Close was a clear WP:SUPERVOTE. Closer asserted that Opposition has the numbers, but no basis in policy.Most of the opposition was based on worries of ambiguity. In my experience it's been generally accepted that assertions of ambiguity are generally valid arguments even without a policy being explicitly cited (though I imagine that it's a case of WP:PRECISION more often than not). Also for the record, there was only one "support" !vote, compared compared to four "oppose" !votes. <involved> --estar8806 (talk) ★20:43, 19 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn (uninvolved) the closer hasn't taken into account enough the fact Georgia is ambiguous and the closest community consensus (not mentioned in the RM) is WP:SHORTFORM which does support the previous title. Crouch, Swale (talk) 20:51, 19 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
In my view, WP:SHORTFORM (part of an essay) conflicts with WP:QUALIFIER policy. The question of whether or not subtopic articles of topics with ambiguous names (e.g. Georgia) should have parenthetical disambiguation does not depend on whether the subtopic specifically is ambiguous or unambiguous, it depends on whether the subtopic is ambiguous with another topic covered in Wikipedia. Thus, if there is an article of "List of X in Georgia (country)" and there is at least somewhere to redirect "List of X in Georgia (U.S. state)", then parenthetical disambiguation is appropriate (though the question of whether the country or state is a primary topic is still valid). But when a "List of X in Georgia" could conceivably refer to either the country or the U.S. state, and enwiki only has content about one of them, there is no policy basis to use the parenthethical qualifier. For example, see Talk:List_of_fauna_of_Washington#Requested move 4 July 2023. Mdewman6 (talk) 22:52, 19 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes but does the normal rules of not redirecting a base name to a qualified title apply to descriptive titles? That was a point hinted at by the opposers. Crouch, Swale (talk) 09:01, 22 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse (uninvolved). Firstly, the new name already redirected to the old one, so this was simply correcting a case of unnecessary disambiguation. Secondly, the governor of Georgia (the US state) is never referred to as the "leader of Georgia" so the closing assertion that there is nothing ambiguous to disambiguate against is valid. Finally there's a hatnote for the rare and unlikely case that someone actually does end up here looking for governors, and really this MRV is splitting hairs for no reason. — Amakuru (talk) 21:14, 19 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Relist (involved as RM nom). Obviously as the nominator of the RM and author of WP:MISPLACED I completely agree with the closer on the merits. While in my opinion "list of leaders of Georgia" could refer to another topic covered in Wikipedia, i.e. List of governors of Georgia (see WP:QUALIFIER), the fact that the article was at the base name from 2009 until 2022 when it was boldly moved to the page with the "(Georgia)" qualifier but with the base name (improperly) left to redirect there until now, and that nobody has made a redirect at List of leaders of Georgia (U.S. state), or for any other state as pointed out by the closer, strongly suggests the country article is the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC and that a hatnote and natural disambiguation are sufficient. No participant directly addressed that issue, except for perhaps the lone supporter alluding to it. The irony of all the "ambiguous" oppose votes is the ambiguity of their position, as none of them addressed the fact that the the status quo conflicts with policy: if one opposes removal of the qualifier, and says nothing else, it implies they support the status quo, but in this case, the status quo is untenable. If it's ambiguous, what should happen with the page at the base name? I'm tired of seeing "ambiguous" as a supposedly sufficient reason to oppose a move away from a page with a parenthetical qualifier, because parenthetical disambiguation is not the only form of disambiguation (see WP:TWODABS and WP:NCDAB).
All that said, I would have liked to have seen the excellent points made by the closer added to the discussion rather than comprise a summary of the consensus reached in the discussion, i.e. the close did in my view err on the side of an improper supervote. Moreover, Born2cycle obviously knew this close would be controversial, and while I may be in the minority on this point, I take seriously WP:RMNAC in that non-administrators should be cautious in closing controversial requests. It's not that a nac was inappropriate here, but knowing that this close would be controversial would in my view weigh against making it, and I have seen before non-admins intentionally inviting controversy, which they should not be doing, even if their interpretation of policy is correct (and especially when it is not). It's a tall order to discount the views of 4 participants because they lack a policy-based rationale and determine there is consensus in support of the proposal based on 1 participant who simply reiterated one point made by the nom. And in fact, other closers have reached different conclusions in similar RMs with similar opposes, e.g. Talk:List_of_football_clubs_in_Georgia_(country) and Talk:Ferries_in_Washington_(state)#Requested_move_4_July_2023. Compare those to Talk:List_of_federal_lands_in_Washington, where the closer analyzed the policy at stake similar to the closer here, but did take into account the number of users on each side of the argument. All that said, the discussion should be relisted so that the closer and other users may be given the opportunity to directly address the policy-based proposal of the nom and another closer can then weigh the entire discussion in that light. Mdewman6 (talk) 22:38, 19 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn. Supervote, and WP:Involved due to the closer being singularly obsessed with shortening article titles. There was a clear curt consensus that the rename increases ambiguity. The result is ambiguous. A pre-existing redirect is created and allowed to exist with quite low scrutiny making the PRIMARYREDIRECT argument inherently weak, insufficient to overrule the consensus that the proposed is ambiguous. SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:46, 19 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Looks like I participated in this one so won't !vote, but I would sit this out entirely but for the fact I have no idea why my !vote wasn't considered policy-compliant. "It needs to be disambiguated in some way to avoid confusion with an existing, similarly named topic" is one of the primary reasons to move a page on Wikipedia:Moving a page, so avoiding confusion is a perfectly acceptable reason to oppose a page move. SportingFlyerT·C10:50, 20 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
And I just noticed the closer wrote If anyone feels strongly that the article should be at the parenthetically disambiguated title, I suggest they make a policy-based proposal accordingly. Way to double down on not understanding what the policy is there! SportingFlyerT·C10:53, 20 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn (uninvolved). I don't see how/why the closer asserted that opposing !votes had "no basis in policy". Determining through discussion if there's ambiguity and deciding if/how to address it is one of WP's fundamental titling criteria and is a relevant and legitimate point to raise — and the discussion's participants clearly did. For a closer to throw out such concerns on the grounds that he personally believes they carry no weight amounts to a supervote. ╠╣uw[talk]17:49, 20 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn and relist - the discussion doesn't support the close. The moving target from the closer of which argument wasn't sufficiently rebutted by the (more numerous) oppose voters makes clear this was a supervote. Walt Yoder (talk) 22:50, 20 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Comment (involved as RM nom) I've already discussed above my issues with the close, but statements like It needs to be disambiguated in some way and Determining through discussion if there's ambiguity and deciding if/how to address it (emphasis mine) I think illustrate the issue the closer was trying to get at: as nom I acknowledged the ambiguity and proposed a way to address it that was consistent with policy, but none of the participants addressed at all why the proposal was a poor or unacceptable way to address the ambiguity. Opposing the move with a justification that more or less just says "it's ambiguous" is just restating the problem without critiquing the proposed solution or suggesting an alternative (i.e., that the base name should become a disambiguation page instead). I believe this was what the closer was getting at by claiming the oppose votes lacked basis in policy. Ambiguity does not always mean there must be parenthetical disambiguation, as there are other forms of disambiguation and possible primary topics. Mdewman6 (talk) 23:09, 20 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Statement by RM closer. If ambiguity alone is reason enough to change a title, then I've been reading community consensus wrong for almost twenty years, and I'm open to being corrected. But I simply see no way to reasonably reconcile that with the existence of PRIMARYTOPIC. Consider that the title of any PRIMARYTOPIC article is ambiguous by definition. Therefore, it seems to me, anyone supporting or opposing a move based on ambiguity needs to also consider and address whether PRIMARYTOPIC applies in the given situation, or their !vote needs to be weighted accordingly (very little, if any). In this case especially, because, as noted by the nom and participating supporter, the existence of a PRIMARYREDIRECT from the basename title to the article in question established the PRIMARYTOPIC of that article for that title by default. Anyone opposing a move to that base name title, to be taken seriously, needed to address nom's claim and argue that it was not the PRIMARYTOPIC (or somehow argue that despite being PRIMARYTOPIC it still needed to be disambiguated). Please note that in the discussion about this on my talk page, Crouch, Swale argues that the move proposal should have failed and the PRIMARYREDIRECT at the base name should have been changed to a DAB page[1]. But no one, not even a single one of the opposers, even addressed the question of PRIMARYTOPIC, much less argued that this article was not primary and the redirect needed to be a dab page. The only one who even mentioned that possible remedy was the nom! No one argued that anyone searching with List of leaders of Georgia was even possibly searching for List of governors of Georgia, much less likely enough to be doing so to warrant this article not being primary. No one mentioned anything about how historical significance might be a factor to be considered. Their opposition relied entirely and solely on the title being ambiguous, as if that alone was enough. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the community is quite clear about ambiguity alone simply not being enough. Because if I'm wrong, that means we can't have any articles at ambiguous titles, even if they have a primary topic. That is clearly contrary to community consensus. Now, above, SmokeyJoe would have a point worth considering in claiming PRIMARYTOPIC due to PRIMARYREDIRECT is "inherently weak" because redirects get little scrutiny had it been made in the RM discussion, but it wasn't. Not by him. Not by anyone. Even after the nom noted that the PRIMARYREDIRECT established the PRIMARYTOPIC. No one challenged that. The opposers simply ignored it, and support reiterated it. In no rational world can such empty opposition be given the weight necessary for this proposal to fail. Had they claimed and argued the topic was not primary, then there could have been a debate about it. Therefore, all yours truly the closer had to go on was not merely a preponderance of the evidence indicating the article's title was primary, but all of the evidence was indicating that. So, how is this close a misreading of (community) consensus worthy of overturn or relist? Well, Estar8806 claims my close was a SUPERVOTE because in their experience "assertions of ambiguity are generally valid arguments even without a policy being explicitly cited", again ignoring primary topic considerations, and then blatantly ignoring WP:NOTAVOTE: "there was only one "support" !vote, compared compared to four "oppose" !votes", as well as ignoring WP:RMCI#Determining consensus: "Consensus is determined not just by considering the preferences of the participants in a given discussion, but also by evaluating their arguments, assigning due weight accordingly, and giving due consideration to the relevant consensus of the Wikipedia community in general as reflected in applicable policy, guidelines and naming conventions." And, yes, SportingFlyer, "avoiding confusion" is a valid reason to move, when there is a high likelihood for such confusion. And that's the whole point of the community recognizing PRIMARYTOPICs: these are cases where, despite technical ambiguity, confusion is sufficiently unlikely to warrant leaving the article at the basename title despite the ambiguity.
The outcome of this MR is very important because at the root of this case is a question fundamental to many RM proposals: does the community prohibit ambiguous titles altogether (and therefore any ambiguous title needs to be disambiguated), or is there a threshold manifested in ambiguous titles that are supported because they meet PRIMARYTOPIC criteria? If it's the former then I was wrong and the opposers at the RM and the "overturners" here are right. Otherwise, Amakuru nailed it above: "the new name already redirected to the old one, so this was simply correcting a case of unnecessary disambiguation." I hope the admin closer of the MR gives all this due consideration. --В²C☎07:07, 21 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
There should probably be a maxim that the longer it takes to explain a close, the weaker the close is. If you had made that argument as a !vote instead of closing the discussion, we'd be discussing PRIMARYTOPIC in the move discussion. I'm really not invested in this one, but I didn't make a long argument since it seemed so obvious to me that removing the disambiguation in the title would possibly lead to confusion, which is indeed a policy based argument. As to the outcome of your MR, it doesn't matter at all - everything is assessed on a case-by-case basis. SportingFlyerT·C12:23, 21 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The nom made the argument about PRIMARYTOPIC, and Support reiterated. You and the others in Opposition failed to address it at all, much less refute it. I had no reason to believe that yet another Support reiterating it would cause the opposers to start discussing it. Heck, you’re still not even discussing it post-move on my talk page or here. If the closer also ignored it, they’d be shirking their responsibility to evaluate the arguments and assign due weight accordingly, IMHO. —В²C☎14:08, 21 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You're absolutely right that Wikipedia is not a democracy. But claiming that I blatantly ignored that by addressing the fact that you're close is clearly a supervote because you did not assign any weight to the oppose votes. As a matter of fact, you explicitly claimed they were not based in policy.
And now it seems you're concerned that the PRIMARYTOPIC argument wasn't considered. If you were so concerned about that, you should've relisted (leaving a comment regarding your PTOPIC concerns) and given the opposers the opportunity to address that argument if they chose to do so. estar8806 (talk) ★16:43, 21 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The primary topic point was made in the proposal and subsequently reiterated by the nom in the discussion, before three of the opposers weighed in, and again by Support, four days prior to my close. Despite more than ample opportunity, opposition chose to ignore primary topic altogether. As if it didn’t matter. Well, the community disagrees, primary topic matters whenever ambiguity is a factor, and the closing decision needs to reflect community consensus. В²C☎17:09, 21 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
B2C, no one is suggesting that we must "prohibit ambiguous titles altogether". However, per Wikipedia policy it is appropriate to consider precision when determining how to title an article: "Good article titles should unambiguously define the topical scope of the article." When there's disagreement (or reasonable potential for disagreement) over how to apply this to an article's title, it's right to discuss it and seek consensus, which was the point of the RM.
I know you have strong opinions regarding disambiguation which you've brought to many title and policy debates over the years, and it sounds like you feel strongly about the Georgia RM. That's fine, but as such the right move in this case would have been to participate in the debate and seek to build consensus for your favored solution — not close it according to your own views. ╠╣uw[talk]17:17, 22 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
My dear friend, while I certainly have my opinions, I did not close per my own views. I closed per policy. That overview of the PRECISION criterion which you quoted refers to Wikipedia:Article titles#Precision and disambiguation for details and clarification, which in turn references “Exceptions to the precision criterion” starting with WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, the policy explicitly cited by the nom in the proposal and re-emphasized in follow-up discussion. None of the opposers addressed it. They didn’t even address the PRIMARYREDIRECT. To this day we have no idea if they don’t agree this topic is primary, or they wanted to IAR PRIMARYTOPIC (which is only acceptable for clearly stated good arguments on how ignoring the rule in question improves WP). And Support reiterated the argument that the PT exception applied in this case. That’s not my opinion. That’s all fact. What is my opinion is that in order to have and encourage policy-based decisions we need to close per policy, and that means evaluating arguments by assigning due weight by basis in policy. Otherwise it’s a JDLI free-for-all determined by counting votes. And that’s exactly what policy says not to do. В²C☎06:06, 27 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
B2C: Your response illustrates the underlying problem, and I'm sorry to say it's the same one that has gotten you into hot water so many times over the years: that the only valid understanding or interpretation of policy is your own, and anything else is JDLI.
Here, as before, you're approaching titling as something that can and should be handled mechanically through the rigid application of policy — or more accurately, the rigid application of your own preferred weighting of it. While that might guide us to a sensible and community-supported solution in many cases, it doesn't always lead to what editors would agree is a sensible result, or a result that consensus supports as optimal, desirable, etc.
In this case, participants overwhelmingly recognized that "leaders of Georgia" is ambiguous, and said so. Such opposition implicitly appeals to our WP:CRITERIA (and more accurately the precision criterion), regardless of whether anyone explicitly linked it.
The lone supporter of the move likewise implicitly appealed to an exception to the criterion, specifically the one for primary topics. Yet the very passage of policy that they (and you) invoke explicitly offers as a valid counter-example an article that has a more precise title than the base name which redirects to it. Further, the policy makes it clear why Wikipedia considers such an arrangement to be acceptable: because it's right to seek a "more natural and recognizable title", base name notwithstanding. Editors' rejection in this case of the "List of leaders of Georgia" title as ambiguous suggests that the base name should probably change from a redirect to a disambiguation page... which is exactly what we've successfully done elsewhere.
Put simply, I see no reason why a single implicit appeal to our section on precision exceptions should be considered a slam-dunk that overrides all opposition, particularly when the lone supporter offered no more elaboration than the many who opposed. ╠╣uw[talk]15:17, 27 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse – I would have relisted, and I don't have a strong objection to overturning and relisting, but I don't see an actual reason that this close was wrong. PTOPIC was not addressed by the opposers, nor was the primary redirect – the majority of the opposes just stated it was too ambiguous, which by itself doesn't carry much weight. Skarmory(talk •contribs)02:01, 22 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Ambiguity in a proposed article title is a strong basis for opposition. See WP:PRECISE. And when a RM nomination looks like it is doomed to fail because it has multiple opposers and no supporters (until one shows up at the very end with a 3-word support), most people don't bother to give a vigorous defense of their opposition. Rreagan007 (talk) 03:14, 22 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Ambiguity is not a basis for opposition at allwhen the article in question is an established PRIMARYTOPIC (by PRIMARYREDIRECT), and especially in a case like this where this is all explicitly laid out by the nom in the proposal. In such cases opposition based in policy must address the PRIMARYTOPIC situation. Opposing merely with ambiguity is entirely missing the point and has no basis in policy, given the context. В²C☎06:12, 27 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Ambiguity is an entirely legitimate basis for opposition, even when something is primary (or primary by redirect), because sometimes things are made primary in error, or their status as primary no longer makes sense. We consider the suitability of such titles all the time, and doing so is part of addressing potentially inappropriate PRIMARYTOPIC situations. This case is no different: editors rejected the term "leaders of Georgia" as ambiguous, suggesting that the base name redirect may instead need to become a DAB, just like List of football clubs in Georgia and others. ╠╣uw[talk]09:54, 28 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn (uninvolved). In response to the RM closer's question of does the community prohibit ambiguous titles altogether (and therefore any ambiguous title needs to be disambiguated), or is there a threshold manifested in ambiguous titles that are supported because they meet PRIMARYTOPIC criteria?—Wikipedia generally does not employ hard-and-fast rules. Where the threshold exactly lies, is it controlled by the PRIMARYTOPIC guideline in a given instance, and how the PRIMARYTOPIC criteria exactly apply is subject to editorial judgement that a consensus needs to form around on a case-by-case basis.—Alalch E.16:51, 23 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. And, in this case, the only opinion offered on primary topic was from nom and Support: that the topic was primary and that’s why the ambiguity didn’t matter. Since that was the only opinion regarding PT in this case, I had no alternative but to find that that opinion reflected community consensus on that question, which was central and decisive to the proposal. I mean, let’s be frank. If anyone seriously questioned whether it was primary, why didn’t they say so? I think they were IARing PT per JDLI, rather than providing the necessary basis. Because it doesn’t exist. Nobody benefits when closers give undo weight to positions so poorly based in policy. —В²C☎06:27, 27 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse. < uninvolved > Not a !supervote by any stretch. This is a rare case that fully illustrates how consensus is not necessarily won by numbers of votes in a local discussion – it is usually won by taking into consideration the opinions of the community as set forth in policies and guidelines. For what it's worth, hereby call upon all non-endorsers to please reassess. Excellent closure that should definitely be endorsed!P.I. Ellsworth , ed.put'er there07:38, 27 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn and Relist (uninvolved). This is an obvious supervote. For those !voting endorse, if you find B2C's rationale on the merits compelling, then it should have been as a compelling regular !vote. It's absolutely not compelling as a summary of the consensus of the discussion, however. Closers are expected to evaluate consensus, not decide on the merits, and that can sometimes involve invoking wider consensuses than what was expressed locally due to overriding policies, but somebody needs to bring this up in the discussion. More generally, the claim in the close that worries about ambiguity "have no basis in policy" is simply flatly wrong, which could have been brought up had the statement been made as a regular !vote, but instead has to go to MR when done as a close. Maybe there are reasons to close as move anyway, but "Wikipedia article titles do not care about ambiguity" is not true. (Edit: And just to be extra-clear, as a !voter, I too disdain pre-emptive disambiguation, e.g. for distinguishing against topics that don't have encyclopedia articles. But this has to be hashed out on a case-by-case basis for when it applies and when it doesn't. I can have my own stance and still acknowledge that it doesn't always win and the consensus of the community is sometimes different, and it's the community that the closer needs to act on, not their own preferences.) SnowFire (talk) 16:06, 27 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You refer to both “consensus of the discussion” and “consensus of the community”, seemingly conflating the two, as if they are the same. I mean, often they are the same. But in a case like this, where they are in conflict, WP:LOCALCONSENSUS is clear: Consensus among a limited group of editors, at one place and time, cannot override community consensus on a wider scale. We agree a closer is to determine what the consensus of the community is regarding the question at hand, and that includes evaluating arguments and assigning due weight per basis in policy. Ambiguity of a title is a given when the topic is primary—PRIMARYTOPIC has no meaning or purpose regarding non-ambiguous titles—so pointing out its ambiguous is stating the obvious. It’s not an argument at all, much less one based in policy. So, to determine the consensus of the community, I weighed these arguments accordingly, without regard to my personal opinion. By simply pointing out the title is ambiguous, without addressing or challenging the primary topic situation, they’re stating the obvious without countering or even addressing the policy-based argument in the proposal, regardless of one’s perspective. So how do you give that any weight? В²C☎20:27, 27 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
But the best community consensus we have AFAIK is at WP:SHORTFORM which doesn't support moving as the descriptive title is ambiguous and local consensus was quite clear. You are not applying either community or local consensus and instead seem to be applying you're own views. Could you please make sure you only close discussions you're like to be seen as impartial, thanks. Crouch, Swale (talk) 21:00, 27 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Come on. There is an implied unless it is the primary topic to every ambiguous reference in WP policy/guidelines. There has to be. Including it explicitly in every context would be too cumbersome. Just because SHORTFORM doesn’t explicitly mention PRIMARYTOPIC as an exception to options that meet CRITERIA best (including CONCISE, and PRECISE which does reference PT explicitly) but are ambiguous, doesn’t mean PT does not apply. SHORTFORM titles which best meet CRITERIA should be used. And if they’re ambiguous but other uses are each much less likely to be sought, and together less likely to be sought, they should still be used. There’s no policy that says PT doesn’t apply to such titles. В²C☎04:21, 28 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This is move review, not RM part 2. I probably would have supported the move myself, had this argument been raised as a !vote, but it's still a bad close. There were 4 oppose votes from regular, good faith editors with no indication of canvassing who did identify a point of ambiguity very directly in the first !vote, directly contradicting your original close that claimed the oppose votes were meritless. Even if you disagree with their interpretation of policy, there was no cause for a closer to discard their !votes any more than a reverse close that discarded the support votes as invalid. This is doubly true for a NAC. You say "without regard to my personal opinion" - well then you should have closed the result as !moved, because that's clearly where the discussion leaned, no matter how wrong you or I think the !voters were being. Being a closer means disconnecting from your preferences. If you asked 10 Wikipedia editors to guess and bet on how that discussion would close assuming no more !votes, all 10 would have bet "not moved."
Now, if the discussion had been wider: maybe, maybe there's more room to maneuver for a "controversial" close by claiming a LOCALCONSENSUS. But the "other" side needs at least something going on to show that this is not a supervote - say 7 oppose votes vs. nominator & 3 support votes to make some numbers up. With the turnout that existed, if you truly believed this was a LOCALCONSENSUS, you should have !voted and explained why you found the proposer's rationale so convincing, and hoped the eventual closer agreed with you. SnowFire (talk) 23:58, 27 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This is so frustrating! LOCALCONSENSUS was to oppose the move because the proposed title (of an undisputed primary topic article) was ambiguous. But LOCALCONSENSUS does not trump community CONSENSUS, and the closer’s job is to determine the latter. I did disconnect from my preferences. The argument based on PT was raised—by the nom in the proposal itself. And all of the opposers simply ignored it, instead pointing out the obvious: the title is ambiguous. Well, duh. It’s a primary topic. Since when does that mean the title can’t be ambiguous? Since never. Titles of primary topic articles are always ambiguous, by definition. What’s next? Propose moving Paris because it’s ambiguous? Closing this any other way would mean giving weight to weightless arguments. Just because other closers would not weigh arguments by how well they’re based on policy and just count !votes doesn’t mean a closer who does follow guidance RMCI and CONSENSUS should be reverted. В²C☎06:47, 28 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
And yet the community consensus is to not do that. Go ahead, propose it. See how it goes. This comment exemplifies how out of touch your views are with community consensus. В²C☎14:51, 28 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
If a large community consensus was to move Paris to Paris, France and you decided to close the discussion... then yes, you as a closer would be stuck implementing the move, no matter how dumb you thought it was. If you would hate that, then you should !vote to keep it at Paris rather than close it. Which would be fine! But that's something to do as a voter, not a closer. (Usual disclaimers that such a move would probably mean that the community guidelines on WP:NCPLACE were being updated, or there was some major argument unique to Paris afoot like an incredibly important entity known only as "Paris" arising and contesting the claim of primary topic, but that's... fine. Those guidelines are a reflection of the community, not holy scripture, and if the community changed their mind and decided to enforce "City, Country" strictly, that could happen. You should not close a discussion unless you could imagine yourself closing it either way. If you plan on closing a discussion one specific way no matter what the conversation said and the reason isn't WP:SNOW, you should not close that discussion. SnowFire (talk) 21:35, 29 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn and relist (uninvolved). The opposers failed to argue that List of leaders of Georgia (country) is not the primary topic for the base name. However they clearly expressed their opposition based on WP:PRECISE. On the other hand, the nom said the article is the primary topic, but didn't give any further reason or argument, simply stating that the country seems the clear primary topic, which is obviously questionable. There was no consensus to move. Vpab15 (talk) 10:19, 28 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The PRIMARYREDIRECT the nom referenced establishes primary topic. Of course it’s questionable. Anything can be questioned. But none of the opposers questioned it. Not in the discussion. Not even after the discussion. The primary topic status stands to this moment. It’s resolved with the move. It will be unresolved with an overturn/revert. В²C☎14:48, 28 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It is true that reverting to the status quo won't resolve the primary topic question. However, it will allow editors who already participated and those who haven't yet to decide it. Maybe some editors will claim that no change is required and the base name should be a WP:MALPLACED redirect to List of leaders of Georgia (country). In that case, obviously those !votes can be ignored, since they do not follow policy. However, it is much more likely that editors opposing the move think the base name should be a dab page. At least, that's the implicit consensus that I see in the discussion. In any case, the only way to be certain of which option editors support is to relist. Vpab15 (talk) 16:02, 28 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Are you serious? The notion that “List of leaders of Georgia” is about as likely to used by users seeking leaders of the U.S. state rather than by users seeking leaders of the country is silly. “Leader of” (a country) is common English usage; “leader of“ (a U.S. state) is unusual, at best. Of course it’s the primary topic. Hence the longstanding PRIMARYREDIRECT. Put another way, “Leaders of Georgia” is obviously not “Governors of Georgia”. Otherwise we’d have redirects from List of leaders of Alabama to List of governors of Alabama, etc. Come on. “List of leaders of (any U.S. state)” is not even a thing. More to the point, nobody argued the article was not PT. Of course. В²C☎07:25, 29 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn. (uninvolved) Even if they don't cite a policy by name, an RM participant who expresses concern over ambiguity is nevertheless indicating that they feel a title to be insufficiently WP:PRECISE. Further, the lack of explicit rebuttal to an argument does not indicate that that argument is widely accepted; if the opposers in this RM had believed that the article subject was the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, they wouldn't have opposed the move in the first place. This close's rationale was built upon a strength-in-argument gap that doesn't actually exist. ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 18:29, 28 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I do not mean to blungeon, but either people are not reading the explanations, or are not understanding why this close was proper. Let me try it this way. No, opposers did not feel the title to be insufficiently WP:PRECISE. They felt it was insufficiently precise. The crucial distinction is fundamental to this case and others like it. Precise, the dictionary word, makes no allowance for ambiguity: an ambiguous title is not sufficiently precise by definition. We all agree. And that’s the argument opposers made, and the only one. In stark contrast, PRECISE, the policy, makes explicit allowances for ambiguity, and primarily for PRIMARY TOPICs, which, again, was central in this case due to the PRIMARYREDIRECT, as noted by the nom in the proposal and in followup discussion, and reiterated by Support. Opposition totally ignored this because their position was that the proposed title was not precise; their position was not that the proposed title failed to comply with PRECISE (which it clearly does unless primary topic is rejected—but no opposer argued that). Had anyone actually argued the proposed title was not in compliance with PRECISE the policy, they would have argued the topic was not primary and the PRIMARYREDIRECT had to be removed or replaced with a dab page. Any argument opposing a title due solely to ambiguity when PT is claimed (much less established by PRIMARYREDIRECT) has no basis in policy and must be unweighted accordingly, per CONSENSUS and RMCI. —В²C☎07:07, 29 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You contend that the crucial distinction fundamental to this case is what people mean by the dictionary word precise, even though that word is nowhere in the RM? ╠╣uw[talk]19:33, 29 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
No. I’m replying to ModernDayTrilobite who characterized opposition’s “concern over ambiguity” as implying non-compliance with PRECISE. It all leads up to the last sentence, in bold, which is most pertinent. —В²C☎21:48, 29 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The only evidence provided for the proposed title's PRIMARYTOPIC status was the fact that, prior to the RM, List of leaders of Georgia redirected to the article under discussion. It would be completely circular to treat this as meaningful evidence; if that were the case, no topic could ever be moved from a primary title to its disambiguated form. Instead, a PRIMARYTOPIC is determined by examining the relative amount of usage and significance for each topic; no one in the discussion analyzed either topic. Thus, while PT was claimed, the claim was provided without evidence – which means that the opposers' rejection of that claim does not in fact need to be unweighted. It was simply an unverified claim facing an equally unverified repudiation. ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 22:10, 30 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Nonsense. A long-standing PRIMARYREDIRECT is direct evidence that the community considers the topic of the target to be primary. That doesn’t mean the target’s title can’t be disambiguated. That means to present policy-based reasons to move it to (or keep it at) the disambiguated title, the established primary topic has to be addressed. Any argument favoring the disambiguated title based entirely on the given ambiguity of the title should be given very little, if any, weight. В²C☎10:30, 31 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn and relist (uninvolved). The key dispute is about the degree of likelihood that leader means governor; that's a question of fact, not a question of policy. Some editors thought that leader of Georgia is highly likely to mean a president of Georgia or first secretary of the communist party, as opposed to governor of Georgia. Other editors thought that it's likely enough to mean governor of Georgia. Both views had common-sense plausible reasons. Both views had little supporting evidence in the way of sources or stats. (We now have a bit more of that, in this post-close discussion.) I don't think the strength of evidence justified a closure in favor of the minority. I also agree with ModernDayTrilobite. Since many reasonable new arguments have been made post-close, the discussion should be reopened so that editors have the opportunity to respond in the appropriate forum. Adumbrativus (talk) 00:43, 30 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I understand the argument that other US states don't have a "List of leaders of X" article or redirect, an argument which you first made at your talk page and have made again here. In a relisted RM, other editors will consider how significant this particular fact is, relative to all other arguments introduced. I trust that they, and the closer, will take it seriously. In the RM that actually took place, it was not the consensus. Adumbrativus (talk) 19:04, 30 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I tried to avoid commenting in this discussion, but I simply can't ignore the fact that this is a clear WP:OTHERSTUFFDOESNTEXIST argument. And further, as Dylnuge said this is you arguing why the page should be moved, not how the discussion showed a consensus to move. And even if we don't have redirects (yet), Huwmanbeing demonstrated above that there are in fact sources which refer to the state's governor as the "leader of Georgia". estar8806 (talk) ★17:02, 2 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn/Relist (uninvolved). The fact that the closer is arguing why the page should be moved, instead of why the discussion should be read as having a consensus to move, shows this as a pretty clear supervote—an argument that would have been a reasonable !vote is still not an argument for discounting every opposing argument. Note that the proposer also supports the move (so it's 2 vs 4, not 1 vs 4), and one of the opposes !votes is "weak", so it's not clear to me this should have been closed in either direction, hence favoring relisting. Dylnuge(Talk • Edits)06:15, 31 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I have only argued why the discussion should be read as reflecting community consensus to move, not why the page should be moved. For example, the dearth of entries at “List of leaders of X” for any state X I demonstrated by listing the red links just above was done specifically to counter the claim that the participants could have reasonably meant “leaders of X” is comparably likely to refer to governors of a U.S. state named X as to leaders of a country named X. My point is all about reading how community consensus is reflected in the discussion, as opposed to reading WP:LOCALCONSENSUS, which cannot override community consensus. —В²C☎11:01, 31 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It's fair point that the argument for a "support" vote and the argument for discarding all oppose votes are similar things. I agree with your argument; in an RM discussion I'd be in support of the move. On the other hand, I don't see the policy as being so cut-and-dry here that there's an obvious rationale for completely discounting the people opposing. WP:TITLEDAB is policy; if a local consensus at the article were to determine that "List of leaders of Georgia" was ambiguous, disambiguating in the title would be within policy.
My personal feeling is in this situation the "right" thing is to comment in support of the move, not to close in support of the move. In the WP:NOTBURO spirit, I think entirely discounting someone's comment in a conversation should be reserved for situations where it's obvious that comments that aren't grounded in policy (brigading, low quality "this is what I like" or "as per X" votes, etc). Otherwise we risk creating an environment where people feel the need to have comprehensive legal arguments and an extensive knowledge of policy to participate in discussions. The ideal case is that this kind of policy discussion happens in the RM itself; then the oppose votes can reply and say "I still think it covers policy because of X" or "hmm, you seem to be right, changing my !vote" (rarer, but it does happen) and the closer has more to work with when saying "policy clearly supports the move". Dylnuge(Talk • Edits)15:21, 31 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Except TITLEDAB refers specifically to PT as an exception to the policy of disambiguating ambiguous tities, and the nom made that argument in the proposal. We agree we do not want to “risk creating an environment where people feel the need to have comprehensive legal arguments and an extensive knowledge of policy to participate in discussions”. But the PT exception to disambiguating ambiguous titles is fundamental to title decision-making on WP, and doesn’t require extensive knowledge of policy at all. So I hope we also agree we do not want to risk creating an environment where people feel merely pointing out ambiguity is a good enough reason to disambiguate (or retain disambiguation) even when the topic of the article in question is considered to be the PT for the title. Ultimately, that’s what this MR is about. If my close is overturned or relisted, that’s exactly the message we’re sending. An overturn or relist also declares the close was “inconsistent with the spirit and intent of Wikipedia common practice, policies, or guidelines”, which implies unnecessary disambiguation of titles of primary topic articles is consistent “with the spirit and intent of Wikipedia common practice, policies, or guidelines”. Which is absurd. В²C☎05:34, 3 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
...which implies unnecessary disambiguation of titles of primary topic articles ... - this is still your opinion. Contributors to the original RM clearly did not view the disambiguation as unnecessary. Just as in your close, you're arguing why the page should be moved, which is not the purpose of MR, as MR is not a forum to re-argue a closed discussion. estar8806 (talk) ★03:53, 4 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
No. I’m using the term objectively. Disambiguation is made necessary on WP due to technical limitations preventing two articles from having the same title. This is indisputable fact, not opinion. Unnecessary disambiguation, then, by definition, is therefore disambiguation of a title when disambiguation is not necessary for this technical reason: no other article is at that title. We agree that both in a close and in an MR we should not be arguing why the page should or should not be moved. Explaining how and why the arguments made in the discussion were evaluated and weighed is not re-arguing. And that’s all I did in the close and have done in this MR. В²C☎16:56, 4 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The idea that disambiguation is only ever necessary for technical reasons is one you've pushed many times, but it's opinion, not policy. If you don't see that then I'm not sure you should be closing RMs. ╠╣uw[talk]11:52, 5 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
If something is necessary that means there’s no reasonable alternative. Sleep, food, air, shelter… these are necessary to survive. The fact that it’s possible to have an article at its undisambiguated title demonstrates the disambiguation is not necessary in that case. You’re conflating “necessary” with preferable, perhaps? —В²C☎04:02, 6 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I’m not saying there aren’t cases where the community disambiguates by comma when disambiguation is unnecessary. Besides, precisely to get around the unnecessary disambiguation conundrum, comma disambiguation for geographical topics is argued to not be disambiguation at all, but rather the more COMMONNAME for the topic in question. But that wasn’t raised in the discussion nor was it even applicable in this case. —В²C☎22:15, 7 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Relist (uninvolved) When this discussion has become 5 times longer than the RM itself and a lot of the comments here are about the merits of the RM rather than its close then you know that the discussion clearly isn't over. * Pppery *it has begun...17:28, 8 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn/relist (uninvolved). (1) As Crouch, Swale noted at the pre-MR discussion, Born2cycle clearly expresses his opinion on the "Georgia" issue at his user page, so this should have been a !vote, not a close. (2) Consensus-building should first seek a local consensus that is in line with community consensus. This sort of "CONSENSUS-not-consensus" close should wait until discussion has reached an impasse where further comments are unlikely to be helpful. (3) Twenty-two comments here by one participant is not helpful. SilverLocust💬12:02, 9 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The above is an archive of the move review of the page listed in the heading. Please do not modify it.
