Talk:European settlers in New Zealand

Requested move 30 December 2023

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: Page moved. – Through multiple relistings, arguments have remained focused on the same conflicting interpretations of certain specific article titling criteria. I was content to let this go, but relisted again due to popular demand. Again I see another big-screen filling, mind-numbing wall of WP:SHORTCUT-infested text, from editors who already !voted in previous rounds, which is either too long to read, or incomprehensible. I might have given more weight to the opinion of the article's authors, but note that neither of the two authors responsible for about 80% of the content have participated in the discussion. However, since the latest relist eleven more opinions have come in, which are running 73% in favor of the move, raising the overall support rate to 66% – into the "supermajority" zone (mind you, there's no magic number for this) where we sometimes reluctantly declare a consensus. Consensus is not a majority vote, and every opinion counts; I don't see any blatant policy-contradicting opinions to discount. Common ground here should still prominently include the term "Pākehā settlers" in boldface in the lead sentence, and allow liberal use in the article body as well. – wbm1058 (talk) 22:43, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

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Pākehā settlers → European settlers in New Zealand – Per WP:COMMONNAME, WP:RECOGNIZABILITY, WP:COMMONALITY, and WP:CONSISTENT.

First, elsewhere on Wikipedia we don't use Pākehā to refer to Europeans New Zealanders, we use European New Zealanders. As such, the proposed title is more consistent with our usage elsewhere.

Second, readers from outside New Zealand will not recognize Pākehā; in accordance with WP:COMMONALITY and WP:RECOGNIZABILITY, and with the general principle of making Wikipedia accessible to all readers, we should use a term that is widely used in New Zealand, and is recognizable to the broader body of readers; European settlers in New Zealand, rather than Pākehā settlers.

Third, the proposed title is the clear WP:COMMONNAME. This can be seen by reviewing Scholarly results since 2021:

1. 191 sources use "Pākehā settlers"
2. 3310 use "European settlers" in relation to New Zealand

Not all results are relevant, but a manual review tells us that enough are to make the COMMONNAME obvious.

Finally, MOS:TIES is overridden here by MOS:COMMONALITY, as "European settlers" is widely used in New Zealand English, as can be seen by these Google News results from the past year limited to New Zealand domains:

1. 47 sources use "Pākehā settlers".
2. 239 sources use "European settlers" in relation to New Zealand.

Of the results for "Pākehā settlers", most are relevant, although some also use "European settlers".

Of the results for "European settlers" in relation to New Zealand most are also relevant; a lower ratio than for "Pākehā settlers", but enough to establish the common name. Some true positives are excluded by the requirement that they must mention "New Zealand", which was included to limit the number of false positives, such as New Zealand sources discussing European settlers in Australia. Results that also use "Pākehā settlers" were excluded.

This can be further seen by Google Trends, which shows that New Zealanders prefer to use "European settlers", and almost never use "Pākehā settlers".

This doesn't only establish that the conditions for MOS:COMMONALITY to apply are met, but that the conditions for MOS:TIES to apply are not met; in New Zealand English, the most common way of referring to these people is "European settlers", not "Pākehā settlers". BilledMammal (talk) 06:21, 30 December 2023 (UTC) — Relisted. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. ^{put'er there} 19:22, 16 January 2024 (UTC) — Relisting. wbm1058 (talk) 15:52, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose for all the reasons outlined above last time you unsuccessfully tried to move this page. I'd also point out that nowhere does it say that MOS:COMMONALITY overrides MOS:TIES. Turnagra (talk) 07:39, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

Before we get into a discussion of whether MOS:COMMONALITY overrides MOS:TIES, do you have any evidence to support your claim that in [New Zealand English] the most frequently used term for this group is Pākehā?

If you don't - and I don't believe you do, as I've presented considerable evidence of the opposite position - then such discussions are irrelevant, and your !vote, being based on a disproved assumption, has very little weight. BilledMammal (talk) 08:17, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

You haven't disproved anything, as your searches are so flawed it should be obvious to anyone who looks at them that they're irrelevant. Any source talking about both European settlers and New Zealand is going to be a much broader net than what is actually relevant for some reason, while Pākehā is unambiguously and recognisably the term which is regularly used to refer to a specific group in a New Zealand context. The current title is far better at meeting all of the WP:CRITERIA, for people who care about those. Turnagra (talk) 17:51, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

You continue to make assertions rather than presenting any evidence of your position.

Even your new "argument" that the current title better meets WP:CRITERIA is an unsupported assertion, and an assertion that has already been disproved:

1. Concision: Self-evidently in favor of the current title
2. Recognizability: As self-evidently in favor of the proposed title; everyone fluent in the English language can understand the proposed title, but the same is not true of the current title
3. Naturalness: In favor of the proposed title, per the evidence presented in the proposal and presented to NewImpartial below
4. Consistency: In favor of the proposed title, per the evidence presented above
5. Precision: Weakly in favor of the proposed title; while Pākehā usually means "White person from Europe" it can be used more expansively than that.

Four support the proposed title, one supports the current - and the one that does support the current title is one of the weakest aspects. Not quite aligned with your assertion that the current title is far better at meeting all of the WP:CRITERIA BilledMammal (talk) 02:30, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

I don't elaborate because I can't be bothered with you WP:BADGERING every point, per your actions here and in every other move request. But since you're doing that anyway, I think your interpretation of the criteria is wrong and based on incredibly flimsy "evidence". The proposed title is not more natural nor more recognisable, as pākehā is the clear and accurate all-encompassing term for the group. The proposed title is ambiguous and people would be less likely to know what the right term to search for would be (British? English? European? What about Americans? Or other groups?) whereas Pākehā is a clear, concise term which neatly encapsulates the subject (something you're usually very fond of). The remaining criteria do not favour the proposed title either. As mentioned, the proposed title is ambiguous and does not properly encapsulate all groups which would be included under Pākehā, so unless you'd like it to be "European and American and..." then the current title is far better. And as mentioned previously, your "evidence" proves nothing more than New Zealand was part of a European empire at some point. Turnagra (talk) 05:03, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

You continue to make assertions without evidence:

1. You claim that "Pākehā settlers" is the preferred term in New Zealand English. Where is your evidence of this?
2. You claim that "Pākehā settlers" is as recognizable. Where is your evidence for this?
3. You claim that "Pākehā settlers" is more natural. Where is your evidence for this?
4. You claim that my evidence proves nothing more than New Zealand was part of a European empire at some point. Where is your evidence for this?

Perhaps I can help you with the fourth point. Below, I provided this link to NewImpartial, demonstrating the stuff.co.nz preferred to use "European settlers" rather than "Pākehā settlers". Which of those sources would you say are not related to the topic of European emigrants who journeyed to New Zealand? My review suggests the only one that isn't is this article, which somehow turned up in the results without actually mentioning "settlers" of any kind. BilledMammal (talk) 05:19, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

I've provided as much valid evidence as you have. The reality is that it's impossible to do any quantitative assessment as you'll always have a massive range of false positives or sources with WP:NPOV issues. Looking at those stuff links, several are talking about a "European Settlers Day" which a group started on Waitangi Day and pretty clearly has an ideological reason why they chose not to use the term Pākehā. On your google search from earlier, you also have accommodation booking sites and irrelevant articles about water safety, so the numbers mean very little. Now, as mentioned, I have very little interest in continuing to be badgered and have better things to do on New Years Eve, so I'm going to disengage now. Turnagra (talk) 06:41, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

The reality is that it's impossible to do any quantitative assessment as you'll always have a massive range of false positives or sources with WP:NPOV issues.

To make sure I have understood you, you are conceding that you have no evidence for your claim that "Pākehā settlers" is the preferred term in New Zealand English?

I would, however, dispute that it's impossible to do any quantitative assessment. Setting aside the broader assessment, lets focus on the Stuff link. Of those 22, one only uses it in the form "European Settlers Day". I think such use is relevant, but lets set it aside for the sake of making the weakest argument for "European settlers"; if we do so then we have 21 sources using "European settlers", compared to ten using "Pākehā settlers"; we have a quantitative assessment showing that this New Zealand source, at least, prefers "European settlers."

Let's also consider other New Zealand sources, to determine whether Stuff is an outlier.

1. Otago Daily Times:

   2 using "Pākehā settlers"

   23 using "European settlers"

2. The Press:

   3 using "Pākehā settlers"

   5 using "European settlers"

3. New Zealand Herald:

   6 using "Pākehā settlers"

   24 using "European settlers"

4. New Zealand Journal of History

   5 using "Pākehā settlers"

   11 using "European settlers"

Note that for all of these sources with the exception of The Press I haven't reviewed every result for "European settlers"; I have, however, reviewed enough to verify that their preferred term for this topic is "European settlers".

This assessment both demonstrates that it is possible to do such an assessment, and that the preferred term in New Zealand is "European settlers". BilledMammal (talk) 07:10, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

Please don't intentionally misconstrue my argument. I'm saying your approach is fundamentally flawed, and that neither of us have any *actual* evidence. My point is that the title of this article is not a specific name for something, so doing a search for an exact term is meaningless. You could have the most reliable source possible on the subject and it could never use either "Pākehā settlers" or "European settlers", because it has chosen to use another term or worded sentences differently. This is even evident in some of your sources, such as this article which has the sentence Māori chiefs, Pākehā colonists and European settlers. No matter how loudly and persistently you argue, your evidence holds no water, and you shouldn't be bludgeoning your way to your desired outcome. Turnagra (talk) 09:15, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for acknowledging you have no real evidence for your position.

However, I have demonstrated many times now that of the two options of "Pākehā settlers" and "European settlers" the preferred term is the latter, in New Zealand and elsewhere. If all you can present against my evidence is assertions and vague suggestions that there are other options we have not considered then I think we are done here, and I think I can trust that the closer will give your !vote no weight. BilledMammal (talk) 09:21, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

And you have completely missed my point yet again, which I can only assume is intentional at this point. Turnagra (talk) 09:22, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

I'm not going to argue this further; I've presented my evidence, and it demonstrates that the most natural term for this topic is "European Settlers".

I will, however, point out that if you argue, as you have done, that it's not possible to determine what the WP:NATURAL title is either in general or in New Zealand specifically, then you should focus on what the most WP:RECOGNIZABLE title is - and even you have to acknowledge that the most recognizable title is the one that uses words understood by all English speakers. BilledMammal (talk) 09:36, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

Comment I figured it would be worth setting out my argument in a clearer way after it was distorted and misconstrued above. There are a few points:

1. Neither the current title nor the proposed title are a proper term (such as a place name), but rather a descriptive title. As such, searching explicitly for either "Pākehā settlers" or "European settlers" will not yield a true picture of what early white New Zealanders are called, and any quantitative searches doing such are not proof of anything.
2. The common contemporary term for white New Zealanders is Pākehā. A search for Pākehā yields three times as many results as one for variations of "New Zealand European". This is also the term used by highly reliable sources, and is even listed in the Cambridge English dictionary as the term for a New Zealander of European descent.
3. Per WP:NATURALNESS, WP:RECOGNISABLE, and MOS:TIES, we should be using the term for white New Zealanders that is most prevalent in New Zealand English, which as established above is Pākehā. (As an aside sub-point here, nowhere has it been established that WP:COMMONALITY takes precedence over MOS:TIES, so that argument is also irrelevant).
4. The term "European" is not sufficiently WP:PRECISE nor encompassing of the article's scope, as it excludes American and other groups who are included under Pākehā and should be within the scope of the article. The proposed title is also unwieldy and adds unnecessary length.

Beyond this, I do have WP:NPOV concerns about this move, given it has been launched alongside several others to remove Māori from article titles quickly following a new government which has expressed disdain at the use of Māori, but that's an aside. As evidenced in the multiple failed moves and move reviews on this article, the current title is unambiguously the best title per the WP:CRITERIA and the MOS:TIES which this article has to New Zealand. Turnagra (talk) 19:44, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

Regarding your Google Scholar results, see WP:GOOGLELIMITS; when you get over 1000 results the estimates start to be inaccurate, and rapidly become widely so. You can't rely on them; you need to find a way to reduce your query size to below 1000 results. In addition, your query is flawed; you're asking what non-Maori New Zealanders are referred to, but it focuses only on options including the world "European". When we are limiting the topic to settlers that is appropriate, but it's not when we expand the scope as you have done.

A better way it to look at the census and at surveys. In the census, they are referred to as European New Zealanders, not Pākehā.

Meanwhile, surveys tell us that the use of the term "Pakeha" was low overall at 14 per cent, compared with "New Zealander" which was used by 50 per cent of [the New Zealanders of European descent] surveyed.

Pākehā isn't the correct term of non-Maori New Zealanders in general, and it isn't the correct term for European emigrants who journeyed to New Zealand either; WP:NCET is relevant to this, which tells us How the group self-identifies should be considered. If their autonym is commonly used in English, it would be the best article title.

Finally, as to your point about precision; you're right that Pākehā includes groups beyond the scope defined in the article of European emigrants who journeyed to New Zealand, but that is evidence against the current title, not evidence for it. BilledMammal (talk) 04:26, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

WP:BADGER. Turnagra (talk) 04:56, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

BilledMammal, given your extensive efforts to exclude primary government sources from consideration in other discussions of article titles, I am surprised to see you invoking such sources here.

As far as the scope of this article is concerned: are you suggesting that Paheka (European-descended persons) who arrived in New Zealand from Australia, South Africa or Canada are meant to be excluded from the scope of this arricle? If so, I am quite curious why you believe they should be excluded - none of the primary or other sources you have just mentioned seem to provide a basis for this, AFAICT. Newimpartial (talk) 05:27, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

The suitability of sources depends on the topic under consideration. I see no reason to believe these sources are unsuitable here, do you?

I’m saying that they are neither within the scope of the article as defined in the lede, nor are they covered in the body. If you have to argue "my title is more precise if we change the scope" then your WP:PRECISE argument is very weak.

If you want to open a discussion about changing the scope I would encourage you to do so in a new section below; I would disagree with doing so, but doing so here would derail this RM. BilledMammal (talk) 05:42, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

• Support You forgot to mention 'common sense' but yes, all your reasons are valid. This article is more international than many of the articles with agenda based names. For that reason it might be worth asking for comment from editors outside New Zealand. Pakeha has been inserted into many articles where European should be used. The title of this article is a quite appalling abuse of the privileges we all enjoy as WP editors. No less concerning is that most editors are genuinely acting in good faith and really do believe use of pakeha is correct. The rest of us can at least take comfort in the knowledge that people in authority are finally waking up to the indoctrinating nonsense in New Zealand that has been going on for several years now and they are starting to reverse the damage that has been done before it goes any further. I see the correction of this article's name to use European instead of pakeha as just one small step in the repair process. I have had a quick look at three independent RSS Moon-2007, Beith-2019, King-2003. King uses British and, in comments about Maori he uses pakeha. The other two use European. I don't count the numerous non-independent sources out there. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 08:57, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

  That sounds a lot like you're trying to WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS, Roger. Setting that aside, though, could you please clarify what you see as the agenda, or the "indoctrinating nonsense" here? Turnagra (talk) 17:51, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

  @Roger 8 Roger. Yes exactly, you have writen this better than I could of. You do mention common sense, thing about that is that it's not very common anymore these days. European New Zealanders doesn't seem to be Pākehā New Zealanders, why should it be here? Kiwiz1338 (talk) 15:45, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

@Kiwiz1338, I'm not sure if your comment is addressed to me, or what it means? If someone is indoctrinated they cannot see common sense. To them, the indoctrinated ideas are common sense. Half of Russia thinks they have done the right, common sense, thing by invading Ukraine, which they think is full of fascists, because the state has indoctrinated them to believe that. I looked at your google trends link. Unless I have misunderstood it, 'pakeha settlers' gets almost no results compared to European settlers. That is what I call common sense, ie we use 'european settlers'. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 20:21, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

I think common sense should mean this page be called European settlers in New Zealand. Sorry if I got you confussed. Kiwiz1338 (talk) 04:31, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose The current title is correct and concise. It does not seem sensible to me to replace it with a wall of text. Schwede66 17:09, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

  Concision is the weakest of article title WP:CRITERIA... and the idea that European settlers in New Zealand is a “wall of text” is laughable. — HTGS (talk) 22:04, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose - I don't believe MOS:COMMONALITY applies to this case, since the article is specifically about a specific group within its context and is not especially concerned with the features this group has in common with European diaspora communities elsewhere. Roger 8 Roger's comment, that editors can at least take comfort in the knowledge that people in authority are finally waking up to the indoctrinating nonsense in New Zealand that has been going on for several years now and they are starting to reverse the damage that has been done before it goes any further, demonstrates pretty clearly that the title of this article - and repeated attempts to move it - is an aspect of a Culture War dispute; namely it is part of a resistance effort against a trend over the last generation to include Maori words and concepts in New Zealand English. The idea that New Zealand-specific concepts ought to be communicated using other varieties of English, or using pre-1990 New Zealand English vocabulary, seems to me like an attempt to use MOS:COMMONALITY to fight a rear guard action against linguistic change that has already happened. Doing so is not aligned with WP policy nor with the goals of an encyclopaedia, as I understand them. Newimpartial (talk) 17:29, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

  Before you can make the argument that MOS:COMMONALITY doesn’t apply you need to make the argument that MOS:TIES does. So far, no one has been able to provide evidence to support that argument; can you? BilledMammal (talk) 17:31, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

  Is this a serious question? It seems self-evident to me that MOS:TIES applies to this article. Why wouid it not? Newimpartial (talk) 17:33, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

  It applies to the article. The question is whether it applies to the specific words here; what you need to demonstrate is that in New Zealand English "Pākehā settlers" is the preferred term. BilledMammal (talk) 17:37, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

  As I understand it, this is the term used in the recent WP:HQRS on the article's topic, as reflected in the sources the article actually uses. I have seen no evidence to the contrary. Newimpartial (talk) 17:41, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

  I have seen no evidence to the contrary. Did you read my proposal?

  I also wouldn't rely on a review of the existing sources in the article to determine whether "Pakehā settlers" is the preferred term in New Zealand English; there is no reason to believe they are representative, and there is reason to believe that they aren't.

  For example, three of the sources in the article are from stuff.co.nz, all of which use "Pākehā settlers". However, searching stuff.co.nz for articles from the last year reveals that they actually prefer to use the term "European settlers", with 23 results using that term compared to 10 results using "Pākehā settlers". This would add to the evidence I presented in my proposal that in New Zealand English the correct term is "European settlers". BilledMammal (talk) 17:58, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

  Newimpartial, thank you for your comments which I partly agree with. I have never denied language change as a natural process. In fact, early on I did say that these new introduced Maori words might take root and become the dominant words for whatever, replacing the English words. But I also said that would take time and there were only a few words that had reached that position now. Maori with a macron might now be such a case, ie NZ English predominantly uses the foreign word rather than the English word ie Māori not Maori. The fact that a lot of the sources being used to validate use of a Maori word are now being changed simply proves that the new Maori words are far from being the established words of preference in the sources commonly used in WP. Now, about this article, historians/sources tend to fit into two slots: those that view European settlement from an insular NZ position and those that see the process in its wider context of European powers establishing new colonies in a wave of imperial expansion in the 19th century. Using pakeha or European is a consequence of the position you take - NZ centric or World centric. IMO this article is better viewed from a global position, ie looking in, rather than from a NZ position, ie looking out. There are some editors here who clearly take the NZ centric position (cocooned IMO away from the outside world on their wee island surrounded by ocean. That is why I suggested earlier we should invite non-NZ editors to comment because I think this topic is not just about NZ. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 21:47, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

  Many New Zealanders would take offense to the suggestion that "Māori" is a "foreign" spelling. I assume that's not what you really meant... PatricKiwi (talk) 07:12, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

  Maori is foreign when talking about the English language, just as every other language is foreign to English. It has nothing to do with where Maori is spoken or originated from. That is so patently obvious it shouldn't need explaining. I could say more but I won't. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 02:10, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

  I don't think you are showing comprehension of the most salient development in New Zealand English over the last 30 years, namely, the incorporation of borrow words from Maori on a large scale. Newimpartial (talk) 12:46, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

  so ::::BilledMammal, when you allude to evidence in your proposal, you seem to be referring to the .nz ghit counts you provided. However, far as I can tell, the sources found in those searches do not offer content relevant to this encyclopaedia article, so I wouldn't consider them relevant HQRS that offer evidence to deciding on the question at issue. Newimpartial (talk) 18:29, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

  What do you mean by "relevant to this article"? What we are trying to do here is determine whether the term "Pākehā settlers" or "European settlers" is preferred as the term of reference for European emigrants who journeyed to New Zealand both in general and in New Zealand; the sources I’ve provided in the links in the proposal, to you, and to Turnagra are generally relevant to that. BilledMammal (talk) 18:41, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

  To answer your question: in my view, low-quality sources tangential to the topic of New Zealand's colonization and settlement from Europe are not especially relevant in determining what the preferred term is, compared to higher-quality sources containing encyclopaedic content. Having examined links from your google searches, I am not impressed with the "evidence" to which you refer. Newimpartial (talk) 05:17, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

  I’m not sure how you are defining "low-quality", but the half dozen reviews of specific sources I have provided are all high quality reliable sources. In addition, I don’t believe there is any basis in policy to exclude sources that are "tangential to the topic"; we are trying to determine what people, in New Zealand and more broadly, call the topic, and it doesn’t matter how tangential to the topic the broader source is so long as it does refer to the topic at some point.

  As an aside, I’m not convinced that excluding the tangential results changes the overall preference; I just went through a couple of the searches I provided again, and when I exclude the results I believe you would consider tangential I still find that they prefer "European settlers". BilledMammal (talk) 07:48, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

• Support. The proposed new name is more meaningful to readers outside New Zealand (it's important to remember that - even for pages like this that have a New Zealand-based topic - Wikipedia is an international encyclopedia). Also, the proposed new name is arguably more accurate, because the page refers specifically to *European* immigrants, yet the term "pākehā" can sometimes (though admittedly infrequently) refer to anyone non-Māori, including non-Europeans. PatricKiwi (talk)
• Support a move, but to European settlers of New Zealand. First, some comments from my real-life self. In the NZ context, 'Pākehā' is my preferred term for my own personal cultural identity. Terms like 'European NZer' or 'Caucasian NZer' have never been my preferred term, on the rationale that I have never lived in Europe nor the Caucasus. However, when communicating with non-NZers I do not assume that they will understand what a 'Pākehā' is, and I will call myself a 'European NZer', recognising that the term does not necessarily imply that I have lived in Europe, but does signify that I am of European descent. I support a move, but certainly not because I have anything against the term 'Pākehā' as such. Second, the "of New Zealand" title is better than the "in New Zealand" title. The article is about people who settled NZ, not about people who settled some other place and then visited NZ. The "of" is consistent with most subcats and sub-subcats of Category:Settlers. To the substantial argument: I support a page move because of WP:COMMONALITY (i.e. "Use universally accepted terms rather than those less widely distributed") and the principle of making NZ topics in Wikipedia readily accessible to the global readership. I support it also for consistency with the article title European New Zealanders. With regard to MOS:TIES, the (frustratingly) very generalised wording of "use the (formal, not colloquial) English of that nation" lends itself to widely varying interpretations, some of which conflict with the more specific wording of COMMONALITY. Those who cite TIES to oppose this request are generally following an interpretation that I have seen before but with which I disagree. Finally, my support is just for this article title change and some corresponding editing of the article, most particularly the opening paragraph. It is not to be taken as support for generally changing the word 'Pākehā' to 'European' in other articles that contain it. Nurg (talk) 05:50, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

  I would support this option over the one I initially proposed, per Nurg's strong arguments and this discussion on my talk page. BilledMammal (talk) 13:05, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

  Good post by Nurg. However, 'European settlers of New Zealand' doesn't sound right. I checked the cat link and saw other titles that are the same, and they don't sound right either. A 'settler of NZ' is a person from somewhere else who settled in NZ, not a person in NZ who came from somewhere else. Being Caucasion does not mean you have come from the Caucasus, it describes ethnicity. Welsh people are Caucasians, and so are Poles, and Afrikaners etc. I see nothing wrong with 'European settlement in NZ'. There is a debate to be had about how many generations have to pass before a person stops being a European NZer and becomes just a NZer. Same as Maori - why don't we call them Polynesian New Zealanders? Presumably because 40 generations have passed rather than ten. The distinction is an arbitrary matter of opinion. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 02:55, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

  Re your 1st sentence - thanks! I understand your 2nd & 3rd sentences, but hold the opposite view. But I don't understand the point of your 4th sentence, especially the 2nd part. Nurg (talk) 11:38, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

  I originally based my support on WP/MOS:COMMONALITY. I'm revising my view a little now. I don't have a big problem with the present article title. But I do think that European settlers of New Zealand is a better title. The basis for that is Wikipedia:Article titles#Use commonly recognizable names (WP:COMMONNAME), which is WP policy. That is supported by the guideline MOS:COMMONALITY, "Use universally accepted terms rather than those less widely distributed, especially in titles." Note that the COMMONNAME policy is specifically about article titles, and the COMMONALITY guideline specifies "especially in titles". I do not have a problem with the word "Pakeha" being used (appropriately) in article text. Nurg (talk) 22:19, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

• Support - as this is English-language Wikipedia. Pākehā doesn't read as english, to me. GoodDay (talk) 17:10, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

  Pākehā is an incredibly common term in New Zealand English, which is the one that counts here per MOS:TIES. We don't say that some varieties of English are "more English" than others. Turnagra (talk) 19:16, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

  GoodDay, Pakeha is used in NZ but not by a majority and is certainly not 'incredibly common'. Its meaning is less clearly understood, being anything from non-Maori to European to NZers or European background etc. That ambiguity has not yet been discussed here. The term is used more by the youth and by academic leaning people who are more inclined to adopt the latest fad or moral outrage. The silent majority sit back and sigh, only giving their opinion in the ballot box. Remember user:Turnagra, you need evidence that it is used by a significant majority of independent RSSs. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 23:08, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

  Roger, its usage has been discussed at length in the multiple moves, and determined that Pākehā (with macrons, per NZ English) is the most precise term to properly encapsulate the scope of the article. Your comments (which veer dangerously close to WP:BADGERING users with differing viewpoints to yours) make it appear as though you are trying to WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS with this move, particularly around your baseless claim further down that the current title has somehow been dictated by a core academic group who have been inculcated with theoretical dogma. If anything needs evidence here, it's that. Turnagra (talk) 07:30, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

  determined that Pākehā (with macrons, per NZ English) is the most precise term to properly encapsulate the scope of the article?

  It seems that there is relative agreement that the scope of Pākehā is broader than the currently defined scope of the article? BilledMammal (talk) 07:40, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

  It's New Zealand English. That's a national variety of English. Your argument is WP:IDONTLIKEIT. AusLondonder (talk) 14:44, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose – I closed the previous RM, and not much has substantially changed from the past RM for a different-in-practice outcome except for a change in government in NZ. It's because of this, and frankly, some rather strange comments in this discussion, that I have to agree with Turnagra on the idea that the RM process is being used – whether intentionally or not – as a front for culture war politics, which is not what it's there for. Just because the term doesn't "look English" doesn't mean it isn't English; English is famously the mongrel tongue, and NZEng's adoption of Māori vocabulary is no different to AmEng's adoption of Spanish vocabulary (by way of Mexico), in the end. Sceptre (talk) 21:26, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

  Sceptre You misunderstand the problem, at least how I describe it. This is not an anti-cultural change objection. All languages change over time. This is an anti-politically motivated change, which is quite different. WP does not promote any political opinion. There is a cultural shift happening in some circles but that is small. Most of what you see in NZ society is politically non-independently generated. There is a core academic group who have been inculcated with theoretical dogma about the Maori language and the Treaty since the 1970s, and they are now influential in positions of authority in NZ. Their power is proportionately far greater than their actual support in NZ. Many of those people use WP which helps explain the enthusiasm for using Maori language words like Pākehā, when a perfectly good English word exists and is used by the majority. So, please do not try to label people like my as being resistant to social change when we are not. We resist seeing WP being used for promoting a political message. Incidentally, the English word for Pākehā is Pakeha, a word originally adopted and used as a foreign (language) word but with regular use quickly absorbed into English to become an English word long ago. However, to use the English word would mean not using macrons, so to overcome that problem we are made to believe we have always been using the Maori word, not the assimilated English word, which means we have to correct the spelling and add macrons. About sources, the sort we should use, ie top rate academic and independent, further up I referred to three. Two used European settlers and one used pakeha settlers. That is all we need to look at. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 23:47, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

• Weak Support: “Pākehā” is much less recognisable to people outside of New Zealand.
  I do think though that it would be better as “European settlement of New Zealand” (or “Pākehā settlement of New Zealand”). It feels like the wrong focus to talk about the settlers themselves, compared to the broader movement of people as an event. — HTGS (talk) 01:23, 11 January 2024 (UTC) (Changed to regular support, with expanded thinking listed now below. 21:55, 21 January 2024 (UTC))

In reading through discussion here, the tension between MOS:COMMONALITY and MOS:TIES is overstated. It is simply not analogous to a colour/color style distinction, where ties to a culture and dialect set the article style in one camp and explicitly not in the other. As I think is clear from all participants, neither term is “wrong” within New Zealand or outside New Zealand. New Zealanders happily use both terms, and non–New Zealanders can natively use “European”, and easily pick up “pākehā” (even if with mixed results in pronunciation). But it is very clear that one term, “pākehā”, is not very well known to the rest of the world, and therefore the more ‘common’ (here to mean “accessible”) term should be preferred. This of course outweighs any arguments for concision, which is generally the weakest of the article title wp:criteria.

I don’t think Google search stats are the best tool here, but the indication by BilledMammal’s specific news source searches seems to confirm that even within New Zealand, the more common term (per WP:COMMONNAME) is “European”.

In skimming through the easily accessible sources within the article, the best one talking about the settlers actually seems to be the brief Te Ara entry [1], where they talk about “British immigration” and “British immigrants”. At this point, I don’t think it would necessarily be helpful to change focus, especially when the two terms being discussed are both suitable, but it does make me worry that rather than an attempt to find the best article title and scope for our readers, we have honed in on the wp:battleground of the dispute too much. In particular, comments from Roger 8 Roger and {Newimpartial about political conspiracy and “culture wars” are concerning.

Some more minor arguments worth noting, though IMO not worth putting ultimate decision on: a) The term “pākehā” is offensive to some people. Probably equivalent in weight to those who say that “black” in reference to African Americans is offensive. I think this probably can be largely rebutted by the (also rare) suggestion that “European New Zealander” is offensive, although I think the word “European” serves a different function in this article than it does in modern contexts. b) The term “pākehā” is also (rarely) used to refer to non-Māori persons broadly, but generally means a white person. Either use is, I believe, not particularly distracting in the context of this article, but the problem is illustrated well when considering the alternative “white immigrants”. — HTGS (talk) 21:55, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

@HTGS, the usage asymmetry in academic works is even more profound than what BilledMammal found for news articles. I got 1560 hits since 2020 on GS for "new zealand" "european|british settlers|colonists" .nz -pakeha vs 256 for "pakeha settlers|colonists" .nz. That's a 6:1 bias for "European" in recent scholarship hosted on NZ websites, and that's not even counting any sources that use both "European" and "pakeha" on the same page (all of those sources would, however, be counted in the "pakeha" hits). When you don't restrict the sources to NZ domains the disparity is over 20:1. JoelleJay (talk) 00:50, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

• Support - per @BilledMammal. WP:GLOBAL.Kiwiz1338 (talk) 04:17, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
• Comment MOS:TIES does not apply. This topic has no less a relevance to European history, British in particular, in the early to mid 19th century. Settlement in NZ was only part of a much greater diaspora all around the world. So, claiming this article as a uniquely NZ article is a red herring. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 12:22, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

  Can you explain this claim more? Even if it's part of a wider thing, I think most people would agree that an article specifically about the settlement of New Zealand has strong MOS:TIES to New Zealand. Turnagra (talk) 17:45, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

  I meant the topic isn't just about NZ, so that weakens the 'relative' strength of the connection with NZ. If someone said we will only use UK English because this topic has a strong UK connection they probably would have a case, but because of the strong NZ connection as well we should try to be more neutral. I think 'strong regional ties' applies to, for example, an article about a NZ Crown entity or a small town somewhere, that only has sources from NZ. In this case there will be plenty of sources that are not from NZ about the wider UK/European emigration. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 20:25, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

  The article is, by definition, exclusively about New Zealand. Even the proposed title, which you support, states as much. Turnagra (talk) 20:29, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

  Is the article Occupation of Japan exclusively about Japan? BilledMammal (talk) 23:56, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

  Good point; TIES is about having strong ties to a particular English-speaking nation - this article has ties to multiple, both where the settlers were coming from and where they were going.

  Combined with the evidence that New Zealand prefers to the term “European settlers”, I think this should settle the debate over TIES. BilledMammal (talk) 23:41, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

  This seems to me to clearly be an oversimplication, whether a naïve or a motivated one. We ought to be following high-quality sources on this article's topi, and to the best of my knowledge essentially all such sources are written for predominantly New Zealand audiences in New Zealand English. This ought to be sufficient to establish TIES. Newimpartial (talk) 02:36, 13 January 2024 (UTC)

  I don’t know if that’s true or false - you haven’t presented evidence for it - but it’s not relevant; TIES doesn’t work that way. BilledMammal (talk) 02:53, 13 January 2024 (UTC)

  Nor does it work in the - frankly, bizarre - way that you're trying to insinuate here. The article is obviously tied to New Zealand, and it's disingenuous to suggest otherwise. It's not within the scope of WP:BRITAIN or WP:EUROPE, is it? Turnagra (talk) 03:04, 13 January 2024 (UTC)

  It has ties to both Britain and New Zealand - and to a lesser extent, Ireland. Indeed, a relatively substantial section of the article is dedicated to coverage of activities in Britain, most significantly how British people were convinced to move to New Zealand. BilledMammal (talk) 03:08, 13 January 2024 (UTC)

  @Newimpartial For the third time, I have given three top NZ sources on this which seems to be being ignored. 2:1 in favour of European, or possibly 2.5:0.5. NZ sources on this are likely to be clear and specific, as a book or a chapter, about the actual trip out and landing. That's because there isn't much else to write about that affects NZ. Any reference in UK sources is more likely to be part of a wider topic or topics and thus not so obvious or easy to find. The topic is interwoven with countless other topics - the industrial revolution, urban squaller, lack of the vote, rivalry with other European states, etc...and for good measure, the potato famine. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 06:55, 13 January 2024 (UTC)

  That's because there isn't much else to write about that affects NZ - what do you mean by that, exactly? Newimpartial (talk) 10:33, 13 January 2024 (UTC)

• Support (either "in" or "of") MOS:COMMONALITY clearly applies. The standard for MOS:COMMONALITY is not whether the article is about Europeans generally, but whether there exists a term that would be commonly understood by all readers. There is, and it's "European", not "Pākehā". Similarly, MOS:COMMONALITY doesn't need to "override" MOS:TIES. There are two terms here. One of them is understood both in New Zealand and elsewhere, while the other is understood only in New Zealand. MOS:TIES therefore doesn't say anything about this situation, as both terms are perfectly good New Zealand English, while MOS:COMMONALITY does: it says we should use the more widely understood term. In fact, there are specific examples of this in MOS:COMMONALITY: for instance the direction to prefer "ten million" over "one crore". If there was one term in New Zealand English and a different term elsewhere, only then would we have to determine which one "overrides" the other. Loki (talk) 08:39, 13 January 2024 (UTC)
• Support - We write for international audiences. Readers, and their understanding, is supposed to come first. No one outside of New Zealand has heard this term before. Many who have traveled to New Zealand won't be familiar either.--Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 16:01, 13 January 2024 (UTC)

This discussion has been mentioned at the administrators' noticeboard here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/IncidentArchive1147#BilledMammal_disruptive_editing. IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 21:36, 13 January 2024 (UTC)

• Support mv to European settlers in New Zealand, Per WP:COMMONNAME, WP:RECOGNIZABILITY, WP:COMMONALITY, and WP:CONSISTENT. Proposed name change is much clearer.  // Timothy :: talk  21:56, 13 January 2024 (UTC)
• Support either of/in formulation. A search for "New Zealand" "European settlers|colonists" -pakeha returns 26,300 results on Google Scholar. "Pakeha settlers|colonists" returns 1,280 results. Limiting to 2020-on, we get 4,980 for the former and 254 for the latter. There is a clear COMMONNAME here among scholarly sources, most of which seem to be in New Zealand journals or by New Zealand researchers. Further restricting these search terms with site:.nz to return only results from NZ websites yields 429 hits for "European" and 100 for "pakeha". Note that these searches are excluding from the "European" count any page that contains "pakeha", even if it's not actually the dominant term (e.g. mentioned once in passing) or is only used in irrelevant contexts. JoelleJay (talk) 01:36, 14 January 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose. Using "commonality" to override strong WP:TIES feels like colonialism to me. The much greater number of non-New Zealand editors versus the smaller number of New Zealanders should not be taken to interpret a tyranny of the majority as being a consensus. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:26, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

  For what it’s worth, NZers also use the word European. — HTGS (talk) 21:39, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

  TIES doesn't say "use the native word always, even when its own country uses it considerably less often than the more-recognizable term". It also looks like several supporters are NZ editors... JoelleJay (talk) 23:48, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

  Yes but at least one of them (with 10+ comments in this discussion so far) is on a years-long crusade against any recognition of Maori vocabulary / orthography in Wikipedia—see e.g. this discussion where they argued that the WP:10 year test meant we should only use sources that were at least 10 years old 🙄—and one should certainly discount that kind of committed RGW-ism (and bludgeoning), IMO. --JBL (talk) 17:31, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

  Sure, but the comment implied having so few NZ editors was part of the reason pakeha wasn't being supported as much, as if all NZ editors would have the same opinion. And one side having some members that are there for bigoted reasons doesn't mean all the arguments from that side should be treated as bigoted. JoelleJay (talk) 23:08, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

• Weak support the name "European" is much more understandable to those who live outside New Zealand. I don't believe that "Pākehā" is more common than "European" in New Zealand, but I do not believe that it is a strong majority, which makes makes my support weaker per MOS:TIES. I must add that the New Zealand government appears to give precedence to European. The census for example uses the ethnicity "New Zealand European". —Panamitsu (talk) 07:02, 15 January 2024 (UTC)
• Comment Although there might be a precise meaning in Maori, I think pakeha is ambiguous to a non-te reo speaker. In a general sense it is used to mean any New Zealander who isn't Maori, but is that correct? I wouldn't call, say, a New Zealander of Chinese origin pakeha, even with ancestry going back to the gold rush days, but others might If this ambiguity of meaning is correct then isn't that another reason to use European? Roger 8 Roger (talk) 09:16, 15 January 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose. I agree with Sceptre's closing statement of the January 2022 RM. It seems that the major discussion points haven't changed in the last 2 years, with essentially the same views being put forward as in the previous RMs. Of all the blue-links being bandied about, WP:TIES seems most relevant and compelling to me. --JBL (talk) 17:31, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

  I don't see how COMMONALITY should just be disregarded? Every variant of English will have terms that are used locally but are unintelligible to other English speakers, so under what circumstances would COMMONALITY ever be appropriate if TIES always overruled it? We have probably a quarter billion English-speakers who use "crore", yet we explicitly prefer the colonialist English term on Indian English pages because it is understood by everyone. That example seems to be by far the most comparable to what we have here, since for the most part the guidance in both COMMONALITY and TIES concerns orthography rather than loan words. We don't even have any indication that TIES is meant to apply to localized vocabulary rather than be limited to spelling variations and a preference for certain synonyms (that are nevertheless present as words in all English versions).

  And all of the above considerations are assuming a local word actually is predominant in that area. But in this case we have data showing "European settlers" is used at least an order of magnitude more frequently than pākehā in academia in the specific context of NZ colonization, and at least 4x more on NZ academic websites, from 2020 on, and that's excluding from the "European" count any hits that mention "pākehā" on the same page irrespective of the relative frequency of either word. That's pretty overwhelming affirmation that the formal English term in RS is currently "European", regardless of efforts by some groups to regularize indigenous vocabulary.

  Not to mention the fact that "pākehā" isn't exclusive to Europeans and isn't particularly well-defined in general--we have distinct pages on Pākehā and European New Zealanders, for instance. JoelleJay (talk) 00:22, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

  I don't really want to get involved in a long back-and-forth about this, as I think reasonable people can disagree and am not deeply invested in convincing anyone else that one way is better than another, but, briefly: your last paragraph gets at why TIES is more salient to me personally, since this article is primarily about the concept most closely tied to the word "Pākehā" (the 19th century colonizers) and less about generic people from Europe who have settled in New Zealand. I would be more worried about COMMONALITY if it wasn't possible to clearly set the context in the first sentence or two (but here it is) or if for some reason redirects weren't possible from the proposed alternatives (but here they are). I don't think this argument is definitive, but it's what resonates for me personally. --JBL (talk) 00:42, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

  I see this article as being about "European colonizers" "in New Zealand", where the "European" aspect is just as integral to the topic as the setting being New Zealand is. Is "pākehā settlement" so profoundly different from European settlement everywhere else that it represents an entirely separate and coherent concept within scholarship? It seems very much not, as even among academic pages in NZ "European settler"--with no mention of "pākehā" anywhere--is vastly preferred. The opposite is not the case, as I found only 9 hits on .nz GS-indexed sites with "pākehā colonists|settlers" -European. This reduces down to 3 if I also eliminate mentions of "British" (compare this to 527 for the European version). In fact, I only get 33 scholarly hits across all time and all ccTLDs with the -european -british restriction (compare to 25,400, or 33,500 if using "European|British").

  So, this considerable asymmetry in formal discourse, together with the facts that English speakers will universally recognize what "European settler" means and can connect that to their understanding of European colonization elsewhere (and we helpfully have a series of articles on these topics in that general title format); that TIES is primarily concerned with spelling rather than vocabulary; that we have a very comparable MOS example that favors globally-recognized English; that our topic is people who would certainly have characterized themselves as Europeans (and "New Zealand European" even seems to be the preferred self-descriptor among modern pākehā); and (less important) that Maori vocab regularization is apparently a controversial topic among New Zealanders themselves, making our use of "pākehā" here even less representative of standard NZ English, especially in the absence of consistent loan word usage in similar articles, more likely to be seen as non-NPOV; I end up weighing TIES much lower than COMMONALITY. JoelleJay (talk) 03:26, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

  Oh and sincere apologies for completely blasting past your first sentence with a wall of text... This became more of an exercise in examining and organizing my own thoughts than it was replying to you. JoelleJay (talk) 03:34, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

•  Relisted note: Not yet seeing consensus in this discussion, so please continue. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. ^{put'er there} 19:22, 16 January 2024 (UTC)
• Support. Wikipedia's audience WP:GLOBAL. This is a very parochial term, virtually unrecognizable outside of New Zealand. Walrasiad (talk) 20:03, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

  Walrasiad Would be fascinated to hear specifically which part of the essay Wikipedia:Systemic bias (to which WP:GLOBAL points) you think supports removing the NZ/Māori term 🙄 --JBL (talk) 20:32, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose - I am not from Aotearoa and I know what Pakeha means. But, even if I'm usual, Encyclopedias are supposed to be informative and educational, not just tell people things they already know?

There is already a redirect, and the article explains the meaning. In the previous close User:Sceptre made very strong case for keeping the local term, that's the term that should be used on articles primarily about Aotearoa New Zealand (and probably also articles about the region).

The UK English / American English / etc. term should only be used in articles that are primarily about somewhere far away that mention European New Zealanders only briefly.

Irtapil (talk) 00:17, 18 January 2024 (UTC) moved Irtapil (talk) 03:46, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

@user:Irtapi You have effectively said that encyclopedias should not include information the reader already knows about. Thank you for your contribution. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 01:50, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

@Roger 8 Roger I don't see your point, maybe try rephrasing? The "Thank you for your contribution" comes across as sarcastic? But I might have misinterpreted?

Every bit of info in an a good encyclopedia should be unknown to some readers. If it only has info that all the readers know already, that's a bit pointless?

Obviously it needs to be in a language most readers understand, but wiki pages that are mostly about Aotearoa (or the South Pacific, or Australasia) have the scope to explain the unfamiliar term to readers from far away.

Irtapil (talk) 03:46, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

I find it hard to understand what exactly you are trying to say. Nobody knows everything. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 07:18, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

Agree or disagree, it's a perfectly sensible argument. If you don't get it, I suggest you take your time or move on. Usedtobecool ☎️ 04:22, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

Hey, while there’s clearly a bit of misunderstanding here, the argument “Encyclopedias are supposed to be informative and educational, not just tell people things they already know” is—on its face—directly oppositional to article title policy (WP:AT). If there is a title that will allow the majority of readers to understand what the article is about, we should be using that (ceteris paribus). — HTGS (talk) 04:29, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

The policy WP:AT may not say what you remember it as saying. The relevant text seems to be, The title is a name or description of the subject that someone familiar with, although not necessarily an expert in, the subject area will recognize. It is hard for me to believe that someone familiar with this topic would not recognize the term Pakeha (with or without macrons), even if there is some fuzziness around the boundaries of the term (a fuzziness which, as with terms surrounding settler colonialism in other contexts, may actually be constructive). Newimpartial (talk) 15:28, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

I think you have taken one sentence from WP:AT and used it out of context. The rest of the policy wording is quite clear - to make it understandable to most people. There is nothing specifically unique in the settlement of Europeans in NZ in the 19thC that would justify the use of 'pakeha', it was simply one of many around the world, all with their own variants to do with the actual location, but to keep it simple, understandable, accurate, and without any ambiguity, we use 'European'. That is what is used in the majority of NZ reliable independent sources, and more so in sources from overseas. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 19:51, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

It seems that one thread of disagreement in this discussion is about ideographic or nomothetic orientation. You, with some other editors, seem to see this as an essentially nomothetic article, about a global process (European colonialism) that happens to take place in NZ in this instance. I, and some other editors, see this as an ideographic article about NZ that happens to deal with European settlers. The two orientations seem to dictate different interpretations of the title policy. Newimpartial (talk) 01:16, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

Nomothetic and idiographic (those ideographs will get ya)

And you may be right about AT, but I maintain it’s quite in the spirit to give readers a title they can understand, and the presentation of new knowledge should not be the goal of a title. — HTGS (talk) 01:34, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. I did raise a point similar, but not exactly the same, to that somewhere else but it got no replies. I had read it somewhere too so it wasn't all my idea. Debating that point, from which position we view the settlement, might be more productive. The same reasoning would also apply to other NZ articles. I do think there is an eagerness in NZ to make us out as somehow different and unique in the world, more so than most other countries - it's the big fish syndrome, stuck out hear all alone in the big ocean. That alone would account for a lot of the disagreements about using the Maori language and everything about the Treaty. However, even if you take the NZ-outward position rather than the NZ-inward position, there shouldn't be a debate about this because the proper sources, including just NZ sources, use European more than pakiha. I can only then conclude that those advocating Pakiha are working to a different agenda, perhaps unknowingly. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 02:36, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose As per Schwede66's comment - the current title is correct and concise. Pakoire (talk) 07:36, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
• Support Proposed title is better for WP:GLOBAL. While Pakeha is used in New Zealand it is by no means universal. I would doubt strongly that it's used by the majority of people causually. --Spekkios (talk) 06:10, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose The rather excellent summary by Sceptre in closing an earlier request still stands: WP:COMMONNAME explicitly allows and recommends, in cases where the local English name differs from the globally used one, that the local English common name should prevail. New Zealand English is notable for its assimilation of Māori vocabulary beyond other variants of English within the core Anglosphere. In such a context, that vocabulary, where local use in English speech is attested, are just as valid as the "Queen's English" for the purposes of Wikipedia, as the English Wikipedia deliberately does not have a "preferred" variant of English. I will now go and read the report of BilledMammal's disruptive editing. I've previously noted that another editor's arguments against New Zealand English including words of Māori origin are basically conspiratorial. Somej (talk) 11:17, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

  I don't this this argument holds in this case. "European" is just as local as "Pakeha" when used to describe this ethnic group. --Spekkios (talk) 22:25, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

  Because it’s now been referenced a couple of times, I have to say I had issue with Sceptre’s close, and as it went to move review, clearly so did others. The discussion there ended with an endorse, but was very split. Sceptre has now voted in this discussion, which doesn’t exactly give faith that her previous close was not a supervote.

  The close quoted also reads now as a counter-argument to a point that isn’t being made (Pākehā is, in fact, valid within “Queen’s English”, and the King uses the word himself), or a counter-argument to the principle of WP:COMMONALITY. As a foreigner, it is understandable if the context is missed, but the points are laid out clearly already—and have been said many times, although maybe it’s worth saying simply:

  COMMONALITY trumps TIES when both options are valid within the “tied” country. This is why the example is ‘glasses’ over ‘spectacles’ or ‘eyeglasses’. — HTGS (talk) 07:08, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

• Comment For the umpteenth time, Moon = european; Belich = European; King = Pakiha (first rate NZ independent reliable secondary sources) That means the common name in NZ is European Settlement, not Pakiha Settlement, as defined by Wikipedia. I suggest it is those who refuse to accept that unquestionable fact who are bordering on unintentionally being disruptive. All this discussion about which guideline to use is irrelevant because the common usage in NZ and worldwide is European Settlement. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 23:12, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

Roger 8 Roger: You used "Pakiha" twice on 20 January and twice in your latest post. What should we make of this? Nurg (talk) 09:31, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

Should I have used pakeha rather than the misspelt pakiha? For such a commonly used word I cannot understand how I could have made such a spelling mistake? Roger 8 Roger (talk) 10:29, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

Given you've made roughly 20 comments and have mentioned "indoctrinating nonsense" several times I would suggest quieting down a bit as your point has been made and "indoctrination" is off topic, unless you've got something new to add to the conversation. —Panamitsu (talk) 03:34, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

• Comment Google Trends. Kiwiz1338 (talk) 15:37, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
• Comment the Google Trends analysis provided by BilledMammal is completely flawed as "European Settlers" does not only apply to New Zealand (ie European settlers to Australia or the United States), whereas pakeha only applies to New Zealand. The comparison by Kiwiz is much better. —Panamitsu (talk) 03:27, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

  And what about my .nz-restricted Google Scholar search of European settlers of NZ, which shows that that term is used at least 4x more often than "pakeha" in NZ academia from 2020 on, even when excluding any results for "European settlers" that also have the word "pakeha" anywhere on the page? JoelleJay (talk) 03:44, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

  • I've already expressed my support for the move earlier. I'm just pointing out the problem with Google Trends to avoid any wasted time. —Panamitsu (talk) 05:38, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

In case some people do not realise, a RSS is fairly well defined by WP. JoelleJay's findings are what we should use, not google trends or articles in the newspapers and not anything, in this specific situation, coming from the govt or from an official source. We should only use those lower quality sources if there isn't any real dispute or if we don't have anything better, and even then they have to be used with care. It really is that simple. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 08:48, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

• Support per nomination, per all "support" votes above and per WP:CONSISTENT. English Wikipedia main title headers for articles delineating European colonization use European terminology — First wave of European colonization, European colonization of the Americas, Russian colonization of North America, British colonisation of South Australia or European colonisation of Southeast Asia. Furthermore, such redirects as European colonization of Canada, European colonization of the Southern United States, European colonization of Micronesia, European colonization of Africa or European colonization of India all flow to article titles that use general terms. None use indigenous terminology to describe the Europeans. Thus the main header currently in use for the New Zealand article stands alone in using such terminology in the header. —Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 04:15, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

  That's because we use New Zealand

  English for articles about New Zealand topics, this is a well-known policy, see WP:TITLEVAR. Pākehā is New Zealand English. There is no comparison to, for example, Australia, as Indigenous groups in Australia did not have a word for European Australians which has been incorporated into Australian English. There is certainly no comparison with a country such as Russia which does not speak English. AusLondonder (talk) 15:18, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

Previous closure

result: No consensus. See below strong, policy- and guideline-based arguments for moving to the proposed title along with fair rebuttals and almost equally strong rationales that are opposed to this page move. So there is no overall agreement either to keep the current title or to rename this article to the proposed name or any other name. As is usual with a no-consensus outcome, editors can strengthen their arguments, look for and discover new ones, and try again in a few months to garner consensus for a new title. Thanks and kudos to editors for your input; everyone stay healthy! P.I. Ellsworth , ed. put'er there 17:21, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

This is to register my objection to a second relist; however, to relist after finding no consensus at MRV is in accord with WP:MRV. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. ^{put'er there} 19:31, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

This is to register my approval to a second relist. Kiwiz1338 (talk) 13:53, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

Relisting analysis

The Pakeha settlers article was created on 24 May 2005 by 218.101.80.106, an IP with a history of only two edits.

At 12:24, 27 June 2017 Hazhk moved Pakeha settlers to Pākehā settlers, with (correct spelling) as their reason. The move simply added diacritics. That's been, to date, the only move in the page's history.

When article title discussions end without consensus, the applicable policy preserves the most recent stable title. No consensus in this discussion preserves Pākehā settlers.

Remember that the criteria for deciding on an article title should be seen as goals, not as rules.

Four shortcuts were given as rationales in support of moving.

The first two, WP:COMMONNAME and WP:RECOGNIZABILITY, target the first of the five article titles policy criteria, Recognizability (use commonly recognizable names). I believe that Pākehā settlers is a term which someone familiar with, although not necessarily an expert in, New Zealand will recognize. However this is also a term that someone unfamiliar with New Zealand probably won't recognize.

Wikipedia generally prefers the name that is most commonly used in sources, and Google links are provided showing that "European settlers" appears substantially more often than "Pākehā settlers" in articles relating to New Zealand. However, ambiguous or inaccurate names for the article subject, as determined in reliable sources, are often avoided even though they may be more frequently used by reliable sources, and non-neutral but common names may also be avoided.

WP:COMMONALITY targets the Manual of Style guideline, which says using vocabulary common to all varieties of English is preferable. Use a commonly understood word or phrase in preference to one that has a different meaning because of national differences – but "Pākehā settlers" may be glossed to prevent confusion.

Finally, WP:CONSISTENT targets the fifth of the five article titles policy criteria: the title is consistent with the pattern of similar articles' titles. European New Zealanders was cited as the title to be consistent with. However, a search for titles with "Pākehā" finds Pākehā Māori, another title to be consistent with. European Māori is a redirect which has yet to be created.

MOS:TIES, targeting the Manual of Style guideline, was cited in support of keeping the "Pākehā settlers" title. An article on a topic that has strong ties to a particular English-speaking nation should use the English of that nation. I'm not clear on the relevance of this point. Sure, "Pākehā settlers" is clearly a "New Zealand English" term, but, isn't "European settlers in New Zealand" also?

Now I'll review the other three article titles policy criteria.

Naturalness – The title is one that readers are likely to look or search for and that editors would naturally use to link to the article from other articles. Such a title usually conveys what the subject is actually called in English. This seems like a title that some readers may search for. Putting "Pākehā" in the search box, I find that the drop-down list gives me Pākehā settlers, Pākehā Māori, and Pakeha (spider). I also found a Category:Pākehā Māori.

"What links here" shows me ~80 articles linking to Pākehā settlers. Template:Culture of New Zealand and Template:History of New Zealand have links which account for many of these. Looking for natural article links from outside these templates, I find:

• In Politics of New Zealand: "Early Pākehā settlers believed that traditional British legal principles (including individual title to land) would be upheld in New Zealand."
• In Pacifism: "In colonial New Zealand, during the latter half of the 19th century Pākehā settlers used numerous tactics to confiscate land from the indigenous Māori, including warfare."
• In History of New Zealand: "Already a majority of the population by 1859, the number of Pākehā settlers increased rapidly to reach over one million by 1916."
• In William Hobson: "The land was later resold to Pākehā settlers at a profit to provide for further operations."
• In Pākehā: "Some early Pākehā settlers who lived among Māori and adopted aspects of Māoritanga became known as 'Pākehā Māori'."
• In Dog Tax War: "It has been described by some authors as the last gasp of the 19th-century wars between the Māori and Pākehā settlers."
• In James Busby: "His duties were to protect British commerce, control, and to mediate between the unruly Pākehā settlers and Māori in New Zealand."

That's a sample I found by working through the first 17 articles on the list, so there are likely many more natural uses of the term in New Zealand-related topics.

Precision – The title unambiguously identifies the article's subject and distinguishes it from other subjects. This criterion seems to be satisfied. Pakeha (spider) is the only title requiring disambiguation, and page views for the spider are much lower. I see unlikely confusion with the concept of spiders settling into new territories.

Concision – The title is no longer than necessary to identify the article's subject and distinguish it from other subjects. There was a consensus that Pākehā settlers is more concise than European settlers in New Zealand. Fortunately this is not one of those all too common discussions I see where editors are pushing to make a title so concise that it bumps into precision issues, and then the title needs to claim "primary topic" status to bail it out of its precision conflicts.

The current title seems to be doing OK on most of the criteria. The main issues I'm seeing those supporting the move raise are recognizability on a global basis (a higher standard than the policy prescribes), and usage.

On the global recognizability issue, a look at the page views of related articles finds that most readers from around the world are likely to arrive in this neighborhood by landing at European New Zealanders, a term they should recognize. There, in § Alternative terms, they are introduced to the term "Pākehā", albeit not until after they have already been guided to the subtopic Pākehā settlers from a hatnote in § History. This issue could be rectified by moving § Alternative terms up to make it the first section below the lead section.

Finally, I'll take a deeper look into the thorniest issue, (common) usage.

The naming policy (over)emphasizes searching the Internet for usage everywhere, over simply looking at usage in the article itself. The Pākehā settlers article uses the word "Pākehā" about twice as many times as it uses the word "European". In its references section, I see "European" just once, while I see "Pākehā" five times. Perhaps "Pākehā settlers" is the more commonly-used term, in the sources cited by the article.

"Most commonly used name" assumes that the set of names used to find the most common among them are equivalent names, i.e. synonyms. I'm not convinced that "Pākehā settlers" and "European settlers in New Zealand" are completely synonymous terms, although they have very similar meanings. "Pākehā settlers" may be the more appropriate term to use when describing facts from a Māori point-of-view.

In § Alternative terms:

The 1996 census used the wording "New Zealand European (Pākehā)" in the ethnicity question, however the word Pākehā was subsequently removed after what Statistics New Zealand called a "significant adverse reaction" to its use to identify ethnicity. In 2013, the New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study carried out by The University of Auckland found no evidence that the word was derogatory, 14% of the overall respondents to the survey chose the option Pākehā to describe themselves with the remainder preferring New Zealander, New Zealand European or simply Kiwi.

In Pākehā:

Opinions of the term vary amongst European New Zealanders. A survey of 6,507 New Zealanders in 2009 showed no support for the claim that the term Pākehā is associated with a negative evaluation; however, some reject it on the ground that they claim it is offensive, or they object to being named in a language other than their own. In 2013 the New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study carried out by the University of Auckland found no evidence that the word was widely considered to be derogatory; however, only 12 per cent of New Zealanders of European descent actively chose to be identified by the term, with the remainder preferring 'New Zealander' (53 per cent), 'New Zealand European' (25 per cent) and/or 'Kiwi' (17 per cent) which is another Māori word.

Pākehā is not a legal concept and has no definition under New Zealand law. Most inclusively the term can apply to any non-Māori New Zealander. Historically, before the arrival of other ethnic groups, the word Māori was not an ethnonym as it meant 'ordinary' or 'normal'. The arrival of Europeans led to the formation of a new term to distinguish the self-regarded 'ordinary' or 'normal' Māori from the new arrivals.

The term is commonly used by a range of journalists and columnists from The New Zealand Herald, the country's largest-circulation daily newspaper. — wbm1058 (talk) 15:52, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

Disagree with your analysis. This is an entirely parochial term, not found in sources outside of New Zealand. Referencing stuff or sources from inside New Zealand is irrelevant - that's not what the concern is. The concern is with everybody else outside of New Zealand - that is the vast majority of Wikipedia readers - recognizing what this article is about. Almost all Wikipedia readers are "familiar with New Zealand", and almost none of them have any idea what "Pakeha" is. You are requiring a degree of expertise that is far in excess of what is acceptable in WP:COMMONNAME. Walrasiad (talk) 22:03, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for your thorough, and no doubt time consuming, post: I managed to read about half. Forgive me if I have missed something, but is there a point to what you have written or is it just a detailed summary of the preceding discussion? I think you have omitted the political aspect of this word, which is understandable for anybody not living in NZ and which underlines many of the chosen preferences. I saw you mentioned the ambiguous meaning of the word 'pakeha' for which I am grateful. Whatever its true meaning it is certainly not synonymous with 'European'. Lest it becomes too ingrained into editors' thinking, the word 'pakeha' is an English word, not a Maori word. The word pākehā is a Maori word, not an English word. The English word was first used in 1817 (as a borrowing from Maori) and became increasingly assimilated into English thereafter. If you don't believe me, look at the OED here. Other dictionaries confirm this. But, I will leave it there for the time being so as not to veer off course. Personally, I try not to despair at the amount of time being wasted on this topic. Hearing both sides of an argument is right and proper, but that doesn't meaning both sides are equally correct. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 22:24, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

Regarding Naturalness, I don't think it is useful to review the current links to the article - there can be any number of reasons for that, and they tend to be influenced by what the current title of the article is. Further, you say you reviewed 17 links, but omit how the other 10 present the links:

• At British Empire: "Initially, interaction between the indigenous Maori population and European settlers was limited to the trading of goods."
• At Wellington: "Steps towards Pākehā (European) settlement in the area began in 1839, when Colonel William Wakefield arrived to purchase land for the New Zealand Company to sell to prospective British settlers."
• At South Island: "After the 1860s gold rushes in the early stages of Pākehā (European) settlement of the country, the South Island had the majority of the European population and wealth"
• At Culture of New Zealand: "A marginal note reads "New Zealand Life".|European settlers developed an identity that was influenced by their rustic lifestyle."
• At Māori culture: "the 19th century, in which Māori began interacting more intensively with European visitors and settlers"
• At Eastbourne, New Zealand: "European settlement increased after the devastating 1855 Wairarapa earthquake"
• At Short-finned eel: "They had a highly developed fishery for freshwater eels before the arrival of Europeans"

Even within Wikipedia links, which tend to be biased towards the currently title, there isn't any support for the claim that the current title is more natural. BilledMammal (talk) 23:15, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

• Weak support per WP:PLAINENGLISH and WP:COMMONALITY. Titles should be internationally intelligible. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 01:09, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

• Support per MOS:COMMONALITY/WP:UE. Intelligibility for a general international audience should not be sacrificed in the name of WP:TIES. —  AjaxSmack  01:37, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

• Comment Another reason why pakeha here is wrong, is that the people settling in NZ were, up to the point of arrival and settling, European. Even if we accept that pakeha is the commonly used term for them now, they weren't pakeha until after they arrived and settled. We wouldn't say, for example, American settlers in America, but we are doing the same here by using pakeha settlers in New Zealand. This illogicality arises from having to change something in order to insert a point of preference - what has been changed is the correct intended meaning of the title, from 'European settlers in NZ (who became pakeha once they had settled)', to 'Pakeha settlers in New Zealand'. The meanings are similar but not the same and for most people it will go unnoticed. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 01:44, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

Good point! Gawaon (talk) 07:17, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

• Support per WP:PLAINENGLISH and WP:COMMONALITY. Kiwiz1338 (talk) 07:48, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

  Note. Kiwiz1338 already voted above @ 04:17, 12 January 2024 – wbm1058 (talk) 01:25, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose move per MOS:TIES and for precision of meaning. "Pākehā" is a New Zealand English word (borrowed from te reo Māori) and is universally understood within New Zealand. "European" can be ambiguous as the word is sometimes used to specifically mean immigrants from continental Europe as opposed to the UK and Ireland. Daveosaurus (talk) 08:45, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

  Do you have a source for those definitions, because the New Zealand Oxford Dictionary suggests the opposite is true; that "Pakeha" can have a broader scope than just "European", while "European" includes the British Isles:

  Pakeha: a light-skinned non-Polynesian New Zealander, esp. one of British birth or ancestry as distinct from a Maori; a European or white person.

  European: a native or inhabitant of Europe

  Europe: a continent of the northern hemisphere ("Continental Europe" means Europe excluding Britain)

  BilledMammal (talk) 12:27, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose This issue has been discussed enough already and I consider the latest RM to be disruptive. Simple question for the nom: What has changed since the previous RMs? If consensus goes against you, you should not simply try and exhaust other editors by repeating the process with a flawed argument every couple of years. Other editors have set out above, in detail, why this proposal is flawed and why the existing name is appropriate. This is disruptive behaviour that should not be rewarded. AusLondonder (talk) 14:44, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

  WP:CCC; it's not disruptive to open a new request two years after a previous one found a consensus, particularily since the previous one gave minimal consider to what the common name in New Zealand was, and no consideration for whether Pakeha was accurate. BilledMammal (talk) 14:51, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

  You moved an RM in early 2022, it failed. That RM closed with the comment that "consensus of this discussion is that "Pākehā" is the commonly used term in New Zealand English". You then requested a move review which was rejected. During that move review you made a large number of comments. Your argument was considered and rejected. Another editor also made an extremely inappropriate and disruptive move request about two weeks later before the move review was even completed! In late 2023 you again made a move request without a substantially changed argument and without adequate evidence. This RM was closed with no consensus and subject to yet another move review. All this together seems disruptive to me. Also worth remembering per WP:CCC "proposing to change a recently established consensus can be disruptive." AusLondonder (talk) 15:12, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

  I don’t think two years is anyone’s definition of "recent". BilledMammal (talk) 16:21, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

  So we'll be having the discussion at Talk:Jewish exodus from the Muslim world#Requested move 26 February 2024 by December next year? AusLondonder (talk) 16:53, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

The topic is one of constant flux and has been especially so since around 2015. That alone means that frequent reviews are required. That is aside from the current title simply being factually wrong. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 19:49, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

• Support per detailed nomination and per all the "support" votes. Comment. The use of "Pākehā" within the main title header of this article would be obviously appropriate for Maori Wikipedia where the article delineating the country bears the header "Aotearoa", whereas the interwiki article in English Wikipedia bears the header "New Zealand" and the associated English Wikipedia article bears the header "European New Zealanders", not "Pākehā New Zealanders". No other English Wikipedia main title header, among numerous entries such as First wave of European colonization, European colonization of the Americas or European colonisation of Southeast Asia, uses indigenous terminology to describe the Europeans. Also, English language does not use accents or diacritics, thus the English WP:COMMONNAME for Türkiye is Turkey and the common name for España is Spain. —Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 23:15, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

  Note. Roman Spinner already voted above @ 04:15, 12 February 2024 (UTC) – wbm1058 (talk) 23:40, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

I did not realize that this is a reopened continuation of the previously closed nomination and assumed that it is a newly restarted RM on the same subject. As a result, I am striking my duplicate vote of "Support" and indicating that my newly-added text represents a "Comment". —Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 01:04, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose, I can't explain how MOS:TIES wouldn't apply. New Zealand is an English-speaking nation, and Pākehā is an adopted English word that is the common and known name for this descriptor. TIES is fulfilled, and applied, and the redirects get readers using other terminology to this page. Randy Kryn (talk) 23:53, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

  It does. However, because both "European settlers" and "Pākehā" are valid New Zealand English, the following principle from WP:COMMONALITY suggests "European settlers": Use universally accepted terms rather than those less widely distributed, especially in titles. For example, glasses is preferred to the national varieties spectacles (British English) and eyeglasses (American English); ten million is preferable to one crore (Indian English). This explicitly refers to the relationship between WP:COMMONALITY and WP:TIES in situations where there's overlapping terminology and therefore it should control. "European settlers" is commonly understood in both regions where "Pākehā" isn't. Loki (talk) 01:28, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

  MOS:TIES is for wording with "strong ties" to the national language, which this one has. Descriptors with strong national bedrocking should be used before other considerations. Randy Kryn (talk) 10:24, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

  @Randy Kryn, how is "pākehā" different from the example of "crore", a term used by hundreds of millions more English speakers? And how does "European settlers" not also have "strong ties" to the national language of NZ, considering it is by far the more prevalent term in NZ in the context of NZ colonization? And why don't we consider the "strong ties" the topic of the article definitionally has to the English spoken in Europe? JoelleJay (talk) 20:41, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

  In reply I'll quote the close of the last RM, in early 2022: "WP:COMMONNAME explicitly allows and recommends, in cases where the local English name differs from the globally used one, that the local English common name should prevail. New Zealand English is notable for its assimilation of Māori vocabulary beyond other variants of English within the core Anglosphere. In such a context, that vocabulary, where local use in English speech is attested, are just as valid as the "Queen's English" for the purposes of Wikipedia, as the English Wikipedia deliberately does not have a "preferred" variant of English." As good now as it was then. Randy Kryn (talk) 23:24, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

  That is completely irrelevant to the question I asked, which is regarding the explicit preference for using the more global term when two national varieties exist, especially in titles. JoelleJay (talk) 02:23, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

  @JoelleJay you mean a Crore? That is an oddly chosen example for you to give, since it is actually used as an article title for prettry much the same reason that editors have used in Oppose !votes here. The reasoning behind both titles is largely the same - by the principle you have offered here, "Crore" would redirect to 10,000,000. Newimpartial (talk) 23:53, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

  The article crore is on the term; it relates to 10,000,000 in the same way that the article pakeha relates to the article European New Zealanders.

  Incidentally, if Pākehā was the right term for this article, then European New Zealanders would redirect to Pākehā. BilledMammal (talk) 01:05, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

  So you are suggesting that for Pākehā, it is correct to have an article about the term but incorrect to have an article using the term in its title?

  Incidentally, I don't believe that Pākehā is the correct term for "European New Zealander" any more than the term "settler" or "colonist" in the North American context is a synonym for "European Canadian" or "European American".

  The fact is that, in the New Zealand context, we have had the really quite terrible POV redirect from "Colonization of New Zealand" to "History of New Zealand" compensated slightly (up to now) by the "Pākehā settlers" article offering some coverage of colonization not based on settler-colonial sovereignty and emerging statehood. But it seems that some editors may still be uncomfortable with this status quo and wish to erase these dynamics further (as the largely demographic article European New Zealanders already does, for instance). Newimpartial (talk) 01:37, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

  The history of New Zealand began around 1280 when the first humans arrived. Before then New Zealand didn't exist, it was a group of landmasses surrounded by water. From about 1280 its prehistory started, ending in 1769 or, arguably, in 1642. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 02:32, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

  It's not my example, it's the example used in our P&Gs: Use universally accepted terms rather than those less widely distributed, especially in titles. For example, glasses is preferred to the national varieties spectacles (British English) and eyeglasses (American English); ten million is preferable to one crore (Indian English). As BilledMammal said, the article on "crore" is about the term and is equivalent to our article on the term "pakeha". What COMMONALITY is explicitly discouraging is the use of local vocabulary when an international option is available, especially in titles. There isn't an international version of the term "pakeha" or the term "crore", so we have articles on those terms, but both do have a global alternative when it comes to their use as words. JoelleJay (talk) 02:14, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

  If I were a less generous sort of editor, I would point out that WP:COMMONALITY is part of the MOS and therefore has the force of a guideline, while WP:TITLEVAR is part of WP:TITLE and therefore has the status of a policy. The latter says, If a topic has strong ties to a particular English-speaking nation, the title of its article should use that nation's variety of English. What I will point out instead is that the COMMONALITY-type argument is presented in WP:TITLE as applying only when a topic does not have strong ties to a particular national context and, therfore, a specific variety of English; therefore COMMONALITY is not strictly relevant in a situation, like this one, with strong ties.

  What is more, the entire "Move" argument I have seen in this forum is based the premise that Pākehā is effectively a synonym for "European". I dispute this premise; I think the term is far more closely aligned with "settler", "colonist" or what Newfoundland dialect refers to as "come from away". Policies and guidelines certainly do not enjoin us to use overlapping but non-contiguous terms as article titles when more accurate titles exist, are used in HQRS, and are terms that someone familiar with, although not necessarily an expert in, the subject area will recognize - the latter threshold being undisputedly met in this case, as far as I can recall. Newimpartial (talk) 14:46, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

• Support per nom. This seems to be a bit of historical revisionism. They clearly didn't refer to themselves as Pākehā and weren't referred to at the time as Pākehā. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:28, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

• Support In a nutshell, the oppose arguments would cite MOS:TIES, that this is a loan word adopted by NZ English and, because this is an article with NZ ties, MOS:TIES tells us that Pākehā settlers should be the title. The underlying assertion is that MOS:TIES applies to both spelling and vocabulary.

1. MOS:TIES is part of MOS:ENGVAR, as is MOS:COMMONALITY. MOS:TIES must be read in the fuller context of MOS:ENGVAR. MOS:TIES must be read in conjunction with MOS:COMMONALITY. Together, we are told that we should avoid parochial terms in favour of terms that are globally understood and, if necessary, gloss a divergent meaning. The MOS is primarily written for prose. Obviously, one cannot gloss a term in a tile. Per MOS:ENGVAR, we embrace differences in spelling across varieties of English but we are concerned about vocabulary and a common understanding across varieties of English.
2. Pākehā settlers is a parochial term, assimilated into NZ English but not assimilated into English globally and not universally understood. I am not seeing any substantive argument that would try to assert otherwise.
3. WP:AT would more specifically address article titles and, as a policy, is superior to the MOS. It must also be read as a whole.
4. WP:RECOGNIZABILITY is one of the five WP:CRITERIA. It is given a single sentence: The title is a name or description of the subject that someone familiar with, although not necessarily an expert in, the subject area will recognize. However, this must be read in the fuller context of the section Use commonly recognizable names. It would tell us that ... [Wikipedia] generally prefers the name that is most commonly used (as determined by its prevalence in a significant majority of independent, reliable, English-language sources) as such names will usually best fit the five criteria listed above. It gives no preference to the origin of sources but would draw on a global corpus. It also states: For cases where usage differs among English-speaking countries, see also National varieties of English, below [ie WP:TITLEVAR].
5. WP:TITLEVAR tells us: If a topic has strong ties to a particular English-speaking nation, the title of its article should use that nation's variety of English (for example, compare Australian Defence Force with United States Secretary of Defense). It continues: Very occasionally, a less common but non-nation-specific term is selected to avoid having to choose between national varieties: for example, soft drink was selected to avoid the choice between the British fizzy drink, American soda, American and Canadian pop, and a slew of other nation- and region-specific names. It is making a clear distinction between spelling and vocabulary and a clear preference for vocabulary that is commonly recognisable.
6. WP:TITLEVAR is a sub-section of the section English-language titles (WP:ENGLISHTITLE). It would state: ... the English language contains many loan words and phrases taken from other languages. If a word or phrase (originally taken from some other language) is commonly used by English-language sources, it can be considered to be an English-language word or phrase (example: coup d'état or coup d'état. The example is an important part of the context. Coup d'état is a loan word that has been universally assimilated into English globally. It is quit unlike the term Pākehā settlers, which is quite particular to NZ. An argument to retain Pākehā settlers on the basis of WP:ENGLISHTITLE is clearly not consistent with the spirit and intent of what is being expressed and evidenced by the particular example given.
7. Considering recent (since 2010) usage globally for Pākehā settlers v European settlers in an NZ context, google scholar hits are 786 v 15,400 and for JSTOR, 18 v 541. The evidence does not support that Pākehā settlers is a commonly recognisabe name for the subject and, while European settlers in New Zealand may be less concise, it is certainly much more recognisable globally.

The arguments that would cite MOS:TIES to oppose the move would construe the guidance therein out of the fuller context of the prevailing P&G to support a conclusion that is clearly contrary to what is expressed in the fuller context and the spirit and intent of the P&G. As such, it clearly falls to WP:PETTIFOGGING. The P&G, spirit and intent of the P&G, and the evidence of usage from a global corpus would support the move. This is En Wiki not NZ Wiki. Cinderella157 (talk) 12:40, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

Cinderella157 (in points 1-6, above) is making a distinction between spelling and vocabulary aspects of varieties of English, but this distinction is not present in the P&Gs of English-language wikipedia and in fact runs directly counter to the spirit and substances of WP:ENGVAR. Their reference in point 2. to Pākehā settlers as a parochial term implies that terms specific to national varieties of English should not be used on Wikipedia, but our policies and guidelines do not support this where the term is specific to the variety of English most tied to the topic.

What is more, having imposed this distinction between spelling and vocabulary, Conderella157 then uses it as a pretext to ignore the key provision of WP:TITLEVAR, which is that If a topic has strong ties to a particular English-speaking nation, the title of its article should use that nation's variety of English. Nowhere do our P&Gs restrict this to spelling, and all the examples cited in favor of universal COMMONALITY come from vocabulary choice in contexts that do not have strong ties to a specific variety of English.

Nationally-specific articles use nationally-specific vocabulary when this reflects the WP:HQRS. We do not replace the most accurate terms with more "understandable" ones that carry a less precise meaning, not when the topic is closely tied to nationally-specific vocabulary and the terms concerned are recognizable to a reader familiar with the topic. What is more, we allow the sources to tell us what the most accurate vocabulary for a subject might me, in a specific context. According to our policies and guidelines, this applies to titles as well as in-article vocabulary.

Points 1 through 6 above therefore represent a novel and inaccurate reading of these policies and guidelines, and should be set aside. Newimpartial (talk) 13:05, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

To quote the sentence from WP:TITLEVAR as, If a topic has strong ties to a particular English-speaking nation, the title of its article should use that nation's variety of English, omits the parenthetic examples given as a part of the sentence in full and which serve to clarify the spirit and intent of that sentence (see at point five where I quote the sentence in full). Quoting part of the sentence out of the fuller sentence (an act of omission) is a misrepresentation that falls to WP:PETTIFOGGING: Willfully misinterpreting policy or relying on technicalities to justify inappropriate actions - though any of the other five points given there would also reasonably apply. Claiming that my analysis is novel and inaccurate is based on a misrepresentation by omission and is a strawman argument. Cinderella157 (talk) 01:55, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

I was not familiar with the PETTIFOGGING essay before Cindarella157 started citing it, and it seems to me that insisting that TITLEVAR means only to refer to the spelling aspects of varieties of English because the parenthetical example concerns spelling, looks like a pretty clear example of PETTIFOGGING. Word choice and signification are just as much a part of each variety of English as spelling. Newimpartial (talk) 17:54, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

If an argument depends on a misrepresentation by omission of inconvenient detail, then the argument is pettifogging. Cinderella157 (talk) 00:18, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps PETTIFOGGING is not the correct wikilink for a misleading argument that presents one example case mentioned in a policy or guideline as though it delineated the entire scope of the policy page. If so, I wonder what a better link would be? Newimpartial (talk) 23:08, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

But the variety of English most tied to the topic clearly prefers "European settlers", as established by both HQ NZ sources and other English sources (which the European subjects of this article undoubtedly have "strong ties to" just as much or more than they do to NZ English). And you are incorrect about all the examples cited in favor of universal COMMONALITY come from vocabulary choice in contexts that do not have strong ties to a specific variety of English. The guidance to use "10,000,000" instead of "crore" is directly analogous to this situation, and in fact there would be a much better argument for using "crore" than "pakeha" considering there are hundreds of millions more English-speakers using the former than the latter. JoelleJay (talk) 19:05, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

This discussion has reached the point where it should end and the title is put back to 'European' (changed or started with 'pakeha' by a two edits IP many years ago - if that doesn't indicate an agenda what does?). There is a group in NZ who will simply not accept reality and their vote won't change no matter how much the obvious is pointed out to them. I could say, again, that the common name in NZ is European, not pakeha, as evidenced in RSS and more so from just living in NZ. Pakeha, is generally understood and is used in NZ but it is not the principle term used. Another fallacy being put forward is that NZ English is some special form of English. Nonsense! NZE is almost the same as standard UKE. The main difference is oral, especially in the vowel sounds, which doesn't apply here. There is a greater use of some, but only some, loan words and phrases from the Maori language (eg, pakeha, kumara, waka) and terms less used in the UK as a whole (the word 'wee' ie small, is commonly used in NZ whereas in the UK it is more regional.) This use of Maori words has been exaggerated in the last 20 years, backed by legislation and a collection of academics, lost youth and activists indoctrinated by misinformation and a reckless education system. (The new govt was elected on a mandate to undo the mess that this line of thinking has created in all sectors of society into which it has steadily crept unchallenged.) So, NZE is NOT some sort of special variety of English that English speaking people outside NZ will have trouble understanding - there are regional varieties of English within the UK with greater differences). An excellent summary by Cinderella157 BTW. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 20:21, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

The quote "lost youth and activists indoctrinated by misinformation and a reckless education system" definitely shows precisely what sort of "agenda" is in play here. Daveosaurus (talk) 23:44, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

JoelleJay, is there a scenario where the concept of 10,000,000 is discussed in article space that has strong ties to South Asian English? I am not aware of any, and certainly the guideline you cite here doesn't discuss such a scenario. As far as I can tell, my statement above is entirely correct - no example of this kind has been presented, where a term is correct to an ENGVAR strongly tied to an article's topic (according to HQRS) but the term should not be used in articles. Newimpartial (talk) 18:00, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

...Of course there is? Any time tens of millions of something, like people or rupees, are discussed in Indian-English articles, many (maybe most) English-language sources will be using "crore". There are 75000 hits in the news right now... And it's not like "pakeha settlers" is discussing the concept of "pakeha" any more than any of those articles are discussing the concept of "crore". JoelleJay (talk) 20:02, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

The standard for triggering WP:TIES and not WP:COMMONALITY is not if Pākehā is correct New Zealand English, nobody is denying it is. As long as "European settlers" is also correct New Zealand English, both "Pākehā" and "European settlers" are equally preferred per WP:TIES, but WP:COMMONALITY prefers "European settlers". Or in other words, "Pākehā" would have to be the exclusive term for this concept in New Zealand English, not just a correct term for this concept in New Zealand English. Loki (talk) 04:50, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, Loki; from this comment, I am now able to see the basis for our disagreement. You believe that to trigger TIES and TITLEVAR, Pākehā has to be the exclusive term for the concept, and you think the standard proposed by Oppose !voters is that it merely has to be one among several correct terms. This may be the view of some editors, but it is not mine - the criterion I am trying to employ is whether Pākehā is the most appropriate term. The threshold I have in mind is something akin to the CRITERIA formulation, that someone familiar with the subject would recognize the term as being the most appropriate one. Thus is part of a more general view I have, that to the extent possible we should follow HQRS in their choices of terminology, rather than using less precise terms in pursuit of COMMONALITY. I regard commonality as applying to strictly synonymous terms (like glasses/spectacles) but not to terms that overlap with difference. Newimpartial (talk) 12:08, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

We are all trying to decide “whether Pākehā is the most appropriate term”, but that’s not a criterion in itself. That’s just what an RM is for.

A preference for following HQRSs is a fine criterion, but it was my impression other editors have shown them to loosely prefer ‘European’, or perhaps have no clear preference en masse. Do you have contrary evidence? — HTGS (talk) 20:27, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

I provided a fair number of HQRS using "European/British settlers" back at the MRV that could easily be used for this page. A small selection:

This article from Otago geography profs regarding the way pamphlets encouraging British people to settle in NZ misrepresented its environment, and the effects this had on settlers.

Wind and water: Environmental learning in early colonial New Zealand, abstract

In the 19th century, pamphlets and handbooks written for intending settlers often depicted New Zealand as environmentally benign. Upon arrival, however, the newcomers experienced episodes of stormy weather and flooding. They also found greater variations across the country, between the seasons, and from year to year, than they had been led to expect. Primarily by experience, but in part guided by Māori informants, rural people learned to recognize the signs of impending storms and flooding in lowland rivers. They also came to appreciate the less predictable features of eastern South Island weather systems, and found ways to reduce their economic and environmental impact.

This book chapter discussing the history of British colonial settlement in Canada, Aus, and NZ and its legal and doctrinal impact on sovereignty of native people in each of those lands.

Radical Title of the Crown and Aboriginal Title: North America 1763, New South Wales 1788, and New Zealand 1840, intro paragraph

‘Radical title’, the underlying or ultimate title of the Crown to all lands within Commonwealth realms, is said to be a feature of English Common law, derived from Anglo-Norman feudal doctrines, that was transplanted to most British colonies. The focus of this chapter is the history of this doctrine and how that impacted on the recognition or otherwise of the sovereignty, laws, titles and rights of indigenous peoples. Canada, Australia and New Zealand are three modern nation states (the former two having federal constitutions) that emerged from a number of colonies in the British Empire. In all of these colonies, from a very early point in colonial rule, European settlers came to dominate all aspects of political, social, cultural and economic life. In the laws of the colonies, indigenous peoples – variously known as Natives, Indians, Eskimos, Aborigines, Maori (and sometimes as savages, primitive barbarians and a range of other racist descriptions) – were explicitly marginalised by legal dispensations put in place. They were subject to a range of policies labelled as amalgamation, assimilation, adaptation or integration, with a view to ‘civilising’ those who did not perish during the drastic population decline that followed the arrival of European settlers.

This article from NZ and Aus archaeologists about European settlers in Otago.

Living and dying on the edge of the Empire: a bioarchaeological examination of Otago’s early European settlers, abstract

During the nineteenth century, New Zealand was promoted as aland of plenty, promising a‘better life’, to encourage families tosettle and develop the growing colony. This paper characterisesthe life-course of early settlers to New Zealand through historicalepidemiological and osteological analyses of the St John’s burialground in Milton, Otago. These people represent some of thefirstEuropean colonists to Aotearoa, and their children. The analysesprovided glimpses into the past of strenuous manual labour,repeated risk of injury, and oral and skeletal infections. Mortalityof infants was very high in the skeletal sample and the deathcertificates outlined the varied risks of infection and accidentsthey faced. Osteobiographies of seven well-preserved adultsdemonstrated the detailed narratives that can be gleaned fromcareful consideration of individuals. The skeletal record indicateschildhood stress affecting growth and risk of injury prior tomigration. However, the historical record suggests thatoccupational risks of death to the working class were similar inthe new colony as at home. The snapshot of this Victorian-erapopulation provided by these data suggests that the colonialsociety transported their biosocial landscape upon immigrationand little changed for these initial colonists.

This article from a NZ prof on environmental history in the context of early European settlers in Otago.

Fashioning a future, abstract

This article, split into 2 parts that will be published over 2 journal issues, examines environmental attitudes and actions amongst the first generation of settlers in Otago, New Zealand, between 1840 and 1860. Based on extensive analysis of diaries, letters, artworks and official documents, it argues for the need to recognise the complexity of European environmental responses and actions, including highlighting extensive official attempts at forest conservation from the late 1840s. Part I of this article examines the complexity of settler views by demonstrating the importance of the concept of improvement as a means by which colonists sought to Europeanise Otago through introductions of familiar plants and animals, and the establishment of farms. Part II is in 2 sections: Section 1 considers the impact of Romanticism on settler interpretations of Otago's environment, including the manner in which they framed and depicted its harbours and mountains in writing and art. Section 2 examines concerns over resource depletion and details official measures to protect forests, including through reservation, licensing of timber extraction and the appointment of forest guards.

This article on land alienation experienced by different iwi during European colonization.

Land loss, confiscation, arability and colonisation: the experience of iwi in Aotearoa New Zealand, abstract

This article examines the history of land alienation experienced by Māori in Aotearoa New Zealand across different iwi (tribes), exploring the connection between land loss and arability. The analysis uses geospatial data of Māori landholdings through time and explores the relationship that they have with Land Use Capability, a summary measure of the land’s economic potential. Two related factors are found to determine the variation of land alienation between iwi: (a) the arable profile of Māori land within the rohe (traditional land boundaries or territories) of an iwi and (b) the experience that iwi had with land confiscation. Iwi who held a large proportion of arable land and those that experienced land confiscations were more likely to experience land alienation. These findings reaffirm the historical narrative that Māori land suitable for arable use was targeted for alienation and illustrates the role of colonisation in perpetuating the historic trauma caused by these events.

This chapter in a Palgrave book series on climatic issues faced by European settlers in NZ.

Pioneer Settlers Recognizing and Responding to the Climatic Challenges of Southern New Zealand, abstract

In the minds of many Europeans, the islands of the South Pacific, including New Zealand, were an earthly paradise, as evident in the description of Tahiti in 1769 by Joseph Banks, who sailed with Captain James Cook on the Endeavour.1 Yet Tahiti was a landscape assembled largely from plant and animal species brought in by people from elsewhere in the tropics. Even in paradise, however, there were limits to how many residents, let alone visitors, the food-producing systems of a Pacific island could support, as crew members of the Endeavour discovered when they tried to obtain supplies outside the harvest period. Much the same was true of New Zealand.

JoelleJay (talk) 21:23, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

To clarify, in this thread and at least one other, I do not intend to be making an argument of the form, the move should be supported/opposed because X. Rather, I am trying to help ascertain what range of arguments ought to be taken into account in deciding about the move. In this discussion alone, I have seen all of the following Support arguments presented (paraphrasing as closely as I can):

1. New Zealand English as an ENGVAR incorporating borrow-words from Maori is not a "real" variety of English (and the apprarance/belief that it is "real" represents an attempt at "progressive" social engineering).

2. When it comes to article titles and text, WP:TITLEVAR only instructs us to use the spelling, but not the word choice, of the ENGVAR in question.

3. When it comes to article titles and text, various policies and guidelines tell us to chose words that are held in common by multiple varieties of English rather than words that are specific to one variety of English, regardless of the terms used in the HQRS on the topic, the TIES between the topic and a specific variety of English, or the other factors incorporated in WP:CRITERIA apart from "Naturalness"(/COMMONALITY).

4. The move is supported by the word choice in the HQRS on the article's topic (based on whatever evidence and metric).

I'm sure some arguments are "none of the above", but among those four, I think 1. is not supported by factual evidence, 2. is a plain misreading of the policy in question, and 3. fails to take into account the full context of the relevant passages of WP:TIES, WP:TITLEVAR and WP:COMMONALITY and therefore reaches a spurious conclusion that doesn't reflect either actual practice in article space or the intended meaning of our P&Gs.

Therefore, I would hope to see this move decided based on the strength of argument 4. versus evidence to the contrary, along with policy-compliant "other" arguments. So far, I haven't seen any evidence for 4. that I find compelling; the main evidence I've seen against 4. is that, as I understand it, the current article text and title reflect the sources the article actually uses. I realize that not everyone would agree that this evidence is compelling, and I am open to changing my !vote (which was made in the earlier phase of the RM). But I have seen multiple !vote rationales to the effect of "1 and also 4", "2 and also 3" or "3 and also 4" - while multi-pronged arguments that pile up relevant with irrelevant rationales may look stronger than ones sticking to principles, I don't believe that policy-based consensus ought to be influenced by extraneous arguments like 1-3. Newimpartial (talk) 23:46, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

At my point 7, I provided results from google scholar and JSTOR that reflect usage in HQRS since 2010, that indicate Pākehā settlers is a minority term (about one-twentieth) compared with European settlers when used in an NZ context. Therefore, {{[t]he move is supported by the word choice in the HQRS on the article's topic ...}} and the current title is not. Cinderella157 (talk) 00:18, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

Thank you Newimpartial for your above post which makes it clear that you are making serious contributions. However, your post is what I meant earlier by 'academics' being part of the oppose group. The KISS principle should apply, as per Cinderella157's retort, otherwise we tie ourselves in knots. I say this feeling even more objective than I usually assume I am, as I sit on a beautifully warm evening with a pint of Carlsberg Light overlooking Circular Quay wondering why the Aboriginal flag flies alongside the national flag atop the Harbour Bridge. But I digress.

• Support per MOS:COMMONALITY. This has been discussed in quite great detail and the supports have the stronger case, IMO - "European" is valid New Zealand English, so use the more accessible, globally understood term. (As a side note, I don't really buy the precision arguments - the article title doesn't have to be 100% precise, the lead can clarify the scope of the topic - but the commonality argument is strong enough it doesn't matter.) SnowFire (talk) 14:53, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
• Comment. An interesting intitle: search for "settlers in" turns up just ten pages. – wbm1058 (talk) 20:55, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

And just two categories, whereas "settlers of" shows 20 categories (plus one redirect). Nurg (talk) 01:03, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

Another observation/piece of data: the Google Ngram shows that the term has been used since the mid-1800s, with some peaks and ebbs in usage. Usage peaked around the turn of the century, and has been declining since (at least up to 2019). – wbm1058 (talk) 16:46, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

I'd note on the ngrams that there has been a significant increase in the use of Pākehā at the same time as the decline in Pakeha, so I think that's less that usage is decline and more that people are using the correct spelling. Turnagra (talk) 19:02, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

Interesting, thanks. So, combining the two forms, we still see a bit of a recent decline, but not nearly so pronounced. – wbm1058 (talk) 20:46, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

• Comment this move request is a mess. This is the third move in two years, not including the range of talk page protests and move reviews from the same persistent group of editors who are WP:BLUDGEONING their way through this conversation and responding to every editor who disagrees with them. This discussion has now been going on for nearly three months and is no closer to a clear consensus than any previous discussion, yet the same editors continue to try and force their opinion. Some discussions on this move elsewhere (the move review or various attempted closer's talk pages) have highlighted the culture war element of the proposal, something which is clear when you take a look at the various other move requests to remove Māori from article titles that were started at the same time, or at some of the comments in support of the move - such as accusing those who recognise the use of Māori in New Zealand as being academics, lost youth and activists indoctrinated by misinformation and a reckless education system. These sort of motivations understandably lead to persistence and heated tension in the discussions, both things which shouldn't have a place on wikipedia. But I have no doubt that supporters of the move will protest any closure that doesn't lead to a move, as they have done so many times before, and I'm sure that those discussions would see the same sort of bludgeoning which has marred this and lead it to be still going on after two and a half arduous months. Turnagra (talk) 19:02, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

  I’ve made the most replies is this discussion, 17 - but you and NewImpartial are not far behind, on 13 each. If there is bludgeoning here it’s by both sides. I also note the last RM was over two years ago now and only two editors, yourself and HTGS, participated, BilledMammal (talk) 23:55, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

  I appreciate that there's a lot of involvement on both sides of the debate, but I don't think that numbers alone are the best metric. While I'll freely admit to engaging a lot here, the vast majority of that has been in response to my own top-level comments rather than replies to the top-level posts of other users. In contrast, I can only see a single comment opposed to the move which hasn't had you, Roger, or Joelle respond to argue with it. If you have confidence in your argument, you shouldn't need to be bludgeoning anyone who disagreed. Turnagra (talk) 05:16, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

  Please consider how these two group debate in this and many other discussions. The pro-English group and the pro-Maori group (that is not an ideal description but I can't think of anything better). The pro-English/don't change group always puts forward meaningful arguments to back their position, often quoting wiki policy. The pro-Maori group either does not, or if they do and their argument is challenged and shown to be weak or simply wrong, they give up, dig their heels in and resort to unfounded mud-slinging. One such banal retort is that the pro-English group is anti Maori language and anti Maori culture, and sometimes the occasional R word comes up (racist). What stage are we at now in this discussion? The change-to-European group has shown overwhelmingly that that is the correct word to use here and the keep-pakeha group has nowhere to go so we get post like the one above that just says this has been discussed before so lets leave be and move on. (Why? Argue on the point in question.) Or, quoting my comment above where I describe the type of people prone to being in the pro-moari group. Well, a bit flowery perhaps but certainly no less so that Winston, the current deputy PM who has used similar or the same words. But again, it's an egg thrown at me which doesn't in any way try to counter the arguments I have put forward. So, we could consider that if the keep-pakeha group carries on blocking the change without any better argument than 'we prefer pakeha' then we should just change to European and move on, leaving the wp:just don't like it group to fret between themselves at their next online group meetup. I don't get bothered by implications or actual comments that my motives are anti-maori; I just despair. My position here and elsewhere is anti orchestrated change to create a desired effect: that is all. That is exactly what has been happening in NZ in recent times. Whether I want or don't want the desired outcome is irrelevant. So, don't change the spelling of English words of maori origin to make them maori words with maori macrons, and fib that that is the NZE way of spelling- it is what you are trying to make NZE become, not what NZE actually is; and don't say we all go round saying kia ora to each other from the boardroom down to the playground. What comes next? Are my posts a breach of the Treaty of Waitangi? oops, sorry, should I say te tiriti o waitangi? Welcome back Turnagra. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 00:20, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

• Support Both terms ("European" and "Pakeha") are used in reliable sources, so it seems to me we should use the most recognisable term in the title, and then explain "Pakeha" in the lead. 𝕱𝖎𝖈𝖆𝖎𝖆 (talk) 06:34, 9 March 2024 (UTC)
• Support, with a qualification. Support especially per MOS:COMMONALITY and per the arguments of BilledMammal, Loki, JoelleJay, and Cinderella157. As wbm1058 noted in their relisting analysis, the relevance of MOS:TIES is unclear, since both "Pākehā settlers" and "European settlers" are perfectly good NZE expressions, so MOS:TIES offers no basis for preferring one over the other. As far as I can see, this point has never been challenged with convincing arguments, and yet the Oppose camp seems to rely nearly entirely on this single policy. The implicit idea seems to be that "Pākehā" is more idiomatically NZE and hence to be preferred. Idiomatic it may well be, but nowhere in our policies I can find anything that says that idiomatic expressions are to be preferred. No the other hand, MOS:COMMONALITY says to avoid them in favour of "vocabulary common to all varieties of English" whenever possible, and it's certainly possible here. So European settlers of/in New Zealand must be the primary title if we want to take our policies seriously, and I can't think of a good reason not to. On the other hand (as for the qualification), Pākehā settlers doubtless is idiomatic and also has the advantage of brevity, hence I would suggest to keep it in the first sentence as an alternative name, starting it with something like "European settlers of New Zealand, locally also known as Pākehā settlers or Pakeha settlers, arrived in the country since the late 18th century...." Gawaon (talk) 10:18, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

  Gawacon, your reasoning is good and I agree, but it assumes pakeha and European are synonyms which they are not. Pakeha has a looser less clearly defined meaning and it generally applies only to people in NZ. Check dictionaries to find it defined as non maori..non maori or pacific islander..white person..NZ non polynesian..etc. so its use as a substitute for European should only happen in specific cases where the context allows and this article's title isn't one of them. Many of the 25% or so of independent RSSs that use the term pakeha settlers do so where the context does allow it. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 16:38, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

  I know that Pākehā isn't generally used for people of European origin outside of NZ, but in the context of this article, the meanings seem close enough. Gawaon (talk) 17:04, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

• Support Per Gawaon and the others they mention. MOS:TIES makes no preference towards either one, while the proposed title is indisputably more widely known and used. XeCyranium (talk) 23:43, 9 March 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.

Also known locally as Pakeha settlers

I don't believe this to be correct. Pakeha settler makes me think of people like Thomas Kendall. Usually we don't even specify European when discussing the settlers in New Zealand contexts and it's most common to just see 'settler' on it's own without disambiguation. Traumnovelle (talk) 21:10, 20 August 2024 (UTC)