endorse move This was a close call, but the rationale was based in a reasonable analysis of policy and guidelines. older ≠ wiser 21:41, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
• Endorse move Is the encyclopedia Britannica a reader? This was done within admin discretion based on the arguments made, near as I can tell. And I just got here, Darryl from Mars (talk) 05:46, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
  • Right, so Britannica is boring so let's forget about it. Let's focus on the Sun and Daily Mail, what other sources do we need anyway... Laurent (talk) 16:41, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
    • I'm not sure If you're trying to tell me something...? I don't think titles use citations... Darryl from Mars (talk) 18:28, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

Break 5

• Endorse move I will not go into the details of the arguments for and against moving this article, I may do this at the talk page, but there is a general issue here. As a general rule we do try to operate by consensus, but a lot of moves and other contentious decisions aren't really taken by consensus, they are taken if there is a clear majority one way or the other. The guideline that if in doubt we stick with the existing version or name is generally a sound one. However in this case I think some people are arguing for following the rules for the sake of following the rules, and the admins are entitled to follow WP:IAR. Some people are legalistically arguing for a form of "squatter's rights", which if followed rigidly could mean that we are stuck with various arbitrary decisions which were taken at an early stage in the development of Wikipedia. We had a couple of earlier cases where move discussions were dragging on ad nauseam, Elizabeth II and Marie of Romania, and the admin decided to break the logjam. (I was on the losing side in the former case, but I accepted defeat with good grace. I was on the winning side in the latter, the admin may have been swayed by poor quality arguments by opponents.) In this case, the admin was entitled to note that some opponents were arguing outside the framework of WP:COMMONNAME and WP:SURPRISE (e.g. "What does it matter where people expect to find it?"). Also, you can salt a page title, but you can't salt a potential move request. (BTW, we could have a comparable case where admins are going to have to break the logjam at Rangers F.C., in this case there is no status quo to fall back on.) PatGallacher (talk) 11:57, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

In fact I went through all the support votes, out of curiosity, and not one of them was arguing about WP:SURPRISE, although it was mentioned, but only marginally, in the comments. That might be an argument worth discussing, but the closing admin didn't give us that chance. He just picked that argument and made the move based on it. That's one of the reason this move review is happening. The major issue for me is, why, when all major dictionaries and encylopedia choose "Côte d'Ivoire", should we choose a different one. What was the main reason, beyond *one admin's opinion*, that made us feel that we know better than these books. Laurent (talk) 16:23, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

Comments are worth rather a lot in the context of a discussion...Anyways, it's already clear to me that everyone on one side mentions printed works which agree with them, and everyone on the other side mentions the other printed works which agree with them. Picking either of those arguments strikes me as equally ludicrous. However, there seem to have been few realistic denials of what makes sense to Wikipedia's readers. Arguments based on the people that use Wikipedia are understandably more significant than arguments based on the people that write the encyclopedia Britannica. Darryl from Mars (talk) 18:25, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

• Endorse move Within admin discretion for a contentious topic -glad a solid rationale was given. Reminds me of the yoghurt/yogurt debate. R. Baley (talk) 16:51, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
• Overturn. As a editor not involved in the recent move discussion, I (weakly) support an overturn. The closing comment rather sounds like a "supervote" (sorry to use this term) and does not appear to be mainly based on the various WP policies mentioned in the discussion, but rather on what the closing admin thinks "might best serve our readers". "Another no-consensus is not acceptable" is certainly not a valid argument either and shouldn't appear in a closing comment. It also seems that the closing comment does introduce some new points never mentioned in the discussion (like the reference to "NGOs" which I could not find anywhere). I'm not sure sure what I would have voted in that particular move request, but I think an overturn might be legitimate.Pseudois (talk) 17:34, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
  • Actually, I'm confident if the "another no-consensus is not acceptable" principle was adopted by more closers, WP would be improved. As I noted above, a "no-consensus" result the first time a given move is proposed is reasonable, but by the second or third RM discussion I definitely agree "another no-consensus is not acceptable". As others have noted above, many "no-consensus" logjams have been broken by clear and thoughtful closing decisions, and that's exactly what happened here. Kudos, again, to Beetlebrox. This kind of decision here should be commended and emulated, not reversed. --Born2cycle (talk) 18:12, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
    • Once again, B2C has some interesting ideas to propose changes to policies (for example, proposals above that newspapers should be given more weight than encyclopedias, and here a proposal that after a few no-consensus discussions, an admin must make a call (reminds me of a euchre rule called screw the dealer); unfortunately for the hopes and dreams of B2C, this is not a current policy, in any shape or form, and I would oppose such a policy, because it goes against the ideals here. What I would support on the other hand (and something that has been done before) would be a moratorium on renames; once a strong and deeply argued case has been presented for a move, renames are salted for 1-2 years.--KarlB (talk) 18:19, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

I completely agree with Born2cycle. Wikipedia works on consensus when it can, but not on voting in any sense. Every closure by an admin is based on the expressed opinions weighed against Wikipedia policy, just as Beeblebrox has done. In addition, Darryl from Mars nailed it on the head, that when printed sources cancel each other out (paraphrasing his comment somewhat), then the closing admin must look to the foundation of WP:AT, which is plainly and clearly stated to be usability for our readers, tempered with WP:SURPRISE. Beeblebrox's close was perfectly appropriate. --Taivo (talk) 21:53, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict)It's true that neither of those two positions is explicitly reflected in policy, but neither is contrary to policy either. And even if it was, for good reason, IAR allows it anyway. The whole point of IAR is that improving WP trumps following rules.

Further, both positions are supported by actual practice (convention). I won't discuss the news priority point here as it's off topic for this thread (why not continue that discussion where it was being held instead of referring to it repeatedly all over the place?), as I said above, others have noted many examples of "no consensus" logjams that were finally broken by a thoughtful decision. In fact, I have a section on my user page essentially listing such examples... User:Born2cycle#Great_RM_decisions. While there is no written rule in policy that closers make thoughtful decisions in repeated "no consensus" situations, and I wouldn't support such a rule anyway (but some guidance to that effect in the section on closing RMs is probably a good idea), it's clearly a common practice with plenty of precedent that improves the encyclopedia, and this decision is another example of it.

On the other hand, a moratorium on renames in such a situation (where there is a history repeated "no consensus" discussions) is contrary to the very pillars of WP - where consensus is reached through more, not less, discussion. I know of no precedent for this idea, and thankfully so. --Born2cycle (talk) 22:14, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

Ha! I'm quite sure you wouldn't be congratulating Beeblebrox on his bold move if he decided the consensus and policy arguments laid on the side of keep at Cote d'Ivoire. So your whole spiel above is laughable; it's quite obvious you are only congratulating him because he chose the solution you prefer, not because of any larger wish to help the wiki - a keep instead of no consensus would have also sent a strong signal, but I doubt you'd be first in line to shake his hand for that one. For a moratorium, see here: Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Ireland_article_names#Remedies: "no further page moves discussions related to these articles shall be initiated for a period of 2 years.") - there was certainly no consensus, at least not if you read the discussions; they had to go to an ArbCom, bans, and polls to end it - but they did salt renames as a result. I'm certainly not opposed to admins making a tough call, but on balance when you look at the arguments mooted, there was no significant defense for the fact that serious reference books (in other words, high quality sources) keep the article at Cote d'Ivoire; and there was no serious discussion of relative weighting of different types of sources. Thus, IMO a no-consensus of that particular discussion was the only way, or a relist with a proposal to focus on the policy issues around relative weighting (assuming newspapers go for IC and everthing else goes for CI - but such a discussion wasn't had in depth, so BB ended up supervoting) Finally, I think it's wonderful that you bring up IAR. But the problem with IAR, is I can *also* argue using IAR; keeping the article where it was would also not be contrary to policy (and indeed, many policy-based arguments were mooted to keep). So as I've said before, please stop proposing changes or mystical modifications to policy here; this is not the forum.--KarlB (talk) 02:34, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

I think it's best for all of you if no one brings up all the people who probably feel a certain way about the move because it went a certain direction...Unless you really think one side is more ideologically pure than the other. Anyways, I don't think calling them high quality sources helps, first of all, since they're tertiary rather than secondary, and titles aren't a statement to be referenced in the first place. Actually, I went through some of the policies, turns out this isn't really a relevant objection. Moreover, 'there was no defense' and 'there was no defense that convinced me' are worlds apart. And I think you missed the point of the IAR argument; yes, perhaps if you had been the admin to come along and close and you had used arguments centered primarily on improving Wikipedia for the sake of it's users, then I'd endorse that decision too. IAR doesn't mean ignore all rules, it means ignore all rules for the sake of making Wikipedia a better resource.

And, for the record, 'other encyclopedias do it so that's what's better', if you were going to bring something like that up, isn't as strong an argument as you might feel it is, when I look at it. Darryl from Mars (talk) 03:27, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

Karl.brown, admins make tough calls here all the time based on their experience and policy, and had the closing admin chosen to leave the article at its French name, I would have accepted the "loss" with grace as I have been on the losing end of such discussions often enough to know that we want our admins to make tough calls. We win some we lose some. If an editor can't live with that, then they should go build a birdhouse in the backyard, it will be far more rewarding and less stressful. What I certainly would not have done, and have never done, is to go forum shopping through the avenue of a Move Review in order to get a decision I don't like overturned. --Taivo (talk) 03:43, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

Pot, meet kettle. Kettle, meet pot. (1) MRV is not forum shopping, it is the appropriate, sanctioned venue. (2) While perhaps you might have accepted the loss with grace, my comment above was that you would not be writing congratulatory notes to the closing admin, admiring their close, and extolling its virtues for the long-term good of the wiki. Finally, while you didn't start this MRV, you've certainly spent a lot of time (and made a lot of posts) here, presumably to make sure that your preferred decision *doesn't* get overturned. So cut the hypocrisy please.--KarlB (talk) 04:00, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

(ec)No, I don't think either side is more pure - it's an intellectual debate - but there are from some troubling hints of chauvinism (and western-centricism) which bother me. My point, which I've made before, is that this is the MRV forum; so we're not adding new ideas to the debate (or attempting to suggest changes to policy), we're discussing what was there, and which policies apply. If you read the debate, I never saw any serious back and forth, policy-based argument based on WP:PLACE and WP:AT that recognized the essential conflict between sources (note: not just news vs encyclopedias, but books, journal articles, library taxonomies, etc -- all of which are referenced at WP:PLACE); instead both sides were busy citing google numbers or arguing over whether Cote d'Ivoire was indeed part of the english language or not. As for whether they are high quality sources, please read WP:IRS, especially the section on context - choosing the right source is important - especially when dealing with foreign names and accents. I've mentioned elsewhere that you may have a wonderful book of black and white photos of Picasso's paintings, but that would be a terrible source on which to base the conclusion that he didn't use the color blue; the same applies for sources that don't use accents (due to typographical or technical limitations) - you can't use those sources to argue for the correctness of an accent or diacritical in a name. And the statement that article titles aren't sourced is silly - why else do we have google tables and search results and book links, etc; of course article titles are referenced, they're referenced like crazy in any MR. Finally, as to encyclopedias, I'm not saying (nor were others saying) that we should copy what Brittanica does. I'm just saying that if you look at the tests in WP:PLACE, there are several where CI wins, and one where IC wins. The necessary discussion about which sources should take priority (e.g. ideas like: we should *always* copy NY times instead of copying Brittanica) were not mooted, resulting in BB making a supervote.--KarlB (talk) 03:53, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

It would strike me as a super vote if WP:PLACE were the only arguments. However, and sticking just to what I see in the discussion; indeed, the idea is brought up in the move request itself, is that the people looking for this country are looking for "Ivory Coast", overwhelmingly. This is mostly unrelated to prioritization of sources, and very closely related to the justification used in the close. Essentially, I would disagree if you're arguing that the move was based on Beeblebrox's personal reading of WP:PLACE. Darryl from Mars (talk) 04:22, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

That's exactly the problem. WP:WHAT USERS ARE SEARCHING FOR is not the only consideration for an article title; redirects can handle that nicely. If we went by searches, then we should title Barack Obama as just Obama as it's far more popular to search using that name alone. The relevant guidelines are WP:AT and WP:PLACE, but BB did not make a policy-based argument based on those, or if he did he didn't mention it. WP:AT has several criteria, and WP:PLACE outlines several sources to check, without prioritizing any of them. As far as I can tell, all of these guidelines were ignored, and a gut-call-supervote was made instead.--KarlB (talk) 05:51, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

What a massive violation of WP:AGF, Karl.brown. Beeblebrox very clearly stated his thought process and the way that he came to his decision based on reading the entire discussion twice and giving himself time to consider Wikipedia policies and procedures. Your comment "all these guidelines were ignored and a gut-call-supervote was made instead" is a borderline personal attack. I've ignored the ridiculous charges you've leveled at me, but your personal attack on Beeblebrox and dismissal of his own description of his decision-making process is uncalled-for. You are simply accusing an admin of not doing what he said he did and of violating his trust as a Wikipedia admin. And you simply ignore the solid Wikipedia policies for reader usability explicitly spelled out in the preamble to WP:AT and WP:SURPRISE. Beeblebrox has spelled out exactly how he came to his decision and your attempts to characterize that as "gut-call-supervote" are simply personal attacks and not assuming good faith. --Taivo (talk) 06:57, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

• Endorse Close. The closer's rationale was clearly stated and does not fall outside of Wikipedia policy or reasonable thought. The Ivory Coast name issue has been festering for years and, assuming the two sides arguments are equal (I don't and was a participant in the move debate), the English name is more familiar and less astonishing to readers than the French one. —  AjaxSmack  20:04, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
• Overturn Even the closing admin indicates that if the arguments and "votes" were looked at, the result would be no consensus for the move request. There is not even a clear tendency one way or the other here. Status quo is normally retained in cases like this. --Polaron | Talk 04:56, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Very observant of you to notice that if I had treated this as a vote there would be no consensus. Did your browser crash before you were able to finish reading the rest of that sentence? Beeblebrox (talk) 05:08, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

My point was that should have been the end of it. Saying no consensus is unacceptable is unacceptable. Sometimes there just isn't consensus. This move review wouldn't have popped up if you closed it as such. --Polaron | Talk 05:26, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

If you did in fact actually read what I actually said and not what you imagine I secretly menat by it it is not unnaceptable at all. . I said there was no consensus only if I decided to judge consensus solely by strength pf numbers and that it is a good thing that is not how it works. Not the same thing unless you imagine a subtextual meaning that it not there. Beeblebrox (talk) 05:59, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Folks, please read my initial comments to this discussion above. The continued conflation of "local consensus" and "community consensus" - referring to each as "consensus" without distinguishing between the two related but different concepts - just adds to the confusion and disagreement. --Born2cycle (talk) 18:42, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

• Endorse close the admin used his discretion. This is ridiculous forum shopping. Hot Stop 15:10, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

• How is this forum shopping? That's like saying DRVs are forum shopping. The whole point of MRV is to review move request closes. Silverseren^C 02:25, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Because within two hours of filing this Move Review, the proposer was walking down the road of reviewing the evidence that was presented for the Move and not discussing the policies by which the closing admin had made his decision. Within 24 hours this was Move Request #8 and no longer a Move Review. That's the "forum shopping" element. --Taivo (talk) 03:06, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Or because it seems at least half of the commenters here are basically restating their views? Hot Stop 12:49, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

• Endorse close. The closer's rationale was clearly argumented and falls within Wikipedia policy and reasonable thought. The Ivory Coast name issue has been going on for many years and whilst the vote itself was close, more were in favour of change than maintaining the status quo. A lot of evidence with sources was given to demonstrate the common name for the country in English is Ivory Coast. In case of a structural divide in opinion other factors can be evaluated such as which of the two options follows policy better, which of the two options provides a better choice and usability for our English-speaking readers/audience, etc. That is exactly what the closing admin has done. The supervote argument is baseless. --Wolbo (talk) 12:33, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

• "which of the two options provides a better choice and usability for our English-speaking readers/audience" So you're saying the closer should use their own opinion on which choice they like better and think has more "usability". That's pretty much the definition of a supervote. Silverseren^C 21:40, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

No it would be basing it on the sources. That is not a supervote. BritishWatcher (talk) 22:39, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Continually repeating that won't change the fact that the usage in sources is at an impasse. And the closer shouldn't be basing their close on their opinion of the sources, but how the sources were discussed in the discussion itself. Silverseren^C 23:47, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

People continually lying or making assumptions that the closing admin cast a "supervote" does not change the fact that is not what happened either. Whats the difference between an opinion on the sources and how the sources were discussed? the sources showed Ivory Coast is the primary English language name for this country.. and that usage was factored in by the closing admin. BritishWatcher (talk) 23:57, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Moreover, issues beyond the sources, whether those were impassed or not, which supported the move were also discussed, particularly in terms of what the readers are looking for. Darryl from Mars (talk) 00:09, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Beeblebrox comments in order Because there is much confusion and accusations over Beeblebrox's close, I've compiled his responses with respect to the close and especially the question of no consensus is unacceptable vs no consensus was not eliminated as a possibility. I've placed it here, in the hopes that this will illuminate his reasoning which is unfortunately currently scattered across multiple pages and threads. It's a bit choppy b/c it has been pulled out of context, but they are his words, unedited, and may help in understanding his reasoning. --> Wikipedia:Move review/Log/2012 July 10/Beeblebrox comments--KarlB (talk) 20:38, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

It should not have to be like that at all though, scattered comments put into a page by someone else, its not the way it should be done and still fails to address many of the problems, such as people have voted above claiming something the admin has categorically denied. This whole process needs changing in the future to stop such a mess. Allowing the admin to make a detailed explanation of why they closed the way they did BEFORE the challenger puts in their viewpoint, would have been better. BritishWatcher (talk) 20:43, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

The page above is an attempt to help; Beeblebrox *has* explained himself, but the explanations are scattered. They are now centralized in one place, so people can read and judge for themselves. --KarlB (talk) 21:05, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

I agree its aimed at helping and is a good idea for the admins explanations to be clear and in one place, but it should not have to be done in that way at all. BritishWatcher (talk) 22:38, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Never, never, never refactor like that (✉→BWilkins←✎) 02:56, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

Why not? PatGallacher (talk) 23:56, 14 July 2012 (UTC)