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A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion

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Requested move 25 September 2022

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The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Not moved. When this was originally closed !votes, by my count, were 10–23 (30% support). Since reopening, another eleven opposes checked in, against no more supports, so now there is just 23% support. Among administrators, I see two supports vs. four opposes. But, of course consensus is ascertained by the quality of the arguments given on the various sides of an issue, as viewed through the lens of Wikipedia policy, and not just by considering the preferences of the participants in a given discussion, but also by evaluating their arguments, assigning due weight accordingly, and giving due consideration to the relevant consensus of the Wikipedia community in general as reflected in applicable policy, guidelines and naming conventions. The article titles policy specifies five criteria, which should be seen as goals, not as rules. The arguments in support are primarily based on the Concision criterion (indeed omitting "state" from these titles makes them more consise) and the related Precision criterion. The topical scope of the article seems unambiguously defined without "state" – a state funeral is a funeral, and these articles cover private ceremonies as well, albeit to a lesser extent than the public ceremonies. However exceptions to the precision criterion may sometimes result from the application of some other naming criteria, i.e. naming conventions.

Consistency was barely mentioned in the discussion, but is the reason we have such a large multi-move request, with 40 pages requested for move. Just moving a subset of these articles would introduce inconsistency in article titling. I see that these were listed in alphabetical order, which explains why this discussion is on the talk page of a person whose name begins with "A". Some here may have missed that a recent high-profile state funeral is included in this discussion, and its talk page was notified. However that notice has already been archived! Ideally this high-profile article should have been made "primary topic" for this discussion, and listed at the top, with the others listed below it in alpha order. I commend the nominator for her thoroughness, but she missed at least one: Death and two state funerals of Kalākaua (a more thorough search might find another). That makes this proposal go against the consistency criterion. As it may be necessary to favor one or more of these goals over the others, the consensus here is to favor consistency over concision and precision.

The community has a de facto naming convention here. There seems to have been a "silent consensus", prior to this requested move, that the distinction between state and ceremonial funerals is sufficiently important to merit inclusion of "state" in article titles. To borrow a term used in Wikipedia categorization, "state" is a "defining" concept for the purpose of article titles (whereas location of the funeral is not). Currently, in "Wiki-lawyer terms" this de facto consensus is just "case law". It isn't encoded in Wikipedia:Naming conventions (events). We have Wikipedia:Naming conventions (violence and deaths) which was derived from significant discussions, but that's not directly relevant to funerals. A discussion to more formally encode or change this convention could be started at WT:Naming conventions (events).

Finally, I note that one editor is, prior to my closing this, responsible for 62% of the text on this page. Please consider that such "domination of the speaker's platform" in future requested move discussions may be considered a civility violation. At least keep it under half, preferably much under half. – wbm1058 (talk) 17:55, 8 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

– the word "state" is redundant detail, because it is not needed for disambiguation.
Per WP:PRECISE: "titles should unambiguously define the topical scope of the article, but should be no more precise than that" ... and in all of these cases "Death and funeral of Foo" is sufficiently precise. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:10, 25 September 2022 (UTC) — Relisting. UtherSRG (talk) 10:50, 5 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose - State funerals are only for heads of state, and should be so named. And they are officially referred to as state funerals when covered by the media. Who is Wikipedia to decide that they know better that the world media, and government protocols, about how they name their funerals? — Maile (talk) 01:09, 25 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Also note State funerals in the United States and Category:State funerals by country (etc.) there would have to be a whole lot of renaming of related categories and articles, just for consistency. — Maile (talk) 01:49, 25 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Maile66: I see no need to rename such set categories just because the attribute is no longer in the title. Most article are categorised by multiple attributes which are not included in the title. For example, Queen Elizabeth II died in September 2022 and her funeral was in London, but "September 2022 in London" is nor part of the title.
It seems that you may have misunderstood this proposal. It is not a plan to somehow pretend that these state funerals are not state funerals; it just a proposal to follow the conciseness principle of the naming policy WP:AT by removing a word which is not needed to identify the article.
As to your comment about government protocols, following them is contrary to policy. The actual policy is to use WP:COMMONNAME, which may or may not be the official name.
As to usage, I see no evidence to support your assumption that reliable sources predominantly use the term "state funeral" rather than "funeral".
I just checked JSTOR, which concentrates reliable sources:
  • "funeral of Winston Churchill": 21 hits
    • "state funeral of Winston Churchill": 2 hits
  • "funeral of Ronald Reagan": 9 hits
    • "state funeral of Ronald Reagan": 1 hits
BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 02:09, 25 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Maile66: your assertion that State funerals are only for heads of state is false. It does not apply to the United States, to Ireland, the UK, or to Australia. Please will you strike it? BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:40, 6 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose State funerals are state funerals. For some leaders, a state funeral is followed by a private burial. The difference between the two must be noted so there is no confusion. Thriley (talk) 01:26, 25 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @Thriley: I am not aware of any case where a Wikipedia article on the "Death and state funeral of Foo" is accompanied by another article on the same person with the title e.g. ""Private funeral of Foo". If I have missed some, please can you post some examples. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:48, 25 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    BrownHairedGirl QE2 had a public funeral service followed by a private burial service.1. This is not uncommon for heads of state of any nation to have a public service followed by a private service. I don't know if there are separate Wikipedia articles on the private services, but for heads of state it's normal to have both. — Maile (talk) 02:15, 25 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @Maile66 the article Death and state funeral of Elizabeth II includes the state funeral, the Committal service and the interment.
    Using the term "state funeral" in the title is not just un-needed precision; it is worse than that, because it misleadingly implies that the article does not go beyond the state funeral. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 03:07, 25 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Assuming this is a valid argument, I fail to see how removing 'state' improves anything. By your argument, it would still 'misleadingly [imply] that the article does not go beyond the funeral.' H. Carver (talk) 03:10, 25 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @H. Carver: removing redundant verbiage from article titles is policy: see WP:PRECISE. If you don't see how that is an improvement, then go start an RFC to change the policy.
    And you miss my point, which is that the greater specificity does not help. It does not help identify the topic, it does not resolve ambiguity, and it does not reflect common usage in scholarly sources. So no positives; and the downside is that it may mislead about the scope, because while the word "funeral" may or may not be read to exclude the burial service, @Thriley insists that "state funeral" does not include the burial service. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 03:19, 25 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I think Maile66's citation of the QE2 example demonstrates exactly why the proposed move is appropriate. The article title Death and state funeral of Elizabeth II is misdescriptive due to the inclusion of the "state" qualifier: the article covers not only the death and the "state" funeral (as indicated by the title), but the semi-private (limited to 800 guests) committal service and the private interment service. Both of these would be expected to have coverage in the death-and-funeral article -- and neither of them are part of the state funeral as the title misleadingly suggests. TJRC (talk) 19:55, 25 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Neutral leaning Oppose - While it is true that "death and funeral" is easier to absorb for an everyday person, I feel we should not compromise the true meaning of separating the difference between "state funeral" and a conventional funeral. Per some other points provided above for the opposes, I feel that we should keep "state funeral" in the names of these heads of state. Qwertyxp2000 (talk | contribs) 01:30, 25 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @Qwertyxp2000: that difference should be conveyed in the text of article. What part of policy do you believe supports keeping the word in the title? BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 02:13, 25 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - Per WP:PRECISE: "titles should unambiguously define the topical scope of the article, but should be no more precise than that", 'state funeral' unambiguously defines the topic scope. Removing the word 'state' no longer precisely defines the article by these standards. It is misleading to suggest that, to take a fatuous example, 'Death and funeral of my gran' is be functionally equivalent to 'Death and [state] funeral of ...'. There is a level to state funerals that goes far above a simple funeral, and it would be wrong - and imprecise - to conflate these in article names. This is why the addition of the word 'state' where appropriate unambiguously defines the article. H. Carver (talk) 02:31, 25 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @H. Carver: please can you identify the article(s) nominated where removal of the word "state" would cause ambiguity with some other article. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 02:47, 25 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @BrownHairedGirl I have said all I have to say in the comment above. H. Carver (talk) 03:00, 25 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    OK, that's up to you.
    But that leaves with no editor having identified any of article(s) nominated where removal of the word "state" would cause ambiguity, or otherwise make the articles hard to find or identify. I fact, I don't see any policy-based arguments for retaining the word "state". BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 03:11, 25 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    You are, I think, being needlessly pedantic. You appear to be arguing that because there isn't a Dave Jones (to use a stand-in name for any and all actual examples) who has had a funeral, his article doesn't need to say he had a state funeral. You are therefore arguing on a per-person record.
    I, on the other hand, am arguing on a per-category record; that the distinction between 'funeral' and 'state funeral' is important enough that it should be noted. This argument is on a level removed from an individual person; it doesn't matter to me if there is another Dave Jones who has had a funeral. This is why I won't - indeed, can't - respond to your request to identify specific articles. Your framing is overly specific and I refute it. H. Carver (talk) 03:22, 25 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @H. Carver: on the contrary, this is very simple: I am arguing per policy, and you are not.
    No part of article policy supports your desire to use article titles to convey a "category distinction".
    It would be very helpful if before contributing further, you would take time to actually study the policy WP:AT, especially WP:CRITERIA. The closer is obliged to discount arguments which are not founded in policy, so all your non-policy ideas are simply a waste of your time and everyone else's time. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 03:36, 25 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I was under the impression that we were both arguing over a policy, and our difference was in the interpretation of said policy.
    However, I will post a response to my original comment later with references to specific policy documents. I wouldn't want to risk my vote being discounted.
    I feel I must also note that - and I accept you may not realise or intend it - some of your responses here come across as unnecessarily antagonistic. You have replied to a lot of 'oppose' votes to essentially tell people they're wrong. If your argument is so strong and the oppose arguments so weak - why? You could simply keep quiet and trust the eventual closer. I don't think it was appropriate for you to say my comment was 'a waste of time' and effectively address the eventual closer to ignore it. Nor do I think you needed to state "I'm arguing [properly] and you're not". There are kinder ways to say "Can you please support your arguments by referring to specific policies" H. Carver (talk) 16:00, 25 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    H. Carver, you made a series of post which had absolutely no foundation in Wikipedia policy. You accused me of being needlessly pedantic and of arguing on a per-person record
    Both those claims are false and hostile. When you choose to conduct yourself like that, don't complain that the response you get is blunt. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:21, 25 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't want speak where I'm not wanted, but since both you and @H. Carver have established that you want a friendly discussion why not set any insults in previous comments aside and be cordial going forward? It's only Wikipedia, after all A.D.Hope (talk) 16:51, 25 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @A.D.Hope: if H. Carver chooses to conduct themselves with proper civility, by basing their comments on policy and refraining from their ad hominems, then I will be very happy to have a friendly discussion.
    However, ignoring policy is uncivil and disruptive. Attacking other editors as pedantic for upholding policy is very nasty; in my view it is WP:NOTHERE conduct. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:11, 25 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    All I'm saying is that, if each of you thinks the other has been insulting, but you both want a friendly discussion, the easiest thing might be to just forget the previous comments move on civilly. Anyway, this isn't my discussion so I'm going to keep quiet now! A.D.Hope (talk) 17:14, 25 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I apologise for the first comment, I didn't intend that to be hostile but I accept it was poorly worded. I'm baffled as to the issue with the second comment, however, and don't understand how that caused offence. H. Carver (talk) 17:07, 25 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose, on the basis that state funerals are (generally) considered to be a special, quite small subset of funerals (such as described in the article State funeral), so only a small subset would apply to articles pertaining to particular individuals, such as the list of people that are the subject of this requested move. Having made myself familiar with the policy under WP:PRECISE, and noting that this discussion appears to be currently @BrownHairedGirl vs. the world over following the policy to the letter, there should be consideration of the first word of the section on Precision, which is "Usually". This discussion could be a case of applying the WP:NAMINGCRITERIA more aligned with WP:COMMONNAME. The example given of using Bothell, Washington instead of Bothell, where adding the state name is in deference to common name not disambiguation, appears to be pertinent in this case. Matilda Maniac (talk) 06:01, 25 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @Matilda Maniac: I agree that we should use the COMMONNAME. However, neither you nor anyone else in this discussion has even attempted to provide any evidence that the COMMONNAME includes "state".
    OTOH, see evidence I posted above from JSTOR that in the case of Ronald Reagan and Winston Churchill, the COMMONAME does not include "state". BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 10:40, 25 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per the above arguments that have been made about the conventions of state funerals. Originoa (talk) 07:25, 25 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose, it is more often than not the "state" character of the funeral that makes the funeral notable. Removingfrom the article article the word that is most clearly linked to its relevance can not be a clever move. Dentren | Talk 09:48, 25 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support, the extra word is largely redundant and AFAIK the final 'private' ceremonies and/or burial are ordinarily covered briefly by us as well - though by their very nature - the final ceremonies are private, largely unreported, wholly un-broadcast and adequately covered by a sentence or two to outline how the person's body was finally dealt with and final farewells said by those closest to the individual in their private life. It is obvious that the title primarily refers to the public (State) event iro figures such as QEII, Churchill, Mandela etc. so no useful purpose is served by the - at best, marginally - more precise title. Yes it is true that a state funeral is - in most countries - a rare honour, but there is no necessity for the title to record that. Pincrete (talk) 11:01, 25 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support. The guidance at WP:PRECISE is clear and there's virtually no risk of ambiguity. Elizabeth II, for example, did not have a state and a none-state funeral, and I imagine this is true of everyone in the list above. A.D.Hope (talk) 11:15, 25 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support as the proposed titles appear sufficiently clear and precise in the absence of separate articles dedicated to the private funerals. If anything, the current titles are overly precise for cases where the private funeral activites are also covered by the articles. -Ljleppan (talk) 11:20, 25 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong oppose and speedy close Seriously?????? I’ve seen some ridiculous move, delete and merge requests since the Queen sadly passed but this one takes the biscuit. Others have put the reasons why across better than I will but it’s as simple as this. This was a state funeral fact and that should clearly be reflected in the article title
Davethorp (talk) 12:40, 25 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Another passionate oppose without even a hint of an attempt to find any basis in the policy WP:AT. Similarly, the "speedy close" request has no basis in WP:CSK.
What is it about state funerals that generates such policy-free passion? BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 12:50, 25 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The fact that you are even asking this questions shows that Usually, such a policy should apply, but in some cases arguments in addition to policy are relevant considerations. Matilda Maniac (talk) 22:44, 25 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Matilda Maniac: arguments in addition to policy can by definition by made only if the presenter is aware that they are outside policy, and can make a case as to why policy is inadequate to an exceptional situation.
That has not been the case here, where a flurry of editors have made !votes whilst demonstrating complete ignorance of the principles by which articles are named. These are in fact "arguments in place of policy", and in practice most of them are "arguments in flagrant defiance of policy". BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:22, 25 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The process here, where the move requester rapidly replies to posts that Oppose with statements implying ignorance, or now flagrant defiance, or to only address policy, rather than at least waiting 48 hours to see what views are out there, in my opinion is a process that is far from helpful, as it will discourage debate. You are passionate about policy, whereas others appear to be passionate about content, and thats fine; but you are coming across as wielding a large weapon to immediately shoot down views contrarian to you own, instead of perhaps reading and absorbing. I wonder if the note to Closer that you generated before any of the debate was started - implying the implications after a particular outcome - has also unconsciously biased the debate. A cycle of Oppose / Shoot / Oppose / Shoot / Support / Support / Oppose / Shoot, with comments such as . . . all your non-policy ideas are simply a waste of your time and everyone else's time is far from constructive debate from such a senior editor. Matilda Maniac (talk) 00:13, 26 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Matilda Maniac: ideally, all editors would uphold decent standards, and there would be no need to remind them that arguments not based in policy carry no weight. Sadly, that is not the case here, which is why I have been trying to point editors towards constructive debate, i.e. debate founded in policy.
I find it bizarre and Kafka-esque that you claim that is somehow not constructive to ask editors to avoid cluttering the page with argument which ignore policy, and even more bizarre that you did so while making no reproach to those who ignore policy. Whatever your intent, the effect of your partisan criticism is encourage editors to ignore policy, which is very undesirable.
Attacking any editor for demanding attention to policy is disruptive conduct, which I find deeply insulting. Please desist. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:30, 26 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I will desist immediately; my comments on the Requested Move are as above. I am not attacking any editor. I am pointing out that it is the behaviour or conduct of the debate, not the quality of arguments on policy, that i find disappointing. Matilda Maniac (talk) 00:42, 26 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Not so.
You made it very clear that you have absolutely no objection at all to the misconduct of editors who disrupt debate by ignore policy.
Instead you attacked me for asking editors to focus on policy, and for reminding them that the closer is obliged to disregard arguments not based on policy. A retraction would have been nice, but thank you for agreeing to desist. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:48, 26 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Given your conduct in this matter section 2 of WP:CSK applies
WP:IAR also applies in this case and by extension WP:SNOW in support of a speedy close Davethorp (talk) 16:00, 28 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose arguments to move away from the current practice are not convincing and subjects are properly and commonly referred to as state funerals. I also feel obliged to point out that more than half of the proposed titles are redlinks - if nobody has even deemed it necessary or worthwhile to create redirects at those locations I fail to see how they would be more appropriate titles for the pages in question now. Given the scale of the changes proposed, I also feel this is the wrong venue for this discussion. While Rafsanjani was an important figure, the proposed changes affect a number of far more high-profile articles including Death and state funeral of Elizabeth II which has been dominating the news recently so it feels like the discussion is tucked away in a quiet corner. Perhaps an RfC would be more appropriate? 2A02:C7F:2CE3:4700:2191:AF83:6F3A:9ACF (talk) 20:58, 29 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - I don't really get the point of doing all those changes for all those pages. If anything , that is what will be redundant. No real issue in need of changing here.

— That Coptic Guy (talk) 01:27, 2 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Note: WikiProject Death has been notified of this discussion. UtherSRG (talk) 10:50, 5 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Note: Wikiproject for all of the countries associated with these state funerals have been notified of this discussion. UtherSRG (talk) 11:13, 5 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per the other comments about the clear difference in meaning between "state funeral" and just "funeral"
JaggedHamster (talk) 11:29, 5 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
These articles cover the protracted afairs that are clearly not just funerals—blindlynx 16:16, 5 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
So not actually different, then. Same core, but a bit broader. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:55, 5 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
A state funeral is specfically a wider public event involving a funeral [3]—blindlynx 18:19, 5 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
But still a funeral: the observances held for a dead person usually before burial or cremation. More grand, but not a different thing. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:37, 5 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I fail to see how the criteria of being grand public event organized by a state does not make it diffrent—blindlynx 19:57, 5 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
i see no reason to engage with you and be the subject of WP:BLUDGEON. Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 18:14, 5 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
It's a reasonable question, asked concisely and politely. If you choose not explain where the ambiguity lies, the closer will have to weigh that omission. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:35, 5 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - A state funeral is a markedly distinct and notable event; including that fact in the title is appropriate. If it were no different to 'normal' funerary ritual, why do we have a fairly lengthy standalone article on the topic? Adding one little five letter adjective is not larding the title with excess words, and the benefit in clarity and specificity to the reader greatly outweighs any extremely slight increase in title length. Pyrope 22:43, 5 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - for the reasons already stated above. A state funeral is markedly different from any other funeral, for example, it is organised by the state, not by the deceased's family. Kiwipete (talk) 04:29, 6 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per pretty much everyone above, including Kiwipete and Pyrope. A funeral and a state funeral are not the same thing and reducing accuracy to save six characters is not what WP:PRECISE or WP:CONCISE are about. Thryduulf (talk) 08:15, 6 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Given the rarity and import of a state funeral compared to the commonality of a regular funeral, I have no comprehension on why such changes are necessary. Nfitz (talk) 14:59, 6 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. A funeral and a state funeral are very much not the same thing. For one thing, most of these wouldn't even have their own articles at all if they hadn't been state funerals, because a private funeral would not have been a noteworthy historic or WP:GNG-passing event in the first place — and for another, sometimes people actually have both a state funeral for the public and a separate private funeral for the family and close friends. Bearcat (talk) 16:44, 6 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @Bearcat: on the contrary, most of these deaths would have been highly notable because of the death of that person was of itself a highly notable event, regardless of the nature of the funeral. There was no state funeral for Margaret Thatcher or Mikhail Gorbachev or the British Queen Mother or Coretta Scott King or Helmut Kohl, but in all cases their deaths fly past GNG. State funerals are held for people whose deaths are even more significant than those deaths, and the lack of a state ceremony would not have pushed Reagan or QEII or Rafsanjani into non-notable territory.
    You are right to mention that some people have both a state funeral for the public and a separate private funeral. However, that correct observation is actually a reason to not include the word "state", because any article which covers both state funeral and a separate private funeral is clearly mislabelled if it uses only the term "state funeral". I am not aware of any article on this list where we have split out the private funeral to a separate article. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:22, 6 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
While I suppose there may be occasional exceptions, the overwhelming majority of the time the private funeral wouldn't even be an article topic at all, because a genuinely private funeral usually wouldn't be a topic of any significant coverage — Thatcher may not have had a state funeral in the official sense, but her funeral most certainly still had a public component that made it something different from a genuinely private funeral. (Canada, too, has had "national funerals" for a selection of people who weren't eligible for a state funeral on political grounds, but were still deemed culturally or socially important enough for something resembling a state funeral to take place anyway — but absolutely none of those actually have their own articles as separate topics from the person's life and work.) And the fact that non-state funerals can still be public events sometimes is precisely a reason to maintain the distinction in article titles: if "state funerals" are always notable, whereas "non-state funerals" can sometimes be notable public events and sometimes non-notable private ones, then it's important to uphold the distinction for clarity. Bearcat (talk) 21:37, 6 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Bearcat: So, it seems that your view is that
  1. a state funeral should be explicitly labelled as such because they are very different from other funerals
  2. a state funeral should be explicitly labelled as such because they are not very different from a "ceremonial funeral" (UK) or a "national funeral" Canada.
Please can you explain which of these incompatible views you actually hold?
Also please can you identify the part of WP:CRITERIA (or any other part of the policy WP:AT) which supports any of this? BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:52, 6 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
After you identify where I ever said anything like #2 Bearcat (talk) 21:53, 6 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, I'm not playing that game. It's there in your comments about Thatcher, but since you can't or won't acknowledge having written that, continued discussion is clearly futile.
Have a nice day. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:10, 6 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I'm not playing the "I take ownership of your strawman or else the communication breakdown is my fault" game either. So here's a summary of what I actually said about Thatcher in my above comments: there are three different kinds of funerals that a famous person may have upon their death. (1) State funeral = always notable without exception. (2) Non-state but still public (e.g. "ceremonial" or "national") funeral = sometimes notable and sometimes not notable, depending on circumstances such as the depth of coverage that it does or doesn't have, but even if standalone notability can be established it's still something very different than either a state funeral or a private funeral. (3) Genuinely private funeral = almost never notable at all. That doesn't resemble what you claimed in #2 at all: it in no way implies that a "state funeral" is somehow "not" different from a "non-state funeral", and I have no responsibility to take ownership of any suggestion to the contrary. Bearcat (talk) 22:16, 6 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Bearcat: So, your refined assertion is that is that there are actually three types of funeral:
1) State, always notable; 2) public, sometimes notable; 3) private, almost never notable.
I don't agree at all with #1: the vast majority of state funerals do not have an standalone article on Wikipedia. For example, List of Irish state funerals has fifty entries, but only two with a standalone article, neither of which has a title including the term "funeral", let alone "state funeral". In the last 50 years, there have been 13 state funerals in Canada, of which only two have a standalone article. We could examine more countries, but it's already clear that Bearcat's extreme assertion that State funeral = always notable without exception is at best a wildly counterfactual overstatement.
But let's leave the counterfactuality aside for a moment. Please can you identify the part of WP:CRITERIA (or any other part of the policy WP:AT) on which you base your claim that this supports having a title of "state funeral" rather than "funeral"?
(Note that the notion of including a term in the title because it is a key factor in notability is not part of the WP:CRITERIA; in fact the word "notability" is mentioned nowhere in the policy WP:AT) BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:10, 6 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Firstly, not "refined", but "exactly the very G.D. thing I said from the very G.D. beginning".
Secondly, notability is not determined by what already has articles — what already has articles and what could have articles if anybody deigned to write them can be two different sets. In Canada, for example, the two state funerals that have articles are the two state funerals that took place as current events while Wikipedia existed in order to be "easy writeups from current news readily scrapable from the web" — it's not that the past ones aren't notable in principle, it's that nobody's actually taken on the job of digging into the archives to find the sourcing needed to write them, which isn't the same thing as non-notability in the least.
Thirdly, no part of either WP:CRITERIA or WP:AT militates against "state funeral" in the title of an article about a state funeral — so the onus is on you to demonstrate that the existing titles are in any conflict with CRITERIA or AT, not on me to have to defend titles that haven't been demonstrated as problematic in the first place.
Fourthly, nobody ever said that notability was relevant to what should or shouldn't be in the title — but notability is a factor in whether a topic even gets an article (and by extension a title) at all. Bearcat (talk) 23:22, 6 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Oh dear oh dear. It would have helped in Bercat had read my nomination, which explains very clearly why the existing titles are in any conflict with WP:CRITERIA:
titles should unambiguously define the topical scope of the article, but should be no more precise than that ... and in all of these cases "Death and funeral of Foo" is sufficiently precise.
Nobody has identified any way in which removing the word "state" creates ambiguity. And nobody has denied that "state funeral" is more precise.
So I am asking Bearcat to explain what part of the policy supports their desire to retain the word "state". BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:33, 6 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
And I'm asking you to explain why, out of the literally dozens of people who've expressed opposition to your proposal, you opted to single me out as if I were somehow uniquely deserving of a troutslap. And this is not the first time you've opted to single me out for special criticism as if I were some special kind of stupid who needed some special kind of badgering reeducation, either — so I really think I deserve to know why you go straight to "attack Bearcat while leaving other people who agree with him alone" every damn time we find ourselves on the opposite side of anything.
A "state funeral" and a "non-state funeral" are objectively two different types of thing. One type of thing is always notable enough for an article even if that article doesn't already exist yet, and the other type of thing may sometimes be notable enough for an article and sometimes not. It's really that simple, and I don't need to keep arguing the same point over and over again. Bearcat (talk) 23:45, 6 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Bearcat: Sigh. If I reply to many people, I get accused of bludegeoning. So I am selective.
I chose to reply to you because your !vote seems to contain novel rationales which don't seem to me to be founded in policy, and which seem to me to use poor logic. So I tried to engage you in civil debate: I did not in any way attack you or troutslap you, and I strongly object to those utterly false claims. I hope that you will retract them.
Your latest reply affirms that you can identify no policy basis for your !vote, and that you prefer to complain about the apparently outrageous fact that someone has politely asked you to explain your rationale, and politely challenged your replies. That's what rational debate looks like. Complain if you like, but the policy basis is what matters at WP:RM.
And you close with a more extreme assertion than you have made so far: a b"state funeral" and a "non-state funeral" are objectively two different types of thing. That assertion is demonstrably false: if they were different types of thing, they would probably not share the common core of a funeral. The reality is that they are two variations of the same type of thing, namely a ceremony connected with the final disposition of a corpse, such as a burial or cremation, with the attendant observances.
Consider the distinction between a state funeral such as that of Reagan versus non-state funeral such as that of Thatcher or Gorbahev or MLK. It's a much much smaller distinction that between the funeral of Thatcher and yer average citizen. You desire to use "state" as a type-distinguisher places the boundary between the very similar things, which is the wrong place.
There is also a huge variation between countries in the nature of a state funeral. For example, the state funerals of former Taoisigh [[Garret FitzGerald] and Albert Reynolds were vastly less elaborate than the non-state funeral Margaret Thatcher. So the word "state" is a very poor guide to the scale of the event, as well as being unnecessarily WP:PRECISE. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:29, 7 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Firstly, I don't do "novel" reasoning — you're free to agree or disagree with my reasoning, but you're not free to claim that my reasoning is inherently invalid or "novel". Policy doesn't back you up either, so claiming that it doesn't back me up simply isn't a useful mic drop — policy has nothing to say about this in either direction, so all we're left with is discussing opinions, so I'm entitled to offer my opinion without having to put up with a constant jackhammering of endless ping-ping-ping-ping-ping-ping-ping-ping-ping-ping-ping-ping-ping-ping-ping-ping-ping-ping-ping-ping-ping of neverending criticism.
So, you say, if they were different types of thing, they would probably not share the common core of a funeral. Great, but what they don't share is the common element of lying in state. That's central to the definition of a state funeral, and not central to the definition of a ceremonial-but-non-state funeral. A state funeral in Canada, for example, always includes a period when the coffin lays in the Centre Block of Parliament Hill (either in the Hall of Honour or in the Senate Chamber), while a non-state funeral does not, which in and of itself makes a state funeral logistically and historically and notability-wise a very different thing than even an elaborate ceremonial but not-state funeral. Bearcat (talk) 05:12, 7 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Oh dear. @Bearcat is again reacting angrily to something I did not write. I did not claim that Beracat's reasoning is inherently invalid; I merely noted that it was novel, and I did so because it advanced claims which which I had not seen before.
As to policy, your assertion that policy has nothing to say about this in either direction is false. Policy at WP:CRITERIA is clear that un-necessary precision is to be avoided. In this case the addition of the word state does not remove any ambiguity, nor does it widen the scope.
Your assertion that the element which non-state funerals don't share is the common element of lying in state is also false; once again, the reality is much more varied than the simple absolutes which you like to assert in many discussions.
Three crucial points here:
  1. not all state funerals include a lying in state. For example, most Irish state funerals do not include that phase; Lying in state is only organised for a sitting Taoiseach or President, and such funerals account for only 4% of Irish state funerals.
  2. lying-in-state is not the exclusive preserve of state funerals: in the USA, for example, there was a lying-in-state for each of John McCain, Daniel Inouye and Bob Dole, none of whom received a state funeral. In fact, AFAICS from State funerals in the United States#List_of_lying_in_state_and_honor_recipients, of the last five people to like in state in the US Capitol, only one received a state funeral.
  3. a lying in state is not an event unique to funerals: as noted and sourced in the lead of the article lying in state, "It is a more formal and public kind of wake or viewing"
So the distinction is of status, not of type. A state funeral is a posh funeral, and a lying in state is a posh wake. So the word "state" is not needed to remove ambiguity, and it is not needed for scope ... and adding a word to a title to denote status is not part of policy.
Note too that all the facts I have asserted above were also readily available to Bearcat, if he had chosen to check before making assertions. But Bearcat prefers to make rigid, no-exception assertions, with bolding and italicisation, and reacts with indignant hostility to evidence which disproves his neat absolutes. I expect another round of angry indignation for daring to demonstrate the falsity of yet more of Bearcat's unresearched absolutes. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 09:25, 7 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
This feels unnecessarily aggressive, I think it would be worth revising this to include your disagreements with Bearcat's points without the broader attacks on Bearcat themself, particularly given the editing restriction at WP:EDRC "Should BrownHairedGirl behave uncivilly or make personal attacks, she may be blocked first for twelve hours and then for a duration at the discretion of the blocking administrator." JaggedHamster (talk) 10:32, 7 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Why does it not surprise me that she’s been warned about her conduct previously Davethorp (talk) 11:49, 7 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
BrownHairedGirl, I see by your user page that you live in Ireland, so maybe you were not aware that State Funerals in the US are generallly on a Federal level, and always for an elected official or a highly appointed office holder/official, such as Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. You mention above that Coretta Scott King never had a state funeral. Neither she not her husband MLK had held elective or appointed government office. No matter how loved they were, they were not eligile. — Maile (talk) 23:29, 6 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Maile66: actually, I was aware of that criterion. I just don't see how it has any relevance whatsoever to this discussion about article titles, and I still don't see any relevance. The only fact that I see as relevant is that CSK was one of many people whose funeral was notable despite not being a state funeral. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:37, 6 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - I support Pyrope's & Bearcat's comment above. GeographicAccountant (talk) 17:07, 6 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Why in the name of Larry Sanger was this relisted yesterday?, has anyone seen so much Snow at a state funeral? Randy Kryn (talk) 20:58, 6 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Because I messed up as the closer, so I reopened it and relisted it. UtherSRG (talk) 23:39, 6 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Makes perfect sense of course UtherSRG, thanks for explaining. This has been an interesting discussion, so it's actually better that it continue. Keeping the 'State' just seems common sense to me, and remember WP:COMMON is above all rules, WP:IAR, so I haven't really taken the other viewpoint in enough to make a mental map and understand it. My apologies if it read kind of direct, but since I didn't assume total good faith and made more of a flippant comment, I didn't seek out the backstory. My passive aggressive apologies. On the very positive end, writing that has made me consider Larry Sanger, and I realized that if you remove Larry Sanger from his work in the founding and policy making positions of the encyclopedia, you'd have a very different Wikipedia. It would not be the same thing. I'm not conversational enough in it to give an apt descriptor, but I know that the history of key foundational Wikipedia events and pioneers contains Larry Sanger's wisdom, attention, and direction. Sanger still has energy and drive enough to criticize Wikipedia, so it'd be really nice if he got some of that off his chest and came back as a regular editor, or at least joined some discussions. Randy Kryn (talk) 03:10, 7 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Not sure you messed up. At least as far as this one goes. Yes you could have detailed your reasoning more but you made the right decision. Precisely one person took issue with this close on your talk page and no prizes for guessing who that was Davethorp (talk) 19:29, 7 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Didn't mess up at all, the original close of "no move" makes even more sense now. I had somehow missed that a close had been made and retracted, and thought it was a straight relisting. Randy Kryn (talk) 21:34, 7 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
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.
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