Talk:Saint Peter's Peacocks

Requested move 13 March 2022

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: pages moved as proposed. (non-admin closure) Steel1943 (talk) 05:02, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

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• Saint Peter's Peacocks and Peahens → Saint Peter's Peacocks
• Saint Peter's Peahens basketball → Saint Peter's Peacocks women's basketball
• Saint Peter's Peacocks basketball → Saint Peter's Peacocks men's basketball (Added Mar 20)

The women's athletic teams at Saint Peter's University have used the Peacocks moniker as well since 2013. That August, a move was made by The Ink Daddy! but was reverted four months later by Jrcla2. It is standard for these article titles to be updated in this instance. A perusal of the SPU athletics website shows no mention of Peahens in any recent year; indeed, the women's basketball players wear "Peacocks" jerseys. The name is not mentioned in the athletics style guide which was revised after a major rebrand effort in 2020 ([1]).

I believe this undiscussed reversion from years ago is actually causing reliable sources to print Peahens as a name years after its discontinuation by the university. A March 4, 2022, Times Herald-Record article used the name Peahens (republished by Yahoo at [2]), and I see a few other scattered stories that are using this name incorrectly in recent years. In 2014, The Statesman, the student newspaper at SUNY Stony Brook, had to print a correction about the name: A previous version referred to the Saint Peter’s women’s basketball team as the “Saint Peter’s Peahens.” The team is known as the “Saint Peter’s Peacocks.”

The university's athletics style guide does not even mention the name, and publications from their own sports information department do not use it ([3]). We need to do likewise. Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 23:42, 13 March 2022 (UTC) — Relisting. NW1223 <Howl at me•My hunts> 01:34, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

Oppose. The fact that multiple media sources are still reporting the men's teams as the Peacocks and the women's teams as the Peahens indicates that the WP:OFFICIALNAME isn't necessarily the one that best fits the WP:CRITERIA and WP:COMMONNAME. Ngrams, which would ordinarily be helpful in establishing that common usage has actually changed, is not picking up any entries for "Saint Peter's Peacocks" nor "Saint Peter's Peahens". This might be due to the fact that Saint Peter's is a relatively infrequently mentioned school across the entire corpus. That aside, Fox Sports, The Athletic, and Yahoo! Sports each continue to use the old nickname. Even Rutgers University has referred to the Women's basketball team as the "Peahens" as recently as this season. The reason for this is because the old name, despite Saint Peter's best efforts, simply hasn't died. Alumni and alumnae (of which I know a few) continue to refer to the women's teams as the "Peahens", as do local publications when talking both about the present situation and the recent past. I find it rather odd that a college has been unable to change the common nickname given to its sports programs despite changing a bunch of its branding, but this appears to be the case even after nearly ten years since the rebrand took place. That being said, despite the university's best efforts, the most natural name that is consistent with common use is "Peahens" for the women's teams, so I don't think that this move is an improvement over the current name. — Mhawk10 (talk) 01:57, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

Comment: I'm not too used to sports naming policies, but should we provide factually incorrect information in the title? The teams are officially known as the Peacocks for both men's and women's sports, and even if the Peahens name is still being used, I would weigh factual information over common name in this situation (somewhat WP:IAR from me) – however, like I said, I don't know sports naming policies well. Skarmory (talk • contribs) 02:08, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

@Skarmory, I searched before this RM for prior discussions, but the precedent is there in articles and categories for this type of update. In 2016, East Tennessee State Buccaneers and Lady Buccaneers was moved to East Tennessee State Buccaneers because the university in that case had discontinued the use of "Lady Buccaneers" for its women's programs (there was still category cleanup years later, which is why I know of this case). There was a category rename in 2006 (Category:Texas Lady Longhorns basketball to Category:Texas Longhorns women's basketball, et al.) when we did not have an article for the topic in question.

As a note for those that come here searching, it is not unheard of for just the women's basketball team among the women's athletic programs at a school to use a "Lady" styling (e.g. Texas Tech Lady Raiders basketball but Texas Tech Red Raiders women's soccer), but that is not the case with Saint Peter's.

The Mhawk objection is an unusual one in this field, though one I get given COMMONNAME. We are dealing with a very small Division I institution that not a lot of people have heard of (at least until tonight...) and with its women's basketball team, which further means this is an obscure program. It's simultaneously surprising to see this level of name confusion in Division I college athletics, especially eight years on from the change, and unsurprising that it happens here. In fact, of the stats pages at Fox Sports, The Athletic, and Yahoo that Mhawk links to, two use out-of-date logos (all of which were replaced in 2020). The Yahoo page, which is fed by Stats Perform, uses a Saint Peter's College mark (snapshot), which is out of date by a decade (the school was granted university status in 2012 and revised its brand accordingly). I have to think that some assistant SID at Rutgers looked at either the stats pages or Wikipedia and gave us Peahens in that article. Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 02:52, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

I'll move to a slight support in that case. Skarmory (talk • contribs) 03:36, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

• Support - the official name is the one commonly used, because most RS about a mostly obscure team will actually be official sources only. Red Slash 21:17, 22 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support I did some googling, and found many sources using both names. As "there is no single, obvious name that is demonstrably the most frequently used," continuing to favor an incorrect name vs. the correct one seems specious. GreatCaesarsGhost 22:52, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support In this case, I think being accurate is what’s most important. Blaylockjam10 (talk) 19:30, 26 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support After reviewing St. Peters athletic website, specifically their style guide, it makes no mention of the "Peahens" and therefore should not be reflected here. Grahaml35 (talk) 12:31, 28 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support Being a fan of the MAAC since Marist joined in 1997, I cannot ever remember hearing Saint Peter's women's team being mentioned as Peahens. Brian (talk) 03:49, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

  • @Bgredmchn, that was the case officially as late as 2013, with this AP wire article. It is worth noting that the stats pages on several sites (though not ESPN) are still using Peahens, as are several providers of sports and sports betting information (including Data Skrive, which syndicates some automated pregame writeups to ESPN). Once this RM closes, I'll probably send an email to their athletic department to point out how many out-of-date Peahens/logo references are lingering. Given the Yahoo Sports page using the Saint Peter's College mark, they'll want to do something about it. Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 04:00, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

    Being a fan and an editor of lots of MAAC related pages, I think I just went along with the Peahens name. But yes, let them know. I'm sure after this Elite Eight run by the men's program, people will be confused with the Peahens name. Brian (talk) 04:08, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

    I mean, in the last two weeks, I've seen tweets from sportswriters, people with verified accounts, not to mention random users. They are probably coming our way. And they're probably not noticing this RM.

    • "Fun fact: Unlike the Peacocks, the women’s teams at Saint Peters are called the Peahens!" (17 Mar 2022)
    • "It’s New Jersey. And the women’s teams are known as the Peahens." (17 Mar 2022)

    A huge hat-tip to Rachel Lenzi of The Buffalo News, who noted in a reply to another tweet of that variety that, when she wrote Peahens in an article, the school told her they dropped that usage in 2012 upon gaining university status. That is actually new information to me and a little earlier than I had pegged the change, though it makes sense as they tweaked a bunch of their athletic logos for the name change at that time. Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 04:27, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

• Support per all the reasons above. Plus majority of Wiki college basketball articles has the terms "men" or "women". Swagging (talk) 13:03, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

  @Swagging, when the teams have separate names, that is not done. For instance, Louisiana Tech Bulldogs basketball/Louisiana Tech Lady Techsters basketball, Texas Tech Red Raiders basketball/Texas Tech Lady Raiders basketball. So if the Peahens name were still in use, the page title would be correct. Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 16:51, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

  • @Sammi Brie I was only talking about for the mens and women's basketball teams for Saint Peter's Peahens basketball. I wasn't talking about the Saint Peter's Peacocks and Peahens. Swagging (talk) 17:29, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

    That's what I was referring to as well. :) Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 17:36, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

    Wait actually I thought both had the same name lol. But the changes still can go either way. Swagging (talk) 17:44, 1 April 2022 (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.

"2019 Saint Peter's Peacocks soccer team" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect 2019 Saint Peter's Peacocks soccer team and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 April 13#2019 Saint Peter's Peacocks soccer team until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Steel1943 (talk) 07:53, 13 April 2022 (UTC)