Talk:Mount Watkin / Hikaroroa

Requested move 16 November 2021

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: No consensus to move after relist. There is no agreement as to which name better suits the article title criteria. (non-admin closure) (t · c) buidhe 10:27, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

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Mount Watkin / Hikaroroa → Mount Watkin – A section regarding dual naming was recently removed from the New Zealand Naming Conventions, and following its removal, policy and guidelines no longer support the article being at this title - the current title fails most of WP:CRITERIA, including being natural (the "common name") and being concise.

Evidence for this is that Ngrams shows no use for any name other than "Mount Watkin"; the fact it doesn't register any use for "Hikaroroa" should address concerns that we are missing the dual name being used in other forms. This is reinforced by Google News results; when the entity is referenced "Mount Watkin" or similar is the preferred form; "Mt Watkin" is used four times, "Mt Watkins" is used at least twice, and "Mount Watkins" is used at least once. In contrast, a dual name is only used twice (as "Mt Watkin-Hikaroa Reserve" and "Hikaroroa/Mount Watkins Scenic Reserve"), while "Hikaroroa" is only used once.

No objection to moving to "Mt Watkin" rather than "Mount Watkin", should consensus prefer the shorter form.

When considering other sources, it is worth noting that many sources, both government and non-government, are required by law to use the official name, and so don't meet the WP:COMMONNAME requirement for "independent" sources; I have written up a draft containing additional details of this at NZGB Independent Sources BilledMammal (talk) 02:15, 16 November 2021 (UTC)— Relisting. —usernamekiran • sign the guestbook • (talk) 13:06, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose - as stated many (many) times before, ngrams fundamentally don't work for dual place names - especially for a place such as this which is not as high profile as other dual place names (such as Aoraki / Mount Cook or Whakaari / White Island). In this instance as well, almost all of the results are from before the attribution of the dual place name. Of those picked up by google for ngrams after the name change:

• two are the same source (and refer to Mt Watkins in Yosemite, not the one in New Zealand),
• one is from just two years after the name change and appears to be a citation of an earlier study, and
• one doesn't have internal search enabled, but as it's a book about American national parks I'm inclined to think it's also referring to the one in Yosemite.

Fundamentally, this is no basis whatsoever for a move request. Nor are the google news references, which mostly refer to the mountain in Yosemite or have come up as part of the dual name. Google returns ~3,500 results for "Hikaroroa" compared to ~1350 for "Mount Watkin" and ~1200 for "Mt Watkin", although in the instance of the former there are some mihi coming through owing to the significance of the mountain to local iwi and for the latter there will likely be a lot of results for the Yosemite mountain as well. The dual name is used by several sources, as well as many on social media. This includes photography blogs, local tramping clubs, other photographers, the Botanical Society of Otago, geocaching groups, and the Otago Daily Times on multiple occasions. Given the apparent confusion with the mountain in Yosemite, shortening the name would likely lead to the article failing WP:PRECISION. I would also dispute the claim that this fails the rest of WP:CRITERIA, given that the dual name easily meets consistency and recognisability, and I would argue also meets naturalness given the sources provided. Turnagra (talk) 05:57, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

• In regards to the issues with Ngrams and dual names, I actually addressed those in my move proposal; "the fact it doesn't register any use for "Hikaroroa" should address concerns that we are missing the dual name being used in other forms". In regards to your Google books results, Ngrams is based on a seperate dataset. You can see evidence for this in the fact that Ngrams identifies more than four results since 1998, and though the way it functions does mean that those writing about Mount Watkins who misplaced the apostrophe will be included in the Mount Watkin result, such occurrences are extremely infrequent, as can be seen in this Ngram, and so will have no notable impact on the result.

In regards to the Google News results presented, if you follow the links provided in the proposal you will see that they only address the "Mount Watkin" in New Zealand, not the "Mount Watkins" in Yosemite. Meanwhile, the Google results count is problematic at best, while in general it is recommended not to use a Google search (as opposed to a Google News search) as it primarily returns results from non-reliable sources, while WP:COMMONNAME requires the use of reliable sources. On the topic of reliable sources, most of the ones you presented are not, with only the second ODT source meets that requirement, and it is one of the two uses of the dual name that I reference in my move proposal.

Finally, on the topic of precision, I'm not seeing confusion so much as occasional misspellings (in the case of "Mount Watkin") and misplacing of the possessive apostrophe (in the case of "Mount Watkins"), both of which can be addressed with hatnotes (as could confusion, come to think of it, under WP:TWODAB). BilledMammal (talk) 07:37, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

• I did follow the google news links in your proposal - the first one is actually a perfect example of what I'd been talking about elsewhere, with results from the ODT and NZ Herald being identical and so shouldn't be counted as different sources. One result in the first link is actually using the dual name, one is a Spanish article pointing to Yosemite, and another still is an unfortunate misspelling of "Mr Watkin". Similarly, the second link has 3 articles about Yosemite, 1 about a creek in the area, 2 about a farm / company with the name, and 2 referring to a citation (Shea MT, Watkins JT), leaving only one referring to the mountain itself. At any rate, these numbers are low enough that you can't in good conscience claim that they're the common name over another form, and in all honesty it's a pretty flimsy argument.

I'm well aware that google result numbers aren't perfect, but it seems like an odd call to overlook such a large difference in name use - especially when variations of Mount Watkin will be no doubt benefiting from mistaken identity of the mountain in Yosemite. I also don't understand the desire to move away from a clear and precise name to one which by your own admission will result in mistaken results from misspellings and confusion. Turnagra (talk) 09:02, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

• You're right, that's one source, not two. However, that still leaves us with six sources using the single name, and two using a dual name (if you compare the total count of articles to the count I provided, you will note that I have subtracted examples that do not refer to the New Zealand mountain, such as the ones referring to the creek or the person - I'm not quite sure why you are bringing them up). Regarding the articles discussing the farm, I discounted them at first too, before realizing that they were actually referencing the location of the farm, which is "at the flanks of Mt Watkins", to quote one of them.

As for the google result count, I would be happy to have a discussion with about why we can't use it, but lets have it at WP:Search engine test rather than derail this discussion. For this discussion, I'll let that guide stand as my response.

Finally, before leaving this discussion (see comment below), I will mention that I don't agree there is confusion, and disambiguation here - whatever the preferred form - will not assist in the misspelling, as the relevant issue is people referring to this mountain by the name "Mount Watkins"; the only way we can solve that is with a disambiguation page at Mount Watkins - which we already have. BilledMammal (talk) 09:43, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

• Support per nom and per WP:CRITERIA. A quick Google search showed only two instances of news articles using the name "Hikaroroa". The current title fails recognizability and naturalness. If disambiguation is required, Mount Watkin (New Zealand) would be far more natural. --Spekkios (talk) 07:34, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

• [1] [2] [3] [4] Here are at least four, so your search is clearly flawed. At any rate, this isn't about which name the media uses most, so we need to be looking beyond just google news. Also, per WP:QUALIFIER, even if you believe that Mount Watkin is the most common name (which it isn't, but that's an aside), we can use dual names as a form of natural disambiguation, so I've got no idea why you'd think that it would be better to have "Mount Watkin (New Zealand)" - which, by the way, is longer than "Mount Watkin / Hikaroroa" - as a name. Turnagra (talk) 09:02, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

• One of those is a press release from a government body (fails the "independent" requirement of WP:COMMONNAME) while the other three are the examples mentioned in my move proposal. As for "Mount Watkin (New Zealand)", that form is actually required by WP:NCNZ#Disambiguation of New Zealand place names - though in this case, disambiguation is not needed.

In any case, my last post on this topic; it's already becoming a long discussion, and only three people have provided input so far. BilledMammal (talk) 09:43, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

• Literally the first part of the disambiguation section is for where there's no disambiguation required, which seems fairly clear for Mount Watkin / Hikaroroa. Turnagra (talk) 17:03, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

• Here is my search, it only had two results when I clicked it. Mount Watkin (New Zealand) would be a better disambiguation as it meets the naturalness criteria better than the dual name. It is far more likely someone will search for 'Mt Watkin Nz' or similar than the current name. Note that as per WP:QUALIFIER "When deciding on which disambiguation method(s) to use, all article titling criteria are weighed in" --Spekkios (talk) 20:44, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose. This is a difficult one, given that the mountain simply isn't referred to very often, and accordingly I don't think the Ngrams results take us very far. This appears to me to be one of those cases referred to at the outset of WP:CRITERIA where there is more than one appropriate title for an article and editors must choose the best title by consensus based on the considerations explained there. The dual name is clearly recognisable and precise, and in my view has benefits over Mount Watkin in those respects. We may disagree about whether or not it is natural; I think it is, on the basis of the usage on social media and in other sources cited by Turnagra. Dual names are an increasingly common part of New Zealand English and there is nothing inherently unnatural about them. Consistency is not an issue; although some dual names will likely be inappropriate following the recent revision to WP:NCNZ (e.g. Cape Kidnappers, which is overwhelmingly the common name), there will be plenty that will remain (e.g. Aoraki / Mount Cook). I'm therefore swayed that, on balance, the status quo is appropriate. Cheers, Chocmilk03 (talk) 20:26, 17 November 2021 (UTC)
• Support per WP:criteria (natural, concise) and WP:SLASH. There is simply no evidence that the slashed name is the common name, all evidence points to the English name being the common name and the Maori name an alternative name, but none at all points to large numebrs of people using the slashed arrangement. FOARP (talk) 10:50, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

Comment you've evidently ignored all of the evidence provided thus far - the issue with a place like this is that fundamentally it doesn't get mentioned much, so you're always going to be operating on very few sources. The sources we do have point to the dual name being used more frequently. WP:SLASH allows for slashes to be used in instances like this, and your attempt at using WP:CRITERIA also fails as there's no proof that the majority of people would search for "Mount Watkin" when looking for this mountain, or indeed that the majority of people searching for "Mount Watkin" would even be after this mountain as opposed to the one in Yosemite. Turnagra (talk) 08:51, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

I had a similar thought; I can't see any evidence of large numbers of people talking about this mountain at all. If there was, that would make this more straightforward. Cheers, Chocmilk03 (talk) 01:27, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose - Per previous opposers; it seems as if the current title serves as a suitable natural disambiguator from other similarly named places. HumanBodyPiloter5 (talk) 21:06, 26 November 2021 (UTC)
• Support. Per nom and discussion the proposed name is clearly the common name. Disambiguation is unnecessary here HumanBodyPiloter5, as the other peak doesn't have a wikipedia page, and is (I gather) spelled more commonly with an S. — HTGS (talk) 10:36, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

Comment which part of the discussion shows that the proposal is "clearly" the common name? Turnagra (talk) 18:38, 27 November 2021 (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.