Talk:1933 German League of Nations withdrawal referendum

Citation style

While I have some books out of the library, I am planning to expand this article. From working on 1934 German referendum, it appears that {{sfn}}s would be the easiest citation style to use on this page. Thoughts and/or objections? HouseBlaster^talk 06:40, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

Requested move 23 February 2024

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: moved. Moved as to all, with the caveat that the 1929 referendum will be titled 1929 German Young Plan referendum. Whether any of these should be merged into separate topics is for a separate discussion. BD2412 T 15:45, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

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• 1933 German referendum → 1933 German League of Nations withdrawal referendum
• 1926 German referendum → 1926 German property expropriation referendum
• 1929 German referendum → 1929 German Freedom Law referendum
• 1934 German referendum → 1934 German head of state referendum

– WP:NC-GAL, the naming guideline for referendums, sets out the naming format for referendums as being [date] [country name or adjectival form] [type] referendum", for example 1946 Faroese independence referendum, though it is worth pointing out some referendum articles do not have the [type] added, because it is too complex to explain in a few words or the referendums cover multiple topics. However, I do not think this is the case for these four articles (particularly not the first two listed)

I had assumed the move of this article would be uncontroversial given the naming convention (and made it a short time ago), but it was was reverted because it made the article title inconsistent with others, so now using the formal RM process.

I think the proposed titles of the 1933 and 1926 articles should be uncontroversial and in line with the naming guideline. I am not 100% convinced that there are not better alternatives for the 1929 and 1934 articles, which I am happy for alternatives to be suggested or simply to keep them at the existing titles if they are deemed to awkward. However, I felt that given the move of this article was reverted because the other articles hadn't been moved, it would be best to cover this in a single discussion, even if it is a little messy, so it might be best for responders to indicate whether they approve of all or merely some of the proposals (or none). Cheers, Number 57 17:08, 23 February 2024 (UTC) — Relisting.  — Amakuru (talk) 16:27, 4 March 2024 (UTC) — Relisting. JML1148 ^{(talk | contribs)} 10:06, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

It seems good to move these to more descriptive titles, but I think WP should make some effort to identify common names (I find it hard to believe that these don't exist). For 1926, the term "princes" should really be included, but I don't know how that would be achieved. For 1929 Volksentscheid gegen den Young-Plan "referendum against the Young Plan" is used by several of the citations in the article and seems clearer than "1929 German Freedom Law," which is also potentially pov. It doesn't follow the naming guideline, but a common name would trump a topic-specific guideline. 1933 and 1934 seem fine. Furius (talk) 21:52, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps the 1926 one could be expanded to 1926 German royal property expropriation referendum? The 1929 one could be simply 1929 German Young Plan referendum (which would bring it in line with 1977 South West African Turnhalle Plan referendum or 2004 Cypriot Annan Plan referendums). Cheers, Number 57 01:46, 24 February 2024 (UTC)

@Furius: Did you have a view on these alternatives? Cheers, Number 57 08:45, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

For 1926, I would have "princely" rather than royal, since most prince's weren't ever kings. 1929 is good indeed. Furius (talk) 11:26, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

@Furius: Princes are still royalty and not all the rulers being dispossessed were princes – some were kings (like Ludwig III of Bavaria) and others were dukes. As a result I think "princely" would be misleading (as well as being quite an awkward word to use). Number 57 14:43, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

In a German context, "prince" (Fürst) refers to any German sovereign regardless of title. "Royal" would refer only to that minority with the title of king. Cf. the main article on this event on WP Expropriation of the Princes in the Weimar Republic. Furius (talk) 19:36, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

This isn't German Wikipedia though, and I doubt most English-speaking readers will be familiar with the nuances. And I also disagree that "royal" refers onto to kings. Princes are royalty too. Number 57 20:57, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

The fact that most readers don't know something is no excuse for saying something that is incorrect. Furius (talk) 20:42, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

Actually, the article on the 1926 referendum should probably just be merged into Expropriation of the Princes in the Weimar Republic, which is largely about that referendum. Furius (talk) 19:38, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

• What is the logic of the guideline here? Both "1933 German referendum" and "German League of Nations withdrawal referendum" are adequate on their own. Why combine date and type in every title? Srnec (talk) 05:33, 24 February 2024 (UTC)

  Extraordinary screeds of text here, but they don't really touch on referenda, so it's unclear why the WP norm is to stuff everything between the date and the word "referendum". If I was designing a norm from scratch I'd probably go for "[date] [Country] referendum on [topic]." But it's the guideline and all reasonable alternatives will end up at redirects, so it's probably not worth fussing. Furius (talk) 10:32, 24 February 2024 (UTC)

  I would imagine there are two core reasons why the guideline ended up with this naming format:

  • Firstly to meet WP:NCEVENTS, which states In the majority of cases, the title of the article should contain the following three descriptors: When the incident happened, where the incident happened, what happened.. Not having the year means there is no "when".
  • Secondly, to meet WP:CONSISTENT in referendum article sets. Numerous countries have had referendums on the same topics multiple times (see e.g. Category:Referendums in Denmark), so the year is often required for disambiguation, so it would be odd if some articles had years and others didn't

  The proposal above brings these titles in line with both NC-GAL and WP:NCEVENTS. Cheers, Number 57 14:53, 24 February 2024 (UTC)

• Re srnec's comment: at least the 1926 referendum is potentially ambiguous—some of the top google results without the year refer to the 2021 Deutsche Wohnen & Co. enteignen referendum. (t · c) buidhe 09:16, 29 February 2024 (UTC)
  • @Buidhe: This should be resolved with the subsequent suggestion of 1926 German royal property expropriation referendum? Cheers, Number 57 09:50, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

    The title you proposed originally was not ambiguous, but the date can't necessarily be removed as Srnec was suggesting. I'm agnostic on which title, of those including dates, is best. (t · c) buidhe 09:51, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

• Comment: The article about the 1929 referendum does not contain the phrase "Freedom Law", regardless of whether that phrase is capitalized or lowercase, so that one (and especially its capitalization) seems dubious. That is the only one that seems unnecessarily capitalized. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 01:25, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

  Oppose capital letters for "Freedom Law", as no evidence has been provided that it should be like that. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 20:45, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose, not at all clear that these are common names. It would be better to use translations of the actual names of the referenda, or to just leave as is. —Kusma (talk) 14:07, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose, the name change makes no sense at all and arguments defending the change are weak. —V.B.Speranza (talk) 13:30, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
• Support Makes navigation easier. At first, I thought this was a bad idea. But after realizing just how many very consequential referendums there were in interwar Germany, this makes sense. Easy to confuse them if you just list the year. And less useful if you just list the title. Having the year and a short descriptor makes it way more usable to our readers. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 21:33, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
• Support per nom. WP:NC-GAL is a guideline, which should be followed absent a compelling reason otherwise. If there is a compelling reason, it should leave the rule intact. If there is an objection to how NC-GAL works, that can be discussed at WT:NC-GAL. But there is no article-specific reason to ignore the guidelines here, and so they should be followed. HouseBlaster (talk · he/him) 20:23, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

  I agree with using lowercase for "freedom law". HouseBlaster (talk · he/him) 21:01, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

• Support in general. WP:COMMONNAME is unlikely to have any applicability here, because these things have too little coverage in English to have developed a provably "most common name" for each (i.e., the sample size is too small for meaningful analysis, and for some may even be so small that we'd end up with WP:NPOV problem, picking a name preferred by one or another writers from a particular angle when the few other specialist writers in the subject, in English, may have principled objections to their usage). People here too often forget that WP:NDESC is entirely and properly a part of WP:AT policy, and the titles proposed above (like the titles of most of our articles on referenda and similar processes/events) are NDESC titles (phrases chosen by Wikipedia as neutrally descriptive of a subject for which no "most common name" is meaningfully and definitively provable). I have no objection to tweaking one or another of these names in some way, but the general gist of getting them into the prescribed "[date] [country name or adjectival form] [type] referendum" format is entirely sensible. PS: Yes, use lower-case for "freedom law", since there is no reliably sourced demonstration of this being a phrase that is near-universally capitalized in English-language sources as a proper name (cf. lead of MOS:CAPS).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  10:13, 20 March 2024 (UTC)
• Support per SMcCandlish.  — Amakuru (talk) 13:40, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
• Support 1933 German League of Nations withdrawal referendum, 1929 German Young Plan referendum (as discussed above, "freedom law" is probably not npov and the article consistently refers to it as the "freedom act"), 1934 German head of state referendum. Merge 1926 German referendum into Expropriation of the Princes in the Weimar Republic. Furius (talk) 22:31, 22 March 2024 (UTC)
• I've requested closure for this at Wikipedia:Closure requests. Natg 19 (talk) 21:51, 28 March 2024 (UTC)
• Support per nom and WP:NC-GAL except Freedom Law as noted above, the article consistently refers to this as the Freedom Act. Cinderella157 (talk) 10:19, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

  That caveat works for me as well.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:51, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

  @Amakuru, Cinderella157, and SMcCandlish: For the 1929 referendum, which title do you prefer (it's a bit unclear)? It looks like the options have been narrowed down to 1929 German Young Plan referendum or 1929 German freedom act referendum. I personally am leaning towards the former. Cheers, Number 57 12:30, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

  1929 German Freedom Act referendum. Cinderella157 (talk) 12:47, 16 April 2024 (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.