Closer did not follow the spirit and intent of WP:RMCI because they made simple vote count without considering 3 questions raised and specifically refused to consider a lengthy discussion in January 2007 in closing this requested move. There was also a discussion in September 2008 and a request for a discussion in 2011. In counting votes the original request, which was not followed up on by the requester, as one solid Support, one Support with another option as a solid Support, and one Support based on an opinion with no reasoning as a solid Support. This does not seem to be a strong consensus. This name has been discussed in detail twice, has been up and working for some time, and little reason for the move was made. Those are my reasons, thank you for your time.
PERSONAL NOTE: I have not waited seven days. Discussion between the closer and I appear finished, and I am not sure I will be available to post on Friday, 14 Nov 14. Questionable closings appear to be an ongoing issue, some admin who understands the procedure may want to look further into this closers actions. Sammy D III (talk) 19:34, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Comment from closer. I'm a bit surprised by the tone of this request, given the discussion that we had at User talk:Dekimasu#Thanks a lot. For one thing, I offered to relist; for another, I certainly did not base the close on counting votes. As per what I said on talk, "While the close is certainly based on a reading of the discussion and not just numbers of supports and opposes, and it was clear that you weren't supporting the move, in this case it wasn't clear to me that you actually opposed it.... [Y]ou have expressed concern with [the application of] WP:CONCISE a few times, including in your previous comment here, but WP:CONCISE is part of the policy on article titles. I'm not sure why you are calling it NNPOV." Meanwhile, consensus can change and it would not be standard procedure to incorporate years-old results into the close. Separately, I'm a bit bemused at the suggestion that I may be a poor closer. it's true that there are a good number of complaints on my talk page, but given that I've closed at least a couple hundred requests out of the backlog in the last month, and that things sit in the backlog partly because closers are leery of getting into protracted discussions when it's clear that closes either way will result in complaints, I think 99%-ish is a fairly good record. I certainly do understand the procedure, and have been closing RMs since 2008 2007. Dekimasuよ!19:48, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse A little more discussion into why Midway International Airport was the better common name would have been nice, but it had already been relisted. The consensus could have been stronger. The earlier requested moves were still on the talk page and could easily have been referenced by the !voters but as Dekimasu states consensus can change and closers aren't necessarily bound by older local discussions. Given the offer by the closer to relist that probably should have been taken rather than bring it here. PaleAqua (talk) 00:42, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse. I would have opposed on the basis of ambiguity with Henderson Field (Midway Atoll) and that O'Hare is not on par with Midway, but no one did, and on the content of the discussion, the close was reasonable, almost to the point of being unable to be closed any other way. Wait six months, and if the title seems to remain a problem, then open a fresh RM discussion. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:57, 18 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Review of procedure. If there is a comment on the review of the procedure, as opposed to the close, it might be that the procedure could be improved if the RM bot (User:RMCD bot?) would locate and list all previous RM discussions, so that new participants can more easily acquaint themselves with arguments made previously. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:03, 18 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
That does seem like it would be useful in general. Might be nice if it included page moves as well that might not have an associated RM. Talk pages tend to be hit or miss on even having previous RM, moves, merges, etc. listed in the talk page header, and it can be hard sometimes to trace down such history. I'm assuming you are also thinking of a particular previous RM that we've seen here at MR. PaleAqua (talk) 08:53, 18 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Concede(?). The discussion itself still disappointments me, but the closing clearly seems to be in order. I feel I owe Dekimasu an apology for any insult, and would like to thank everyone else for taking time here. Sammy D III (talk) 15:57, 18 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The above is an archive of the move review of the page listed in the heading. Please do not modify it.
This was a NAC and probably should not have been given the history. More importantly the close, on the surface appears to be vote counting. The discussion clearly established that by policy, guidelines and page views, the current page is not the primary topic. There was support that another article could well be the primary topic, but most editors realize the community would be better served with a dab page at the primary name space. The close did not reflect any consideration of those facts. Another editor raised an issue with this on the closers talk page, that appears likely to go down hill. Vegaswikian (talk) 18:21, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. There are a couple of issues here. One is a difficult grey zone in the way we conduct move requests: when the request is to move a disambiguation page to a plain title because there is no primary topic, what happens in the case of "no consensus"? Clearly the move discussion showed that there was no consensus that Worcester is the primary topic. This indicates that the dab page should be moved to the plain title, logically. Likewise, the move discussion showed no consensus to move the pages, defaulting to the status quo and confirming the place in England as the primary topic. I'm not going to advocate a change such that we move dab pages to plain titles whenever there's a measure of disagreement, because then most plain titles would end up as dab pages eventually, but this is still a problem. Also, when there's a discussion that is also marred by canvassing, as this one was, it's particularly hard to say what the outcome should be. In this case, there's a possibility that canvassing tipped the balance in favor of maintaining the status quo, but it's hard to say. At any rate, relisting won't accomplish anything here; everything was already said. The result of this request will have to be either to endorse or to overturn. Dekimasuよ!18:48, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. I am the closer, and this was my rationale:
There was obviously not a clear community consensus to move
Canvassing or sock/meatpuppetry was a possibility, and as I'm quite clearly not a checkuser, I had no definite way of know which accounts were sock or meat puppets.
The discussion had already been relisted, and had run for a total period of two weeks (more than enough time, in my opinion)
When the community cannot agree, there is no consensus
I thought it was very likely that any admin would close the discussion as no consensus
Therefore, I played it safe and closed it as no consensus
Overturn The arguments supporting no primary topic are much stronger than the opposes, several of which are of the I don't like it form. PaleAqua (talk) 19:09, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse (if I'm allowed to "vote", having already "voted" at the original discussion). The principal argument for the English city as primary topic is long-term significance, which whether you are persuaded by it or not, is certainly a criterion within the guidelines. There's also the common-sense argument that, since the American city is already mentioned in the hatnote, the community (or rather, the readership) won't actually be "better served" in any practical way by having the dab page at the base title. W. P. Uzer (talk) 19:45, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn and move. Agree with the nom that the non-admin closure "no consensus" appears to be based on vote counting, and the closer's response has not done anything to convince me otherwise, particularly since they do not address the strength of the arguments that were made by the two sides. The opposition to the move was largely based, not on policy, but on nationalistic pride and attempts to make it a "UK vs. US" issue, along with assertions that the city in England is more important, well, just because. Here are some examples:
"Worcester the city in England existed prior to the one in Massachusetts and the US city was named after the one in the UK. The English city is also, arguably far more notable historically than the US one."
"Page view figures are inherently US-centric, as is this discussion."
"Worcester, Massachusetts however is not a place that I as a well informed Brit have ever heard of.", "Try providing a well argued position with evidence that is referenced (isn't that what we as editors do in writing articles?) rather than bemoaning the fact that not all links end up in US centred articles."
"Worcester, UK is significantly older and has much more history/culture etc than this US upstart."
"This is an argument simply for the sake of argument and I would go so far as to say that that this is a purely US-centric POV and essentially has nothing to do with Wikipedia. For those US Americans who are to young to remember, if there hadn't been a Worcester, England, there would be nowhere for the US place to take its name from. ... Has the world gone completely mad?"
"There are far more English speaking people outside the US than in it and I have no doubt that most of them will never have heard of the American city while many will have learnt about English Worcester through English history."
"Being blind to the possibility that thousands or millions of non US people want to be directed to Worcester (England) rather than Worcester (Massachusetts) is a form of cultural arrogance."
"The current huge cathedral in Worcester, founded as a priory in 680 is nearly 1,000 years old, in use, and perfectly preserved, with one of the finest rings of bells in the world. Anything in America at that time (and for a very long time afterwards) was no bigger than a tent or the largest of those bells. ... this proposal is either nothing more than cultural hegemony or an exercise by someone who has nothing else better to do."
"The English city has a far more important place in history than the American city."
"Worcester UK is far far more historical as is much older, Plus seeing as the Worcester Massachusetts article got its name from us it imho makes sense to have the UK article as the main one":
"Can't spot any new users above but closer should check for socks and SPAs"
" I don't see why the American Worcester is in any way more notable than the English city. Indeed I suspect that from outside the UK and the US, people will be wanting more the English city, because of its historical notability"
"it just doesn't strike me as very encyclopedia-like to not give preeminence to English towns with namesakes, as long as they have some significance (so not Boston)."
"Indeed I suspect that from outside the UK and the US, people will be wanting more the English city, because of its historical notability (and people will have family connections, etc, with it)."
"no one would search for a minor US city without the state."
"naturally favours the UK as a basename."
There were also arguments that Worcester, England should be the primary topic because it's older, despite this not being what WP:PRIMARYTOPIC actually says, and examples like Memphis, Egypt that show that this isn't what we do. Between that and WP:ENGLANDISTHEMOSTIMPORTANTPLACE not being policy, it is clear to me that the policy-based arguments strongly favored moving the article. (I also participated in the original discussion.) Egsan Bacon (talk) 19:57, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
You have read WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, I presume, and the bit where it says that "long-term significance" is one of the possible criteria for being a primary topic? This isn't an argument that patriotic Brits have just invented on the spur of the moment. I'm not saying you have to be convinced by it in this case, but to claim that this argument is "not policy-based" seems a little wide of. W. P. Uzer (talk) 21:05, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I have. However, if someone wants to make a claim that one thing in a group is the most significant, there is a difference between explaining what makes it so and simply saying that it is. For example, look at the two move requests at Talk:Matt Harvey, both of which proposed making Matt Harvey the ballplayer the primary topic. The one in 2013 was based on the claim of him being "the most well known out of all the other Matt Harveys." It didn't explain why he was the primary topic, it just said he was the primary topic. It didn't succeed. The one in 2014 provided usage statistics to show that our readers overwhemingly (over 95%) wanted information on that Matt Harvey when they wanted information on any Matt Harvey we have an article on. It did explain why he qualified as the primary topic, and it did succeed. The statistics supporting the claim were basically as strong in 2013 as 2014, so a policy-based argument could have been made in 2013, but one wasn't, so no one was convinced, quite reasonably.
So many of the opposing arguments that based opposition on the long-term significance qualification seemed to think that saying it was the most significant was quite enough, without having to explain what made it significant. Like this one: Size isn't everything. Current status isn't everything. The English city has a far more important place in history than the American city. Why does it have "a far more important place in history"? Apparently it isn't necessary to say; we should just take it as obvious. The English city is the primary topic by reason of enduring cultural significance. Why is it so culturally significant? I don't see why the American Worcester is in any way more notable than the English city. Indeed I suspect that from outside the UK and the US, people will be wanting more the English city, because of its historical notability (and people will have family connections, etc, with it). What gives it the historical notability the other ones don't have? What makes it so much more likely people will have family connections? No explanation. Wikipedia:Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions includes "it's notable" as a bad argument to make. This is essentially the RM equivalent of that: "it's significant." I don't really think we should consider them policy-based.
Related are the "but it's older" argument. This was addressed in the discussion with reference to Boston and Memphis, but it can be easily shown why it doesn't make sense. Which has greater long-term significance: Settle, North Yorkshire (population 2,421) or New York City? It is difficult to imagine anyone answering that question any other way than New York, despite Settle having hundreds more years of history, because it isn't the length of the history, it's what's happened in it. (Anyone objecting to the choice of a US city there should feel free to replace New York with Montréal or Rio, the point's the same.) Simply saying it's older isn't really saying much of anything at all. When the oldest is the most significant, like with Venice, no one needs to resort to "it's older" to explain why that is. Egsan Bacon (talk) 07:34, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
You selectively quote the more bland comments, but some others have given more specific reasons as to the English town's historical significance, referring to the cathedral, civil war battles, etc. (again, you don't have to agree with them, but every commenter doesn't have to repeat them, particularly since it seems this discussion has been had several times in the past). There are also arguments (quite detailed in one case) about the practical consequences of renaming. The support arguments are effectively nearly all based on page views - they are valid too, although AIU we don't know how many of those views came from people searching on the term "Worcester", which weakens the argument somewhat. W. P. Uzer (talk) 08:05, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn as reopen. The closer did not play it safe, which would have been to leave it open and have an admin close it. Per PaleAqua and Egsan Bacon, the closure is odd, no closing rationale was entered in the discussion closure itself. -- 67.70.35.44 (talk) 09:08, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn / Reopen / let an uninvolved admin affirm or reclose. NACs are for non-controversial closes, and this MR is evidence in hindsight that it was controversial. A contested NAC calls for an admin reclose, not a full review. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:21, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn. It's not simply a question of counting !votes to determine consensus. One must weigh the !votes by which are more guideline-based. Doing that results in an overturn, IMHO, as the more guideline-based !votes are the weightier ones. --Epeefleche (talk) 05:19, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. If I would have closed the RM as "Move" because "the move arguments are more grounded in policy", the opposers would have ganged up on me, dragged me off to move review, demanded that the close be overturned, accused me of being American-biased and having a COI, etc., etc. So, really, any close of this RM would have been challenged. Besides, why is there such a bias against NACs? If an admin would have closed this the exact same way, I'm sure it would probably not have ended up at MR. --Biblioworm19:21, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I think this would have ended up at move review either way, and with either close; you shouldn't worry about it particularly on those grounds. Dekimasuよ!19:42, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
It very well might have ended up here if closed this way by an admin ( or even if closed differently by an admin to be honest ), I've seen several similar cases here that were closed by admins. Note that policy and guidelines tend to trump WP:LOCALCONSENSUS, so if closing that way merely because opposes might have ganged up on you is not really the proper way to deal with the issue. I've seen NAC closes come here and be endorsed because the followed policy/guidelines even if there was a vocal view in the other direction and I've seen admin closures overturned even though they went with the vocal majority but mis-weighed strong policy/guideline based arguments from the other side. PaleAqua (talk) 19:44, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't close it the way I did just because the opposers would have ganged up on me. My original point was that no matter how this was closed, it would have ended up here. --Biblioworm19:51, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
This is a venue to figure out how to proceed productively, not a venue to apportion blame, so try not to worry about the fact that there's a discussion happening here. Dekimasuよ!19:59, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I will note that there is extreme bias in every move request for all of those who watch a particular article. They get notice of the changes and each talk page comment. This real, vs. an imagined, bias is significant and should be considered more often in closes. Vegaswikian (talk) 00:23, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn and move. I have a horse in this race, but it seems obvious the closer just counted votes instead of weighing arguments presented by each side. If he had weighed the arguments, he would've seen the side pushing for the move based its arguments on cold, hard facts showing there to be no primary topic for Worcester. (It's also arguable from those stats that the Massachusetts city is the primary topic, if one does exist.) The side opposed to the move based their arguments on personal opinions, which carry far less weight. -- Calidum03:04, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Ages ago I explained (see above) why the arguments of those opposed to the move are also objective and guideline-based. It seems clear enough that (according to the guideline) there are two possible criteria for a primary topic, one of which probably does not hold in this case, but the other of which probably does. (There are also practical arguments which (contrary to what is said above) are actually stronger than guideline-based arguments, per policy.) There is no consensus as to which factor takes precedence, so the closer appears to have made the correct call. W. P. Uzer (talk) 12:23, 9 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Comment There are parallels here with the recent RM from Engelbert Humperdinck to Engelbert Humperdinck (composer) which was closed as move. The main difference is that there are only two Engelbert Humperdincks, whereas there are several Worcesters; the commonality is that neither has a clear Primary Topic. Which-came-first is an oft-cited, but irrelevant argument, mentioned nowhere in WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, and nor is age. Long-term significance is a forward-looking criterion, not a historical backward-looking one. In this case, my English heart says that Worcester, England should be at the basename, but my head says that a disambiguation page is more appropriate. Bazonka (talk) 11:48, 13 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn and move I sympathize with the closer, because no consensus was the safest call. I've previously opined that a close should follow the votes in absence of a compelling reason to deviate from them, since many discussions involve legitimate, policy-based arguments on both sides. But here, those supporting the move (a slim majority, for what it's worth) clearly had the stronger arguments. Besides the hazy "long-term significance" argument, those opposed mostly peddled national boosterism, as has been outlined in this discussion. It seems clear to me that common place names that encompass significant cities in the US and UK, not to mention other places, should be disambiguated (e.g., Durham, Richmond, Rochester) when there isn't a clear primary topic (and by that I mean one that attracts broad consensus). (The "older" argument is clearly spurious, and instantly refuted with the example of Boston.) I understand the impulse to call US bias on those favoring this move, but the status quo quite clearly reflects UK bias. Our pillar of neutrality practically demands disambiguation in these cases. --BDD (talk) 15:54, 19 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Comment how long should this stay open for comments? It's been well over a month now — Preceding unsigned comment added by 143.65.196.20 (talk • contribs) 18:19, 23 December 2014
For the past 15 months, this politician (at the time, a candidate for US Congress, and now a US Congressman-elect) has been the most commonly sought "Evan Jenkins", as evidenced by page views. By a very wide margin. Each month. A multiple of the other two fellows' views. Looking back not just over the recent past, but further -- over 15 months ago -- the number looking for each was typically within 30 views, for each. The person most likely to be looked for was clearly the politician. By over an 8-1 margin.
The footballer last played 80 years ago, and died a quarter of a century ago. The other fellow was born in the 1800s, and is not attracting or likely to suddenly attract the focus of readers, as compared to the Congressman-elect. And they are unlikely therefore, unlike the politician, to be creating any new news. The Congressman-elect is alive and still creating news, likely for over two years hence.
Most of the editors (me, as nom, and two other editors) thought the Congressman-elect the primary topic, and looking at wp guidelines -- for over fifteen months (and presumably for at least the next two years) the Congressman-elect has been and will continue to be the focus of most searchers. I've discussed this with the closer, who pointed me here.Epeefleche (talk)
Endorse close close seems reasonable. Three arguing that the politician was the primary topic citing page view stats etc., and two countering that long term notability it has not yet been established and cite WP:Recentism. Does not appear that one sides arguments are that much stronger than the other, thus no consensus is the proper close. Note that a no consensus close does not prevent a future requested move. If the politician is becoming the primary topic the answer should be clearer over time, and thus might be more apparent. I'd suggest waiting several months at the least. Wikipedia is not a news site; there is no rush to speculate if there is a primary topic. PaleAqua (talk) 04:09, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Calidum: A comment from the closer – as far as I can see, four of the five contributors based their arguments on the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC guideline. The two opposers were actually the only two to specifically mention the guideline by name, whilst the proposer and one supporter inferred they were using it (by referring to page views). The other supporter gave no rationale. I'm not sure how the opposers cannot be said to be grounding their arguments in policy, particularly when there was a reasonably detailed discussion over the wording of the guideline and its reference to long-term significance. Cheers, Number5721:10, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Number: As the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC guideline states, there is no single criterion for defining a primary topic. But two major aspects are commonly discussed.
A topic is primary, with respect to usage, if it is highly likely—much more likely than any other topic, and more likely than all the other topics combined—to be the topic sought when a reader searches for that term. That has, as evidenced in the discussion, been the case for well over a year. At the rate of well over 8x the views of the each of the other two. (And one of the other two, btw, was only supported by one of the five commenting editors.)
And the Congressman-elect promises to be the topic sought by readers for years to come -- the Congressman-elect is a living person, distinct from the other two, with the promise of generating more news as his political career continues. As to long-term significance, there was no case made as to why the Congressman-elect is not also of substantially greater enduring notability and educational value than the others -- indeed, by page views it would appear that the other two lack any significant enduring notability. And using the "ten years from now who would be more notable rule," the Congressman-elect would also appear to be the most notable.
They are related, IMHO. I think the close that was endorsed by three of the five editors was the right one, and followed the guideline. That aside from the fact that, of course at this point, the views comparisons are dramatic. With -- over the past 90 days -- the Congressman-elect having received 92% of all views -- 6,425 views, the fellow from the 1800s having received 272 views, and the footballer having received 239 views. Epeefleche (talk) 00:43, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
