Talk:Israel–Hamas war/Archive 40

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Requested move 23 January 2024

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.

A straight count puts the two camps in roughly equal numbers: both the support and opposition number 55, give or take a few. The burden, then, rests on supporters to make a fairly strong argument to tip the discussion towards consensus in favor of the move.

In this case, supporters fail to meet their burden. Those in favor freely concede the opposition's point that neither the consensus nor the plurality of reliable sources supports the alternate characterization of "Israel–Gaza war", and instead primarily perform a pragmatic analysis of the article subject in an attempt to assert a more fitting title.[a] Some supporters contended that reliable sources back up their overall characterization of the conflict and thus their preferred title, but that claim is far too broad to reasonably be adjudicated in an RM close; I'll say heuristically that I do find such a claim unlikely to be true if reliable sources don't clearly support the end result of their preferred title. Supporters do assert that WP:COMMONNAME does not explicitly support the current title, as it requires a clear consensus of reliable sources to support any given title. They are correct to say that no such consensus exists. Per COMMONNAME, When there is no single, obvious name that is demonstrably the most frequently used for the topic by these sources, editors should reach a consensus as to which title is best by considering these criteria directly. Discussion did not focus on this part of policy, and in my personal opinion, neither title has a clear advantage on this point.

In the absence of RS consensus for either title, or a clear argument based on AT criteria as to why editorial discretion should be invoked, to find consensus for either title would be to essentially supervote a rationale to the tune of "there is no consensus of reliable sources. Since I find one side's characterization of this global conflict more convincing than their equally-numbered opponents' characterization of this global conflict, we should have the article be at that title." There is no consensus to move. An alternate suggestion for "2023 Gaza war" picked up some steam towards the end of the RM; it may, or may not, be a successful compromise proposal if it is floated after the RM moratorium on this page lifts. For now, the title remains as is.

Notes

  1. ^ This, by the way, was the same argument put forward by those who opposed moving Holit massacre to Holit attack, they similarly failed to gain consensus. That situation was slightly different in that there was a duly asserted consensus of reliable sources in favor of the move, and that they were starkly outnumbered, but the same principle applies. Pragmatic assessments of the content of the article generally carry little weight, as reasonable minds can and do differ.
theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 20:55, 27 February 2024 (UTC)


Israel–Hamas war → Israel–Gaza war – Following the last move discussion, it is clear that some editors consider the current title biased, and would support a move to a more neutral and thus better title. Several organizations and media outlets, including the United Nations, BBC, The Guardian and recently CNN, are also using the latter term. NasssaNsertalk 09:52, 23 January 2024 (UTC) — Relisting. – robertsky (talk) 19:07, 30 January 2024 (UTC) — Relisting. FOARP (talk) 14:31, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

Jump to: Survey Discussion Proposed moratorium

Survey (RM)

  • Oppose, per WP:COMMONNAME, and can we please stop with these constant move requests? - there was a consensus for "Israel-Hamas war" less than two weeks ago.
    In the past 24 hours, 60 sources have used "Israel-Gaza war", compared to 158 using "Israel-Hamas war"
    Further, the nominator cites sources like CNN as evidence for this proposal. However, CNN continues to use the current title; in the past week CNN has used "Israel-Hamas war" many times more than it has used "Israel-Gaza war". BilledMammal (talk) 10:36, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
    To expand on this, the current title is more neutral than the proposed title. WP:NPOV doesn't mean "whatever Wikipedians think is more neutral", it means "whatever aligns with reliable sources". On this topic, reliable sources consistently describe this as a war between Hamas and Israel, not a war between Israel and Gaza. This can be seen with the following Google Scholar results since the war began:
    1. 3 sources describe this as a war between Gaza and Israel
    2. 14 sources describe this as a war between Palestine and Israel
    3. 95 sources describe this as a war between Hamas and Israel.
    Not all of these sources are relevant but most are - enough to establish that the most prominent viewpoint is that this is a war between Israel and Hamas. BilledMammal (talk) 15:32, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
    Nah, lots of editors disagreeing with this. You yourself argued that the name was descriptive and there is the small matter of consistency with previous article titles, see Gaza War. Selfstudier (talk) 15:35, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
    I got the impression that the consensus was for the date format only. Jikybebna (talk) 09:18, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
    To directly quote the close: NO CONSENSUS ON YEAR PLACEMENT; CONSENSUS ON 'ISRAEL–HAMAS WAR' AS THE BASE TITLE BilledMammal (talk) 13:25, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
    Lol. Well, what can one say? EDIT: Aw, edited after I replied to the mass of green shouting.Selfstudier (talk) 13:28, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Support Mainly because RS are gradually shifting to this naming rather than the initial one; also important to note that there are many groups fighting with Hamas. Makeandtoss (talk) 10:45, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Oppose - Under two weeks ago it was clear that the current title is the common name by such a degree that POV or other concerns were mitigated. This has not changed and seems unlikely to for the foreseeable future: ABC, AFP, AP, Bloomberg, CBC, CBS, CNN, DW, FT, France 24, Globe & Mail, LA Times, NBC, NPR, NYT, PBS, Reuters, SBS, Sky, The Telegraph, Time, Times of London, USA Today, WSJ. On the other side we have just a handful: BBC, Guardian, WaPo. Perhaps another moratorium on move requests is in order. PrimaPrime (talk) 13:14, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
    Some of the examples used to oppose the proposed title are fundamentally misleading, as they ignore the actual content and titles of news reports. The keyword 'Israel-Hamas' is often just a legacy category used by many news agencies, and some may find switching to a more appropriate name technically cumbersome. For instance, in the January 23rd report by the Associated Press about Israeli soldier casualties in Gaza, the article refers to the conflict as the 'Gaza offensive.' 'Hamas,' on the other hand, is mentioned in relation to the October 7th attack and Israel's objectives in this military operation.[1] Similarly, CNN also uses 'Israel's war in Gaza' in place of 'war against Hamas' in some cases.[2] Conversely, you would never find anything like 'Hamas' defense against Israel' due to the extreme asymmetry of this military conflict. Frankly, the asymmetric nature of the military conflict should be reflected in our article title, similar to the Russian invasion of Ukraine since 2022. And this marks my support for the proposed change to the new title. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk · contri.) 16:19, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
    You may note that the Guardian and WaPo still have "Israel-Hamas war" in their URLs, so "technical difficulties" plea strikes me as a reach. PrimaPrime (talk) 18:12, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
    Proof of, I would have said. Selfstudier (talk) 18:14, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
    It means the majority of sources haven't changed the name they use because they haven't seen fit to, not because they can't. PrimaPrime (talk) 19:09, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Support Israel has made it very clear that this is not actually about Hamas, we shouldn’t be using a biased framing. Snokalok (talk) 14:15, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Support. I agree with Snokalok and Makeandtoss on this point, considering calling it the "Israel-Hamas war" is far too limiting, as the war has expanded beyond conflict against Hamas, with Israel claiming to fight many armed Palestinian groups during the war. I have to disagree with the info-dumps by two other users to support their case, one of which uses Google hit as "evidence" of a name (to my knowledge, previously this has been stated to not be the best measure of whether something is a common name).Historyday01 (talk) 14:28, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Strong support. While Israel argues they are only purusing Hamas, there is more than sufficient evidence proving that the actual Israeli targets included non-military facilities, critical infrastructure, healthcare, and the civilian population (including its own hostages). Israel's claims should be assessed similarly to the Russian claims of attacking only "neo-Nazis" in Ukraine, or the US claims of invading Afghanistan only to track down Osama bin Laden: as a prime example of war propaganda. Since Wikipedia is obliged foremostly to abide by NPOV – which comes first before counting WP:GOOGLEHITS for media-coined phrases – we must call this conflict what it actually is. — kashmīrī TALK 14:36, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Strongly Oppose. Please hat this; consensus just reached on article title Consensus on this exact same issue was resolved via an RfC that commenced on 23 December and concluded on 10 January, [3]. That RfC found a consensus that this article should be titled "Israel-Hamas war," but no consensus on whether it should have a year attached. Editors dissatisfied with that appealed to the admin who closed it and he declined to do so. Then there was another RfC to resolve the exact title. That was concluded three days ago [4]. Repetitive RfCs that duplicate identical RfCs concluded just days earlier are disruptive. They exhaust the patience of the community, clog talk pages and drive away editors. They are especially corrosive in controversial topic areas. This RfC thereefore should be hatted. If not hatted I Strongly Oppose but editors should not be permitted to repeat the same RfCs over and over again until they get the outcome they desire. Coretheapple (talk) 14:54, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Strong oppose and speedy close - Very little has changed since the last RM. Supporters have cited absolutely no policies or evidence, only thing that Israel "does", which has no weight in the naming process. estar8806 (talk) ★ 15:18, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Oppose While I prefer the proposed as a matter of personal taste, this is a clear WP:COMMONNAME situation. Israel-Hamas war is just far more popular. JDiala (talk) 15:27, 23 January 2024 (UTC) Support I have changed my position. I support changing the name. While Israel-Hamas is somewhat more common in WP:RS, it is not an extreme preference and Israel-Gaza is reasonably common too. More importantly, the neutrality aspect should also be considered. Having "Hamas" in the title downplays the extensive and unprecedented damage to civilian infrastructure and the "collective punishment" nature of the war. Israeli leaders have admitted as much in their public remarks. On the flip side, we know that some Gazan civilians participated in October 7th. In sum, the totality of evidence indicates that this war is a "total war" between Gaza and Israel, not simply a typical skirmish between a state and a militia group. JDiala (talk) 08:04, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
    Perhaps, but NPOV comes before COMMONNAME. — kashmīrī TALK 15:32, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
    I'm just not seeing why Israel-Hamas is NPOV. It's just factually correct that the two belligerents are Hamas and Israel. Sure, there are some other Palestinian militant groups, but these are a smaller minority and still ultimately coordinating with Hamas which is leading everything and governing the Strip. JDiala (talk) 15:36, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
    Please try and keep discussion in the below section, thanks. Selfstudier (talk) 15:42, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
    Not always true, WP:POVNAME: ...the prevalence of the name, or the fact that a given description has effectively become a proper name (and that proper name has become the common name), generally overrides concern that Wikipedia might appear as endorsing one side of an issue. estar8806 (talk) ★ 15:50, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
    OK, since we are not keeping the discussion where it says discussion, I'll join in as well, per the discussion below, there is no consensus yet whether the name is commonname or descriptive WP:NDESC and while the current title may initially have been a commonname, there are indications that is not necessarily the case currently (again,see discussion below). As for bias, I merely wonder why previous wars, which were also against Hamas, were not called such. Selfstudier (talk) 15:59, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
    NPOV comes before COMMONNAME. I've seen this asserted a number of times, but I haven't seen any arguments or evidence for the current title not being NPOV.
    I think my explanation from the move earlier this month still applies:

    As a general point; NPOV isn't what we think is neutral, it's what reflects reliable sources on a topic. If reliable sources on a topic describe this as a war between Hamas (and other militant groups) and Israel, declining to describe it as a war between Gaza and Israel, then to comply with NPOV we must describe this as a war between Hamas and Israel, including in our titles; to describe it as a war between Gaza and Israel would be an NPOV violation.

    BilledMammal (talk) 08:04, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
    Here is the Guardian reporting CNN editors concerns that "The majority of news since the war began, regardless of how accurate the initial reporting, has been skewed by a systemic and institutional bias within the network toward Israel. Ultimately, CNN’s coverage of the Israel-Gaza war amounts to journalistic malpractice."
    For our purposes, an internal memo said "..we must continue always to remind our audiences of the immediate cause of this current conflict, namely the Hamas attack and mass murder and kidnap of civilians”. (Italics in the original.) and "In addition, every story on the conflict must be cleared by the Jerusalem bureau before broadcast or publication."
    Of course we have known for some time of systemic bias in US news coverage and this is likely typical of the goings on at the likes of Reuters, WSJ and so on.
    So yeah, there is a NPOV issue lurking at the back of all this, kinda. Selfstudier (talk) 13:14, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
    I'm not sure what your point is; as I said, NPOV isn't what we think is neutral, it's what reflects reliable sources on a topic.
    CNN is a reliable source on the topic, and counts towards assessing what reflects reliable sources - and on this topic, it is part of the majority. It's not our job to right great wrongs - it would be an NPOV violation to decide to ignore the majority position, that this is a war between Israel and Hamas, in favor of the minority position, that this is a war between Israel and Gaza. BilledMammal (talk) 13:27, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
    And as I said in response, at the time: NPOV, in fact, requires that we give effect to competing viewpoints; it does not require that we ignore perspectives that are "outnumbered", so to speak. Hence the purpose of this discussion. Again, a non-neutral name can be employed by a preponderance of sources; that doesn't make it neutral. The real crux of this conversation is how we should respond when a name with clear neutrality issues is slightly more common, but does not rise to the level of a WP:COMMONNAME. WillowCity(talk) 13:46, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
    First, the current title is neutral, because its framing aligns with the framing of an overwhelming majority of sources.
    Second, even it wasn’t, that wouldn’t justify replacing it with another non-neutral name; you would need additional justification, such as that name being the common name, which doesn’t apply here. BilledMammal (talk) 13:56, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
    It is not true that the overwhelming majority of sources use such a framing, and it is not true the alternative is non neutral. nableezy - 14:18, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
    This is actually a war by Israel on Gaza. Of course, if we are just going to go by the common name established in biased US sources, then we would need to do that, fortunately, commonname may yet succumb to common sense. Selfstudier (talk) 13:47, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Support. per WP:NCE and, more importantly, per WP:NPOV. I’ll repeat my comments from the December RM, for ease of reference:

    I would emphasize … that WP:COMMONNAME is specifically subject to the requirement of NPOV (like everything else on Wikipedia). The policy states: Neutrality is also considered; see § Neutrality in article titles, below. WP:NPOVNAME allows for a POV title only where the subject is referred to mainly by a single common name, as evidenced through usage in a significant majority of English-language sources (emphasis added). Here, "Israel–Hamas war" may be used by a preponderance of sources, but it is not the single common name, nor is it demonstrably used by a significant majority of sources, and many of the sources that do use it do so alongside other names. The fact that it is the preferred name of one party to the conflict should give us pause. … Israel–Gaza war is more internally consistent with our other article titles, and there are other armed groups involved, making the current title inaccurate and simultaneously imprecise and overprecise.

    I previously provided sources in support of the proposed title, but other !voters on this thread have beat me to the punch. WillowCity(talk) 16:16, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
  • [Sorry for putting this twice, I accidentally put this text above this section so my fault for this] Strong Oppose; this is getting out of hand. First of all, there is an article called the Gaza–Israel conflict, so having another article named similar to this one would confuse some people. Secondly, the war isn't just happening in Gaza alone, factions such as Hezbollah from Lebanon and the Houthis from Yemen contribute to the conflict in other areas other than Gaza, also called a spillover. Moving this to what you want wouldn't be good either. Alright, two points proven wrong, what else? Well, thirdly, news anchors don't matter when it comes to these types of things. They call these types of situations whatever they want. They called the start of the war "a surprise attack" (at least from mine) and if you search it up, most call this the "Israel-Hamas war". Oh boy, three. Want a fourth point? Here, fourthly, you say and I quote "...would support a move to a more neutral and thus better title". Listen to it again. "...would support a move to a more neutral and thus better title". In what way would this make it "neutral" as you said it would? All the points I proved do not make this neutral in any way. Half of us are split between Support and Oppose because of this, and neutrality wasn't made from this. So these are why I Strongly Oppose this. Overthrow-dictator (talk 13:25, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
    If the US and UK are not treated as belligerents in this war (in Gaza) despite providing Israel with unwavering military supports which mostly went hitting Gazan civilians, there is no reason to take the spillover conflicts which involve direct attacks from the US and UK into consideration. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk · contri.) 18:46, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
    If the war isn't happening in Gaza alone, then surely that would mean the title "Israel-Hamas" wouldn't be accurate either, considering how Hezbollah and the Houthis are not a part of Hamas? Regardless, we can't call this article a name that isn't used by a large amount of sources, which both of the currently proposed titles are. HadesTTW (he/him • talk) 00:31, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Support, this war involves many other Gazan factions fighting alongside Hamas, and Israel is at war with Gaza's military power as a collective whole, not specifically Hamas and the Gazan civilians dying are not "Hamas", they're Gazans. This change would make things much less bias and much less confusing. RamHez (talk) 23:17, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Strongest support possible. I will repeat several of the points I made the last time this was suggested:
    1. The fact that over 60 sources, according to BilledMammal themself, have used the term "Israel-Gaza" clearly indicates that "Israel-Hamas" is not the sole common name of this war. Yes, there are more that use the latter, but it's clear to most people that there are at least two ways to call the war (besides obviously biased terms like Swords of Iron or Gaza Massacre), and renaming it to "Israel-Gaza" is not like we are making some neologism or some unknown term never used by the media. People will understand what the article is about regardless of what title we use. WP:NPOVNAME only applies if there isn't another common name we can use.
    2. Again, I have yet to see any substantive arguments on why Israel-Hamas should be used besides the fact that more English sources use the term. There exists a POV issue, there's the glaring omission of the fact that most people dead in the war are not Hamas, there's little prior precedent for calling wars between a group and a whole state (especially considering how the state is clearly not just targeting the group), and finally we did not reach consensus the last discussion we had (it was cut short by the need to immediately fix the date issue in the title), so procedural wrangling doesn't really apply.
    3. The factual problem of the usage of just "Hamas" has been relevant from the start and is still a problem now. The article outright says that more civilians in Gaza have died than Hamas members, and not even the IDF disputes this. One can make the argument that Israel is not intentionally targeting civilians but rather they are getting in the way of their war against Hamas, but does the intention of a state really matter? America's intention in Vietnam was to destroy the Viet Cong yet we call it the Vietnam War regardless- not just because sources and everyone calls it the Vietnam War, but we understand that it was a war fought against Vietnamese people the same way this war is fought against the people of Gaza. To put it simply- the war is not between just Israel and Hamas and the article itself makes it clear that it's not.
    HadesTTW (he/him • talk) 18:15, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
    The fact that more English sources use the term is official policy per WP:COMMONNAME; note that the article on the 1918 flu pandemic, for example, is titled Spanish flu despite that name being a misnomer. DecafPotato (talk) 20:28, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
    "Ambiguous or inaccurate names for the article subject, as determined in reliable sources, are often avoided even though they may be more frequently used by reliable sources." There's the caveat. And "Spanish Flu" is arguably the single common name for the pandemic, while I argue there's at the very least two common names for the war. HadesTTW (he/him • talk) 20:53, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Weak support per point 2, also weak support alternate "Gaza War" Support per HadesTTW point 2, Support per C&C five pillars. Orchastrattor (talk) 20:46, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Support proposed or Gaza war (disambiguation). As can be seen from the discussion/comments, major newsorgs have shifted their position such that a majority of them are not/no longer using the current title for current reporting. That aside, a simple sniff test ought to inform any reasonable person that what is occurring cannot possibly be understood as a war between Israel and Hamas when we see that the differences between this war and previous Gaza Wars are the ground invasion of Gaza by Israeli forces accompanied by an unprecedented level of civilian casualties (Gazans).Selfstudier (talk) 18:47, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Oppose, and can we get another month-long moratorium on these never-ending Move requests? While consensus can change, consensus was determined for this issue not two weeks ago. Currently, "Israel-Hamas War" continues to see more usage in reporting (~9.6 million results) than "Israel-Gaza War" (~100k results), and "Israel-Hamas war" remains the preferred search term. There is NOWHERE NEAR enough new material to be re-litigating this consensus again. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 22:57, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
    Where do you see 9.6 million? Both links that you posted only show ~300 results each for the last month. Moreover, be careful not to use the exorbitant numbers shown on top of Google search results – they have no relation to reality.[5][6] — kashmīrī TALK 23:16, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
    On Desktop, click 'Tools' to hide the toolbar - # of hits show up behind it.
    And saying those numbers have "no relation to reality" based on those sources is a bit much; neither of them seem to make that conclusion. The numbers may be overinflated (or deflated), and they might be fudged a bit - but they are semi-reasonable estimates.
    If you could provide a statistic that compares phrase usage across all RS sources that's better, I'd love to see it. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 04:19, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
    Google numbers are not "overestimated". At best, they are simple estimates of how many times the search term has been indexed, but without deduplication and source ranking (same source, e.g. a forum comment, might have been indexed thousands of times under different URLs). At worst, they are completely made up, existing only for promotional purposes, and Google has even stopped listing them on the first page. In this thread, former Google Search staff explain how this number is generated. But in short – the number bears no relation to the term's actual prminence in relevant sources. — kashmīrī TALK 08:50, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
    Wow, an anonymous message board. That seems legit. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 14:04, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
    Besides, "Gaza war" has seen more usage worldwide in the last 30 days than "Israel-Hamas war"! [7] — kashmīrī TALK 23:21, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
    "Gaza War" isn't on the table in this RFC; the options provided are "Israel-Gaza war" and "Israel-Hamas war" PhotogenicScientist (talk) 04:20, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
    Web searches seem irrelevant to notability – we're interested in news searches, and they show "Israel–Gaza war" as more common.[8] — kashmīrī TALK 08:24, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
    No, we're not interested in "news searches" - what people are searching for is not the best indicator of what the title of the article should be. But overall search interest is of some value. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 14:05, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
    Well, which is it? Is search volume not a worthwhile indicator of what the title should be, or is it valuable? It can't be both. And if searches are of value, why are overall searches more valuable than news searches, in relation to a current event? WillowCity(talk) 15:48, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
    One of the goals of article titling, per WP:TITLE is: Naturalness – The title is one that readers are likely to look or search for and that editors would naturally use to link to the article from other articles. Such a title usually conveys what the subject is actually called in English. So, obviously, the general search interest of the public is of some value. Which I said, by the way. Limiting this to only "news searches" is rather odd, and seems to have been done only in response to my first bringing up general search interest.
    But there are other, more specific considerations as well - such as WP:COMMONNAME, WP:NPOVTITLE, WP:NAMECHANGES, etc. We place more value on what reliable sources call an article's topic than what the general public thinks (generally best known from search results). PhotogenicScientist (talk) 16:14, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
    General usage can guide article naming but certainly cannot be the key determinant. Just a single example (but there are countless others): we have a guy's bio at Donald Trump, not at "Trump". — kashmīrī TALK 21:34, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
    That's a shortening of a full name, not a different name altogether. The "Donald" is still implied semantically, its just skipped over for the sake of efficiency. Orchastrattor (talk) 16:43, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Oppose - I think we cannot make everyone satisfied with title. Israel-Gaza war might be right for some reason, but there were other Gaza wars of which Israel was belligerent of, so this suggested title could be another topic for Disambiguation. And also I agree with PhotogenicScientist. I think we should now focus on ongoing war's situation, not to suggest another request. Also, we should remember that current title was the result of compromise and consensus over numerous idea which already had suggested. -- Wendylove (talk) 02:08, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Strong Oppose on process and substantive grounds. My mind has not changed since i opined on the last move request and neither has any one else's. Yet here we are, repeating ourselves, two weeks after conclusion of an identical Requested Move and three days after the "year or no year" discussion concluded (which was called for in the close of the preceding discussion). I see that this latest move request was commenced by an editor who wanted "Israel-Gaza War." So he started this move request. Well that's not how things work around here. Editors who don't like the consensus established in a move request don't get a "do-over" in the hope that the next bunch of editors and the next closer will cause a more pleasing outcome. Close this, give the initiator a trout slap or worse, and let's start sanctioning initiators of duplicative, time-wasting Requested Moves. Let's not make a mockery of "consensus." Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 12:42, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Oppose Gaza is not a belligerent in its own right, it's constituent part of the State of Palestine (and, as I suspect, it can't be viewed as a sovereign belligerent under international law). Also, Israel declared the war against Hamas rather than against Gaza (although I can't find the full text of the declaration at the moment). Brandmeistertalk 15:51, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
    Wars are not commonly named after belligerents (e.g., we don't say "Wehrmacht – Red Army war" or "United States Armed Forces – Taliban war"), unless in propaganda when the invader doesn't want to announce attacking a country. Also, we routinely name wars after affected territorial entities (Falklands war, Nagorno-Karabakh wars, Kosovo war, Transnistria war etc. etc.). — kashmīrī TALK 01:26, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
    The proposed juxtaposition "Israel-Gaza" may wrongly imply that the war is between two sovereign countries, while Gaza is not a country. The current name is precise. Brandmeistertalk 12:41, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
    We already have Gaza war and other articles where that implication is not considered to be a problem, in fact consistency with prior article naming is a reason to change the article title. Selfstudier (talk) 12:55, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Plenty of sources call it Israel-Hamas war - see the hatted table below to which I've added a few items. Alaexis¿question? 20:10, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Oppose- Not neccesary, Why are we doing this? Also please provide examples of editors considering the title "Biased". File:WaRei.png WeaponizingArchitecture | scream at me File:WaRei.png 20:09, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
    This discussion, already linked in the opening post, has at least two editors clearly raising POV as an issue. NasssaNsertalk 03:58, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Oppose per WP:COMMONNAME. --Yorkporter (talk) 23:32, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Oppose WP:COMMONNAME. We already had a discussion about this, although I understand why some object to the name. – Howard🌽33 23:54, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Strong support while WP:COMMONNAME is persuasive, being neutral is even more important. Describing the Geographic areas impacted is as factual as we can get. When I was younger, my political worldview on this topic was quiet different, but the one thing that has remained consistent over the past 2 decades is my confidence that no matter my worldview, English Wikipedia will give me a reasonable and factually accurate summary of the different viewpoints in this conflict. In an ideal world, every Wikipedia reader would also check out each of sources of our article to make their own assessment, but in practice, many will solely read the text we write. Starting the title, we should present an encyclopedic summary of the topic, instead of parroting POV political phrases, even if it is WP:COMMON. It is also debatable whether this is a war altogether, but in the interest of both clear English communication and addressing contested political claims, I can live with Israel-Gaza war. As to requests for procedural close, previous RfCs were malformed and or changing in scope. I don't think this will be the last RfC on Article title either. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 01:42, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
    You seem to be conflating "neutral" and "factual." Could you explain in more detail how you feel "Israel-Hamas War" is a non-neutral title? PhotogenicScientist (talk) 14:32, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
    We should not be using the preferred titles of either Israel or Hamas (or not exclusively). Israeli state wants to call it Israel-Hamas war, and Hamas likely would want to call it Israel-Hamas resistance.
    I similarly would oppose a title to the effect of Hamas-Likud war or Hamas-IDF war (depending whether you want to focus on Hamas the militant faction, or the political party). For the same reasons that focusing on Hamas is a strategy to delegitimize Palestinians in the global-arena (and I do not care to defend Hamas either), solely focusing on Hamas armed actions against the IDF, a military power would incorrectly imply that Hamas does not intentionally or de facto kill Israeli civilians, on 7 October and in general in its indiscriminate (albeit ineffective) rocket attacks over the past 18 years.
    The reality of this war, whatever it is called, is that mostly civilians, both Israeli and Palestinian have been killed, and calling it a Hamas-Israel war feeds into a very cynical nationalist and biased narrative, that Israel is solely at war with Hamas. At best the evidence show that they're doing a bad job at exclusively or primarily targeting Hamas, and at worse...a deliberate strategy to equate all Gazans with Hamas (Gazans voted for Hamas, they're all animals, etc...) and Israeli propaganda goes further to even equate Hamas with ISIS and Nazis. If we were to be super crude, we'd offer titles like Israel-Nazi war, or Israel-ISIS war. No one is suggesting that here on Wikipedia fortunately, but referring it to as Hamas war is the same logic. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 04:27, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
    We should not be using the preferred titles of either Israel or Hamas Why, exactly? Especially in the case where, as it is, plenty of reliable sources are using the same name for the war that Israel does? Should we not follow RS?
    There's some argument here that "Israel-Hamas war" isn't exactly precise - there are more belligerents than just Hamas at this point. But your interpretation that because Israel is causing civilian collateral damage, they are waging war against more than Hamas is just wrong - it's WP:OR unless backed up by reliable sources.
    Moreover, re: feeds into a very cynical nationalist and biased narrative, Wikipedia is not the place to right great wrongs - in sticking to what is verifiable in reliable sources, we're limited to essentially repeating what has already been said about this conflict. And by and large, the name that is being assigned to this conflict is "Israel-Hamas war". PhotogenicScientist (talk) 14:40, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Oppose Per WP:COMMONNAME. Furthermore, it is standard practice on wars between states and non-state militant organizations to use the name of the militant organization in the title- War against the Islamic State is not titled War against Raqqa. "Gaza" is ambiguous as it is also a city in only part of the Gaza Strip so if anything the proposed title should be "Israel–Gaza Strip war", but that is even less commonly used. Chessrat (talk, contributions) 09:00, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
    "War against the Islamic State" is an umbrella term that's similar to "War on Drugs" or "War on Terror." While the Islamic State is indeed an actual group instead of a concept, the war against IS is a global war with no single location, as IS was found in Africa, Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, and more. On the other hand the current war is primarily around the Gaza Strip (and initially, the invasion by militants coming out of Gaza).
    You can mention the other fronts of the war, such as the Houthi attacks in the Red Sea and the West Bank settler violence, but those were all specifically branching out of the Gaza conflict, in contrast to the war on IS where the conflict against the Nigerian government isn't directly a result of what's happening in Syria. HadesTTW (he/him • talk) 00:02, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Oppose - The Gaza Strip is an exclave of the State of Palestine, it's a geographo-administrative entity, not a state per se or an organization, and Israel is not fighting against the State of Palestine but against Hamas which just happen to be based mainly in Gaza. GreatLeader1945 (talk) 10:35, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
    Who was Israel fighting in the Gaza War (2008–09) and the 2014 Gaza War? Also applies in reference to the above comments by Chessrat. "Israel will retaliate and Israel's response will focus on Gaza, which is set to suffer its fifth war in less than 20 years." and There have been five Israel-Gaza wars since 2008. These charts show the latest one is by far the deadliest Selfstudier (talk) 11:33, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
    In those cases the name refers to the location rather than belligerent (meaning "war in Gaza" rather than "war against Gaza"). Brandmeistertalk 12:36, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
    I asked 'who' Israel was fighting, not where. Selfstudier (talk) 12:41, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
    Sigh... It fights Hamas primarily, so the current article name is correct. Brandmeistertalk 12:43, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
    And the previous ones were wrong? Don't think so. Selfstudier (talk) 12:50, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
    If one chose a purely location based title then Gaza War (2023–present) would be fine by analogy with those previous articles, but that would have the problem that the fighting has not been contained to Gaza and in fact began with fighting in Israel. Chessrat (talk, contributions) 13:41, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
    Israel-Gaza war or something to that effect would address the legitimate concern of implying that the war is solely in one place. And yet, an article like Russo-Ukrainian War does not explicitly state where the war is happening, even though reading it quickly reveals mostly in Ukraine. As to the point that there's a wider regional outbreak, that's true, but calling it Middle Eastern fallout could be more correct, at the expense of clear communication. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 04:31, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
    @Selfstudier The namings you listed all point to the georgraphic location where said wars took place. The Gaza Strip is NOT a state, Israel is NOT fighting against any state currently, so a title like "Israel-Gaza war" would be objectively inaccurate per the above. Probably had to read my comment before writing yours. GreatLeader1945 (talk) 17:17, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
    I already supplied links to RS pointing to 5 wars with Israel, which this is just the latest one, plus see comment below. Selfstudier (talk) 17:30, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Comment Would closer please determine whether current title is WP:COMMONNAME or WP:NDESC. If the former, please also establish what are the WP:ALTNAMEs.Selfstudier (talk) 11:41, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
    WP:NDESC doesn't even apply here. This article doesn't have a "descriptive title", "invented specifically for" this article - we didn't invent the phrase "Israel-Hamas War", reliable sources did.
    Regarding WP:ALTNAME, "Israel-Gaza War" seems appropriate to use, in bold and in the first sentence, as it's been established that this is another name RS use. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 14:31, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
    I ask because of this edit which insists that it is descriptive and was supported by other editors so bold title was not restored. Selfstudier (talk) 14:38, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
    @PhotogenicScientist No it doesn't as the Gaza Strip is not a state and Israel is not fighting against any state currently, so a title like "Israel-Gaza war" would be objectively inaccurate. GreatLeader1945 (talk) 17:22, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
    That makes no sense, we used Gaza war for the other wars with Israel, where they were also fighting Hamas. Consistency and all that. Gaza-Israel conflict is also a thing. Selfstudier (talk) 17:28, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Oppose per WP:COMMONNAME as illustrated by other editors above and below. I also still do not understand how this article is a POV issue even after reading supporters. Yeoutie (talk) 19:00, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
    Supporters of Israel maintain (and Israel has argued at the ICJ) that they are conducting targeted counterterrorism/counterinsurgency operations against Hamas. The counterpoint is that "counterterrorism" is a fig leaf intended to obscure what is actually a state-led genocide. By using the I-H moniker, we are implicitly adopting and perpetuating Israel's view of the situation. It is about as neutral as styling the War in Afghanistan (2001–2021) the "United States–Al Qaeda war" or "United States–Taliban war" or some such; in both cases it's reductive, and I would argue, it overemphasizes a belligerent's POV regarding the war's purpose and aims when those are legitimately in dispute. I'm sure others have a better way to explain the serious POV issues with the current title, but that's my read. WillowCity(talk) 19:53, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
    I feel like the Afghanistan comparison here is the best argument for me, Israel is a widely recognized nation state while Hamas is a sub-national paramilitary. Orchastrattor (talk) 20:15, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
    "counterterrorism" is a fig leaf intended to obscure what is actually a state-led genocide Do you have any reliable sources to provide that make this claim? PhotogenicScientist (talk) 20:44, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
    [9]. — kashmīrī TALK 21:48, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
    The question is currently before the World Court, so we'll see where they land on it. WillowCity(talk) 00:59, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
    Alright, then - until that time, we're not going to make unsubstantiated claims of genocide. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 01:01, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
    No one is saying that we should; but nor should we uncritically parrot the talking points of a state that's been credibly accused of genocide. WillowCity(talk) 01:53, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Strong Support - The war is against gaza as a whole, and the bombing has been against gaza far more than its been against hamas DarmaniLink (talk) 21:25, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Strong support: per WillowCity, "Israel–Gaza war is more internally consistent with our other article titles, and there are other armed groups involved, making the current title inaccurate and simultaneously imprecise and overprecise", and Hades, "There exists a POV issue, there's the glaring omission of the fact that most people dead in the war are not Hamas, there's little prior precedent for calling wars between a group and a whole state (especially considering how the state is clearly not just targeting the group)." CarmenEsparzaAmoux (talk) 22:02, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Weak Support I do think the counterargument that this title might be confused with Gaza–Israel conflict exists is a valid point, but that page is already disambiguated at the title by linking to this page. I find some of User:HadesTTW's arguments were persuasive. Hamas is far from the only belligerent group involved here, and there's a very real NPOV concern by suggesting that the conflict is limited to fighting Hamas, which is less accurate. One oppose !vote above was confused at why some supporters cite NPOV concerns, so I will specify that the concern is that the title might imply that Israel is limiting their attacks to a targeted attack on Hamas, when the conflict can be more accurately described as a siege on the Gaza strip as a geographic location. The entire Gaza strip, not just the highlighted areas on the map; these areas represent where Israel is invading and occupying Gaza, but its siege applies to the entire region. I am sympathetic to the counterarguments that Gaza, being a geographic location and not a political entity in its own right, is not something that you can "go to war with." But I also find that User:Selfstudier made a fair counter by noting that titling this page as a Gaza war rather than a Hamas war is consistent, citing the aforementioned Israel-Gaza conflict page. Precedent on its own is not a strong argument as it falls into other stuff exists territory, but sometimes other stuff exists for a reason and precedent can be a legitimate consideration. All in all, I don't really oppose either the current title or the proposed title. I think both are perfectly acceptable. But I do think the arguments in favor of the proposed title  Vanilla  Wizard 💙 23:33, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Support: Several news outlets are presently describing the war as "Israel-Gaza war".
"The Guardian"
"The Washington Post"
"BBC News"
"Al Jazeera"
"The National"
"Haaretz"
"The Business Standard"
"The Nation"
UN is currently describing the war as "Israel-Gaza Crisis" : Shadowwarrior8 (talk) 01:47, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
Haaretz prefers Israel-Hamas war, I haven't verified the others. BilledMammal (talk) 02:09, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Support per arguments put forward above. G-13114 (talk) 14:30, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Strong Oppose as I haven't seen a persuasive argument on how the current title isn't Neutral. Include what others have said above regarding WP:COMMONNAME and the fact that most sources still refer to "Israel-Hamas War" (even those who have begun calling it "Israel-Gaza" have been extremely inconsistent in doing so). I also think there needs to be a moratorium on move requests, as this RfC strikes me as WP:BLUDGEONING. - AquilaFasciata (talk | contribs) 20:35, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Support: It has now been quite some time since this conflict morphed from anything resembling a targeted operation against any given militant group and into a wholesale conflict embroiling an entire territory, and as such, it is befitting to use the alt name in sources that most aptly aligns with Wikipedia's internal descriptive title principles, which generally calls for the use of geographies to describe events, not actors, per WP:NCWWW. Here we have a conflict that has impacted an entire geography, displacing its people and destroying most of its infrastructure. To represent it as a mere operation against a single militant group is not only to misrepresent the conflict at this point, but to belittle it, not least when the extent of the destruction is now such that the ICJ has issued emergency orders due to the risk of genocide. How can a possible genocide be contained within the descriptive framework with a "war" against a single militant group? The answer is that the framing no longer fits, and worse still, more and more reflects the POV of one belligerent, which would like to assert that its fight is solely with one militant group when the case is plainly otherwise - again, as now affirmed by an ICJ case. Given the alternatives, is is far better for Wikipedia to align itself with the more neutral and geographically descriptive alt name than the awkwardly framed one with potential POV issues. Iskandar323 (talk) 21:36, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
    I'm seeing no preference stated in WP:NCWWW to name wars with geography. In fact, there are plenty of examples in that guideline of articles that omit the "where" - like September 11 attacks and Rescue of Giuliana Sgrena.
    As to the rest, the ICJ has made no ruling regarding the count of genocide as part of this war. As a preliminary ruling, they've said South Africa's claims of genocide are "plausible"; they've said that Israel must make specific efforts to prevent genocide from happening; and they've not said that Israel must cease hostilities [10] [11] [12]. You seem to be asserting that Israel is "plainly" waging war on Palestinian civilians, and committing genocide in the process - that, however, has yet to be determined. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 22:22, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
    Seriously? WWW stands for when, where, what. Gaza is a where; Hamas is not. And the current title doesn't omit the where: it has half a where (Israel), and half a who (Hamas). It's internally inconsistent as a title, alongside inconsistent with other pages for similar conflicts centered on Gaza. And yes, Israel is plainly blockading and waging war on all of Gaza. Senior Israeli figures have stated it repeatedly, and they're doing it. Waging war is not however equal to genocide - a legal term that will only be decided at the merits stage of the ICJ case. Iskandar323 (talk) 10:22, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
    But Israel is also a who, isn't it - the nation of the people of Israel. I see no internal inconsistency in lining up Israel and Hamas as the belligerents here. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 02:57, 28 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Comment I am agreeing with placing a moratorium; the timing of this RM is not without questions. NasssaNsertalk 01:17, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
    Stiffling the much-needed discussion administratively will be counterproductive to Wikipedia's quality, — kashmīrī TALK 01:33, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
    I feel that this discussion is not "much needed" - "disruptive" seems a better descriptor. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 01:44, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
    That would appear to be a minority view. Selfstudier (talk) 11:07, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
    Seven days might be enough for the current state to be reflected for a month to come, I suppose. NasssaNsertalk 01:49, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
    I appreciate your comment. Repetitive RMs are disruptive, and as someone pointed out, "Mulligans" like this are a form of WP:BLUDGEONING. We can't be constantly reevaluating the title of an article because editors are aware of the consensus that was just established a few days earlier but they want to get another chance to get their way. There is a consensus already but they don't care. They appealed to the closing admin, and he says no. So OK, no problem, let's just start another one. That is POV-pushing, not an effort to establish consensus. Coretheapple (talk) 14:47, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
    Alternatively, continuously commenting about bludgeoning when the majority are happily giving their views might well be considered disruptive. Selfstudier (talk) 14:54, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
    I have "continuously" commented a grand total of three times, counting my !vote. How many times have you commented in this RM? Does anyone have the time to count? Reaally now. Coretheapple (talk) 18:12, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Support: It is a war that has devastated much of the Gaza infrastructure and forced people to displace over a whole geographic area. Geographies should be used to explain events rather than characters in such a massive war engulfing a whole map, according to WP:NCWWW. Even Gaza hospitals, schools and mosques are targets to the continued bombings. Also, as the OP mentioned, the reliable sources are gradually shifting towards covering the involved geography not a single entity. The suggested title is also WP:consistent with other pages like Gaza–Israel conflict.
On the other hand, we also have the South Africa v. Israel (Genocide Convention) at the International Court of Justice which states the fact the Gaza is being targeted. The court said "at least some of the acts and omissions alleged by South Africa to have been committed by Israel in Gaza appear to be capable of falling within the provisions of the [Genocide] Convention".[13]. --Mhhossein talk 10:00, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
Good point, a genocide can only be committed against a people, the court said specifically that Palestinians in Gaza were a people, and Hamas is not that. Selfstudier (talk) 16:32, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
I'm sure I don't need to point out that "in Gaza" does not necessarily mean "Gaza" is being targeted... PhotogenicScientist (talk) 14:30, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
Yes, but given the presence of other clues like death of children and women, Gaza target maybe established. --Mhhossein talk 19:35, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
Unless you can provide a WP:RS to establish that, it's purely original research to say so. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 21:09, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
@PhotogenicScientist: More than offered here one week ago? --Mhhossein talk 20:50, 3 February 2024 (UTC)
That's a list of sources labelling the war as "Israel-Gaza". Not a list of sources claiming Israel is "targeting Gazan women and children". PhotogenicScientist (talk) 14:37, 4 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Support: It is being used very frequently now and far better describes the situation, And if it isn't resolved soon those reliable sources will start calling it the Gaza genocide instead. NadVolum (talk) 18:52, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Oppose current name meets WP:COMMON and is more WP:PRECISE than any alternative.  // Timothy :: talk  21:35, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Oppose, per WP:COMMONNAME, and can we please stop with these constant move requests? - there was a consensus for "Israel-Hamas war" less than two weeks ago.
    Further, the nominator cites sources like CNN as evidence for this proposal. However, CNN continues to use the current title; in the past week CNN has used "Israel-Hamas war" many times more than it has used "Israel-Gaza war". Drsruli (talk) 07:25, 28 January 2024 (UTC)
    This is a carbon copy of BilledMammal's post. NasssaNsertalk 12:52, 28 January 2024 (UTC)
    @Drsruli if you found BilledMammal's argument so convincing, the typical way of expressing that is by saying "per BilledMammal" or something. Copying their words and posting them as your own is confusing, at best. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 14:27, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Support: as many others have noted, the quantitative considerations in WP:COMMONNAME do not override the need for titles to be precise, neutral, and consistent. "Israel-Hamas" has never been accurate, and only less so as more belligerents enter the conflict. Wars are almost always titled by involved regions and years because those titles so naturally satisfy naming requirements. "Israel-Gaza" isn't perfect either, but it's a big improvement. StereoFolic (talk) 15:12, 28 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Strong support per reasons above. Ecpiandy (talk) 15:13, 28 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Support per Wikipedia:Article titles. It is important to note that there are 5 CRITERIA for deciding on an article title: (1) Recognizability, (2) Naturalness, (3) Precision, (4) Concision and (5) Consistency. Despite the fact that everyone keeps citing it like it is the full expression of our policy on article titles, WP:COMMONNAME is only a small aspect of the above 5 criteria. COMMONNAME only captures recognizability and perhaps naturalness. In considering the title for this article, COMMONNAME doesn't account for precision and consistency.
It is imprecise to describe this war as between Israel and Hamas. Despite the false claims by the Zionist entity, the death toll is indiputable evidence that the war is against all of Gaza. If this was just a war with Hamas, 20,000 deaths would mean the entire strength of Hamas would have been destroyed.
It is also inconsistent with the many articles with "Gaza–Israel" in the title. Per WP:AT, A good Wikipedia article title... is consistent with the pattern of similar articles' titles. This article and its children are the only titles that include an organization Hamas hyphenated with a country Israel. The current title is inconsistent with May 2023 Gaza–Israel clashes, 2022 Gaza–Israel clashes, November 2019 Gaza–Israel clashes, May 2019 Gaza–Israel clashes, March 2012 Gaza–Israel clashes, March 2010 Israel–Gaza clashes, and 2006 Gaza–Israel conflict ...
Even if we inappropriately only considered COMMONNAME, there is no clear evidence that Hamas is part of the common name used for the war. There is just as much evidence that Gaza is used as the common name in reliable sources. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 18:22, 28 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Support. The Palestinian Joint Operations Room contains many other organisations fighting, thus including Hamas alone is imprecise. Including Gaza in the title maintains recognisability. Many news organisations (as cited above) have run with Israel-Gaza, maintaining that is is a common name for the war. It is also more consistent with other articles detailing wars in Gaza involving Hamas. ArcMachaon (talk) 20:09, 28 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Support: This is not solely a war against Hamas, but rather a war against multiple other Gazan organizations and the Gaza Strip as a whole. Of course, at least 90% of casualties so far have been civilians with no affiliation to Hamas. Skitash (talk) 21:48, 28 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Strong oppose What the heck? We just had an RM several days (weeks?) ago and moved all associated pages. The arguments above in favor of "Israel–Gaza war" are grounded purely on subjective WP:IJUSTDONTLIKEIT arguments, with no real basis in policy. Personal opinions and feelings have no bearing in article titling decisions. We are source-summarizers, not truth-finders. Such arguments (which contradict WP:COMMONNAME and ignore the existence of WP:NPOVNAME) should be disregarded by the closer, regardless of how many support !votes there are. WP:RMCI states: Any move request that is out of keeping with naming conventions or is otherwise in conflict with applicable guideline and policy, unless there is a very good reason to ignore rules, should be closed without moving regardless of how many of the participants support it. I would also suggest there be a six-month (or similar length) moratorium on move requests, as this is getting out of hand. As for the proposal itself, as this has already been discussed a few days ago, I will just copy-and-paste my previous !vote:

    "Israel–Hamas war" is the widely agreed-upon term used by the vast majority of publications and style guides, including: AP, NYT, The Times, WSJ, AFP, CNN, The Telegraph, FT, CBC, Time, Bloomberg, NPR, Sky News, LA Times, The Independent, PBS, ABC News, ABC News, NBC News, Politico, CNBC, The Hill, USA Today, Pew, etc. For the record, there were also a few outliers: the BBC, WaPo, and The Guardian use "Israel–Gaza war"; The Atlantic calls it "War in Israel"; Reuters, The Economist, and CBS News are deliberately ambiguous. But it is clear that the overwhelming majority of sources have settled on "Israel–Hamas war".

    InfiniteNexus (talk) 05:41, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
    Care to analyse sources other than US and UK? These two countries are belligerents in the conflict, while a belief that US/UK media is independent from respective governments is naive[14]. — kashmīrī TALK 14:07, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
    "Belligerents"? Are you kidding? If you're considering the US/UK belligerents, might as well throw in about half of the world's countries as well. Most countries have a stake in how this plays out. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 14:24, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
    Most of the world haven't sent commandos to the war zone.[15] — kashmīrī TALK 16:46, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
    Sigh... to track down American hostages taken by Hamas, not to participate in operations against them. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 17:02, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
    Source stating that they are belligerents? - AquilaFasciata (talk | contribs) 16:40, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
    For instance, [16] — kashmīrī TALK 16:51, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
    The US is a co-belligerent in this war. The US military has flown drones over the enclave to help the Israelis gather intelligence while high-ranking American military officers have participated in Israel’s military planning. Doesn't exactly fit the definition of "belligerent" [17] [18]. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 17:01, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
    (ABC News is Australian; AFP is French.) This is the English Wikipedia. We are trying to determine the common name in nglish used by English-language sources in the English-speaking world. Of course most of the sources we are going to be looking at are going to be from developed English-speaking countries. More than half (unverified estimate) of the sources listed at WP:RSPS noted to be highly reliable are based in the U.S. or UK. But of course, you are welcome to go through additional high-quality sources and provide evidence that the majority of sources favor "Israel–Gaza war" over "Israel–Hamas war". Simply suggesting that there may be other sources out there does not prove anything.
    Your statement that These two countries are belligerents in the conflict, while a belief that US/UK media is independent from respective governments is naive reflects a clear personal, subjective bias that has — again, zero relevance to this RM, or any style or naming issue that will be raised in the future. Wikipedia does not take sides or WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS; again, we are source-summarizers, not truth-finders. Surely you are aware of this, but perhaps the weight of the subject matter has clouded your and many other editors' judgments. Please remember that these decisions are not so much about what you think, but what sources say. We are not a source. InfiniteNexus (talk) 17:03, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
    I think this is very well put and puts forward the most complete summary of the oppose responses. - AquilaFasciata (talk | contribs) 16:46, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
    I agree, and I would add that starting this RM right after the last one was finished is forum-shopping. The practical effect is the same as the conduct prohibited by that policy. You don't like the result in one RM so you gin up another one. Coretheapple (talk) 23:26, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
    I'm going to ignore the two essays you linked as they are essays, not Wikipedia policy. Crucially you are missing the fact that the basis of the move argument is that "Israel-Hamas war" is not the only common name for this subject. Even from your own assortment of sources you mention how multiple sources use Israel-Gaza or interchangeably use different names for the conflict.
    Keep in mind that there are five characteristics for a good title according WP:CRITERIA, not just "whatever the most sources use." I've already outlined my arguments on why Israel-Gaza fits them better, but ultimately any argument that hinges entirely on WP:COMMONNAME and WP:NPOVNAME needs to establish why Israel-Gaza isn't also a common name for the subject. Evidently, it's not a name that we conjured ourselves or came up with ourselves.
    HadesTTW (he/him • talk) 23:56, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
    I'm going to ignore the two essays you linked as they are essays, not Wikipedia policy. Now that is a strange comment. I assume you are referring to WP:IJUSTDONTLIKEIT and WP:!TRUTHFINDERS, neither of which were part of my rationale for opposing the RM's proposed title. The point was to show that many of the arguments above are grounded in subjective opinions rather than policy, and are thus irrelevant. Essays are meant to document perennial talk page arguments that are struck down from time to time as faulty or fallacious, or to give advice on how to edit constructively. Just because a page is an essay does not invalidate its contents, nor does it mean there is no consensus for what it says. All it means is that it is non-binding and cannot get anyone "in trouble" for not following them.
    Yes, there are sources that use "Israel–Gaza war". I already acknowledged that. But it's basically 10% of reputable sources, versus 85% that use "Israel–Hamas war" and maybe 5% that use something else. To avoid being accused of WP:CHERRYPICKING (oh dear, that's an essay![sarcasm]), I included all of the sources I looked at in my !vote, regardless of what name they used, but it seems people are now cherry-picking the three or four sources that use "Israel–Gaza war". "Israel–Hamas war" very clearly satisfies all five CRITERIA, so I have no idea what you are trying to say. "Israel–Gaza war" is not more common, recognizable, natural, concise, or precise than "Israel–Hamas war", if that's what you're suggesting.
    More evidence: Google News for "Israel–Hamas war" (121,000,000 results) Google News for "Israel–Gaza war" (18,100,000 results) Google Scholar for "Israel–Hamas war" (829 results) Google Scholar for "Israel–Gaza war" (123 results). Ngrams are not available since it only has data up to 2019. I also noticed that Israel–Gaza war actually redirects to Gaza–Israel conflict, so we would need to disambiguate the current conflict with 2023–present — thereby failing WP:NATURAL. Not disambiguating on the grounds of WP:PRIMARYTOPIC would cause major confusion, as "conflict" and "war" are often synonymous.
    I think it's important to remember that like how Wikipedia is a WP:LAGGING indicator of notability, we also "lag" on article titles. Wikipedia does not set a standard/trend for others to follow, nor join in when a handful of sources deicde to change the way they refer to something; we follow what most sources use, only changing if it becomes clear after a reasonable amount of time that a new name has become the new common name. We only recently moved Robb Elementary School shooting to Uvalde school shooting. We still haven't moved Twitter or Kanye West. January 6 United States Capitol attack has just been nominated for the 99th time. InfiniteNexus (talk) 00:45, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Oppose, per WP:COMMONNAME Israel–Hamas war having been and still being used widely, and common sense - the chief belligerents are in fact, the State of Israel and Hamas. Gaza is not an organization or a political entity engaged in the conflict, but rather the primary, although not only location, and Israel–Gaza war is thus less accurate and NPOV. --Chefallen (talk) 20:36, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Strong Oppose: Per WP:COMMONNAME. The support arguments in this RM very much encapsulate the worst thing about Wikipedia's community: long-time veteran editors with axe to grind misinterpreting WP:NPOV and WP:FRINGE to push their own agenda and WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS with their original research. Like, come on, at this point how could anyone here not know about the core content policies after so many years and edits? WP:NPOV means we give the most weight to viewpoints most prominent in RS. For article titles, this means the name most widely used in RS will be prioritized regardless of neutrality. WP:Verifiability and WP:OR mean Wikipedia simply restates what most RS say about a subject and whatever "truth" any user comes up with based on their own original research has absolutely no place here. If the current title has POV issues then the same goes for "Israel-Gaza War". Wikipedia's contents only have to be verifiable and have no obligation whatsoever to be the truth or to respect any group, ideology, government, or anyone's definition of justice. Any argument on here that is not based on policies should be automatically discarded just like any argument saying a content is "harmful", "dangerous", "does not deal with a topic sensitively", "not truthful".
While I have omitted some sources that use both, "Israel–Hamas" is easily the more widely used name:
Israel–Hamas: Associated press, Atlantic Council, Bloomberg, Brookings Institution, CBC, CBS News, Center for Strategic and international Studies, Chicago Sun Times, CNBC, CNN, Council on Foreign Relations, Deutsche Welle, The Economist, Encyclopedia Britannica, Euronews, Financial Times, Forbes, Foreign Policy, France 24, The Globe and Mail, The Hill, The Hindu, Hudson Institute, The Independent, The Jordan Times, The Mainichi, Le Monde, Los Angeles Times, New York Magazine, NBC News, Nikkei Asia, The New York Times, The New Yorker, NPR, PBS, Pew Research Center, Policito, Reuters, Sky News, The Straits Times, The Telegraph, The Times, Time Magazine, Toronto Star, USA Today, Vox, Wilson Center, Wall Street Journal
Israel–Gaza: ABC News, Al-Jazeera, BBC News, Euractiv, The Guardian, The Nation, NPR, PBS, South China Morning Post, Tehran Times, Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Yahoo News
StellarHalo (talk) 07:53, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
It seems very non-WP:GF to accuse those who disagree with you of "[encapsulating] the worst thing about Wikipedia's community." JDiala (talk) 20:10, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
Hard to assume good faith when so many people have not been very subtle at all about their agenda-pushing intentions. Wikipedia:Assume good faith is not a suicide pact -- StellarHalo (talk) 09:52, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
Can you elaborate what "POV issues" does the "Israel-Gaza War" title has? HadesTTW (he/him • talk) 01:37, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
Using "Israel–Gaza War" would give undue weight to the minority POV arguing that Israel is waging war on and targeting the people of Gaza instead of Hamas. Honestly, only something along the line of "Gaza War" or "Middle East War" would be unbiased but then again, Wikipedia:NPOV does not require content to be unbiased but instead requires significant views to be featured proportionately to their prominence in RS. StellarHalo (talk) 09:57, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Support - the people offering WP:COMMONNAME as a reason are misunderstanding what that policy says. What it says is [Wikipedia] generally prefers the name that is most commonly used (as determined by its prevalence in a significant majority of independent, reliable, English-language sources). That is, if and only if a significant majority of independent, reliable, English-language sources use a name is it the "common name". When there are several competing names, and there is not a single name that has a significant majority, then we look at the WP:CRITERIA directly. And when we do that we are obliged to consider several aspects, among them neutrality. The framing of this as a war against Hamas is decidedly non-neutral. It directly represents the POV of one of combatants. As I wrote in the last move request I participated in, and these numbers have all gotten considerably more extreme in the meantime, Israel is bombarding Gaza, it is preparing to launch a ground invasion of Gaza, Israel has cut off the electricity and water supply to Gaza, half of the population of Gaza has been displaced, over 2,000 non-Hamas civilians of Gaza have been killed. This framing of Israel is only at war with Hamas is as POV as you can get, it is pushing the Israeli propaganda line that they are only targeting Hamas. Nearly every descriptive title for a war has the territories. eg Russo-Ukrainian War, or 2006 Lebanon War. When more than one name is commonly used we need to examine all five criteria. And here they support Israel-Gaza for consistency and neutrality. nableezy - 20:56, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
    What are you talking about? "Israel–Hamas war" is the name used by a significant majority of independent, reliable, English-language sources. That doesn't mean there must not be sources that use alternative names; in fact, that is practically impossible. Secondly, "neutrality" is not one of the five CRITERIA; see also WP:NPOVNAME and WP:POVNAMING. I think editors who are invoking CRITERIA as if it somehow overrides COMMONNAME and as if "Israel–Hamas war" does not satisfy CRITERIA need to carefully reread it. InfiniteNexus (talk) 23:03, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
    You are right it is not a criteria, however for descriptive names, where there is no proper name for an event as here, WP:NDESC calls for Non-judgmental descriptive titles that reflect a neutral point of view. If there is no common name we are obliged to consider neutrality in our descriptive title. And here it supports Israel-Gaza over Israel-Hamas, a name that represents the propaganda of a combatant in a war (Israel). I disagree entirely that "Israel–Hamas war" is the name used by a significant majority of independent, reliable, English-language sources. The fact that major English language international sources are using multiple names, sometimes with a single source using both of the names discussed here, demonstrates that. If there were a single common name you wouldnt find BBC and The Guardian using different ones to Financial Times and The Economist. nableezy - 23:09, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
    This is not a descriptive name. A descriptive name is a name coined by Wikipedia editors for the purpose of coming up with a title. Secondly, I have shown above (as have others) that there is clearly a most common name for the conflict, and that is "Israel–Hamas war". This is not a subjective statement, it's a fact. You can look at the statistics yourself. Again, having a COMMONNAME does not mean that a less common name does not exist. InfiniteNexus (talk) 23:14, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
    More common isnt the requirement, a significant majority is. When you have sources such as BBC, The Washington Post, and The Guardian using another name you cant just wave that away and pretend like that is not also a common name. Currently I get 2.1 million results in google news for "Israel-Hamas war" vs 1.6 million results for "Israel-Gaza war". I do not think that constitutes a "significant majority". Nor can you ignore that many of the sources cited for Israel-Hamas use both, eg NYTimes calling it the Israel-Gaza war in this article. Both names are commonly used, and Israel-Gaza war is considerably more consistent with a range of other articles, and doesnt have the problem of parroting one sides propaganda. nableezy - 23:21, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
    Three or four out of thirty is the definition of "uncommon"; 20+ out of thirty is the definition of "significant majority". If it were 50/50 I might've supported a move, but even then there would be additional considerations like the status quo and WP:NAMECHANGES, and possible bias against the side that you believe the current title is "biased" in favor of. But it's not 50/50, it's closer to 90%. Not sure what you mean by Israel-Gaza war is considerably more consistent with a range of other articles; could you clarify? InfiniteNexus (talk) 00:46, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
    Other conflict between Israel and various militant factions have locations as the title, as in 2008-2009 Gaza War, 2006 Lebanon War, 2021 Israel–Palestine crisis, 2014 Gaza War. I don’t believe it is 90%, as, again, several of the sources you cite as using Israel-Hamas war also use Israel-Gaza war. I gave you a NYT example, which you have listed as exclusively Israel—Hamas. nableezy - 01:31, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
    Well, of course there are going to be discrepancies within sources, which is why I pulled links to their "topic" pages (if available) rather than individual articles written by different authors. InfiniteNexus (talk) 06:31, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
    But that makes it so those sources don’t support a single supposedly common name. nableezy - 12:40, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
    I will also say that based on experience, CONSISTENT is usually regarded as the weakest of the five CRITERIA, with the other four often taking precedence in RMs. "Israel–Hamas war" trumps "Israel–Gaza war (2023–present)" in terms of COMMONNAME and NATURAL, and the two are tied in terms of CONCISE and PRECISE. There's a clear winner here. InfiniteNexus (talk) 19:37, 1 February 2024 (UTC)
    See Gaza War and tell me that looks natural. Selfstudier (talk) 19:42, 1 February 2024 (UTC)
    What about it is unnatural to you? InfiniteNexus (talk) 20:54, 1 February 2024 (UTC)
    WP:GOOGLELIMITS; those figures aren't reliable. Looking at the past day, we see 141 for Israel-Gaza war, compared to 290 for Israel-Hamas war.
    I would say twice as many uses is a "significant majority" - and note that the number of results for Israel-Hamas war is likely an undercount, as WP:GOOGLELIMITS have likely truncated that result.
    Further, as I've shown elsewhere, the current title is neutral, despite what your personal opinion may be. BilledMammal (talk) 00:55, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
    I’m sorry, but your personal opinion doesn’t trump mine. And this does indeed toe the Israel propaganda line that this is a war against Hamas, despite the destruction of Gaza and the killing of Gazans being considerably wider than Hamas. So no, you haven’t shown any such thing, you’ve only provided your own personal opinion. There’s also zero evidence that one search term is more undercounted than the other, but that’s just another logical inconsistency in your argument. nableezy - 01:32, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
    Neither of us should be basing our assessment on whether this is neutral on personal opinion - and I didn't.
    There’s also zero evidence that one search term is more undercounted than the other, but that’s just another logical inconsistency in your argument Google doesn't present an unlimited number of results. They identify 300 results and then prune the duplicates. This means that if you recieve 300 results, or close to 300 results, you likely haven't recieved the full number of results for your provided search term. BilledMammal (talk) 01:38, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
    I cited millions. nableezy - 01:48, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
    And here’s a reliable source directly disputing the POV that this is a war on Hamas, Jeremy Schahill in The Intercept. This title and framing is a contested POV, the POV of one of the combatants. nableezy - 02:02, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
    Regarding the millions, it's a highly inaccurate estimate - please, read WP:GOOGLETEST.
    That's an opinion article, but I don't dispute that some sources hold the view that this isn't a war between Israel and Hamas. However, per WP:NPOV Wikipedia should not present a dispute as if a view held by a small minority is as significant as the majority view. BilledMammal (talk) 04:56, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
    That isn’t the view of a small minority. You’re just making assertions. Al-Jazeera in fact calls it Israel’s war on Gaza, and when sources such as the Guardian and the BBC and the Washington Post all call it the Israel-Gaza war that is not a small minority. nableezy - 12:39, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Oppose - Per @GreatLeader1945 PrecariousWorlds (talk) 21:26, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Support "Israel–Hamas war" may be used by a preponderance of sources, but it is not the single common name, nor is it demonstrably used by a significant majority of sources, and many of the sources that do use it do so alongside other names. The fact that it is the preferred name of one party to the conflict should give us pause. … Israel–Gaza war is more internally consistent with our other article titles, and there are other armed groups involved, making the current title inaccurate per WillowCity and similar, detailed arguments by Nableezy and others. Pincrete (talk) 06:35, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
    Any attempt to claim "Israel–Hamas war" is not demonstrably the most common name, or at minimum a relatively more common name than "Israel–Gaza war", would be cherry-picking and ignoring the big picture, and possibly influenced by subjective beliefs on what is neutral and what is not (I will again reiterate that comments consisting simply of "support because I think the current title is biased" are equivalent to "support because I don't like it" and should be immediately discarded; consensus is determined by the strengths of arguments presented). Vague claims that the current statistics presented above by numerous, independent editors are inaccurate do not carry much weight without actual evidence (i.e. a formal reassessment, if supporters believe the previous surveys were flawed). And FYI, we can always discuss the discourse surrounding the naming of the war in the article itself, if it's not already there — where's the Etymology section? InfiniteNexus (talk) 18:41, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
    If our policy was to apply WP:COMMONNAME whenever there is a relatively more common name, then the policy would say so clearly. It does not. The requirement seems to be a standard approaching unanimity: why else would we require that the topic is referred to "mainly by a single common name, as evidenced through usage in a significant majority of English-language sources"? These adjectives/adverbs aren't just there for decoration. If the standard was lower, COMMONNAME would apply whenever a topic is referred to "mostly by one name, as evidenced through usage in a majority of English-language sources". Numerous editors have demonstrated that we are far from unanimity. The policy is intended to apply to topics like the Hindenburg disaster or the Watergate scandal or Ivan the Terrible, where there is a truly overwhelming consensus, not just a relative majority. WillowCity(talk) 19:34, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Support the move since the original name is propaganda. Very few other wars have used that kinda nomenclature. This is a war in Palestine. There are some advantages to the original name because Gaza ≠ Hamas but in practice it's all of Gaza that's suffering. Jikybebna (talk) 09:08, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Oppose per WP:COMMONNAME based on evidence above, which is preferred over any WP:NPOVNAME/"accurate name" used on support arguments above. But I do see a shift in RS to Israel-Gaza although not there yet, so over time evidence for a move should be greater but not right now. DankJae 09:31, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Strong Support as the current name is extremely misleading given the indiscriminate bombing, killing, and starvation directed towards the civilian population. David A (talk) 12:36, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Weak support but overall a support - While the current name is very popular, I don't think wikipedia should keep an inaccurate name as Hamas aren't the only faction taking part in this war and because Israel is literally invading Gaza in a war and according to almost every source out there, militants aren't the only people getting killed in Gaza (I pretty sure that you reading this have come across the Genocide Convention) Abo Yemen✉ 13:09, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
  • While there are certainly problems with the current name, I Strongly oppose this proposal per similarities with Gaza-Israel conflict. ~Politicdude (About me, talk, contribs) 15:32, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
    The similarities are the reason to move, per WP:CONSISTENT nableezy - 16:00, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
    It seems like you're misreading WP:AT. InfiniteNexus (talk) 18:45, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Comment As I noted above, iff this page is moved to Israel–Gaza war, it must be (un-WP:NATURAL-ly) disambiguated as Israel–Gaza war (2023–present) because Gaza–Israel conflict (which Israel–Gaza war currently redirects to) exists, and "conflict" is almost synonymous to "war". This in itself (naturalness is one of the five CRITERIA) is one massive reason not to move this page. InfiniteNexus (talk) 18:45, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
    Or 2023–24 Israel-Gaza war? nableezy - 18:57, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
    We already went through a naming and disambiguation process, for heaven's sake. Coretheapple (talk) 19:05, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
    Not on the proposed title. Selfstudier (talk) 19:07, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
    That was based off the title being Israel-Hamas. This proposal has nothing to do with that, and I dont think it is appropriate to continue harping about a move request that was focused on changing 2023 because it had outlasted that year to something else. nableezy - 19:07, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
    Right, this is a "do over" since some editors didn't like the just-established consensus. And it looks like we're going to be engaged in an endless RM process until "Gaza" is part of the title. Coretheapple (talk) 19:09, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
    No, because the previous "consensus" was like "oh ok let's just do the date format for now" since the year 2023 ended but the war did not "and then we'll settle the name-for-the-war issue later". The fact that the better name for the war might necessitate a new date format should've & could've been predicted but doesn't mean that here was consensus on the name issue because there wasn't, we decided instead to split the issue up into a date format issue and a separate naming issue. Jikybebna (talk) 21:55, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
    No, that mischaracterizes the closing statement. which said as follows Breaking down the discussion into parts, 'Israel–Hamas war' and other base titles (i.e. without the year(s)), and whether to have the year(s). Assessing the comments, there is a consensus to use 'Israel–Hamas war' as the base title. This includes variations such as 'Israel–Hamas war', '2023 Israel–Hamas war', 'Israel–Hamas war (2023–present)', etc. What isn't clear is whether to put the year(s) (as a prefix or in parenthesis) and in what form. (emphasis added) As you can see, this is totally at variance with how you are describing it. Coretheapple (talk) 22:02, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
    We had one RM 23 December, then a disambiguation RM right after that. Both concluded in January. We're still in January. Is this something we do continually until "Gaza" is in the title? In other words. There is no consensus until it says "Gaza" and then we reach the aha! moment. Now that is a consensus. Anything else gets a do-over. That's where we are here, I believe. Coretheapple (talk) 19:14, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
    The first one was closed twice with contradictory outcomes and the disambiguation RM was clearly on the basis that it was without prejudice to any renaming RM, try again. Oh replying twice to yourself is confusing, btw. Selfstudier (talk) 19:16, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
    The closing statements speak for themselves. Nothing was "contradictory." The close was simply rejected by some editors. It was appealed. The appeal was rejected by the closing editor. So here we are again. Coretheapple (talk) 19:20, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
    Just to refresh your memory: RM 1, began 23 December and closed 10 January, determined a clear consensus for "Israel-Gaza." There was no consensus as to whether a date should be affixed. So RM2 found there should be no date. RM2 was concluded three or four days before this one was commenced. So it was a long process but a simple one. Hope this helps. Coretheapple (talk) 19:26, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
    Here's the close of RM1.: Breaking down the discussion into parts, 'Israel–Hamas war' and other base titles (i.e. without the year(s)), and whether to have the year(s). Assessing the comments, there is a consensus to use 'Israel–Hamas war' as the base title. This includes variations such as 'Israel–Hamas war', '2023 Israel–Hamas war', 'Israel–Hamas war (2023–present)', etc. What isn't clear is whether to put the year(s) (as a prefix or in parenthesis) and in what form. I apologise for the earlier closing statement. – robertsky (talk) 00:43, 10 January 2024 (UTC) Note the date. It was followed by a disambiguation RM. Pretty clear. The last sentence is a reference to a previous, noncommital close that he struck out. So we had a consensus for three days until this one was begun. Coretheapple (talk) 19:35, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
    I dont think RM1 is a particularly useful thing to point at for really anything, that had way too many options to be a focused discussion. Here there is a very clear Israel-Hamas or Israel-Gaza discussion. nableezy - 19:57, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
    Sorry, and I know you meant that seriously, but I have to laugh. I have yet to see a single discussion on this page that was "focused." Every single one drifts in all kinds of direction and at great volume. I had to fish out that closing statement three archives ago and it was concluded barely three weeks ago! I have milk that is older. That said, "unfocused" as you claim it to be, it is terribly recent and consensus was reached. Editors don't like the consensus, so it was repeated.. Coretheapple (talk) 20:09, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
    If you want that close challenged I guess I can do that, but I dont think it is a reasonable close for a request that had 8 variations on Israel-Hamas and a couple of throwaway ones for Israel-Gaza to say there was consensus for Israel-Hamas as a base name. The discussion was overwhelmingly focused on disambiguator, not base name. If this results in some consensus either way then sure a new request would be a problem. But, again, I dont think pointing to that discussion is very useful, as there very clearly is a dispute on the base name, not consensus for it, and that is apparent from this discussion. nableezy - 20:21, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
    Assessing the comments, there is a consensus to use 'Israel–Hamas war' as the base title That was the outcome of RM1 as of 10 January. While editors may not accept or may ignore that outcome, that was the outcome. Coretheapple (talk) 20:37, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
    I believe I already responded to that, but ok. If you feel this is disruptive feel free to report it. nableezy - 20:52, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
    You said you didn't think it was a "reasonable close." You do realize that the close was appealed to the administrator who closed it and that the appeal was rejected? Coretheapple (talk) 21:32, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
    And? Am I not allowed to disagree with that or swimming? I don’t really think this meta discussion is all that relevant to the move request and think if you have arguments to make about the substance you should do that. If you have arguments about the process you can raise them in a forum that is more suited to discussing such things. nableezy - 21:38, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
    Well this is not exactly a meta discussion and it is hardly insubstantive that the last RM on this very topic was just concluded, but I agree that there is no further point to this particular discussion. Coretheapple (talk) 21:51, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
    I agree, nableezy. I did see those comments that Coretheapple is referring to but I agree with how those comments were super premature for exactly the reasons you're giving: it was tacked on inappropriately to a date renaming conversation. Jikybebna (talk) 21:58, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
    I get that some editors believe that the closing comments were not what they wanted, but it was appealed, and as I mentioned above, the appeal was rejected. We don't appeal again by starting new RMs. Coretheapple (talk) 22:07, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
    There are two questions here: (1) what to use as the base title and (2) how and whether to include the year. The previous RMs ended with consensus to use "Israel–Hamas war" for the first question and no year for the second question, since "Israel–Hamas war" does not require disambiguation as an unambiguous name. This RM seeks to challenge the consensus regarding the first question, but that would in turn render the consensus on the second question moot, since "Israel–Gaza war" is an ambiguous term. As such, if there does end up being consensus to use "Israel–Gaza war" as the base title, to disambiguate the title, we would fall back to the option that had the second-most support in the previous RM, (2023–present) rather than 2023 or 2023–2024. There was consensus that it is not accurate to imply that the war has ended — notice that since this is a descriptor that we are making up for disambiguation purposes, WP:NDESC applies and not COMMONNAME, and we take into account neutrality and accuracy. InfiniteNexus (talk) 19:13, 1 February 2024 (UTC)
    Sure, I'd be fine with 2023-present as well. I disagree with the finding of consensus on Israel-Hamas, and I think the responses to this move request give enough proof that there is no such consensus that I think the people that keep pointing at that move request are trying to "win" on process instead of substance. If the process is really a problem I can take that move request to move review to argue that consensus finding should be vacated. But I cannot seriously believe that anybody can look at this section and pretend that there is a consensus for Israel-Hamas war as a base. nableezy - 19:17, 1 February 2024 (UTC)
    You're suggesting that the closers of one, two, three, four, five, six, seven RMs, all of whom found consensus for "Israel–Hamas war" or no consensus for other names, are wrong?? InfiniteNexus (talk) 19:28, 1 February 2024 (UTC)
    Close two is not about Israel-Hamas vs Israel-Gaza, close three is no consensus, not consensus for this name, close 4 is between 2023 Israel–Hamas war and Israel–Hamas war, odd to pretend that means there is consensus for Israel-Hamas when the discussion wasnt focused on that, close 5 is 2023 Israel–Hamas war vs 2023 Hamas-Israel war, again odd to claim a consensus for Israel-Hamas vs Israel-Gaza when it had nothing to do with that, close 6 is what I think is incorrect, and if people insist on a move review then fine, close seven was purely about removing the year, again odd to claim a consensus for Israel-Hamas vs Israel-Gaza when it had nothing to do with that. So no, I am not saying all the move requests were incorrectly closed, one was, and also that you are misrepresenting most of the others. nableezy - 20:46, 1 February 2024 (UTC)
    Anyone in those seven RMs could have proposed "Israel–Gaza war" as their !vote — in fact, many did. We don't just look at the titles proposed by the nominators; many RMs, XfDs, and RfCs, end with outcomes totally different from the initial proposal. InfiniteNexus (talk) 20:54, 1 February 2024 (UTC)
    Again, I think you are very much misrepresenting those move request and results, but Id rather not get into an extended back and forth with you. The one I am contesting is roberrtsky's close, what you list as close six. I dont think that was a proper close, and I dont think the prompting by an involved user was appropriate either. And if you think there is consensus for Israel-Hamas as a base title, I invite you to read this section to see if that might not be true. nableezy - 21:11, 1 February 2024 (UTC)
    I don't think that [robertsky's] was a proper close. Robertsky's close was appealed to robertsky and he declined it. Thereupon this RM was commenced. Every time there is an RM, there will be people who like it and don't like it, If the close to this RM is not "proper" in your view yet again, will you start another RM? Amending this to rephrase. I'll put it to you this way: if it is not "proper" again would another RM be in order? Coretheapple (talk) 22:56, 1 February 2024 (UTC)
    No a move review would be. I said if people insist on opening a move review of robertskys close I can do that. nableezy - 23:09, 1 February 2024 (UTC)
    "If people insist"? People insisted upon commencing this RM to overturn the consensus rather than use the proper procedure. That is correct. Coretheapple (talk) 23:33, 1 February 2024 (UTC)
    See, editors do a move review if they don't like the close of an RM. They don't do an RM right away, defying the just-established consensus, and then start up a move review 10,000 words of argumentation later because someone "insists." That's not how it works. This is not a fine point of procedure. This is the difference between defying a consensus, as is being done here, or not. Coretheapple (talk) 23:41, 1 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Strongly oppose - Not only did we very recently find a consensus for this current title amongst our selves, but as other ikipedians, such as user:BilledMammal has shown, "Israel-Hamas' is overwhelmingly the WP:COMMONNAME used by reliable sources. TheAwesomeAtom (talk) 20:02, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Oppose. It's a war against Hamas, not Gaza. Gaza isn't a political entity. --Governor Sheng (talk) 02:23, 1 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Support. The war is not just against Hamas [19], as Israel has made very clear through its actions. EDIT: Reliable sources have been consistently using "Israel-Gaza war" more and more often, such as Reuters. Professor Penguino (talk) 05:10, 1 February 2024 (UTC)
    Reliable sources have been consistently using "Israel-Gaza war" more and more often Supporters of this RM keep saying this, but where's your evidence? We know there are sources that use "Israel–Gaza war", but it is demonstrably a small proportion. This is just cherry-picking the same handful of sources to create the effect that the name is more widespread than it is. InfiniteNexus (talk) 19:18, 1 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Oppose per Google Trends where Israel-Hamas war is clearly the common name. Esolo5002 (talk) 20:11, 1 February 2024 (UTC)
    Thats about google search terms, not about what reliable sources use or anything else to do with our article titling policy. nableezy - 20:47, 1 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Oppose, primarily per WP:COMMONNAME (see StellarHalo's list of sources above). DecafPotato (talk) 23:59, 1 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Oppose Reliable Sources still lean favor Israel-Hamas War. Not against including 2023-2024 Gaza War or something to that effect, but main name should stay the same for now.3Kingdoms (talk) 15:45, 2 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Oppose per WP:COMMONNAME (see PrimaPrime and others). It doesn't matter, IMO, whether some sources - allegedly - use the name as a legacy category, as long as they're using it. It will also prevent confusion as there are three other articles with Gaza war in the title, in addition to Gaza-Israel clashes, Gaza conflict, and Battle of Gaza. Space4Time3Continuum2x🖖 19:27, 2 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Support per arguments of the current slanted/asymmetric nature of the current name, and also that aside from whatever variation is currently producing more hits from news sites, there still isn't any single one WP:COMMONNAME that is firmly established, which leads the argument back to considering POV and also consistency with the names of 2014 Gaza War, Gaza War (2008–2009), Gaza–Israel conflict, etc. Iostn (talk) 23:06, 2 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Comment Some of the comments in this discussion seem to violate the contentious topics policy. Blaylockjam10 (talk) 21:33, 3 February 2024 (UTC)
    Care to explain what of the contentious topics policy do you believe is being violated? HadesTTW (he/him • talk) 00:45, 4 February 2024 (UTC)
    @HadesTTW: There are some comments where it seems like people are violating NPOV & getting on a soapbox. Blaylockjam10 (talk) 23:57, 4 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Strong Oppose I am getting sick of the constant move proposals on this article. Firstly, Gaza isn't a country. It would be like saying the war on ISIS was really the World–Levant War. Secondly, Gaza as a term is used widely by Palestinian supporters and would therefore break WP:NPOV. Can we please hold a memorandum on moving this article? It is irritating to the point where action against it really needs to be taken. Great Mercian (talk) 08:38, 4 February 2024 (UTC)
    I assume you mean "moratorium" and not "memorandum". 🐔 Chicdat  Bawk to me! 11:54, 4 February 2024 (UTC)
    Gaza as a term is widely used by Palestinian supporters. Um hwhat? nableezy - 12:47, 4 February 2024 (UTC)
    If you oppose the name on the basis that "Gaza isn't a country", do you also object to the titles of the Falklands War, War in Donbas or War of the Pacific? Iostn (talk) 19:53, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
    No, because those wars' names include the specific areas the war took place, this is not only in Gaza but also in the West Bank. With your reasoning you might as well call it Israel-Gaza/West bank War 🅲🅻🅴🆃🅴🆁 (a word) 19:59, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
    That was not the objection given by the person I am responding to. Iostn (talk) 20:35, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Oppose. The war is against Hamas, which choose to settle and take over Gaza. The simplification and approximation of the name may be on the news, but is misleading and inaccurate. Proposal violates WP:TITLE: "Precision – The title unambiguously identifies the article's subject". TaBaZzz (talk) 09:50, 4 February 2024 (UTC)
    Everything here is based on the news ... Including the existing title. The books haven't been written yet. No idea what this talk of Hamas "settling" Gaza is supposed to be about, but it appears off-topic and irrelevant to the RM, along with the rest of the comment. Iskandar323 (talk) 10:16, 4 February 2024 (UTC)
    TaBaZzz (talk) 11:59, 4 February 2024 (UTC)
    "Hamas settling and taking over Gaza" instead of "Gaza Palestinians are there in the first place" seems to be WP:FRINGE. NasssaNsertalk 10:31, 4 February 2024 (UTC)
    Exactly the difference between Gaza and the criminal organization Hamas. TaBaZzz (talk) 11:56, 4 February 2024 (UTC)
    Please list reliable sources showing the lack of support for Hamas from Gaza Palestinians.
    There is another seemingly underlying argument referring to the Bible for legitimacy (Chinese: 自古以来), but I haven't seen many non-Israeli sources supporting such a claim. NasssaNsertalk 10:32, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
    "Hamas, which choose to settle and take over Gaza" lol what? Where do you think Hamas came from? Levivich (talk) 16:37, 4 February 2024 (UTC)
    wp:notaforum. We discuss editing articles, not my/you thinkings. TaBaZzz (talk) 05:22, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
    We discuss my/you vote rationales. Levivich (talk) 05:24, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
    "Hamas, which choose to settle and take over Gaza" is a statement that violates WP:NPOV. One could argue with your own logic that the war, started by hamas, was against Israelites who chose to settle and take over Palestine. Abo Yemen✉ 17:44, 4 February 2024 (UTC)
    wp:notaforum. TaBaZzz (talk) 05:20, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
    This is still a part of the discussion. Abo Yemen✉ 18:37, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
    I don't think vote rationales are subject to NPOV. Zanahary (talk) 20:39, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
    So the West Bank is excluded? 🅲🅻🅴🆃🅴🆁 (a word) 20:00, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Oppose per WP:COMMONNAME. This seems to be the way that the majority of reliable sources are referring to the war in English. The proposed title also would require some sort of disambiguation from the 2014 Gaza War, and I think the current title better satisfies the WP:CRITERIA than the proposed title does. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 18:06, 4 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Strong Support: This conflict has expanded so far beyond Hamas. Support per above points.Spilia4 (talk) 01:20, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Support, per WP:CONSISTENT. The war isn't just IDF vs Hamas but the regions of Israel and Gaza as a whole. Codenamewolf (talk) 06:15, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Oppose — primarily because "Israel–Hamas war" still seems to be the most common term used in English sources, and secondarily because the specific term "Israel–Gaza war" is ambiguous and, among sources that use "Gaza" in some form, considerably rarer (with terms such as "War in Gaza" or "Israel–Gaza conflict" being more common). I believe "Israel–Gaza war", in particular, could be interpreted as being either (1) a war between Israel and Gaza, or (2) a war in Israel and Gaza. I believe the latter is accurate, as the 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel took place in Israel; however, the former is inaccurate because the Gaza Strip is not itself a sovereign state or organisation — rather, it is a territory that was, until recently, controlled by Hamas. While I have further reasons for believing that the current title aligns better with policy, these have already been covered in far more detail by others above. Tol (talk | contribs) @ 18:21, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Oppose The current title is the one being used by a clear majority of reliable sources. The war, as far as I can tell, is specifically a war between Hamas and Israel, at least according to Israel. Their primary war goal is the destruction of Hamas, again according to Israel. The war began with a Hamas led invasion of internationally recognized Israeli territory. The main group Israel is fighting and targeting is Hamas. I just don't find the arguments being given for changing it compelling in light of the facts. I'm also not seeing any real policy based arguments from people supporting the change, am open to changing my mind if strong policy based arguments are made. Chuckstablers (talk) 21:38, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Support While "Israel-Hamas war" is more common, it's not by the "significant majority" that would make WP:COMMONNAME apply. Therefore we need to consider the WP:CRITERIA directly, one of those criteria is neutrality, and it's pretty clear that the majority of sources also agree that this is in fact an attack on Gaza, or at best a military operation in Gaza, and not a war between Israel and Hamas. The perspective that it is a war between Israel and Hamas is characteristic of clearly pro-Israel sources. Loki (talk) 00:56, 6 February 2024 (UTC)
  • In my opinion, the purpose of an article title is to help the reader find the article they're looking for, and to tell the reader when they've found it that they're at the right article. We are writing a living encyclopedia, not a history book. We write for the readers of today, not next year or ten years from now. If this article were titled "The middle east war happening right now," that title would serve its purpose, and every reader would know what that article was about. Later it could be called "The middle east war that just ended" and it would be equally recognizable to current readers. Only after some years would we have to call it "2023-2024 middle east war" or whatever. So of all the WP:AT criteria, I think recognizability is far and away the most important.

    That means that the most important word in the title is the one that was just removed: the date, "2023" (or "2023-2024" if you prefer). That's the part that tells the reader that this is the war that's happening now, the one that started in 2023. Treating the date as just a disambiguator is missing the forest for the trees: the year is what makes it recognizable as a current event, it's the most important word in the title, it's not just a disambiguator.

    There is a secondary, but also very important, aspect of the title, and that's framing. The title, if it's in "X-Y" format, tells the reader who is fighting whom: X v. Y. If we call it "Israel-Hamas," we frame the war as a fight between Israel and Hamas. If we call it "Israel-Gaza," we frame the war as a fight between Israel and Gaza. And to dispense with pleasantries: if it's Israel v. Hamas, it's Israel v. terrorists. If it's Israel v. Gaza, it's Israel v. civilians. It's very understandable that a lot of people would strongly object to one or the other (or both) of those framings. That's why there's so much controversy over whether we call it "Israel-Hamas" or "Israel-Gaza." I am sensitive to that, and also aware that the sources are rather split on this issue (like the rest of the world), so I am unable to make up my mind between which of those two framings Wikipedia should adopt. My preference is not to use either framing, at all, because neither is neutral and neither is totally accurate.

    Instead of going with "X-Y" to name the parties, I would use the neutral alternative of naming the location: Gaza. Yes, it's true that not the entire war is in Gaza, but the overwhelming majority of it is in Gaza, and Gaza is the indisputable center of the conflict. Besides, insofar as "Gaza" is an incorrect location (because it's incomplete), it's less incorrect than the way in which "Israel-Hamas" and "Israel-Gaza" are incorrect descriptions of the parties to the conflict (because it's more incomplete, and because the framing is far less neutral).

    So I'm not voting on "Israel-Hamas" or "Israel-Gaza." I'm voting support for "2023 Gaza war" (and I would rename all the other articles "[Date] Gaza war" for the same reasons). It's recognizable, it's concise, it's precise enough, it's natural, and it's consistent (or it could be). It avoids the problems of framing, it instantly tells the reader that this is the conflict that's going on right now in Gaza. Everyone knows what the 2023 Gaza war is. (And I don't think people will think it's over unless we call it the "2023-2024 Gaza war," but even that title would be better than either Israel-Gaza or Israel-Hamas.)

    I know this !vote isn't going to help the closer any in this RM, but that's what I think it should be: 2023 Gaza war, as a descriptive neutral title, and later if a real common name emerges, the article can be renamed again. Levivich (talk) 18:39, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

    Id support that as well. nableezy - 18:46, 6 February 2024 (UTC)
    I understand your arguments, but I think the implication in the title that this war was contained within in the entirety of 2023 doesn't work. I guess the name Gaza War (2023-present) would work and would be consistent with Gaza War (2008–2009). If consistency is a concern, then 2014 Gaza War can be renamed to Gaza War (2014). HadesTTW (he/him • talk) 21:17, 6 February 2024 (UTC)
    Good argument. In case the administrator chooses to relist again (unlikely), should we move this option to its own section? As for the year issue, I think the status quo over RMs on several pages calls for Gaza War (2023-present) instead. NasssaNsertalk 08:00, 7 February 2024 (UTC)
    On Jan. 20, three days before this RM was launched in lieu of the proper procedure (a Move Review)it was determined that the consensus was that there be no year affixed to the "Israe-Hamas war" title of this article. Clearly if the closer feels that we can have a continuing series of RMs going on forever, with Move Reviews skipped because people don't like to do them, then your suggestion could be entertained. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 15:45, 7 February 2024 (UTC)
    I also think this is fine. Loki (talk) 07:12, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
    Oppose. We can't just come up with names. Zanahary (talk) 20:41, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
    Thats literally what WP:NDESC is. nableezy - 20:45, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
    Correction: Oppose. We shouldn't come up with a new name, and should instead decide on a name from a pool of terms used in reliable sources. Zanahary (talk) 21:02, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
    Surely you don't dispute that "Gaza war" is in the pool of terms used in reliable sources? [20] [21] [22] [23] [24] [25] [26] Levivich (talk) 22:13, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
    It's nowhere near as common as Israel-Gaza or Israel-Hamas. "Middle Eastern conflict" is in the pool too, but that's not in contention. Zanahary (talk) 22:18, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
    You don't really know that actually -- have you surveyed all sources and determined which are most common? I haven't. But also you've moved the goalposts. We can't just come up with names and We shouldn't come up with a new name are obviously both inapplicable, because none of the names being discussed are neologisms or inventions.
    Now if you want to say, "most common name," prove it. Give us a count of who used what name how many times. Lots of people have established that all the names are frequently used. I don't think anyone has definitely established which is used more commonly than the others. Indeed, it would take a herculean effort to survey the world's RSes to make this determination, when there are literally dozens of articles published every day, just in English. Nobody is going to do that, and thus any assertions about one name or the other being more common are just bare assertions, without evidence. Levivich (talk) 22:22, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
    My god the attitude on this move request lol. Be polite or direct it at someone who’s willing to play. I don’t think your proposal is a good one, because I know (somehow, I’m able to detect patterns without running a thorough data collection and analysis) it’s not the most common name, and I think we should go with the common name. Zanahary (talk) 00:56, 9 February 2024 (UTC)
    Yo @Zanahary do you accept my apology I just don't want to feel guilty is all I'm saying. 🅲🅻🅴🆃🅴🆁 (a word) 01:00, 9 February 2024 (UTC)
    Nothing I wrote is impolite. Levivich (talk) 06:14, 9 February 2024 (UTC)
    You not gonna believe this... 🅲🅻🅴🆃🅴🆁 (a word) 20:54, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
    You got the wrong one coming at me with that attitude. This isn't Twitter. Clearly I disagree with the idea of inventing a new name for something based on editors' judgments, and I want us to follow sources. Believe that. Zanahary (talk) 21:01, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
    I was trying to follow @Nableezy's reasoning of NDESC, why you so pressed 🅲🅻🅴🆃🅴🆁 (a word) 21:06, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
    I mean I apologize for saying you're pressed but don't call someone out for "having an attitude", and then proceeding to say this isn't twitter, which I already know. 🅲🅻🅴🆃🅴🆁 (a word) 21:08, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
    It avoids the problems of framing, it instantly tells the reader that this is the conflict that's going on right now in Gaza. I don't think it avoids the problem of framing so much as takes the middle point between two framings. The issue with that is NPOV doesn't mean to take the middle position - it even warns us against doing so, with WP:FALSEBALANCE - but instead tells us to reflect the framing of reliable sources. In this case, per the evidence I presented above, the framing of reliable sources is that this is a war between Israel and Hamas, not Israel and Gaza.
    Further, I consider "Gaza War" to be inaccurate and problematic, as it misses and downplays the extensive fighting on Israeli territory that started the war.
    As an aside, as I see discussion above, "Israel-Hamas war" continues to be more common than either "Israel-Gaza war" or "Gaza war". In the past 24 hours, there have been:
    1. 138 results for "Israel-Gaza war"
    2. 142 results for "Gaza war"
    3. 230 results for "Israel-Hamas war"
    BilledMammal (talk) 01:01, 10 February 2024 (UTC)
    @BilledMammal: True, I should say "reduces" the problem of framing; it can never be avoided.
    I don't agree that "Gaza war" misses or downplays the fighting in Israel, for a few reasons: first, AFAI understand it, virtually all the fighting in Israel happened right next to Gaza, on the Israeli-Gaza border (or within a few miles of it). (Because of Iron Dome, rocket attacks on Israel have been a relatively minor part of the war in terms of casualties/damage, so I don't think that moves the needle on this issue.) Second, virtually all the fighters in Israel came from Gaza. Third, like more than 20x as many dead in Gaza as in all other theatres of the war combined. I mean, the fighting on the first day was "extensive" in an objective sense, but when compared to the rest of the war, it was just the first battle. I would say not calling it "Gaza war" downplays the extensiveness of the fighting in Gaza. This war has multiple theatres but they are not equal theaters. This is not like the Eastern Front and the Western Front in WWI or Europe and the Pacific in WWII. There's a real war in Gaza, and like some skirmishes elsewhere, and the only serious battle outside of Gaza (on Oct 7) happened right on the border. Gaza is the center of gravity of this conflict, and I think that's indisputable.
    I'm also not persuaded by the evidence of usage based in google searches. WP:GHITS, and while I acknowledge you've posted Scholar and News and not Web, there's still problems with Scholar and News.
    For the Scholar hits, you can't limit the date to October 2023, so the search results include pre-October stuff that has nothing to do with the war. Also, Scholar results aren't all RS. So for example in your Scholar links at the top of this huge thread (far from where we are down here) are giving me results like this book about Political Economy and this master's thesis. So basically, false positives. An unknown number of them, so I don't believe the hit count is a reliable indicator of usage of the terms for this war.
    It's the same for the Google News hits. I'm seeing results like Instagram posts and Quora. There is a banner at the top of the results page that says "When you refine a search, Google may include search results other than news content." So while there are more News results for "Hamas" than "Gaza," I just don't believe that's an indicator of usage in reliable sources.
    I prefer to do the one-by-one approach and just look at huge major news outlets and see what they do. This is what I see:
    • NYT "Hamas", WaPo "Gaza". They cancel each other out in my view. That just tells me that US media are split on it, without even looking further into other US media. I'm sure that if I start combing through US media, I will find both usages.
    • The Guardian "Gaza," The Times (UK) "Hamas."
    • AP and Reuters both "Hamas"
    • BBC "Gaza"
    That's a very incomplete list of course, but it's a clear split of opinion. If somebody wants to reliably catalogue every major news outlet, that would persuade me if they showed a clear preference for one name over the other. But I'm talking at least 66% if not 75% majority for one or the other. I just don't find it persuasive if it's like 55%/45%.
    So I believe there are multiple common names here, and by going with location rather than parties for the title, we reduce the amount of framing. And as I said, while "Gaza" is not the perfect descriptor of location, it's less imperfect -- that is to say, reduced framing -- as compared with either "Israel-Hamas" or "Israel-Gaza". Levivich (talk) 05:13, 10 February 2024 (UTC)
    For the Scholar hits, you can't limit the date to October 2023, so the search results include pre-October stuff that has nothing to do with the war. Also, Scholar results aren't all RS. So for example in your Scholar links at the top of this huge thread (far from where we are down here) are giving me results like this book about Political Economy and this master's thesis. So basically, false positives. An unknown number of them, so I don't believe the hit count is a reliable indicator of usage of the terms for this war.
    While we can't automatically limit the date to October 2023 you can manually do so, which is what I did - I excluded from the count all results published before the start of the war.
    It's true that some of the remaining results aren't suitable for use, and I considered the possibility that this would affect the overall result but dismissed it due the sheer scale of the disparity - even if half the results framing this as a conflict between Israel and Hamas were unsuitable for use while all the results for the other framings were suitable the most significant view, by a sizable margin, would remain that it is a conflict between Israel and Hamas.
    I have since confirmed this dismissal by manually reviewing a sample of the results that frame it as a war between Israel and Hamas, confirming that a sufficient number are suitable for use to outweigh those that frame it in a different manner.
    Regarding the news sources, while it is unfortunate that Google has gone down this road, I've found that such results still make up only a small minority and are roughly evenly disrupted - in other words, while they might affect the result when it's close, when the disparity is as large as it is here I've found it still to be a useful metric.
    One specific use that I think is worth mentioning is Britannica; they're using Israel-Hamas war. BilledMammal (talk) 07:00, 10 February 2024 (UTC)
    Am I reading the # right? 230 results for "Israel-Hamas" ... if half were not RS, that'd be 115. "Israel-Gaza" is 138. Levivich (talk) 07:15, 10 February 2024 (UTC)
    The half was in reference to the scholarly sources, not the news sources where the disparity isn't as great - sorry, I should have been clearer. BilledMammal (talk) 08:22, 10 February 2024 (UTC)
    Oh, I see. In those searches (the ones at the top of the page), I don't believe the search strings are really getting the universe of results. Both those search strings are for specific phrasings. Levivich (talk) 16:03, 10 February 2024 (UTC)
    (edit conflict) @Levivich: If somebody wants to reliably catalogue every major news outlet, that would persuade me if they showed a clear preference for one name over the other. But I'm talking at least 66% if not 75% majority for one or the other. I just don't find it persuasive if it's like 55%/45%.
    I haven't catalogued every major news outlet, but I've quickly catalogued every one considered "Generally reliable" at WP:RSP. I looked at results from the past day (a few exceptions noted), for search queries site:sitename "Israel-Hamas war" OR "Hamas-Israel war", site:sitename "Israel-Gaza war" OR "Gaza-Israel war", and site:sitename "Gaza war" -"Israel-Gaza war"
    1. ABC News - "Israel-Hamas war" "Israel-Gaza war"
    2. The Age - "Israel-Hamas war"
    3. Agence France-Presse - Not publicly available
    4. Al Jazeera - "Gaza war"
    5. Associated Press - "Israel-Hamas war"
    6. The Atlantic - No use of any of the three titles
    7. The Australian - "Israel-Hamas war"
    8. Axios (website) - "Israel-Hamas war" (Reviewed past week, as only one result that showed up for both "Israel-Gaza" and "Israel-Hamas" in the past day)
    9. BBC - "Israel-Gaza war"
    10. Bellingcat - No use of any of the three titles
    11. Bloomberg - "Israel-Hamas war"
    12. The Christian Science Monitor - "Gaza war" (Reviewed past week as no results for the past day)
    13. CNN - "Israel-Hamas war"
    14. The Conversation (website) - "Israel-Hamas war" (Reviewed past week, as only one result that showed up for both "Israel-Gaza" and "Israel-Hamas" in the past day)
    15. The Daily Telegraph - "Israel-Hamas war"
    16. Deutsche Welle - "Israel-Hamas war"
    17. The Diplomat - "Israel-Hamas war" (Reviewed past week as no results for the past day)
    18. The Economist - No preference between "Israel-Hamas war" and "Gaza war" (Reviewed past week as no results for the past day)
    19. Financial Times - "Israel-Hamas war"
    20. Forbes - "Israel-Hamas war"
    21. Gazeta Wyborcza - No use of any of the three titles
    22. The Globe and Mail - "Israel-Hamas war"
    23. The Guardian - "Israel-Gaza war"
    24. Haaretz - "Israel-Hamas war"
    25. The Hill (newspaper) - "Gaza war"
    26. The Hindu - No preference between the three titles
    27. The Independent - "Israel-Hamas war"
    28. The Indian Express - "Israel-Hamas war"
    29. Inter Press Service - "Gaza war" (Reviewed past week as no results for the past day)
    30. The Intercept - No preference between the three titles (Reviewed past week as no results for the past day)
    31. Kommersant - No use of any of the three titles
    32. Le Monde diplomatique - No use of any of the three titles
    33. Mother Jones (magazine) - "Israel-Hamas war" (Reviewed past week as no results for the past day)
    34. MSNBC - "Israel-Hamas war" (Reviewed past week as no results for the past day)
    35. The Nation - "Gaza war" (Reviewed past week, as no preference between "Israel-Gaza war" and "Gaza war" in the past day)
    36. NBC News - "Israel-Hamas war"
    37. New York Daily News - No use of any of the three titles
    38. The New York Times - "Israel-Hamas war"
    39. The New Zealand Herald - "Israel-Hamas war"
    40. NPR - "Israel-Hamas war"
    41. PinkNews - No use of any of the three titles
    42. Politico - "Israel-Hamas war"
    43. ProPublica - No use of any of the three titles
    44. Quartz (publication) - "Israel-Hamas war" (Reviewed past week as no results for the past day)
    45. Radio Free Asia - No use of any of the three titles
    46. Rappler - "Israel-Hamas war" (Reviewed past week as no results for the past day)
    47. Religion News Service - "Israel-Hamas war" (Reviewed past week as no results for the past day)
    48. Reuters - No preference between "Gaza war" and "Israel-Hamas war"
    49. RTÉ - "Gaza war" (Reviewed past week as no results for the past day)
    50. Sky News - "Israel-Hamas war"
    51. South China Morning Post - "Israel-Gaza war"
    52. Der Spiegel - No use of any of the three titles
    53. The Sydney Morning Herald - "Israel-Hamas war"
    54. Time (magazine) - "Israel-Hamas war"
    55. The Times - "Israel-Hamas war"
    56. U.S. News & World Report - "Israel-Hamas war"
    57. USA Today - "Israel-Hamas war"
    58. Voice of America - "Israel-Hamas war" (Reviewed past week as no results for the past day)
    59. Vox (website) - "Israel-Hamas war" (Reviewed past week as no results for the past day)
    60. The Wall Street Journal - "Israel-Hamas war"
    61. The Washington Post - "Israel-Gaza war"
    62. The Weekly Standard - No use of any of the three titles
    63. The Wire (India) - No use of any of the three titles
    36 preferring "Israel-Hamas war", four that prefer "Israel-Hamas war" equally with another title, and 10 that prefer a different title - either 72% or 80%, depending how you count it, in favor of the current title. Assuming I haven't made any errors, I think this is convincing? BilledMammal (talk) 08:22, 10 February 2024 (UTC)
    Sorry but no, green-at-RSP isn't a good set of sources. For example, on this list are second-rate sources like Axios and Vox, not comparable to first-rate sources like BBC and NYT. There are way too many US sources on the list. One Israeli source but zero Palestinian sources (Al Jazeera isn't Palestinian). ABC and NBC are on the list, but CBS is not. But more to the point, I don't think all those categorizations are accurate. Just take the first one: ABC News, right at the top of the page, calls it "Israel-Gaza conflict," not "Israel-Hamas war". NPR has tags for both "Israel-Hamas" and "Israel-Gaza" but it's actual section on the topic is called "Middle East crisis" so it's a "neither" source. Levivich (talk) 16:17, 10 February 2024 (UTC)
    Regarding NPR, I don't think it's a "neither" source - some sources use a different name for the broader conflict, but that doesn't preclude them from settling on a preference for the topic of this page - there was an extended discussion about the New York Times and this somewhere else in the RM that would be relevant.
    Regarding ABC, I searched for "Israel-Gaza war"; searching for "conflict" switches the result, updated. I'd update the others, but I don't think much will change, and you don't support the sampling method anyway. Instead, I've reviewed the top 20 news sources by viewership in December 2023
    I attempted to find a list of "most trusted news sources" or similar but was unable to, so this was the best I could do:
    1. BBC - "Israel-Gaza war"
    2. The New York Times - "Israel-Hamas war"
    3. CNN - "Israel-Hamas war"
    4. The Guardian - "Israel-Gaza war"
    5. Fox News - "Israel-Hamas war"
    6. Times of India - "Israel-Hamas war"
    7. People (magazine) - No use of any of the three titles
    8. USA Today - "Israel-Hamas war"
    9. Hindustan Times - "Gaza war"
    10. The Washington Post - "Israel-Gaza war"
    11. News18 - "Israel-Hamas war"
    12. Forbes - "Israel-Hamas war"
    13. NDTV - "Israel-Hamas war"
    14. CNBC - "Israel-Hamas war"
    15. Indian Express - "Israel-Hamas war"
    16. Business Insider - No preference between "Israel-Hamas war" and "Gaza war"
    17. Reuters - No preference between "Gaza war" and "Israel-Hamas war"
    18. The Independent - "Israel-Hamas war"
    19. Daily Mirror - "Israel-Hamas war"
    20. The Wall Street Journal - "Israel-Hamas war"
    21. news.com.au - "Israel-Hamas war"
    22. Buzzfeed - No use of any of the three titles
    23. Associated Press - "Israel-Hamas war"
    24. Newsweek - "Israel-Hamas war"
    25. india.com - "Israel-Hamas war"
    26. India Today - "Israel-Hamas war"
    27. NBC News - "Israel-Hamas war"
    28. CBS News - "Israel-Hamas war"
    29. Livemint - "Gaza war"
    30. The Daily Telegraph - "Israel-Hamas war"
    31. Australian Broadcasting Corporation - "Israel-Gaza war"
    32. Sky News - "Israel-Hamas war"
    33. Cosmopolitan - No use of any of the three titles
    34. Al Jazeera - "Gaza war"
    35. Politico - "Israel-Hamas war"
    36. ABC News - "Israel-Gaza war"
    37. Huffington Post - "Israel-Hamas war"
    38. Bloomberg - "Israel-Hamas war"
    39. CBC - "Israel-Hamas war"
    I skipped sources that merely aggregated other sources (for example, MSN) and sources that are considered generally unreliable or deprecated at RSP (for example, the Daily Mail). Assessment was done with the searches site:sitename "Israel-Hamas war|conflict" OR "Hamas-Israel war|conflict", site:sitename "Israel-Gaza war|conflict" OR "Gaza-Israel war|conflict", and site:sitename "Gaza war|conflict" -"Israel-Gaza war|conflict". Time period was one day, unless I needed to extend it due to a lack of results. Assessment was done based on a simple majority.
    This method has some flaws, but these flaws shouldn't be biased towards a specific result, and so shouldn't affect the overall outcome - 26 results for "Israel-Hamas war", 5 results for "Israel-Gaza war", 3 results for "Gaza war", and two results with no preference between "Israel-Hamas war" and "Gaza war".
    Depending how you count them, either 72% or 78% in favor of the current title - interestingly, very close to the number we got assessing the RSP sources. BilledMammal (talk) 17:05, 10 February 2024 (UTC)
    I highly disagree that the flaws aren't biased towards a specific result. They're biased towards Americentrism, which is a bias towards Israel. The US is pro-Israeli and so is US media. Fox News? People? USA Today? I don't care what they call it.
    But what I do see is the more or less even split amongst top media in every country:
    • In the US: NYT, NBC, CBS, CNN on one side, WaPo, ABC and PBS on the other, NPR and WSJ are "neither" I think -- and that's in like one of if not the most pro-Israeli country...
    • In the UK: BBC & Guardian on one side, Independent and Times on the other
    • In Australia: News.com and ABC split
    • In India: ToI and Hindustan Times split
    • In Canada: CBC is a "both" not "Hamas" AFAICT; Toronto Star and G&M are "Hamas"
    • In China: China Daily "Hamas-Israel", SCMP "Gaza"
    • In Japan: both Japan Times and Japan Today seem to be "neither"
    This pattern among top national media is undeniable, is it not? It's split. And yeah, if you add to the pile a bunch of US media, it'll move heavily to "Hamas." But add in a bunch of Arab media (not just one) and it'll move heavily to "Gaza." Look at top media country by country, and it's split in every country AFAICT. Levivich (talk) 17:51, 10 February 2024 (UTC)
    CBC is a "both" not "Hamas" AFAICT In the past week I'm seeing a few dozen results for "Israel-Hamas war", two results for "Gaza war", and no results for "Israel-Gaza war".
    If you have a better way of generating a list of sources to review, in way that doesn't allow us to - conciously or unconciously - bias the results towards a specific position, then I'm willing to give it a go. However, at the moment we've tried two different ways and both have produced the same result; a clear preference towards Israel-Hamas war - I note that if we split those sources by country as you propose we see Britain, America, Canada, and India all prefering "Israel-Hamas war"; Australia is evenly split, and only Qatar prefers "Gaza war".
    I've generated a third list by asking ChatGPT for a list of 50 of the most reliable news sources. Before I try it, do you have any objections to it?
This discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
    1. BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation)
    2. The New York Times
    3. The Guardian
    4. Reuters
    5. NPR (National Public Radio)
    6. The Economist
    7. The Washington Post
    8. The Associated Press
    9. PBS (Public Broadcasting Service)
    10. The Wall Street Journal
    11. Financial Times
    12. CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation)
    13. Al Jazeera English
    14. DW (Deutsche Welle)
    15. The Atlantic
    16. National Geographic
    17. Bloomberg
    18. The New Yorker
    19. The Hill
    20. Politico
    21. C-SPAN
    22. CNBC
    23. Voice of America
    24. Christian Science Monitor
    25. Foreign Affairs
    26. Nature
    27. Science
    28. TIME
    29. The Conversation
    30. ProPublica
    31. The Intercept
    32. Axios
    33. Vox
    34. FiveThirtyEight
    35. The Verge
    36. Wired
    37. The Brookings Institution
    38. RAND Corporation
    39. Council on Foreign Relations
    40. BBC World Service
    41. Nikkei Asia
    42. Le Monde
    43. El País
    44. The Sydney Morning Herald
    45. The Globe and Mail
    46. South China Morning Post
    47. Haaretz
    48. The Times of India
    49. France 24
    50. NHK World-Japan
  • BilledMammal (talk) 19:25, 10 February 2024 (UTC)
    I would remove some from that list. Here's the list without what I'd remove, plus what I'd add:
Extended content
    1. BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation)
    2. The New York Times
    3. The Guardian
    4. Reuters
    5. NPR (National Public Radio)
    6. The Economist
    7. The Washington Post
    8. The Associated Press
    9. PBS (Public Broadcasting Service)
    10. The Wall Street Journal
    11. Financial Times
    12. CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation)
    13. Al Jazeera English
    14. DW (Deutsche Welle)
    15. The Atlantic
    16. Bloomberg
    17. The New Yorker
    18. C-SPAN
    19. CNBC
    20. Voice of America
    21. Christian Science Monitor
    22. Foreign Affairs
    23. Nature
    24. Science
    25. Nikkei Asia
    26. Le Monde
    27. El País
    28. The Sydney Morning Herald
    29. The Globe and Mail
    30. South China Morning Post
    31. Haaretz
    32. The Times of India
    33. France 24
    34. NHK World-Japan
    Add:
    1. The Times (UK)
    2. The Telegram (UK)
    3. The Independent
    4. Toronto Star
Thing is, I'm sure other editors would have their own removals/additions. And then there's the question of how you categorize them. I don't believe in just looking at search results for "Israel-Hamas" or "Israel-Gaza." I think you have to look at their front pages and click from there to see if they have a "section" about the topic, and what that section is called. (For example, at the top of cnn.com it says "Israel-Hamas war".) If we looked at actual usage in articles, you'd have to strip out all the reprints of wire services (AP, Reuters) and only look at articles under their own byline, and even then see if the article used one or the other or both interchangeably. It's hardly worth the effort IMO. Levivich (talk) 20:08, 10 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Lots of effort, but unfortunately results are not always reliable due to how websites are built. For instance, Politico returns thousands of results for "Israel-Hamas war", mostly for articles that don't even include these words[27], simply because of tagging used by the website (there's an Israel-Hamas War tag that's been generously applied to thousands (!) of articles only remotely linked to the Middle East).
    Then for Newsweek, the single most popular wording is "war|conflict in Gaza" (you did not include this!) – around 200 results in the last 7 days compared to just 25 results for "Israel-Hamas war|conflict".
    So, a good study would include also the variant "war in Gaza", exclude menus, categories, etc., and exclude duplicates. — kashmīrī TALK 17:52, 10 February 2024 (UTC)
    Regarding Politico, even excluding articles that are merely tagged we are still seeing a clear preference for "Israel-Hamas war" in the past week - and personally, I would think that if a source is putting a specific tag on such a large number of articles, they are telling us quite clearly what framing they think is accurate.
    Regarding Newsweek, possible - there are many variations of "Israel-Hamas war", "Israel-Gaza war", and "Gaza war" that I didn't and couldn't include in my search - although searching it for "war in Gaza" I find that almost all of the results aren't relevant. However, I'm not concerned; as I said, the flaws shouldn't be biased towards a specific result, and so shouldn't affect the overall outcome - they should balance each other out. BilledMammal (talk) 19:25, 10 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Oppose. The common name is the current one. The common description of the conflict is the one referenced in the current title. Zanahary (talk) 21:16, 6 February 2024 (UTC)
    @Zanahary: I moved your !vote here from the #Proposed moratorium section, as it appears based on the content of your !vote that it was intended as a reply to the RM and not the moratorium. If I was incorrect I apologize; please let me know and I will move your vote back, or you can do so yourself. BilledMammal (talk) 01:02, 7 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Oppose - The war is between Israel and PALESTINE, using the new proposal title would be the equivalent of saying "The second world war was primarily between parts of North America and parts of Europe". But regions aren't relevant to this, we need to use the country names themselves: "The second world war was primarily between the United States and Germany". 🅲🅻🅴🆃🅴🆁 (a word) 02:40, 7 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Oppose — The common name prevails because the belligerents are the State of Israel and Hamas. Yue🌙 18:13, 7 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Support - in my opinion, the war involves Israel invading Gaza (thus, Israel-Gaza war?) DimensionalFusion (talk) 19:07, 7 February 2024 (UTC)
    So the west bank is just the west bank? No involvement? The title I am most inclined to is Israel-Palestine war. 🅲🅻🅴🆃🅴🆁 (a word) 19:09, 7 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Oppose. The current title is debatable because this is a war with several organizations including PIJ, Hezbollah and others. But it is most common name. However, the suggested title is not the most common name, and the war is not limited to the Gaza: it is also happening (as a "counter-terrorism operation") in West Bank and at the Northern border of Israel. As correctly included in the infobox, this war includes 5 theaters, only one of which is the Gaza Strip. My very best wishes (talk) 21:47, 7 February 2024 (UTC)
    "Counter terrorism" what'chu mean by that, @My very best wishes? Also, my proposal of making it Israel-Palestine war would be effective. 🅲🅻🅴🆃🅴🆁 (a word) 23:54, 7 February 2024 (UTC)
That is how some sources call it. Importantly, Hamas also operates in West Bank. Yes, there is an Israeli–Palestinian conflict, but this is not just a single war. My very best wishes (talk) 16:07, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
Thank you for the clarification. 🅲🅻🅴🆃🅴🆁 (a word) 16:15, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Oppose, In theory the war is against Hamas by Israel, thus Israel-Hamas war makes since. That being said, this isn't the first incursion, and sadly will probably not be the last, conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas.
    It should probably be more clear than it currently is that this isn't the first conflict. — Preceding unsigned comment added by N7o2h3 (talk • contribs) 17:19, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
    Yeah, but we don't usually care that much about the invader's theories. The article about the Russo-Ukrainian war is not titled "Denazification of Ukraine", and the one about the Iraq war is not titled "Operation of removal of weapons of mass destruction". Israeli propaganda keeps peddling the lie that Israel is fighting Hamas; but why should we fall for it in this instance? — kashmīrī TALK 21:37, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
    If reliable sources referred to the war in Ukraine as its Denazification, we would use that title. Zanahary (talk) 21:39, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
    If Russia continuously called it "The Crusade Against Ukraine" it will probably be referred to as such. Similarly despite the Iraq War being done on a complete lie it was also not called "The Search for WMDs" it was called "The Iraq War." That being said the title should be changed to reflect that this isn't the first time Israel has invaded the Gaza Strip and needs to be indicated as such N7o2h3 (talk) 02:51, 9 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Support, and support Levivich's alternative; it should say "Gaza".
There's no common name. I was wrong in the first RM where I proposed this notion, and I'm still kicking myself over it. We looked only at headlines, but most headlines contain neither term, so, in comparing the occurrence of "Israel-Hamas" and "Israel-Gaza", we only looked at a subset of articles; it's cherrypicking. Second, headlines (and "live feed" tags) are unreliable. WP:COMMONNAME requires reliable sourcing. I checked all articles in the past month in the WSJ (hardly anti-Israel): 6 articles contain "Israel-Hamas" in the body; 20 articles instead use "Gaza war", "Gaza conflict", or "war in Gaza". If anything, it shows "Gaza" meets the recognizability and naturalness WP:CRITERIA better than "Israel-Hamas". But no clear common name.
No common name means it's a descriptive title, so WP:NDESC applies. WP:NPOV requires this move, because the war involves Gaza, not just Hamas. That's not controversial. The Gazan impact receives huge RS coverage, it's what much of our article is about, it's been condemned at the UN. 60% of homes in Gaza are damaged or destroyed, as are 9 in 10 schools (source). Military leaders said the focus is maximum damage (source). No need to go into genocide or ethnic cleansing, or even intent to target civilians (vs. negligence; that's immaterial here). The war is one of the most destructive in modern history, and has taken out most civilian infrastructure in Gaza, per all sources; that's enough to make the title POV and inaccurate. Even the US says Israel is causing too much civilian harm. Not hard to find experts who agree. Raz Segal, Israeli genocide scholar: Any claim that Israel is targeting specifically Hamas militants or Hamas military installations, if you think about the level of violence and destruction and the weapons used, that's an absurd claim.
No common name also means we need to look at the WP:CRITERIA. "Gaza" is just as recognizable and natural, if not more, see WSJ (above) and Google Trends (btw, this article is the top result when people google "Gaza war", which is by far the most popular search term). It's concise. And the last criteria, WP:CONSISTENT, would be best met by Levivich's "Gaza war" suggestion, but "Israel-Gaza war" would still be more consistent with our other Gaza articles than the current title (BTW, sources use these terms interchangeably: see Associated Press: the last Israel-Hamas war in 2021..."; it's hard to outsource our naming to sources who they take it far less seriously than we do). DFlhb (talk) 21:29, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
  1. We did not look at headlines, we looked at the overarching "category" pages of each publication. The purpose of WP:HEADLINE is to avoid reproducing sensationalized, clickbaity titles. "Israel–Hamas war" is neither sensational nor clickbaity. AP Style, which dictates the style of multiple publishers, specifically calls for the use of "Israel–Hamas war".
  2. This is not NDESC. NDESC comes into play when we use a generic name that Wikipedia editors made up, like "Attempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election" or "Cultural impact of the Beatles". We invent these titles because it is not possible to look for what sources use.
  3. "Israel–Gaza war (2023–present)" is on par with "Israel–Hamas war" in two of the five CRITERIA, recognizability (but to a lesser extent) and precision. But it fails naturalness, since it requires an unnatural parenthetical disambiguation, which in turn makes it less concise. "Gaza war (2023–present)" fails not only recognizability and precision, but also naturalness and concision (although the undisambiguated portion is more concise, the need for additional disambiguation by year once again makes the title lengthier and more unnatural than "Israel–Hamas war").
InfiniteNexus (talk) 22:46, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
In my experience live feed/category tags can be inconsistent or bad for most topics; and surely, it's telling, when the supposedly common term is rarely used in article bodies. I got the dichotomy between COMMONNAME and NDESC from WP:POVTITLE, but we can turn to WP:NPOV, which sidesteps the "descriptive" issue and says to prefer neutral terms, and if we have multiple common names, fall back on the WP:CRITERIA; we're back to the same place. Recognizability seems equal or better; people surely hear the word "Gaza" as much as they hear "Hamas", and that's supported by search data. I don't think disambiguation would affect naturalness (one that readers are likely to look or search for); it's at the end of the title, so the WP search would auto-suggest it. And IIRC 80% of our traffic is from web search engines, which make the disambiguation seamless. DFlhb (talk) 03:46, 10 February 2024 (UTC)
I don't think disambiguation would affect naturalness It does. Disambiguation without the use of parentheses or commas is always preferred to disambiguated using parentheses or commas, as the latter is by definition an unnatural search term. See WP:NATURAL and WP:NCDAB. InfiniteNexus (talk) 20:54, 15 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Strong Support : 1) As pointed above numerious reliable sources that refer to it as Israel-Gaza war. 2)'Israel-Hamas' war is not a politically neutral term, since it mimics Israeli rhetoric when addressing accusations of genocide/ethnic cleansing 3) Other wars don't name the ruling party. World war II was a war against Germany not against Nazis. The Afghanistan war was not the USA-Taliban War, nor was the Iraq war the USA- Ba'ath War, etc. Jagmanst (talk) 04:26, 9 February 2024 (UTC
  • Strong support. Those votes against the renaming are excessively strange… Who benefits from this unreasonable POV-pushing in favor of Israel? The war has long ceased to be solely against Hamas, if it ever was, and now amounts to nothing more than mere genocide, as the sources have shown, show, and will continue to show. RodRabelo7 (talk) 18:32, 9 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Oppose - WP:COMMONNAME takes precedence over some editors' opinions that the common name doesn't describe the subject in the way they'd like it to. Rlendog (talk) 19:48, 10 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Oppose My preferred name for this would be War in Gaza (2023–present), which I admit does not cover the first week of the conflict, but otherwise makes sense. Since nobody supports this as the title, it is therefore between Israel-Hamas, and Israel-Gaza. Out of these two, I support the status quo title. Why? Because (apart from what some hysterical crackpots in the Israeli government might wish) the top priority in this war for Israel is to eliminate Hamas, not to eliminate the people of Gaza. The top priority in this war for Hamas is to eliminate the State of Israel, and although most members of Hamas certainly want to kill every Jew on Earth, the mainstream view (if you can call a terrorist group "mainstream") is that the destruction of Israel is the top priority. Yes, many civilians have been killed, none part of Hamas. But although many of the people of Gaza have been killed, this war is, first and foremost, between Israel and Hamas. 🐔 Chicdat  Bawk to me! 13:43, 11 February 2024 (UTC)
    "War in Gaza" would be an even better name but that doesn't make the status quo name OK Jikybebna (talk) 13:57, 13 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Oppose - Israel-Hamas war shows around 317,000,000 results in Google, while Israel-Gaza war shows 268,000,000 results. –Daveout(talk) 14:05, 11 February 2024 (UTC)
    Those numbers aren't real. WP:HITS Levivich (talk) 14:34, 11 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Oppose per WP:COMMONNAME. ~ HAL333 03:18, 12 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Support per WP:NPOV. WP:COMMONNAME is a poor argument in favor of the status quo since the proposed new title is also a common name, being used in many sources, and not just news sources, including the BBC, Guardian, Washington Post, Al Jazeera, NYT, South China Morning Post, Doctors Without Borders, The National, Sky News, Haaretz, The Nation, The Independent, PBS, NPR, RUSI, American Academy of Pediatrics, Responsible Statecraft, Dartmouth College, Hoover Institution, Observer Research Foundataion, Queen Mary University of London, ReliefWeb, Middle East Institute etc. etc. etc.
The name Israel-Hamas War is limited to Israeli and certain Western sources and is a clear instance of propaganda, as this very article describes a war against not Hamas, but Gaza. We obviously and rightfully aren't calling the article on the Russian invasion of Ukraine something like "2022 Special Military Operation in Ukraine" or "Denazification of Ukraine", though those are the lines peddled by the Kremlin and oft repeated in non-Western media. Dylanvt (talk) 15:17, 12 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Support per WP:NPOV. Even if the Israeli government claims that it is at war only against Hamas, the actions of said government have made it evident that the war is against the entire Gazan population. The current article title entertains a fiction. Pyzirikov (talk) 17:50, 12 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Relist Comment - I of course cannot pre-decide where this discussion is going to wind up when it gets the admin close it probably requires, but I would be quite surprised if a consensus is found in favour of any particular title. I've relisted so you've got a week more to try to address that. FOARP (talk) 14:31, 13 February 2024 (UTC)
    Just because we have a lot of people repeating one another does not make an argument stronger or more valid, especially if it has no basis on relevant policies (WP:AT) or grounded in subjective beliefs. InfiniteNexus (talk) 20:54, 15 February 2024 (UTC)
    Relisting should not be a substitute for a no consensus closure. If you determine there is very little chance for a consensus to emerge, it is probably better to close as no consensus instead of relisting for that chance. NasssaNsertalk 03:41, 17 February 2024 (UTC)
    No consensus? I would argue a consensus exists, but obviously I'm biased. In recent days there have been quite a few new "support" votes ... but not one of them cites a single policy that is applicable, and the comments can be summarized as "support because I don't like the current name". InfiniteNexus (talk) 02:09, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
    The situation of this RM is difficult to sum up in my opinion, so the closer would have to write a long, detailed explanation, without which someone will bring this to WP:MRV – and even with a detailed close comment this might be brought to WP:MRV anyway. The only thing clear is that there will be a moratorium. NasssaNsertalk 10:47, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
    I agree, and as NasssaNser observes there will almost certainly be an MRV regardless of the outcome. One thing the closer might wish to address is the validity of skipping an MRV after the last RM, in lieu of that going straight into another RM. And whether this RM should have been closed immediately and an MRV commenced in its stead. Coretheapple (talk) 14:55, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
Hatting. NasssaNsertalk 05:51, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
  • My biggest fear is that the closer will be intimidated by the large number of recent "support" !votes (the recent influx has been somewhat suspicious, but I have no evidence of canvassing or anything like that) and opt for a "no consensus" close, or worse, perform a WP:SUPERVOTE close. If this discussion hadn't been relisted twice, I think it could've easily been closed with consensus against a move two weeks ago, but the extended period of discussion has invited more users to repeat the same baseless arguments over and over again, which creates the illusion that consensus has shifted when this is in fact not the case. A good closer would recognize that the majority of "support" arguments invoke personal beliefs that bear no relevance in an RM and discard them accordingly, and if they do end up finding "no consensus" it should be done in accordance with policy and carefully explained in detail. I think it would perhaps be beneficial to request a panel close at AN, which would be unusual but not unheard of. InfiniteNexus (talk) 19:16, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
    Would someone else please hat this off topic irrelevant speculation about what a closer might or might not do, not to mention an editors "biggest fear", who just reverted my attempt to hat same. Selfstudier (talk) 19:37, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
    I agree as it is against WP:AGF and per WP:NOTAFORUM Abo Yemen✉ 19:44, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
    Please review those two links and identify which parts of the discussion above assumes bad faith or discusses unrelated topics. Comments below regarding the war itself or perceived media/Wikipedia bias would better fit that description. Legitimate concerns of the eventual close of this RM is not off-topic, and it is important for the closer to recognize what not to do when evaluating consensus. InfiniteNexus (talk) 19:51, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
    As opposed to somebody saying that say an editor repeatedly badgering others including an admin relisting the discussion may be attempting to intimidate an eventual closer? Throw in a vague suspicion that the person making even admits is not founded on any actual evidence? Please stop disrupting this discussion with your novel theories and personal opinions. Thanks. nableezy - 21:28, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
    That's not what I said at all. I said the closer should not feel tempted to close this as "no consensus" simply because of the recent influx of !votes. They should carefully examine the strengths of each argument, discard those not based in relevant policy per WP:CONSENSUS, and write a detailed closing statement. I never suggested that anyone has acted with malice or "may be attempting to intimidate" the closer — now that is not assuming good faith. InfiniteNexus (talk) 23:12, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
    Yeah, I know thats not what you said, I said as opposed to for a reason, the reason being to hold a mirror up. nableezy - 23:41, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
    I am semi-willing to make a comment-count leaderboard, but I don't think posting it is WP:AGF. NasssaNsertalk 01:03, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
    If you were not referring to me, then my bad for misunderstanding your comment, but your reply was indented one level below mine. InfiniteNexus (talk) 01:07, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
    "Hold a mirror up" to show what they weren't saying? I don't think that's how that expression works. XeCyranium (talk) 01:26, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
    The mirror was reflecting the vague accusations and attempts to sway a closer to make a close to their liking. nableezy - 04:18, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
    Let's cut this short and bring this to MRV after this discussion concludes. I am finding this WP:NORFC. NasssaNsertalk 05:51, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Look, if people are already declaring that you'll take this to MRV no matter what, before the discussion has even concluded, then that's just being disruptive. I wouldn't rule out an MRV myself, but declaring your intention to do so regardless of the outcome is in poor taste, and frankly, disrespectful to the closer. Not to get political, but this is just the 2020 election all over again. Our goal should be to avoid an MRV as much as possible, in order to avoid any additional drama and prolong this dispute further. This has already been going on for weeks, months if you count the previous RMs. Let's please settle this once and for all, and as soon as possible, so we can let it go and move on. That's why I said it would perhaps be beneficial to request a panel of closers. Is anyone else in favor of this? InfiniteNexus (talk) 08:16, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
    To clarify: I did not refer to any particular person, I am suggesting the party highly dissatisfied with the outcome to take it there, and I am not bringing this to MRV myself as I am fine with any outcome. Maybe you have been misreading comments in your fierce opposition to this RM. NasssaNsertalk 09:34, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
    Nobody brought an MRV. That's why there was no MRV. voorts (talk/contributions) 23:21, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
  • I support this move per the NPOV principle and that many reputable news outlets refer to the conflict under the proposed name. — RAGentry (talk) (contributions) 17:37, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Oppose per COMMONNAME cited above. Vast majority of RSes still use the current title. The Kip 21:30, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Support per WP:NPOV. While Israel is in reality just fighting Hamas, the entirety of the Gaza strip has been hit with tens of thousands of civilian casualties already. It's being used by many primary sources (not just the news) such as the BBC, Al Jazeera and Sky News. WP:COMMONNAME is not a good objection for those who oppose, since ironically enough, "Israel-Gaza war" is a common name itself. The name "War in Gaza (2023–present)" could also make a bit of sense but I prefer "Israel-Hamas war". Also, the war has also severely affected other parts of Palestine (394 were killed in the West Bank), as well as in Lebanon and Syria, but when compared to the situation in Gaza, the conflict in these areas is fairly minor. Quake1234 (talk) 17:54, 15 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Support per NPOV and COMMONNAME. It started as "Israel-Hamas" but it has moved on from that. The most neutral and highest grade RS have swapped to Israel-Gaze War (having been at Israel-Hamas War) such as BBC News, and The Guardian. Aszx5000 (talk) 13:40, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Support per WP:NPOV and WP:RS. This may have been instigated by Hamas but it quickly shifted to a war on Gaza by Israel. This is evidenced by early actions by Israel demanding the population of Gaza, against international norms of war, evacuate from northern Gaza. Since then Israel has waged an asymmetric war in which the overwhelming casualties have been Gaza civilians. TarnishedPathtalk 14:05, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Oppose per WP:COMMONNAME, WP:RS, and WP:NPOV. A bloody war is occurring between Hamas and Israel. To call this a war between Israel and Gaza disregards the fact that Hamas grabbed absolute power in the Gaza Strip, held on to this power using brutal force, and has not held elections since. The name Israel-Gaza war hides the Hamas militants once again behind the people of Gaza who have been hit so hard. Most media seem to recognize this and use the name Israel-Hamas war. gidonb (talk) 00:48, 17 February 2024 (UTC)
    Any reliable source for Hamas being unpopular in the Gaza Strip? I suspect if Hamas held onto their power with brutal force, the whole Gaza would be under firm Israeli control now with little resistance. NasssaNsertalk 05:05, 18 February 2024 (UTC)
    @Gidonb, NasssaNser: The results of an opinion poll carried out by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research between 22 November and 2 December 2023, published 13 December 2023, reported:
    • In the West Bank, support for Hamas today stands at 44% (compared to 12% three months ago), and for Fatah at 16% (compared to 26% three months ago). In the Gaza Strip, support for Hamas today stands at 42% (compared to 38% three months ago) and support for Fatah at 18% (compared to 25% three months ago).
    • It is worth noting that support for Hamas usually rises temporarily during or immediately after a war and then returns to the previous level several months after the end of the war.
    Andreas JN466 14:22, 18 February 2024 (UTC)
    Thanks. Seems like Israel's acts matters a lot more than Hamas' popularity here. NasssaNsertalk 15:39, 18 February 2024 (UTC)
    You're also right that "Hamas held onto their power with brutal force" doesn't mean that Gazans are fine with Israel's war on them. Yes, Hamas's leadership over the Gaza Strip is unpopular and many Gazans disparage their application of Islamism over the Strip. But Gazans overwhelmingly do not want Israel to invade and bomb them to get rid of Hamas. The poll itself says so.
    "95% think Israel has committed war crimes during the current war, only 10% think Hamas also committed such crimes."
    "When asked about their own preferences for the party that should be in control in the Gaza Strip after the war, 60% (75% in the West Bank but only 38% in the Gaza Strip) selected Hamas; 16% selected a PA national unity government without President Abbas; 7% selected the PA with Abbas; 3% selected one or more Arab countries; 3% selected a national unity government under Abbas, and 2% selected the Israeli army."
    Gazans may not all support Hamas, but virtually none of them support Israel. HadesTTW (he/him • talk) 19:38, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
Obviously, my keep was never about Israel as that part of the title seems consensual, hence a constant. Rather, I noted that most sources prefer Israel-Hamas war and not Israel-Gaza war for good reasons. gidonb (talk) 02:02, 26 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Strongly Support As per WillowCity 2861969nyc (talk) 09:03, 18 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Strongly Support per WP:RS and WP:NPOV. This is no longer a war with Hamas, it never was. Many reliable sources have been documenting the atrocities and genocide commited by Israel, all using the term "Israel-Gaza War", so it should be evident that this is a war against Gaza as a whole, as well as Palestine itself and other surrounding countries, like Lebanon. Jurta talk/he/they 12:15, 18 February 2024 (UTC)
    Could you provide the RS you're basing this off of? What you're saying seems exceptionally out of line with the sources in the article at present. XeCyranium (talk) 01:29, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
    Fire and thick smoke in Lebanon after Israeli airstrikes - The Guardian, Gaza City: Drone video shows extensive destruction in seaside city - BBC, Claims of Israeli sexual assault of Palestinian women are credible, UN panel says - The Guardian, 'Beaten, stripped, used as a human shield': Gaza man recounts Israel terror - Al Jazeera, to name a few. Jurta talk/he/they 09:09, 23 February 2024 (UTC)
    Even the ToI is now using Gaza War, https://www.timesofisrael.com/the-gaza-war-is-winding-down-with-key-goals-unmet-but-israel-can-still-win/ trying to pretend that this is just about Hamas any more is an increasingly untenable position Selfstudier (talk) 13:50, 23 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Support I would have opposed four weeks ago, but by now it has become abundantly clear that so much of Israel's military effort is directed against civilians and civilian infrastructure (see e.g. 'Extensive destruction' by IDF of civilian infrastructure in Gaza amounts to a 'war crime', says UN high commissioner, The Guardian) that "Israel-Hamas war" seems just as absurd as "IDF-Hamas war" would be, given Hamas' atrocities carried out against Israeli civilians. --Andreas JN466 14:40, 18 February 2024 (UTC)
    I'd also be fine with Gaza war (2023–present) or some variant of that. Andreas JN466 18:40, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
    That one is fine with me too - DFlhb (talk) 10:50, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Strongly Support - It's an insult to innocent Palestinian lives lost to claim it's just about Hamas. It is a ruthless and unrepentant attack on Gaza's civilians. User talk:Saimcheeda 18:30, 18 February 2024 (UTC)
    Why not change it to "2023-2024 Ruthless and Unrepentant Attack on Gaza’s Civilians?" Zanahary (talk) 22:06, 18 February 2024 (UTC)
    I am not trying to be a jackass. I’m just concerned that allowing editors to evaluatively name contentious phenomena is a bad slope to roll down. Zanahary (talk) 22:07, 18 February 2024 (UTC)
    There's an idea. Bring it up at the next RM. Selfstudier (talk) 23:24, 18 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Support We can't focus too much on U.S. sources, because they tend to have a very different view than e.g. Chinese, Indian, etc. sources. Indian and Chinese sources tend to use "Gaza". DenverCoder19 (talk) 03:44, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
    According to the evidence I presented above, Indian sources prefer "Israel-Hamas war", though I haven't reviewed enough Chinese sources to say which they prefer. BilledMammal (talk) 17:30, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
    “Escalation of Israel–Palestine conflict” (Chinese: 巴以局势升级) seems to be the most common term in Mainland Chinese media, with no explicit mention of Hamas or Gaza in the title. NasssaNsertalk 04:52, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
    Haha, why are we looking at translations of foreign-language sources? This is the English Wikipedia. We examine English-language sources in the English-speaking world. Likewise, other Wikipedias should make their article naming decisions based on sources in their languages, so Chinese-language sources would be relevant on the Chinese Wikipedia, not here. InfiniteNexus (talk) 19:16, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
    The inquiry of Chinese sources, and I pulled from memory for the wording used in China. Might not be accurate. NasssaNsertalk 01:22, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
    English-language Chinese sources like South China Morning Post do appear to have dropped use of -Hamas since November 2023, however. signed, Rosguill talk 03:27, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Support Came here without a strong view either way, possibly leaning more against renaming, but found the arguments for a move the most compelling. Comments made by the Brazilian president have attracted media coverage today and I was struck by how sources from across the world, including the US, are now using the term "Gaza war". See ABC US, BBC, NY Times, using both and AP. I would also suggest the NPOV concerns are legitimate; Israel's actions are now clearly targeting more than simply Hamas. AusLondonder (talk) 15:43, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
    I've noticed that a lot less sources are mentioning Hamas in their titles less as well. When this discussion first started my arguments for a move were mostly about NPOV but now I think the argument that there's multiple common names for the war is much more provable. HadesTTW (he/him • talk) 19:49, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Strong support for 2023 Gaza war per @Levivich and @Dylanvt. voorts (talk/contributions) 04:23, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Support and equal support to Levivich's alternative per the analysis of the balance of highest quality news RS internationally. signed, Rosguill talk 03:35, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Support either original proposal or 2023 Gaza war per various reasons.
  1. WP:COMMONNAME (for "Israel-Gaza war") — The title is quite common, despite being seemingly less popular than the current "Israel-Hamas war". All in all, if the latter is argued against with good reason, it shouldn't matter. Common, but not misleading. Correct me if wrong.
  2. WP:CONSISTENT (for "2023 Gaza war") — Could align with 2008–2009 Gaza War.
  3. WP:NPOV — I can see people using this both for and against the requested title. Some may argue that the current title is biased against Israel, not accounting for Gaza as a belligerent. I argue that the current title is, however, biased against those in Gaza. I believe Israel has claimed this a war against Hamas, however, the conflict has caused widespread destruction to Gazan society, resulting in extreme impact -- namely, displacement. The bombings have targeted not only residential areas but also essential facilities. Also, note that it doesn't matter if the people is involuntarily participating. Albeit devastating, war isn't always an agreement.
  4. WP:NCWWW — Refer to the previous note first. Now, consider the WWW naming convention. It's quite appropriate to frame such a war of this size in terms of geographical effect rather than focusing on individual characters.
    — Urro[talk][edits] ⋮ 13:27, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Support. There are good points on both sides, and I would also support 2023 Gaza war. But in the end, the arguments put forth by the supporters I'm most compelled by. Note to closer: you poor thing for having to read all this. SWinxy (talk) 17:31, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Oppose As @Levivich noted in the above discussion, common name is not the only criteria, recognizability is also an important criteria. Many of the early votes were based on recognizability and my vote is also based on recognizability. I would give strong consideration to Levivich's 2023 Gaza war proposal if it was fully discussed. My vote is for the current proposal. Ben Azura (talk) 22:20, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
    And precision and naturalness too, which other proposed titles fall short of. InfiniteNexus (talk) 04:17, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Oppose the conflict, from the start, was with Hamas. The title needs to reflect this. Hogo-2020 (talk) 20:42, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
    Even ignoring the obvious and blatant targeting of civilians and collective responsibility cast on them by Israeli politicians, there are at least six other notable paramilitary groups fighting alongside the qassam brigades in this war. “Israel-Hamas” just doesn’t work in this case The Great Mule of Eupatoria (talk) 08:54, 23 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Support both original proposal and 2023 Gaza war, the former name per Urropean and Dylanvt on WP:NPOV and WP:NCWWW arguments, and the latter name per Levivich and DFlhb on the lack of a clear common name. The location and effect of the war in Gaza cannot be denied. BBC - over half of Gaza's buildings destroyed, [28] - 85% of Gaza's population displaced. starship.paint (RUN) 23:38, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Neither alternative is unreasonable, and both can be legitimately criticized. But (1) it makes slightly more sense to say that a state is at war with a militia than at war with a region or a polity and (2) it seems that Israel–Hamas war is more of a common name than Israel–Gaza war. —St.Nerol (talk, contribs) 17:49, 23 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Oppose per BilledMammal. JM (talk) 19:12, 26 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Oppose per WP:COMMONNAME and per the arguments set out by other users. Besides, Gaza is the name of a city. '[Country]-[City] War' seems like an unusual title. It'd be an unusual naming convention for such an article. IJA (talk) 08:39, 27 February 2024 (UTC)
    Gaza can also refer to the Gaza strip. NasssaNser 10:18, 27 February 2024 (UTC)
    We use that all the time, see Gaza-Israel conflict and Gaza War, so that argument doesn't hold water. Selfstudier (talk) 11:03, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

Discussion (RM)

  • Comment It is perfectly reasonable to begin this RFC based on the recent Title discussion, which also refers to discussions of the title that took place subsequent to the previous RM (here), and together constitute a respectable RFCbefore. In addition there is no consensus as to whether the current title is commonname or descriptive, see here and here Selfstudier (talk) 10:52, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Comment Note that proposed title currently redirects to Gaza–Israel conflict, an overview of all Gaza conflict with Israel since 1947. In consequence, an alternative might be simply Gaza War, as was used in the two previous major conflicts between Israel and Gaza of 2008/9 and 2014, together with some suitable disambiguation. Selfstudier (talk) 11:10, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
    I wouldn't oppose that name change. Historyday01 (talk) 14:30, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
    Would “third Gaza war” be a good rename, treating the 2014 and 2009 wars as “second” and “first” Gaza war respectively be a good solution, or is it just not notable enough The Great Mule of Eupatoria (talk) 03:52, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
    Probably too original, yes. Some creativity will have to be expended for npov titles but they should still be based off of what the sources use. Orchastrattor (talk) 06:13, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Comment In the matter of CNN, if one goes to their live updates for the war, then one is greated with a large headline "The latest on Israel's war in Gaza" whereas in the recent past , said headline was "January 5, 2024 Israel-Hamas war" or similar. So it is correct to say that CNN has shifted its position. Selfstudier (talk) 10:59, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Comment Interestingly, the Guardian recently changed live usage to "Middle East crisis live" (from Israel-Gaza war), while its main usage is either 'Gaza war' or 'Israel-Gaza war' and the NYT has also recently changed to "Widening Mideast Crisis" (from "Israel Hamas war"), while its main usage has no specific naming. Reuters has not any consistent naming at this point. CNN, together with these three, are suggestive of a definitive shift. The listing given in one !vote above is misleading. If, for example we look at ABC main page it has 'Israel-Gaza conflict' as main and 'Israel-Gaza live updates'. Selfstudier (talk) 13:20, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Comment Then there was another RfC to resolve the exact title. That was concluded three days ago is misleading, the purpose of that RFC was to resolve disambiguation, and included the proviso "It is intended without prejudice against any other discussions or requested moves such as regarding changing the "Israel–Hamas war" wording." Selfstudier (talk) 14:59, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
That is in neither of the closing statements finding consensus. The closing admin did not give, nor could they give, permission for editors to engage in disruptive, repetitive RfCs on the very same issue, over and over again, until editors drop from exhaustion. And your comment is misleading. As I point out, the disambiguation RfC followed an RfC on this very issue.Links to both move discussions are in my comment above.Coretheapple (talk) 15:15, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
Source analysis (no longer useful due to POV editing)
Source Live page Main page
CNN "Israel's war in Gaza"; provides daily updates as Israel-Hamas war Israel-Hamas war
Guardian Middle East crisis live Israel-Gaza war
NYT Widening Mideast Crisis Israel/Hamas & war in Gaza
AJ Israel War on Gaza Israel War on Gaza/Gaza war
BBC Israel-Gaza war Israel-Gaza war
WAPO Israel-Gaza War Israel-Gaza War
Reuters "Israel, Hamas at war" "Israel and Hamas at War"
ABC "Israel-Gaza live updates" "Israel-Hamas at war"
UN Israel-Gaza crisis Israel-Gaza crisis
WSJ Israel-Hamas war Unclear; have used "Israel-Hamas war" [29] [30] and "the Gaza War" [31]
AP Israel-Hamas war Israel-Hamas war
NBC Israel-Hamas war Israel-Hamas
The Telegraph Israel-Hamas war Israel-Hamas war
France24 Israel-Hamas war, also Israel-Gaza war in some articles Israel-Hamas war
The Times Israel-Hamas war Israel-Hamas war (if you click on Explore)
USA Today Israel-Hamas war Israel-Hamas war
  • Above is an analysis of major sources showing their naming of the war per their live update page (if they have one) and per their main page. As can be seen, AP, Reuters and NBC maintain Israel Hamas usage, Guardian and NYT have recently switched to emphasize a Middle East crisis instead, while the rest are using Israel Gaza or Gaza war. This procedure is more indicative of the current situation than Google searches that reflect the initial usage of Israel Hamas by almost all sources. Selfstudier EDIT As of 25 January, the table is no longer useful due to POV editing, and should be ignored. (talk) 11:17, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
    There are some others that use Israel-Hamas war: The Telegraph, France24. Do you mind if I add them to the table? Alaexis¿question? 13:42, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
    I wouldn't expect anything else from The Telegraph given their editorial line. As to FR24, they use both.[32][33][34]. — kashmīrī TALK 13:51, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
    If adding sources, please use live update page if the source has one in the first column and the main/middle east page in the second column. Selfstudier (talk) 13:59, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
    NYT is still using "Israel-Hamas war" as a subheading under "Widening Mideast Crisis". BilledMammal (talk) 14:07, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
    As per below, click on it and see where it leads. Selfstudier (talk) 15:26, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
    @Selfstudier as BilledMammal and I pointed out, the live page obviously still calls the conflict "Israel-Hamas war", right in the header. Please do not re-revert the table entry for NYT again. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 15:12, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
    Reverted, complete twaddle, that is not the "name" on the live page, it used to be called "Israel Hamas" and has been changed, while as I have already explained the "Israel Hamas link leads to a collection of photos entitled "Conflict in Israel and Gaza, in Photos" and is not therefore a name at all. Selfstudier (talk) 15:17, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
    That reasoning is 1-ply paper thin. NYT officially publishes, and continues to publish, the title "Israel-Hamas war" in the Header of their coverage page. They clearly stand by that as the name for the war. Moreover, here's a (probably better) main page where they even more explicitly use the title "Israel-Hamas war". PhotogenicScientist (talk) 15:20, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
    The same basis was used for all the entries, the NYT changed their live feed from "Israel-Hamas" to "Widening Mideast Crisis" (check it). And pointing to a link that goers nowhere at the end of a banner as some sort of proof that it didn't is codswallop. Selfstudier (talk) 15:24, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
    NYT changed their live feed from "Israel-Hamas" to "Widening Mideast Crisis" Indeed they did - because their coverage is no longer just about the war in Gaza, but about all events that are unfolding in the region. However, they quite plainly still use the name "Israel-Hamas war" when referring only to the conflict itself.
    You now continue to edit war [35] [36], against consensus on the talk page, to retain your preferred version of the table, while repsonding to criticism by calling it "rubbish", "codswallop", and "complete twaddle." This is by far antithetical to the behavior that is expected in the WP:ARBPIA CTOP area. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 15:34, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
    See your talk page. Selfstudier (talk) 15:38, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
    And I'll be waiting at this talk page for you to respond to the content arguments raised. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 15:42, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
    The table has been marked as no longer useful as of today due to POV editing of same. Discussion concluded. Selfstudier (talk) 15:45, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
    All that over the single line entry for NYT? A bit like throwing the baby out with the bath water, innit? PhotogenicScientist (talk) 15:46, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
    It takes you to a page "Conflict in Israel and Gaza, in Photos". This page has a different header, which leads with "Israel-Hamas war". When you click that link, it takes you to this page, which is titled "Israel-Hamas War News".
    The NYT uses "Widening Mideast Crisis" for the broader conflict, and "Israel-Hamas war" for the conflict in Israel and Gaza. BilledMammal (talk) 07:58, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
    As for the live page, the NYT appears to be switching between "Israel-Hamas war" and "Widening Mideast Crisis"; yesterday it used the former. BilledMammal (talk) 11:39, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
    And today it used "Gaza war"[37] while earlier this week it also used "Israel–Gaza war"[38]. It offers evidence that NYT edutors are fine with all these terms. — kashmīrī TALK 12:22, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
    And if you go to the current ME page the first article there is How Leaders and Diplomats Are Trying to End the Gaza War, more and more articles are using the "Gaza war" formulation. I suspect the news outlets find the thing as much a conundrum as we do. Selfstudier (talk) 12:26, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
    I was referring to the live page; today, the live page is "Widening Mideast Crisis", although with the header structure that I detailed above.
    Other articles vary, although with a clear preference for "Israel-Hamas war" - even the page you link says "Gaza War" in two places and "Israel-Gaza war" in one, compared to "Israel-Hamas war" in four and "Israel-Hamas conflict" in one. BilledMammal (talk) 15:16, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
    @Selfstudier you took a single headline from the WSJ page on the Middle East, and presented it as evidence that the name that the WSJ is using for this conflict is "Gaza War". Yet here they are, using "Israel-Hamas War" as of last week.
    You also said WSJ has no live page for the war, but they did. And what was the name they used? Ah, yes - "Israel-Hamas War".
    That was quite a poor interpretation of WSJ you made, and it calls into question the quality of the rest of your source analysis. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 14:43, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
    Also, the live page for Guardian isn't "Middle East crisis live", but "Israel-Gaza War" (and interestingly, still uses the url www.theguardian.com/world/israel-hamas-war). PhotogenicScientist (talk) 14:55, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
    I used the page that says "live" and updates.Selfstudier (talk) 15:18, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
    As with the NYT, "Middle East crisis" refers to more going on in that region than just this war. And their page dedicated to the "Israel-Gaza War" has news from today, which seems pretty current to me. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 15:21, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
    I am simply trying to show what the current situation is reporting wise, make another table if you want to highlight something else. Selfstudier (talk) 15:24, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
    And come on... the live page for NYT has "Israel-Hamas War" right on the banner across the top. Seriously? PhotogenicScientist (talk) 14:58, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
    Click on it. Selfstudier (talk) 15:06, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
    And you get Conflict in Israel and Gaza, in Photos Selfstudier (talk) 15:16, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
    Er... it links to a gallery of photos from the war. Your point is? They clearly use "Israel-Hamas War" as the descriptor of the conflict, as I see no other phrase in which "war" is used. "Widening Mideast crisis" refers to all of the events unfolding in the region, not only the conflict in Gaza. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 15:17, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
    It links to a page that says "Conflict in Israel and Gaza" so my point is that you didn't have a point. Selfstudier (talk) 15:19, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
    Alright - find a source for NYT labelling the war, not the entire regional crisis, something besides "Israel-Hamas war", and we'll deal. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 15:23, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
    I already said above, make a different table if desired, I see no reason to change mine. Selfstudier (talk) 15:25, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
    I missed the WSJ live page, I will add that. Oh wait, they did have one, they don't currently? Selfstudier (talk) 15:07, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
    The fact that a 'Live page' from a major RS is no longer live is immaterial to its relevance as a source. Current sources may be better in some ways, but old sources aren't to be discounted as if they no longer exist. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 15:13, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
    All the links I gave are current, I am not discounting historical links but those would tend to flatter IH. Selfstudier (talk) 15:13, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
    Yes, and in doing so, you've omitted a valid source. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 15:15, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
    I am not counting historical usage at all, I will leave that to the google searchers. Selfstudier (talk) 15:17, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
    So it's basically an even split, sigh. Levivich (talk) 21:57, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
    I have no knowledge on any previous RFCs before opening this move request though. I can't be neutral on this discussion, but I think this is going to be a no consensus or not moved.
    I will not open further RMs on this however this one closes. NasssaNsertalk 03:54, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
    Palestinian and Israeli sources are obviously excluded, however, so are Arab sources apart from AJ, most of them favor Gaza War or Israel Gaza usage. People have added three sources (including two more from the UK) to the initial list favoring IH usage but it is simple to add several more favoring GW or IG usage so that is not definitive. At any rate, it is clear that there has been movement of late (CNN, NYT, Guardian) and I expect this might continue. At least here we set a baseline for any possible future RM. Selfstudier (talk) 11:55, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
    Here it is reported by Algemeiner (fwiw) that Netanyahu at one point favored "Gaza War" as the name for the war, at least until it was pointed out that he lives on Gaza Street in Jerusalem. :) Selfstudier (talk) 12:09, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
  • @NasssaNser: You just edited your opening statement, but it's unclear what was added and removed. Can you please adjust you edit to comply with WP:TALK#REPLIED? BilledMammal (talk) 07:49, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
    Reverted. NasssaNsertalk 08:07, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
So this is probably the exact same situation as Special:PermaLink/1181585273#Requested_move_15_October_2023 here. NasssaNsertalk 02:12, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Moving discussion I initiated of moritorium to more appropriate location. Coretheapple (talk) 14:02, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

WP:Bludgeoning

That's enough of that. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 21:41, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

The following discussion 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.

A few editors are making what might be an excessive number of comments in this discussion; one has made 26, and another has made 40 - between the two of them, they've made almost half of all comments in this discussion. I suggest that editors who have made considerable contributions to this discussion step back and let consensus take its course. BilledMammal (talk) 16:36, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

Seconded. Drsruli (talk) 17:19, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
Do you want others to stop because of this? — kashmīrī TALK 18:07, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
In fact, I intended to link to this recent ANI discussion, where BM was called out for "habitually engag[ing] in WP:BATTLEGROUND editing" (although without eventual consensus on that); no idea why this thread did not come on top of ANI search results, and my apologies for mistakenly linking to an old and irrelevant discussion. — kashmīrī TALK 21:37, 4 February 2024 (UTC)
Now that's just not WP:AGF, casting WP:ASPERSIONS, and completely uncalled for. InfiniteNexus (talk) 18:17, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
Seriously... what the hell does that have to do with this discussion? PhotogenicScientist (talk) 18:25, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
An attempt to stop others because of own inability to respond? I only see a normal, sometimes heated discussion here. Bludgeoning is when a user dominates the conversation in order to persuade others to their point of view. Yet, no single editor dominates the discussions here. To falsely accuse someone of bludgeoning is considered incivil. — kashmīrī TALK 18:31, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
one has made 26, and another has made 40 - between the two of them, they've made almost half of all comments in this discussion seems like a couple of users are IMHO. I also think that seperating a point for further discussion stated by a few other editors (myself included) is completely valid regardless of the motivation behind it. - AquilaFasciata (talk | contribs) 18:47, 29 January 2024 (UTC) - AquilaFasciata (talk | contribs) 18:49, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
That in no way explains how bringing up an ANI thread from 2 years ago, that makes no mention of WP:BLUDGEON as far as I can find, is at all relevant here. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 19:27, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
So far, the majority of posts objecting to !votes are made by three editors, on both sides of this discussion. NasssaNsertalk 00:44, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
WP:BLUDGEONING says "If your comments take up one-third of the total text or you have replied to half the people who disagree with you, you are likely bludgeoning the process".
Additionally, if editors have concerns about bludgeoning then they need, in the first instance, to make that argument on editor talk pages and not here. Selfstudier (talk) 11:25, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
I have no desire to call out specific editors; I merely want the bludgeoning to stop.
And I too am very confused by the relevancy of that ANI discussion. BilledMammal (talk) 11:37, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
If you throw shade, shouldn't be surprised if someone throws some back? I agree it is about as relevant as the back door rallying cry of bludgeoning ie not very. Selfstudier (talk) 11:42, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
A simple reminder of discussion ettiquette to all parties is IN NO WAY on the same level as an unprovoked and irrelevant dredging of a 2-year old, actionless ANI thread about an editor. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 14:52, 30 January 2024 (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.

Proposed moratorium

There is a consensus for a three-month moratorium on new requested moves discussions, to take effect upon the conclusion of the current RM, whose outcome this consensus should in no way be seen to prejudge. —Compassionate727 (T·C) 18:54, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

The following discussion 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.

As a high-traffic article with many, many "child" pages and categories, we need to keep the article title stable. I would suggest an RM moratorium of six months. — Preceding unsigned comment added by InfiniteNexus (talk • contribs) 05:47, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

  • So a Wiki-ceasefire?[FBDB] I somewhat empathize, but given how unpredictable this conflict has been, it's hard to imagine a moratorium being effective ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 12:58, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Oppose. It's a recent event, and it's normal for recent events to be renamed as the situation unfolds, changes its character, or as new information comes to light. Look for example at 2023 Wagner Group plane crash – had we blocked page moves for 6 months, we'd be stuck with suboptimal titles even now. — kashmīrī TALK 14:17, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Comment Obviously this one is premature, indeed ridiculous and disruptive, but editors filing premature RMs is a user conduct issue that really needs to be dealt with by arbcom, given that this is a contentious subject matter under arbcom restrictions. I don't think a general rule can be determined here one way or the other. Coretheapple (talk) 16:26, 29 January 2024 (UTC) On further consideration, I support and I believe that such a moratorium needs to be effective with the RM prior to this one. We established a clear consensus, and as is pointed out above by several editors, most recently StellarHalo, the effort to overturn the consensus after a few days is, on the merits, contrary to article naming policy. RMs over and over again are a drain on resources and interrupt the constructive editing of this article. Editors have only so much time on their hands in this volunteer project, and focusing time and time again on the article title, because some editors don't like the consensus and are hoping for a different outcome, is disruptive. Coretheapple (talk) 14:54, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Support. As stated. Drsruli (talk) 17:20, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Oppose 1) As a high-traffic article with many, many "child" pages and categories, we need to keep the article title stable is not a reason for a moratorium. 2) If there are continuing shifts in the way that RS report the war, discussion about that should not be artificially prevented. 3) The current RM is well attended and clearly not disruptive, accusations of that being made only by editors with an obvious interest in the outcome.Selfstudier (talk) 17:27, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
    How is it not a reason for a moratorium? You are aware that every time we have an RM, a large banner appears at the top of the page, and every time we move the page, it creates major disruption with numerous associated moves, incoming links, and links from external websites, right? If there are continuing shifts in the way that RS report the war Unlikely, and Wikipedia does not necessarily follow suit even if that happens. The current RM is well attended and clearly not disruptive Starting a tenth RM within days after the previous RM was closed with clear consensus, and without advancing any major arguments that haven't been raised before (WP:DEADHORSE), and making subjective WP:IJUSTDONTLIKEIT comments with no basis in policy, is clearly disruptive. InfiniteNexus (talk) 18:21, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
    Starting a tenth RM within days after the previous RM was closed with clear consensus Do your maths again. The last RM that ended up in a consensus was to rename the article[39], so it was a useful RM. The previous RM that had anything resembling consensus was closed 20 days ago after being open for nearly three weeks[40]. — kashmīrī TALK 18:37, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
    Missing the point. I didn't say anything about the "usefulness" of the RMs, nor is that relevant. RMs are disruptive, tiresome (again, WP:DEADHORSE), has the potential to cause additional disruption if the page is moved, and invite unnecessary drama. InfiniteNexus (talk) 18:41, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
    RMs have worked well to improve this article and many others. While sometimes it's ok to establish a moratorium – esp. when we know that the facts won't change anytime soon (e.g., the 2-year moratorium on renaming Allahabad to Prayagraj) – we shouldn't stiffle discussions that try to address fast-moving developments, such as quickly unfolding recent events. — kashmīrī TALK 23:09, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
    The event is fast-moving. The name that sources use to refer to the event is not "fast-moving". InfiniteNexus (talk) 00:25, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
    Really? Are you absolutely sure that this won't turn into a 2024 Middle East war next month? — kashmīrī TALK 13:49, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
    I think that if it evolves to that point, it would be deserving of its own article; I wouldn't expect the Russia invasion of Ukraine page to morph into the WW3 page or even a "2023 Russo-European conflict" page if it were to spill over. - AquilaFasciata (talk | contribs) 14:12, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
    WW3? Enough that Lebanon or US join the ongoing fight, and the current title will become outdated, likely without a real need of a new article. — kashmīrī TALK 19:44, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
    Ambox tags should not be avoided for the sake of appearance. If there is even a possibility of the current title being inaccurate then readers should be informed as widely as is appropriate. Orchastrattor (talk) 16:03, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Support. Maybe three months instead of six, but clearly we need to do something to stop RM after RM being opened on this topic. BilledMammal (talk) 20:14, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Six months is longer than the entire war has been (at least the post-Oct. 7 flareup). That is absurd. The situation is dynamic and we cannot predict what will happen six weeks from now, not to say six months. I wouldn’t oppose a shorter moratorium (maybe one month), but it should be conditional, e.g., no RM unless there is a significant change in the scope of the war as reflected in RS. If !voters are confident that their position reflects policy and/or consensus, they should not fear further discussion of the subject. WillowCity(talk) 23:27, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Oppose. I find it a bit strange how people here are acting as if having a RM open is somehow detrimental to Wikipedia. There's a little box at the top of the article that says it might be renamed. That's it. There's no hinderance to anybody outside of editors here having a discussion about what to call the article.
Maybe we can have a moratorium if the discussion on renaming the article is finally closed one way or another. And yes, there has been a lot of RMs in the past few weeks, but they were over different issues like the date in the title or the lack thereof. HadesTTW (he/him • talk) 23:39, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
Changed to Conditional Support as long as the RM above is decided first. Strong oppose if this "moratorium" means prematurely closing the RM and retaining the article's current title. HadesTTW (he/him • talk) 17:39, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
Going forward, I would change how you word that. This comes off as incredibly WP:POV because of the retaining the article's current title part; it comes off as "If it doesn't go the way I think it should I'm going to start another RM". The opposition to the premature close would've been completely reasonable on its own. - AquilaFasciata (talk | contribs) 20:01, 1 February 2024 (UTC)
I meant that I'm fine with a moratorium as long as the discussion above is allowed to come to a conclusion (no change, change, no consensus). I support the Israel-Gaza title but if they find no consensus or a consensus to retain the title, I won't object to a moratorium. HadesTTW (he/him • talk) 21:57, 7 February 2024 (UTC)
That's not correct. The 23 December RM, closed 10 January, specifically determined consensus as "Israel-Hamas." There's a lot of text to wade through in this page and associated archives, so some editors do not seem to be aware that the close on 10 January was Breaking down the discussion into parts, 'Israel–Hamas war' and other base titles (i.e. without the year(s)), and whether to have the year(s). Assessing the comments, there is a consensus to use 'Israel–Hamas war' as the base title. This includes variations such as 'Israel–Hamas war', '2023 Israel–Hamas war', 'Israel–Hamas war (2023–present)', etc. What isn't clear is whether to put the year(s) (as a prefix or in parenthesis) and in what form. (emphasis added) Coretheapple (talk) 05:12, 1 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Oppose, the more recent and high-traffic an article is the more important it is for the title to accurately portray the subject. Orchastrattor (talk) 01:09, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Support moratorium as the consensus has not evolved much from the October discussion, with highly similar rationales on both sides of the argument. Oppose six months term as this is a current event, and RS may change stances as this event unfolds. See also WillowCity's comment. NasssaNsertalk 01:27, 30 January 2024 (UTC) 03:02, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Support moratorium along with revert-on-sight for any renaming proposal that is posted prior to the moratorium explanation. This has been working pretty well on Talk:Adam's Bridge, another article with a contentious name. ~Anachronist (talk) 01:42, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Support moratorium per above.  // Timothy :: talk  14:17, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Support two months: There are a few reasons why I think this would be the best approach:
  1. It does appear that there is some kind of effort by RS to change the name from "Hamas war" to "Gaza war"; Wikipedia doesn't lead though, so we should let them simmer and see if it comes into common usage naturally.
  2. When the moratorium lapses, it will have been about 6 mo. since the beginning of the conflict. I would think that (hopefully) most of us could agree that whatever name is in common usage is unlikely to change further and we won't have B2B move discussions.
  3. I agree with the oppose justifications that 6 months is just a very long time.
  4. It's important to note that moratoriums can be ignored if something sufficiently large happens and there's consensus. This is mostly to prevent requests like the one this is attached to; ones where nothing substantial has changed since the last one.
But that's just like, my opinion man. - AquilaFasciata (talk | contribs) 14:37, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
Wikipedia exists in the real world, it's going to lead whether it wants to or not. This would already be true enough for any even decently large article given the encyclopedia's scope, usage, and positive reputation, but is going to go doubly so for an article currently on the top two modules of the front page as this one currently is. Orchastrattor (talk) 22:07, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Support as it is wasting a lot of resources to argue about the name. But there should be a chance to reconsider after a fixed period. If this is the consensus, than any proposed move will be immediately closed. Hopefully sanctions do not have to apply to move requestors, but if it becomes a problem, I suppose they can be banned from the topic of move proposal. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 03:26, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Support Although we cannot predict what will happen in this region, but we can have time to rest and focus on article itself. I think it is not too late to edit the new sources after moratorium for 6 month, because there are many editors who show interest and will to make this article much better. -- Wendylove (talk) 05:11, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Support this is wasting too much editorial resources. If there is any change in the common name of this war, this can always be reversed by wide community consensus. Marokwitz (talk) 07:35, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Support The move has been suggested many times and been shot down many times.
Ergzay (talk) 07:44, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Oppose, the topic is current and developing rapidly; six months is far too long. The discussions only destablize it if it is actually moved, and in that case there's a consensus that moving it was worth the brief destabilization - all the arguments people make about how it is current and in a bunch of infoboxes equally means that we must get the title right, which means we can't completely shut down any discussion of it. Furthermore, at least in its current state, the discussion this is attached to is a terrible argument for a moratorium, since it looks at a glance like it might be headed towards no consensus - the result when there's a no consensus outcome is to step back and discuss compromises, not to immediately move to shut down further discussions. The argument that "of course" we can allow a move if there's some dramatic event isn't useful because editors will naturally disagree over what qualifies - it's extremely unlikely that we will suddenly find out that one of the combatants in the war is actually Luxembourg in a rubber mask; but it is quite reasonable to suggest that coverage (and thus the WP:COMMONNAME) will continue to evolve over time, which could easily shift consensus towards a move but which won't necessarily result from a single decisive event. I'll also point out that many of the people arguing that it is vital that we maintain stability even to the point of shutting down discussions or who feel these discussions are wasting resources supported a move made mere weeks ago, which obviously shows that discussing and even moving the article was not as big of a deal as they're saying here; I think it's fair to ask them to explain that contradiction. --Aquillion (talk) 07:49, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Weakly Oppose: A rose is a rose is a rose. The dependence of this article on non-neutral SOAPBOX sources ensures that Khamas is seen as the sole antagonist, while never affording this seemingly singular belligerent the weight of having a POV equal to the so-called 4th most powerful army in the world. What it needs worse than a rename is a cleanup with lessons learned about sourcing. At least this way the critically thinking reader knows what to expect and can save time by not reading. You can't call it the Second Nakba even though that's exactly what Filestini children and Israeli politicians openly call it. You could have called it Israel War on Gaza like more neutral sources called it, except it's now more than that, innit. Looks like we're stuck, at least for a few days. ClaudeReigns (talk) 08:54, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
So your argument is: "the article is so bad that a bad name is good since it scares readers away", right? If so, the flipside to that is that the name is part of the badness and improving it includes improving the name. Things on Wikipedia improve piecemeal (and sometimes not at all, plenty of stuff that's still bad on here). Jikybebna (talk) 09:13, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Oppose the moratorium. This name and this set of pages needs to be able to evolve and change as the world situation does. Jikybebna (talk) 09:16, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Support shorter (2-3 months), the constant RMs with no clear evidence supporting a new WP:COMMONNAME, but rather just opinions on how they view the topic, so it is becoming burdensome. However, I do see RS changing and feel it would be in less than six months. DankJae 09:37, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Strong support - This should be the last RM before the moratorium b/c let's be clear, the chances that this article's name changes is very low Abo Yemen✉ 13:00, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Support 2-3 months. I agree with the proposer but believe that 6 months is too long. — Czello (music) 16:15, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Support 3 months seems reasonable. Ben Azura (talk) 18:59, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Oppose – It is quite normal to have a long string of RMs before settling on a title for such a page. When the topic is so controversial, it takes a while for the community to settle on a naming pattern. It sometimes takes us years to settle on a name. It is normal for us to have dozens of these discussions. It is not distruptive. It is how Wikipedia works. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 00:43, 1 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Support It is likely that reliable sources will coalesce around a particular name, but this will not happen overnight. In the mean time, our time is better spent elsewhere. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 01:16, 1 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Comment Moved from main discussion section. Coretheapple (talk) 15:59, 2 February 2024 (UTC) One issue that I have not seen addressed by any editor who favors this RM, who feels it is proper and not premature or malformed, is what the end game is here? Is there an end game? Is there an end to the constant RMs? Or will there be another RM if this one is "not proper" in the view of one side or another? When does this "RM Merry-go-Round" stop? Will it stop? And please, don't say, "it depends upon whether we agree to a 'moratorium'" because consensus on that can be overturned by yet another discussion right away, just as consensus on the name of the article was the subject of an RM three days after the last one concluded. Coretheapple (talk) 23:25, 1 February 2024 (UTC)
    Your position on this has been made very clear. Wikipedia is not bound by stare decisis. There is a moratorium under discussion. Maybe time to let it go. WillowCity(talk) 00:10, 2 February 2024 (UTC)
    A perfectly valid question to discuss moving forward. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 03:22, 2 February 2024 (UTC)
    I'm trying to advance the conversation further. But you have a point re there being a moratorium discussion, and that is where this belongs, so I have moved it there. Also my section header was not neutral, I have to admit. Coretheapple (talk) 16:22, 2 February 2024 (UTC)
    Until all media unanimously settle on a particular title, really. We already have consensus to place a moratorium so that we don't have immediate back to back move proposals, but before then I don't think there would be any real consensus on the base title. NasssaNsertalk 08:46, 2 February 2024 (UTC)
    We already have consensus to place a moratorium No we don't. We have only a subset of editors in this discussion pressing for that. Selfstudier (talk) 11:33, 2 February 2024 (UTC)
    Even if there were a moratorium, it would still not prevent an RM if the situation changed sufficiently so as to justify one, so might as well not have one at all. Selfstudier (talk) 11:35, 2 February 2024 (UTC)
    Not replying on the substance, as I am dead tired of the whole subject, but I just wanted to let you know through this reply that I've moved the discussion to the moratorium section, where it really belongs. Coretheapple (talk) 16:25, 2 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Strongly support, except that 6 months might be too short. Tensions run high on this topic. Whatever title we choose, a voluble faction of editors will readily use (and abuse) process to oppose it. Current discussions try to parse slight shifts in news coverage on this topic to divine the future. This wastes editor resources and will never resolve anything. There is no deadline. Ideally, we should wait several years for historical sources to come to a consensus on the name. A 6‑month delay is an acceptable compromise, lest our temporary name, citogenesis-like, sculpt the eventual scholarly consensus. Bernanke's Crossbow (talk) 04:59, 1 February 2024 (UTC)
    Why not block the article from being edited altogether until such time as historians settle on facts and numbers? [sarcasm] — kashmīrī TALK 16:22, 1 February 2024 (UTC)
    I think it is quite disruptive opinion to block all the edits, and that is not how Wikipedia works. Wendylove (talk) 04:36, 2 February 2024 (UTC)
    They were being sarcastic. InfiniteNexus (talk) 18:11, 3 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Strongly support Three months should do. Let's stop the time-wasting nonsense. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 03:18, 2 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Support Would allow for at least some dust to settle, see what reliable sources are saying, and prevent endless discussions that do not seem likely to change anyone's mind at the moment.3Kingdoms (talk) 16:15, 2 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Strong support Many of the !votes in the above RM reek of WP:JDL and don't cite Wikipedia policy. I think it's clear that this subject is getting a lot of media attention - and it's bringing in a lot of people who aren't familiar with how this site works. Best to go over this topic with clearer heads in mind once the fervor dies down a bit... Swordman97 talk to me 21:28, 2 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Support. This can be effective in reducing editor time spent going in circles around the same question, and editor time is our most valuable asset. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 18:07, 4 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Support It's better we discuss this when tensions die down. – Howard🌽33 08:42, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Strongly support It should be clear that we're not going to reach anything like a consensus to change the title. Given we've wasted a large amount of time already with this, I think a 6 month moratorium is a good idea. Chuckstablers (talk) • 21:08, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Support and I think it may be prudent to have separate closers for the RM and the moratorium, and close the moratorium before the close of the RM, lest others think there is a bias in closing both by the same closer. – robertsky (talk) 02:44, 6 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Oppose - 6 months is way too long, it's longer than the war has been going on. I could see 1 month, which is how long the previous moratorium was, or maybe 2 months max. The problem in my view isn't the frequency of RMs, it's that there isn't enough WP:RFCBEFOREing done before launching an RM. People should be gathering and examining the sources, winnowing down the options, etc., before an RM starts (please do that before the next RM, whenever it may be) so that when the RM starts there's already a subpage or something that has a good set of sources listed. Then all voters are looking at the same source material from the get-go, instead of it getting lost during the weeks-long discussion (cuz it always gets relisted). You get all your arguments about the cherry picking and table formatting, all your ANIs and AEs, done before the RM starts. Then the RM will be productive and will lead to a lasting consensus. That's how it was done back in Kiev Kyiv and that's how it'll get done here. Levivich (talk) 03:14, 6 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Oppose - if there was some firm consensus then yes opening new discussions that have no shot of overturning one is disruptive. But this is not the case, and a moratorium would instead have the effect of imposing a title that lacks consensus for some arbitrary period. I dont think any good faith editor can read the above move request and pretend that there is a consensus for this title. There may not be a consensus to change it, but there is certainly not a consensus for it, and in that case more discussion is the Wikipedia way. Not shutting it down to "win" the name argument through means other than consensus. I also restate that I think Robertsky's re-close of this move request to have been improper, that deriving a consensus for the base name when that was not what the discussion was focused on and when there were some 8 options for Israel-Hamas vs 2 for Israel-Gaza and then conflating those different arguments to be something that should have been reviewed. But we are where we are and this move request has already had substantial participation, and at the very least I think it demonstrably proves there is no consensus for this title as the base name. And since there is no consensus, no moratorium should be imposed. nableezy - 14:50, 6 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Support. Every time this page moves, ALL other sub-topics, templates and categories need updating. This is not only bad practice but a horrible waste of editorial time. Most of the commenters in the RM might not care or even know what the implications are, but they should. The "common name" of the war isn't going to change in a week, a month or also six. If it hasn't changed now, it won't change in the next few months. Gonnym (talk) 16:40, 7 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Support: Why can't we wait until RS settle on a proper name (with a capital "War") before having this discussion? Also, I have not seen any evidence that RS are moving toward using "Israel–Gaza" and so the situation is not going to change anytime soon for there to be a need for another RM especially when vast majority of the participants will not be digging through RS for evidence relevant to WP:COMMONNAME anyway. --StellarHalo (talk) 10:02, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Strong Oppose as the current title of this page reads like extremely misleading propaganda. David A (talk) 21:25, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
    how so? 🅲🅻🅴🆃🅴🆁 (a word) 23:24, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
    Ample evidence shows that the main target of Israeli offensive is not Hamas (the target is the entire civilian infrastructure of the Gaza Strip). — kashmīrī TALK 19:05, 9 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Oppose per Levivich and others. The military situation is quickly evolving. For example, the large-scale war in Lebanon is imminent. The naming in sources and the overall organization of this page can also change quickly. This page could be split to several pages per the different theaters of war or be renamed in sources to reflect many theaters, etc. My very best wishes (talk) 15:40, 9 February 2024 (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.

Notification

Pinging everyone involved in the recent RM that has not yet participated here. I believe I've correctly excluded those who have participated here, but apologies to any I miss or ping unnecessarily:

@Abo Yemen, Ainty Painty, Alexysun, Andre Farfan, Antny08, Aquillion, ArthropodLover, Cdjp1, ClaudeReigns, DFlhb, Dan Carkner, DankJae, David A, Dazzling4, Ergzay, ForerunnerAT45, FunLater, Governor Sheng, Jikybebna, Katangais, M3ATH, Marokwitz, Mathglot, Metallurgist, Mr Reading Turtle, NesserWiki, Parham wiki, PaulRKil, Politicdude, Presidentofyes12, Professor Penguino, Quake1234, Remagoxer, Richard-of-Earth, Riposte97, Sebbog13, Stidmatt, Sundostund, Swordman97, ToadetteEdit, WhatamIdoing, and Filelakeshoe:

For ease of navigation, see #Survey (RM) for the proposal, and see #Proposed moratorium for the proposed moratorium on additional RM's. BilledMammal (talk) 07:24, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

If this is merely a reprise of the ongoing RM, all a bit pointless, no? Selfstudier (talk) 11:27, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
I’m not certain what you are asking, but these are the editors who haven’t participated in the ongoing RM but did participate in the previous one. BilledMammal (talk) 11:32, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
Rhetorical. Did you pick up the !voters in the discussion following the previous RM in between the first closure of it and the second? In any case, if all the !voters (who want to keep the title as is) and all those who want a change just reprise their positions here, it seems pointless. Selfstudier (talk) 11:37, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
To be fair, I think a plurality, if not the majority, do think this is pointless. - AquilaFasciata (talk | contribs) 19:33, 1 February 2024 (UTC)
Did you pick up the !voters in the discussion following the previous RM in between the first closure of it and the second? Yes
In any case, if all the !voters (who want to keep the title as is) and all those who want a change just reprise their positions here, it seems pointless. If you're opening an RM less than two weeks after one closed with a consensus against your position then you should be doing so in the belief that circumstances have changed sufficiently for editors who previously !voted against your position to support it.
If circumstances have not changed, and you're merely hoping to get a different group of editors, than I would suggest you're not opening the RM in good faith; instead, you are gaming the system and forum shopping. BilledMammal (talk) 03:12, 3 February 2024 (UTC)
That's what I just said above? Viz Even if there were a moratorium, it would still not prevent an RM if the situation changed sufficiently so as to justify one, so might as well not have one at all. Good to know we agree. Selfstudier (talk) 10:19, 3 February 2024 (UTC)
re: "Even if there were a moratorium, it would still not prevent an RM if the situation changed sufficiently so as to justify one, so might as well not have one at all", you will need CONSENSUS to lift any moratorium before it expires, before proposing a move. Your opinion that the "situation changed sufficiently" is not enough.  // Timothy :: talk  19:04, 9 February 2024 (UTC)
Situation has not changed since the last, I think the repeated RMs are DE, simply trying to get a different group of editors or wearing down editors tired of timesinks.
If this continues I see this headed to ARB, for a few reasons.  // Timothy :: talk  18:55, 9 February 2024 (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.
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