Wikipedia talk:Requested moves/Archive 27

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Animal breed articles

I imagine everyone is as mortally fed up with the topic of animal breed articles as I am. Nevertheless, I'm here with a couple of requests:

  • I'd like to ask all those staunch few who deal with these requests if they would from now on kindly treat all and any moves of such articles listed here by SMcCandlish as falling under the third criterion for requiring full discussion, "Someone could reasonably disagree with the move". There is no consensus in the relevant WikiProjects for the titling format chosen by McCandlish for these articles, and indeed there is some quite strong opposition, as was evident in the last dozen or so RMs he initiated. (diffs available)
  • I'd like to ask Anthony Appleyard and Philg88 if they would be good enough to revert the moves of animal breed pages that they have in good faith made in the last twenty-four hours or so; those moves should not have been listed as uncontroversial, as the editor has been told on several occasions that that is not the case.
  • Given that Anthony Appleyard closed the mass move request at Talk:Teeswater sheep#Requested move 25 August 2014 as "No consensus" (assuming I'm reading that right, Anthony?), I'd be grateful for advice on how to go about getting those 200–250 articles restored to their previous titles, as agreed between Jenks24 and EdJohnston (again, assuming I'm reading that right). Should they be listed here again, or what?

Thanks to all, apologies for the extra work, not of my choosing. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 00:50, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

Why not open a move discussion for each group of pages that you think should be moved to another titling format. The Template:Move-multi allows some number of moves to be batched together in a single discussion. It might be reasonable to put 20 in a batch. The previous batch of 97 at Talk:Teeswater sheep#Requested move 25 August 2014 was quite unwieldy and it's not a surprise that it ended with No Consensus. To make progress, people need to see a batch of similar names that look like they could be handled with a common rule. With so much variety in one list there is little chance that people's intuitions will give them a clear answer. In the Teeswater sheep discussion the comments at the end were fanning out into lots of special cases. Fanning out is a symptom of failure of the discussion. The issue needs to be subdivided better. EdJohnston (talk) 02:57, 8 November 2014 (UTC)
That's exactly what I've been doing for the last few months (just with articles not specifically alread in the Teeswater sheep RM, to avoid conflicting RMs running concurrently), and every single one of them that raised WP:NATURAL vs. parenthetic disambiguation concluded in favor of natural, without exception. We don't need to re-re-re-re-re-hash this again. (Same goes for proper capitalization per WP:NCCAPS/MOS:CAPS/MOS:LIFE.)  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  03:20, 8 November 2014 (UTC)
(EC) Why would I be singled out for treatment like a vandal just because you [Justlettersandnumbers] seemingly insist on generating personal disputes with me, and appear to act like animal breed articles all belong to you, and that you and your specially chosen friends alone get to oligarchically represent animal breed-related projects? I don't recall electing you as spokesperson of any of these projects (I'm in all of them, too). Asking WP:RM admins to do this is essentially demanding that they create their own Star Chamber pseudo-WP:ANI, just for you to thwart someone else's participation and "win" arguments by excluding your opposition. The last dozen or so RMs I initiated have all concluded for WP:NATURAL, not parenthetical, disambiguation and (where relevant) for following WP:NCCAPS/MOS:CAPS/MOS:LIFE on capitalization. Your ongoing attempts to find a new audience for your personal way of naming things, and pattern of antagonistic scapegoating of me individually over the matter, surelooks like WP:FORUMSHOPping and tendentiousness, among other problems. This has all already been addressed at WP:RM itself and at Talk:Aspromonte (goat)#Requested move 07 November 2014. Ignoring those refutations and re-re-re-opening the discussion on another page like this will not avail you. But let's cover it all again anyway, just for the record. (Perhaps the only way to stop this asking-the-other-parent is to ensure that the same rebuttals appear every time, until the "game" becomes too much trouble to sustain.)

As everyone should know by now, wikiprojects do not set naming (or any other) policy; this is itself a matter of policy, at WP:LOCALCONSENSUS. WP:RM does not have to seek permission from any wikiproject (here, this would seem to mean "Jlan and two other editors he likes") to follow WP:AT policies, sources and other fact-based naming criteria; WP:RM is a Wikipedia-wide community process that overrules wikiproject style quirks. [See WP:BIRDCON if in doubt, which started as a RM that a wikiproject didn't like; I'm often scapegoated for BIRDCON, which remains a WP consensus despite its detractors, but had nothing at all to do with the RM that launched it.]

You are conflating the idea that me making undiscussed mass-moves myself, five months ago, was found controversial as a pattern of action (regardless of the merits of the move rationales), on the one hand, with me today incrementally requesting moves at RM, in exact accordance with recently-completed RM discussions, on the other, as being "controversial" just because you disagree with the results of RMs that have already ended and the naming pattern resulting from them. You "telling" me you think they're controversial doesn't make them controversial, when there are so many indications this is a personal dispute for you, not a policy- or fact-based one. An admin almost half a year ago suggesting that I consider, at that time, animal breed names to be controversial by default does not have the force of an ARBCOM ruling, and does not last forever. The remarkable consistency with which months of breed RMs have all gone the WP:NATURAL way, despite you or PigeonIP or both insisting on parenthetical DAB, is an unmistakeable indication that there is no actual controversy about WP:NATURAL. If there were, we'd expect to see this policy being rewritten at WT:AT. Consensus can change and when it does so, controversialness level usually changes with it (especially on topics like this that are not insrinsically, genuinely controversial, vs. something like Israel/Palestine).

If Appleyard and Philg88 self-revert recent moves, I only lament the impending time waste. It's okay if these proceed as regular RMs; they'll come to the same WP:NATURAL conclusion as the previous RMs did. We've had enough of them to know there is no magical new consensus that WP:NATURAL policy somehow doesn't apply to animal breed articles when someone doesn't want it to.

The Teeswater sheep mass RM closed as no move (i.e., to the parenthetically disambiguated names you prefer). What you want is essentially impermissible, not only because you acknowledged the concern raised (by Appleyard I believe) that a status quo ante revert would be an enormous amount of wasted work absent a very solid (and now proven non-existent) consensus for paren. not natural DAB, but also because many other RMs in the interim have made the question of consensus on that one moot, plus the fact that many of the names you want to revert to violate other naming policies, disagree with sources, are mutually conflicting, or otherwise not acceptable. Expecting a status quo ante revert five or so months after the moves is trying to have your cake and eat it, too: It's a silly Catch-22, because it's literally impossible for it to have concluded with a yes/no consensus due to the hopeless mish-mash of totally unrelated, often directly conflicting, proposed moves in it. (See detailed explanation at the RM itself.) We've since had the discussion on the merits nearly a dozen times on the exact same kinds of articles, in cleaner, logically grouped multi-RMs, with all of them concluding in favor of WP:NATURAL vs. parenthetical. Proceeding to revert all those Teeswater RM moves now would be the ultimate exercise in WP:WIKILAWYERing, to require process for its own sake no matter the wasted work and time it costs, and imposition of poor, often policy-violating names, pending later RM discussions (subject to further disruptive filibustering).

Please see WP:MOVEON: Its very first sentence sums up perfectly what's wrong with your approach to this (aside from the level to which you've been demonizing me as "incompetent", etc., for months, which is a different kind of problem).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  03:20, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

  • I see SMcCandlish has gone off his meds again. He was subjected to a restriction on unilaterally moving articles that expired a couple weeks ago, and throughout the entire time, he put in something like over 60 move requests (may have been more, that's all I found) and fought like a tiger to oppose the RMs that others initiated to undo the wreckage he'd left in his wake. Now he's back at it here, same pattern of endless tl;dr ranting about how evil everyone else is and how we are all out to get him. He refuses to let go of his one-man crusade over his view of reality. There is a legitimate discussion of how to title these animal breed articles, and some of the reasoning is unique to each species and justifies what appears to be inconsistent disambiguation. Please take @Justlettersandnumbers: suggestions seriously; SmC is usually requesting a RM that is AGAINST consensus. Montanabw(talk) 04:11, 8 November 2014 (UTC)
  • I should stay neutral here, but about the Talk:Teeswater sheep#Requested move 25 August 2014 suggested moves, my opinion would be: Moves where the only change is inserting ( ), reject. Moves where the change is adding (sheep) or (pig) or (chicken), accept, but without the ( ). And add to the list "Semirechensk to Semirechensk pig" (or Semirechenskaya?). As regards whether capital letter or not for the animal species word, that matter has been argued and flamed over so much that any more opinion here would achieve little. As regards deciding by usage (including in hauls got by that rather indiscriminate dredger called Google) whether e.g. "Landrace" rather than "Landrace pig": it is natural that people leave the word "pig" out in pig-oriented conversations and publications, but insert it elsewhere. But Wikipedia is for all readers and is not pig-oriented. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 06:11, 8 November 2014 (UTC)
    • I think the issue here is more that of behavior than content; it's an issue of editing against consensus. The general titling and dab guidelines help us all out, but there is a place for project and article editor input. The addition of the animal species (goat, sheep, cattle) to a breed article where there is no confusion or need for disambiguation is one issue, and it is really a case by case discussion. How disambiguation is done when it is needed is another (and yes, let's just. not. discuss. capitalization) While I personally might favor natural disambiguation, and we use it at the horse breed articles (for a very good reason, and with consensus), I also respect that other animal projects may have very good reasons for choosing parenthetical disambiguation (see [[Billy (dog) for example) and they should discuss their views and reach project consensus. What we have here is a single user who is forum-shopping to insert his POV on hundreds of articles without having that consensus discussion. This user has also just come off of a three month ban on moving articles and this is after earlier bans on the capitalization issue and an admonition to AGF and not attack other users. Montanabw(talk) 08:04, 8 November 2014 (UTC)
  • I moved only two articles, which are now at Berkshire pig and Bazna pig. Based on Anthony Appleyard's preceding comment and existing consensus, I'm assuming as an uninvolved admin that they should not be reverted as the only change was to remove the parentheses.  Philg88 ♦talk 08:17, 8 November 2014 (UTC)
  • Note: Billy (dog) is a breed of dog, not an individual dog like Diamond (dog). Anthony Appleyard (talk) 12:09, 8 November 2014 (UTC)
  • Reply to EdJohnston: Because at this point I should not have to do that. I brought these here in August as undiscussed, out-of-process moves by an editor who had been clearly and specifically told not to make such moves, and had been subjected to a community-imposed ban as a result of them. To be honest, I thought that when that discussion closed someone would come round with a mop and clear up the mess, but that didn't happen. At your request, to save work for admins, we agreed (at least, I thought we had agreed?) that there would be a move discussion, and that if it ended as "No consensus" the articles would be moved back to their previous titles. The discussion was not formulated as I would have chosen, but no matter; as I read it, it ended as "no consensus". I don't believe I should have to initiate yet further discussions to achieve a result that should in my opinion have been completely automatic right from the start (out-of-process move? revert it!). Per Dekimasu further up this page, "The burden should be on the editors who want to move the pages, not the ones who want to perform reversions". I'm not criticising or complaining here, but I will now say that I wish that same comment had been made in our conversation in August. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 17:25, 8 November 2014 (UTC)
  • Reply to Anthony Appleyard: You are of course entitled to your view, and I respect your reasons for not making it known during the damned sheep discussion. As that discussion, and indeed the Billy (dog) discussion that reverted other undiscussed moves by the same editor, must have shown you, your view is not shared by some of the editors in the various animal breed WikiProjects. Claims by that one editor of consensus are more a matter of wishful thinking than of fact. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 17:25, 8 November 2014 (UTC)
  • Reply to Philg88: Sorry you should have got dragged into this. As above, there really is not a consensus – or at least, if there is one, it is probably the opposite of what has been claimed here (diffs on request). The removal of those parentheses has been the subject of an extended and tedious campaign by one editor, and one editor alone. That editor must know that he should not have listed here as "uncontroversial" moves of the exact type on which he has expended acres of often unnecessarily acrimonious prose over the last few months. So if it's all the same to you, I think they should be moved back for now. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 17:25, 8 November 2014 (UTC)
No problem with getting dragged in, Justlettersandnumbers, but there is no point in reverting these moves if they are only going to be moved back again when the dust settles. For now I'd rather the two pig articles stay where they are. If Anthony disagrees, I have no problem with him reverting my moves.  Philg88 ♦talk 17:49, 8 November 2014 (UTC)
I agree with User:Philg88. Without any idea of where consensus lies, doing yet another round of paperwork moves sounds like a waste of time. User:SMcCandlish is the editor who did the moves discussed in the Teeswater case. I'm hoping that we will not see any more such undiscussed moves in the future. The ANI discussion which led to his recently-expired move ban was back in July at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive847#Undiscussed page moves by SMcCandlish. EdJohnston (talk) 18:15, 8 November 2014 (UTC)
  • No, this is not agreed; it is disputed across about a dozen different article pages and there is no organized talk or discussion. I rather wish you hadn't moved this. Where there is no need for a dab, just the name suffices; if there isn't something else called Semirechensk, we are just waiting for more article titling drama. If only one dab (such as, here Central Asian salamander, it can be a hatnote at the top. At the very least, please discuss this at WP:Animals or somewhere, as hundreds of animal breed articles could be affected. FWIW, the user initiating this whole thing just was blocked for three days for his behavior. Montanabw(talk) 22:23, 11 November 2014 (UTC)
  • Consensus seems clear that we prefer natural to parenthetical disambiguation. It feels like Montanabw and Justlettersandnumbers are either refusing to see this, even after losing at every RM discussion, or are just hassling SMcCandlish for whatever reason. I think we should move on. Dicklyon (talk) 23:48, 15 November 2014 (UTC)
  • No Consensus the issue here isn't disambiguation style (actually, JLAN and I disagree on that point, but with respect) the issue is consensus within a project and consensus within an article. The issue is the behavior of SMC moving articles n his own whim and against the wishes of the people who actually work on them. Montanabw(talk) 04:49, 16 November 2014 (UTC)
  • Once again, WikiProjects are not responsible for dictating naming guidelines. WP:NATURAL prefers natural to parenthetical disambiguation, and it is policy. As far as consensus on any particular move goes, we will have to continue reading move discussions for consensus, but an assertion that consensus does not exist is not a valid reason to oppose a move request premised on article title policy. Whether consensus exists or not is what is determined over the course of the move discussion. Dekimasuよ! 05:46, 16 November 2014 (UTC)
Actually, that isn't the issue; I personally like natural disambiguation in general. The issue is that sometimes it doesn't make sense ( the Billy dog case being a good example). When it doesn't make sense, or where the reasoning for the general policy doesn't seem to fit, (for example, here there were some porcine articles wrongly moved to "pig" and not "swine" when (pig) would have made it clearer that we aren't using an official name) then titling should be decided by a consensus of the editors who do the actual work, not some random drive-by with an agenda. If the core policy is sound, then a reasoned discussion needs to occur and time taken to convince people. Here it did not; one editor, after being thwarted in his goals (partly due to his own abrasive personality and penchant for tl;dr ranting) just went around to dozens of different places to make moves without consensus or discussion, with specific stated intent to use this tactic to evade discussion. In some cases, such as making a pile of technical requests on November 7, it was even sneaking about to evade detection and present a fait accompli. This is troublesome behavior, and should not be rewarded further. Montanabw(talk) 07:41, 16 November 2014 (UTC)
I am not really talking about the "technical" requests here. When you reference "consensus within a project" or "consensus of the editors who do the actual work" you give the impression that you are talking about local consensus or article ownership. If you agree that "a reasoned discussion needs to occur and time taken to convince people", I do not understand why you have been objecting to listed, reasoned RM discussions on the grounds that you disliked other moves made by the editor in the past, as took place at Talk:Aspromonte goat, or because "SMC has at least six or seven of these discussions going simultaneously across multiple individual animal articles, without having notified any of the projects involved", as at Talk:Dutch Landrace (goat). If you support a move on merits, please do not oppose it in deference to "the editors who do the actual work". Dekimasuよ! 11:54, 16 November 2014 (UTC)
In such disputes, the consensus of people who know the subject and what is going on in the area generally is more important than a slavish adherence to rules when the rules may not make sense. WP:IAR applies and no "ownership" exists, it's a matter of thought out consensus. IF the proposer's idea is superior, over time, the consensus will emerge. In the meantime, as happened with the bird articles, it drives off good content contributors when their expertise and knowledge is dismissed. Montanabw(talk) 23:36, 18 November 2014 (UTC)
I reiterate that opposing moves you agree with in discussions specifically geared to determine consensus is not productive. Consensus must be inclusive, community consensus. There's no substantive difference between "the consensus of people who [claim to] know the subject" and local consensus/article ownership. Dekimasuよ! 00:26, 19 November 2014 (UTC)
I would partly agree, to the extent that when one person keeps trying to override the community or to evade input from those most affected, that is a problem. "Ownership" is a bludgeon of ill-will where people are trying to keep a smidgeon of quality control against SYNTH and OR. Montanabw(talk) 03:16, 19 November 2014 (UTC)
  • Note also the repeated false assertions that I don't work on animal breed articles and am some interloper (this is a patent WP:OWN argument, as well simply being incorrect ad homimem aspersion-casting; I simply work less on the horse, goat and pig articles that Montanabw and Jlan are so proprietary about; while I wrote a new pig breed article recently, I spend more time on cat breeds), and that we're talking about moves made against consensus, when we're actually talking, months later, about moves that have been supported by RM after RM after RM consistently favoring WP:NATURAL policy in this topic area. Note also the accusation of "an agenda", while all the while, page after page, including higher up on this very page along with her personal attack about my mental state and being "off my meds", the editor complains of having motives and mental states imputed about her (which I didn't actually do).

    This editor persists at this business in every forum in which these issues arise (which should not be more than one, per WP:FORUMSHOP) despite all of these points already being refuted repeatedly. I'm not sure how long we're expected to entertain this distinctly anti-SMcCandlish, never-give-up, WP:IDHT gaming. It really is way past time this deathmatch attitude were dealt with. It's poisonous enough I've almost entirely quit editing Wikipedia for an entire month, two different times recently, to get away from Montanabw's (and to a lesser extent Jlan's) continued hostility, and it has disrupted more than RM process, but also article writing (see Talk:Landrace for WP:FILIBUSTER lengths Montanabw will go to thwart legitimate editing by me if it relates to animal breeds). See also the perverse "dirt file" that this editor has maintained on me for months, at User:Montanabw/ANI sandbox 2 (more disturbing yet, it's existed for years to go after various different editors, and is one of at least two such "shit lists", the sort of thing routinely deleted with prejudice at WP:MFD). Not sure how much more evidence is needed of habitual battlegrounding for personalized strife reasons.

    Re: Her comment that "IF the proposer's idea is superior, over time, the consensus will emerge" – that consensus already has emerged, very clearly. Her fears of "a slavish adherence to rules when the rules may not make sense" is simply not how WP operates, and is never a reason for tendentious evasion of applicability of our general rules when they do make sense, much less such personal campaigns of hostility.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  02:21, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

Oh, I missed some things:
  • The supposed smoking gun of "specific stated intent" is something she didn't even bother to read closely, or just didn't understand. I would suggest reading it, as it's very relevant to this entire debate. What I outlined there (aside from the tagteaming campaign against me personally by these two editors) was using rationally organized article naming discussions to foster rather than thwart consensus, to apply rules evenly, and to reduce topic-specific drama and battlegrounding; it's precisely what we need more of. (And note that I didn't even suggest the conventions that emerge from this process would be those favored by the proponent, but rather emergent from how the RMs go.)
  • The supposed second smoking gun, that some pig articles arguably should have ended with "swine" instead of "pig", is fixed by changing a word in their titles (if the sources demonstrate this to WP:COMMONNAME's satisfaction, which is sometimes an open question, and a matter for a regular RM on any such article), not by a months-long campaign of multiple-category-spanning obstructionism and personal animosity. I thought we would all understand that intuitively, but was clearly overoptimistic.
  • No one dismissed bird article editors' expertise and knowledge, some of them simply didn't get their way in an RFC about encyclopedic style and article titles; one who alleges to have quit over the matter had already almost entirely ceased editing over a year earlier for unrelated reasons, and the other made it clear it was a personal dispute not a matter of principle (and his userpage still indicates this). The WP:BIRDCON decision, an RFC confirming an MR confirming an RM (which had nothing to do with me) did not cost us a couple of bird editors; their own decisions make their WP experience revolve entirely around WP:WINNING a dispute about IOC naming (the real-world buy-in of which they demonstrably misrepresented) and making it all be about personality conflicts (sound familiar?) did that.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  02:33, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

Well, SMC again demonstrates why WP loses good content editors. Sad to say, it really IS his personality - else why indeed does he have the same problems with multiple editors across multiple projects? I'm glad SMC works on cat breeds, (but how many people did you run off that project, I wonder?) but it's the constant assumption that SMC is right and everyone else is an idiot that causes the problems here. Birdcon is a case in point, SMC caused tremendous harm to the quality of that project by a single-minded drumbeat against known scientific consensus in the real world. To say that people throwing up their hands in despair is "their decision" is ducking responsibility for a consistent pattern of bullying that would drive a saint to madness. But no need to continue this here, I'm sure there will be a new drama elsewhere within a week or so. Yawn... Montanabw(talk) 03:16, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

Nonsense. I was happy to see S continue to oppose the weird local consensus in birdland because it was the typical specialist style fallacy, not "known scientific consensus in the real worlds." In the real world, most serious writing has not adopted the birders' weird capitalization convention. I don't know what's going on in catland, but if he ran off someone who was insisting a weird cat style, I wouldn't fret over it. Dicklyon (talk) 05:17, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

Request closes

Since I have been doing most of the backlog here lately, many of the things at the bottom of the backlog (up to 10 of the last 12, depending on how you count) are discussions that I've already expressed my opinion in. A lot of the things in the backlog aren't difficult closes (e.g. Talk:Barca#Requested moves, Talk:Unitary state#Requested move) and others just need someone to go ahead and close them one way or the other or relist them because discussion is stale (e.g. Talk:List of world records in Olympic weightlifting#Requested moves with no discussion since Oct. 14, Talk:Secrets#Requested move with no discussion since Oct. 22). Can someone(s) take a look at the backlog? Dekimasuよ! 16:12, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

@Dekimasu: I have closed these and will try to keep an eye on the backlog in future. Cheers,  Philg88 ♦talk 09:34, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
Thanks again for those. There are a few others in the current backlog that I can't close: Talk:County Road 3 (Florida) (no new comments since October 25), Talk:Sharon Needles. Dekimasuよ! 04:58, 10 November 2014 (UTC)
Cheers for the additional closes. Not sure if you've noticed, but the page is now the shortest it's been since May 9, 2012. Not bad. Dekimasuよ! 06:16, 10 November 2014 (UTC)
You're welcome. Let's try and keep it that way :)  Philg88 ♦talk 06:23, 10 November 2014 (UTC)
And now, past that to the shortest it's been since June 1, 2010... back when the page was patrolled by the old RM bot. Dekimasuよ! 03:20, 14 November 2014 (UTC)
Anyone willing to do another run through the backlog? I'm on record on more than half of the discussions in the backlog again. Dekimasuよ! 22:39, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

Can someone who made a move request support it?

can people who made a move request support it? 121.90.243.44 (talk) 08:11, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

"Unlike certain other request processes on Wikipedia, nominations should not be neutral. Strive to make your point as best you can; use evidence (such as Ngrams and pageview statistics) and make reference to applicable policies and guidelines, especially our article titling policy and the policy on disambiguation and primary topic. After the nomination has been made, nominators may nevertheless add a separate bullet point to support their nomination, but should add "as nominator" (for example,  * '''Rename, as nominator''': ...). Most nominators, however, simply allow the nomination itself to indicate what their opinion is. Nominators may also participate in the discussion along with everyone else, and often should." Since the outcome of move requests isn't determined by the number of supporters, it's not really necessary to note your support for the move. Dekimasuよ! 08:38, 14 November 2014 (UTC)
It's not true that "nominations should not be neutral". Neutral nominations can very very helpful, such as when there is a known controversy, or a history of contested move proposals. In these cases, the best move proposal will begin with a neutral statement of the facts. If making a neutrally worded proposal, the proposer then may make their arguments separately under as an explicit !vote.
Where there is no history of previous move proposals, and no anticipated opposition, where the history of facts of past discussions is trivial, it is best to simply make your case, as per Dekimasu.
Where there is an extensive history, it is very helpful to summarise the past discussions, and to simply and factually state what was previously proposed, and to what end, and what the current proposal is. Mixing one's opinion into these facts can be very unproductive. Separating fact from opinion is safer. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 10:57, 14 November 2014 (UTC)
I copied this straight from the main page, which indicates a general consensus that nominations should not be neutral. The default is not moving a page. A move request should only be made if an editor feels that a page should be moved. Dekimasuよ! 18:12, 14 November 2014 (UTC)
That "should not be neutral" perhaps should be changed to "need not be neutral". Consider for example cases where another user assists an inexperienced user to request a move, even though the proposer might not actually support the move. Or, as SmokeyJoe suggests, where there has been history of controversy, it may be more productive to avoid fanning the flames when framing the request. older ≠ wiser 19:23, 14 November 2014 (UTC)
I agree that "need not be neutral" is better. We shouldn't encourage people to neglect valid counterarguments and alternative perspectives when submitting a proposal. It is actually best when the submitter has carefully weighed the various issues and is not too "invested" in their particular suggested outcome. —BarrelProof (talk) 19:47, 14 November 2014 (UTC)
Of course people who made a move request can support it, and if they do, they should be clear, and if they are making a procedural proposal (such as as a result of a Move Review), they should be clear about that too. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 10:57, 14 November 2014 (UTC)
I don't think that someone who submitted the move request at the top of the discussion should also enter a boldfaced Support bullet beneath it. Their support is implied. They can comment, of course, but it becomes confusing to interpret the conversation if they also seem to want to say that they support themselves. Strictly speaking, they are proposing, not supporting. —BarrelProof (talk) 19:47, 14 November 2014 (UTC)
The wording was chosen so as to discourage requests made for their own sake, since those expend our efforts unnecessarily. Perhaps the wording can be altered to get across the real message, which should be: if there's no compelling reason to start a move discussion, don't start it. Dekimasuよ! 00:32, 19 November 2014 (UTC)
I agree with that. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:44, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

Move request filed to counter controversial move, but now I learn about WP:RM/CM

This RM has been closed. Discussion may be continued at Talk:Chinese Canadians in British Columbia.

In Talk:Chinese_Canadians_in_British_Columbia#Requested_move, after a Wikipedian made a page move that he knew I would contest, I filed a move request as a way to contest the page move. Now I learned that I had the right to revert immediately and that this was the proper form. I want to move the page back to Chinese in Greater Vancouver (the scope I had set was city-wide but the other Wikipedian changed the scope) ASAP and then move content not related to Vancouver to another page. WhisperToMe (talk) 14:44, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

Re: "the scope I had set was city-wide"... with due respect, it sounds like you have some ownership issues to overcome. Suggest you take the debate to arbitration. Settle the issue of what the scope of the article should be... then come back and work out what the best title should be. Blueboar (talk) 15:37, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

OK, I see that there's a problem here that needs to be sorted out.

Do I have the facts right? WhisperToMe, I understand how all of this editing by Skookum1 could be upsetting you, however they have not actually removed any properly cited content which you added, have they? But you feel that the content you added is getting lost among the other content, perhaps? Wbm1058 (talk) 17:31, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

To my knowledge he didn't remove anything. He believes that it's inherently inappropriate to have an article using a city/metropolitan area as a scope even though that was my intention when I started the article. There are other articles on Wikipedia that intentionally use cities/metropolitan areas as scopes. He wanted to alter the scope to be province-wide even though the intention when I started the article was to be city-wide. Also I would have to look at the actual citations, because I want to see if I can verify the material easily (page numbers?) WhisperToMe (talk) 16:34, 23 November 2014 (UTC)
Have you discussed perhaps having two articles - one focused widely on the entire province and another focused more narrowly on just the city? Blueboar (talk) 16:53, 23 November 2014 (UTC)
As explained to him originally, and ignored, Chinatown, Vancouver and Golden Village (Richmond, British Columbia) already exist; he is re-inventing the wheel. Chinese history and society in BC did not begin in Vancouver, Greater or otherwise, and is not limited to the GVRD in modern times nor historical. The dozens of historical Chinese settlements/mines and commercial life in the Interior cannot be separated from an arbitrary "ethnicity-by-city" them, which yes is something WMT behaves in an "ownership" fashion about per his global series of the same (as with his new series of "ethnicity in Toronto" articles, similarly in the case of the Chinese Chinatown, Toronto already exists), and with "Vancouver" vs "Greater Vancouver" there's a difference between "Toronto" and the "Greater Toronto Area"; sources that use the standalone city names when the metropolis/region is meant are doing so incorrectly and not valid in determining TITLE as he has been wont to do ad nauseam.
In the case of the "Vancouver" area I've seen Abbotsford and even Chilliwack referred to as "Vancouver"; the actual region-name is the Lower Mainland (there's a difference between regions and regional districts n.b.) and similarly, Chinese history in the Lower Mainland is not separable from that of Vancouver alone ("Greater or otherwise"); if there are to be two BC articles, then the Lower Mainland should be the title of the so-called "urban" one. Similar to the Interior, Chinese history on Vancouver Island is intrinsically connected to that of the Lower Mainland and the Interior; they are one subject for those who know the material and realize there area other sources than the city/ethnicity focus ones he has fielded; I tried to tell him that, he's unconcerned by it, apparently. Yet {{historical Chinatowns in British Columbia}} gives a pretty good idea of the scope, and in the source I used yesterday to improve Williams Creek (British Columbia) there are lots of sources for the number of Chinese in various gold camps and towns...there's lots to be added to many articles and mentioned in the all-of-BC title...too many to list here.... long before the City of Vancouver was founded, or even named. That the wider settlement of BC by Chinese retreated to the Lower Mainland around WWII is "part of the story"; a lack of background on the subject (whether knowledge of geography, or of the scope of historical sources available) has plagued his conduct and resistance to advice since Day One. I've been accused of original research by him, which is counter-factual; he's not in a position to judge IMO. He just doesn't know the material like I do; that I haven't had time due to other matters to further expand the "whole of BC" scope as needed is beside the point; limiting an article to the city-only on the presumption/claim that other areas of BC are "rural" or "smalltown" is also not factual; Victoria is not a small town, for example, and Chinatown, Victoria also exists; Nanaimo at the time of the destruction of Chinatown by fire in the mid-20th Century was also a city context, not a rural one.Skookum1 (talk) 02:40, 1 December 2014 (UTC)
also it should be noted that just after I moved this and indicated the same should be done with what he'd titled Asian Indians in Vancouver and I retitled Indo-Canadians in Greater Vancouver, since moved by me necessity to the proper regional context for Indo-Canadians in the "Vancouver area" (very much not limited to the GVRD as he has tried to maintain, wrongly) Indo-Canadians in the Lower Mainland) he quickly made Indo-Canadians in British Columbia to thwart any other such move; he's also disgruntled about Germans in Vancouver being made into German Canadians in British Columbia. As with Chinese Canadian history at large, i.e. History of Chinese immigration to Canada and Chinese Canadians, were long-extant and covered Greater Vancouver/BC until he came along and started making "ethnicity by city" titles according to his own stated theme (see his userpage); no other "ethnicity by city" articles existed other than maybe the ones on Jewish life in Toronto, there's likely one for Montreal too. There's not even that many "ethnicity by province" articles, the ones that come to mind are Anglo-Quebeckers and Acadians. Another comment, this must be the twentieth discussion arena he's fielded this into, which amounts to CANVASSING and FORUMSHOPPING; WP:DEADHORSE is highly relevant here.Skookum1 (talk) 02:54, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

Policy question

I'm sorry if this is the wrong place to ask, but could someone please educate me regarding the procedure here?

  1. On Nov 24, I place the Technical request that Austrian Federal Government be moved to Cabinet of Austria; the latter is a redirect to the former. I don't expect any great friction at that point: the article itself says it needs to be moved; it says so very clearly in at least four different places; I didn't make any of the edits that make it say it needs to be moved; I believe the rationale in my request is reasonably comprehensive. [1]
  2. Some hours later, an administrator marks the move as "contested," but doesn't say either who is contesting it or why. [2]
  3. I contact the administrator to find out what seems to be the issue. [3]
  4. The administrator tells me to get off his lawn and answer to the objection on the article talk page. [4]
  5. I point out (politely, I think) that the talk page doesn't tell me what the objection is and that I can't answer to an objection whose nature is not being disclosed to me. [5]
  6. Time passes.
  7. On Dec 3, another administrator "relists" the "discussion" that, as far as I can tell, never happened. [6]

What do I do? What am I supposed to do? Damvile (talk) 12:06, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Calling attention to a neglected request here is an option; then just be patient and wait for others to comment. However, I do feel that the advice in the edit intro shown when contested requests are moved to the article's talk page should be heeded by all, including contesting administrators. I will say though that you could assume that the reason might be something like, this title touches on politics, one of Wikipedia's "third rails", where moves are more prone to be assumed as potentially controversial. Plus, I have the impression that Anthony understands foreign languages better than most of us. Wbm1058 (talk) 13:26, 3 December 2014 (UTC)
Thank you sincerely for your comments, both this one and the one on the article. I finally see what the issue is; I replied to your observation on the talk page. Regarding the points you're raising here: (1) It obviously touches on politics, no argument, but I assure you the proper English translation of Bundesregierung is not a point of contention in Austria. Austrians will beat each other up over Kärnten vs. Koroška and Klagenfurt vs. Celovec, but this is not where I edit. (2) I'm happy Anthony has a knack for languages, but I have my doubts his command of German is noticeably more subtle than mine. I so happen to speak the language natively. Damvile (talk) 16:39, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Not so controversial

A move I requested at video game genres turned out to be not so controversial as I thought. I got two supports (sort-of) and one short and vague comment. Should I just boldly move it myself as if I never requested the move in the first place, or am I bound to go through the standard procedure? ~Maplestrip (chat) 09:30, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Go ahead and make the bold move. You'll soon find out if anyone vehemently objects. Good luck!  Philg88 ♦talk 09:53, 8 December 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for the fast reply, I'll go through with it then :) ~Maplestrip (chat) 10:00, 8 December 2014 (UTC)
I commented over there. I'd wait for more opinions, and an uninvolved closer at this point. Wbm1058 (talk) 16:15, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Backlog notice

When's the last time this happened? Dekimasuよ! 17:56, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Looks like it is the first time since January 2012. Dekimasuよ! 18:00, 10 December 2014 (UTC)
Actually, if you search that page's edit history, you'll see that the notice did come down briefly on November 7, 2013. There was actually a bug that was keeping the bot from removing the notice, until I fixed it on August 1, 2013. Actually, Apteva noticed the problem back in June 2013, and was running a "test to troubleshoot the bot". Alas, they never bothered to report the problem to me, which was a shame, as I was the only person in a position to fix the problem. So I didn't notice it until August. I kind of miss that guy; I see at least he still can edit his own talk page. Though sometimes I wonder whether he has secretly reincarnated himself ;) Wbm1058 (talk) 18:32, 10 December 2014 (UTC)
Hmm, I blame WikiBlame for not finding that one. Still, first time in a while. Dekimasuよ! 18:46, 10 December 2014 (UTC)
I presume that happened because there is no backlog! Muaaahahaha! bd2412 T 19:08, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Shortcuts question

Do we really want WP:RMTR and WP:RM/TR pointing different places? I always seem to end up in the wrong location since I can't remember which is which. (I know I'll start to remember now that I've started this section, but wouldn't it be good to have these be more unique to avoid confusion?) Dekimasuよ! 21:14, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

You could make a shortcut like WP:RMTR/subpage but that wouldn't be so short, which kind of defeats the purpose. Would it help to have the shortcuts to the subpage on the main page, or vice-versa? The shortcuts to the subpage are so admins can quickly get there directly. Wbm1058 (talk) 22:35, 9 December 2014 (UTC)
Well, I always intend to end up on the subpage, so I guess the ones I like are WP:RMTR and WP:RMCD. However, it seems counterintuitive that the ones with the slash (WP:RM/TR, WP:RM/C) are the ones that don't go to subpages. Those feel more like WP:RM#TR or WP:RM#C, though I don't know if those are possible, and it seems like all four of the others should go to the subpages. Dekimasuよ! 22:57, 9 December 2014 (UTC)
That makes sense, "#" for section links, "/" for subpage links. And leave the ones with neither the way they are (mostly to the subpage, I think). This isn't the first time this has come up: See here. I'm working on this; some changes require updating the bot's program. – Wbm1058 (talk) 16:06, 10 December 2014 (UTC)
@Wbm1058: If I recall, weren't the shortcuts set up like that due to your edits on {{RMassist}} a while back? I remember that I questioned the same thing, performed bold edits to synchronize the shortcuts, then reverted my edits due to seeing your edits on {{RMassist}}. Steel1943 (talk) 16:39, 10 December 2014 (UTC)
I'm not following what you think the issue is with RMassist. The only shortcut I see in that template is WP:RM, and I'm not changing that one. I don't think the shortcuts I'm changing should have any effect on RMassist. Wbm1058 (talk) 16:54, 10 December 2014 (UTC)
@Wbm1058: no, not an issue. If I recall, a while ago in the past, you updated {{RMassist}} to produce an editnotice with a piped link that included one of the above shortcuts to prevent reaching the editnotice character limit. I don't recall the specific details regarding the edits, but I recall that much. Steel1943 (talk) 17:30, 10 December 2014 (UTC)
Whether it's called an issue, problem, bug, concern or whatever shouldn't be a big deal. "Issue" is just a euphemism for "bug". To be clear on Wikipedia terminology, Edit notices don't really have any practical limits that we would be concerned with here. Template:RMassist/editintro doesn't have any shortcuts; it uses the full page name in its links. You are thinking of edit summaries, which have a 250 character limit, and correctly recall that indeed that was an issue previously. I addressed that in June 2013 by changing [[Wikipedia:Requested moves]] to [[WP:RM]], and using permanent links. See Template talk:RMassist § New version of this template adds permalinks to move edit summaries for more on that. So, thanks for the concern, but I still don't see any problems. Wbm1058 (talk) 18:03, 10 December 2014 (UTC)
@Wbm1058: I don't see any issues either, but just because I didn't, also didn't mean that there weren't any. (What I meant above wasn't an issue per se, but rather a resolution to a problem that happened to almost everyone using Wikipedia:Requested moves/Technical requests ... a necessary resolution which everyone benefits, and I thank you for those edits.) So, thanks for confirming that no issues may arise as a result of the edits in response to these requested changes. Steel1943 (talk) 18:21, 10 December 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for letting me know about the previous discussion. Dekimasuよ! 16:45, 10 December 2014 (UTC)
 Done Let me know if there are still any issues. Thanks for making the suggestion. Wbm1058 (talk) 19:58, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

The bot's not working

The RM list hasn't been updated for some hours. The Condé Nast Building at 20:20, 13 December 2014 (UTC) is the last time it was updated. I put in a move request at 22:50, 13 December 2014 (UTC), and it still hasn't shown up on the project page – more than 7 hours later (no updates have appeared for nearly 11 hours). —BarrelProof (talk) 07:15, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

For the time being you can find new requests manually at Category:Requested moves, but it doesn't seem like it would be an effective use of our time to try updating the list that way. Hopefully the bot will be back up soon. Dekimasuよ! 07:28, 14 December 2014 (UTC)
Sorry about implementing my last bot bug fix so late in the day yesterday. I've backed it off and will work on implementing a more robust fix. Wbm1058 (talk) 14:26, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Discussion on WP:TFD that could affect the functionality of {{Requested move}}

There is a discussion happening at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2014 November 26#Template:RMtalk that could affect the functionality of {{Requested move}}, specifically how the template creates section headers on talk pages. Steel1943 (talk) 22:11, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

  • Heads up, everyone! – While the proposal is framed as a merge of {{RMtalk}} into {{Requested move}}, the key upshot of that is to change the default behavior of {{Requested move}}: by default it will add a section title in the format:
Requested move 03 May 2024.
You will still be able to override that default with a customized section header. However, I do not plan on adding the additional "talk" section by default, unless an explicit consensus calls for that. So far, there have been no comments; at some point we will assume that your silence means you don't object to the change. – Wbm1058 (talk) 12:43, 3 December 2014 (UTC)
OK, I will be implementing this shortly. Wbm1058 (talk) 17:19, 8 December 2014 (UTC)
 Done – let me know if you run into any problems. {{subst:RMtalk}} is being deprecated in favor of {{subst:Requested move|talk=yes}} – Wbm1058 (talk) 15:22, 9 December 2014 (UTC)
  • It's nice that there is a default header with such precision, but if the editor proposes the change using the "new section" button and has to leave the section header blank, it's unfortunate that we end up having a new requested move section with no edit summary; there's no quick way for editors with the page on their watchlists to figure out that a move was requested. Would there be a way to check for the bot to check for new move requests that have no edit summaries and add some sort of dummy edit to notify editors that a move discussion is what was added to the page? Dekimasuよ! 18:52, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

User talk page templates giving advice for better thought though move requests

Is there such a thing as this? A great many requests have had no checks on source or within Wikipedia usages or previous move requests etc.

The development of a barnstar related to article titling might also be an idea. GregKaye ✍♪ 10:43, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

Chequered skipper

Due to some indecision on my part the page Chequered Skipper was move to Chequered skipper twice. Can somebody undelete the relevant versions to correct this? William Avery (talk) 15:41, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

 Done  Philg88 ♦talk 06:45, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Talk:Woodie

Please see Talk:Woodie (proposed move). 24.179.184.46 (talk) 20:05, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Template help

Can someone who knows how to code the template placement fix the coding at Talk:Cuban missile crisis where a vote and discussion for the capitalization of the page is underway. Thanks, much appreciated. Randy Kryn 8:14 13 January, 2015 (UTC)

Please move a disconnected talk archive

Could somebody please move Wikipedia talk:Don't be a dick/Archive 1 to Wikipedia talk:Don't be a jerk/Archive 1 because I can't work out how to use the requested move template on an isolated talk page. Thanks, 90.219.67.159 (talk) 15:25, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Hey person editing from 90.219.67.159. The move is done. Note that you would not have ever needed to make a formal requested move as if this move would be controversial, and so wouldn't need to fill out the requested move template. You would have just listed it at the technical moves section. In any event, asking on this page was fine. Neither here nor there but I personally would have opposed the underlying move of the project page at Meta had I known of it.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 15:43, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

New page

Please move Toronto Transit Commission fleet to Toronto Transit Commission fleet roster. --Garris6699 (talk) 19:02, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

See Talk:Toronto Transit Commission fleet. I responded there. Wbm1058 (talk) 15:42, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Automated mishandling of a request

About Wikipedia:Requested_moves#Requesting_technical_moves. The manual there says in a bullet: "If you object to a proposal listed in the uncontroversial technical requests section, please move it to the Contested technical requests section.". All fine so far.

But with each individual post (i.e., a page listed in here with the {{RMassist}}), there appears a "discuss" link. Clicking that link, the request is moved to the page's Talkpage as a full-blown discussion proposal. This is wrong:

1. The RM page itself says: "... move it [the request] to the Contested technical requests section [below on the page]".
2. The proposers text is a Request in a specific section. The move puts in in a different environment!, under a different header!, a different page!, thereby changing the original post. WP:TPO says: "Never edit or move someone's comment to change its meaning".

I know that it is an automated link (pre-composed url). However, that does not make it correct (quite the opposite). The option should be disabled right now. Later, a correct hyperlink could be in place. -DePiep (talk) 13:20, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

ping @EdJohnston: and @Anthony Appleyard:, as we talked about this early November 2015. I have no intention to redo that case btw. -DePiep (talk) 13:24, 5 February 2015 (UTC)
User:DePiep, what do you mean by a 'correct hyperlink'? EdJohnston (talk) 14:22, 5 February 2015 (UTC)
re EdJohnston, IMO, the hyperlink move the proposal into section Wikipedia:Requested_moves#Contested_technical_requests on this same WP:RM page (or subpage). As the quoted bullet says. -DePiep (talk) 14:29, 5 February 2015 (UTC)
(my 2 cents for design: it might be useful to create a new subpage that can gently receive create-new-section and preload options. Make that 1+1⁄2 cents. -DePiep (talk) 15:30, 5 February 2015 (UTC))
The current instructions say:
  • If your technical request is contested by another editor, please remove it from the contested technical requests section and follow the instructions at Requesting potentially controversial moves.
I created the semi-automated "discuss" link for editor convenience. Do you have any objection to the original proposer themselves clicking on "discuss" in order to expedite their following the instructions at Requesting potentially controversial moves? But this will introduce a new issue. Now the original proposer will either need to copy the objection to the article's talk page, thus running afoul of your objection, or just leave it to rot at the RM project page. The objector may then have a valid concern that their objection was wrongfully discarded. Wbm1058 (talk) 15:21, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
What instruction is that?: "remove it from the contested technical requests section" -- I did not even wrote it there. And as a wiki process it is bound to fail most of the times. I found no explanation why this process should be this complicated, and deviant of other PW discussions: Proposal - Discussion - Closing. No moving around. -DePiep (talk) 16:04, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
Of course I admire the effort of creating the linkbutton, but it is doing the wrong thing. -DePiep (talk) 16:07, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
  • What instruction is that?: "remove it from the contested technical requests section". This instruction.
  • What is a "PW discussion"? Wbm1058 (talk) 16:53, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
@DePiep: Re: "deviant of other PW discussions", surely you don't mean WP:PW (WikiProject Professional wrestling) discussions? Wbm1058 (talk) 19:15, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
lol thank you, at last something to laugh about my typos (50% of my edits have one, the other 50% are the corrections). Wbm1058, one of these days I'll describe my background experience in this, somehow somewhere. This discussion went rough soon because I have exchanged points earlier with EdJohnston, so it went into repetition. But for 'new' contributors like you I should add patience. Later more. -DePiep (talk) 20:14, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
re Appleyard: could be an alternative too, no strong opinion by me. First step 1: kill the current bad habit (either done automated or manually). -DePiep (talk) 14:31, 5 February 2015 (UTC)
  • OK I'll spoil the solution: remove that specific "discuss" link. There is and will be the edit link to click on (=regular section edit). Any editor can post a comment below the RM request, and voila, it is disputed so a (good) admin can handle that. No points for anyone in this quiz. I think next time I should lower the bar. -DePiep (talk) 21:19, 8 February 2015 (UTC)
  • Example: Anthony Appleyard did [7]. Should not be done this way. (Then, issue #3: how can one know where it has gone?) -DePiep (talk) 08:48, 13 February 2015 (UTC)
    Re: your "issue #3" – one can click on the previous version in your diff, then click on the link to Captain Ahab (Moby-Dick), then click the talk tab to get to Talk:Captain Ahab (Moby-Dick). Wbm1058 (talk) 12:40, 13 February 2015 (UTC)
Wbm1058, are you serious? Don't you understand what point #3 really means? -DePiep (talk) 17:53, 13 February 2015 (UTC)
I guess not. Please clarify for me what point #3 really means, and what "it" refers to in your question "how can one know where it has gone?" Also, per "Any editor can post a comment below the RM (technical) request, and voila, it is disputed so a (good) admin can handle that", please explain how you think a good admin should handle that. Wbm1058 (talk) 14:54, 14 February 2015 (UTC)
re Wbm1058 about "issue#3": #1 and #2 is breaking the rules I mentioned in my OP. Issue #3 is that one can not expect from an editor having to search history & other pages & other editors to find where their own post has gone, as a continuing talk. Same for the commenting editor. All this especially when the rules & good editorship prevent creating this burdensome necessity. (I wrote 'are you serious' because I thought this was quite obvious). -DePiep (talk) 09:25, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
re Anthony Appleyard If so, what is the "discuss" link in each entry on page Wikipedia:Requested moves/Technical requests for? - that is what this section is about: it breaks two rules and disrupts contributions of an other editor. We must get rid of that link. What else did you think this is about? -DePiep (talk) 17:59, 13 February 2015 (UTC)
  • Currently, the "discuss" clickable copies the queried move to where the other discussed move requests are. If the rule became to have to discuss queried uncontroversial move requests where they are, people would have to look in two places for discussed move requests. If the "discuss" request's script put into the (edit comment of the resulting edit to the page to be moved's talk page) a permalink to the edit of Wikipedia:Requested moves/Technical requests where the original move request was, as is done now with the result of clicking on "move", it would link back to where the move request was copied from. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 22:49, 13 February 2015 (UTC)
"Currently, ..." - read the rules again. "If the rule became ... " -- that is not what is proposed. Leave the rules alone, and follow them. (I don't see what is unclear or problematic what that). A permalink is no answer for breaking the rules. And don't forget, you are moving around other editors post, putting their post under another header in another frame etc. -DePiep (talk) 09:21, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

Other

This is not about the proposal. So split into a separate section. -DePiep (talk) 18:04, 5 February 2015 (UTC)
Why not just get rid of the section at RMTR for 'contested technical requests'. Now that anyone can open a full discussion with just one click, the need for a separate discussion here on the RMTR page seems to have gone away. Any proposed move that is contested should simply be referred to a full move discussion on the article talk page. EdJohnston (talk) 15:15, 5 February 2015 (UTC)
Objection. Don't change the rules to fit the automate. The two rules I quoted are clear. Of course you can start a proposal (not in this thread) like an RfC. Change the WP:TPO? Good luck. -DePiep (talk) 15:30, 5 February 2015 (UTC)
I disagree that moving the request to another page constitutes "substantially changing its meaning". It is OK per Cautiously editing or removing another editor's comments is sometimes allowed, but normally you should stop if there is any objection. The fact the request has been moved is documented by the semi-automated process, which also provides a permanent link back to the original request. If the original requester objects to the conversion to a discussed request, they may simply revert that edit and say they wish to withdraw the request. Wbm1058 (talk) 04:17, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
"... if there is any objection" - That objection I expressed in my original post. By the way, the quote you raise is about a detailed, limited situation in a talkpage; it cannot be generalized into this situation (a WP-subject discussion), and does not state a right to the edit discussed here. -DePiep (talk) 07:45, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
A declined technical move should normally lead to a full move discussion. You seem to think that the opening of a full discussion is abnormal, and contrary to the proponent's wishes. Yet I don't see proponents (except you) ever objecting to a full move discussion. EdJohnston (talk) 16:29, 5 February 2015 (UTC)
Re: "A declined technical move should normally lead to a full move discussion."... not necessarily. A lot depends on why the initial technical move request was declined. Blueboar (talk) 16:45, 5 February 2015 (UTC)
"declined"? Where does that word come from? EdJohnston, you are diverting from your own diversion. -DePiep (talk) 18:07, 5 February 2015 (UTC)
User:Blueboar, can you give an example? Where a technical move is declined because it seems controversial, but a full move discussion is not appropriate? EdJohnston (talk) 00:14, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
Simple: that is for the proposing editor to decide. It is not for any editor to force that Request into a new form. Why, Ed, do you keep denying & circumventing the obvious process? -DePiep (talk) 00:27, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
Ed... you are assuming that the only reason a technical move requests will be declined is that it is controversial. That's not the case. A technical move request does not have to be controversial to be declined. For example, an editor might make a technical move request due to what he thinks is a spelling error... not realizing that the spelling is in fact correct and intentional (perhaps based on WP:ENGVAR). Such a request can be declined, without going through further processes. Blueboar (talk) 00:40, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
Blueboar: that option seems fine, and in fact I do decline some technical requests outright if they are based on a misunderstanding, but I'm asking if anyone can think of an example of an editor wanting a move done, but only if it can be done technically and with no discussion. EdJohnston (talk) 02:14, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
That happened to me the first time I tried to make a TR - see here. I was unaware that an RM would be created - not that I would have withdrawn the request, but I would have wanted to write out a full rationale, when I had thought it was unnecessary since the move would be uncontroversial. In my opinion it led to the RM being much more confusing than it otherwise would have been (and possibly changed the result as well - I do still think the case for a move is clear, though I've never gotten back to writing it up.) Sunrise (talk) 04:46, 14 February 2015 (UTC)
Sunrise, the January 2014 example you cite above shows how contested requests were often handled before I implemented the semi-automated "discuss" link in May 2014, and shows that what DePiep calls a "bad habit" was in wide practice before I implemented the "discuss" link. My solution is designed to address the issues this example shows. The technical request was cut-pasted to create the controversial-format request, without using {{subst:Requested move}} to ensure proper formatting for RMCD bot. No indication was given that it was a converted technical request. Lack of the formatting for archiving reasons (so a permanent record of the proposed page name can be kept on the talk page) meant that once closed, the actual request was lost. I just restored the context by putting a Template:Requested move/old at the top of the closed discussion. So again, disabling the "discuss" link will not by itself ensure that any so-called "bad habits" will stop. – Wbm1058 (talk) 15:36, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
I was pinged, but this "Other" section was created because it is about something "Other". I'm not here to study deviations. Just read my original post. -DePiep (talk) 00:12, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Notify the requester when their request is converted from Technical to Controversial

@DePiep: Oh, I see. Talk:Gaza beach explosion (2006) § Requested move 03 November 2014. Now I have something concrete to give me some context for this discussion. Perhaps this may be considered as an example of an editor wanting a move done, but only if it can be done technically and with no discussion. My first reaction is that any article whose talk page has banner at the top which says WARNING: ACTIVE ARBITRATION REMEDIES should automatically be considered to be controversial with regard to move requests. DePiep says that they were not notified, and this is a valid point. An easy fix for that would be to modify the "This is a contested technical request" notice so that it mentions the original requester, and thus pings them. Would that be an improvement? Wbm1058 (talk) 20:41, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Seen this, won't reply. -DePiep (talk) 20:45, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
No, don't notify. Just leave my RM request alone. Don't reframe it. As everywhere else in WP discussions: let anyone add a comment. Think for yourself what then happens. -DePiep (talk) 22:08, 7 February 2015 (UTC)
I've been thinking about this some more, and feel that you do have a valid point. While I believe that for the most part, editors don't mind these conversions from technical to contested requests, and that the process is working well, we have been negligent in not advising them or warning them that their request could be moved to another venue. How about, we update the documentation to disclose this operating procedure, and give editors the option to opt out by setting a parameter in {{RMassist}}: |discuss=no would suppress the creation of the "discuss" link, and instead, add a supplementary message like "If you contest this request, please do not move it to the contested technical requests section, but rather, simply remove it from this page." – Wbm1058 (talk) 05:40, 8 February 2015 (UTC)
editors don't mind -- don't decide that for others. and that the process is working well -- No it is not. That is what I am saying: the process is failing two rules. Read my original post. update the documentation -- no way, we don't adjust the "documentation" (i.e. the rules) to fit this bad practice. give editor the option -- not needed. Just remove that link. Wbm1058, I am shortscripting because explaining things does not seem to work. I am loosing patience with involved people here that do not can self-criticise (admins?). Simple: remove that link. Think and see what happens. DePiep (talk) 21:13, 8 February 2015 (UTC)
So, now I feel like the "broken record" technique is being used here. What will likely happen if I remove the link is that we will revert back to the way the process was working before I implemented that solution in May 2014 (see Template talk:RMassist § Why WP:Requested moves/Technical requests is on a sub-page). I was asked to implement a solution in August 2013, but nine months passed before I found and implemented the technical solution. Now, another eight months have passed before I became aware that anyone objected to this. And you would have us believe that your position represents consensus on this. See this issue reported on RMCD bot's talk page for the final annoying time I had to repair a malformed controversial request that had been cut-pasted from a technical request. We have written rules, and then we have de facto rules based on how things are actually done in practice. Take, for example, the RM currently open at Talk:World Domination Tour (Slipknot). Note from the permalink that an objecting editor ignored the instruction to simply move the request to the Contested technical requests section, and had the audacity (per WP:IAR) to actually engage in discussion in the Uncontroversial technical requests section. How should an administrator respond to this? By simply removing the entire request and discussion, with the edit summary "inappropriate venue for discussion" and then just leave them to start over from scratch? I don't see Steel1943 having fits because their request was converted – actually they said "But either way, I'm in no hurry for this move to happen, so if it had to wait seven days, that's okay." Wbm1058 (talk) 01:22, 9 February 2015 (UTC)
A bit cheap. I did protest in November, when I was actually gravely mislead and duped by this. I did discuss elsewhere. Anyway, "nine months" is not an argument, nor that you individually only hear this now. Then, you say "And you would have us believe that your position represents consensus on this." (why this tone?). I am not claiming consensus. I state that the rules are being broken. -DePiep (talk) 09:31, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
I've re-read this thread a few times now and I'm really having a hard time grasping precisely what DePiep is objecting to. I disagree that there is any substantive change in the meaning of an editors comments. Simply moving another editor's comments is not a problem IMO. Refactoring discussions has been accepted practice since the beginning of Wikitime. Moving a contested request to a more appropriate venue is no different. Perhaps the instructions on the page might be clearer. And adding automated notification to the requester and anyone contesting the request about the change of venue would be a nice feature. older ≠ wiser 18:05, 13 February 2015 (UTC)
I assume this belongs to the man thread, not this subthread.
grasping precisely what DePiep is objecting to - Read my original post. It quotes two rules that are broken (by admins and by supported by an automated link). (OTOH, if you did not grasp it, what do you disagree with? Why conclude instead of asking clarification first?). -DePiep (talk) 18:32, 13 February 2015 (UTC)
Perhaps the threading and subsections of this discussion are as unclear as the original post. Regarding #1, I agree the plain label "discuss" on the link that creates a new discussion subsection is a little misleading. This could be remedied by altering the label and/or explaining the action in the instructions. I disagree that #2 is a substantive violation of WP:TPO as you claim. older ≠ wiser 18:58, 13 February 2015 (UTC)
  • As I mentioned above, currently, the "discuss" clickable copies the queried move to where ordinary discussed move requests are. If the rule became to have to discuss queried uncontroversial move requests where they are, people would have to look in two places for discussable move requests. If the "discuss" request's script puts into the (edit comment of the resulting edit to the page to be moved's talk page) a permalink to the edit of Wikipedia:Requested moves/Technical requests where the original move request was (as the "move" clickable's script does here), it would link back to where the move request was copied from. And also it could send an automatic "request is converted from Technical to Controversial" message to the originater of the move request, as this subsection's title seems to suggest. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 22:49, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

Regarding #1

@DePiep: To summarize the current status of this discussion, from my perspective. (1) I agree with older ≠ wiser on #2. This is not a substantive violation of WP:TPO. (2) If you have a point #3, you should clarify it for me because I don't understand it.

Regarding #1 – The RM page itself says: "... move it [the request] to the Contested technical requests section [below on the page]". – I researched the history of that.

On 10 January 2012, Aervanath updated the instructions to state "what to do if your technical request is contested", and announced their change on this talk page, in a section titled Contested technical requests, which was archived without any comments from other editors: "I added a line to Wikipedia:Requested moves/Technical to clarify what editors should do if their "technical" request is contested by another editor. If anyone thinks different wording, or a different method, would be better, feel free to change it." The line added said:

If your technical request is contested by another editor, remove the request from the "Contested technical requests" section and follow the instructions at Requesting controversial and potentially controversial moves, below.

That line remains today, essentially unchanged:

If your technical request is contested by another editor, please remove it from the contested technical requests section and follow the instructions at Requesting potentially controversial moves.

Prior to 10 January 2012, the last line in the instructions was:

If you object to a proposal listed in Technical requests, please move it to the Contested technical requests section below.

and it was left unsaid what would happen to the request after that (of course what usually happened then, and still usually happens now, is a conversion to a contested request). This line also remains today, essentially unchanged:

If you object to a proposal listed in the uncontroversial technical requests section, please move it to the Contested technical requests section.

Above, you said "as a wiki process it is bound to fail most of the times. I found no explanation why this process should be this complicated, and deviant of other PW discussions: Proposal - Discussion - Closing. No moving around." I realize this may not fully satisfy you, but would you object to simplifying this by removing the Contested technical requests section and advising objecting editors to simply state their objections in the Uncontroversial technical requests section? Wbm1058 (talk) 20:28, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

- - - -

Going further back in the procedural history, I found this interesting 12 April 2010 edit by an editor whose history consists of eleven edits between April 12 and May 1, 2010. Their first edit to the page shows that they were apparently editing in good faith. Their malformed request to move a page from their user space was corrected and responded to here, and the next edit was their misplaced response which had the unintended side effect (WP:AGF) of removing the instructions for that section. The next edit moved their comment to the proper section, but failed to restore the unintended removal of instructions from the Contested requests section. So between April 2010 – January 2012, there was a void in guidance. Thus:

  • Before April 2010: Contested requests

This is the place for a brief description of the problem or objection to the move proposal, please do not discuss move proposals here. Proposals that remain here after seven days will be removed.
<!--Please place new contested proposals at the TOP of the list, with a blank line between separate proposals. Please consider notifying editors whose requests are moved to this section.-->

  • April 2010 – January 2012 Contested requests

No guidance

  • After January 2012

If your technical request is contested by another editor, remove the request from the "Contested technical requests" section and follow the instructions at Requesting controversial and potentially controversial moves, below.

I suppose the January 2012 guidance is compatible with the April 2010 guidance, so some clarity as to the intended procedure can be restored by restoring the guidance. Wbm1058 (talk) 21:45, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Whatever for now. You expect me to read and digest all deviations? Just read my original post, and apply the rules already known. -DePiep (talk) 00:16, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
OK. I am done with this section and will move on without you. Wbm1058 (talk) 21:41, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
  • re in points.
"not a violation of TPO": only if you are not on the receiving end. I was last November, kept in the dark even, and today still run the risk of receiving a reframing when I post an RM here. Every editor does. (A clarification for an uncontested technical move someone writes here gets turned into an initiative argument for a Move discussion. That was not the original post, that is what I call re-framing the post of another editor). Note that this delation (!) makes it difficult or impossible to follow a request.
The page history you researched is interesting, but not re-defining is it? I quoted it as it is today, and as far as I can see, the history does not show contradiction or other intention (FWIW). The rule does say "move to another section", and does not suggest otherwise, right?
I note that the "discuss" button/action can be clicked by any editor, IP included. It is not even an admins judgement. (this is new here; a lot of contributors here assume that it is used by admins judgement only).
re your suggestion "removing the Contested technical requests": that could be part of a solution too (but since you added a "won't satisfy you" prejudgement, I am left to wonder about your thoughts with this). I think this is a page-organisational issue only, and should still cover the core: do not reframe the proposal (into another page, another template, another request, ...). As I describe in the Category/Speedy example below, having a separate section for the "disputed" ones may keep the page clean. Because it groups the "disputed" requests separately.
  • The process. Let me describe the process as it can work following the rules nicely.
1. An editor adds an RM to section "Uncontroversial technical requests".
2. Another editor has reason to object. That editor then clicks edit and writes an objection below the RM. Per this, the RM is contested.
3. An admin may come along and move the complete RM post to the section "Contested technical requests" (nothing else required at this point, it just confirms the status).
4. The discussion may develop, though not into a full talkpage argument. Because, this is about the "uncontested" status only. The OP editor may come along and respond, etc. Or anyone else can write an opinion.
5. After a brief period, the RM may be closed by an admin as: "not uncontroversial, so not done. Please restart request at the talkpage as full RM". (or, if the opposition's argument is not valid, the move could be done as requested). This could be written in a line of text by the admin.
6. The closed request can be archived/deleted, maybe by a bot.
7. End of that RM request.
  • Examples. As an inspiration and good examples, I'll mention some WP request pages that treat similar requests. Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Speedy (Move category-name). When an objection is added, the request is moved in a sidetrack section of that page, and may end in: "Not done. Note: no discussion is opened from here, you should take the initiative yourself.". Another example, a bit different, but functioning as well: a Speedy tag like {{db-g8}} has a button: "Contest this speedy deletion" (that will lead the editor to the talkpage). Another place where requests are handled in on-page flow: Wikipedia:Requests for page protection.
  • Closing this, I'll point to the undesired effects we currently have. (yes this is a repetition but only partly, while no some points are new, and points have not been addressed). The "discuss" button is reframes the OP outside of the OP-editor. I met an admin who said: "but it was not me alone, it was the button that did it" (as we all know, one self is responsible for every "Save" click). The "discuss" button can be removed, because the edit button serves perfectly well. And of course, the original editor, and any contributing/following editor, must be able to follow that request without having to search. As it is now, it is deleted instead of answered. I maintain that the reframing of an OP in so many aspects breaks WP:TPO. -DePiep (talk) 10:39, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

I'm assuming I've identified your November request that you have issues with how it was processed. Correct me if I'm wrong.



Given this lengthy move history, why did you file your 07:17, 3 November 2014 request under Uncontroversial technical requests rather than Requests to revert undiscussed moves? Wbm1058 (talk) 17:24, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Absolutely irrelevant to this discussion. And I said so quite early here. -DePiep (talk) 17:42, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
Sorry, I disagree. I was thinking that the system could allow uncontroversial technical requests to be convertible, while requests to revert undiscussed moves would not be. Thus, had your request been filed as the latter then it would have stopped there. BTW I would have declined it, as the 3 September move of a title that had been stable for nearly six years was not discussed. Two months is insufficient time to establish a new stable title. You complain of being blindsided, but, putting the shoe on the other foot, I can see that the admin might feel blindsided when a request such as that attempts to pass itself off as uncontroversial. Wbm1058 (talk) 18:27, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
What are you digging for? Why do you keep trying to reopen an irrelevant discussion? You already made some patronising and judgemental remarks re me. I thought they were slip of the keyboard, and I did skip them. But now it starts reading like you are willfully digging for problems that are not related and that do not solve anything. I have described the process and its errors (to which you replied "broken record", but which you actually treated as "I did not hear that"). Described from multiple angles, I intended. Above here, I spend over a dozen or two of points as a reply, conveniently grouped in blocks. You have not asked one point of clarification, nor did you use anything for an improvement. If you have no questions or constructive steps forward, I can not help you. -DePiep (talk) 19:09, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
If whatever you were on the receiving end of last November is not relevant, then I am struggling to understand what is relevant. I was only digging into this because I thought it was the main focus of your argument.
I'm concerned that nobody will agree on or have a clear idea about where a "discussion" ends and a "full talk page argument" begins. There is too much risk, in my opinion, of extended sidebar discussions developing in RM-space that should take place on the article talk pages. RM-space discussions will be too easily lost and forgotten, while talk page discussions are properly retained and archived for easy reference. RM-space should not be cluttered up with procedural arguments over whether something is uncontroversial or not. If people are arguing, by definition, it's controversial. I've offered several compromise solutions to what I thought were your concerns, and you seem to have rejected them all. One more idea. As I found from my research, originally technical requests were limited to capitalization changes (to or from a proper noun). Perhaps a set of specific criteria for what qualifies as a technical request should be defined. For example, articles whose title had changed more than twice in the past three months would be disqualified from consideration as "technical". Experienced editors who submitted unqualified requests would be trout-slapped, but I'm concerned about collateral damage to inexperienced editors who didn't know any better. The page Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Speedy limits eligibility to specific criteria. While other areas of Wikipedia burden editors with complex submission procedures when their "speedies" are declined, here we offer the convenience of automatic conversion, which I believe most editors appreciate. I've offered to add the option to decline automatic conversion up-front when the technical request is submitted, by setting a "don't convert" parameter in the {{RMassist}} template. Wbm1058 (talk) 03:15, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
OK. My November experience is just an example, so if one could kill the example some way that still leaves the general cause. That general cause is my original post. You describe your concerns about the border between RM-discussion and talkpage move-discussion. Yes there is some grey area, but that does not matter. The point is that the two rules I quoted do not allow someone else moving my request. (given your "To summarize ..." opening line in this subthread you don't mind breaking the TPO rule, but every editor who's on the receiving end may differ -- and may accuse the rule breaker. If you want to learn anything from my November experience: look at how I was mislead for a week, that is during the formal Move discussion I did not ask for). So there is a grey are. Contrary to you, I do not propose or contemplate a change of policy. I require that the existing policy rules be applied. If you see an issue in the existing rules, propose a change - in a different place. An other thread. After this, you write "you seem to have rejected them all". I'm sorry, I can not reply to your assumption about me. (at least one proposal by you, you also pre-judged for me btw, I explicitly named indifferent. Also, between your historical listings here I did not find an actual proposal -- what did I oppose?).
The problem is: a RM request posted here should not be moved & reframed as it is done these days. The discuss-url-button does exactly that, so it should go. -DePiep (talk) 08:59, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Talk pages failing to move with articles

As a frequent closer of RMs, there is the odd occasion on which I fail to spot that the talk page hasn't also moved (as the destination needs deleting) and this is brought to my attention at a later date. Am I missing something, or is there no alert that appears when a page moves but it's talk page doesn't? If not, can one be introduced, or another alert and tick box on the admin move page that allows you to also delete the talk page target? Cheers, Number 57 18:44, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

  • There is such a warning, when trying to move a page with its talkpage, but the talkpage cannot be moved because the target already exists. See here. Any admin making a move should have a responsibility to perform the cleanup tasks mentioned on the post-move page (images, sort key, redirects, talk page). ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 21:53, 20 February 2015 (UTC)
    • Ah, I never noticed that, thanks. Of course, I'm aware it's my responsibility, but as I said, occasionally I don't spot that it hasn't moved. Number 57 23:06, 20 February 2015 (UTC)
      • No worries! I'm sorry if I sounded aggressive. I agree with you that the warning could be more visible. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 16:21, 21 February 2015 (UTC)
        • I remember making this mistake occasionally, which means that I've probably done it a lot more than occasionally. I agree that making the warning bigger and more visible would be quite helpful. Nyttend (talk) 18:42, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

Move from Userspace

This has been resolved and settled. See Talk:Lhasa § Proposed move

I started User:Aymatth2/Lhasa (prefecture-level city) in userspace, since it is controversial, then tried to launch an RM and found I could not. Apparently I should follow WP:Articles for creation, but there is no discussion in that process, and the title/scope is controversial. Instead, I launched a discussion at User talk:Aymatth2/Lhasa (prefecture-level city) and canvassed all the people involved in prior discussions, but am not really comfortable with that approach because it is not visible to uninvolved editors. Does anyone know a better way to handle this? Is there a way to put the request into the RM discussion list manually? Aymatth2 (talk) 16:47, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

On first look, it appears to me that your article is a WP:content fork of Lhasa, which has a hatnote that says: "This article is about the prefecture-level city". Can't you just edit the existing Lhasa article and merge whatever new content you have into that?
Now I've noticed and skimmed over the discussion on your talk page. The terminology here will be confusing to Americans. What you are calling a "prefecture-level city" seems to be the equivalent of a US county. Chengguan District, Lhasa seems to be describing the equivalent of a US town/township. Does the district contain the city, or the city contain the district. It's not at all clear. But again, can't you clear it up by fixing the existing articles rather than asking to move a fork from your user space? Wbm1058 (talk) 21:31, 1 March 2015 (UTC)
Not a content fork in the slightest. Why would it be feasible to add that mass of info on rural farming practices and mountains in an article in which most readers will be expecting to learn about the "Forbidden city of Lhasa"? Why would it be acceptable to have a main article on Lhasa focusing not on the city itself but the rural region? As far as I'm concerned Aymatth needn't have come here, only one editor or two object, and if you took it to AFD I'm sure you'd get a fair consensus on whether it's appropriate or a problematic fork or not.♦ Dr. Blofeld 18:46, 2 March 2015 (UTC)
This, in general, is an unfamiliar topic to me, and I am not yet up to speed on the background. So, I'm asking some clarifying questions. Forbidden city of Lhasa is a redlink, as is Forbidden City of Lhasa. Should these redirect to Potala Palace? Forbidden City (disambiguation) does not have any items for Lhasa or Tibet. I see that the underlying issue seems to be what should be the primary topic for Lhasa. I'll continue that thread below. Wbm1058 (talk) 20:04, 2 March 2015 (UTC)
  • As far as I know, Lhasa never was a forbidden city. Probably just some writer being dramatic. They would presumably mean the city of Lhasa in the valley floor in Chengguan district. I would just point it to Lhasa, which at present covers both that city and Lhasa prefecture-level city, which was Lhasa Prefecture until 1959. Aymatth2 (talk) 20:31, 2 March 2015 (UTC)
  • Lhasa "prefecture-level city" covers 11,303 square miles of mountains and valleys, glaciers and grasslands, a bit bigger than Massachusetts and a bit smaller than Belgium. It is divided into seven rural counties plus the Lhasa urban district, aka Chengguan District, Lhasa. Most people would think of the term "Lhasa" as meaning the urban district, pop. 250,000. The Lhasa article purports to cover the prefecture-level city, but is almost all about the urban district, which is what readers probably expect. The proposal is to make a new article to cover the large prefecture-level "city", and to focus the Lhasa article on the urban district, merging Chengguan District, Lhasa into Lhasa. The alternative is to pump up the Lhasa article to give reasonable coverage of the whole area, and transfer most of the information on the urban area to Chengguan District, Lhasa. It is controversial and deserves a full discussion. I am looking for a way to make sure it gets reasonable exposure. RM seems the right process, but does not seem to handle a move from userspace. Aymatth2 (talk) 00:10, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

Stepping back, and taking a broad-view look from a top-down approach. The highest level article is Tibet, about the plateau region on the north side of the Himalayas. File:Tibet-claims.jpg is the main map on that page, and it shows a dot where "Lhasa" is located. No other locations are identified within the colored regions which are the focus of this map, inside China. The next-level article is Tibet Autonomous Region, which is a highest-level administrative division of China, i.e. one of the Provinces of China. File:China provinces.png and Template:PRC provinces big imagemap are two more maps which show "Lhasa" as the only idenftified location within Tibet, both using a dot for the location. At the next level we have list of administrative divisions of the Tibet Autonomous Region. The infobox of that article says that the capital (city) of the Tibet Autonomous Region is Lhasa. Lhasa is one of three prefecture-level cities in Tibet. The other two are Shigatse (Xigazê) and Chamdo (Qamdo). The boundaries of these are clearly shown by the maps File:Shigatse map.svg and File:Qamdo map.svg, which are prominently included in the infoboxes at the top of each article. The equivalent map File:Lhasa map.svg is shown in the Lhasa article, but it is misleadingly shown below two infobox "dot-maps", in the Government and politics section. Disregarding alternative spellings or misspellings and Chinese script, the redirects to Lhasa are Capital of Tibet, Lhasa City, Lhasa Prefecture, Lhasa, Tibet, Lhasa, Xizang, Lhasa prefecture-level city and Administrative divisions of Lhasa. Is this topic on the best title, or should it be moved over the top of one of these redirects? Has this issue been discussed and settled, if so please link to that discussion. I would specifically like to know whether the "capital of Tibet" is the dot or the large area covered by File:Lhasa map.svg. Thanks, Wbm1058 (talk) 21:29, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

OK, I have just reread the earlier reply and am beginning to catch up to speed. "The Lhasa Urban District (Lhasa Chengguan District), (is) the administrative capital of Tibet." Wbm1058 (talk) 22:01, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

I'm confused with this as to what the supposed controversy is. It seems like you're not proposing that the prefecture should gain primary topic status for the term Lhasa itself (which is correct, that would have to refer to the city proper), and there isn't really any other article that is covering the prefecture, including rural areas, in such detail as this. My suggestion is like Dr Blofeld, you just move the draft directly into the Lhasa (prefecture-level city) slot, or copy/paste from user space into that new article if you prefer. Or I can do that if you like. If anyone has a problem with it, they can take it to AfD, where it will be determined if it's a notable topic in its own right, separate to the city. I can't imagine it's not though. See the difference between Leeds and City of Leeds for a very similar example, where a city's administrative boundaries cover a much larger area than just the urban core, and we have one article for the city proper and one for the administrative area. Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 22:36, 2 March 2015 (UTC)
You're confused, well so am I. I'm just now finding the discussion on this user page, in which curiously, the user themself has not participated. So I don't know why the discussion is there. It seems like there is some controversy, but I'm unclear on the details. Why would you prefer moving to a parenthetical dab title which is a red-link, when seemingly there are better natural disambiguation alternatives? Why not move it to Lhasa City – that is what is boldfaced in the lead of the user-space draft. Wbm1058 (talk) 23:10, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

So, Lhasa City is subdivided into seven counties and Chengguan District, Lhasa. Chengguan District itself is further subdivided into six urban sub-districts and four rural townships, all red-linked. Curiously, none of the urban sub-districts is named "Lhasa". Is the entire Chengguan District the "capital of Tibet", or just some sub-district of it? It would be nice if File:Chengguan District sketch map png.png showed the boundaries of the urban sub-districts and rural townships. Are there any other maps for this? I assume that the pink area is shown in this picture, which includes the Potala Palace, and is what most expect to see at the primary topic. But the actual boundaries of this area seem to be poorly defined. Wbm1058 (talk) 22:32, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

In American parlance it would be more natural (though less precise) to say "Lhasa Prefecture is subdivided into seven rural counties and the main urban area of Lhasa City". "Chengguan" merely means "urban administrative area", and regions of the same name exist in most prefectures. The part we would think of as the "city" is typically the Chengguan area. However, in Chinese nomenclature the "city" is both the core urban area (the Chengguan) as well as the outlying rural areas and potentially other subordinate urban areas. The fact that the Chinese use "city" to describe large, mostly rural regions is a source of no end of confusion when writing about these topics for Western audience. Dragons flight (talk) 23:08, 2 March 2015 (UTC)
Thanks, that's helpful: wikt:chengguan: (chéngguǎn), composed of 城 (chéng) ("city") and 管 (guǎn) ("management"). So the "city management district" (Chengguan District) of "Lhasa City" (the prefecture-level city) includes seven rural counties (by "rural" I trust the Chinese truly do mean sparsely populated!) and Lhasa (primary topic), the capital of Tibet, which is subdivided into six urban sub-districts (kind of like New York City boroughs on a smaller scale). Do I have this correct yet? Wbm1058 (talk) 23:35, 2 March 2015 (UTC)
"Lhasa City" (the prefecture-level city) includes seven "rural" counties and one "urban" district, the "city management district" (Chengguan District). Chengguan District in turn contains four rural townships and six urban neighborhoods. The urban area of the city proper is just the six urban neighborhoods, but Chengguan District is a close enough approximation without getting into original research about the precise city boundaries. Aymatth2 (talk) 02:55, 3 March 2015 (UTC)
Small city of Lhasa (pop. 250,000) from the air
  • Use of the term "Lhasa city" for the prefecture-level area is confusing bureaucratic jargon. This has to be the only city in the world with more yaks than people and a 23,250 foot mountain range complete with glaciers. The city proper, an unambiguous term until Lhasa prefecture was renamed to Lhasa prefecture-level city in 1959, is basically just the Lhasa River floodplain part of Chengguan District, Lhasa, hemmed in by mountains. It has sprawled a bit downriver into Doilungdêqên County, but not much. Chengguan District includes rural areas up in the mountains, but it seems simplest just to identify the city of Lhasa with Chengguan District.
If the proposal is accepted to focus Lhasa on what is officially Chengguan District, Lhasa, merging the two, and start a new article on Lhasa (prefecture-level city), part of the implementation would involve reviewing all the inbound links and sorting out which article they should point to. I will do that. My guess is that 95% will not need changing – the text will show that the meaning is the small city. Also some small tweaks would be needed to the Lhasa article to focus it on the city. If the decision is to add the new content on the prefecture-level city to Lhasa and to move most of the detail on the urban area to Chengguan District, Lhasa, I will do that also, although somewhat reluctantly. But I would need volunteers to help with fixing the huge number of inbound links that will have to be revectored. Aymatth2 (talk) 23:48, 2 March 2015 (UTC)
This sounds reasonable to me. Checking Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Chinese) § Disambiguation of settlements and administrative units, In general, when deciding to disambiguate a place name, those settlements ranked higher administratively (i.e. higher up the following table) are primary topic over those ranked lower, unless sourcing exists to establish significant notability of a lower-ranked division., it seems the rationale is that this is one of those cases where sourcing exists establishing significant notability of the lower-ranked division. Correct? Are we consistent with the naming conventions, or asking for a reasonable exception to them? I recall participating in lengthy discussions over the naming of Shizuoka, Shizuoka. Lhasa, Lhasa doesn't feel right for the capital of Tibet, so I'm happy to see it's a red link.
  • @Wbm1058: I would say this is consistent based on significant notability, but even if not is a reasonable exception. My guess is that reader expectations for the search term "Lhasa" would be City:75%; Dog:20%; Prefecture:2%; Other:3%. Aymatth2 (talk) 02:17, 3 March 2015 (UTC)
Now I see that disagreement over a generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to follow, though it is best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply, i.e. a very hard-line interpretation of that, has landed you here. Talk:Lhasa should be the focus of discussion of this matter, yet there is nothing there; indeed no comments about anything since June 2013. Talk:Chengguan District, Lhasa has no discussion history at all. I think it would be helpful if the entire User talk:Aymatth2/Lhasa (prefecture-level city) were copied and moved to Talk:Lhasa. That would be a good response to the WP:CONLIMITED objection. Discussing the future of an article on its own talk page is standard Wikipedia operating procedure. Readers of Lhasa should be able to easily find discussions of its content in its talk archives, even if they were about forking or splitting a relatively minor portion of its content. Wbm1058 (talk) 01:43, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

Bill Laurie

Hello. I would like to move User:Zigzig20s/Bill Laurie, a referenced article about an accomplished basketball player and business executive, to Bill Laurie, which had a redirect to his wife's page. I tried to remove the redirect and then move my userpage to his name, but it won't let me. Can you please fix this and help me move/create the page? Or should I just copy and paste it and delete my userpage? Thank you.Zigzig20s (talk) 00:26, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

This has been fixed. Thanks.Zigzig20s (talk) 16:03, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Please help with non listing request for multiple page moves

Hi, I made a request to move a large number of pages at Template talk:Largest cities of Acre#Requested move 1 March 2015. However the listing has not appeared on the RM project page although a note has been added to talk pages of other pages requested to be moved. Is there a way for the request to be listed on the project page as normal? Thanks. I'll also add the template:

{{help me}}

GregKaye 01:00, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

It's appearing on the RM page in the section "Time could not be ascertained". I'll see if I can fix it. Wbm1058 (talk) 02:29, 2 March 2015 (UTC)
Oh, my. A request to move 184 pages. I bumped the bot's limit on multiple move requests from 150 to 200. Wbm1058 (talk) 04:37, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

An all time largest page move?

Wbm1058 Thanks for the help here. Your comment got me wondering whether there was a way to check past changes in the bot settings and whether you could guide me as to how to take a look. I'd be interested to see if moves of larger size than 150 pages have previously been made. thanks again. GregKaye 10:23, 4 March 2015 (UTC)
Yes indeed, this has set the new record for the all time largest page move. Actually you may have broken your own record. A previous new record was set at Talk:Omar Ahmad (American politician) last October, that was for 111 pages. You may recall the discussion on that. I maintain a record of the bot's source code here, so you can check the edit history of that. Not all bot operators make their code public, but as this bot has become somewhat mission-critical I feel that's the right thing to do. What's online is just a copy of what's running live on my computer, so only I can make live updates. The technical limit was stuck at 30 pages per request before the conversion to use module:requested move. I don't know what the appropriate limit on moves per request should be; that's up to editors to decide by consensus. I should fix the bot's code to clearly report the issue though, as reporting it as a "Time could not be ascertained" error obscures the real issue. Wbm1058 (talk) 21:25, 4 March 2015 (UTC)
Wbm1058 excellent, a personal and English Wikipedia best , and hopefully this request may even go through and have been remotely worthwhile. The next big target may be ".. (mythology)" to ".. (deity)" but I don't think this will be to the same magnitude. GregKaye 01:16, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

Hootsuite

For the worse, I renamed the page HootSuite to Hootsuite Media. The goal was to change to "Hootsuite" (proper title case). The current name is completely inappropriate but I cannot revert the change nor proceed to update to the desired title. Help from an admin requested. Toby Sullivan (talk) 22:32, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

This has been partially fixed. If anyone can fix the casing of the page title, that would still be appreciated. Toby Sullivan (talk) 22:40, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

Smoothing the transition from technical to contested requests

The previous section served a reminder to me that the {{RMassist}} changes which I boldly but quietly implemented in May 2014 have yet to be formally announced here, or integrated into the process instructions (I have considered this to be in "beta". As a relative latecomer to the project, I feel at this point the need to further research the history of this process, to ensure that there is a consensus for any changes and that no "unconstitutional" changes are made.

First stepping back to the origins of the current process as we know it.

In February 2005 a STRAW POLL was conducted which led to discussions taking place the talk page of the article to be moved, and summarized with links to the discussions from WP:RM. The discussions and implementation focused on (potentially) controversial requests, and made no provision for handling technical requests. Just prior to that poll an editor made an astute observation that I feel is still applicable today: "many moves are suggested here without first making any attempt at discussing them on an article's talk page. This seems (again, contrary to instructions) more prevalent for moves which the suggester thinks might be somewhat controversial, or at least unpopular with those editing the page." My sense is that there are some editors who, realizing that there is no risk in making a technical request, take a chance on getting their request quietly honored by an admin, knowing that the worst that could happen is their request being converted for discussion. Hence, we see more "technical requests" and conversions than we would if editors were more conservative in their assessments of potential controversy regarding their moves. Here is a snapshot of the instructions on 24 September 2005, when someone asked How are noncontroversial moves made?, the answer was "using the [Move] tab at the top of every page" and it was suggested to add a link (risking "instruction creep") to HELP:MOVE. This was four years before the bot came on the scene, so manual updating of WP:RM went on for some time before automation was implemented. Now I'll look for the debut of the concept of "technical requests". I'll be back in a while. Wbm1058 (talk) 21:41, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

The Noncontroversial proposals section made its entrance on 6 October 2006, with the splitting of Current proposals into Noncontroversial proposals' and Other proposals. Half an hour later, the first noncontroversial proposal was made. There was a relatively brief discussion prior to implementation, in contrast to the earlier straw poll, with PBS, who played a key role in the straw poll, and in the 2009 automation of requested moves, objecting. This new process deprecated and more broadly replaced an earlier process which used {{Capitalmove}} for technical moves restricted to capitalization changes only. Template:WP:RM2, the predecessor of {{RMassist}} was created 6 October 2006 to facilitate the noncontroversial proposals process. Wbm1058 (talk) 23:40, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

On 23 February 2007, a new section Incomplete and disputed proposals was added (related discussion) "in an attempt to solve the persistent problem of 1) orphaned requests and 2) contested "uncontroversial" proposals."

If a requested move is incomplete (not all steps of the procedure are followed), or if anyone objects to an "uncontroversial" proposal, it should be listed here until the proposer or anyone else completes it. After the completion, plese move the entry to the top of "other proposals" section. Please place newly moved requests to the top of this list, and either sign (~~~~) or just put the timestamp (~~~~~) at the end. Proposals that remain here longer than 5 days are subject to removal.

Note that this boldly inserted instruction said anyone else could complete the request. By the end of the month, this new section had already attracted a crowd. – Wbm1058 (talk) 00:44, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

These instructions survived in copy-edited form until this 27 May 2007 edit removed them (whether the removal was intentional is anyone's guess). Wbm1058 (talk) 20:16, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

{{RMcontested}} was created by Stemonitis on 24 June 2007‎ (rationale here: "The shifting of discussion about contested moves to the relevant talk pages seems to be working well. However, it can be confusing, and people are sometimes tempted to vote even though the request is unlikely to go through. In a attempt to clarify, I have tried to come up with a standardised text which can be put on talk pages which explains the procedure a bit more. When moving comments contesting a supposedly uncontroversial request to the article's talk page, consider using {{subst:WP:RMC}}, followed by the text copied from WP:RM. It's just a few sentences I knocked off quickly, so if anyone thinks the wording should be altered, I'm open to suggestions.")

  • A related question about procedure from December 2007
  • Searching for uses of this template, I find about 50 uses (48 matches on "section Contested move request"), all seem to be in the 2007–08 timeframe – Wbm1058 (talk) 04:11, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

This template never seems to have been widely advertised, and its limited usage was mostly by the template creator and a few others.

Instructions returned to the Incomplete and contested proposals section with this 30 December 2007 edit:

Please do not discuss move requests here. If you support an incomplete or contested move, please consider following the instructions above to create a full move request, and move the discussion to the "Other Proposals" section below.

The horse was already out of the barn. A substantial discussion forum had formed as an alternative to discussions on article talk pages. Wbm1058 (talk) 20:16, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

This 8 January 2008 edit allowed for exceptions:

With the exception of a brief description of the problem or objection to the move request, please do not discuss move requests here. If you support an incomplete or contested move, please consider following the instructions above to create a full move request, and move the discussion to the "Other Proposals" section below.

A February 2008 discussion: Incomplete and contested section - how can we be most efficient?

This 5 March 2008 edit set a time limit for items remaining in the "contested requests" section: "Requests that remain incomplete after five days will be removed." Later this was increased from five to seven days.

This 3 June 2009 edit changed the section title from Incomplete and contested proposals to Contested uncontroversial proposals because "malformed requests (incomplete) no longer appear in this section".
And this 4 June 2009 edit changed it to Contested requests because "if it's contested, it's not uncontroversial".

This 29 November 2009 edit changed the text from:

With the exception of a brief description of the problem or objection to the move proposal, please do not discuss move proposals here. If you support a contested move proposal, please consider following the instructions above to add the proposed page move to the "Other proposals" section below by substituting the {{move}} template on the article's talk page. Proposals that remain here after seven days will be removed.

to:

This is the place for a brief description of the problem or objection to the move proposal, please do not discuss move proposals here. Proposals that remain here after seven days will be removed.

The edit summary explanation was "Template needs only to be placed once". Anyone's guess which template they meant needed only to be placed once – {{RMassist}} or {{move}}?
This instruction remained until it was removed in April 2010, as I previously noted in #Regarding #1 above. – Wbm1058 (talk) 02:27, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

re Wbm1058. I don't know where this leads to, but it is interesting reading. Some notes: in the top post, you write take a chance on getting their request quietly honored by an admin. That reads like blaming the editor for "trying" to get a move "silently" done. If this opinion has consequences, I'd like to visit it once more (I don't like the non-AGF aspect of it). Anyway, those days are gone. Next. I understand there were "incomplete" move requests. Those do not longer exist AFAIK. Must have been a horror to work with indeed. Next. Indeed it leads to "controversial", "non-controversial", "techical" move statuses, which I recognise as the current descriptions. I do not see a conclusion or consequence from all this, but I'll follow this thread. In general, I am a bit worried that the long history research may convince you to re-interpret the current status of this WP:RM page. So far, I don't think that is needed. Since this thread does not conclude or propose anything, I guess you may skip responding. I see no need to spend much timne on fleshing out views now. Just noting. -DePiep (talk) 18:26, 16 March 2015 (UTC)
OK, I will assume good faith. If an editor proposes a technical move Israel to Palestine, or Palestine to Israel, I will assume that they honestly believe this to be an uncontroversial request. Maybe there is a place where a line can be drawn between good-faith requests and non-good-faith requests, but different editors will have different opinions on where to draw that line. It's probably not constructive to even discuss this.
I appreciate that you found this interesting reading. Where this leads to:
1) I have proposed Template:RMcontested for deletion. I assume that you'll not have a problem with this, since the usage of this template, as I documented above, was accompanied by copying of user requests and comments from the central discussion page to the talk page of the page proposed for moving. I understand you are opposed to such copying of user comments.
2) I have added a new "discuss" parameter to {{RMassist}}. This is a response to your concerns. Check it out. Setting discuss=no will suppress the link for converting technical requests to controversial requests. I'm confident that administrators will honor the wishes of users who set this parameter to "no".
So there is some history of instructions to simply remove contested requests after five or seven days, rather than convert them to discussions on the associated talk page. This is a valid, albeit I believe, a minority POV at this time. I don't think we need to remove the nifty semi-automated conversion mechanism I implemented. The question is whether conversions should be opt-out or opt-in by default, and I'm preparing to have a request for comments to settle that issue. In other words, I take the solution that you would prefer to be one which sets discuss=no by default, and require editors to explicitly opt-in to conversion if their requests are contested, by setting discuss=yes as part of their requests. – Wbm1058 (talk) 20:47, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Request to revert a whole bunch of undiscussed moves

The reason I'm not using the regular space to request this is because there are hundreds of undiscussed moves conducted over the last two days and entering a separate entry for each in that field would be quite tedious indeed. The list of moves to be reverted can be seen here: [8]. Between March 15 and 16, the same editor made hundreds of controversial mythology-related moves in absence of any RMs. Would someone mind reverting them all? Egsan Bacon (talk) 18:43, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

There is a lengthy discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Religion § Disambiguations of divinities, which was used as justification for the moves in the edit summaries. – Wbm1058 (talk) 19:20, 16 March 2015 (UTC)
But the issue is not a religious issue, so Wikiproject Religion can't provide consensus. Certainly not more than the animal-related Wikiprojects could over all those interminable animal breed moves that kept popping up last year. Whenever the editor has brought the subject up in a venue that isn't devoted to religion issues, the response had been considerably more negative (Talk:Gaia (mythology)#Requested move 16 March 2015, Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Words to watch#RfC: ancient religions and the myth of NPOV), and by considerably, I mean that every single response so far has been against such proposals. The moves are clearly not uncontroversial, and a "consensus" at Wikiproject Religion is no more valid than a theoretical "consensus" at Wikiproject Astronomy that various astronomical objects should be primary topic over the mythological figures they're named after would be. Egsan Bacon (talk) 19:51, 16 March 2015 (UTC)
GregKaye, your response to this would be appreciated. I'm unclear on why you use that RfC for justification, given that it hasn't been closed yet. Note that I haven't read it all. Thanks, Wbm1058 (talk) 20:13, 16 March 2015 (UTC)
If you mean my reference to the RfC, it was to show that the "consensus" used as justification isn't going over anywhere that isn't Wikiproject Religion, which, for an issue that isn't a religious issue, is rather a problem. The Gaia RM is still open as well. That the respondents at both places so far are opposing show that the issue is controversial. That the conversations being open mean that some editors that agree with GregKaye might show up doesn't change that. Egsan Bacon (talk) 20:30, 16 March 2015 (UTC)
Prior to making the moves I also edited Wikipedia:Requested moves#Requesting multiple page moves with inclusion of a link to: Wikipedia:Request multiple page moves, extended blank which I had intended to use. Instead, after raising an RfC, I decided to go ahead with the moves manually also leaving a trail of the moves in case any needed to be undone.
However, in most if not all cases I think that the moves are constructive and I have received several thanks for them. GregKaye 20:41, 16 March 2015 (UTC)
The RfC was only opened on two days ago - moving that many pages so quickly was rather hasty, IMO. A week, minimum, would have been a more appropriate period to wait. Given that these moves have been challenged here and elsewhere, it would be best to reverse them for the time being. Parsecboy (talk) 20:45, 16 March 2015 (UTC)
The RFC was opened a month ago. [9] Dragons flight (talk) 21:04, 16 March 2015 (UTC)
Whoops, I only saw the edited time stamp on the initial post. You are correct. Parsecboy (talk) 22:09, 16 March 2015 (UTC)
"when the direction of the RfC seemed clear" does not convince me. Afterwards claiming correctness because "I think that the moves are constructive and I have received several thanks for them" is lame. Why not wait for the discussion, an RFC no less, to finish? I find this preemptive one-sided decision & action a disrespect for the wiki consensus paradigma. No experienced editor should engage in that. DePiep (talk) 20:52, 16 March 2015 (UTC)
@GregKaye:, in regards to the idea of making unilateral article moves based off of a discussion you yourself opened based on your personal determination of how it was going, I cannot help but be reminded of a recent RM about the goddess Pomona (here, for people unfamiliar) and your rather WP:BITEy response to a new editor who made one unilateral article move (rather than hundreds) based off of a discussion they themselves opened based on their personal determination of how it was going: [10]. I think you would do well to read it again and reflect on it and its potential applicability, particularly the last two sentences you wrote to them. Egsan Bacon (talk) 20:58, 16 March 2015 (UTC)
DePiep In the RfC, which opened on 16th Feb never gave any suggestion that of an acceptance of a (mythology) disambiguation for items in the categories for gods of mainly ancient religions. This was a unanimous view.
Egsan Bacon I take your point about bite but please also note that the RM that you refer to was both opened and closed by the same editor who you in your link present as a newcomer and I was not the editor to raise issue following the close. The fact is that there is a lack of NPOV in regard to the way present day religions an past time myths are respectively presented. I honestly did not expect Wikipedia to stand for and endorse this. GregKaye 21:37, 16 March 2015 (UTC)
@GregKaye:, with respect, while you may take my point about bite, you appear to have missed my larger point entirely. Firstly, I did not "present" Some Gadget Geek as a newcomer, they are a newcomer. First edit, Nov 9, 2014, 12:16 AM. Total edits through February (when this took place), 367. By anyone's standards, that is a newcomer. I am unsure why you would choose to phrase your mentioning of it in a way that implies I was misjudging an editor's status. And no, you were not the first editor to raise the issue. But you were the first editor - the only editor - to swear at them. No one else asked them WTF were you thinking???? No one else referred to their actions as your policy abusive fuck up?? That was all you.
But the larger issue, the main issue, the reason I brought it up at all, appears to have escaped you judging by your response. Perhaps, in your pursuit of WP:GREATWRONGS to right, you have decided it is unimportant, that because you are doing it for a good cause, it is alright. Perhaps you simply do not see the connection. I will endeavor to make my point very clear. A couple of weeks ago, another editor did something that you considered at the time a policy abusive fuck up. They moved a page based on a discussion they started themselves. You took great umbrage when this happened. You yelled at them. You used profanity. You were uncivil. You were bitey. Now, you have done the exact same thing, except you have done it several hundred times in just a few hours. (No, you did not formally close the discussion you started, but the fact that you cited the discussion several hundred times makes it clear that you were declaring the discussion was closed and a consensus existed makes pointing out that you did not formally close your discussion like Some Gadget Geek did theirs a distinction without a difference.) This is, to me, an example of what you referred to then as a clear example of disruptive editing. I had hoped you would realize this when I raised the parallel and do the right thing. Now, I am politely asking you to do no more than you so impolitely demanded from someone else (I refer to when you said, after all the swearing, find a way to, yourself, resolve this situation). Revert all your remaining moves yourself. Open up RMs. Do things the proper way. Please. Egsan Bacon (talk) 23:03, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Egsan Bacon I am in a situation in which I made moves based on contributions to an isolated RfC which, if anything, should have also been addressed to, for instance, the history and geography group as well as to the religion and philosophy group. In the situation as I have taken it the most straightforward route to resolution would be to now present an RM to see if there is editor support to move the articles back to their earlier titles. In the RfC there was and continued to be unanimous support for moves from ".. (mythology)" disambiguations in relation to the god/desses of ancient faiths.

To my shame I had forgotten about the Pomona thread. In my case however I opened an RfC which in no way did I push but canvassed views from editors who I took to be concerned with what I considered to be the most relevant topic: religion. I have presented lists of all the moved articles with the intention of opening routes for moves to be undone if required. However, all the moves were made in good faith. I think that contextual usage even in regard to Pomona supports moves from, for instance, the ".. (mythology)" disambiguations. In scholar we find:

pomona AND deity got "About 1,510 results"
pomona AND mythology got "About 2,330 results"

In regard to the RM related to the, Gaia, Mars, Jupiter, Uranus articles we similarly find:

gaia AND deity got "About 4,830"
gaia AND mythology got "About 7,600 results"
mars AND deity got "About 23,700 results"
mars AND mythology got "About 32,900 results"
jupiter AND deity got "About 24,800 results"
jupiter AND mythology got "About 26,900 results"
uranus AND deity got "About 3,730 results"
uranus AND mythology got "About 4,970 results"

In the RM I said: "Searches in the web in general on one of the figures gave a similar pattern of results. The combined references to similar figures of, for instance, Ancient Greek mythology / Ancient Greek religion as goddesses, gods and deities far outstrips their unfortunately prejudging references of the pertaining to mythology. I honestly thought that this kind of move would be a no brainer."

I appreciate your mention of WP:GREATWRONGS and am more than happy for editors to follow the "your pursuits" link that you provided. However, in relation to actual usage, the wrongs of the current disambiguation extend way beyond the great ones that you mention. GregKaye 09:12, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

  • Revert all - such a sweeping set of moves, particularly undoing years of convention for mythology disambigs, should certainly have come through WP:RM. And, respectfully @GregKaye: the "most straightforward route to resolution" is not to "present an RM to see if there is editor support to move the articles back", it is for you to move the articles back and then present the RMs in favour of the moves. The convention per WP:BRD is that consensus has to be shown in order to enact the move, not to move back it back.  — Amakuru (talk) 10:35, 17 March 2015 (UTC)
  • Revert all I agree with Amakuru. Such a massive set of moves as this requires extensive discussion and a broad consensus. I see no such thing. Paul August ☎ 11:41, 17 March 2015 (UTC)
  • Revert all - As the newcomer who started all of this fuss about moving Pomona to Pomona (mythology) (which under GregKaye's sole discretion has become Pomona (deity), I strongly agree with and thank Egsan Bacon for bringing this concern up. There is insufficient evidence to move such a large number of pages, compared to what I did with just one page. Please and thank you. <<< SOME GADGET GEEK >>> (talk) 13:43, 17 March 2015 (UTC)
  • Revert all. No basis for such a backwater discussion to be taken as consensus over such a broad swath of articles. I think I'd be ok with many off the moves from Foo (god) to Foo (deity). But other moves are highly questionable. Many misrepresent demons or other beings as deities. older ≠ wiser 14:23, 17 March 2015 (UTC)
  • Revert all. Most of the editors who edit the affected articles had no idea that a move was being considered, since the discussion was limited to a few participants on the talk page of a WikiProject. --Akhilleus (talk) 14:38, 17 March 2015 (UTC)
  • If you must, revert except from moves from (mythology) to (deity). Everybody seemed to agree that "(mythology)" was inappropriate for a variety of reasons. Q·L·1968 ☿ 18:15, 17 March 2015 (UTC)
But that's not so; some of the moves from (mythology) --> (deity) have been reverted, and I've posted on the Wikiproject talk page that the move isn't a good idea. It simply isn't the case that everyone who edits the affected articles were aware of the discussion. --Akhilleus (talk)
As far as I can see, you were arguing that (mythology) was not as problematic as another proposal, viz. imposing a Christian-inspired hierarchy between (god) and (deity). I do agree with that, but that wasn't the move that GregKaye made anyhow. I will agree with you that not everybody was notified in advance of that the move might be effected. I seem to remember there being a template that says, "This page is being considered for being moved in conjunction with moving a whole scad of articles." Does anybody know what template I'm talking about? Q·L·1968 ☿ 20:31, 17 March 2015 (UTC)
  • Revert all (when sensible) and warn the editor. As described above, the proposal was not fleshed out. Also the discussion would have or could have been different if the other interested Projects were notified. The editor admits that is an omission, but given the large consequences this omission can be considered partial cause of the now disputed conclusion/action. This reversal can be seen as a "WP:DRV" (Deletion Review) outcome.
Then, the editor (GregKaye) was invited here and responded to the issues mentioned (including one by me), in itself a positive action. In the responses here, the editor did not seem to recognise that the process as performed was faulty in the core (in short, and in my words: not a thorough discussion, not a sound conclusion, no consensus). Instead, the editor responded in the lesser side-topics. Also, responses were about discussion content (re-entering arguments, e.g. the list of google hit numbers) as to argue that the conclusion was right -- such a re-discussion is not for this page. User:Egsan Bacon mentioned some new, extra descriptions of talkpage (discussion) behavior by the editor, which were not addressed either (or the notion of '[this was just] an isolated RfC' would refer to that? But what is that?). I add that the quoted examples of dismissive discussion behavior are worrying. All in all the editor does not show any sense of getting to the issue. This could imply that in a next time, the editor might behave the same, including unneeded tough language against other editors and pulling unsound conclusions. For this, the editor should be warned in strong words. Skipping due discussion and consensus seeking is undermining the processes, and might be disruptive. -DePiep (talk) 18:40, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Thank you GregKaye for reverting these moves. Wbm1058 (talk) 19:10, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Yes thanks Greg. Paul August ☎ 21:58, 17 March 2015 (UTC)
Yes indeed. Thanks.  — Amakuru (talk) 22:04, 17 March 2015 (UTC)
Agreed! GregKaye has shown a combination of commendable Wikipedian traits through this process so far: willingness to take initiative, willingness to take criticism, willingness to hold his horses and build consensus, and a clear desire to do the right thing. Q·L·1968 ☿ 22:38, 17 March 2015 (UTC)
As the others before me have said, Thank you once again GregKaye for your actions and Green tickY resolving this dispute. And, just so you know, I have accepted the apology you posted on my talk page. <<< SOME GADGET GEEK >>> (talk) 23:42, 17 March 2015 (UTC)
Great action, GregKaye. -DePiep (talk) 11:07, 18 March 2015 (UTC)
  • So now what happens? Does GregKaye revert all the moves he's made, or just some? Does the RfC keep going, or start over? A. Parrot (talk) 00:43, 18 March 2015 (UTC)
I am guessing it either an oversight, or Greg hasn't had time to get to them all yet, but there is at least one (deity) move left to revert: Makemake (deity). Dragons flight (talk) 03:02, 18 March 2015 (UTC)
Also, Neti (deity) and Deimos (deity), and possibly others, though Greg does seem to have already reverted nearly all of the prior moves. Dragons flight (talk) 03:10, 18 March 2015 (UTC)
There are plenty more moves to go and anti spam measures haven't particularly helped in speeding up the process but I'm working through. There is an existing RfC but perhaps it might be appropriate to set a level three (===..) section heading so as to add a RfC history and geography template to the mix. My impression is that the Wikipedia content is written more from a mythological perspective than from a religious perspective. My contention of systemic bias between present day faiths and faiths labelled dead religions also remains. However this is a bias that is rooted in society so it remains for editors to find an appropriate path/stance to take. GregKaye 06:51, 18 March 2015 (UTC)
  • Moves that died in the attempt were Morta (deity) and redirect pages Lima (deity) and Cuba (deity) which both point to the content of articles. It would take admin level clearance to make the moves and editors can decide how important these moves are right now. Appropriately the issues above have been raised before the RfC has been concluded and Morta, a goddess, fits the description of deity. GregKaye 09:03, 18 March 2015 (UTC)
    I just pressed the button to move Morta (deity) back to Morta (mythology), and it worked without problem, so must have just been a temporary glitch. Incidentally there's an outstanding query on the talk page asking if it is the same goddess as Mors (mythology). Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 09:40, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

Jee

 Deferred

Jee. I want to propose (discuss) a page move, but this page WP:RM does nothardly explain how to do that. -DePiep (talk) 00:06, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't understand what your problem is. You started an RM discussion here, so it seems to me that you do know how to do that. Wbm1058 (talk) 17:39, 23 March 2015 (UTC)
@Wbm1058: The edit you linked to was made after this section was started on the talk page here, so perhaps DePiep did figure out what to do after asking the question...  — Amakuru (talk) 18:14, 23 March 2015 (UTC)
This is not the first RM that DePiep has submitted, here is an older one. So, if there is still a problem, please do give a better explanation, DePiep. - Wbm1058 (talk) 18:37, 23 March 2015 (UTC)
Found. "Proposed move" is to be found under "Requesting controversial and potentially controversial moves", as a "request" that is. Nice if you know it. Wbm1058 reminds us that this is not the first time an experienced editor got lost in the woods with this. (try this: set your mind to newby mode, and start reading from top of page WP:MOVE looking for: how to start a discussion to move). -DePiep (talk) 07:45, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

Yeshivat Hakotel move

The correct capitalization is Yeshivat Hakotel, since that is how the school itself titles its name. The current page is miscapitalized, as Yeshivat HaKotel, which is incorrect. Danielmeboy (talk) 15:50, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

@Danielmeboy: I'm not sure you're correct about the school titling itself that way. From their official website [11] they seem to use "HaKotel" more often than "Hakotel" (although a few Hakotels are there!). Anyway, if you want to list this as a requested move, you should go to the request page Wikipedia:Requested moves, rather than raising it here on the talk page. There are detailed instructions on that page as to what you should do to list it. If you need any more assistance with that, please let me know on my talk page, or reply here, and someone will help you. Thanks!  — Amakuru (talk) 15:59, 25 March 2015 (UTC)
It's been done. Yeshivat Hakotel. And it's a pretty uncontroversial idea, notwithstanding poor copyediting on the Yeshiva's website. --Dweller (talk) 17:25, 25 March 2015 (UTC)
Actually, it should be at HaKotel - this is standard Hebrew transcription for words with Ha (i.e. "the") appended to the start (e.g. Degel HaTorah). See WP:HEBREW#Formative_letters. This isn't uncontroversial, and needs to go through RM, so I've moved it back for the time being. Number 57 17:54, 25 March 2015 (UTC)
@Dweller: it's only uncontroversial if everyone agrees that it's uncontroversial, and that's clearly not the case here! Feel free to start an RM though. Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 18:12, 25 March 2015 (UTC)
User:Amakuru - I'm really not that fussed. It wasn't me that made the original request. --Dweller (talk) 10:44, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

'Disaster' word capitalization dispute

Pages restored to their proper titles. RGloucester — ☎ 15:45, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Moved from Wikipedia:Requested moves/Technical requests. PaleAqua (talk) 10:11, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

The request by RGloucester below is certainly not uncontroversial. Tony (talk) 09:05, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Agree - It would be best to leave it alone until the matter is settled, though I'm not sure where that discussion is supposed to take place. Krychek (talk) 15:08, 26 March 2015 (UTC)
No. Controversial bold moves must be reverted per WP:BRD. That is an uncontroversial action. The only controversial actions that were taken were the original moves, and the modification of the redirects to obfuscate the BRD process. They must be restored to their longstanding titles, so that discussion can be had. Anything else is a travesty. The moves have no consensus. It is unacceptable to allow bold moves to remain a fait accompli because of bad faith practices by Dicklyon. RGloucester — ☎ 15:26, 26 March 2015 (UTC)
I have to agree with RGloucester. This is how BRD is supposed to work, and why we have the section below to automatically revert bold moves that can't be undone by other editors. RMs can then start from the status quo ante. Dohn joe (talk) 16:22, 26 March 2015 (UTC)
No, that is in fact the opposite of of the advice in WP:BRD. As it says, many times, in bold print, BRD is never a reason for reverting. If you don't agree with the change, start a discussion. Anything else would be the start of an edit war. (Furthermore, BRD is not official policy; it's just good advice.) Krychek (talk) 19:17, 26 March 2015 (UTC)
But the "R" in BRD stands for "Revert".... The process is 1) someone makes a bold edit; 2) someone else who disagrees reverts that edit; 3) the bold editor comes back and starts the discussion. BRD in itself is not a reason to revert. In other words, you don't revert every bold move just because you can. But you certainly are allowed to revert if you disagree with the bold move. Dohn joe (talk) 20:16, 26 March 2015 (UTC)
Sorry, that's not how it works. When a bold undiscussed move is made, and it is contested, it is reverted to allow for discussion. I am contesting it. It must be reverted. The old titles are longstanding. BRD is simple: bold action, action is reverted, action is discussed. The status quo is the default. The longstanding title is the default. That's how it works. Bold changes without consensus are not allowed a fait accompli. Please stop disrupting a simple request. There is a reason that there is a section here called "requests to revert undiscussed moves". That's because undiscussed contested moves that are controversial are reverted, to allow for an RM to attain consensus and present evidence for a change. This is same with any other matter. There is no reason why Dicklyon's edits are special, and must be granted the special "fait accompli" status. The burden is on the person who wants to change the longstanding title, not on those who want to maintain the status quo. RGloucester — ☎ 19:32, 26 March 2015 (UTC)
"It must be reverted" is a bit of an overstatement, as (again) BRD is not official policy. Still, you have stated your case well, but please don't tell people when they are or are not allowed to give an opinion. If my statements are so ludicrous, you can trust the administrator to ignore them. I'd still like to know where this discussion is supposed to take place. Surely not on the talk page of each individual article? Krychek (talk) 21:25, 26 March 2015 (UTC)
That's up to the user that wants to make the change. I'm open to a mass RM, or individual RMs. RGloucester — ☎ 21:26, 26 March 2015 (UTC)
@Krychek: yes, "It must be reverted" is putting it strongly, but while I wouldn't put it in those words, I do agree with RGloucester that it's the best way forward. You are worried about where the best place for the discussion would be, but in fact we have the multi-move discussions mechanism precisely for this reason. Discussion can take place on the talk page of one of the affected articles, but all the others will be notified, by the bot, that the process is taking place. Theoreticaly, RGloucester could initiate move requests the other way at this point in time; but my argument is that, for people participating, it is more confusing to have a "move back" request than it would be revert the moves first, and then initiating discussion. In general it's less confusing if the article remains at the long term title until the move request process is finished, and then moved if there is consensus to do so. Thanks!  — Amakuru (talk) 10:51, 27 March 2015 (UTC)
Do not revert — Renaming these articles was correct and did not need discussion - see WP:NCCAPS. The word "disaster" is not capitalized unless it is part of a proper noun (eg book or movie title). See other similar titles: 2009 Washington Metro train collision (not Train Collision), 1968 Thule Air Base B-52 crash (not Crash), September 11 attacks (not Attacks), 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens (not Eruption) etc. No discussion is needed when things are renamed per basic English and WP guidelines. —МандичкаYO 😜 21:30, 26 March 2015 (UTC)
Discussion is needed, because there is no consensus, and because your position on this matter is contested. This is not the place for it. I believe that all the titles in question are proper names, and hence must be capitalised. That's why they've been capitalised since the moment of their creation. If a user wants to make such a change and move the articles away from the longstanding titles, he must demonstrate that there is evidence to support it. That cannot be done here. It must be done in an RM, per WP:BRD and WP:CONSENSUS. RGloucester — ☎ 21:34, 26 March 2015 (UTC)
If you have any issue with the naming policy, then start a discussion about it at the naming policy article: WP:NCCAPS. Policies and guidelines are there for a reason. These are not "bold undiscussed moves" since the naming format has already been decided long ago, per WP:CONSENSUS/basic English. You are are the one who wants articles to be named contrary to both the WP policy/the English language itself, so the impetus is on you to change the policy, not for others to come around to your opinion. —МандичкаYO 😜 21:47, 26 March 2015 (UTC)
I don't have any issue with the "naming policy". These are capitalised in RS as proper names, and must be capitalised per the MOS:CAPS guidelines. That's what the guidelines say. Unless evidence is provided to the contrary, they must remain capitalised. I have no idea what you're talking about. What an absurd argument, this is. These are bold moves against our policies and guidelines. They must be reverted to be discussed, so that evidence can be provided. I suppose your English is not my English. RGloucester — ☎ 21:52, 26 March 2015 (UTC)
These are not proper names. Please research what "Proper names" are and what it takes for something to become a proper name. The WP:NCCAPS even uses the following example of how to title an article: 1993 Russian constitutional crisis (NOT 1993 Russian Constitutional Crisis). If you can prove that "your English" is actually preferred to all known manuals of style, then please, go ahead and get started and challenge the guideline itself. —МандичкаYO 😜 22:55, 26 March 2015 (UTC)
If the debate over whether they are proper names is something that needs to be had, it needs to be had in an RM for these articles. It should not be had here. The longstanding titles remain until evidence is presented in favour of a move elsewhere. I agree that "1993 Russian constitutional crisis" should not be capitalised, as that's a descriptive title. That has no relevance here, where the events are capitalised as proper names in RS. If one sees "Darr Mine Disaster" and the like in books, it is clear that these moves must be discussed. Please read MOS:CAPS, which says "Wikipedia relies on sources to determine what is a proper name; words and phrases that are consistently capitalized in sources are treated as proper names and capitalized in Wikipedia". It is not done at yours or Dicklyon's whims. It must be subject to consensus in an RM. This isn't the place to debate whether the titles are correct or incorrect, but to request a restoration of the status quo pending consensus in an RM, as is appropriate per BRD. The longstanding titles remain. RGloucester — ☎ 23:00, 26 March 2015 (UTC)
Why would there be a debate over something that has already been decided? Just because it's been capitalized in a book does not make it up for debate when it's clear to everyone else it's already been established. Notice that Chernobyl disaster, Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, 2010 Copiapó mining accident etc etc etc etc are not capitalized. If you have nothing else to do with your time, please head over to → Category:Articles needing additional references here and get started. —МандичкаYO 😜 23:30, 26 March 2015 (UTC)
Nothing has been decided. Each individual case is different. Multiple of those you just cited are descriptive titles, not proper names. I don't have time to look at the RS for them. That doesn't have anything to do with these articles, which were moved without consensus, and contrary to the guidelines. There is no debate for me, as I'm just defending the status quo. The debate is for those that want to move the article. Please stop being flippant, and disrupting the standard Wikipedia processes. RGloucester — ☎ 23:32, 26 March 2015 (UTC)
They were moved per standard Wikipedia and English guidelines. Again, go look up what proper names are. Obviously you do have plenty of time on your hands. —МандичкаYO 😜 23:35, 26 March 2015 (UTC)
Please stop your disruption here. There is no way one can say these were "moved per standard Wikipedia and English guidelines", given that I've shown that they were not. The correctness of the moves in question is irrelevant here, anyway. The only purpose of my request is to facilitate normal Wikipedia processes, that is, gaining consensus through an RM for controversial page moves. This is clearly controversial. RGloucester — ☎ 23:42, 26 March 2015 (UTC)
How exactly am I being disruptive? 1) this is not a closed discussion and 2) It's imperative to note that these moves were done correctly, per WP's own manual of style (and all known English guidelines about proper nouns). Finding the Darr Mine disaster capitalized in "Supernatural Lore of Pennsylvania: Ghosts, Monsters and Miracles" (ahhh! Run and hide! Spooky English!) does not merit it being classified as a proper noun. 05:36, 27 March 2015 (UTC)
You are being disruptive because you are either ignorant or purposely derailing a simple WP:BRD measure. This is not a discussion at all. These pages will be restored to their old titles, per WP:BRD, so that discussion can be had. The discussion doesn't take place here. Your opinion on what makes something a proper noun or not is not relevant to whether these must be reverted. Please halt. RGloucester — ☎ 05:41, 27 March 2015 (UTC)
I'm not being distruptive to anyone (except to people who only want to get their way, apparently), nor am I being ignorant. Here's an even more specific guideline on naming conventions related specifically to events - WP:NCEVENTS. Notice NONE are capitalized. Can examples of these events be found capitalized because of an author's personal capitalization preference? Sure. Does it mean each and every one should be discussed? No. That's why WP:PG exist in the first place. Moving them was not a "bold" move that requires discussion, it was simply a proper one, like fixing anything else that was not titled correctly. —МандичкаYO 😜 07:45, 27 March 2015 (UTC)
  • Revert and then list the discussions - I agree that WP:BRD is not policy and it is not a suicide pact, but it is in my opinion quite a good rule of thumb for how to operate, and we should certainly apply it in this case. And Wikimandia respectfully, you cannot declare something to be uncontroversial off your own bat. If articles have existed at particular titles for a long time, and there are editors who actively wish to keep them at those titles, then the move is automatically controversial, and should be listed at WP:RM in the normal fashion. If you're so confident that the move is correct, then there should be no problem - it's just a week of listing after all, and you can present the arguments about NCCAPS that you've presented here. So, in summary, I would like to see these moves reverted before the RM discussions are listed, so that there is no confusion as to what the long term titles have been. To me the reversion is uncontroversial, and that's why we have the "revert undiscussed moves" section on the RM page.  — Amakuru (talk) 10:27, 27 March 2015 (UTC)
FYI Amakuru I didn't start this discussion (Tony1 did), nor did I move any of the original articles. I simply pointed out that these naming conventions already exist, therefore, there is no reason for these to be dubbed controversial moves. —МандичкаYO 😜 10:36, 27 March 2015 (UTC)
@Wikimandia: Fair enough, but I was just pointing out that your interpretation of "controversial" doesn't match my usual understanding of how the process works. RM discussions always involve lots of citations to relevant policies and conventions, such as you are doing here. That's fine. But when different people have different views on the matter, then it's controversial, and it goes up for discussion for a week. WP:RMUM is crystal clear on the process here: "Anyone can be bold and move a page without discussing it first and gaining an explicit consensus on the talk page. If you consider such a move to be controversial, and the new title has not been in place for a long time, you may revert the move. If you can not revert the move for technical reasons then you may request a technical move." It is clear from this text that RGloucester's request to revert the move is inherently *uncontroversial*. Arguments about the merits of the move should be made in the proper forum, not here on the RM talk page, and I would argue challenging the revert is not even a legitimate action. It's created a situation in which we're arguing on the RM talk page it's not clear how we move forward. Whereas my suggestion of reverting and listing would be the clear and unbiased way to move the discussion forward. Incidentally I don't have any opinion right now on the merits of the move, but I just think it's better to follow the proper RM process. It's one that has served us well over the years, and in general allows issues to be resolved decisively. Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 10:42, 27 March 2015 (UTC)
Amakuru, I understand what you're saying, but that is what guidelines are for - so articles can be titled as uniformly as possible without having to discuss each and every one ad nauseum. Established guidelines trump the WP:RMUM in nearly every case, and in those rare cases, it is up to the opponents of the established title to prove why it should not be titled that. The decision to not capitalize generic terms (disaster, explosion, collision, collapse, outbreak, etc) was made long ago, I think in 2007. See WP:DISASTER project. If the "very special" RGloucester wants an article to be titled something that goes against said established guidelines (see his list of demands here), then it is up to him to provide the rationale that sways others to his opinion. There are so many articles on Wikipedia that many are not titled correctly yet simply out of neglect - renaming them based on WP standards is just routine maintenance. Renaming them should not be seen as conroversial simply because others don't like the WP naming convention, because they can find one different example in a book, or because it has had that title a long time. A parallel example: all U.S. towns/cities all follow the "City, State" format of WP:USPLACE, unless they are among a handful of dateline cities such as Dallas or Los Angeles. If I find an article that only lists the town and not the state, the correct thing to do would be to promptly move it, not propose the move for discussion to establish consensus on what it should be called. Nor should I demand that 10 articles already renamed to follow the City, State convention be reverted until a "BRD" discussion can take place. The discussion already has taken place. —МандичкаYO 😜 12:23, 27 March 2015 (UTC)
  • See Wikipedia:WikiProject Disaster management/Naming. I don't see any specific guidance here on whether "<event>" can ever be a proper noun, and if so, how it's determined whether it is, or any statement that "<event>" is never a proper noun. Wbm1058 (talk) 14:22, 27 March 2015 (UTC)
    • I see examples of both proper name usage:
      • The South East Asia Earthquake 2005
      • The Indian Ocean Tsunami 2004
    • and examples of generic usage:
      • 2006 New York City plane crash
      • 1700 Cascadia earthquake – Wbm1058 (talk) 14:44, 27 March 2015 (UTC)
  • Random searching finds mixed and unsettled usage. For example, see Category:Fires in Massachusetts. There I count five Fires using proper names, and six generic fires. Wbm1058 (talk) 14:37, 27 March 2015 (UTC)
  • Wikipedia:Naming conventions (events) appears to be the applicable naming convention. Again I don't see strong guidance on this issue. Although most examples shown are lower-case, the first advice is "If there is an established, universally agreed-upon common name for an event, use that name." Perhaps there are cases of established, universally agreed-upon common proper names. Nanking Massacre is given as an example, but with the caveat that "However, "massacre" probably shouldn't have been capitalized." I sense that there is stronger support for capitalization of man-made disasters, such as massacres and genocides. – Wbm1058 (talk) 15:06, 27 March 2015 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Wow. Has it really been two years since the last edit to Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (events) (26 March 2013‎). And Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Disaster management/Naming was last edited 14 June 2008‎. These may be better locations in which to continue the dialogue. Wbm1058 (talk) 18:20, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

Religion... Mythology... Worldview?

Thank you GregKaye for restoring the status quo. Please leave it now. There is a clear distinction between religion and mythology. Apuldram (talk) 11:00, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

  • The related RfC on "Disambiguations of divinities" continues here and contributors to related discussions should have been pinged. Apuldram perhaps you can explain your view of "a clear distinction between religion and mythology" and on your views on the "status quo". GregKaye 12:37, 18 March 2015 (UTC)
Apuldram means that now that you have made these reverts as you were advised to do, all the editors involved here are satisfied and have thanked you for what you did. We now ask that you please leave the pages alone (i.e. do not move them again) and preferably avoid debating any further on whether these topics represent religion or mythology; the distinction is made clear that these all belong to the latter.
Once more, we all appreciate your initiative to follow the consensus of the community Thumbs up icon, and with that said I suggest that our discussion here be  Closed as the issue in  Question: has now been  Resolved. two cents <<< SOME GADGET GEEK >>> (talk) 12:55, 18 March 2015 (UTC)
Very nice pretty

icons there, Some Gadget Geek, and I am in

agreement with you on the distinction between mythology and religion, and the fact that we don't need wholesale moves, but on the other hand it's not really for you to tell others not to debate the issue if they'd like to. And this isn't a formal RfC or RM request anyway, so it's not really a question of closing it. Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 13:05, 18 March 2015 (UTC)
I agree. The discussion can continue, now that others who might have an input are aware of it. I think in many cases GregKaye probably has a point. I don't see a problem with disambiguating figures who are unambiguously deities as deities, but the campaign to eliminate "mythology" as a disambiguator was a little overzealous. There's an overlap between religion and mythology, but there are differences as well. I'll join in the discussion at the religion project once I've had the chance to read it all, and I'd urge anyone else with an interest to do the same. Nicknack009 Revision as of 13:59, 18 March 2015
<<< SOME GADGET GEEK >>> adding to Apuldram's assertion that "There is a clear distinction between religion and mythology" with "the distinction is made clear that these all belong to the latter" does not provide substantiation. The subjects mentioned were divinities within ancient/historic religions. GregKaye 13:54, 18 March 2015 (UTC)
I have seen the argument made on one of these discussions that actually there was quite a difference between the ancient religions and some of those practised today. In particular that the process was handled more informally, through story telling, passing on of ancient myths (!) from parent to child, etc. That in contrast to the modern religion, which in many cases includes the ritual of turning up at a specific place at specific times, and being told there by an authority figure with in the organised relgion what to believe, what not to believe, and how to behave. Apologies if that representation offends anyone (and I am a church-goer myself), but if you dig down to fundamentals, I'm thinking that's what a religion is. I am not sure if the ancient religions were of this nature or not. Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 14:53, 18 March 2015 (UTC)
That's certainly not what ancient Greek or Roman religion was like. The focus was not "what to believe, what not to believe, and how to behave", and I can't think of a situation where you'd have Christian-style sermonizing. The focus of most cult practice was sacrifice (not necessarily of live animals, but also of liquids, incense, foods, weapons, money, etc.); a sacrifice might be accompanied by banquets, games (including chariot races and the like), theatrical performances, the dedication of monuments, etc. Myths were not really declarations of faith, even if they were embedded in a hymn; in some cases their performance was itself a votive offering. In other cases, the retelling of a story of gods and/or heroes might simply be part of local lore ("how such-and-such a mountain got its name", or whatever); in other cases again, a myth might have a clear political or social function. In addition to ritual and mythology, there were other religious domains, including theology, mysticism, and art (including decorative and functional art (e.g. mosaics or lamps depicting the gods) as well as cult images and simulacra). Mythology doesn't encompass this whole range of experience, though it's certainly a rich and important part of it. Q·L·1968 ☿ 19:52, 18 March 2015 (UTC)
@QuartierLatin1968: up above you made the comment that "Everybody seemed to agree that (mythology) was inappropriate for a variety of reasons", but here you're suggesting that the mythology angle is more important when considering these ancient gods and goddesses than a "religious" viewing. i.e. you're supporting the notion that there is a distinction between gods in ancient mythology and gods in modern religions. Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 12:11, 19 March 2015 (UTC)
Religion and mythological debates can rage on, but that alone is insufficient evidence for moving the whole bunch of articles that led to this lengthy posting on the page. As it seems this debate would grab more attention in Wikipedia:WikiProject Religion and Wikipedia:WikiProject Mythology. <<< SOME GADGET GEEK >>> (talk) 12:50, 19 March 2015 (UTC)
Well, to the extent that we're still talking about "(mythology)", the discussion's still relevant to the move. The only point conceded is that we shouldn't paint with broad strokes, and we should build consensus about these moves before making them happen. Anyway, to Amakuru's point, we need to be clear about what mythology is and what religion is. In a very rough-and-ready definition, mythology consists of narratives about gods and heroes: Táin Bó Cúailgne is a mythological text, the Iliad is a mythological text, Ovid's Metamorphoses is a mythological text. But religion, as such, extends into many other domains besides such narratives. Religion also includes cult practices, iconography, theology, mysticism, monuments, etc., none of which are actually mythology. So the article Telo (mythology) should not be called "Telo (mythology)", because we have exactly zero myths concerning Telo; what we have are votive inscriptions, which are monuments of cult practice. Ancient religion extends beyond the realm of mythology; neither can it be defined as a "faith" or a "belief" the way that, say, the Bahá'í Faith or modern Christianity identify themselves. If those religions want to equate religion with faith, great, but that framework doesn't work for ancient polytheism (or for that matter for Shinto, Chinese folk religion, etc.). Q·L·1968 ☿ 15:08, 19 March 2015 (UTC)
Q·L· Sorry to have left the discussion for a while. Personally I do not see a great difference between that nature of say the Sumerian creation myth and the Genesis creation narrative. They have both been foundational to belief and wondered in regard to any point of clarification. It also seems to me that there is no way of knowing for sure how much if any of Homer's Iliad was plagiarised from related religious beliefs and how much of the developing and related religious beliefs was plagiarised from texts like the Iliad. Again I think that the same can be said of the Genesis creation narrative. As far as I can see many such stories perform similar functions in relation to belief with various people and groups investing into them varying levels of faith.
One point that had been raised to me is that articles can take reference to books on mythology. The book on mythology was shown to make a great many references to various "gods" and "deities". These seem to be the common descriptions of personages (such as Zeus) as used in all disciplines. GregKaye 11:24, 29 March 2015 (UTC)
Making "faith" or "belief" a defining characteristic of ancient religion and assuming that mythology and belief have the same relationship in ancient Sumerian or Greek religion as they do in Judeo-Christian religion is imposing a modern (and basically Christian) worldview on these other cultures. --Akhilleus (talk) 13:02, 29 March 2015 (UTC)
I hope you don't think the Iliad was foundational with regard to Greek religious beliefs, though your use of "plagiarised" does rather suggest you're thinking of it as a 'holy book' in the manner of the Bible. NebY (talk) 21:05, 29 March 2015 (UTC)
Akhilleus has it exactly right, I think. Anyway, the Sumerian creation myth doesn't need to be equivalent to the Hebrew creation myth. Maybe it is and maybe it isn't, but given that Sumerian religion is not the same as Judaism (or Christianity for that matter), I wouldn't particularly expect it to be. Why bring Judaism and Christianity into the discussion of Sumerian religion? Do we really need to judge, to evaluate, Sumerian religion on the basis of its supposed equivalence to Christianity or any other religion? If Christians don't want us to call the Hebrew creation myth a myth, fine, whatever, but the same doesn't hold for every other perfectly good myth that has come down to us. Correct me if I'm wrong, Greg, but it seems as though you're arguing that pre-modern religions should be spoken of on WP with the same respect accorded to Christianity (and other modern religions). And this is true and good. But in so doing, you're in some danger of falling into the trap of saying that pre-modern religions should be spoken of (hence defined) in the same terms as Christianity (and other modern religions). And, for the reasons NebY and Akhilleus mention, that simply won't do. Q·L·1968 ☿ 18:29, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

QuartierLatin1968 thanks for the ping:
--Akhilleus what would you say were the defining characteristics of past time and predominantly polytheistic religions? Please note results in Scholar on:

There was belief and faith involved and the beliefs cannot be soley classified as mythology. GregKaye 19:35, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

I'm not really sure how those Google Scholar searches support the argument you're trying to use them to make. That there exist some writings that contain the text string "believed that [name]" are in no way evidence that [name] was worshipped. Here are some results that I got from Google Scholar:
"believed that George Washington"
"believed that Henry VIII"
"believed that Cleopatra"
"believed that Socrates"
"believed that Abraham Lincoln"
"believed that Machiavelli"
"believed that Nero"
"believed that Charlemagne"
These even get more hits. This is not a case where raw search results are a useful guide to how to proceed. Egsan Bacon (talk) 20:26, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

NebY I hope that you are not saying that religion did not borrow from tales like the Iliad. A lot of the content here is to say that past time religions were part and parcel of myth but, if the ancient religions did not borrow from contents such as those mentioned, which texts did they borrow from? GregKaye 19:41, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

None. When it comes to ancient Roman or Greek religions, texts are cultural products, not religious foundations. NebY (talk) 20:18, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

QuartierLatin1968 why? because there is WP:SYSTEMICBIAS in favour of modern religions.
No I am not, "saying that pre-modern religions should be spoken of (hence defined) in the same terms as Christianity (and other modern religions). Christianity describes its divinity as "God". Islam describes its presentation of the same divinity as "Allah". I am saying that, in the same pattern of content in texts on ancient mythology, ancient religion and various related subjects, Zeus, for instance, should be described as a "Greek god" GregKaye 19:57, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

If you're claiming that "faith" or "belief" is a central element of ancient Greek religion then you are defining it in the same terms as Christianity. These words denote emotional or mental attitudes towards some body of claims about god(s), the nature of reality, etc. And they usually describe the faith/beliefs of individuals. This concept of religion is only a few centuries old. In contrast, scholars of Greek religion focus on the communal and social aspects of religious practices--that is, what groups of people do, rather than what individuals believe.
I have no problem calling Zeus a god. But look at Ingres' painting Jupiter and Thetis. That's Zeus, in a scene from Book 1 of Homer's Iliad. Is this a religious painting? Or is this painting evidence of the continuing presence of Greek mythology in 19th century Europe? --Akhilleus (talk) 20:41, 30 March 2015 (UTC)
@GregKaye: (FWIW, Arabic-speaking Christianity also describes its god as Allah.) What I'm saying is that Islam has a shahadah. There is no shahadah in Greek polytheism. Judaism has the first and second commandments. Greek polytheism has no such commandments. Christianity has John 14:6 and similar passages. Greek polytheism makes no such promises. What Greek polytheism does have (along with Roman, Celtic, and Germanic polytheism, among others) is a religious culture in which practical acts of piety count. Deeds matter, not professions of faith. I pour out a libation at your altar, therefore I beg that you (you being whichever god or goddess I'm addressing) remember me in my time of need. As a practical illustration, in the Iliad, Chryses (portrayed as a good and upright priest) prays to Apollo: "Hear me, lord of the silver bow who set your power about Chryse and sacrosanct Cilla, you who are lord in strength over Tenedos; Smintheus, if ever it pleased your heart that I built your temple, if ever it pleased you that I burned all the rich thigh pieces of bulls and goats, then bring to pass this wish I pray for: let your arrows make the Danaans pay for the tears I've shed" (Iliad i.36–42). And so on in countless prayers and exhortations all through ancient literature. Chryses does not say, "O Apollo, about whom I believe such-and-such" or "Apollo, in whom I have faith" or "Apollo, through whom I expect life everlasting". He says, "Apollo, to whom I have sacrificed." It's do ut des; it can't be confined to just "belief". Argue, if you must, that some strong but unarticulated belief may motivate this, but it's through gifts and sacrifice that one cultivates a relationship with the gods and thus concludes what the Romans called pax deorum. Romans, Greeks, Etruscans and so on felt themselves to be pious to the extent that they gave to the gods in the traditional way, not because they believed this or that about the gods.
Greg also says that "There was belief and faith involved and the beliefs cannot be solely classified as mythology", but I think this illustrates a false dichotomy in Greg's thinking. Mythology does not mean "that which one does not believe" or "that which is unworthy of belief"; it simply refers to traditional stories having to do with the supernatural. One might believe a particular myth, or not. One might believe it literally, as people like Plato and Cicero assure us the masses often did, or one might believe it allegorically, as they did. Nor does it matter very much at the moment of performing a sacrifice whether, or how, one believes any or all myths about the deity in question or not; the point is that you're offering cultus to a deity. Now, where Greg is clearly right is that mythology is not the beginning and end of ancient religion, which also extends into art, cult practices, theology, and beyond. Q·L·1968 ☿ 21:47, 30 March 2015 (UTC)
QuartierLatin1968 I honestly think that a fairly extreme manifestation of WP:OWN is in operation here. You comment that I said that "There was belief and faith involved and the beliefs cannot be solely classified as mythology". Please note that "... the beliefs cannot be ... classified as mythology" but that "the beliefs cannot be solely classified as mythology".
You say "Argue, if you must, that some strong but unarticulated belief may motivate this". That can be done but is not needed. The fact is that people at the time had very religious practice. You mention: the pouring out of libation; begging a god; praying; building temples; burning all the rich thigh pieces of bulls and goats. Yes of course I am happy to argue in regard to their being a relationship between, to use some regularly used words, faith and deeds. Why else would the people at the time have gone through all the practices mentioned (and others) if there was no measure of belief involved. I have not mentioned profession of faith or anything else in a Catholic sense. I am saying that there is religion here and that this religion is not owned by myth. You mention a whole range of religious acts: pouring out of libation; begging a god; praying; building temples; burning all the rich thigh pieces of bulls and goats. They are all religious. They are not mythological actions though, fairly, these same forms of action may be described in myth.
I really do not know why we are going into this whole section of discussion. All that I have been saying is that personages such as Zeus were regarded as religious figures. He was regarded as a god. This is the form of reference by which he is described in fields such as mythology and religion. In description of divinities the terms god, goddess and deity have valid use. Solely categorising such a character as pertaining to mythology would be POV. I am sure that a "Priest of Zeus" would typically agree. Mythology does not have priests. Religion does, and characters like Zeus had a lot of them.
Akhilleus I am saying that religious practice is there. The fact is that people generally only do things if they think that there is some reason for doing so and, in religion (not that it is an important point), this often involves belief. The personal actions of people seem to me to up the stakes in regard to religion. The personal activities are religious in nature. They are not mythological actions. They are religious. GregKaye 01:35, 31 March 2015 (UTC)
Sorry Greg, I'm not trying to claim ownership over anything. What I would like to establish, preparatory to making more specific move requests, is that while "mythology" is not a pejorative term, and it can legitimately be used in specific contexts (e.g. referring to Ovid's Metamorphoses), it does not encompass ancient religion. I think we agree on that point. I agree with most of what you say in your second paragraph and just about all of the third. Neptune (mythology) should absolutely be at Neptune (god) (or, if consensus goes that way, Neptune (deity)) because the god Neptune is not restricted solely to mythology. Gods should be called gods; religion should be called religion. But what I'm cautioning against, and I'm not the only one, is that the terms "belief" and "faith" don't encompass ancient religion either. If we assume that belief is the most important or defining part of this complex of attitudes, ideas, customs, places, and objects, we're imposing a Christian-influenced POV. That's all I'm trying to argue. I sincerely apologize if any of my comments seem to imply ownership over one or more articles; nothing could be further from my intention. Q·L·1968 ☿ 16:07, 31 March 2015 (UTC)
QuartierLatin1968 ty. Personally I would prefer a character such as Neptune to wash into the harbours of Neptune (Roman god). I think gives valuable context and potentially disambiguates god. Britannica presents: "Neptune Roman god - Neptune, Latin Neptunus, in Roman religion, originally the god of fresh water; by 399 bce he was identified with the Greek Poseidon and thus became a deity of the sea..." While the issue of belief may be more relevant to other topics I do not fully understand the view, "that the terms "belief" and "faith" don't encompass ancient religion'. I really appreciate you mentioning the subject as it is not something that I had previously given thought.
I can well imagine that the concept of belief may not have been have been crystallised or perhaps just not put into words but I think that it is a stretch to say that, even if not philosophically, that belief was not psychologically involved. The ancients may not have developed a full conception of gravity and yet things still fell.
To my understanding the ancients put a lot of store in knowledge and I think that this is partly demonstrated within the List of knowledge deities. I also think I am perhaps right to say that part of this was "religious knowledge" or "knowledge of the 'gods'". Perhaps I have got this wrong but, in modern conceptions, we would define this as belief. I would certainly say that there was something (perhaps many things) going on psychologically with the ancients to make them make all their various sacrifices. While I admit that I may be influenced by preconceptions but I tend towards the view that belief could have been at least one of the prime motivators. GregKaye 17:00, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

Missing edit history (for WP:RM)

Hi y'all, I'm wondering why move requests don't show up in the page's edit history?

I'd made an 'uncontroversial technical request' yesterday and dropped in here today to check on its status. When I saw it had been cleared I thought to check the page history for details ... and there are none. Nor for a preceding request I'd taken note of. I've since confirmed that my request has in fact been fulfilled,[12] thank you, but am still left wondering about the lack of page history anomaly? --Kevjonesin (talk) 12:08, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Hi Kevjonesin, the actual list of discussions is not on the RM page itself, it is on a subpage, which is transcluded as a template. This subpage is located at Wikipedia:Requested moves/Current discussions, and you can see the full history there. It is generally only updated by a bot, though, which responds to requests listed on individual talk pages. Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 13:10, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
@Kevjonesin: oh, and apologies I didn't read your question properly. The section for uncontroversial and technical requests is another transcluded subpage, at Wikipedia:Requested moves/Technical requests. Thanks!  — Amakuru (talk) 13:12, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
Apparently the edit notice Template:Editnotices/Page/Wikipedia:Requested moves is not sufficiently big and bold enough to make all editors notice it when they edit that page to request moves. Is there anything more we can do to make them notice, or does Wikipedia already have so many "tags" that editors have trained themselves to look past them all? Wbm1058 (talk) 14:20, 1 April 2015 (UTC)


  • [edit conflict]Ah, Amakuru, I see. So basically, in practice, the sections function as embedded pages with there own separate 'article' and history pages. Could we please explore ways to make this more transparent to visitors on the main WP:RM page?
Perhaps tack a small "[history]" link beside/under/near the relevant section headings?
And/or make the section headers themselves wikilink to the appropriate subpages?
e.g.:

==<span id="TR"></span>[[Wikipedia:Requested moves/Technical requests|Requesting technical moves]]==

... and ...

==<span id="CM"></span>[[Wikipedia:Requested moves/Controversial|Requesting controversial and potentially controversial moves]]==

... and ...

==<span id="C"></span>[[Wikipedia:Requested moves/Current discussions|Current discussions]]==

Hmm ... As I've already got stuff mostly laid out here, above, and relevant browser tabs open for links and such, I may just go ahead and implement something now so we can see how it looks. If anyone finds the result objectionable feel free to adjust or revert, but please offer the courtesy of a response here to elaborate as to why and suggest alternatives. Thanks.
[@Wbm1058, I think you may have misread/misunderstood. This thread is about how/why edit history on WP:RM displays as it does. It's not a move request. Otherwise, as an editor who appears to be a frequent contributor to this page seems a bit 'short' today, I'll refrain from personally implementing my suggestions above and instead leave them to y'all to explore (or not) on 'your' page. ltr]
[Ha, just received a timely thanks from Ottawahitech for my comment opening this thread. Did wonders for my mood. I'll leave my tabs open for a bit. If folks care to offer assurances that I'll not be running into WP:OWN issues I'll be happy to take the time to implement the proposed changes or some variation thereof—if others have alternate ideas for adding to the transparency/'discoverability' as discussed above.]
--Kevjonesin (talk) 15:16, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Kevjonesin, I think you do make a good point here. There are actually two related issues: yours with finding the history, and others who indeed have recently attempted to make requests on that page. While perhaps I'm the "primary overseer" of this system, I do not own it. Feel free to implement your ideas for improvement, per WP:BRD. I believe the rationale for making subpages was to more cleanly separate the move requests from the instructions, making it easier to track the history of changes to the instructions. Thanks, :-) Wbm1058 (talk) 15:25, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Kevjonesin, One way to get notified when your technical request is implemented is to put the page you asked to have moved onto your watchlist. See Help:Watching pages. Typically, if your request is contested, or viewed as potentially controversial, it is converted to a discussion section on the article's talk page. Should editors automatically get notification pings when their technical requests are converted to controversial requests? Wbm1058 (talk) 15:43, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Ah, Wbm1058, your usage of "that page" was ambiguous to me (i.e. which 'that')—and I think the big red triangle notice splashed in the middle of the thread startled me a bit, and my discovering it via dealing with an 'edit conflict' interface probably didn't help. Anyway I think I 'catch your drift' at this point. Your concern is that by making the section subpages readily accesible via a title link some folks will drift into editing directly on the subpages rather than inserting the requested copy/paste template code into the main WP:RM page, right? That makes sense to me actually now I've considered it. Dang, but I think I'm still misunderstanding ... I just went to Wikipedia:Requested moves/Technical requests and checked the editing interface and I don't see the notice you posted above ... O/o ? Wbm1058, please elaborate as to what you were trying to address above, as at this point I feel that I myself was being hasty and would now prefer to have a better understanding before making changes. Am still/again confused as to target of pronoun, i.e. "that page". Explicitly which page, please? tnx --Kevjonesin (talk) 15:55, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
Right, sorry, the red triangle is indeed intended to startle a little bit, and that's why I'm mystified when I see that there are apparently some editors who not only are not startled by it, but seem to miss it entirely. Edit the page Wikipedia:Requested moves – the entire page, not a section of it. Now do you see the notice? Wbm1058 (talk) 16:03, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
Wbm1058, temporarily adding move requested page to watchlist sounds like a good idea. Thanks, I'll do that if I bring another request in the future. As to whether I think users should get a notice if their request's status/category gets changed ... I'm not sure about 'should' (as in it being a requirement) but it certainly would be a courtesy and aid ease-of-discovery and such. Creating such a notice is beyond my present experience. Is such particularly involved/difficult to implement? I presume it would involve editing multiple templates?
As to ...

"Edit the page Wikipedia:Requested moves – the entire page, not a section of it. Now do you see the notice?"

... oh yeah, I see it there. But that's not one of the targets I was proposing. Hmm, in fact adding the links I proposed may well help steer people away from going there. And even if they edit the transcluded page directly (with the proper copy/paste template) it will still display the same as if the section edit link had been used, right?
[I think I'm remembering dealing with something sorta' similar when I was helping out at the Graphics Lab. Somehow had prominently linked to the proper section editing interface for user image editing requests. Oh yeah, we (I?) made a 'big red button' targeting such. Transcluded templates are in the mix there as well come to think of it. I've not messed with such in awhile. I'll go look at the Photography Lab and snoop the code. It's sounding like something less subtle than I was originally imagining may be useful here at WP:RM.]
--Kevjonesin (talk) 16:25, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Section 'request buttons'

I found the Photography workshop's—now green—button ... as on page ... and source code

== <center>'''Photography workshop user requests'''</center> ==

<center><span style="font-size:1.2em">''Submit a new request by pressing this button:''</span> [[File:Perspective-Button-Go-icon.png|48px|link=http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Graphics%20Lab/Photography%20workshop&editintro=Wikipedia:Graphics%20Lab/Resources/Photography_Advice&preload=Template:Graphics%20Lab/new%20request/preload&action=edit&section=new&create=New%20request]]</center>

<!-- --------- requests start from below here -------------------- -->

Seems like it can probably be adapted. Suggestions on how to tweak the targeting for use here on WP:RM would be welcome. --Kevjonesin (talk) 18:32, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

p.s.— For now I think I'll go ahead and implement 'plan A', section wikilinks, as discussed previously. Button is 'mission creep' but seems well worthwhile if some folks are using the full page 'edit source' option instead of going to the (sub)sections as directed. --Kevjonesin (talk) 18:41, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Further examples (from image link code above):

--Kevjonesin (talk) 22:52, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

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