Talk:Noordin Mohammad Top

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Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was not moved. Jafeluv (talk) 08:13, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

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Noordin Mohammad Top → Noordin Top — Noordin Top is the most commonly used name and it is unambiguous, as per As per Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(people). Have done searches on Google and Google News to confirm. Caniago (talk) 12:37, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's naming conventions.

• Support. Clear and the most common usage. --Merbabu (talk) 21:30, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose He's commonly referred to using his full name here in Australia at least. A redirect will be fine --Anti I A (talk) 23:19, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

possibly he is commonly referred to by his full name, but he is more commonly referred to by the two names in australia. Anyway, I don't understand why Australian usage is the criteria. --Merbabu (talk) 00:43, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

The most common usage in Australia is irrelevant to this discussion. Even so, Australian news organisations such as the websites of Sydney Morning Herald and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation use "Noordin Top" more commonly than his full name. (Caniago (talk) 02:01, 18 September 2009 (UTC))

They do? That's not what I'm seeing - ABC *consistently* use Mohammad/ed every time, although will sometimes headline the shortened form (their headlines are done by a different subeditor). Orderinchaos 03:27, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

• Support as the nominator (Caniago (talk) 02:01, 18 September 2009 (UTC)).
• Oppose Indonesian sources include Noordin's middle name or middle initial in all their reporting. (Jakarta Globe) (The Jakarta Post) (Kompas) Malaysian sources also include forms of his middle name in their reporting. (The Star) (Berita Harian) Leading US sources also use his middle name. (The New York Times) (The Washington Post) The incarnation of his middle name used on Wikipedia is, I believe, obtained from the FBI wanted list. Arsonal (talk) 03:48, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Individual stories can't be used to determine the most common usage of the name. For example you quoted a New York times artcle. In fact, if you search the entire New York times website, Norrdin Top is more commonly used than the full name. Same goes for Washington Post, The Jakarta Post, The Jakarta Globe, Kompas, & thestar.com.my - Noordin Top is the most commonly used name in all these sites!! (Caniago (talk) 05:57, 18 September 2009 (UTC))

While I am now in agreement with your findings, (see below) I am still opposing the move on grounds that "Mohammad Top" is currently stated as a patronymic and that its partial removal from the article name would misrepresent his name. Although this statement has not been supported within the article itself, I will change my position only if it can be proven that "Mohammad" is in fact an addendum to the Malay name and not part of his father's name. Arsonal (talk) 07:28, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

I can't validate Caniago's findings, my filter searches actually validate Arsonal's - both Jakarta Post and Jakarta Globe inconsistently uses several forms with "Noordin M Top" (as in the initial) being by far their most common usage, with only very rare references to "Noordin Top". thestar.com.my has "Noordin MD Top" as their most common with about a third of the usages being "Noordin Mohammad Top". Kompas uses a mix of "Noordin M Top", "Noordin Mohd Top" and "Noordin Mohammed Top". In each case I *can* find a few references to "Noordin Top" but they are isolated cases in a sea of the other. Orderinchaos 03:12, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

• Support. Using Google News and confining it to English only sources, "Noordin Top" beats "Noordin Mohammad Top" 632 to 441. If one considers that newspapers are prone to using full names of criminals to avoid annoying people with the same first and last names, this is a clear case for moving. Abductive (reasoning) 10:58, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

My challenge to such a statement is that "Noordin M Top" actually beats out "Noordin Top" (in both Google and Google News). Therefore, if people are going by the number of hits guideline, the current proposal is not using the proper naming method either. Arsonal (talk) 14:09, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Incidentally spelling it "-mmed" gets 342 hits and "-med" gets 309 using the same parameters (en sources only) Also 131 for Muhammad, 16 for Muhamad, and 258 for the abbreviation "Mohd". So that is a total of over 1,500 for variants of Mohammad, to 632 for none. Additionally many local sources use "Noordin M Top" (716 English-language results - more than just the name by itself) Should also be noted the middle-name and middle-name-less varieties overlap as some news agencies tend to use the shortened name in a headline and the full name right through the article, so when you remove those, the difference (subtractive) is the same but the absolute amounts are smaller. Orderinchaos 03:19, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose, in my experience, I've seen the full name more often than the shortened one. There should be a redirect from the short form to this article though. Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 21:50, 18 September 2009 (UTC).
• Oppose Firstly, I have only ever heard him referred to here in Australia by the ABC as "Noordin Mohammad Top" (a search using domain filter on Google confirms this although they sometimes use the shortened name as a headline - sometimes -ed, sometimes -ad). The BBC, another agency with a strong style guide, also use his full name (even using it in his profile name i.e. [1] although always spelling it Mohamed - but the BBC do always refer to the "Taleban" too). CBC World also refer to NMT, with the same spelling as this article. (To confirm these findings, search for "noordin top" on Google filtering for "abc.net.au", "bbc.co.uk" and "cbc.ca" in the site or domain field.) Also I note he's far from the only Indonesian/Malay name where the three names are always stated. For example the current president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono who is known in Indonesia as "SBY". There was also Bacharuddin Jusuf Habibie (known typically as BJ Habibie). The current mayor of East Jakarta is Koesman Abdul Halim. Orderinchaos 03:06, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Is there something wrong with your Google searches? For ABC I get: Noordin Mohammad Top - 486 hits: [2], Noordin Mohammed Top - 2,840 hits: [3], Noordin M Top - 292 hits: [4], Noordin Top - 4,980 hits: [5]. Similiarly, for BBC, results are: Noordin M Top: 143, Noordin Mohammad Top: 106, Noordin Mohammed Top: 61, Noordin Top: 307. (Caniago (talk) 04:22, 19 September 2009 (UTC))

Having worked briefly at the ABC (through a contractor), I can see several things this "blind search" technique fails to pick up:

1. Several copies of the same article showing up as different search matches
2. Use in headlines and the use in articles mean different things - the headlines are limited to a number of characters and often hastily put together by a subeditor (I've had to email them at times to get them fixed when they've had inadvertent errors or inappropriate connotations), whilst the article text is produced using their style guide.
3. Transcripting issues with 7:30 Report, Lateline and other programs where names are *often* not rendered correctly due to the pressure the transcriptors are under. Most such pages (but not all) contain the warning: "Please note: This transcript is produced by an independent transcription service. The ABC does not warrant the accuracy of the transcript."
4. Many of the variations are simply due to reuse of Reuters and other wire service content.
5. The single-search findings don't take into account these factors or the massive overlap between the use of "Noordin Top" in headlines and other uses in the article. In fact there doesn't seem to be a way to use Google to search this way (I tried a number of logic based strings and still got hundreds of false positives).

In *every* case I could find on the main news service, even when the headline said "Noordin Top", the text said either "Mohammad" or "Mohammed". This among many other reasons is why I do not regard "ghits" as a safe or reliable measure to assess usage or notability and find myself returning to first principles. Even using "ghits", though, it is clear the full version of the name, under various spellings, is preferred in English language sources (see one of my earlier replies.) Orderinchaos 06:32, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose per Orderinchaos I was original uncertain about this particularly after seeing the usage of 'Noordin Top' by a Malaysian newspaper. However I've also always been sceptical of Googlehits and am thankful for Orderinchaos demonstrating the problem with their usage here. Nil Einne (talk) 18:14, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Discussion

Any additional comments:

for me indonesian use seems the best criterium, n.t. then? i could be bothered if the kind of abv. is consistent in titles or usefull for informative purpose tho. perhaps check what get's the most indoesian hits. keep in mind there are probs. less noordin m. tops, then noordin tops .considering there are 100s of millions of indonesians it reward to be as precise as possible (look mary it is in the papers, john smith is the greatest terrorist). 24.132.171.225 (talk) 01:28, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

There is a clear Wikipedia policy for deciding article naming (Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(people)), and the name most commonly used in Indonesia has no relevance according to this policy. (Caniago (talk) 02:04, 18 September 2009 (UTC))

Just FYI, "Mohammed Top" is definitely his father's name. This blog entry (discussed here), apparently written by Noordin himself, uses the form "Nur Din bin Muhammad Top", ie. Noordin the son of Mohamed Top. This was actually evident anyway, as in Islamic naming practice the "Mohammed" always goes before the name. Jpatokal (talk) 12:47, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

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