Srebrenica massacre – Decision endorsed. There is a clear consensus that the correct result was "no consensus" – basically because there was not clear evidence presented that the proposed title has become the more common name in reliable, independent sources and because other arguments that were presented had little basis in title policy and guidelines. Several participants in this review argued that the close should be overturned for inadequate explanation. In the absence of either a particular basis in the closing instructions for requiring more explanation or a wider agreement that the spirit and intent of the closing instructions requires that more be added, there is not a consensus to reclose. SilverLocust💬02:50, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The following is an archived debate of the move review of the page above. Please do not modify it.
After many years of watching this article's title go through partisan bickering for move reviews, such that a repeated failure to form a consensus to move, it behooves the project to be able to clearly and coherently articulate to both editors and an interested audience why the title remains Srebrenica massacre instead of Srebrenica genocide. Articles in less contentious areas with contested titles often have FAQs at the top of the talk page that clearly indicates the answer as such, but this article which has had several formal multiple move requests over the years, all to the same proposed new title, [1], [2], [3], as well as several informal move requests going back over 15 years [4](there have been numerous arguments on the talk page archives over the years in addition [5]) about why the article title is what it is.
Of these requests and discussions, the last satisfactory explanation for the move request failing was given in 2009 [6]; The proponents of this move have made an excellent case that the use of the term "Srebrenica genocide" is growing in use, especially with the recent declarations by various national and international organizations. However, the opponents of this move also have made an excellent case that "Srebrenica genocide", while growing in use, has not yet achieved the status of most commonly used name. 15 years later, this is the exact same argument made by those opposed to the argument. How can something be growing in use for 15 years but somehow never quite reach common name? How can editors make heads or tails of the fact that Wikipedia article regarding the reason that the name of the article about a genocide differs from the name used by national and international organizations is that consensus cannot be formed by a group of editors with minimal or no supervision, flinging accusations of genocide denial back and forth?
I thank Reading Beans for having taken the time to read through the move request and have the courage to put an end to the conversation, as they'd have good reason to suspect the same tenor of conversation as in the move request would come to their talk page, but it is not a satisfactory outcome to simply offer to Feel free to make another RM when due. and not be able to articulate, to a satisfactory degree, anything regarding the number of votes for or against, contextualize the latest of many failed move requests over several years, or, more importantly, offer anything regarding the strength or weakness of these arguments. That this opportunity for a move review comes in tandem with another highly contested article title in a similar topic space motivates this move review all the more. That the level of insight, attention, and conversation which the Gaza genocide move requests have gotten is entire magnitudes of maturity and coherency than what the Srebrenica genocide article gets nowadays is understandable given that one is more topical than another, but there isan opportunity here to finally provide a satisfactory explanation for the article, instead of kicking it down the can for another 15 years. To the best of my knowledge this is the first time someone has submitted this article's numerous unsuccessful move requests for a move review, and if this is the case it is long overdue. 122141510 (talk) 02:27, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Weak endorse (involved): There certainly were strong opinions expressed in favour of the move proposal, but seemingly motivated as much to WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS as by Wikipedia policy & guidelines, producing a larger volume of argumentation than those opposed, and perhaps generating more heat than light. Closure was a difficult judgment call, and another person could have perceived the same discussion as a consensus to move, but I don't see sufficient grounds for overturning a no consensus declaration. The same proposal was a snow close against it at Talk:Srebrenica massacre/Archive 22#Requested move 25 April 2021. Revisiting the question in a couple of years seems reasonable. — BarrelProof (talk) 04:09, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
(involved) I object, as I did in the discussion, to the idea that WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS as a motivation would be exclusive to the support side. Some editors saw fit to question the legitimacy or procedure of international organizations in recognizing the genocide. If it's fit to suspect support arguments are doing it to 'correct' Wikipedia, those object arguments which questioned the legitimacy of international organizations recognizing the genocide may see objecting to the move request as an opportunity to 'correct' the international consensus. 122141510 (talk) 05:50, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I have not noticed anyone in the RM discussion trying to minimize the gravity of the event or anyone who "questioned the legitimacy [or procedure] of international organizations recognizing the genocide". The article about The Holocaust uses the word 'genocide' just once in its lead section. The Darfur genocide article uses it twice (one of which is the opening sentence's repetition of the article's title). The Armenian genocide article uses it four times. This article uses the word nine times in its lead section. I have not noticed anyone trying to remove the word or say the word does not apply and should not be used in the article. I have not noticed anyone in the RM discussion trying to say that the term is not accurate in the way it was applied in organizational declaration(s). — BarrelProof (talk) 18:56, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
One of the opposers repeatedly questioned the legitimacy of the UN and/or its processes, and another indicated that they questioned the "moral authority of UN pronouncements in this area". 122141510 (talk) 00:45, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Reclose or relist (uninvolved). Unless I'm missing something, the closer does not appear to have given an explanation for their conclusion. I'd be open to ReadingBeans themselves re-closing this with a 4-5 paragraph explanation. That length is warranted given the variety of arguments and sources presented. Even if the result is the same such a close would be incredibly useful for future move discussions.VR(Please ping on reply)04:53, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
(involved) To avoid any confusion, the full explanation as provided by closer is here Talk:Srebrenica_massacre#Requested_move_2_June_2024. My submission above might give an incorrect impression that the closure explanation was only 8 words long – it's actually 54 words, but my contention is effectively what you've suggested. 122141510 (talk) 05:40, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Weak endorse (uninvolved). While I agree that the closer's decision could have been more detailed, I suspect that a more careful and detailed closing judgement would nevertheless arrive at the same conclusion. I count 8 supporting and 9 opposing votes, and I too get the impression that to WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS motivated supporters to a considerable degree. In such a case, a declaration that they nevertheless had the better arguments would look suspiciously like a WP:Supervote. A relist seems pointless, as the RM was open for almost two months – surely long enough to gather qualified input. Gawaon (talk) 05:23, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse (involved). Very clear no consensus. The close was entirely correct. It looks like the proposer just wants to re-argue the case here and that's not what MR is for. The debate has been going on for far too long already. I also agree that most supporters seem to have been motivated by WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS and that's not what Wikipedia is about. -- Necrothesp (talk) 07:31, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Recloseoverturn with a rationale (involved). Per VR and Joe. Zero explanation in the close. The policies discussed were COMMONNAME and PRECISION. Closers must give some explanation/rationale for the decision. Added: It would be damaging to set a precedent/encourage closes with zero rationale, Tom B (talk) 09:06, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes I can argue that closes should be overturned if they include zero rationale or summary. I argue there is consensus to move based on COMMONNAME and PRECISION, but the closer doesn't mention any argument or policy, Tom B (talk) 10:13, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
So, are you arguing that it should be overturned to a move or not a move? Because it's a clear no consensus, whatever rationale was supplied by the closer. There's no way in hell there was a consensus to move the article. And if there's no consensus to move then an article stays where it is. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:46, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Several of us, including Joe, Szmenderowiecki, myself are arguing it should have a rationale regardless of what the consensus is. A surprising number of editors are endorsing a close that has no rationale, Tom B (talk) 14:54, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm wonder what is the mechanism (if any) by which a panel of multiple editors might agree to reclose and certify the rationale, such as was done here [7]? I think there's some hesitation in being the person tasked with closing contentious articles in this topic area – there is either a policy or more likely an essay I haven't been able to find that advises uninvolved editors to avoid this topic space lest they bear the brunt of one or more sides of the contentious editors in this area. (I haven't been able to find it but I swear it exists in mainspace. It also speaks about the idea of just letting editors 'tire themselves out. Point being, I am of the impression uninvolved editors are consciously avoiding any level of involvement this topic area.) The immediate effect would be to provides more confidence in the rationale for the closure, and dilutes the amount of grief any one closer might get. 122141510 (talk) 19:23, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse (uninvolved): As much as I'd like for things to be called what they are, Wikipedia has a policy called WP:COMMONNAME. WP:COMMONNAME as a policy makes sense, because people should be able to more easily find the things with the names that they are more likely to give them. While the usage of "Srebrenica genocide" may have increased it was clear from discussion that it has not clearly overtaken "Srebrenica massacre" in usage and was equal at best. Therefore I can't see how the closer could have arrived at any other conclusion, than no consensus, given the strengths of the arguments and the evidence presented for their support. TarnishedPathtalk10:19, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
COMMONNAME is one of 5 criteria for titles, the closer could have looked at the other criteria discussed and evidence provided e.g. on PRECISION. We don't know what policies the closer applied as there is no rationale, no mention of any policy. I'm surprised uninvolved editors are endorsing a close with no summary, no rationale, no mention of any policy e.g. COMMONNAME, PRECISION? Tom B (talk) 10:37, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes the closing statement wasn't flash hot. However, even if someone recloses with a more detailed rationale I can't see the outcome changing from no consensus. TarnishedPathtalk04:29, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
thanks, i can see the outcome changing if all 5 criteria were applied, per the policy on titles. Here there are 2 COMMONnames so it particularly makes sense to look at other criteria e.g. PRECISION, Tom B (talk) 17:25, 28 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I haven't read through through the discussion yet but at the least this is a very poor closing statement. It just states the outcome with zero supporting reasoning—no summary of the arguments, nothing, not even a headcount—and unnecessarily talks down the participants ("bricks of !votes", "feel free to make another RM"). The closer couldn't even be bothered to spell out their words properly ("thru"). A formal close serves two purposes: to save others having to read through the whole discussion by summarising the points of consensus, and to lend weight to the outcome by reassuring participants that their arguments have been considered, even if their preferred outcome didn't happen. Both are especially important in lengthy and contentious discussions like this one. Since this close offers no information and actively antagonises the participants it's worse than no close at all, and I'm tempted to say it should be overturned on that basis alone. – Joe (talk) 11:21, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
On reflection, yes, that's enough for this close not to stand. So reclose by someone willing to write a proper closing statement. – Joe (talk) 15:02, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I made a point that the term massacre is controversial and that we cannot have a controversial term favored over the other non controversial term on the grounds of COMMON name. I also made a point that COMMON name process is flawed.That wasn't addressed at all. Trimpops2 (talk) 11:49, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
They're both controversial, rather your argument is privileging one form of "controversial" ("massacre" minimises severity) as being right and the other ("genocide" overstates severity) as being wrong ("denial", see also comment by Jessintime below). If most sources call it a "genocide" then cool, it's a reason to have that be the title, but you can't then go woke on whether people are allowed to say "massacre". Did the UN declare "massacre" harmful? Do most sources care? Is there a "denialist" movement directed at the consensus that "massacre" is harmful? Apologies if this is offtopic for I do endorse having a summary of arguments in the talk page per current consensus (as above).FMasic (talk) 23:51, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
They are not both controversial. This is not the place to have discussions from the talk page, but suffice to say that jo one made a point that genocide is a controversial term, including you. I've made several other points apart from this 2 I have mentioned here. and I would like to have an explanation in how they were considered when establishing the consensus. Trimpops2 (talk) 01:46, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Establishing which consensus? There was no consensus, as the closer clearly enough indicated (even though I agree that their statement could and should have been more detailed and better explained). Gawaon (talk) 05:40, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
What's your figuring on that? When I subtract those arguments I find without merit, there is a consensus to move on the basis of WP:TITLE criteria. I couldn't have closed the request both because I was involved and because a contentious article would've been a poor choice for someone to do their first ever move request close on. 122141510 (talk) 15:22, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I mean... is the argument here that this point about massacre being controversial and genocide not, that because nobody addressed it then it should go into the rationale? Because if it did go into the rationale then I think it'd get a lot more scrutiny for being a terrible point (my argument above). Sorry I wasn't there to say anything I guess 🤷. If that isn't the point then my fault for misunderstanding. It seems to me that if there's a common name consensus then it's based on more objective criteria such as counting. FMasic (talk) 15:04, 31 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Gawaon, the consensus being that there is no consensus for the change. That is the consensus on the move request. I still expect explanation on how my points were considered. As I see, only COMMONNAME was considered, and even for that process I have argued the counting was flawed. I have used COMMONNAME argument in support of the move. Trimpops2 (talk) 23:19, 1 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Reclose If the discussion outcome were obvious, I would have had no problem whatsoever with a short closure. In more controversial discussions like this one, I need to understand the motives of the closer for me to see if the closure was within editorial discretion and to rebut any assumptions that the closer may have made. However, here there's basically nothing except for the result. This isn't good enough. I think the closer should provide a reasonably detailed rationale so that we are sure that the closure was based on correct assumptions.
Endorse (uninvolved). Notwithstanding the fact that the closer should have offered a better explanation, the no-consensus close was correct. Evidence introduced by a proponent of the move showed each term is used equally and, if anything, massacre remains the common name. And quite frankly the idea that calling something a massacre and not a genocide is denying that event happened -- as proponents did throughout the discussion -- is insulting. ~~ Jessintime (talk) 19:59, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. A post closure comment on the talk page and some of the comments above make me wonder if a lot of the problem was an unsophisticated rationale as provided by the request submitter – "per the UN using the term", in effect – so some oppose arguments were formulated as little more than attacks on the UN's procedure and/or moral authority, ignoring or otherwise sidestepping the attempt to move the conversation to supporting or opposing the move on the basis of Wikipedia guidelines and policy. If the move request is relisted it might need to be done so with some modification to the submitter rationale[?]; if reclosed the explanation should clearly explain whether those arguments were given weight and if so why. 122141510 (talk) 00:56, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse (involved, I argued against the move): I would have welcomed a more detailed rationale and an admin closure, but perfectly understand why neither happened. The closer has done well if they have waded through the oceans of specious and bad-faith argumentation. As others have argued above, the fundamental issue centred on COMMONNAME. The little evidence provided (mainly by a proponent of the move), is well summarised as While the usage of "Srebrenica genocide" may have increased it was clear from discussion that it has not clearly overtaken "Srebrenica massacre". And long and middle-term usage still shows a strong preference for 'massacre'. I cannot see how any close other than 'no consensus for move' could have been arrived at. I thank those editors above who note that neither the article itself, nor editors arguing against the move, were implicitly or explicitly minimising the seriousness of the crimes committed at Srebrenica. It is tiresome, offensive and tediously predictable to be repeatedly accused of giving comfort to historical revisionists, Serb apologists or genocide deniers. Pincrete (talk) 19:11, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse The closer's only error was not doing a better job with elaborating why this no consensus was a no consensus. Since the resolution was recent, and since Wikipedia is conservative in these regards, I would not be surprised if the next move discussion in six months to a year finds a consensus. But those opposing have valid arguments and their opinions cannot be easily discarded. SportingFlyerT·C18:16, 28 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The above is an archive of the move review of the page listed in the close of this review. Please do not modify it.
Gaza genocide – Endorsed. We're a month into this MRV now, and from a rough count, I see around 22 !votes endorsing the closure and 15 saying to overturn. I also don't see any kind of slam-dunk argument in the overturn !votes to suggest that I should not find consensus with the majority here. Endorsers argued that the move ran for 2 months, and that the closer summarised the votes and evidence presented in the discussion accurately. Overturners argued that options 1 and 2 should have been considered together as a majority over option 3 and that the new title is a POVTITLE not supported by scholarship. This point was countered by those endorsing, who believed that the participants of the RM and move closer had interpreted sourcing correctly in regard to how it terms this topic, and that there was no POVTITLE. Overall, there's nothing in here to suggest one side is emphatically right or wrong on that question. This is obviously a highly contentious area, but it seems the consensus of the community across both the RM and the MRV is that the new title is the correct one at this time. — Amakuru (talk) 15:53, 22 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The following is an archived debate of the move review of the page above. Please do not modify it.
On 3 May 2024 there was a requested move from "Allegations of genocide in the 2023 Israeli attack on Gaza" and it was moved to "Gaza genocide". Three options were available to vote for the new article title: "Gaza genocide question", "Gaza genocide accusation" and "Gaza genocide". While the third option had the plurality of the votes, options 1 and 2 had a majority combined, and are basically the same thing just put into two different titles. I want to hear comments on if the move was applied too soon and if there is a clear consensus to call it Gaza genocide. User:Selfstudier wrote "If you want to dispute the current article title, which has consensus, Move Review is the place, where I note no-one has to date contested the recent move". [8] I am thus following his suggestion to ask for further review.--3E1I5S8B9RF7 (talk) 12:22, 22 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse (uninvolved). This move review is not at all timely. I get that people have lives, but almost three weeks after the RM was closed is getting a bit long in the tooth. That aside, consensus is not determined by a blind head count and the closer clearly articulated why consensus was to be found with option 3 given the detailed source analyses which were provided in support of option 3. TarnishedPathtalk13:02, 22 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: 3E1I5S8B9RF7, did you discuss your concerns with the closer before opening this move review? The link you provided goes to their close of the RfC, not to any discussion you have had with them about their close. --Pinchme123 (talk) 04:33, 23 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
They didn't. But another use did raise the same misunderstanding about the counts at User talk:Joe Roe#Genocide close. In short you can't just add up the number of supports for 1 and 2 because many people supported more than one option. If you count the number of participants who supported option 3 against the number of participants who did not support it, there's a majority in favour of option 3. – Joe (talk) 06:28, 23 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't, but other users did. There were discussions and discussions, but it was always the same outcome: those who wanted a recount / reconsideration of the title name and those who refused another review because they thought it was a settled consensus.--3E1I5S8B9RF7 (talk) 16:28, 23 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn (uninvolved). According to my own recount, 29 editors preferred Option 1 or 2 (or both), 2528 preferred Option 3 [figure corrected after another recount]. Considering that 1/2 were clearly closely related (and most editors saw this), this numerical outcome indicates that "one of them" would likely have been the most appropriate outcome. At least the closer should have explained why they saw a consensus for Option 3 despite it being endorsed by only a minority of editors, but they didn't. The closer also showed biased by downweighting arguments of "there is no Gaza genocide" as "not policy-based", while apparently accepting arguments of "yes, it's a genocide and should be called such" (widely made by those in favour of Option 3) as policy-biased. Gawaon (talk) 07:00, 23 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
My count was 32 for option 3 versus 27 for option 1 or 2 – a majority. It's normal for different editors to come to counts that differ by a head or two (sometimes you lose a !vote in a thread, etc.) but I don't know how to explain such a large discrepancy. – Joe (talk) 07:17, 23 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
OK, I did miscount a little bit too – looks like I overlooked a few Option 3 votes. Let's try again.
Counting only those who voted under Talk:Gaza genocide/Archive 2 § Three options, I count for Option 1 or 2: Alaexis, Alalch E., AndyBloch, Animal lover 666, BilledMammal, Bondegezou, Cdjp1, CoffeeCrumbs, Cremastra, Crossroads, Czello, Eladkarmel, FortunateSons, HaOfa, Hogo-2020, Howardcorn33, Kowal2701, Let'srun, Me Da Wikipedian, Metropolitan90, My very best wishes, NoonIcarus, Oleg Y., Paul Vaurie, Some1, TimeEngineer, Vegan416, xDanielx (opposed Option 3, which can be considered implicit support for 1 or 2), Zanahary – total: 29 editors.
For Option 3: BluePenguin18, Brusquedandelion, Chaotic Enby, CNC, David A, Dreameditsbrooklyn, FunLater, Huldra, Iazyges, Iskandar323, Ïvana, kashmīrī, KetchupSalt, Kinsio, Levivich, MarkiPoli, M.Bitton, Nishidani, PBZE, Personisinsterest, Rainsage, SKAG123, Skitash, Smallangryplanet, Stephan rostie, The Great Mule of Eupatoria, Trilletrollet, Vice regent – total: 28 editors.
Three editors (blindlynx, Selfstudier, Vinegarymass911) voted for option 1/2 or 3, without expressing a clear preference for either, so I didn't include them in either count.
Now it's almost a tie, but still not a majority for Option 3. A no consensus decision might have been more appropriate. In any case, the closing decision didn't take proper consideration of how close the vote count really was. Gawaon (talk) 08:54, 23 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The rationale for the close seemed largely based on numbers though. In particular, the closer didn't mention any particular arguments he found convincing for why (3) would not be a WP:POVTITLE, but just said that there was no consensus on the matter. — xDanielxT/C\R17:55, 29 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There is nothing intrinsically wrong with basing a close on numbers provided that each !vote was properly argued in relation to WP policy, notavote is meant to distinguish stuff like "Wtf, no way" and give less weight to such. Selfstudier (talk) 18:01, 29 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I agree, a finding of consensus that's driven by numbers is generally reasonable, just not when the numbers are approximately 50-50. — xDanielxT/C\R19:16, 29 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The closer clearly articulated why they saw consensus with option 3, that being the detailed source analyses which were provided in support of that option, amongst other considerations. TarnishedPathtalk09:47, 23 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse (uninvolved) The discussion lasted for about two months, from 3 May 2024 to 2 July 2024. Particularly interesting on the issue of sourcing is Levivich initially arguing for Option 1, but after looking at the sources, switchingto Option 3. The arguments presented in the RM for Options 1/2 do not provide significant numbers of genocide scholars' sources arguing against genocide occurring. Joe Roe's closing summary accurately provides a rough consensus based on policy – WP:RS – rather than vote counting, and is fair in stating that the sourcing argument was contested but not convincingly rebutted. Boud (talk) 00:22, 24 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. I'm not sure I agree with the closer's claim that "the arguments in favour of this title generally had a stronger grounding in reliable sources", see the thread that followed FortunateSons's !vote in the original discussion in which many sources were presented which did not support the option chosen by the closer. Alaexis¿question?09:22, 25 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
We have further collected opinions from relevant experts in the below template. You can see over time a shift to sources with heavier weight and more detailed opinions provided explaining the assessment of the assault as genocide.
Scholarly and expert opinions on the Gaza genocide
"As if to spit on the post-Holocaust moral clarion call of “never again”, Israel, a signatory to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, has in effect declared its intention to commit an act of genocide by cutting off all “water, electricity, and food supplies” to the 2.2 million people in Gaza."
"This settler ideology is supported by Likud, the party of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is committed to further settlement expansion. Like the American ideology of "manifest destiny," this settler ideology is used to justify forced displacement of Palestinians who have lived in the occupied territories for thousands of years.", "Dehumanization of the enemy is common in wars and genocides. It is already evident in this war, with Hamas militants spitting on and mutilating bodies of their victims and the Israeli Defence Minister calling Hamas "human animals." Dehumanization is a stage of genocide.", "Genocide Watch considers the war in Israel and Gaza to be at Stage 3: Discrimination, Stage 4: Dehumanization, Stage 5: Organization, Stage 6: Polarization, Stage 8: Persecution, and Stage 9: Extermination."
"La directrice exécutive de Jewish Voice for Peace a lancé un vibrant « plaidoyer juif », appelant à « se dresser contre l'acte de génocide d'Israël ». Couper l'eau, l'électricité et le gaz, interrompre l'approvisionnement en nourriture et envoyer des missiles sur les marchés où les habitants tentent de se ravitailler, bombarder des ambulances et des hôpitaux déjà privés de tout ce qui leur permet de fonctionner, tuer des médecins et leur famille : la conjonction du siège total, des frappes aériennes et bientôt des troupes au sol condamne à mort un très grand nombre de civils – par les armes, la faim et la soif, le défaut de soins aux malades et aux blessés." [The executive director of Jewish Voice for Peace has issued a vibrant "Jewish plea," calling for "standing up against Israel's act of genocide." Cutting off water, electricity and gas, interrupting food supplies and sending missiles into markets where residents are trying to get supplies, bombing ambulances and hospitals already deprived of everything that allows them to function, killing doctors and their families: the combination of total siege, airstrikes and soon ground troops is condemning a very large number of civilians to death – by weapons, hunger and thirst, and the failure to care for the sick and wounded.], "Du premier génocide du XXe siècle, celui des Herero, en 1904, mené par l'armée allemande en Afrique australe, qui, selon les estimations, a provoqué 100 000 morts de déshydratation et de dénutrition, au génocide des juifs d'Europe et à celui des Tutsi, la non-reconnaissance de la qualité d'êtres humains à ceux qu'on veut éliminer et leur assimilation à des animaux a été le prélude aux pires violences." [From the first genocide of the 20th century, that of the Herero in 1904, carried out by the German army in southern Africa, which, according to estimates, caused 100,000 deaths from dehydration and malnutrition, to the genocide of the Jews of Europe and that of the Tutsi, the non-recognition of the quality of human beings of those who are to be eliminated and their assimilation to animals has been the prelude to the worst violence.]
Various scholars, most of whom in relevant fields.
TWAILR journal website
"we are compelled to sound the alarm about the possibility of the crime of genocide being perpetrated by Israeli forces against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.", "Language used by Israeli political and military figures appears to reproduce rhetoric and tropes associated with genocide and incitement to genocide.", "Evidence of incitement to genocide has also been present in Israeli public discourse."
"Katherine Gallagher, senior attorney with CCR and a legal representative for victims in the pending ICC investigation in Palestine, told The Intercept. "U.S. officials can be held responsible for their failure to prevent Israel's unfolding genocide, as well as for their complicity, by encouraging it and materially supporting it.""
Yes
Already in article;
There is then also the CCR's full 44-page briefing declaring it genocide and naming the US as a complicit party (not in article).
""We are sounding the alarm: There is an ongoing campaign by Israel resulting in crimes against humanity in Gaza. Considering statements made by Israeli political leaders and their allies, accompanied by military action in Gaza and escalation of arrests and killing in the West Bank, there is also a risk of genocide against the Palestinian People," the experts said."
"A director of the United Nations High Commissioner of Human Rights has resigned, issuing a lengthy letter condemning the organization, the U.S., and Western media companies for their positions on the war between Israel and Hamas, which he described as a "text-book case of genocide."", ""Once again, we are seeing a genocide unfolding before our eyes, and the Organization that we serve appears powerless to stop it," wrote Craig Mokhiber, the group's New York office director, who had worked with the U.N. for more than three decades.""
"[Dehumanizing rhetoric] is horrifying and it all leads us to where we are at right now, which is the fact that what is happening in Gaza is a genocide."
"As the Israeli genocide in Gaza unfolds and global public awareness is becoming increasingly acute, it is becoming clearer that the myths surrounding the colonial conflict in Palestine serve not as guides to understanding, but as barriers. These myths, perpetuated by pro-Israel propagandists, Western powers, and Arab regimes have had dire consequences – ones measured in lost lives, crushed hopes, and a perpetually destabilised region.", "Israel's ongoing genocide in Gaza serves as a tacit admission of Israel's fragility".
"Israel has no greater ambition than to coexist with the Palestinians as peaceful neighbors; [The genocide claims] "threaten future attempts to identify, prevent, and prosecute that crime. It is equally damaging to the legitimacy of Holocaust and Genocide Studies as a field when such false claims are presented in the guise of scholarly expertise.""
"The Hamas massacre with the declared intention of eliminating Jewish life in general has prompted Israel to strike back. How this retaliation, which is justified in principle, is carried out is the subject of controversial debate; principles of proportionality, the prevention of civilian casualties and the waging of a war with the prospect of future peace must be the guiding principles. Despite all the concern for the fate of the Palestinian population, however, the standards of judgement slip completely when genocidal intentions are attributed to Israel's actions."
"Euro-Med Monitor renewed its calls on all countries across the world to take decisive action to end the Israeli genocide against the people of the Gaza Strip, citing their legal obligations to stop this horrifying crime against humanity."
"What is happening in Gaza fits the definition of genocide.", "To understand what is transpiring in Gaza, we must turn to the key legal frameworks that define genocide: Article 6 of the Rome Statute for the International Criminal Court and Article 2 of the Genocide Convention. […] Gaza's devastating reality mirrors these components of genocide. Despite claiming to target only Hamas, Israel is engaged in an all-out assault on the whole population of Gaza."
Q: "Welche Reaktion erhoffen Sie sich als Unterzeichnerin des offenen Briefes "Philosophie für Palästina"?." [What reaction do you hope to get as a signatory of the open letter "Philosophy for Palestine"?]
A: "Ich hoffe, dass der Völkermord an der Zivilbevölkerung in Gaza ein Ende hat. Es gibt Menschen, die sich von einem Völkermord abwenden, wenn er geschieht, und später bereuen, dass sie sich geweigert haben, das zu benennen, was sie sehen und wissen. Ich schließe mich denen an, die diese bösartige und vorsätzliche Gewalt als "Völkermord" bezeichnen, denn sie entspricht der Definition der Völkermordkonvention." [I hope that the genocide of the civilian population in Gaza will come to an end. There are people who turn away from genocide when it happens, and later regret that they refused to name what they see and know. I join those who call this vicious and deliberate violence "genocide" because it corresponds to the definition of the Genocide Convention.]
""Genocide" is generally under-deployed because states wish to avoid the responsibilities to "prevent and punish" that the convention imposes on signatories, but there is a special aversion to investigating its implications for Israel's conduct. Western states continue to protect it out of a misplaced belief that Jews, having been prime historical victims of genocide, cannot also be its perpetrators. Israel's current policies are rapidly destroying that conceit, however, and bringing closer the day when its leaders — as well as those of Hamas — will be brought to account for their crimes."
"Today, more than ever, we need to reaffirm, without any caveats, the right of Jews to live in Israel and to defend themselves against those who deny Israel and Jews the right to exist. We deplore the humanitarian catastrophe of the Palestinian people in Gaza and note that it derives directly from the use of civilians as human shields by the Hamas. We, the scholars of the Holocaust assembled in Prague at the Lessons & Legacies conference, as well as other Holocaust scholars and persons devoted to Holocaust memory, unequivocally condemn the politics of terror pursued by Hamas and denounce the forces of global antisemitism."
"Only five posts were positive about Israel, some refuting the accusation that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians. Notorious Jewish critics of Israel, such as Norman Finkelstein (Figure 11), Gabor Maté, and Jane Hirschmann were repeatedly used to accuse Israel of ethnic cleansing and genocide, often with embedded videos.", "It is worth noting that according to the United Nations definition of genocide, the Hamas massacre is genocide, while the Gaza war is not."
"the Israeli state is employing its extensive and advanced military capacity to inflict violence on Palestinian peoples on such a scale that it is accurate to frame it as the annihilation phase of genocide.", "Israel's announcement of a state of 'total siege' of Gaza, cutting off water, food, electricity and medical supplies, amounted to a clear statement of intent to commit genocide against the Palestinian people by 'deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part' (Genocide Convention 1948, Article 2)."
"To be sure, some of the deeply disturbing rhetoric coming from senior figures in the Israeli government [..] raises the risk of genocidal actions. [..] However, to claim that genocide is already occurring requires stretching the concept too far, emptying it of any meaning."
"The mere fact that Israel and the Palestinians have been waging a bloody war between them for four generations, and they are both committing war crimes and hair-raising acts of violence, still does not mean that a genocide began in Gaza in October 2023"
"Some may claim that the invocation of genocide, especially in Gaza, is fraught. But does one have to wait for a genocide to be successfully completed to name it? This logic contributes to the politics of denial. When it comes to Gaza, there is a sense of moral hypocrisy that undergirds Western epistemological approaches, one which mutes the ability to name the violence inflicted upon Palestinians.", "If the international community takes its crimes seriously, then the discussion about the unfolding genocide in Gaza is not a matter of mere semantics.", "Numerous statements made by top Israeli politicians affirm their intentions. There is a forming consensus among leading scholars in the field of genocide studies that "these statements could easily be construed as indicating a genocidal intent," as Omer Bartov, an authority in the field, writes."
"Verdeja says Israel's actions in Gaza are moving toward a "genocidal campaign." While he notes that it is clear Israeli forces intend to destroy Hamas, "the response when you have a security crisis…can be one of ceasefire, negotiation, or it can be genocide.""
"City University of New York professor Victoria Sanford compares what's happening in Gaza to the killing or disappearance of more than 200,000 Mayans in Guatemala from 1960-1996, known as the Guatemalan genocide"
"Israel has only explicitly said they want to exterminate Hamas, and has not directly stated intent to "destroy a religious, ethnic or racial group." Simon says it's possible a court could conclude that either Hamas or some elements of the Israel Defense Force (IDF) could be found guilty of committing an act of genocide, but "it's certainly not textbook in that connecting the intent to destroy ethnic group as such is difficult.""
"Israel's retaliatory bombing of Gaza, however indiscriminate, and its current ground attacks, despite the numerous civilian casualties they are causing among Gaza's Palestinian population, do not meet the very high threshold that is required to meet the legal definition of genocide."
"when Mokhiber called it a "textbook case of genocide," he seemed to be "drawing on a more social scientific understanding that looks at settler colonialism and sort of this long term gradual erasure of a group.""
"Charging Israel With Genocide in Gaza Is Inflammatory and Dangerous. Historians must be guided by the facts, not political agendas. But when Omer Bartov in The New York Times charged Israel with 'verging' into genocide and ethnic cleansing, he grounded his argument in assertions, not evidence."
"Israel's targets are military: Hamas's soldiers, tunnels, headquarters and weapons stocks. By placing military targets in and under civilian structures, it is Hamas that violates laws of war.
The 1948 U.N. Genocide Convention mentions demonstrable intent to destroy a national, racial or religious group. Mr. Bartov is mute about Israel's hundreds of phone calls to Gazans warning them to leave buildings in which Hamas fighters were located. Israel has urged civilians to evacuate to the south to escape battle. A government intent on genocide would do the opposite."
"The left that expresses these ideas have no intellectual knowledge of international laws making clear distinctions between different ways of killings", "Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza that entails urban house-to-house fighting that regrettably creates many civilian casualties, as in other wars of this type".
"By denying their historical connection with Palestine and by attributing a genocidal intention to those who built a state to protect themselves from any genocidal recurrence, Didier Fassin reactivates a classic anti-Semitic gesture that always proceeds by inversion: accusing the Jews of being guilty of what one is preparing to do or fantasizes about doing to them.", "And yet, one must choose sides on the question of whether or not one recognizes the right of the State of Israel to exist. If one recognizes it, then the massacre of civilians, intentionally targeted on its sovereign territory, gives it the right not only to defend itself, but to take the necessary measures to ensure that this can never happen again, and therefore to eliminate Hamas, whose program this is."
"The contention that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza in retribution for Hamas' October 7 massacres is a false claim not founded in international law."
"It's not an easy case because you have to have that smoking gun. So, you know, I respectfully disagree with his [Mokhiber's] approach on this. If you look at both parties in this tragedy that is unfolding, the prime minister of Israel has to specifically state that, I intend to destroy, in whole or in part, the Palestinian people. And I would suggest, respectfully, that that has not been said. Now, they have a long-term problem politically, practically and legally related to their treatment of the Palestinians. But I would beg to differ. I don't think one would categorize that as genocide."
"Many accuse Israel of genocide. These accusations undermine the meaning of what they allege. It might be appealing to toss such accusations about but, as Justice Stewart warned, the significance of the concept of war crimes and credibility of the law is eroded by such overbroad and often invalid accusations.
One need only consider the genocide accusation. Palestinians make up 20 percent of the Israeli population with the same civil rights and legal privileges as any other Israeli citizen. How this aligns with the accusation that Israel is engaged in a systemic effort to destroy this ethnic group is perplexing. Nor do casualties in Gaza support even suspicion of genocide."
No
The view that Palestinians enjoy the "same civil rights and legal privileges" is highly contested by other legal experts. See 2010 report, 2022 report, 2023 report
"Beaucoup de chercheurs en France et en Europe se refusent à parler de génocide et évoquent, au mieux, le terme de nettoyage ethnique. Faut-il leur rappeler que de nombreux génocides ont été perpétrés dans la continuation du nettoyage ethnique et lorsque celui-ci a été rendu impossible ? Combien de cases faudra-il cocher avant que les puissances occidentales se décident à réagir fermement et que les intellectuels se saisissent vraiment de ce sujet ?" [Many researchers in France and Europe refuse to talk about genocide and, at best, use the term ethnic cleansing. Should we remind them that many genocides have been perpetrated in the continuation of ethnic cleansing and when it has been made impossible? How many boxes will have to be ticked before Western powers decide to react firmly and intellectuals really take up this subject?]
"The siege of Gaza itself, that is extermination or persecution as a crime against humanity, and it's a form of genocide... Inflicting conditions to destroy the group, that itself is a genocide. So creating a siege itself is a genocide, and that is very clear, that Israel want the siege is very clear. And the intentions to destroy the people, many officers from the Israel government are expressing genocidal intentions. That's why it's easy to say — under reasonable basis to believe — Israel is committing a genocide in Gaza."
"Bartov chooses his words carefully. He warns of possibly impending genocide without claiming it is happening already. Some statements of certain Israeli policymakers are indeed worrisome. Yet, while they may be relevant for proving the necessary specific intent, they cannot automatically be attributed to the persons who are taking the military decisions."
"We, scholars of the Holocaust, genocide, and mass violence, feel compelled to warn of the danger of genocide in Israel's attack on Gaza.", "Moreover, dozens of statements of Israeli leaders, ministers in the war cabinet, and senior army officers since 7 October—that is, people with command authority—suggest an "intent to destroy" Palestinians "as such," in the language of the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide."
"The genocide being perpetrated by the State of Israel is embedded in a complex historical, political, and strategic context that seems to have fostered and, ultimately, devolved into a pervasive genocidal dynamic on both sides of the conflict – Israel, on the one hand, and the Islamist militant organization known as Hamas, on the other – as well as among segments of their respective populations, especially, as will be explained below, in the case of Israel.", "The Lemkin Institute believes that Israel's retaliation against Palestinians amounts not only to war crimes and crimes against humanity, but also to genocide, as also asserted by, among others, the former Director of the New York Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Craig Mokhiber."
""The intent that we have observed is extensive and it comes from all quarters of the Israeli state," said Anisha Patel, a legal researcher with the group Law for Palestine — which provides legal analysis on international law as it relates to Palestinians."
""I believe that the events of Oct. 7 qualify as a genocidal massacre of Israelis. I also think that the Israeli response, and indeed long standing Israeli policy towards the Gazan population, evinces elements of genocidal thinking and increasingly practice," he said."
"As far as I am concerned, the charge of genocide against Israel is particularly shocking. It betrays a wilful refusal to recognise that Hamas has openly stated its genocidal aims, and has perpetrated acts which fall quite clearly within the definition of genocidal acts according to the Convention"
"Today, international law on genocide is working as it was designed to: allowing states to ruthlessly exterminate security threats while making it difficult to apply that law. By the reasoning of international lawyers supporting Israel's war in Gaza today, there are no limits to the number of Palestinian civilians who can be killed incidentally in the pursuit of Israeli military objectives.", "The grotesque nature of the law of genocide, however, is that victim numbers are irrelevant. All that counts is intent. If the intention is military rather than genocidal, many will argue not only that legitimate self-defense rather than genocide is taking place, but also that it is legal and even moral."
"Before October's escalation of violence, the effect of the Israeli siege of Gaza had already been described as a "slow-motion genocide".", "We situate this violence in relation to the definition of genocide as described in Article 2 of the Genocide Convention, focusing on physical elements including killing, causing serious bodily or mental harm, creating life-threatening conditions, preventing births, and forcibly transferring children.", "As public health and humanitarian professionals, we the authors state emphatically that the grave risk of genocide against the Palestinian people warrants immediate—and now overdue—action."
"The word genocide is used willy-nilly by people all over the world, but genocide, as it has evolved since 1948 when the genocide convention was first adopted by the UN General Assembly, is a legal concept. And whatever else Israel is doing, and has done, it is not intending to destroy the Palestinian people; either on the West Bank or in Gaza", "Even Netanyahu, with whom I fundamentally disagree on most issues, is not planning to evict the Palestinians from Gaza. So the term genocide does not work.", "October 7 was a deliberate action by a genocidal organization that targeted Israeli — meaning Jewish — civilians: women, men, children, and the elderly."
"South Africa was able to present evidence of genocidal-sounding intent from any number of political actors in the Netanyahu government. None of them, though, have direct decision-making authority over the conduct of the war, leading to open hostility between some of them (Itamar Ben-Gvir above all) with the IDF high command. That direct authority is reserved not just to the military professionals, but to the war cabinet, convened by Netanyahu to insulate him from his own coalition partners, and in which the political opposition to Netanyahu is well-represented; given Israeli public fury at Netanyahu, he would no longer be in power if they weren't in the room. Moreover, if genocide were Israel's aim, issuing warnings before bombings, creating humanitarian corridors (however limited), and allowing in food and other necessities would be a pretty poor way of going about it."
"Israel did not commit genocide, the number of civilians who were killed is proportional to the number of combatants, it is lower than any war in modern history. Israel is trying its best to preserve civilian life, whereas Hamas is doing its best to take civilian lives."
"Didier Fassin joue un rôle de lanceur d’alerte lorsqu'il écrit le 1er novembre 2023 : « Alors que la plupart des gouvernements occidentaux continuent de dire "le droit d'Israël à se défendre" sans y mettre de réserves autres que rhétoriques et sans même imaginer un droit semblable pour les Palestiniens, il y a en effet une responsabilité historique à prévenir ce qui pourrait devenir le premier génocide du XXIe siècle. »" [Didier Fassin plays the role of whistleblower when he writes on November 1, 2023: "While most Western governments continue to say "Israel's right to defend itself" without any reservations other than rhetorical ones and without even imagining a similar right for the Palestinians, there is indeed a historical responsibility to prevent what could become the first genocide of the 21st century."]
"The good news was the International Court of Justice did not effectively order us to wait to be tortured and murdered, by demanding a halt to the Gaza War. That is certainly good – but only in the twisted world where the ICJ is putting Israel, not Hamas, on trial for the absolutely absurd charge of genocide."
"Nous nous opposons aux graves violations par Israël des droits humains et de la liberté académique des Palestiniens, à la guerre génocidaire en cours à Gaza ainsi qu'aux arrestations et détentions arbitraires en particulier celles subies par les étudiants et le personnel palestinien dans les universités de Cisjordanie." [We oppose Israel's grave violations of Palestinian human rights and academic freedom, the ongoing genocidal war in Gaza, and arbitrary arrests and detentions, particularly those suffered by Palestinian students and staff in West Bank universities.]
"If the (televised) Syrian genocide was the first internationally tolerated series of atrocities, then the recent genocidal violence in Gaza is the first with active input from the "international community."", "One maxim it should state is: if a series of actions approach genocide sufficiently to occasion a debate on whether they are genocide or not, then they are evil enough to be denounced without ifs or buts"
"The dynamic of violence since 7 October then is not a qualitative transmutation, but a corollary of the path-dependent history of the conflict: asymmetrical power relations, and annihilatory attitudes towards civilians.", "It is also evident to most observers that the Israeli reaction is unmistakably counter-genocidal in terms of the quantity, quality, and dynamic of mass violence. Even if we disregard the quantitative dimension of the ongoing death toll, an analysis of the qualitative elements of the violence indicates a complex process of destruction."
"On 7 October, Gaza became a laboratory for genocidal violence. I use this term to distinguish it from genocide per se, to refer to violence that has certain genocidal characteristics but not others.", "Considering the importance of settler colonialism as a frame of analysis in genocide studies, we may do well to consider Gaza as a laboratory not just for the dynamic of settler colonialism and its contemporary relevance as underlying hegemonic legal, political, and moral frameworks, but also for the politics of applying this frame and its moral implications."
"Thus, inhered within this strategy, within Israel's retaliatory campaign on Gaza, is a transtemporal logic of genocide that attempts to neutralize the Gazan Palestinian in the present so as altogether displace and/or eliminate its presence and foreclose the possibility of its future.", "Because of the legal impunity that Israel has enjoyed, the question of genocide in Palestine transcends the applicability of the Genocide Convention (though, arguably, present violence in Gaza includes nearly every act outlined in Article II) and can be better sociologically understood through the eight techniques of genocide outlined by Lemkin himself."
"All that said, if the utterance of genocide too obviously sticks in the craw for those like Illouz, who might read an inherent dissonance in the implication of a post-Holocaust state committing the act – arguably the ultimate Jewish taboo – there might be other routes by which we could overcome a semantic disagreement.", "The reality of the situation, whatever nomenclature genocide scholars may consider most appropriate – genocide, genocidal warfare, permanent security, urbicide, social death –the Israeli state this time has dissolved any remaining vestige (if ever there was one) of moral unassailability and given other (liberal or illiberal) states who might have their own unfinished reckonings with communal adversaries the respectability of open season to do their worst."
"Likewise warning of the potential for genocide as a maximal end-state obscured the genocidal process that was already occurring, [...] Moreover, if the United Nations Genocide Convention was an inevitable reference point, the choice to hew close to a legal tick-box exercise not only allowed defenders of Israel's violence to argued that the criteria had not been met. It also sidelined the Convention's manifold defects, recognized in the field since its inception, and those of the subsequent jurisprudence, recently exposed in the case of Ukraine.", "It was therefore essential to recognize that in genocidal war, policies radicalize. Israel's initial genocidal thrust contained the potential for a greater genocide, which might turn the right's most ambitious ideas into reality."
"Furthermore, as the civilian/combatant distinction has collapsed, and given the scale of civilian destruction, it appears the distinction between the targeted bombing promised by "humane war" and indiscriminate bombing has largely vanished. Since everything from taking shelter in hospitals or fleeing for safety is declared a form of human shielding, the entire civilian population has been transformed into a legal target. This too is the logic of genocide.", "Terms like "civil war," "conflict," and even "counterinsurgency" frequently serve as legal cover for genocide, and in its wake, form the repertoire of genocide denial.", "For many, the killing of Palestinians in Gaza is justifiable self-defense. In the wake of 7 October, America and European allies offered support for Israel's unrestrained "right to defense" for "permanent security" in the tradition of America's own War on Terror. The problem is, genocides are also premised on the right to security and self-defense against an existential threat."
"urging governments across the globe to formally support South Africa's International Court of Justice case against Israel, accusing the government of genocidal violence in Gaza.",
"The essay contends that Israel and its allies' claim of self-defence to justify their genocidal actions in Gaza and to marginalize moral judgements is a blatant lie.", "In this case, shared identity is a motive for rejecting Israel's monopolization of the conversation, its claim to speak in the name of the Jews while committing genocide, and its distortion of that identity with its criminal practices against the Palestinian people."
Yes
Includes specific responses to Habermas' arguments.
"but is usually very difficult to prove"; "The destruction of the group must be the sole aim of the perpetrator"; "under international law, there is a right to self-defence"
"I am fairly certain that South Africa will win on the interim measures - but not that it will win on the main issue in four or five years' time."; "I based my statement, which I made back in October, on the statements that Israel was essentially besieging Gaza and denying it food, medicine, drinking water and electricity. I said that this alone was enough to indicate a serious risk of genocide. In my view, that risk has become even greater."
"Professor William Schabas, an elected President of the International Association of Genocide Scholars, was one of the world's first experts to sound the alarm, citing "serious risk of genocide" as early as late October 2023. "The evidence today is even more compelling," he told ITV News. "To me it is increasingly clear that Israel is not aiming to defeat Hamas, but rather to uproot or erase the population of Gaza.""
"Professor Francis Boyle, who won the first case ever under the genocide convention at the ICJ for the republic of Bosnia Herzegovina against Yugoslavia, said he is confident South Africa will win an order against Israel to cease and desist from committing all acts of genocide against the Palestinians. He told ITV News: "When I submitted my case, I had to work on it on my own. South Africa has an impressive team of experts who have managed to put together the most comprehensive and impeccable application.""
"That is a claim that is very difficult to prove, because you have to prove that Israel is acting with the specific purpose of exterminating the Palestinians."
"The raising of even more serious charges – such as the commission of genocide, the "crime of crimes" – requires an even higher commitment to factual analysis, which should include all relevant facts, including those "inconvenient" to whoever is making such claims. Many of the allegations made in this regard, including those found in the recent South African application to the ICJ appear to fall short of this standard. Still, we do consider the South African application as potentially useful in drawing more attention to the positive obligations of the State of Israel to suppress incitement to genocide and to address potentially genocidal statements made in public by Israeli influencers and politicians."
"I think there's not much question that the level of killing, the level of deprivation is sufficient to meet that predicate part of the crime of genocide." "This is all genocidal intent. [South Africa] also kind of worked backwards from the acts on the ground to say that, because Israel is bombing so indiscriminately, because it's using these massive 2,000-pound bombs in heavily populated areas, that this also shows an indifference to Palestinian civilian life, which itself is indicative of genocidal intent."
"Although the high number of civilian deaths and the enormous material damage are horrific, they do not necessarily prove an intent to commit genocide. For example, the repeated calls for the civilian population to leave certain parts of the area or the observance of the obligation to warn and set a deadline before withdrawing protection from a civilian hospital because it is being used outside its humanitarian purpose to commit acts harmful to the enemy speak against such an intent."
"But while it's easy to second-guess the actions of Israeli forces, there is no evidence that they have engaged in a deliberate campaign to 'destroy, in whole or in part,' the Palestinian people — which is what 'genocide' means in international law. Awful as the civilian deaths in Gaza have been, they still constitute less than 1 percent of the territory's population. If Israel, with all the firepower at its disposal, had been trying to commit mass murder, the death toll would have been higher by orders of magnitude.", "That's why the charge of genocide has been rejected not only by the United States but also by Canada, Britain and Germany, among others."
"Undoubtedly, the State of Israel is an Occupying Power and subject to the law of the Geneva Conventions in the manner of its treatment of the Palestinian people. In relation to international positive law (the Geneva Conventions, the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, etc.) and the morality central to the jus gentium, the State of Israel is by no means to be excepted in the way it decides to conduct itself vis-à-vis the Palestinian people in the Occupied Territories, including Gaza. The Palestinians throughout the Occupied Territories are entitled as a matter of jus gentium to the full protection the international community of nations can muster on those grounds. Thus, Louis Rene Beres (1989, 29) is entirely correct to remind that, the Genocide Convention, along with other "human rights 'regime'" treaties and declarations, "represents the end of the idea of absolute sovereignty concerning non-intervention when human rights are in grievous jeopardy." And, this certainly applies in the case of Israel's war being waged against the Palestinian people in Gaza (with spillover effects in the West Bank and East Jerusalem as the IDF supports settler Israelis in their hostile acts of dispossession and displacement of the Palestinians in those quarters)."
"Luego de rechazar cualquier discurso de odio o discriminación, llamaron a los universitarios de todo el país a apoyar diversas acciones, entre ellas sumarse al exhorto que lanzaron mas de mil 600 académicos de todo el continente a los gobiernos progresistas de América Latina para que actúen de forma conjunta contra el “genocidio” y presionen por un alto al fuego inmediato." [After rejecting any hate speech or discrimination, they called on university students throughout the country to support various actions, including joining the exhortation launched by more than 1,600 academics from all over the continent to the progressive governments of Latin America to act together against the "genocide" and press for an immediate ceasefire.]
EJIL:Talk! - Blog of the European Journal of International Law
"Despite having been firmly established in international law for three quarters of a century, the definition and requisite elements of the international crime of genocide appear to have been misunderstood or, in some cases, deliberately misapplied, seemingly by both scholars and laypersons.", "Labelling Israel's military operation against Hamas as an act of genocide may threaten to undo 75 years of work to prevent and punish the commission of genocide, by diluting and diminishing the effect of the Genocide Convention."
"It should be noted that genocide is an incredibly difficult crime to prove. Genocide refers to any of a series of acts – such as the killing or the transfer of children—undertaken with "intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group." Historically, courts have struggled to prove the relevant intent, which is not just murder but a concerted policy to destroy a people as a whole. For South Africa to win this case, it will need to find and provide evidence that the Israeli government's intent was not merely to prevent attacks such as those of October 7 or to degrade the capability of Hamas, but rather to annihilate the Palestinian people as a whole."
"This pattern is quite extraordinary because the states supporting Israel, above all the United States, have claimed the high moral and legal ground for themselves and have long lectured the states of the Global South about the importance of the rule of law, human rights, and respect for international law. This is instead of urging compliance with international law and morality by both sides in the face of the most transparent genocide in all of human history. In the numerous pre-Gaza genocides, the existential horrors that occurred were largely known after the fact and through statistics and abstractions, occasionally vivified by the tales told by survivors. The events, although historically reconstructed, were not as immediately real as these events in Gaza with the daily reports from journalists on the scene for more than three months."
"Just two months after this special issue was finalized Israel launched its catastrophic, genocidal assault on Gaza.", "As this timely and crucially important volume demonstrates Israel's genocide of the Palestinians is bound both to the logic of settler colonialism and to the necessity of its abolition.", "What we are witnessing now, not only in Gaza but across historic Palestine is the denouement in Israel's genocide of the indigenous Palestinians…a second Nakba and as Knesset member Arial Kallner demanded one that dwarfs the Nakba of 1948."
"It is a similar exercise that I want to propose here about the arguments used by those who have championed the right of Israel to defend itself at whatever cost for Palestinian civilians and have attacked those who have alerted the world to the risk of a genocide being perpetrated in Gaza", "As the destruction of public infrastructures, including hospitals and schools, and the tally of civilian casualties, mostly children and women, increased in Gaza on a scale never seen before in Palestine, the qualification of the war crimes committed by Israel as possibly a genocide by scholars, lawyers, experts from international organizations and even governments has generated hostile reactions in Israel and among supporters of the Israeli politics of retaliation, mostly in Western countries.", "The critics of this qualification, many of them academics, maintained that a state created for a people victim of the quintessential genocide could not be suspected of committing a similar crime", "Alerting to the prospect of a genocide being perpetrated in Gaza is stigmatized as an unconscious desire to have a genocide perpetrated against the Jews."
"The people who surround him —Ben Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich — are more overtly fascist. They believe in violence. Their camp murdered Yitzhak Rabin. They hold and defend Jewish supremacist views. Their declarations after Oct. 7 amounted to calls to genocide (even though I do not think Israel is committing genocide)."
"Trachtenberg testified to a consensus opinion among historians of genocide that what is happening in Gaza can indeed be called a genocide, largely because the intent to cause death on a massive scale has been so clear in the statements of Israeli officials. "We are watching the genocide unfold as we speak," he said. "We are in this incredibly unique position where we can intervene to stop it, using the mechanisms of international law that are available to us.""
"The Israeli government is starving Gaza's 2.3 million Palestinians, putting them in even more peril than before the World Court's binding order", "The Israeli government has simply ignored the court's ruling, and in some ways even intensified its repression, including further blocking lifesaving aid"
"One month after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered "immediate and effective measures" to protect Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip from the risk of genocide by ensuring sufficient humanitarian assistance and enabling basic services, Israel has failed to take even the bare minimum steps to comply, Amnesty International said today."
"Michael Fakhri says denial of food is war crime and constitutes 'a situation of genocide'", "In my view as a UN human rights expert, this is now a situation of genocide."
"The IDF campaign has left much of Gaza in ruins, displacing people and creating a massive refugee and humanitarian crisis. However, the use of excessive force stems from an aversion to [Israeli military] casualties, not genocidal intent. If the massive assault on Gaza is not genocide, it may constitute a war crime, although that will be hard to prove.
"These are the signs of the genocidal process in Israel's war in Gaza: Israel's leaders persist in conflating all Palestinian people with Hamas. [classification]; Israel's leaders incite genocide against Palestinians by dehumanizing Palestinians as "human animals" and by summoning Biblical justification for genocide [dehumanization, polarization]; Israel collectively punishes all Gazans for the actions of Hamas. Israel's leaders deny that there are any innocent civilians in Gaza. This falsehood denies any duty to obey the laws of war, which require avoidance of attacks on civilians. [dehumanization, polarization]; This collective punishment is used to justify the bombing and killing of tens of thousands of Palestinian women, children, and noncombatants, including at least 85 journalists [persecution, extermination]; Israel has forcibly displaced 1.7 million Gazans from their homes into tent cities [persecution]; Israel bombs and assaults hospitals where wounded civilians seek medical care and shelter [persecution, extermination]; Israel bombs Palestinian refugee camps in Gaza [persecution, extermination]; Israel bombs and attacks areas in Gaza to which it has directed civilians for their "safety" [persecution, extermination]; Israel bombs “escape routes” it has designated for Palestinians fleeing Israeli attacks [persecution, extermination]; Israel's blockade and siege of Gaza is producing widespread famine [persecution, extermination]."
"Increasing partisanship in Genocide Studies threatens the field itself", "An endless stream of interventions in the media accompanied and followed these initiatives, exhibiting mounting polarisation and politicization", "This public split among scholars prompted the Journal of Genocide Research, the leading and oldest periodical in the field, to organise a forum on the topic 'Israel-Palestine: Atrocity Crimes and the Crisis of Holocaust and Genocide Studies'. It invited a small number of leading figures in the field", "Overall, in the forum, there was uneven worry about the health of the field, but near consensus that what Israel is doing in Gaza is certainly "genocidal" if not outright genocide", "I also stand by my point that the increasing polarisation and partisanship in the field, together with the 'major democracies' simultaneously assuming the role of participants and deniers, is a very serious blow to the whole endeavour of genocide prevention."
"One answer is simple. When war is fought among civilians, civilians are killed.", "Western militaries, including the IDF, try to live by these laws, though the law of armed conflict does not proscribe them from waging war. They try to follow these rules in part because they reflect the values of the societies that they serve and in part because of an expectation of reciprocity, but also because pragmatically, they know that lots of civilian casualties can become a political liability at home and abroad. Hamas spends the lives of Palestinian civilians as ammunition in an information war."
"Israel is fighting back legitimately in Self-Defense in Response and in Self-Defense against Future Genocidal Attacks that Employ Citizens as Human Shields. The Geneva Conventions specifically outlaw use of human shields and justify fighting back in response. Self-Defense does not include genocidal intent."
"While the International Court of Justice judgment should be welcomed, it is hard to imagine why there isn't an immediate call for a cease-fire and a full-fledged acknowledgment of Israel's committed war crimes and acts of genocide.", "Higher education may be one of the few sites left where prominent issues such as the genocidal war on Gaza can be analysed, engaged, and subject to the rigours of history, a comprehensive analysis, and relevant evidence."
EJIL:Talk! - Blog of the European Journal of International Law
"South Africa will be able to present considerable evidence of knowing destruction, from the mouths of UN officials and representatives of non-governmental aid organizations.", "The "conditions of life" were imposed not merely on discrete sectors of the group, but on its entirety. Israel had control over both egress and ingress from the relevant territory. No intent alternative to that of destruction was apparent."
"Finkel reasonably concluded that it was "hard to imagine a more actionable template to destroy a national group," and that the "combination of official statements denying Ukraine and Ukrainians the right to exist, and mounting evidence of deliberate, large-scale targeting of Ukrainian civilians" left "little room for doubt" that “the threshold from war crimes to genocide" was crossed.", "Applying the same standard indicated by Finkel to the Israeli mainstream political and media discourse about Palestinians, the threshold from war crimes to genocide has been crossed before 7 October. In May 2023, a clear template to destroy a national group was proposed by Jeffrey Camras in an article in the Times of Israel. Camras proposed that "in order to right a wrong, in order to make peace and move forward, Palestine must be obliterated."", "Nonetheless, no Holocaust scholar viewed this situation in the way Finkel saw Russia's attack on Ukraine. Most Holocaust scholars, in fact, never even mentioned the large body of evidence of Israeli international crimes in the fifty-six years of Israeli occupation.", "The very different ways in which Holocaust scholars, on the one hand, and those working in Genocide Studies, on the other, have responded to the unfolding mass violence in Israel and Palestine after 7 October point to an unprecedented crisis in Holocaust and Genocide Studies. We argue that the crisis stems from the significant evidence for genocide in Israel's attack on Gaza, which has exposed the exceptional status accorded to Israel as a foundational element in the field, that is, the idea that Israel, the state of Holocaust survivors, can never perpetrate genocide."
"Israel's efforts to defend itself against Hamas, even if found to involve killing disproportionate number of civilians, do not turn Israel into a genocidal actor comparable to the Nazis or the Hutu regime in Rwanda. The genocide charge depends on intent. And Israel, as a state, is not fighting the Gaza War with the intent to destroy the Palestinian people.", "These relevant facts matter for putting the genocide charge into the context of potential antisemitism. Neither South Africa nor other states have brought a genocide case against China for its conduct in Tibet or Xinjiang, or against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. There is something specifically noteworthy about leveling the charge at the Jewish state—something intertwined with the new narrative of the Jews as archetypal oppressors rather than archetypal victims. Call it the genocide sleight of hand: if the Jews are depicted as genocidal—if Israel becomes the very archetype of a genocidal state—then Jews are much less likely to be conceived as a historically oppressed people engaged in self-defense."
"By analysing the patterns of violence and Israeli policies in its onslaught on Gaza, the present report concludes that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the threshold indicating that Israel has committed genocide has been met. One of the key findings of the report is that the Israeli executive and military leadership and Israeli soldiers have intentionally distorted jus in bello principles, subverting their protective functions, in an attempt to legitimize genocidal violence against the Palestinian people"
"Israel's assault on Gaza appears to include both acts and intent stated in the definition of genocide.", "President Biden, do not let the United States go down in history as the enabler of genocide"
"The court decided that the Palestinians had a plausible right to be protected from genocide and that South Africa had the right to present that claim in the court. It then looked at the facts as well. But it did not decide – and this is something where I'm correcting what's often said in the media – it didn't decide that the claim of genocide was plausible. It did emphasize in the order that there was a risk of irreparable harm to the Palestinian right to be protected from genocide. But the shorthand that often appears, which is that there's a plausible case of genocide, isn't what the court decided."
"No. There is no genocidal intent on the Israeli side. Some members of the Israeli government want to drive the Palestinians out of Gaza and relocate them. But fortunately, they are not the decisive force in government."
"Of course this is not a genocide. It is absolutely clear. But it doesn't mean that I justify what Israel does in Gaza. I think the killing that we cause there is what is called in academic language mass atrocities crimes. But obviously all comparisons to genocide are baseless."
"These facts demonstrate a pattern of behaviour giving rise not only to specific violations of IHL and of crimes against humanity but also, when taken together with the evidence of genocidal intent in statements by senior Israeli officials cited by the ICJ in its Provisional Order, a serious risk of genocide. That risk relates in particular to the Genocide Convention Article II (a) "killing members of the group"; (b) "causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group"; and (c) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or part". In light of the infant and maternal mortality rates and the destruction of Gaza's healthcare system described above, these facts may also give rise to violations of Article II(d), i.e. "imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group"."
"Israel's conduct in Gaza, and the US's active legal support for it, forces us to grapple with the seemingly unthinkable: a perfectly legal genocide, that is a genocide legitimized via a permissive interpretation of IHL.", "By turning to Gaza, I show that Israel has mobilized a deeply permissive account of IHL to justify its use of starvation as a tool of genocide.", "Notably absent from Power's statement was the stance for which she became famous: moral condemnation of a US administration that responds to genocide by rendering "the bloodshed two sided and inevitable, not genocidal.""
"The law professor does not expect a clear conviction of Israel in the South Africa-Israel case, nor a clear dismissal of the lawsuit." "According to Article II of the Convention, a breach occurs when an actor implements the intention to destroy a group of people in whole or in part by killing, injuring or restricting the living conditions of said group. In the case of Israel, there is no "smoking gun" that clearly proves such an intention, explained Goldmann. Statements by Israeli politicians in the media are "non-authoritative sources""
"Her lawyers and international academics have condemned Hebrew University for fuelling months of political attacks on one of their faculty in the run-up to her detention. The rector called on her to resign in late 2023 after she signed a letter calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and describing Israel's campaign as genocide, and she was briefly suspended over the podcast cited in her interrogation."
"Este viernes, Docentes con Palestina ha convocado concentraciones a mediodía en todos los centros de enseñanza de Galicia en solidaridad con el pueblo palestino, para alertar una vez más del genocidio y para que el alumnado educado en el siglo XXI sea consciente de que está viviendo en directo uno de los peores horrores que han ocurrido en la historia de la raza humana." [This Friday, Teachers with Palestine has called for midday rallies in all educational centres in Galicia in solidarity with the Palestinian people, to warn once again of the genocide and so that students educated in the 21st century are aware that they are living in directly one of the worst horrors that have occurred in the history of the human race.], "Explicar que ahora mismo está ocurriendo un genocidio y exigir su final es difícil, pero es una tarea absolutamente pedagógica", sostiene." ["Explaining that a genocide is happening right now and demanding its end is difficult, but it is an absolutely pedagogical task," he maintains.]
"Last month, our organisation, Law for Palestine, made the first in a series of submissions to the ICC, characterising the crime of genocide committed by Israeli leaders against the Palestinian people. The 200-page document, drafted by 30 lawyers and legal researchers from across the world and reviewed by more than 15 experts, makes a compelling case for the genocidal intent as well as for the prosecutorial policy that the court has followed in other cases.", "We also refer to the database we have put together of more than 500 instances of Israeli incitement to genocide as additional proof. While the statements form a substantial part of the intent component of the crime of genocide, the submission goes beyond and highlights the various actions and official policies that additionally prove intent."
"The scale of violence of the recent Israeli war has already exceeded the initial stages of ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and is becoming an immense ethnic cleansing comparable with the Armenian case. In light of the bellicose discriminatory discourses of the Israeli leaders, systematic destruction of civilian targets, forced starvation, and rapidly deteriorating hygiene conditions in Gaza, there are ample grounds to believe that the war on Gaza will develop into a full-fledged genocide if unchecked."
"Genocidal pressures were building up against the Palestinians well before the siege of Gaza that began in the wake of the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack. In Israel it is now perfectly normal to call for genocide against the Palestinians; whereas to the contrary, it is looked upon as treason to defend Palestinian life."
"«Certain statements by Israeli politicians were genocidal». There was talk of extermination. «But the actions of the Israeli army are, in my opinion, directed against Hamas and not against the entire population»"; "He does not believe that the International Court of Justice will find a generational[sic]intent to commit genocide in the South Africa v. Israel case."
"What we see now are massacres which are part of the genocidal impulse, namely to kill people in order to downsize the number of people living in Gaza"
"I ultimately do not see sufficient grounds for genocide if one takes the legal term seriously."; "Even if individual actions by the Israeli armed forces can be described as war crimes, they do not [necessarily - added by me] at the same time constitute genocide."
"Legal discourse needs to match the reality of horror to maintain its relevance. Although legal scholars and commentators were slow to recognize the severity and urgency of the situation, this article sought to show that there is an emerging consensus that Israel's actions in Gaza are not another instance of armed conflict but instead amount to genocide. This genocide is committed against an integral component of the Palestinian people, a protected group under the Genocide Convention. The preceding discussion shows that obstacles facing a legal determination of genocide (namely, assessing the credibility of military logic and the existence of genocidal intent) are not insurmountable. The emerging consensus described here may not be overwhelming and will have to face opposition and potential judicial disagreement. Yet an overwhelming body of evidence supports it and a consistency in the application of standards requires it."
"That application was preceded by weeks of public debate and insistence by Palestinians and others – including genocide scholars – that Israel was either already committing genocide against the residents of Gaza or risked committing genocide [...] The law of genocide often tells us to disregard what our eyes leave little doubt is happening. This creates a profound disconnect between the legal definition of genocide and popular and historical experiences and understandings of the term. By situating the catastrophe in Gaza both within Israel's long history of eliminationist violence towards Palestinians and fine-tuned legal arguments, South Africa has brought the law into line with the historical reality and lived-experiences of the victims of genocide, forcing a dialectical conversation between two, often, opposing planes – the law on genocide and the reality of genocide."
"A fierce military response facing unprecedented challenges in the history of warfare – because of a highly densely populated urban area, an underground city built below a civilian population – has become in the eyes of many a bona fide case of genocide", "Jews, Zionists and moderate people from all political parties and religions have watched the campus protests unfold in amazement, unable to believe the unselfconscious double standards, the baselessness of the historical parallels", "these protests give me no choice but to ask myself if, after all, something like the phantasmagoric irrationality of antisemitism is at work here."
"Conditions for the emergence of a Jewish genocidal mindset in Israel evolved gradually since the 1970s.", "Positioned at the core of rural Palestinian life, these settlements serve as intellectual incubators and experimental laboratories of genocidal politics, chief of which is ethnic cleansing.", "By and large, though the IDF avoids drafting the most radical and violent members of Hardal, given the growing size of this demographic within the army, including among the officers’ corps and the growing number of soldiers who sympathize or directly belong to these genocidal circles especially on the field level, their influence is growing.", "A decade later, and in the context of the current war in Gaza, the rhetoric of a genocidal Jewish Holy War is being pushed into the mainstream like never before and is featured in many of its ground operations, especially among the ranks of the more popular infantry and armoured divisions."
"S'agissant de Gaza, la qualification de génocide peut également être sérieusement envisagée au regard, notamment, de la systématicité des attaques, de leur sens, et de leur inscription dans une offensive plus large contre la population civile." [With regard to Gaza, the qualification of genocide can also be seriously considered in view, in particular, of the systematic nature of the attacks, their meaning, and their inclusion in a broader offensive against the civilian population.], "C'est à ce moment qu’un élément inédit a été avancé en faveur d'Israël : une interview de l'ancienne présidente de la Cour internationale de justice, Joan Donoghue, affirmant que la juridiction n’aurait pas reconnu une affaire plausible de génocide (a « plausible case of genocide »). Rappelons ici que, dans son ordonnance du 26 janvier 2024, la cour affirme que le droit des Palestiniens d'être protégés contre les actes de génocide est plausible (§§ 36, 54), et qu'il existe une urgence, c'est à dire un « risque réel et imminent » de préjudice irréparable causé aux droits revendiqués (§ 61, 74). Il s'agit bien d'un risque de génocide, même si la cour n'emploie pas la formule « affaire plausible de génocide ». Les médias se sont précipités sur les propos ambigus de Joan Donoghue pour minimiser le sens de l'ordonnance et réfuter l'emploi du terme génocide." [It was at this point that a new element was put forward in Israel's favour: an interview with the former President of the International Court of Justice, Joan Donoghue, stating that the court would not have recognised a plausible case of genocide. Let us recall here that, in its order of 26 January 2024, the court affirms that the right of Palestinians to be protected against acts of genocide is plausible (§§ 36, 54), and that there is an emergency, that is to say a "real and imminent risk" of irreparable harm caused to the rights claimed (§§ 61, 74). This is indeed a risk of genocide, even if the court does not use the phrase "plausible case of genocide". The media rushed to seize on Joan Donoghue's ambiguous remarks to minimize the meaning of the order and refute the use of the term genocide.]
"Il n'y a pas de génocide à Gaza, il n'y a pas de massacre délibéré des populations civiles" [There is no genocide in Gaza, there is no deliberate massacre of civilian populations.]
"Enrique Rajchenberg, profesor de la Facultad de Economía, resaltó: "Me han preguntado por qué formo parte del colectivo Académicos con Palestina contra el genocidio, desde el cual hemos condenado la política colonialista de Israel y el genocidio que comete todos los días el ejército de ese país contra la población civil palestina. "La pregunta se formula porque no sólo soy judío, sino sobre todo porque soy hijo de sobrevivientes de la Shoa, del erróneamente llamado Holocausto de los años 40 del siglo XX, uno de los episodios más drámaticos de la historia moderna. "Respondo a la pregunta: porque tengo fundadas razones biográficas y morales, mismas que me obligan a acompañar a este campamento de estudiantes, académicos y trabajadores universitarios y porque yo mismo soy trabajador académico desde hace casi medio siglo."" [Enrique Rajchenberg, professor at the Faculty of Economics, highlighted: "I have been asked why I am part of the collective Academics with Palestine against genocide, from which we have condemned Israel's colonialist policy and the genocide committed every day by the army of that country against the Palestinian civilian population. "The question is asked because I am not only Jewish, but above all because I am the son of survivors of the Shoah, of the erroneously named Holocaust of the 1940s, one of the most dramatic episodes in modern history. "I answer the question: because I have well-founded biographical and moral reasons, which oblige me to accompany this camp of students, academics and university workers and because I myself have been an academic worker for almost half a century."]
"La introducción al texto presentado por los catedráticos enumera cinco peticiones dirigidas al rector de la UCM: una condena "clara y explícita" de la destrucción deliberada de las universidades palestinas y el ataque a profesores, estudiantes y personal universitario; la petición de alto al fuego "inmediato y permanente"; la cancelación de toda colaboración con universidades israelís "que se relacionen con el genocidio de Gaza"; financiar programas para acoger a estudiantes y maestros palestinos; y la cancelación de toda colaboración con empresas o instituciones "que otorguen un apoyo directo o al genocidio en Gaza"." [The introduction to the text presented by the professors lists five requests addressed to the rector of the UCM: a "clear and explicit" condemnation of the deliberate destruction of Palestinian universities and the attack on professors, students and university staff; the request for an "immediate and permanent" ceasefire; the cancellation of all collaboration with Israeli universities "that are related to the genocide in Gaza"; funding programmes to welcome Palestinian students and teachers; and the cancellation of any collaboration with companies or institutions "that provide direct support or genocide in Gaza".]
"A majority of Middle East scholars see Israeli motives in Gaza to be about forcing Palestinians out [57%]" "How would you define Israel's current military actions in Gaza? Response: Major war crimes akin to genocide (41%), Genocide (34%), Major war crimes but not akin to genocide (16%), Unjustified actions but not major war crimes (4%), Justified actions under the right to self-defense (4%)".
"Hamas has embedded itself in the civilian population of Gaza, and its extensive network of tunnels provides its combatants the ability to move around quickly. Even if Israel's bombers were intent on minimizing harm to civilians, they would have had difficulty doing so in their effort to destroy Hamas. And yet, even believing this, I am now persuaded that Israel is engaged in genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. What has changed my mind is its sustained policy of obstructing the movement of humanitarian assistance into the territory."
Yes
Comments about how these actions are "indicative of genocide" are already in article attributed to Neier via this CNN interview
Q:"For all of the condemnation of Israel's actions, there is also strong opposition to Israel's actions being labeled a genocide. Where does that pushback come from?".
A:"The opposition is political, as there is consensus amongst the international human rights legal community, many other legal and political experts, including many Holocaust scholars, that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza."
"He emphasised that, despite Israel's own repetition of genocidal intent, "Western leaders are guilty of viewing Palestine and Israel through the prejudiced prism of a merciless Palestinian terrorists against the gentle Jewish victims who are desperately maintaining the only democracy in the Middle East.""
""Given the extent of the war crimes and the military operations carried out by the Israeli army on the ground, this situation can be considered genocide according to a growing number of international lawyers," Jacquet said."
"this research will also contribute to the related field of the social sciences as being the first clear example of genocide acts perpetuated by Israel so far in one of the whole Palestine territory like the Gaza Strip.", "At first, it will not be wrong to claim that the Palestinian cause regarding recent Israeli Gaza assaults is a trickling genocide, slow but relentless."
"The genocide in Gaza is an opportunity for Canada to change that. A majority of Canadians may want to see a ceasefire in Gaza, but are they or their political representatives prepared to condemn the genocide?"
"US president Joe Biden, along with British foreign secretary David Cameron, were also isolated in their backing for Israel's genocidal offensive in Rafah."
"Since October 7, 2023, the world has witnessed Israel's unrelenting mass assault against the people of Gaza, killing more than 37,000 Palestinians. The response to this genocide in most sectors of professional society has largely been one of denial and suppression of solidarity with Palestine, unveiling extremes of the longstanding Palestine exception in progressive politics. This article contextualizes the social work profession's response to Israel's ongoing genocide of Palestinian people after October 7, 2023, including responses from schools of social work, social work agencies and organizations, and academic journals."
"Perhaps we shouldn't be surprised that the most-read article published in 2023 was a special editorial on Justice for Palestine included in issue four (Ballantyne et al., 2023). This was a statement by editorial collective members on the situation in Palestine. In the context of the genocide, we were all witnessing on our television screens and the silence of the IFSW on this matter, we felt compelled to comment. Since that editorial was published in December 2023, the horrifying death toll has not stopped climbing, and despite the statements made by the International Criminal Court to halt the ground invasion of Rafah, Israel continues its assault on Gaza and the West Bank unabated. The editorial collective continues to express our utmost solidarity with the Palestinian people and our deep concern for the future prospects of an international rules-based order that respects all peoples' human rights, including the right to self-determination."
""The enormous amount of evidence I have seen, much of it referenced later in this document, has been enough for me to believe that Israel is currently committing genocide against the Palestinian population in Gaza," Mr Mordechai said in the introduction to a report he published."
Yes
The report, he previously wrote an article in Jacobin in April 2024 about the ongoing war crimes of the IDF, available here.
"Después de ocho meses de genocidio en Gaza y más de 37.000 muertos palestinos, son cada vez más las voces que llaman al boicot académico a las universidades israelíes." [After eight months of genocide in Gaza and more than 37,000 Palestinian deaths, there are more and more voices calling for an academic boycott of Israeli universities.], "Existen ya diversos casos particulares de represión directa desde las universidades contra profesorado crítico con el genocidio." [There are already several particular cases of direct repression from universities against professors critical of the genocide.], "Al contrario, las universidades israelíes han sido una fuerza activa en la legitimación y mantenimiento de un sistema de segregación que ha sido considerado equivalente al apartheid sudafricano. Ahora mismo son colaboradores necesarios en el genocidio en curso." [On the contrary, Israeli universities have been an active force in legitimizing and maintaining a system of segregation that has been considered equivalent to South African apartheid. Right now they are necessary collaborators in the ongoing genocide.]
"Uri Horech, profesor judío israelí de lingüística, fue despedido del Achva Academic College tras acusar públicamente a Israel de cometer un genocidio." [Uri Horech, an Israeli Jewish professor of linguistics, was fired from Achva Academic College after publicly accusing Israel of committing genocide.]
"There have been several genocide cases now at the International Court of Justice. I think the case that South Africa is setting out is easily the strongest case of genocide. The differences between, for example, the situation in the Balkans where the borders were largely open and porous and where people could flee, we don't have that in Gaza. The statements made by politicians in Israel, the notorious statements about how the Gazans are inhumane or 'human animals' was one of the terms, statements like, we're going to deny you electricity, water, medical care. The destruction of the institutions, all of these things add up and make for a very strong case... I can't entirely predict what the judges are going to do. And you certainly could exaggerate the importance of these provisional measures orders and suggest that they represent some kind of a determination of the issue, that is yet to come."
"I firmly believed, and continue to do so, that the Israelis had every right to retaliate against Hamas and to free those Israelis being held hostage by Hamas.", "Under the cover of the Israel-Hamas war, Israeli "settlers" on the West Bank are attacking Palestinian villages, forcibly removing the occupants from their homes and land, beating them (and in certain cases killing them), and stealing said land. And those Israeli thugs are doing so while under the protection and support of the Israeli army and police.", "It is crystal clear that both Hamas and the Israelis have already perpetrated, at the least, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Various others have also accused both Hamas and the Israelis of genocide. An international court will adjudicate this."
"In my view, the criteria for genocide are not fulfilled, because the intention to commit genocide is not the only plausible motive for the use of violence. Israel justifies its attacks in the Gaza Strip with the right to self-defense and with the aim of freeing the hostages. This is permitted under international law, albeit perhaps within narrower limits than Israel is currently exercising."
"I admit that, at first, I was reluctant to call it genocide, and sought any indication to convince myself that it is not. No one wants to see themselves as part of a genocidal society. But there was explicit intent, a systematic pattern, and a genocidal outcome — so, I came to the conclusion that this is exactly what genocide looks like. And once you come to this conclusion, you cannot remain silent."
"We declare that Israel's intentional and targeted starvation campaign against the Palestinian people is a form of genocidal violence and has resulted in famine across all of Gaza. We call upon the international community to prioritise the delivery of humanitarian aid by land by any means necessary, end Israel's siege, and establish a ceasefire."
"By comparing contemporary examples of starvation warfare in Artsakh and Gaza, I seek to reintroduce the concept of genocide by attrition formulated by Raphael Lemkin in Axis Rule in Occupied Europe: Laws of Occupation, Analysis of Government, Proposals for Redress (1944). Helen Fein's 1997 essay "Genocide by Attrition, 1939–1993: The Warsaw Ghetto, Cambodia, and Sudan," gave formal nomenclature to this genocidal tool.", "The carceral conditions produced by the 2006 enclosure of the Gaza Strip could be called Gazification. Land and territory are not only bifurcated with a discrete line separating two parts, but are fractured several times over through the creation of physical and digital checkpoints, "safe zones," and border inspections designed to make life suffocatingly unlivable. In order to survive, superfluous beings who resist these necropolitical forces live fugitive lives. Gazification should, therefore, be understood as an instrument of genocide by attrition that predates Hamas' attack on Israel on October 7."
"Like anti-antisemitism, anti-colonialism too, instead of unsettling the purity of Western conscience, becomes a powerful tool for generating a perfect logos of absolute humanity that condemns its enemies as evil and unleashes holy wars. This is a danger that should be considered in countering the Israeli genocide narrative with a Palestinian genocide, or by depicting the Hamas attacks on 7 October as a ghetto uprising instead of as a pogrom."
"By the time I travelled to Israel, I had become convinced that at least since the attack by the IDF on Rafah on 6 May 2024, it was no longer possible to deny that Israel was engaged in systematic war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocidal actions."
""The case for the US's complicity in genocide is very strong," said Dr Shahd Hammouri, lecturer in international law at the University of Kent and the author of Shipments of Death. "It's providing material support, without which the genocide and other illegalities are not possible. The question of complicity for the other countries will rely on assessment of how substantial their material support has been."
"Israel and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have been accused of 'massacring' Palestinian civilians, even attempting a 'genocide' on the Palestinian population in Gaza, as stated in a Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor posting on 16 May 2024, and reposted that same day by Relief Web, a news service provided by the UN office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Such accusations lack factual foundation about how the war against Hamas has been conducted.", "But there is no evidence whatsoever of any deliberate Israeli policy or plan to kill civilian Palestinians in Gaza that would remotely warrant terms like 'massacre' or 'genocide'."
"This brings me to the comparisons between two recent cases: the wars in Gaza and Ukraine. Notwithstanding the vastly different histories leading up to the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, they both share an important similarity: the allegations of genocide against Russia and Israel.", "If Israel was using self-defence as its mode of reasoning, Russia was protecting the populations in Donetsk People's Republic, Luhansk People's Republic and Ukraine from violations of the 1948 Genocide Convention. Russian actions rendered immaterial whether Ukraine was in fact committing acts of genocide or not, as do Israeli arguments of self-defence. Russian and Israeli 'responsibility to protect' those in its (former) colonies was a strategy of empire that is not unknown."
SEPAD: Sectarianism, Proxies and De-sectarianisation
"I have listened to academics in these different disciplines explore sovereignty, and after much reflection on the current genocide in Gaza, I am now convinced that sovereignty, in itself, is a concept weaponized to order and maintain European and Western hegemony over the global majority."
"The feminist truism that women are always raped in war is relied upon to confirm that mass rapes took place on October 7—a weaponization of feminism designed to shut down questions about evidence and the deliberate circulation of false narratives about rape, and, importantly, to legitimize Israeli state violence and genocide in Gaza."
"While the scale and nature of the ongoing Israeli assault against the Palestinians vary by area, the totality of the Israeli acts of destruction directed against the totality of the Palestinian people, with the aim of conquering the totality of the land of Palestine, is clearly identifiable. Patterns of violence against the group as a whole warrant the application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Genocide Convention) in order to cease, prevent and punish genocide in the whole of the occupied Palestinian territory"
"Lorsqu’il lui est demandé si un génocide est en cours, selon les définitions du droit international, Marie Lamensch, coordonnatrice de projets à l’Institut montréalais d’études sur le génocide et les droits de la personne de l’Université Concordia, à Montréal, répond qu’il faudra encore des années pour déterminer si c’est le cas ou non. Même les plus grands experts juristes le disent, ajoute-t-elle : ils veulent attendre tous les éléments de preuve avant de se prononcer de façon définitive. Car la preuve d’un génocide est complexe, et pour obtenir une condamnation, il faut notamment démontrer devant la Cour l’« intention » précise de le commettre."
"When asked whether genocide is occurring, as defined by international law, Marie Lamensch, project coordinator at the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies at Concordia University in Montreal, says it will take years to determine whether or not that is the case. Even the greatest legal experts say so, she adds: they want to wait for all the evidence before making a definitive decision. Because proving genocide is complex, and to obtain a conviction, it is necessary to demonstrate before the Court the precise "intention" to commit it."
"Any early hesitation I had about applying the 'genocide' label to the Israeli attack on Gaza has dissipated over the past year of human slaughter and the obliteration of homes, infrastructure, and communities"
"it could be 'called a genocide, even in a narrow legal sense, for several months now' given the accumulation of Israeli attacks clearly and consistently targeting the civilian population in Gaza."
"The ICJ will likely not rule for years about whether the situation in Gaza meets the narrow legal definition of a genocide. But Bartov believes that the operation in Jabalia is so blatantly genocidal that 'it is possible that the ICJ will find this operation to be genocide even if it hedges on the war in Gaza as a whole.' Which is what happened in the case of Bosnia, where the massacre in Srebrenica was found to be genocide."
Yes
Already in article
Other scholars have offered opinions relating to the topic of incitement to genocide, but have not specifically drawn conclusions on the question of genocide itself.
"Sfard said he was stunned by the speed with which incitement to genocide and other extreme speech had been normalised in Israel.", "The gap between that and the freedom and impunity for those who advocate all kinds of things – ethnic cleansing, killing civilians, bombarding civilian areas, and even genocide – doesn't square up, and that's something for the authorities to explain."
"In view of the attorney general's failure to enforce the law or any accountability in the Huwwara case, it is no surprise that Israeli officials and politicians took advantage of the climate, following the Hamas attack, in order to incite deadly harm against the entire civilian population in Gaza.", "Given that senior members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government and those in the parliament have explicitly supported violence, terrorism and genocide against the Palestinians, any criminal proceedings initiated against them would be seen across the political spectrum in Israel as an attempt to overthrow a democratically elected government."
"The Law for Palestine project, a UK based human rights organization has so far documented over 500 statements made by Israeli officials which could potentially amount to incitement of genocide, which is prohibited under international law.", "Are these individuals advocating for nuclear war or inciting? Is calling for the use of nuclear weapons, the same as calling for genocide?"
There are two problems with this list. First, it includes opinions of scholars who work in completely unrelated areas (Professor of linguistics, Professor of computer science, Professor of political science, Professor of information theory, etc.). The second problem is that I don't see any of the sources listed in u:FortunateSons's thread which makes me doubt that the list is in fact representative of the range of experts' opinion. Alaexis¿question?09:47, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I am confused then as to what list you refer, as this list was started by @FortunateSons: with an exact copy of their list, and none of their entries have been removed. As to specialisms, you assume that the individuals are not relevant based on the field they are located in, if you click through the links provided in the list you can see what their research focuses are and the work they've published, and you'll find they have relevance. This is not to say they should be considered with as much weight as others, just as how the small comments by some individuals in the popular press should not be considered with as much weight as the peer reviewed papers published in the Journal of Genocide Research. --Cdjp1 (talk) 15:05, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I was referring to the collapsed list under the "Scholarly and expert opinions" heading above. I think that non-experts' opinions should not be in the list at all as the opinion of a professor of linguistics on the matter has about as much weight as yours or mine.
This list does (or at least should, I only spot-checked them) include the people I originally included. I must admit that I mostly disengaged from the list due to being incredibly busy, so at least the German part is mostly out of date, unless others have contributed those. There have been some discussions on scope and content in the past (see it’s talk page), and you (and everyone else) is very welcome to contribute.
Charny once again arguing that any comparative analysis of other genocides with the Holocaust is wrong and bad, unless it's Charny himself doing it. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 15:59, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for introducing me to Charny. I've read his paper accusing the Journal of Genocide Research of Holocaust minimization. I then read a response to the paper.
Briefly summarizing what I agreed with in the response paper:
Incredibly flawed survey design (Could be used as a textbook example of what a survey should not do)
Misquoting and mischaracterizing scholarly works, even going so far as to re-order a quote's sentences to completely pervert the original message.
Attacks on fellow Israeli scholar Amos Goldberg for daring to suggest a hypothetical way for Palestinians and Israelis to achieve peace
Nakba denial where Charny demonstrates his work is one of political rhetoric than history
From my admittedly non-exhaustive survey, I do not think the journal has any slant. It is Charny that should be considered a deprecated source when it comes to Israel. CoolAndUniqueUsername (talk) 15:35, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse (involved). Nothing out of ordinary here, since this is how consensus is normally established on Wikipedia. Consensus is not unanimity. When a group of editors presents good, policy-based arguments and another group makes weaker arguments, then it's routinely determined that there's a consensus for the stronger option. Which happened here, too. — kashmīrīTALK16:14, 25 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn (uninvolved). The move relies on the notion that non-neutral titles may be used if the specific formulation is widely used by reliable sources and so readers will more likely recognise it through this title. But there are three problems with it.
The query of the sources does not allow me to reach this conclusion. The table includes a lot of sources coming from experts not within the field of genocide study, international law, Israel-Palestine conflict, historians or the like. Among those scholars who are relevant, there are a lot (mostly of Jewish roots or origins, but a couple non-Jewish as well) who firmly state this is not a case of genocide or even that it is counter-genocidal, or alternatively that what they are doing is awful but there is no proof this is genocide (because proving genocide per the Genocide Convention is hell of a difficult task).
A very good source here is a Brookings poll that says A majority of Middle East scholars see Israeli motives in Gaza to be about forcing Palestinians out [57%]", "A third of scholars see Israel's military actions in Gaza as 'genocide' [34%]", 41% see it as "major war crimes akin to genocide". But 57% is not a wide majority, and war crimes are a lesser crime than genocide and require a lower standard of proof (though they are still heinous, and whether we call the crimes genocide or war crimes doesn't help suffering Palestinians).
To be clear, there are excellent sources here that assert that Israel commits genocide or is on the verge of doing it (e.g. UN special rapporteurs report from this month), but I don't see wide consensus that genocide is underway. "War crimes" is more likely to have wide consensus here than genocide, but that's not what was discussed here, so I can't force a change to this title. In other words, a legitimate debate is ongoing and Wikipedia should not take a side.
The second problem stems from the principle that we should not state opinions, or seriously contested assertions, as fact. A statement that "Israel is committing genocide" may even be an assertion of fact, but it is seriously contested, as shown above. And even when you assume this, you can't just nebulously say "Israel", because it's specific people who execute its policy and would arguably be perpetrators of the crime (e.g. Netanyahu, Gallant, other senior IDF/govt officials). But WP:BLPCRIME would bar us calling them génocidaires without a court of law having secured a conviction. So far we have an ICC arrest warrant against Netanyahu and Gallant, but an arrest warrant is not a conviction (in the same vein, Putin and Lvova-Belova cannot be accused in Wikipedia voice of forcibly abducting Ukrainian children even when such government-sponsored cases are well documented and the ICC posts arrest warrants on their asses for that reason).
Any reasonable reader would imply from the title that Wikipedia says Israeli officials are committing genocide in Gaza, when no court has yet said it and, even if we allow an exception for cases when researchers almost unanimously say this is genocide, this is not it. It is also not necessarily how the war in Gaza, and Israel's actions towards Palestianian civilians, is widely known among readers. Such accusations are known, but widely known as fact? Nah-ah. Therefore, I will be not the least bit surprised if readers start to flock here to accuse us of presenting the pro-Palestinian rhetoric as fact.
The third problem is that the policy of neutral point of view may not be annulled by consensus. Even if 90% of people had voted to move towards Gaza genocide, the first two points would prevent such a move. Here it's barely a majority, which makes the case for the move even weaker.
I certainly agree that the NPOV can't be dismissed by a local consensus, but there was no agreement here on what the NPOV title was. Those in favour of options 1 or 2 argued that "allegation" "question" or "accusation" was NPOV and "genocide" was POV (because not all sources say that there is a genocide). Those in favour of option 3 argued that "genocide" was NPOV and "allegation" "question" or "accusation" (per WP:ALLEGED). As a closer I don't think it's my place to decide which of two policy-based arguments are correct when there is no consensus amongst participants on that point. Instead, I looked for consensus in the other strands of the discussion, and found one on the question of usage in reliable sources/WP:COMMONNAME.
Your other two points seem to be criticisms of the reasoning and source analysis of the participants, rather than of the close? – Joe (talk) 15:10, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
WP:ALLEGED is clear that alleged and accused are appropriate when wrongdoing is asserted but undetermined, such as with people awaiting or undergoing a criminal trial, which is what we have in both ICJ and ICC right now. I think you should have pointed to this quote in the guideline. And even then guidelines cannot override a core policy. As for WP:COMMONNAME, I explained myself below.
To be clear, you did a hard job, and you are explaining yourself very reasonably, which I appreciate deeply. I believe you are doing a great job. It's that I would have made a different closure and I disagree with you, but that's no offense from me. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 19:42, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think that if I'd tried to determine that this is a situation where "wrongdoing is asserted but undetermined" (i.e. subject to WP:ALLEGED), or more broadly decide which title is favoured by NPOV, it would have been a supervote not a close. But of course I take no offence that you disagree. – Joe (talk) 07:41, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
On your comment on the list of sources, if you trim the list to just genocide scholars, firstly you'll find the majority support the assessment that this is in fact a case of genocide, secondly you'll find a chunk of those who state this is not genocide do so using the UN convention which is in contradiction to their own previous work where they use what they consider to be better frameworks to determining if something is genocide (this latter point you touch on yourself). So one must ask why is Gaza a special case for them to use a framework they consider deficient? There is then also the consideration of weight of where various scholars are publishing the opinions, as once again if we look at those that are being put through review to be published in academic articles, we find once again a majority appear in declaring this a case of genocide. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 16:05, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It may very well be that the researchers apply double standards or are hypocritical, but we should not be the ones calling the shots. You may provide scholarly commentary/papers of a similar level of proof that show those who oppose the genocide label are in fact inconsistent.
Now the purpose of POVNAMING is to say that when the choice comes between neutral but obscure title and widely used but possibly non-neutral title, we should use the latter. This is made, among other reasons, to make sure that readers may find titles under commonly recognised names. I don't see polls suggesting the term "Gaza genocide" or support for that notion is high enough to say that the first thing people will think when speaking of Gaza is "genocide". My assessment is that the sources presented do not demonstrate enough consensus to say that we can ignore the concern about article title neutrality (and when saying "we", speak for yourself - I explained why I don't believe the sourcing is good enough). Szmenderowiecki (talk) 18:38, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This is an RM vote, not an MR vote. #1 and #2 are reasons why it should/should not be moved. As for #3, well, it's up to the RM voters to decide whether a title is or is not in line with WP:NPOVTITLE. Levivich (talk) 17:14, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you, but I guess I know what I should assess in this discussion, and yes, I read correctly, it's MR nor RM.
#1 responds to the determination that "the arguments in favour of this title [Gaza genocide] generally had a stronger grounding in reliable sources". I don't really see it. Yes, there are great sources that say it is, and many others suggesting a controversy about this naming still exists. What the closer did is dismissed the latter, and that was improper on the closer's part.
#2 states the policies that inevitably will be implicated once the article was renamed, and which the closer did not take into account. Even if no other person has raised the argument, the closer's job is not only to evaluate consensus but to avoid closures that will obviously clash with other clearly stated policies, and to discard arguments that violate or will lead to violation of other policies (which the closer is explicitly allowed, and, I dare to say, obliged to do).
As for #3, that's where I'll have to disagree. The whole point of setting NPOV as a core policy is to prevent RM voters, or any voters, to override the policy by consensus, which is what this closure effectively does, and I believe that the closer did not take this into account, either.
Responding to your comment that "genocide" does not mean "a violation of the Genocide Convention".
First, the article structure still doesn't align with the title, and I don't know whether it's intentional, but, adopting your idea that editors are to decide what is NPOVTITLE (and NPOV content, by extension), you'd need a couple of things changed. First, the lead sentence "Israel has been accused by ... of carrying out a genocide" should be "Israel is committing genocide" (cf. The Holocaust - The Holocaust was the genocide of European Jews...); then section titles should be "Alleged genocidal intent and genocidal rhetoric" and "Alleged genocidal actions". That's if you want to be consistent. I guess you'd also need to have this included into List of genocides. Good luck doing this all.
Second, genocide is a crime and anything crime-related should fall under WP:BLPCRIME, and you aren't arguing that Netanyahu or Gallant should be called a "leader of the Gaza genocide campaign" in Wikivoice, are you? A lot of genocides were not prosecuted by ICC/ICJ/ad hoc tribunals, including all those before WWII, but here we have a high-profile case that is under consideration in the International Criminal Court (arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant) and the International Court of Justice (South Africa v. Israel), and both apply the Genocide Convention. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 19:33, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse (involved). Some comments here appear to be an attempt to rerun the discussion, which already ran for an extended period of time. Closer identified superior sourcing in support of the title (that also included sourcing suggesting there was a consensus on the matter among relevant experts).Selfstudier (talk) 16:01, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Comment (uninvolved), I had drafted a close at [16]. It recommended moving to option 1 per WP:ACD, then having another rfc, as editors provided reliable sources that an International Court of Justice case is ongoing, and WP should wait for the ICJ to decide, rather than editors. If there was an ongoing court case about whether Gerry was murdered or manslaughtered by Idris, and WP had two articles, one on the case 'State vs Idris' and one on the topic of 'Gerry murder', it would damage WP's reputation. Are there negative consequences to WP's reputation of no qualification of genocide, ahead of the verdict or does it just describe a topic without taking sides? Potentially a better way to deal with this would be to keep the move and start another RFC if editors feel the current unqualified title is damaging WP's reputation for neutrality, Tom B (talk) 17:01, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
But that's partly because the 1951 convention didn't exist at the time of many genocides e.g. Libyan genocide in the 1920s. Even since 1951 there has often been no prospect of a court case. Here we have an ongoing court case where living people are being accused of not just war crimes or crimes against humanity, but genocide like the Holocaust. Why have a court, a legal system if we only need scholars? Tom B (talk) 09:56, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
not mean "a violation of the Genocide Convention," even after the Convention was created in 1951, up to today, because "genocide" has multiple, overlapping definitions, and the Convention's definition is just one of them. The consensus of genocide studies scholars decides (for WP:RS/WP:NPOV purposes) what is and what is not a "genocide." The ICJ decides what is and what is not a violation of the Genocide Convention. Even since 1951 there has often been no prospect of a court case. Exactly, and that's why genocode studies scholars do not depend on the ICJ to determine what is a genocide; they make their own determination. Per WP:RS and WP:NPOV, we follow the scholarship, not the courts. Why have a court, a legal system if we only need scholars? The purpose of a court is to prosecute criminals. The purpose of scholars is to study something. The purpose of an encyclopedia is to summarize reliable secondary sources, such as genocide scholars' works, not to repeat what a court says. It's not like the ICJ is the only RS out there, nor does it trump scholars. A violation of the Genocide Convention isn't like a murder trial, but even still, Wikipedia will call something a murder even if courts have not convicted anyone of murder, when the RSes call it murder. Same with genocide: we refer to something as genocide when the RSes do, regardless of what the ICJ decides, and that is exactly because scholars call many things "genocide" that the ICJ never ruled upon. International law is not really similar to domestic law in this way--ICJ case isn't like any old murder trial. Levivich (talk) 12:20, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
thanks, "Wikipedia will call something a murder even if courts have not convicted anyone of murder", have you one example pls? My understanding was there wasn't clear consensus among sources that Israel's leaders have committed genocide, rather than crimes again humanity, and therefore it would be best for WP to wait for the court. But you're saying there's clear consensus those living people have committed genocide, so there's negligible risk to BLP or WP's reputation, Tom B (talk) 19:01, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Murder of Tupac Shakur. But you're saying there's clear consensus those living people have committed genocide, so there's negligible risk to BLP or WP's reputation I don't think I've ever said anything even close to that. I'm saying the fact that the ICJ hasn't convicted anyone of genocide yet is not a reason to overturn this close. Levivich (talk) 19:10, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
A good example, but there's also a good reason: the murderer of the rapper is not covered by BLP as he was himself murdered (just like in Lee Harvey Oswald's case, we state that he was JFK's assassin even though no court said he was one, as no court is quick enough to convict anyone in two days). This is why we don't have the BLP limitation. Here all the alleged perpetrators are living people.
thank you, nearly all sources agree Tupac was murdered. If nearly all sources agree there's no question a group of living Jews are guilty of genocide rather than war crimes, and WP editors are above the courts, then there's no risk to WP's reputation, Tom B (talk) 13:15, 28 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You're both still arguing the RM (what the title should be) instead of the MR (whether consensus was read correctly), and I'm not sure WP:BLPGROUP even applies to entire nations, militaries, or governments. Anyway, most participants agreed the title "Gaza genocide" doesn't accuse any specified person or group of committing genocide in violation of BLP. There is no "it must be X because of [ICJ/BLP]" rule that applies here. This RM did not have only one possible outcome, and I don't think arguing it did will convince anyone. Levivich (talk) 13:29, 28 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There were 3 possible outcomes: the lengthy status quo which no one agreed with, thank goodness that's gone; or acknowledge there is a question over whether genocide is happening, like Holodomor genocide question, or the outcome that happened: a concise title which suggests WP believes there is no question a genocide has been committed rather than war crimes, otherwise it would have put more words in the title, like it has with other articles. No one has argued there was only possible outcome, why do you think that? There is a sad irony on this move review page in that multiple courts found a genocide was committed in Srebrenica due to the intent behind the killings, but the move request for that article to genocide was denied with no rationale. Sad times, Tom B (talk) 17:52, 28 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse (uninvolved): A tough close, but consensus was assessed appropriately. There doesn't have to be a near-unanimous decision — nothing would ever be closed if that was the case. It ran for two months. People had more than enough time to add their comments. There will always be objections to difficult closes, which is why I am happy some people are willing to consider them. CFA💬16:39, 28 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse (uninvolved) That was a very well reasoned close on a contentious topic that was always going to wind up here. I don't really have anything else to add. SportingFlyerT·C18:22, 28 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse (involved). I agree with Kashmiri and Selfstudier, and as far as I have understood, the vast majority of both scholars with expertise in the area, international courts, reliable human rights and relief organisations, and the United Nations, all agree that this is a form of genocide. David A (talk) 15:52, 29 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Also, from what I recall there were 60 editors in total who voted, with 32 votes for option 3. What may have caused confusion is that many editors, particularly those who supported options 1 and 2, voted for two options at the same time. There were also a few instances of apparent vote-farming from people who were vocally against the move to the current page title, by either pinging many editors who would be against the move or visiting pro-Israel wiki projects to inform them. Initially the consensus was far more onesided. David A (talk) 15:58, 29 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
As I counted above, 28 editors voted for Option 3, 29 for Option 1 or 2 (or both), and 3 for both equally. Close call, but not a majority for 3. Gawaon (talk) 17:09, 29 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn (uninvolved). Nothing approaching a consensus was found, and the closer appealed to the number of 'votes' cast. The closer used the vote tallies to frame the justification for the move, and seemingly as evidence for the existence of a 'rough consensus'. WP:CON makes it extremely clear that polling is not a substitute for discussion. I'm not going to argue that there was no discussion (or the points of the discussion itself – I'd remimd others that this is not a suitable forum to relitigate such arguments), but it would seem that the closer's rationale for moving the page was overly influenced by 'vote counts' in a way that it should not have been. Domeditrix (talk) 16:04, 29 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn (involved) as it was a clear instance of WP:NOCONSENSUS, which preserves the most recent stable title. Joe counted 31-27 in favor of Gaza genocide (rather than the two similar alternatives). My own count is 29-28 in favor of Gaza genocide; Gawaon counted 29-28 against Gaza genocide. Either count indicates a lack of consensus. Consensus is not a vote, but the close did not really explain why either side had more convincing policy-based arguments. It mentioned arguments about the prevalence of "Gaza genocide" in sources, but most such arguments ignored the higher standard that WP:POVNAME imposes for non-neutral common names. Very few participants offered arguments for why Gaza genocide would not fail WP:POVNAME, and the closer did not mention any such arguments that he found convincing. — xDanielxT/C\R18:16, 29 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse (didnt vote in the move, but involved in the topic) - I dont really get why this is treated as a POV issue, the topic here is "Gaza genocide" and the title is wide enough to cover views that support the contention that such a thing is ongoing and views that oppose that contention. Joe's explanation that the title does not imply that it is true is amply supported by other article titles, such as American exceptionalism, which also covers a view and also includes material criticizing the belief, or Race and intelligence, which flat out says the connection between the two is pseudoscience, or Acquired homosexuality, or a long list of other articles. I think the close is well grounded in our policies, and as such see no cause to overturn it. nableezy - 18:44, 29 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The point is that this is a title for the overarching topic. It includes pro *and* con arguments. That is true of all the above. nableezy - 15:40, 31 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse (uninvolved). Agree with Boud, Kashmiri and others. There was a long discussion and debate over sourcing, and there ended up being a contested and close yet clear consensus on Option 3 after sources were reviewed, particularly the fact that the majority of genocide scholars, experts in the field, say a genocide is occurring. That should be leading in our usage as well. Raskolnikov.Rev (talk) 23:36, 29 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn (uninvolved in this discussion, involved in the topic area) Agree with Szmenderowiecki and XDanielx. A blatant violation of WP:POVTITLE and clearly there was no consensus to disregard that rule. Coretheapple (talk) 16:05, 30 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There was also no consensus on which option was the "blatant violation" (arguments were made for all three). – Joe (talk) 22:06, 30 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse (involved) – this was an incredibly well-attended discussion that evolved and settled in line with the sources – of which they were plenty supporting the eventual move target, and few seriously challenging it – and that is a pretty major order of the day. I'm not sure what could possibly be so unreasonable about the close that was made in the circumstances. The closer's weighing of arguments was the closer's weighing of arguments. Iskandar323 (talk) 16:25, 30 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
But was the closer's weighing of arguments appropriate considering the discussion? My impression is that it wasn't. Gawaon (talk) 17:10, 30 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not a closer and don't want to become one, but see above for why I'm unconvinced in this case. Closer strongly relied on a headcount supposedly in favour of option 3 (claiming "most support by a clear margin") which, however, can't be confirmed by a recount. They also seem to have weighed the arguments differently, apparently disregarding some votes for option 1/2 as "not policy-based" (namely: "there is no Gaza genocide"), while silently allowing exactly the same kind of argument ("there is a genocide in Gaza") in favour of option 3. A no consensus close would have been more appropriate considering the headcount and the arguments presented. Gawaon (talk) 17:33, 30 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You're saying that I over-relied on the headcount, but also that a difference of one or two !votes should change the outcome. Which one is it? FTR I don't know whether it's 31-27, 29-28, or 28-29 (we have three different counts from three different people), but nor do I think it matters: the strength of argument for option 3 was greatest, and I explained how I came to that conclusion. – Joe (talk) 20:09, 30 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
No, I'm saying that regardless of the exact count, the headcount by itself is too close to be conclusive (but you said "Considering that option 3 had the most support by a clear margin ... I see a rough consensus that the title of this article should be Gaza genocide" in the final sentence of your decision). There remains the "stronger grounding in reliable sources" that you gave as additional basis for your decision. Maybe that by itself is enough, but I don't really see it and so remain unconvinced. Gawaon (talk) 21:20, 30 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
By "support" I don't mean the raw numbers, I mean the level of support after discounting non-policy-based arguments, which as I explained where found more on the option 1/2 side than the option 3 side. Sorry if that wasn't clear (though I do think it is standard practice). – Joe (talk) 21:55, 30 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse (involved) – Not to be all "Webster's Dictionary states..." but the NPOV policy makes it clear: "Resolving such debates depends on whether the article title is a name derived from reliable sources or a descriptive title created by Wikipedia editors." In this case the original title as well as options 1 and 2 were wholly descriptive, the current title after the move is a name derived from reliable sources. Everyone is free to disagree with the sources, but they do call it the Gaza Genocide, so the closer made the correct decision here.Smallangryplanet (talk) 19:35, 31 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn (involved) per the arguments above. Excluding the margins question, which I would call less-than-clear, the closer did not sufficiently differentiate between the legal vs. non-legal destination of genocide, a question at the core of (just to be clear, in my opinion rather opaque) question of source majority vs. minority. The side supporting the move did not make a case of why „Gaza Genocide“ was a neutral title or used overwhelmingly, thereby failing to meet the requirements of WP:POVNAME.
Endorse (involved) - I don't see any issues with the way the closer weighed the strength of arguments, including the arguments that the title "Gaza genocide" does not mean that there is a genocide in Gaza (in the same way "Flat Earth" doesn't imply that the Earth is flat, "Race and intelligence" doesn't imply that race determines intelligence, and "Israel and apartheid" doesn't imply that Israel is committing apartheid). These arguments, rooted in WP:CONSISTENT and WP:NPOVTITLE, were not rebutted by those voting for 1 or 2. Similarly, arguments rooted in WP:COMMONNAME based on source analysis were not rebutted. The closer's job is to weigh the strength of these arguments. Those voting overturn haven't shown why or how this weighing of arguments was incorrect. Assertions like "well it's blatantly wrong" are unpersuasive. The sources call it "Gaza genocide" even when they're arguing against there being a genocide in Gaza, and that's a strong argument for "Gaza genocide" being the name of this topic. So I agree with the closer that those who think it shouldn't be called "Gaza genocide" because not everyone agrees it's a genocide, are making the weaker argument. Just like the Earth being round doesn't mean we don't call it "Flat Earth". Levivich (talk) 01:50, 1 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Title's with "and" are bad examples since they don't imply anything except that some people see a connection between the two topics. However, if the article was named "Apartheid in Israel" instead of Israel and apartheid, it wouldn't be neutral any more, since it would suggest that there actually is apartheid in Israel. Flat Earth is an article about an outdated theory, but there's also Spherical Earth which discusses the theory which is now generally accepted. If the Earth's form were entirely discussed in the "Flat Earth" article, that would mean Wikipedia is taking sides by giving an outdated theory more weight (promoting it to article title even!) than it deserves. Now, when it comes to genocides, we do have a well-established naming schema. "Genocide" is the main noun if a genocide is well-documented to actually have taken place, as in Armenian genocide, Bangladesh genocide, Cambodian genocide, Greek genocide, Rwandan genocide, and many others sadly too numerous to list (but see List of genocides). If, on the other hand, there's serious dispute about whether a genocide happened somewhere, we usually call that "genocide question" in the article or section title, such as Holodomor genocide question, Congo Free State#Genocide question, Nigerian Civil War#Genocide question. Merely alleged or imagined "genocides" are also identified as such, e.g. White genocide conspiracy theory. Would it be neutral to rename that page to "White genocide"? I don't think so! The Gaza genocide article now sadly and illogically deviates from this pattern. To keep neutrality and stick with our well established patterns, "Gaza genocide question" would be the appropriate title. Gawaon (talk) 06:52, 1 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
if the article was named "Apartheid in Israel" instead of Israel and apartheid, it wouldn't be neutral any more, since it would suggest that there actually is apartheid in Israel Nope, the current title reflects the fact that the accusations are that Israel commits apartheid both in Israel and in the occupied territory. Selfstudier (talk) 10:28, 1 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If intersection articles (X and Y) aren't good analogues, then neither are conspiracy theories (although I'd be fine with it being called "White genocide" just like I'd be fine with "Chemtrail"). But voters in the RM didn't base their votes entirely on either intersection or conspiracy theory articles; they looked at others like "American exceptionalism", which doesn't imply that the US is exceptional, it's just what that idea is called. Ultimately, that you or other editors might disagree that this is the best title has no bearing really on whether or not it was a proper close. Levivich (talk) 22:04, 1 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Exceptionalism refers to be the belief that something is exceptional, rather than referring to the thing itself as exceptional - I don’t think that’s the best example. Plus, it’s almost certainly the WP:COMMONNAMEBilledMammal (talk) 22:09, 1 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse (uninvolved). There already a lengthy debate over the name of the article which had a broad consensus, there is no need to go through another change. There is broad scholarly consensus using the name 'Gaza genocide' and as it becomes colloquialised the name will continue to line up with public opinion and WP:COMMONNAME. Also as per other arguments presented here. Ecpiandy (talk) 10:54, 4 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
as it becomes colloquialised the name will continue to line up with public opinion and WP:COMMONNAME which means it isn't a common name yet and it is only about to line with the criterion, and also really, are we phychics? Szmenderowiecki (talk) 17:54, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse (uninvolved in the RM, although regular editor in the topic). The close was carried out correctly and with due care.
Commenters here should remember the advice at WP:MR: Remember that move review is not an opportunity to rehash, expand upon or first offer your opinion on the proper title of the page in question.... Some of those suggesting overturn have leant on WP:POVTITLE, which is just that - a re-hash of old arguments - and they have all, so far, declined to answer the repeated follow on question on the comparison to other similar articles such as Rohingya genocide, Tamil genocide and East Timor genocide. Onceinawhile (talk) 15:55, 6 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn (uninvolved). There are fundamentally two problems with the closure: (1) At issue here is not, as some (especially outside Wikipedia) are saying, whether the situation in Gaza qualifies as genocide; the issue is a fundamentally stylistic question of how to title an article about [allegations/debates/questions] of genocide. Wikipedians are funny about style. We obsess over it sometimes, argue about it, have endless discussions... Some of the most heated conflict arises because of spelling, grammar, punctuation, etc. The role of the admin in closing such discussions is in evaluating the strength of policy-based arguments and placing the weight of those arguments where they belong in terms of policy. That means placing core content policies over style pages. At the end of the day, if those pushing for a stylistic change fail to account for the way the change would affect reader understanding of the subject, they are presenting fundamentally weaker arguments and it shouldn't matter what the numbers are. If the argument is between word economy and reader understanding, it's the job of the closer to weigh the latter arguments more strongly rather than accept framing put forward that only style arguments matter. (2) The closer acknowledged there were two nearly identical choices and one different choice -- that those who supported the first two seemed to have some overlap and combine to have a lot more support than the third. But then that fact was simply ignored. This was a nearly 2:1 result against the third option (not that numbers need play a role -- see #1). There would be an easy way to determine if this was correct: have a run-off vote with two options. But like I said, reader understanding arguments should be weighed more heavily than style anyway as reflective of core content policy. — Rhododendritestalk \\ 06:47, 7 August 2024 (UTC) Small edit, but re-signing for transparency since it's been a week. — Rhododendritestalk \\ 11:56, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Rhododendrites: This has already been mentioned multiple times, but there was not a 2:1 result against the third option because many participants voted for more than one option. If you count the number of people in favour of option three versus the number of people opposed to option three (including people who supported option one or option two), it is almost even but very slightly in favour of option three. You can find the exact figures elsewhere in this discussion. Counting this way is equivalent to the 'run-off' you propose. – Joe (talk) 14:47, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. I misunderstood the numbers in this thread, so struck that line and went to count for myself. I see roughly equal numbers between 3 and !3, with a handful including 3 and !3. With those numbers, the policy based arguments on one side would have to be quite a bit stronger than the other's to find consensus for anything. My reading is that the policy-based arguments were not quite a bit stronger in favor of #3 but in fact substantially weaker per my first point above. — Rhododendritestalk \\ 15:03, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
My reading is that the policy-based arguments were not quite a bit stronger in favor of #3 but in fact substantially weaker per my first point above Only if you want to completely ignore the sourcing, which was conclusive (and recently became even more conclusive with yet another high profile genocide scholar stipulating a genocide). Selfstudier (talk) 15:25, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'd like to remind you, @Selfstudier, that this is not the place to relitigate arguments made in the initial discussion, as you have done here. @Rhododendrites should be free to at least give their opinion on the merits of the close without a recommencement of the original discussion in full (for the umpteenth time). The length of this move review is already going to give any closer a massive headache, it doesn't need to be lengthened further needlessly. Domeditrix (talk) 15:38, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) One of the reasons I found the arguments of those supporting #3 weak is this way that of talking about sourcing. You're relying on a bespoke collection of sources identified through their use of a specific label, but it's a label for a subject that is more often described than labeled. The fact that the body of literature which doesn't use "gaza genocide" do not produce a nice neat keyword to use is a problem, but a stylistic problem. It means "gaza genocide" is worth considering from a stylistic point of view, so long as there aren't other problems with it that would harm reader understanding. In this case, many people in the discussion flagged such an issue: it's not a neutral title and/or gives the reader the wrong impression about the subject of the article. That is fundamentally a stronger policy-based argument than the stylistic perspective based on counting keywords in sources, and IMO we need the closer to recognize such an imbalance. I won't likely reply to this further, btw, as I don't think I have anything else to add. — Rhododendritestalk \\ 16:08, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn (uninvolved) per the arguments presented by Szmenderowiecki. Feels like putting such a contentious title in Wikivoice would require a wider consensus that almost 50/50, but I suppose not. TheKip(contribs)22:53, 7 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse (uninvolved) This MR is rehashing all the old arguments without offering new evidence or arguments. The current title is in line with reputed sources' description of the topic. I see editors who are opposed are bringing up works of questionable reliability as disagreeing sources. The closer accounted for this in their original decision and followed WP:RMCI by appropriately giving weight to the relevant sources based on their level of reliability. CoolAndUniqueUsername (talk) 16:00, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse (involved). The discussion doesn't need a rerun. It lasted almost two months - surely that was enough time for everyone to add their two cents. I myself changed my vote a couple of times based on arguments provided by other editors. The closer explained in detail how the verdict was reached. Simply doing a headcount is not enough since what matters is the quality of the responses, if they relied on proper sources etc. The criticism mostly relies on a supposed POV violation. The topic here is unequivocally Gaza genocide, whether people are arguing that it exists or it doesn't. If anything adding "allegation", "accusation" or similar is POVish on our part. Other editors have already provided plenty of examples showing why the title being as it is doesn't imply that it is true. - Ïvana (talk) 16:58, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Narrow and continue (uninvolved) Given the sourcing, the close was not fully unreasonable, but it also left doubt as to how it would do in a two-horse race or whether it's a WP:POVNAMING. Should it be the title, I don't think so. I feel it's biased and we can do better. Most of the sources aren't exactly Jewish-friendly but given the fairly biased lead paragraphs, the title fits. This whole article is a "don't let this happen to you lesson" for my students so they don't get Ds and Fs. The easiest thing to do is re-run it and give two firm choices. "Gaza genocide" and "Gaza genocide accusations." It really should never have been run with three choices and with a 2-way split between (softest choice + softer choice) or (harsher choice) there was always going to remain doubt and finger pointing. It's not that hard folks.... redo with a 1. Gaza genocide accusations (with an s, plural since there are many) and 2. Gaza genocide. Dump the super-soft and silly Gaza genocide question. Make it clear this is it... a third choice is no choice. We are in no rush so let it run for a few weeks and see if there is any difference. It relieves the look of WP:POVNAMING. I don't expect there to be but you never know. Fyunck(click) (talk) 20:00, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
One of the reasons would be sourcing. Everywhere you look you see "Israel accused of genocide." I see it every day. The accusations can be shot down or enhanced depending on press from the right or left, but accusations are the name of the day in this dispute. The only place I see the term "question" on google is when it links back to this discussion. To me "accusations" is the more neutral and used term. "Question" is the softer less used and therefore more biased term. Fyunck(click) (talk) 21:17, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think the participants in the original discussion already addressed this problem by !voting for "option 1 and 2". This was mentioned in the close. – Joe (talk) 14:49, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn (involved). This seems obvious to me. Editors agree we shouldn't be saying there is a genocide in Wikivoice, and thus per WP:POVNAMING we shouldn't be saying there is one in the title. BilledMammal (talk) 22:32, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse (uninvolved). Comparing the move discussion and this discussion, it is difficult to escape the sense that this move review is mostly rehashing the move discussion. As the close explained, the source analysis, among other factors, demonstrated stronger policy-based support for option 3. By way of aside, in this move review I noticed a sentiment from some overturn support arguing that the topic isn't broadly known by readers this way. However, in neutrally naming topics, as editors we try to take our cues not from the general average of the human population or from the average of the probable reader population but from the best reliable sources that are relevant. As Joe Roe's close explains, the discussion revealed more grounding for option 3 in relevant quality sourcing, and I don't see a compelling reason to overturn the move. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 11:10, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse (involved). The closing statement and the post-RM discussion were reasonable and based on wikipolicies. A "no consensus" result was inappropriate, given that few wanted to stay with the current title. As for head numbers, many of the "overturn" !votes here are proposing combining "option 1" with "option 2", even though in the RM many of those who voted for "option 1" opposed "option 2" and vice versa. If you look a couple of !votes above, two overturn !voters (Fyunck, Gawaon) can't seem to agree between "option 1" and "option 2".VR(Please ping on reply)17:00, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If you'll look at the discussion again, you'll notice that many participants accepted both, at least in preference to option 3. Personally I'd consider both quite acceptable too (but I didn't participate in the discussion, so that hardly matters). Gawaon (talk) 17:31, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn (uninvolved). As per xDanielx, as well as per that the primary reason given by the closer - vote count - is fallacious as it counted votes for options which are largely interchangeable independently. Even if the original discussion truly had anything approaching a consensus - which it didn't - the proposal should still at least be reviewed since one of the major reasons given by the closer was incorrect.
There is a good argument to be made that the secondary reason given by the closer - that arguments for option 3 had more grounding in Wikipedia policy - is also incorrect: it might have had more grounding in reliable sources, but WP:RS was a less relevant policy for the topic than WP:POVNAME; and in turn, arguments for options 1 and 2 had more grounding in WP:POVNAME. Unless there is something I'm missing, I'm pretty sure that indicates the arguments for options 1 and 2 had more grounding in Wikipedia policy. Rhosnes (talk) 23:48, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That's not correct. I counted !votes for option 3 vs. options 1 or 2, and option 3 had the majority. This also wasn't the "primary" reason I cited for the close; that was the relative strength of arguments. – Joe (talk) 06:52, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
In the discussion, which 60 editors participated in:
The count has already been discussed exhaustively above. You are the fourth editor to try and count the !votes and you've come up with the fourth different set of figures. In my experience this is normal because there will always be some !votes that are ambiguous and that is why I always qualify my figures as a "rough headcount" in my closes (as I did here). It doesn't matter what the exact figures are because if I'd based my close purely on a margin of a few !votes either way it would have rightly been thrown out immediately. But I didn't. – Joe (talk) 07:50, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I provided a full listing of who supported what, so that if there are any issues with my count you can identify them, and hopefully we can determine whether there is an actual majority. With that said, are there any individuals who you think I missed for option 3?
I consider this important because the headcount did play a role in your close, and that means determining whether you made an error is useful in assessing the appropriateness of your close. BilledMammal (talk) 08:31, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
So did Gawaon above, and he got 28–31 for option 3 and 29 for option 1 or 2. Again, it does not matter. Shuffle the numbers any way you like and I would have made the same close. – Joe (talk) 11:12, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse (uninvolved) It was a long and interesting discussion, and consensus and strength of argument moved to accepting the scholarly consensus among genocide scholars. Even in the absence of that merely using the common name for it without "allegations" in the title does not mean accepting it. The page contains the controversy. Close was justified. Lf8u2 (talk) 17:32, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn (uninvolved). The move to "Gaza genocide" did not reflect a clear consensus of the discussion. The headcount was nearly evenly split, and the closer’s decision overly relied on numbers rather than the strength of policy-based arguments. Options 1 and 2, which together garnered substantial support, better align with Wikipedia's core policy of neutrality. The new title violates Wikipedia's stance on neutrality by implying a settled conclusion in an ongoing debate and even contradicts the lead sentence of the article which says Israel has been 'accused' of genocide. IntrepidContributor (talk) 14:38, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse (uninvolved with discussion, involved with topic). The decision was within the bounds of a reasonable close. The closer found that the many sources presented as evidence gave more weight to favour option 3, while also finding several non-policy-based votes for option 1 and 2. Therefore, by weight, option 3 prevailed. Certainly, when the numbers are close, the more policy-complaint arguments win. starship.paint (RUN)10:21, 18 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Just on a point of definition, when something is marginal, it is very hard (or impossible?) to argue that a consensus has been reached. A plurality or slim majority does not indicate a 'consensus'. The way you've framed the point ("when the numbers are close") seems more consistent with an argument of WP:NOCON. Maybe if you explain in a bit more detail what you meant here I can understand where you're coming from. Domeditrix (talk) 15:44, 18 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Domeditrix: - simple: WP:NOTAVOTE. Numbers and votes are not the only factor. One must analyse the strength of the arguments. If both sides have the similar number of votes and similar strength in arguments, then no consensus. But the closer determined that option 3 had stronger votes due to sources presented, whereas some option 1 and 2 votes had little strength. So when evaluating both numbers and strength, the closer concluded that option 3 was superior overall. starship.paint (RUN)15:56, 18 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn (uninvolved). The new title clearly violates WP:NPOV. The nominator has effectively demonstrated that the majority of votes are against the new framing, which improperly uses WP:VOICE to present a highly contested allegation as fact. UnspokenPassion (talk) 11:42, 18 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It isn't highly contested except by people with personal misguided tribalist interests in acting as apologists. As is very clear by actually reading the page in question, along with other closely associated Wikipedia pages, the vast majority of expert scholars, well-informed relief organisations, and member countries of the United Nations consider this a textbook case of genocide. David A (talk) 19:46, 18 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Please avoid personal attacks on this talk page. I contest this closure, not due to some tribal affiliation, but for the lack of a firm consensus on classifying Israel's actions in Gaza, which was misconstrued by the closer as a policy based argument, with a razor thin majority of users. If a clear consensus existed in scholarly and regular news sources, the article would reflect it in the lede, and it wouldn't begin with 'Israel is accused' unlike other articles like the Armenian Genocide and Rwandan genocide, where the article ledes clearly match their titles. IntrepidContributor (talk) 04:00, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The article in question is much longer than just the lead section. Please read the entirety of the rest of it for much further information regarding the international consensus, and preferably the other most closely connected Wikipedia articles as well, such as Israeli war crimes in the Israel–Hamas war. It seems preferable to update the lead to match the rest of the article rather than overhaul the entirety of it or move it again.
Also, tribalist simply means "my groups versus other groups" and "my enemy's enemy is my friend, regardless what they are doing" in general, including west versus east or south, rather than accepting that we are all almost genetically identical humans with equal human rights and sanctities of life. David A (talk) 05:09, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Nothing in the entirety of the article indicates a clear consensus in scholarly and regular news sources, which is why the lede correctly uses terminology like 'accused'. Israel may be guilty of war crimes, but genocide has a very clear definition in international law, and portraying it as a genocide without a clear consensus discredits Wikipedia. Please avoid any personalisation of this dispute with tribalist or enemy-of-friend insinuations as it is entirely inappropriate. IntrepidContributor (talk) 05:41, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Consensus is not remotely the same as saying that absolutely everybody in the world agree with it, just a strong majority, but the vast majority of the United Nations member countries, except for those with vested political interests aligning with those of the United States government, seem to consider this a genocide going by their U.N. voting records, along with all major relief organisations that I know of, and even 75% of the expert scholars who live in the United States, with only 4% supporting the Israeli war crimes, despite the country's very heavy pro-Israel bias, so the consensus among scholars in the rest of this world is likely far stronger. David A (talk) 07:04, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I won't add my opinion here as it is not the place, but I'd like to remind you and @IntrepidContributor that this is not the place to relitigate the reasons for the move itself. This discussion is about whether the closer was justified in their decision on the basis of the facts available to them and whether they followed Wikipedia policy. Let's not clog this up further, this is not a WP:FORUM. Domeditrix (talk) 07:11, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn (uninvolved). Rhododendrites says it better than I can, but I'll summarize my views anyway to ensure they're understood. First of all, this seems like a spoiler effect - had both options 1 and 2 not been presented, it's very reasonable to assume that whichever of them was "versus" option 3 would've easily had more support. So that makes the entire irrelevant vote counting done in the final paragraph of the close moot as a whole. The closer also seems to impose their own view of the NPOV policy onto the close. NPOV is not a policy/guideline that can be subject to ignoring the rules without a damn good reason. And saving one word in the title is nowhere near that reason to ignore NPOV. Even if reliable sources violate NPOV for brevity/editorial reasons, that does not mean we do so here. For all of these reasons, the close should be overturned and the move request closed as clear favor for shortening the old title, with a consensus against a non-qualified "Gaza genocide" title, but with a new discussion to determine the exact wording of it (whether "allegations", "claims", "question", or otherwise). -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me!05:14, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - there was a similar proposal to move Palestinian genocide accusation to Palestinian genocide, which seems likely to fail. If the outcome here is endorse while the outcome there is don't move, we'll be in an odd situation where the parent and child articles aren't consistent, and addressing it would require yet another RM. Not that WP:TITLECON is a huge deal, but if we end up with inconsistent outcomes, it will suggest that our process went wrong somewhere (either in one of the closes, or a discussion not attracting a representative sample of editors, etc). — xDanielxT/C\R16:41, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This raises the question also of whether this article in question (Gaza genocide as it is named right now) is merely a WP:POVFORK. I can’t imagine that there is so much information that is due weight for an article on accusations of genocide against Palestinians as a whole (whether in Gaza, the West Bank, or elsewhere) that two whole articles are merited. As a note, the Persecution of Uyghurs in China covers many more specific actions and is still one article. Rohingya genocide is also simply one page (though there is another related topic being discussed for merge at this time).The important thing to consider is what is due weight or not. Both gaza genocide and the article xDaniel identifies above are over 300,000 bytes long. Compare that to other articles on genocides - even ones that have had “more developments” such as court rulings, arrests, trials, etc.. but are still all much shorter than either one of these articles - and that strongly suggests that there is a due weight violation being used to artificially inflate the size of a hypothetical combined page in order to segment discussion and allow for POV pushing. Perhaps NPOVN would be a good place for such a discussion to continue. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me!21:09, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I can’t imagine that there is so much information that is due weight for an article on accusations of genocide against Palestinians as a whole (whether in Gaza, the West Bank, or elsewhere) that two whole articles are merited. You don't need to imagine it, just read the two articles. A great deal has been written about the Palestinian genocide accusation, which covers the accusation that, to summarize it, the Nakba is a genocide. This covers all of Palestine for the last 100 years or so. Separately, a huge corpus of literature has recently been written about the Gaza genocide, which covers just the Israel-Hamas war, 2023-present. Combining the two would put undue weight on the recent Gaza genocide in relation to the overall Palestinian genocide accusation. One of the differences between the two is that there is much more agreement that the Israel-Hamas war has included genocide (or is a genocide), than there is about the Nakba as a whole. Levivich (talk) 21:29, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Just because a great deal has been written does not mean it is due weight to include all of what was written. Just as an example, the "statements by political leaders" and "court cases" sections in Gaza genocide could be significantly shortened while still covering all DUE information. Right now, both articles hold significantly more "opinions from random people" (even those that are "experts" or relevant) than is normally considered DUE on this type of article. Part of the reason for that is because one side is "louder" in terms of their numbers on Wikipedia in arguing for its inclusion. I trust that the recent AE referral to ArbCom will resolve many of those issues and then we can begin having constructive discussions in the topic area again that do not devolve into articles becoming coatracks for all possible information that some editors find attractive. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me!21:41, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse (uninvolved). I've just spent quite a bit of time to read the whole discussion and it looks like Joe is right in saying that the source analysis (which was not challenged or refuted convincingly — unless you want to throw out the entirety of academia) confirms that genocide here is a neutral descriptor. You can argue about headcounts, but the discussion does evidence that there is a consensus that Gaza genocide would be a NPOV article name. ~ F4U (talk • they/it) 21:57, 21 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Question for those arguing "overturn": overturn to what? The previous article title hardly had support. Even if you disagree there was consensus for "3", surely you must agree there was consensus to move away from the previous title.VR(Please ping on reply)05:00, 22 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The above is an archive of the move review of the page listed in the close of this review. Please do not modify it.
AC Transit calls it "Salesforce Transit Center." This language is used widespread on maps and trip planning tools, physical signage at bus stops, and digital signage on buses. https://www.actransit.org/overview-maps
So, the passengers who pass through the transit center know it as Salesforce Transit Center. The drivers and transit agency employees know it as Salesforce Transit Center. Both locals and tourists know it as Salesforce Transit Center. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tallneil (talk • contribs) 19:13, 21 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The above is an archive of the move review of the page listed in the close of this review. Please do not modify it.
So me and this user have been unable to come into an agreement regarding the name of this railway station. There have been two news article that state the official station name has changed, but Paine keeps stating its not enough to officially update the station name. I've provided several links & photos that show the name has changed. Please step in. FlushingLocal (talk) 00:42, 21 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn to move: I was the only participant that originally opposed the move, and I notified Paine Ellsworth immediately after the close that I wished to support a move based on new evidence. The evidence is now very clear: the name has been changed on official websites (info page, timetable, map), news reports the name is changed, and multiple news stories (1, 2) use only the new name in brief mentions. No reliable sources appear to have used the old name in several months. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 01:31, 21 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn to move the only opposition to the move initially was that it was WP:TOOSOON, but there was absolutely no opposition afterwards. The closer is trying to enforce a guideline to the detriment of the project. For many name changes, we just need to wait and see that the official name is being used widely enough that it's the common name. It's very easy to do with non-controversial changes like the simple renaming of a station such as this one and it actually occurred in this discussion. SportingFlyerT·C09:26, 21 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This isn't about a "guideline", it's about the stronger community consensus of WP's article title policy. And yes, we should all enforce our policies when closing move requests or any other type of discussion, shouldn't we? P.I. Ellsworth , ed.put'er there10:39, 21 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
WP:NAMECHANGES directly cites common sense. The move request was initiated before the transport network had finished updating, and the only opposition was that it was moved too soon, and we need to wait and see if the name becomes official and used. Three different users then cited how the move had become official, negating the two "not yets." Absolutely no one opposes the move now, and it's common sense that a train station with an uncontroversial name change should appear in the way it's signed. Your close ignores common sense and was a clear WP:SUPERVOTE. There's also third party sources reporting on the name change that weren't brought up in the article, so even if we double down on your technicality, it will still need to be moved. SportingFlyerT·C11:55, 21 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I knew at the time of the close that it was just a matter of time; however, as of the time of this RM close, only one source had been found and cited that used the new name routinely per article title policy. If as of now more such sources have been found, then yes, the new name has become the common name. That was not "my technicality", it is WP policy backed up by long, strong community consensus. Even a station name change can be controversial and confusing to readers who don't know of the change and who search for the old name when it is still the common name. Any other time you'd be citing WP:RMCI, "...and giving due consideration to the relevant consensus of the Wikipedia community in general as reflected in applicable policy," for gosh sakes! P.I. Ellsworth , ed.put'er there14:36, 21 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. < closer > Here's the thing, it really is just a matter of time before reliable secondary sources can be found per policy that will make the new name the common name. But put yourself in a reader's shoes for a minute. You search for the station using the only name you know, the old name. If the article's title is changed before the new name becomes the common name, then a redirect takes you to the new official name, which you aren't familiar with yet. Now you think, 'Wikipedia is such a piece of s__t, it took me to the wrong article.' That's why WP has the article title policy in place, to keep reader astonishment to a bare minimum. P.I. Ellsworth , ed.put'er there15:04, 21 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
They'd just be redirected to the new article, though, no one in the discussion made that argument, and at the end of the discussion there was agreement among three different users that it was time, and one of the opposers stated they don't oppose anymore. Could you just please un-do and change your close to move the article? SportingFlyerT·C16:01, 21 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Exactly, readers will be redirected to a name they are not familiar with and will think their search led them to the wrong page. It's what WP:COMMONNAME and WP:NAMECHANGES are all about. Until the title is shown to be the common name, it should NOT be changed. C'mon, you know better. P.I. Ellsworth , ed.put'er there17:59, 21 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn to move (uninvolved) - seems like it has enough sources, both primary and secondary to confirm the name of the station has been officially changed. It's not like we need an overabundance of secondary sources since the notability of the station itself has been established. The name change won't confuse readers if a redirect from the old name is left in place. And common sense would probably be that if a reader is wanting to actually take the train to a destination, they'd probably check with MetroNorth before looking at Wikipedia. Netherzone (talk) 15:52, 21 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn to move (involved) - It seems we have a consensus that the article can and should be moved under the new name. This whole entire thing was completely unnecessary except for the fact that I wanted to move it a bit to soon. 98.116.105.28 (talk) 20:37, 22 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
SNOW closing an RM after less then 6 hours is highly inappropriate, since certain time zones would have never had a chance to respond, and there is some evidence suggesting it may not have been an assassination attempt. This should have been given more time to develop with more input from others. Below the RM, the closer further justified closing it, so I did not see a need to bring this to their talk page with the highly likely result they refuse. Downerr2937 (talk) 16:26, 14 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse (uninvolved) a quick close can be appropriate for rapidly developing events and ten !votes over six hours should be enough to determine snow. -- D'n'B-t -- 17:19, 14 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse, speedy close. The consensus was clear. I was about to early close it the same way. Closing that early was necessary to get past that issue, saving editor time and making way for future RMs that focus on different issues. –Novem Linguae (talk) 17:36, 14 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The above is an archive of the move review of the page listed in the close of this review. Please do not modify it.
Endorse and speedy close. The move proposal had no rationale attached, it clearly violates the custom that we don't use a slash to separate two alternative names for the same topic and it already had five opposes at the time it was speedily closed. The OP also reverted the close twice out of process, and doesn't seem to have discussed this with the closer at all, as required by MRV rules. All in all nothing to see here, the move is never going ahead and the OP needs to WP:DROPTHESTICK. 20:24, 12 July 2024 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Amakuru (talk • contribs)
Endorse and speedily close - there's absolutely no consensus to move that discussion, it was speedily closed, and the review doesn't bring up any reason for review. SportingFlyerT·C20:56, 12 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This was either a close for Ivory Coast or perhaps no-consensus. Red Slash based everything on ngrams as opposed to other argument content. ngrams were shown to be inefficient compared with so many major sources still using Ivory Coast. Google trends has Ivory Coast way ahead, and even that source is limiting. I've never seen ngrams used exclusively as a reason to close an RM. Past discussion have had the same ngram arguments and been quashed. Why this one RM and it's moved? I edit a lot of tennis articles and if we used ngrams to this extent all our foreign players and locations would be at different titles (titles Wikipedia forces us to use often get 0% ngrams vs 100% something else). Plus this was closed the day three more people placed their opinions... it was very active the day it closed. I'm sure the closer was sincere here, but it was just a bad close. Even the person who opened the RM thinks it was a bad close. Fyunck(click) (talk) 06:29, 12 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse (uninvolved). Good turnout, open long enough, all processes conducted properly, policies adhered to and evidence all stacked up in one direction. Good close. - SchroCat (talk) 06:38, 12 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Relist (uninvolved) The close correctly discards a couple of the oppose !votes, but the first point makes clear that the closer unilaterally decided that ngrams (the main argument for the move) outweighs the fact that Fyunck and even :Erp's support !vote show major news organisations still use Ivory Coast with considerable frequency, or agree that it is the common name (:Erp's UK government comment). Given this is a fairly major change, I think the discussion is closer to a no consensus than a move even with a slight support majority when downweighting a couple of the oppose !votes, but I think the only really strong votes in the entire discussion were Fyunck's and :Erp's (and Kowal2701's listing of sources which use the current name). Calling these strong doesn't mean all of the other votes need to be discredited, but those were the only comments which tried to actually make a showing of what is commonly used beyond ngrams. I think no consensus would have been a better close, I think the move is probably technically correct and there's a little more support for the move after weighting, but that relisting for another week would be the best option. SportingFlyerT·C13:44, 12 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Just noting I'm in favour of a relist because the result is in fact the correct one, looking at the evidence I believe Côte d'Ivoire is used more often than Ivory Coast in English. Relisting would simply allow for better arguments not related to n-grams. SportingFlyerT·C16:44, 20 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn to no consensus (mostly uninvolved, although I did apparently support the Ivory Coast name in a 2011 RM). Per SportingFlyer above, and the points I made to the closer on the article talk page, I think this close amounts to a good faith WP:SUPERVOTE, where the closer is reaching a conclusion not supported by the arguments made. The vote count was split, which means by default it's going to close as no consensus, unless one side or the other really makes significantly better points in policy or evidence. Here, I just didn't see that. There's a slight lead for the French name on ngrams, but it was clearly shown by opponents that media sources still heavily use the English name. Ngrams are useful certainly and I often regard them as the gold Standard for source analysis, but when ample evidence from alternative sources is presented, the ngrams cease to be the only game in town. In short, the supporters did no present a case so watertight that the opposes were nullified, and no consensus is the only conclusion one can reach from this debate. — Amakuru (talk) 16:57, 12 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Relist (uninvolved) and turn Red Slash's close into a !vote, or just overturn as no consensus. I agree with Amakuru that this looks like a good faith WP:SUPERVOTE, and the closer was incorrect in discarding all evidence of common usage other than ngrams. --Ahecht (TALK PAGE)21:47, 12 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse as closer. I definitely didn't supervote--I would personally prefer Ivory Coast. Listen, in any decent contested request like this, you're going to have lots of evidence on either side. But that's literally why we have aggregators like ngrams. Of course tons of RS use Ivory Coast. But more RS use Cote d'Ivoire. With that said, I stand behind this close 100%; no compelling arguments in favor of Ivory Coast were presented at all other than the arguments claiming that Ivory Coast is the most common name in English, and those arguments are founded in nonreality. RedSlash05:03, 13 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
(involved) Where do you get "more RS use Cote d'Ivoire"? More books that google has use Côte d'Ivoire... that's it! Trending on Google has Ivory Coast landslide way ahead in the US and in the UK. India is also an English-speaking mountain-like 5 year pattern in favor of Ivory Coast. Google is only one tool and you seem be treating it as a godsend, and that's not right. That's not the way Wikipedia is supposed to work. This was no consensus to move. And think of something else... I would bet that many people listed with an article at Wikipedia with a diacritic in their spelling are crushed by the standard English spelling in Google ngrams like Grand Slam champion Goran Ivanišević. Some like 100% to 0% like Wimbledon champion Jelena Janković. We aren't even allowed to use the standard English spelling here at Wikipedia for these people. Per your ngram affinity they should all be changed. So google ngrams are one tool, google trends are another tool, newspapers are another tool, tv/radio is another tool, etc... Fyunck(click) (talk) 06:37, 13 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
While I support a relist I'd overturn the discussion based just on that response alone, as it's absolutely clear that there was evidence presented that Ivory Coast is still continually used by major news orgs. Whether it's enough evidence to support a move is a different question, but it's now obvious the close was clearly erroneous. SportingFlyerT·C14:12, 13 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Ngrams is only an aggregator for books, and its corpus completely ignores things like media usage, web usage, and scholarly usage. --Ahecht (TALK PAGE)01:41, 14 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You most certainly did supervote. The fact that you claim to prefer the previous title does nothing to exonerate you or mitigate the gravity of your error. Rather, it serves to demonstrate quite well why non-admin users should eschew controversial closes in the first place. Joefromrandb (talk) 21:30, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn (to no consensus). (Uninvolved) I do not read a consensus. The first fault is a too brief nomination, given the long tortuous history of title debate for this article. The nomination did not present enough data,a Dan did not summarise the history of the same discussion. Participants presented data, but it’s a mess, hard to follow, and strong points are being made by both sides disjointedly. The close is argued, but the closers arguments are the closers opinions are are not reflecting the discussion, as as such the close is a Supervote. Red Slash should take to !voting more in contested discussions instead of bold closing. I recommend a careful, thorough, fresh nomination, with a logical presentation of the known data and arguments and a summary of the many preceding discussions. SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:52, 13 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse (involved), as correct on policy. This is clearly one of those discussions where feelings are so strongly locked in on opposing sides that it is impossible to close it at all, with any outcome, without some participants being unhappy and initiating a move review. So, here we are. I salute those discussion closers who are willing to close these hard cases. Without you, the backlogs would be eternal. BD2412T13:52, 13 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse (uninvolved): per BD2412 above. A country title change was obviously going to be a difficult close no matter the outcome. Some people will always be unhappy but that isn't the closer's problem. I do not see a supervote here and it was certainly open long enough. I probably would've left it for an admin, but there's no policy error there. Endorse. CFA💬14:54, 13 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn to no consensus (and return to original name). I was not involved in the RM but since the votes were about equal, it clearly makes sense to do a no consensus result instead of moving. It's clear that this should have remained at its longstanding name since its been kept that way for 12 years. Ngrams shouldn't be the only thing used to determine which is the common name. It's unfortunate that it stopped being covered from 2020 onwards but since it has hundreds of years of data, it doesn't really matter for historic stuff. Côte d'Ivoire is not Costa Rica, namely because its never been known as the Rich Coast. Same with Stade de France, Gare du Nord and Tour de France. While Côte d'Ivoire has been around for long (circa 1986), media outlets and general discussion still refer to it by its translated name, especially for Germanic and Romance languages. It's safe to say Côte d'Ivoire is used in Russian, Korean, Japanese, Chinese, etc, at least in official contexts. JuniperChill (talk) 15:16, 13 July 2024 (UTC).[reply]
Overturn to no consensus (uninvolved). The close was overly reliant on ngrams, which are based solely on books, at the expense of other sources.~~ Jessintime (talk) 02:13, 14 July 2024 (UTC) (Additional comment: While there are several calls for relisting, I don't believe it is appropriate in this case. The discussion was open almost two weeks and nearly 20 editors participated, a turnout that is higher than usual for a requested move, so I don't think extending this request will resolve the matter. My suggestion would be to come back in six months with better evidence less reliant on ngrams. ~~ Jessintime (talk) 20:12, 15 July 2024 (UTC))[reply]
Overturn to no consensus (uninvolved), per Fyunck(click), Amakuru, SmokeyJoe, JuniperChill and Jessintime as well as per comments by SportingFlyer and Ahecht. When a Wikipedia entry is at this level of importance, the consensus is expected to be overwhelming. Here, there were eight votes in favor of the move to Côte d'Ivoire and nine votes in favor of retaining Ivory Coast. Clearly, no consensus, even if some of the votes in favor of Ivory Coast have been described as not being solidly based. As for the inherent merit of Ivory Coast → Côte d'Ivoire, it can be certainly argued that such city name changes as Kiev → Kyiv and Odessa → Odesa or such country name changes as Rhodesia → Zimbabwe and South West Africa→ Namibia were more readily accepted, being based upon letting go of cultural oppression and colonial past. On the other hand, although official sources have accepted that Turkey's English name is Türkiye and Ivory Coast's English name is Côte d'Ivoire, that acceptance has not made the two revised country names WP:COMMONNAMES in the English-speaking world. To use general examples, it would be as if Croatia announced that its English name is now Hrvatska, Italy announced that its English name is now Italia or Poland announced that its English name is now Polska. As a final point, it may be noted that no English-language country exonym uses accents and / or diacritics which makes Türkiye and Côte d'Ivoire even more problematic as putative common names. —Roman Spinner(talk • contribs)00:26, 15 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Roman Spinner: Requiring an "overwhelming" consensus based solely on the "level of importance" would basically guarantee that an important article at a suboptimal title would never be moved to its optimal title. Look at the eight discussions over six years that were required to move Yoghurt to Yogurt, or the ten discussions over eight years to move Hillary Rodham Clinton to Hillary Clinton; both have finally resulted in stable titles that, in retrospect, would have been optimal all along. BD2412T01:02, 15 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@BD2412: Since English Wikipedia is consensus-based, we would likely expect important titles such as this one to at least have a convincing consensus if not an "overwhelming" one. The first Kiev → Kyiv RM was in July 2007, but did not succeed until September 2020 when nearly all media outlets were already using "Kyiv", although it was being used by U.S. government sources and the UN well before 2007 and various ngrams had been confirming its increasing usage. As for the matter at hand, the insistence upon diacritics in the Ivory Coast → Côte d'Ivoire and Turkey → Türkiye proposals makes those even less likely to be accepted into general use, with few if any media outlets in the English-speaking world using those forms. Ultimately, each set of title changes brings its own set of circumstances. Geographic names carry historical, nationalistic and linguistic baggage, while main headers for current events tend to be dynamic. —Roman Spinner(talk • contribs)20:44, 16 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Roman Spinner: We have a WP:RM process. It allows for notification of affected projects, and relists of discussions by any editor who thinks more time is needed for discussion. We have no rule, nor any mechanism, for deeming articles "important titles" for this purpose, nor for giving any such articles special treatment. I have started a discussion at the Village Pump asking whether we should have such a policy in place. So far the consensus seems to be against it. BD2412T20:56, 16 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@BD2412: I recently submitted a song title RM {at Talk:Friendly Persuasion (Thee I Love)#Requested move 12 June 2024} that was moved seven days later with no participation. Obviously, Yoghurt → Yogurt elicited much greater interest, but is still unlikely to compete in importance with a world-class city or, for that matter, a country name. Of course, designating a title as "important" is in itself a likely mischaracterization. Perhaps, "controversial title" or "high-volume participation title" may be a more intuitive description which would carry with it much greater expectation of a strong consensus, making the Village Pump discussion most welcome indeed. —Roman Spinner(talk • contribs)21:52, 16 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn to no consensus or relist (involved). There was no appearance to date of consensus in the discussion and the closer's only substantive rationale was a Google Ngram plot, which is only a small part of determining a common name. — AjaxSmack03:09, 15 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn to no consensus or relist (uninvolved), per all the arguments raised in favour of these options above, especially by SportingFlyer, Amakuru, SmokeyJoe, JuniperChill, Roman Spinner, and AjaxSmack. There is clearly no consensus in favour of a rename as of now. Maybe a clearer consensus favouring either the old or the new name will emerge after a relist, so that might be worth a try. Gawaon (talk) 06:39, 15 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Relist The proper course of action would be to let the discussion run longer, as it's evident now that more people would join in. Simply changing the result based on votes is pointless, as it doesn't truly resolve the issue (there are rules and precedents for this). In my opinion, arguing that n-grams are merely specialized books and that we should also gather information from non-specialized sources like "how young people talk on Facebook, or rather Instagram or TikTok" diminishes the value of Wikipedia. This is similar to arguing that Côte d'Ivoire doesn't sound English. However, it is stated here that move reviews are not intended to "reargue debates about page moves," so relisting is the correct choice. (Reopen the discussion, but with a warning for editors supporting the move that it is necessary to find something beyond n-gram, otherwise they will definitely not succeed) Chrz (talk) 19:59, 15 July 2024 (UTC) EDITED Chrz (talk) 16:20, 20 July 2024 (UTC) Ad "The discussion was open almost two weeks and nearly 20 editors participated" it does not deserve to be relisted: A high-profile article like one about a country certainly deserves enough time to address all objections and involve as many editors as possible to lend weight to the decision. Why? Because according to the COMMONNAME guidelines all "related" articles where the name appears need to be renamed after a country is renamed And the vast majority of occurrences of the name in article text also need to be changed - according to Wikipedia's COMMONNAME guidelines, there cannot be more than one name for a country. (To paraphrase and exaggerate) Chrz (talk) 20:09, 16 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
French language erasure is when a French-speaking place has a different name in English, apparently. Is Mexico not being at México yet another example of Spanish language erasure on Wikipedia? Kyoto Grand (talk) 19:21, 16 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
What the heck does this post have to do with whether a proper closing was made? This is just an editor from French-speaking Quebec that hates the term Ivory Coast. Fyunck(click) (talk) 19:36, 16 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Because it's a good sign that the tides may be turning. My Québec example is because the official name of the province has the accent aigu (and thus it should be the name of the article), and the official name of Côte d'Ivoire isn't Ivory Coast (and thus the article name isn't Ivory Coast). What English language RSes say don't matter in terms of French language place names. LilianaUwU(talk / contributions)00:13, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This is not a serious argument. Maybe it'd have some cachet in the 1400s when English court officials still wrote in French, but it's 2024, 95% of non-Canadians pronounce Quebec with a /kwə/, and the norms of the French language are about as relevant to the English name of the Ivory Coast as they are to the pronunciation of the word 'judgement'. And it's called an acute accent. Kyoto Grand (talk) 02:23, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Users of the reductio ad absurdum are cautioned to take special care in ensuring the proposed act is actually absurd and not simply based.
This would own, and should unironically be done across the board. And yes -- I do mean eSwatini, Türkiye, and Kyiv, but also Sverige, Zhongguo, Rossiya, Nihon, Hellas, Deutschland and Italia. If they want to call it "Fräŋçäñiå-sųr-lé-hônhônhôn" who cares if it's made up? It's their country, they're supposed to make up a name for it! jp×g🗯️22:11, 5 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Relist (nominator) appears to be the solution, I can understand no consensus as votes were even and if it had to be closed now I'd say that would be the most accurate outcome. My bludgeoning of discussion certainly malformed the RM and I'd be against endorsing it when the margins are so small. Kowal2701 (talk) 17:17, 16 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse – I would've closed it the same way. The "Ivory Coast is the English name" argument is, as Red Slash points out, unevidenced in the RM and borders on tautological. I've noticed a lot, in similar RMs, an argument that USEENGLISH dictates we must use English words in article titles, which is a completely incorrect reading of the policy; article titles, by and large, use the most common name in use in English, not the most common name which is rendered in the English language. Hence Stade de France and Olympiastadion (Berlin), not Stadium of France and Olympic Stadium (Berlin), for example. Given the well-argued rationales in favour of a move – frankly, it was a matter of if-not-when for Côte d'Ivoire – and the faulty arguments against the move, I think a move result is definitely justifiable, and like I said, I would've gone the same way. Sceptre (talk) 21:10, 18 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The RM literally includes a source that says "Ivory Coast is the usual country name in the English language". That source may be wrong, but the argument "Ivory Coast is the English name" is clearly not "unevidenced". CMD (talk) 02:07, 23 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn to no consensus. Can't assign extra weight to the ngram-based argument relative to "ngram skeptics" when the latter bring up some kind of evidence of their own, such as a list of sources. Consensus could have formed in spite of this methodological disagreement, but it didn't. Oppose relisting; there's no basis for that.—Alalch E.11:25, 19 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I don't see any consensus. The vote-tally is fairly evenly split, usage in major news outlets is split, the Ngram usage has a slight preference for Côte d'Ivoire but does not clearly mandate one or the other. The "official name" and "use English" arguments seem to balance out. Unless this is listed on WP:CENT, I don't expect a relist would find consensus. Walsh90210 (talk) 15:19, 19 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn. (with opposition to a relist) < uninvolved > With a good deal of respect to this closer, in this case I think I would have closed as "no consensus". Editor Roman S. said it all above, and judging by the history of requested moves for this article, and admitting that my personal preference is for the French spelling, I would have to agree that the English spelling belongs at the top of this Wikipedia entry. P.I. Ellsworth , ed.put'er there18:14, 19 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse (involved) - The primary argument to overturn the close is that while there was agreement that the ngram results showed that Cote d'Ivoire was more common, this is not conclusive as these results are restricted to books and Ivory Cost is more common in other sources, which was not taken into account. That's not true. As the closer pointed out, the issue is that those that opposed the move largely relied on dismissing the evidence that showed Cote d'Ivoire was more common, without providing alternative evidence that objectively showed that Ivory Cost was more common. Yes, there was a dozen or so links provided that showed Ivory Coasts was used by for example major news media, but these were offset by a dozen or so other links that showed that Cote d'Ivoire was also used by major news media, Britannica, Google Maps, etc. The only reasonable conclusion to be drawn from this evidence is that it supports that usage is mixed, but does not clearly indicate which name is more common. Especially so since for such a small sample size is highly subject to cherry picking of sources, unlike the ngram results which are more objective as they consider a much broader set of sources.
I'd also reiterate my point from the RM that even if the evidence isn't conclusive that Cote d'Ivoire is the common name, it's clear that usage is split and that the evidence provided did not show that Ivory Coast is the widely used common name. WP:NCGN#Use_English states that the local name should be used in cases where there is no widely accepted common name in English, so in this case we should defer to Cote d'Ivoire in the absence of such evidence. TDL (talk) 01:52, 22 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Relist or overturn to no consensus (uninvolved). I like closures where closers critically assess arguments against policy (within reason) and not just parrot whatever participants said. But such statements should be truthful and here they are simply not.
The first point relies on ngrams, which is a good tool but must be interpreted with caution. The ratio was not really overwhelming (1.5:1, which is 60% to 40% in favour of the French name), and opposers provided numerous examples where Ivory Coast is used. Of course, the other side provided a lot of examples with Côte d'Ivoire, but saying "no evidence whatsoever" was provided is simply untrue; and even then the evidence for Côte d'Ivoire was maybe a bit superior, but definitely not by a wide margin.
Because the second point relies on the first, it is also implicated. The third point simply says that accent circonflexe (ô) ain't a problem and in fact a reading of WP:UCRN may imply preference for English names when all else is equal (e.g. Germany (not: Deutschland) example).
Overturn to no consensus or Relist (uninvolved): Ngram trends could not be considered convincing evidence for overall change in usage in RS since it only includes books that are on Google Books. Also, the assertion in the closure that there is no evidence whatsoever for the claim that Ivory Coast is more used is false since it ignores the RS provided by Fyunck(click). Since the supporters of the move could not provide sufficient evidence to demonstrate that Côte d'Ivoire is the more used name, the proper closure would have been no consensus. --StellarHalo (talk) 14:47, 30 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn to no consensus (uninvolved): I'm completely neutral on this issue (regardless of the outcome, I do think Côte d'Ivoire as the French name doesn't need an English IPA, as I have already explained in the talk page). However I don't think consensus here was achieved. The vote should either be reopened so both points of view can be debated, or started from scratch. A vote that is THIS close to a tie is not consensus and it shouldn't have been closed. Rolando 1208 (talk) 21:59, 30 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse (uninvolved): closer gave more weight to those who supported their position with empirical data (ngrams, encyclopedias, maps), rather than anecdotal evidence (but my local paper had it in the headline once!). Nothing wrong with that. -- SashiRolls 🌿 · 🍥02:11, 4 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn to no consensus (uninvolved). Common English name has always been Ivory Coast and the consensus did not seem to formulate efficiently in the previous discussion. Ecpiandy (talk) 20:58, 7 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn to no consensus (uninvolved). I can't see any consensus to move developed at all. There is a very clear disagreement regarding policy and evidence etc. The only reasonable closure in this case is no consensus, which means no move should take place. --Spekkios (talk) 08:48, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn to no consensus I don't see a consensus in the vote totals, and the closer's arguments are unconvincing. I'm seeing claims here that looking at individual sources would be cherry-picking, but I see that a majority of the most respected English news sources using Ivory Coast. —pythoncoder (talk | contribs)02:12, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn to no consensus, and I say this as someone who fully supports the current title, but opposes vociferously the means by which it has arrived there. The ill-advised move to "Ivory Coast" took place years ago, when Beeblebrox chose to ignore a clear "no consensus" result, and moved the page to the title he preferred via supervote. This never should have happened, but the fact is that it did, and for many years, the page has remained at the stable (albeit erroneous) title of "Ivory Coast". Now, we have this latest farce, via NAC, to again change the title of the page through supervote. This is unacceptable. Joefromrandb (talk) 21:16, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The above is an archive of the move review of the page listed in the close of this review. Please do not modify it.
This was a protacted, verbose, contentious discussion with both sides deeply entrenched, and yet Red Slash moved the article and stated, " Arguably, there was a consensus to move to the lower-case title; many people agreed that, when dealing with all peoples who are indigenous to a given area, the 'i' should be lowercase." There was absolutely not a consensus. Nonetheless, Red Slash moved the article diff] The article had previously been at Genocide of Indigenous peoples, and a previous discussion to move to Genocide of indigenous peoples had failed.[17]. On their talk page, Red Slash wrote, "The consensus was broad-ish, though not overly strong. Because of this, I concede that a reasonable person might view it as if there were no consensus." Yes, WP consensuses don't need to be unaminous, but this was not a consensus. Being a highly controversial discussion, this should have had an administrator close the discussion. Yuchitown (talk) 14:51, 11 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Comment(involved) Assuming for the moment that a nocon outcome is possible, then the close asserts that there is a stable uncapitalized I title but this seems not to be the case. The move to a capitalized I was done on 7 August 2023 and there was a subsequent RM to move it to an uncapitalized I that was closed on 7 November as "not moved". Then it seems that a capitalized I is indeed the stable title, it's not just weeks or even a couple of months. Selfstudier (talk) 17:23, 11 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn to no consensus (uninvolved). The trouble with this discussion is that we have two competing points of view on a topic where views have changed over time, and we've reached a consensus in a rather conservative manner - namely, the SMcCandlish argument that the term is used consistently in a substantial majority of independent reliable sources. While it's a generally good rule, Wikipedia often struggles to navigate change as a result, as the site is a trailing indicator of what's happening in the real world, and these discussions can get very political. However, reading the discussion carefully and then doing some fact finding, I don't see a consensus here. Those opposing base their opposition on style guides, which now consistently recommend using the uppercase I in English usage. Many of the support !votes provide opinions without providing evidence-based support or even referencing the argument against - the style guides clearly show this is not a common adjective, for instance - and those opposing generally, for the most part, cited the style guides. (It also doesn't help that SMcCandlish provided a link to one of the opposition votes which was mostly just opinion showing lowercase is used more in academia since 2020 - your mileage may vary, but every single one of those articles on the first page of my results uses a capital I, with the exception of one journal title which uses a capital I in text, but every word in the title is lowercase, and the only one on the second page which uses a lowercase i was originally published in 1998 but revised in 2020.) Downweighting the votes on both sides where the facts don't match the opinion, you get a no consensus result. SportingFlyerT·C20:15, 11 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn to no consensus (uninvolved). "Arguably there is consensus to move" is not a particularly strong closing statement. Sure "many people agreed" with lowercasing "i" in this instance, but many people also disagreed, and the closer fails to explain why the opposition can be discounted. The claim that "the longstanding title lacks the capital "I", so this article would have to be moved back, anyway" is also wrong, because it ignores a requested move from October that was closed in favor of the upper-case title. Finally, Red Slash's response here when questioned about the close is condescending, contemptuous, and makes me question whether he should be closing any requested moves, let alone controversial ones. ~~ Jessintime (talk) 22:47, 11 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse (involved) From what I can see there was actually a clear consensus to move with strong arguments. Nothing arguable about it. The close was correct although the phrasing could have been stronger. -- Necrothesp (talk) 08:42, 12 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse per Necrothesp. My reading of the discussion was that there is consensus to move, but the closer could've explained it much better. --Ahecht (TALK PAGE)21:54, 12 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Comment (involved) It was difficult to create a consensus because of one user (Gwillhickers) failing to understand Wikipedia:Don't bludgeon the process, a number of editors, including myself, warned them about it: "Bludgeoning at Genocide of Indigenous peoples RFC" diff of them removing the discussion. They had contributed #1 30% of the edits to the talkpage and also #2 edits by text size (16.2%). This move should be overturned and administration action involved to ensure a less contentious discussion. oncamera (talk page)22:10, 12 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn to no consensus (I'm possibly involved? I participated in the RfC above this one at the same Talk and have discussed this capitalization elsewhere on WP, but did not join this discussion.) Unfortunately too much of the close rationale lacks support, from the absence of an explanation as to why the corollary, 'many people agreed that, when dealing with all peoples who are indigenous to a given area, the "i" should be UPPERcase', isn't just as worthy of a conclusion (despite also being an accurate evaluation of the discussion), to the fact that there was a previous move request that affirmed the current capital-I title (thus negating any pleas to some "longstanding" lowercase consensus). Their response to the initial discussion on their talk (the second half of their responding message) leaves much to be desired as well, as it is full of equivocations and conceded points, which pretty strongly indicate a lack of consensus in the move discussion. Indeed, the discussion itself contains solid arguments on both titles, with plenty of support for both. --Pinchme123 (talk) 02:14, 13 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse as closer. I concede that the close was lacking. Policies/guidelines that were cited in favor of the capitalized title include things like WP:INDIGENOUS, which doesn't support capitalization of "indigenous" except when specifically dealing with Native Americans. When not in that specific context, consensus was that the common usage was uncapitalized. RedSlash04:55, 13 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think you misunderstand how I got involved in this RM. I came in as a neutral, just scrolling through the list on WP:RM when I came across this one. I read through the discussion and saw claims that the changes to WP:INDIGENOUS and MOS:RACECAPS were inserted without following the proper procedures for obtaining community consensus. I researched the history of the discussions and confirmed that those claims were true, so I reverted the illegitimate changes. If there's any gaming the system here, it took place in August 2023 - a massive sequence of undiscussed moves of "indigenous" to "Indigenous" by a single editor to create a WP:FAITACCOMPLI that would be very difficult to undo. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠03:04, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That's not the status quo, though, there was a move request back to that title in October 2023 and it was not moved, so the title with the capital I is indeed the stable title. SportingFlyerT·C14:14, 13 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia should have an academic bias on things of this nature and follow modern scholarship norms. Simply surprised to see the rejection by so many of academic protocols. Moxy🍁 01:31, 15 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for digging that up - I'd forgotten about that. Since we're at MR anyways, I think we can discuss the validity of that RM as well. There were 4 supports for reverting the move and 7 opposes, plus a comment from me questioning whether the initial capitalization was ever discussed. Since a substantial portion of the opposition's argument hinges on the changes to MOS:RACECAPS and WP:TRIBE which were made without adequate community consensus, that portion should be thrown out, leaving behind "no consensus" rather than "not moved". -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠05:04, 16 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Is it appropriate to directly challenge another (8-month-old) Move Request close within an existing Move Review, especially without all the usual steps required, such as discussion with the closer prior to the challenge? -Pinchme123 (talk) 05:31, 16 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
As a "thought experiment", it's "appropriate to directly challenge" or at least discuss the October 2023 RM since that nomination was malformed (it should have been WP:RMUM-based to put the burden of the argument on those favoring capital I), was based evidently on guidelines in flux and was closed with a "not moved" that did not mention consensus. Though the !votes in that discussion favored the capital I, the process far from ideal, so saying that the last stable title was the one with a lowercase i is not that unreasonable. — AjaxSmack20:17, 16 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse (uninvolved). Both the nomination and the closing rationale were sound and based on WP guidelines that tend to favor lowercase. Importantly (to me), this is a WP:RMUM case of reverting this undiscussed move, so an overturn here should also result in a reverion to the last stable title, i.e. the lowercase i. — AjaxSmack03:33, 15 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse (involved). There is a clear numerical majority in support of the move, so to close the discussion as anything other than "moved", it would require either the side with the numerical majority to be particularly weak. For example, most of the WP:NCROY-related RMs were closed in favor of titling monarchs as Edward IV without the country unless disambiguation was required, often despite the lack of a clear majority or even with a minority of the !votes at the RM. The difference here is that while the guideline changes at WP:NCROY were passed with a clear community consensus with a well-advertised RfC, the changes to WP:INDIGENOUS and MOS:CAPS from 2022 were not made with the support of any sort of consensus; the few discussions that did take place were never properly closed and most likely would have been closed as "no consensus" had they been, meaning no change to guidelines. Therefore, given the lack of clear policy prescription on what to do, we rely on first principles. While both sides gave good arguments, one side clearly managed to convince more people to agree with them. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠05:23, 16 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse (uninvolved). Supporters collectively had a clear majority and reasoned justification for their theory of the case; I think "moved" is a fair reading of consensus. In the event that the move review finds no consensus, however, the status quo ante is the capitalized title, which has been in place for almost a year and was affirmed in the October 2023 RM. The October 2023 RM validly represented the consensus at the time. Adumbrativus (talk) 07:25, 16 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn - If we are not going to follow academic scholarship in this then at least let's get the close right. It should have been closed as "No consensus". Both sides had compelling arguments, even the closer stated this. If the decision is that "No consensus" means we do not have a policy of capitalization so be it. As stated and restated by myself, I will always capitalize in my edits and discussions regardless of the disrespect shown Indigenous people and the incivility directed at particularly one side of these discussions. --ARoseWolf14:34, 16 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse. < uninvolved > The nomination was clear, and the closure was concise, to the point and reasonably spot on. In addition, the closing instructions were well-followed. I am mystified by people who read things into things that just aren't there. The lowercasing of a common noun that is not a proper noun has absolutely nothing to do with respect nor disrespect of any peoples. If that were true, then the people in the US can disrespect a lot of {p}residents as well as people in the UK may dishonor many {k}ings and {q}ueens. Sorry if Anybody here incorrectly thinks that I've disrespected Anybody. WP can be so much fun at times, eh? P.I. Ellsworth , ed.put'er there17:30, 19 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Again, I'm truly mystified. My first two sentences above take care of "the actual discussion and closing", so no, they were not ignored. The rest? Just a mere opinion. Feel better, friend and fellow volunteer editor, Yuchitown. P.I. Ellsworth , ed.put'er there16:44, 20 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'll feel better when you actually apologize for your mocking tone and disrespect of Indigenous people. Being Indigenous is not a common noun, like a president and king. It is specific and proper, similar to other races and ethnicities. All Indigenous people are citizens of sovereign nations that were here long before the colonial powers began their empire building. If you are an Indigenous person that becomes a president you are an Indigenous president, the same as being a (insert race) president or (insert nationality) president. Indigenous is treated as a race/ethnicity or a nationality even though it is so much more complex than that. We have Indigenous representatives, Indigenous mothers/fathers, Indigenous school teachers, Indigenous religious leaders. No one read into anything. This is disrespectful because we wouldn't dare say this about other races of people. The mocking and belittling of Indigenous editors and non-Indigenous supporters that has taken place in these discussions is shameful. We are not the same as an indigenous plant species or indigenous rock sample. --ARoseWolf15:09, 22 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry you feel that way, as there was no mocking tone meant, especially considering that I have three groups of Native Americans in my ancestry. And yet I still see no reason to capitalize this adjective in that manner – it's too broad a term and overall, the sources don't seem to justify it. So sorry to disagree, editor ARoseWolf, and I adore your username! P.I. Ellsworth , ed.put'er there12:48, 23 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn - to "no consensus", as stated above, There was absolutely not a consensus I fully agree with this. The closer's justification had little merit "The consensus was broad-ish, though not overly strong. Because of this, I concede that a reasonable person might view it as if there were no consensus.". Those opposed to the move presented strong arguments and presented numerous examples showing that current reliable sources, style guides, newspapers, dictionaries, academic literature, n-grams, etc. capitalize "I" in the word, "Indigenous" when referring to people (rather than rocks and plants) - this is the preferred style. (To my mind, lumping together Indigenous people with rocks and plants is questionable and is borderline dehumanizing.) In the past, lower case was accepted, but times have changed. The argument for the move was bludgeoned repeatedly claiming the opposers were displaying "favoritism" and POV which was not the case. Numerically, there were 4 supports for reverting the move to ;over-case "i" and 7 opposes arguing for letting the upper case "I" stand. Netherzone (talk) 20:06, 19 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse (involved) Broad consensus based on lengthy discussions, the review largely hinges on a previous discussion with fewer editors involved. Killuminator (talk) 19:52, 21 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse (involved). Closer did not err, and this venue is for addressing closer error. This is not a venue for relitigating what one wished the consensus had turned out to be. It's clear that the source-supported and general-consensus position is that "Indigenous", "Native", or "Aboriginal" is capitalized when in reference to a specific people who have adopted the term as a proper name for themselves, but not capitalized as a generic adjective in reference to human populations in general. This is also consistent with WP:MOSCAPS (in particular its lead principle only words and phrases that are consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources are capitalized in Wikipedia [emphasis in original], and more narrowly both MOS:SIGCAPS and MOS:DOCTCAPS), WP:NCCAPS, WP:NOT#ADVOCACY, WP:NPOV. WP is not a platform for activism, neither with regard to indigenous peoples nor toward English-language "reform". — SMcCandlish☏¢ 😼 16:41, 22 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I believe the previous statement exemplifies a blatant POV. However, in the close discussions, we (Indigenous editors) demonstrated several times that capitalizing Indigenous when referring to people is found in the majority of recent sources. Google Scholar for "Indigenous peoples" 2020 to present. We aren't using Wikipedia as activism or reform; that has already happened in past years out in the world and is reflected in style guides. We've even been using this style for years (and I will continue to do so because it is the correct English-language capitalization for the term). This discussion was not a consensus and erasure is not appropriate here. Yuchitown (talk) 19:17, 22 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Exactly this. The activism has happened in the world. I am never a proponent for activism on Wikipedia. I understand we follow reliable sources for the topic. But we can't say we follow sources in one instance and then say we can literally deny using sources in the next. Consensus can not overrule policy because policy is consensus. If we use sources in one case then we use sources in all cases. We can't pick and choose. I'm not asking the English language be reformed. It has been reformed within the language and style guides of many sources, including the United Nations. As I stated, I will continue to use the style guides of the sources I edit with and I will continue to show the respect due Indigenous people and communities, as I do with other races, ethnicities, and nationalities.
In this case the closer did get it wrong though. They said there was numerical consensus but Wikipedia doesn't work on pure numbers. Everyone I see says both sides had compelling arguments and valid points but they won't give specifics as to why one was chosen over the other. The closer even says reasonable people may see it as if there were no consensus. So are they saying that they aren't reasonable? That the side they favored isn't reasonable? Why aren't we making reasonable closes? I would thin that would be the goal. --ARoseWolf20:28, 22 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn (uninvolved) After a lengthy and heated discussion, the page was moved by a non-administrator on a basis he himself admits was flimsy. There was no consensus. The page move should be reverted. Bohemian Baltimore (talk) 04:29, 23 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The above is an archive of the move review of the page listed in the close of this review. Please do not modify it.
While the two opposing editors cited "recentism" as a reason to disregard that evidence, WP:RECENTISM is an essay without the status of guideline or policy, and little attempt was made to justify the assertion. The most recent of these events took place over 40 years ago. The Irish media describe the 1920 and 1923 hunger strikes as "forgotten", and "among the least well remembered" of their kind.
The move request was initially closed as "not moved" without further comment. When I asked the mover to consider reopening the discussion, the comment, "Consensus there is no primary topic for 'Irish hunger strike'. The events in 1920 and 1923 in particular have a long-term significance similar to that of the events in 1981" was added. My feeling is that, given the lack of evidence for that long-term significance, the evidence of page views should have been given more weight, per WP:RMCIDC. Jean-de-Nivelle (talk) 16:15, 8 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose this second attempt to move by the same editor, endorse the current nameWP:RECENTISM. Hunger strikes from 1920 and 1923 (more then a hundred years ago) does not gain the same internet coverage as the most recent one. But they were just as important in Irish history as the 1981 strike. The Bannertalk16:38, 8 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse retaining the current name. With multiple hunger strikes in Irish history, there is logic in keeping a consistent format (per the article naming WP:CRITERIA); in fact, the current title ticks all the boxes of CRITERIA and is more clear and logical. So much for "I guess I'll let it go". - SchroCat (talk) 16:41, 8 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
So much for "I guess I'll let it go": Well, I thought about it for a week and decided it was worth exploring further. Please note again though that this move request has nothing to do with the consistent names of the various articles: it's just about the correct location for the disambiguation page. Jean-de-Nivelle (talk) 16:59, 8 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Relist (uninvolved). WP:RECENTISM is an essay and, even if it weren't, it strains credulity to apply it to something that happened 40 years ago. Given how few editors actually participated (though there was certainly a lot of back and forth between them) I think a relist is appropriate rather than overturning it. ~~ Jessintime (talk) 18:08, 8 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse (uninvolved) there was no support at all for this move in that move discussion, and overturning would essentially require a supervote. Best course of action here is to try again in a few months' time. SportingFlyerT·C22:58, 8 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If an 11:1 majority of page views isn't a convincing argument now, why should it be convincing a year from now? If "recentism" is a valid objection 43 years after the fact, why should it be invalid after 44? The only likely difference is that a different small and random group of editors might see the question differently, but that's a coin toss. Frankly, my time is more valuable than that. Jean-de-Nivelle (talk) 09:11, 20 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The above is an archive of the move review of the page listed in the close of this review. Please do not modify it.
ABC News (United States) – No consensus. By our rules, where there's no consensus at Move Review, closers have discretion to decide to relist. I have considered the discussion below, and I think it's right for me to exercise that discretion in this case. I shall relist the RM with my next few edits. —S MarshallT/C15:24, 1 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The following is an archived debate of the move review of the page above. Please do not modify it.
Ignoring the "per nom" and "as above" arguments, I do not see a clear consensus. It looks like a 50-50 to me. So, as other users pointed at BillMammal's user talk page, I believe that that this discussion should be reopened and relisted. GTrang (talk) 00:29, 4 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse. I believe that the arguments in favor of moving the page that I brought up are stronger than the arguments in opposition to moving the page that were brought up. It is true that more individuals supported moving the page than opposed moving the page (it was over a 2-1 margin in favor of moving). A bean count, of course, is not enough; consensus is ascertained by the quality of the arguments given on the various sides of an issue, as viewed through the lens of Wikipedia policy. But since the quality of the arguments made by those involved in supporting the move (including myself) were higher than those of those who opposed the move, I see a consensus attained, and I believe that the close faithfully reflects the consensus attained in the move discussion. — Red-tailed hawk(nest)00:38, 4 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I've notified those who participated in the requested move and also those who participated in the ensuing discussion on closer's talk about this discussion. — Red-tailed hawk(nest)00:59, 4 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn (uninvolved). Clearly not a solid consensus for a move of this nature. For reasons, see here. There have been many RMs in the past. One as poorly attended and poorly argued as this one, open for only one week, does not create a consensus for a massive change. Srnec (talk) 00:45, 4 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There have been eight previous requested moves on this topic; of those, only two had more participation, and even those not by much - and generally, seven participants is a good number for an RM. BilledMammal (talk) 01:08, 4 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Emphasis on poorly argued. For example: The Australian broadcaster reaches 8 digit levels of people on a weekly basis, while the U.S. company averages around 7 million on nightly newscasts. I must be missing something because this clearly establishes the US broadcaster as the more watched. The support comment that oppose arguments have a very US-centric worldview bears no relationship to the actual preceding oppose comments. To this we can add per nom and as above. The whole discussion is so short it is very easy to read in full. Which I did after I saw the link corrections in my watchlist. I was flabbergasted that this counted as consensus. In a very different case, it might. But these are highly visible articles with a history of RMs. (And just for the record, I am neither Australian nor American.) Srnec (talk) 03:31, 4 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
To explain my consideration of that as closer, I saw that as evidence backing the supporters claims that there was no primary topic; they don't establish which is more popular - more significant - because they aren't directly comparable they do establish that both have very large audiences that are comparable in size.
Importantly, this wasn't disputed by the editors opposing the move, one of whom even interpreted the figures as meaning that the Australian source is more popular. BilledMammal (talk) 03:46, 4 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Going to chime in here, using views to determine an article merger/move makes no sense in this case. There needs to be a better argument developed. This move discussion was a lame duck one (no offense) based on the number of views a network / program received. Soafy234 (talk) 22:35, 7 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Relist (uninvolved). I originally outlined my thoughts on the closer's talk page after the various moves started to popup in my watchlist. I don't think there was a clear consensus and it should have been closed as "no consensus" or relisted. The non-admin closer (BilledMammal) gave equal weight to the two "per nom"/"as above" comments as the other 2 support comments & the nominator (they stated: "If someone writes an effective argument, it would be a waste of editor time to require those who agree with that argument to rewrite it rather than saying "per x""). But this shouldn't come down to a WP:VOTE & should instead be judged based on the quality of the discussion. Remove those two "per nom" comments and it becomes 2 support and 2 oppose with BilledMammal as a tie breaker determining the discussion should be closed as "support"; there also wasn't really a discussion between the editors who stated their thoughts. There really only seemed to be two higher quality comments (one oppose, one support) arguing about WP:PRIMARYTOPIC so I think further discussion to determine what the primary topic is would be useful. Sariel Xilo (talk) 01:09, 4 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Relist <uninvolved> pointedly not because I think the closure was wrong at the time, but because the ensuing discussion on BilledMammal's talk page should have made clear that interested editors had not fully had their say. The closure was procedurally correct, but I don't think "you snooze, you lose" is the right answer in this situation, particularly since there's no evidence people were trying to game the system by waiting. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 01:11, 4 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you, Extraordinary Writ. I don't have much to say here, and I certainly have no opinion on the underlying matter, but if I had been asked to close that request I would have relisted it. The subsequent discussion on the editor's talk page made that abundantly clear, IMO. Drmies (talk) 01:35, 4 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
One concern I have with a relist is that it means participation won't be representative of the community. This is because editors who see the link corrections are more likely to check the discussion if they oppose the move, because they may want to overturn the result. In contrast, those who support the move are likely to consider it settled. This can be seen in comments like this one. BilledMammal (talk) 06:42, 4 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
How ... How in the world is two weeks not enough time?? RM policy is for a minimum of a week. Come on, man, people had enough time. People miss out on important move requests all the time, you shrug and move on because we can't keep every request open for months waiting for everyone to chime in. RedSlash05:57, 6 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn/relist I wasn't involved in the discussion but figured it would certainly be a lot longer considering the past discussions to move American Broadcasting Company to the ABC title itself were a lot deeper, more involved, and considered the gravity of moving an article with WLH numbers in the thousands. But looking at a couple of the votes specifically, one of them was from an editor with fewer than 200 edits (most of them in mainly one talk page, not at all in article space for several years), one was from a British editor with no skin in the game complaining about the opposers as having a 'US-centric worldview' and nothing else, and then one simply saying 'as above'. Considering that the WLH for either the US or AU orgs are well into the ten-thousands combined with sources, this definitely needed much more notice and much more time, and much better consensus than 'per nom' (see Disney Jr. for an example of a recent discussion which was properly done even if I opposed the move as pointless because we're not a marketing arm of The Walt Disney Company or any corporation). This doesn't involve an obscure Asian version of an MTV video channel whose links are less than 50 at the most with none of its website being used to source items, but two major news organizations which are used in thousands of articles as sources, and the close and overall botching of the move definitely requires a much deeper discussion. Nate•(chatter)01:17, 4 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) Endorse. < uninvolved > There appears to be a good bit of overreacting to this move request, and after reading all of it, I still cannot figure out why. Seems clearcut to me, and I would have closed this RM the exact same way. Who cares about the 5/2 count, the args were greater on the support side. This closure was perfectly reasonable and in accord with the closing instructions. What's with all the freakin' freak outs and block for??? Please, everybody just calm down!P.I. Ellsworth , ed.put'er there01:21, 4 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Paine Ellsworth, I believe there was a very good reason for the block, and your arguments are a bit on the emotional side. When an editor is asked to stop, they should probably stop--and note that I unblocked immediately after being assured that it would not continue, for which I am grateful. Drmies (talk) 01:35, 4 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You did only give me four minutes to stop, which personally I felt was a little short given it took me five minutes to notice, but nevermind BilledMammal (talk) 01:40, 4 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Based on discussion at WT:BOTPOL, I am not convinced I was in violation of the BOTPOL; this seems to fall under what is acceptable for user scripts, though just for the benefit of hiding it from watchlists it will be better to run larger tasks on a bot account in the future. BilledMammal (talk) 15:31, 9 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Forgive me please, editor Drmies, I really am not the emotional one in this discussion, and have noted a good deal of seemingly unjustified and heated emotion on the closer's talk page. I have asked for a calm down, and I would dearly appreciate it if everybody would just dial it down a notch or two, so this move review can get to the gist of this matter. Your block of the closer, one of WP's best page movers, appears to have been just a teensy bit unjustified, but please don't go into it here. I don't really need an explanation, but my talk page is always open, when and if necessary. P.I. Ellsworth , ed.put'er there02:32, 4 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think the block was about stopping the script since unlike a bot, there wasn't a clear off switch. Regardless of how this discussion goes, a lot of editors have flagged more efficient tools BilledMammal (and various page lurkers) can use going forwards. Sariel Xilo (talk) 02:52, 4 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You, and other editors, may be interested in participating in participating in this discussion that I opened at WT:BOTPOL about the link correction feature of Move+. I believe that it is currently the most efficient tool for this, although there are some modifications and additional features that I intend to add to improve it further.
Regarding the block, if I hadn't been active at the time I would have agreed with it - before stepping away I even considered leaving a note saying "I'm currently AFK. If Move+ starts breaking things, or otherwise needs to stop, block me" - but since I was active I wish they had waited a little longer. Waiting ten or fifteen minutes would have been reasonable in my opinion. However, it doesn't really matter, and this is the wrong location to discuss it. BilledMammal (talk) 03:19, 4 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse (uninvolved) the discussion was active for more than 7 days, the minimum required. A RM banner was placed on the article for the duration of the discussion. Given the high amount of visitors, one would think more would participate in the discussion. No further notifications are required in the RM process. The last substantial discussion was years ago and consensus can change over time. This nom was backed by figures rather than 'it should be this way' nom like we saw in the previous discussions. After determining the quality of arguments, the close is reasonable and I would have closed the discussion in the same direction. (although I would utilise the aid of other editors to help update the links via dabsort tool. In my experience when dealing with similar moves that had thousands of links, there would be a minority portion of them wrongly linked in the first place and this would be an opportunity to correct the links). – robertsky (talk) 01:47, 4 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn (uninvolved). I don't think this move was appropriate considering by far, the American station is the primary topic, and gets much more page views than the Australian one. LilianaUwU(talk / contributions)02:46, 4 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse (uninvolved): It's clear from the RM discussion that those supporting the move were both numerically superior and had stronger arguments than those who opposed the move. Consensus in the discussion is clear. TarnishedPathtalk04:09, 4 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The Consensus policy states: Many of these discussions will involve polls of one sort or another; but as consensus is determined by the quality of arguments (not by a simple counted majority), polls should be regarded as structured discussions rather than voting. Responses indicating individual explanations of positions using Wikipedia policies and guidelines are given the highest weight. I am only seeing one argument that uses Wikipedia policies and guidelines in the original discussion supporting the move, which is that of the nominator. It seems disingenuous to suggest one side had "stronger arguments" given that. I would be interested to know which multiple arguments you are seeing that I am not. Οἶδα (talk) 04:37, 4 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Relist <uninvolved>: Besides the dearth of explanations (only two arguments were put forth that included mention of Wikipedia policies and guidelines), the original discussion had little to no actual back-and-forth. You create a requested move discussion and wait patiently but receive only scant engagement to this end. Irritating, I know. Nonetheless inappropriate for a non-admin closure of this magnitude after such little development. Nothing about the discussion could be described as fully developed. I believe a primary topic move requiring the amendment of over 13,000 articles deserves that. So I am inclined to co-sign Extraordinary Writ's message. The discussion is evidently waiting to happen. Unfortunately it took watchlists getting loaded with thousands of backlink changes to awaken it. Οἶδα (talk) 05:25, 4 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse per User:Paine Ellesworth. The objections to the RM on the talk page seem to have been a lot of excitement that some procedure or convention wasn't followed, but a less excited/excitable look at this situation doesn't make it obvious that there is anything that wasn't followed. AVNOJ1989 (talk) 05:43, 4 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn (uninvolved): It's clear that the move was rushed. It was opened only 2 weeks before and no previous editors that opposed it before were notified that a new review was ongoing. Previous consensus thus still needs to be included unless new information is presented that invalidates that previous consensus. No such new information was presented. Ergzay (talk) 06:25, 4 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
2 weeks is not rushed for a RM, as they generally go for a week. Also, there is absolutely no policy requiring previous editors that opposed be notified. In fact only notifying editors who opposed previously could be considered WP:CANVASSING if editors who were previously supportive of a move weren't also notified. TarnishedPathtalk07:23, 4 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
And the previous two RMs had less participation. If you were suggesting that all previous RM participants should have been notified (which there is exactly zero policy requirement for) then I would expect to go back further than two RMs. In any case that is not a policy based argument that there was anything deficient in the RM. TarnishedPathtalk03:13, 8 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There is no requirement that past discussion participants be notified for any discussion on Wikipedia. If someone cared that much about the ABC article(s) in question, they were free to put those articles on their watchlist. The mere fact that notifying past discussion participants is permitted in many cases (so long as it is neutral) does not impose a requirement to do so, and failing to identify any policy-based argument that it was a requirement here, it is not appropriate to use the fact that was not done as a "deficiency" in the move request by the opener. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 04:06, 8 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse <involved>. Clear majority to move (hardly "50-50"!) and clearly superior arguments given the Australian one is a national broadcaster and this is not USpedia. -- Necrothesp (talk) 07:43, 4 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Relist - I was the one who relisted the ABC discussion and after having a look at the pageviews, you can see why the US one is more popular than the AU one. I also stated that the page should have been move first so that other people like Rodw and Onel5969 can also fix it. I was thinking that its fine for one to fix the links if there are less than 100, but 10,000? Maybe relisting the discussion would help because of the large pageviews between the US and AU news agencys?. One reason why Wikipedia doesn't work by (only) counting votes. (I have learnt it in my first time closing RMs.) JuniperChill (talk) 08:42, 4 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn/relist: This looks like a coup to me. Small participation, short duration, closing editor accused of bias, !votes in favor ignoring these criticisms. Calls to shut this down with the argument "everything was done properly so this should not be reopened" completely miss the point that this was hustled through with minimal participation. I see two sides use various statistics to bludgeon their opponents, completely missing the point: that both sides have a case. To me, it is clear that AUS visitors to Wikipedia expect the AUS ABC while US visitors expect the US ABC (and it's unclear what international visitors expect). To me the solution is obvious: there is no primary topic, meaning ABC News should redirect to the disambig page. CapnZapp (talk) 09:05, 4 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse (uninvolved). Overdue move. Supporting arguments were sound per WP:WORLDVIEW/WP:GLOBALIZE and brings the title into line with Consistency principle per WP:CRITERIA. This is EN.WP, not US.WP. If it were only a tie between US/Aus then I'd be more reticent but as the disambig page now lists many news orgs and channels/outlets using "ABC" (Philippines, Albania, Spain), it's beneficial (or at the very least does no harm) for the US article to be explicitly labelled. PRIMARYTOPIC may have applied 5 years ago but I think that is now eroded far enough to no longer apply. The fact that the American article grabbed the "ABC News" title in 2003 when the overwhelming majority of contributors and visitors were US-based (and there was no Consistency principle) does not mean it is appropriate to retain that today ("first-come-first-served"), given global internet penetration and global users/contributions. Hemmers (talk) 09:18, 4 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Relist so we can have a proper discussion. There was one argument to move based on a misunderstanding of the source information - oddly it was even stated as a reason to move "The Australian broadcaster reaches 8 digit levels of people on a weekly basis, while the U.S. company averages around 7 million on nightly newscasts" - which, yes, does say that the US ABC News gets seven times as many viewers as the Australian one. Even though the move !vote was based on serious misunderstanding of the source, its logic was rebutted by an !vote in which it was pointed out that we apply different criteria when assessing which articles are the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. Only that one !vote quoted appropriate policy - the other comments were not policy based, and/or were not focused on why a title was the primary topic or why the primary topic status should be changed. There was no accurate policy based argument to make the move, though there was one correct policy based reason not to make the move. When discussing and deciding which title should be primary we follow the guidance at WP:DETERMINEPRIMARY, which if followed would have clearly indicated that the US news station is clearly primary in terms of number of readers (the data is currently lost because the page has been moved - but if I recall it was something like 16.1K compared to the Australian 3.3K, and the number of links in and out was in the thousands compared to the hundreds for the Australian station). I think an incident like this should flag up that a requirement of EVERY move request should be that the stats are examined or displayed before a close can be made so we don't make obvious mistakes like this in future. Also, that if there are more than 1,000 links that need changing (or whichever number is agreed), that only an admin experienced in move requests should close the discussion. It appears that considerable disruption was caused by the amount of links that needed changing, and the mover encountered a number of complaints, a whale sized trout, and was briefly blocked. What's done is done, and it appears to me that everyone involved in this was working with the best interests of the project at heart, but we need to learn from this incident so something like this doesn't happen again. SilkTork (talk) 09:22, 4 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I do agree with you on this. I think all page moves that do require a significant amount of changing links should require an administrator to close the discussion and not by a non-administrator. I think an amendment to the process should be made in order to prevent situations like this from happening. Soafy234 (talk) 13:07, 4 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
No, Silk is right. Admins (vs trusted laymen editors) should be closing the toughest moves... not the toughest decision-wise, but logistically. This one was screaming for an admin close. I don't think BilledMammal realized the scope of how many things would have to be changed.
The substance of the close amounted to "moved". No further justification was provided in the closer's statement. Srnec (talk) 15:00, 6 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Even admins would find it hard to work with 10,000 links logistically. The last I checked, admins don't have a magic tool to update 10,000 articles at once. (Move+ as it was, was the next best tool followed by dabsort, other than getting a BOTREQ done). – robertsky (talk) 01:26, 8 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
the data is currently lost because the page has been moved - but if I recall it was something like 16.1K compared to the Australian 3.3K
It appears that in the past year articles related to "ABC News" have been viewed almost 399,000 times. Of these 219,000, or 52%, were to the American publication. The next largest was the Australian publication with 50,000, or 12%.
the number of links in and out was in the thousands compared to the hundreds for the Australian station
The numbers are more skewed than that. Looking at the '8 digit' citation, the majority (7.742M) of the 13.039M users were counted because they were using an app an average of nine minutes a week, and then all their secondary news outlets were also included in the total. Contrariwise, they only mention the 7.3M times five (36.5M) half-hour top program from their citation but neglect to mention the many other programs produced by US ABC News, the daily 2 hour 2.777M Good Morning America program, the daily 1 hour 2.364 million for The View, the daily hour-long GMA3 morning program at 1.329M, and the nightly half-hour Nightline (0.787M). ABC News US is well into the 8 digit range of daily viewership, and all of these shows are top-rated in their respective timeslots. Those five times a week shows aren't even comprehensive for its television programs, ABC News also produces 20/20, a two hour show once a week. I'm not aware of the data for the ABC News website but I suspect it's not zero.--Noren (talk) 18:44, 4 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Relist I just involved with discussion regarding the article name change and many "supporters" comments are just adding "per nom", "per above", etc. without any other reasonable argument why the American ABC News must not be primary topic, and some other comments saying that they "support" the move because the opposer comment are US-centric worldview. IMO, this discussion should be reopen again to attract more users to discuss the name change. 103.111.100.82 (talk) 12:40, 4 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"supporters" comments are just adding "per nom", "per above", etc. without any other reasonable argument why the American ABC News must not be primary topic. I also failed to see any reasonable argument from you as to why American ABC News must be the primary topic. Your argument was merely that when searching ABC News on the internet (presumably you mean Google or some other search engine) that more results come up for the American ABC News than for the Australian ABC News. That happens because presumably you are in America, because when I search for ABC News on the internet, the absolute opposite occurs for me. That is to say your subjective experience of using search engines is not universal and hence wasn't a good argument. The other oppose argument was that there had been too many discussions and therefore the status quo should remain. Again, not a good argument. Both of the oppose arguments were weak arguments. TarnishedPathtalk13:07, 4 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
And I only see one other argument, which is from the nominator, one which I believe is flawed. So why do you wish to truncate the discussion on the topic? I can understand if you agree with the move result, but I do not understand being satisfied with the discussion (or truly lack thereof) that led to it. The RM discussion was not rushed, but it developed virtually no back-and-forth or scrutiny from a limited group of editors and not community consensus on a wider scale. The magnitude of this move review should indicate that. As I stated above, I believe a primary topic move requiring the amendment of over 13,000 articles deserves more than two arguments put forth. You seem to disagree. Οἶδα (talk) 16:19, 4 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
As discussed by @BilledMammal in a comment above, [t]here have been eight previous requested moves on this topic; of those, only two had more participation. 7 participants in a RM discussion is not exactly smaller than general. I've seen quite a few RM discussions with participation smaller than that. The RM discussion went for fully two weeks, which is longer than the 7 days that they generally go for. There was a banner up on the page and anyone who was interested could have participated. TarnishedPathtalk02:08, 5 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
And I've seen a plethora of RM discussions of this magnitude that received the attention and deliberation they deserved. I don't care that you've seen other discussions get rubber-stamped without deeper consideration. Other stuff exists, I am aware. I'll repeat myself again, this generated little engagement from a limited group of editors and not community consensus on a wider scale. I believe a primary topic move requiring the amendment of over 13,000 articles deserves more than two arguments put forth. You proudly disagree. Οἶδα (talk) 17:35, 5 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn / re list (not involved). I was not involved whatsoever in the discussion. However, based on the discussion that did happen, there was not consensus whatsoever. Whenever there are moving page discussions, there is more than "per nom" / "per above" on why a page move is needed and not just a few words. I do think that if the discussion were to be reopen, the editors that did edit the page should be pinged (even if it not required) to see if they changed their mind or not. In addition, we should also consider the previous discussions that happen years ago on this same subject which can be found here: Talk:ABC News (United States)/Archive 2.
Overturn / resist (not involved). The only meaningful vote/comment is the one from the IP. The rest of the discussion is basically lacking valid arguments and there is no real consensus. --Cavarrone13:24, 4 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse (not involved): a reasonable close on both the numbers and the arguments. Lots of move discussions a closed on a similar basis - I feel this has only come here because the page has higher traffic. StAnselm (talk) 16:25, 4 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse (not involved). The two opposing arguments are not convincing — the first falls afoul of WP:CCC, and the second is incomprehensible. This move was advertised to multiple wikiprojects and nobody offered any better opposing arguments in the generous amount of time that the move request was left open, so I doubt anything good will come from relisting it. Einsof (talk) 17:05, 4 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Relist/uninvolved, I was surprised to see such a limited discussion when the edits to prepare for the move hit my watchlist due to citations to the American ABC. While this may ultimately be the outcome, it needs broader discussion to call it consensus.
Endorse (uninvolved). While I kinda get the concerns about the number of editors who commented, this discussion was open more than long enough for an RM. And while this has been discussed in the past, it appears the last RM was in 2017, so that argument holds less weight. I’m also disappointed with tone of some of those arguing against the close here; calling it a coup or saying an editor’s opinion doesn’t count because of where they reside doesn’t help your cause. ~~ Jessintime (talk) 01:21, 5 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse (uninvolved). Discussion had a reasonable participation and was open for two weeks, which is plenty of time. Five editors supported the move and only two editors opposed. Maybe the supporting arguments could have been better explained, but the same could be said about the opposing arguments. There was only one reasoned opposing comment, the other was just WP:STONEWALLING. There was a clear consensus to move. Vpab15 (talk) 08:47, 5 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree that there was one reasoned opposing comment as their argument was that search engine results are evidence for a primary topic. Please see my rebuttal of 103.111.100.82 above. TarnishedPathtalk10:14, 5 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Relist (uninvolved). I'm surprise to see the discussion regarding the page move from ABC News to ABC News (United States). While there's a enough majority vote to move the article, most supporter voters lacked the reasonable argument why the page should be move, other than "per nom" or "per above". Maybe the discussion should be relist to have more editors involve in the discussion to reach more clear consensus. 103.144.14.16 (talk) 10:00, 5 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Some editors here (and elsewhere) do not seem to realise that "per nom" etc is a perfectly acceptable argument and always has been. It merely means that the editor completely agress with the nominator and does not feel the need to reiterate the same arguments in slightly different language. -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:53, 5 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I completely agree with you that "per nom" is acceptable, and when closing I have always given such !votes equal weighting with the nomination. In this case the nomination was based on a significant error - the nom was arguing that the Australian ABC News was getting an equal audience to the American one, when the source used was saying that the American ABC News has a seven times greater audience (comparing weekly Australian figures with daily American figures). As such any "per nom" !vote in that discussion carried little weight, as the person supporting the nomination had not checked, and was making the same error. It is the role of the closer to read and understand the arguments, and to weigh how they apply to the greater consensus of our guidelines and policies. It is not the job of the closer to simply count. A bot could do that. We don't use bots to close discussions because it requires a human to read, check, understand, and give weight to the arguments. SilkTork (talk) 13:51, 5 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The nom's argument was The Australian broadcaster reaches 8 digit levels of people on a weekly basis, while the U.S. company averages around 7 million on nightly newscasts; the sources provided showed the Australian source had 13,000,000 users per week while the American source had 7,000,000 viewers per night. When closing I interpreted this as them arguing that they had comparable audiences, and since this wasn't self-evidently contradicted by the sources, and no editor opposing the move presented an argument against it, I had no basis to consider the argument invalid.
Here, you introduce the argument that the American source had seven times the viewers, but this isn't self evident based on the sources, and as closer it would be inappropriate of me to introduce new arguments. I say it isn't self-evident because it appears that both sources are talking about unique users. This means that you can't multiply the American daily figure by seven to get the unique weekly users, as some will have watched on multiple nights. BilledMammal (talk) 10:31, 6 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The source does not say that ABC News Australia has 13,000,000 users per week, the source says that ABC, the parent organisation, has that number, including other sources, such as the Kids channels. The source says: ABC News has weekly users averaging 7.7 million. But, the main point here, is that even if the source was saying 13 million a week, that still doesn't match the 49 million a week of the US ABC News. And even if it did match the US ABC News, what really matters to us is the readership of the article. The local audience doesn't matter as much as the Wikipedia audience. These are established articles so we have clear evidence of the readership, [18], which shows that the US ABC News has more readers than all other ABC News articles put together. When deciding which article is primary it is the Wikipedia audience/readership that we consider, not the audience/readership on other platforms. That is the established way of deciding these things, and is laid down in our guidelines. This is pretty much a slam dunk No Move because the Wikipedia audience/reader figures are so much higher than not just the Aussie article, but all the ABC News articles. We traditionally have also taken into account Google hits, though we don't rely on those unless it's a new article. We prefer using Wikipedia's actual viewing figures for existing articles. We also take into account links in and out, as that tends to indicate importance of the topic to Wikipedia itself, and the potential disruption which would be caused by moving an established article with thousands of links. The nom's argument, even if accurate, carries little weight, which is what the second oppose comment was saying. Wikipedia discussions are always closed by judging consensus formed by reasoned arguments which follow existing guidelines and policies. We don't just count the numbers. The main guideline for this RM discussion is WP:DETERMINEPRIMARY which lists the four main indicators - WikiNav (not usable at the moment because of the page move - but I looked at it before the move, and it was very clear that the US article was primary); Wikipedia article traffic statistics, which I link above, and which shows that no move should take place by our criteria; usage in English reliable sources such as Google, etc, though Google can be tricky, as Google these days may provide response according to location and personal preference; and incoming wikilinks (of which the US article had thousands compared to the hundreds of the Australian one). Points to note include: "A topic may have principal relevance for a specific group of people (for example, as the name of a local place, or software), but not be the primary meaning among a general audience." which directly addresses and supports the comment made in the second oppose. The nom statement did not address the points which by agreed Wikipedia consensus we consider when deciding which article is the primary topic, while the second oppose made some very telling and on point comments. Now, I understand it can be difficult to close a discussion which has four supports and only two opposes as being in favour of the opposes. A question I sometimes have asked potential admins is how they would close such a discussion. And the best answer is the one who says they wouldn't close it or relist it, but would add their own oppose comment clearly explaining the relevant policies and guidelines which support an oppose. Whatever happens here, BilledMammal, I hope you will take these comments on board, and moving forward consider how the arguments in a discussion are properly reasoned in line with policies and guidelines, that sometimes putting your own comment in can be more appropriate than either relisting or closing, and that when closing what is likely to be a contentious topic (reversing the trend of previous RMs is always going to be a contentious topic, renaming an article with thousands of incoming links is always going to be a contentious topic) give a clear closing statement so people can see the rationale behind your judgement. SilkTork (talk) 12:10, 6 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The source says: ABC News has weekly users averaging 7.7 million You're right, I misread that - although 7.7 isn't the full picture, it misses the ABC news app etc.
the US ABC News has more readers than all other ABC News articles put together
That is true, but only just - 52% to 48%. Further, the US ABC News only has four times the views of the Australian one, and the community has no set definition of much more likely than any other single topic; in some circumstances it has accepted four times as sufficient to meet that requirement, but in others it has rejected it.
of which the US article had thousands compared to the hundreds of the Australian one
That isn't correct; the US article has 11,000, the Australian has 7,000, and several other ABC's also have thousands.
However, the biggest issue is that no editor made these arguments. What you're asking me to do is to introduce novel arguments, and then rule that the arguments I just made are the "right" arguments - to WP:SUPERVOTE.
Further, even if these arguments had been made by one of the editors opposing, I wouldn't have been able to give them additional weight for two reasons. First, it is reasonable for editors to argue that 52% doesn't sufficiently meet the definition of more likely than all the other topics combined, and editors have successfully argued that in other discussions. Second, I interpreted the supporting arguments as implicitly arguing that there is no primary topic by long-term significance, and since there is no consensus on which aspect takes precedence I wouldn't be able to give either sides !votes additional weight.
I will take your comments on board in the future, but aside from leaving a closing comment there is nothing I would have done differently in this case. BilledMammal (talk) 13:26, 6 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
7 million daily viewers does not translate into 49 million a week. If the same 7 million people watch ABC news (US) every day, they still only have 7 million actual viewers each week. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 21:05, 7 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse (uninvolved): The supporting arguments are clearly stronger, and the opposing arguments are clearly US-centric, a frequent issue on Wikipedia. This wasn't a discussion to determine which ABC News is the primary topic – it was a discussion to determine if the American one is, and there is clearly no consensus that the American one should remain the primary topic. The obvious solution is to disambiguate both. MClay1 (talk) 01:40, 6 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Are you looking at the same RM as I am? The first oppose comment reads This has gone through many requested moves and all of them were to keep the status quo. What is "US-centric" about that? The other, posted by an Indonesian IP with imperfect English, reads: While ABC News owned by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) had considerable more audiences in absolute terms than the U.S. counterpart with similar name, we don't considered that, because without specify the country that originated when we searched on internet, "ABC News" is overhelmingly referred to the American one instead of Australian, even when we included the digital and social media platforms. How is it US-centric to (mistakenly) assert that the Australian ABC is more watched than the American one? Or to inform us that the American ABC dominates internet search results in Indonesia? Srnec (talk) 01:46, 6 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
US-centrism is the basis behind many of the opposing comments in previous RMs referred to by the first comment (and also in comments on this discussion). The nonsensical IP comment is possibly rooted in the same thing – what metric are they using to determine that ABC News overwhelming refers to the American company instead of the Australian one on internet searches? Most major search engines are American and results are often tailored to the user. When I search in Australia, I get the opposite result. It's not a good argument. MClay1 (talk) 07:59, 6 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The IP's comment is no more nonsensical or irrelevant than the nominator's. That is why performing the move was wrong. The whole RM is just bad. It is not a solid basis for a major change, which is what this was given the number of pageviews, incoming links and prior RMs. Srnec (talk) 15:00, 6 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
STRONG Endorse (uninvolved). It's never been a part of Wikipedia closing policy to have to read through all the previous RM attempts. This move request was posted publicly, crossposted to the relevant projects, even relisted!!. What more would you want? See you in six months when someone requests to move it back, but until then, the ayes have it, and this move was correctly closed. (Side note: come on!!' This is more than two entire weeks! How long were they supposed to leave it up for?) ... (Second side note: let this be a lesson to all y'all: "this has been requested and rejected before", in and of itself, is not' a valid argument that will lead to you convincing anyone. Indeed, only one opposer even attempted to make a convincing point as to why to oppose the move. Come on! What could anyone do with this request but to close it as moved? Only one person even attempted to justify why it should not be moved!) RedSlash05:52, 6 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The "only one person who opposed the move" is the only one person who posted a meaningful and policy-based comment in the discussion. Cavarrone07:09, 6 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
is the only one person who posted a meaningful and policy-based comment in the discussion. This has been claimed over and over again, however I don't see that this is a correct statement. The oppose voter who cited primary topic used their subjective experience of search engine results as evidence for their claim. That is not in line with policy. TarnishedPathtalk08:33, 6 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The IP questioned the assumption that (current) TV audience counts towards being a primary topic, referred to WP:PT1, and also directly linked a previous discussion about that point. Is this a irrefutable argument? Probably no, because the IP should had linked some evidence corraborating their point. But is it a policy-based argument? Certainly yes, up to the point that the policy is actually linked. But if you want make the point the whole discussion at that stage was extremely poor, I second that, and that's the reason the closure was premature. Cavarrone09:56, 6 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If almost all the comments are flimsy to the extreme, anecdotical and non-policy based, it actually is (WP:NOTAVOTE). At best at that stage there was a NC because of the general inconsistency of the comments, but I am not advocating that, as the most reasonable option was to relist the discussion. Cavarrone10:20, 6 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Per above comment by Necrothesp above, "per nom" is a perfectly valid argument and always has been. Editors shouldn't be forced to rewrite what someone else argued, when they entirely agree with it. TarnishedPathtalk11:41, 6 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Relist (uninvolved) because the sheer length of this discussion relative to the discussion it is reviewing means the "closure" has failed to actually close anything. I think on principle I would consider the closure reasonable, but closures, especially ones that result in over 10,000 edits being made to implement them, need to be broadly accepted by the community and if people are writing 50K of text about whether the closure is valid then it hasn't been. * Pppery *it has begun...17:31, 6 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion did not convince the broader community that the action is right (WP:CONLEVEL). It convinced (also debatable given that consensus is not determined by a simple counted majority) a limited group of editors in which the quality of arguments have now been called into question and resulted in this massive pushback. In determining consensus, we must consider the quality of the arguments, the history of how they came about, the objections of those who disagree, and existing policies and guidelines (WP:CONSENSUS). In a discussion with virtually no back-and-forth or scrutiny and with arguments from both sides having already been demonstrated above to be flawed or even innaccurate, I'm not sure how you can conclude that consensus was reached. The discussion is patently waiting to take place. But instead we waste our time listening to desperate attempts to frame the discussion as being fully developed with ample quality arguments that have been broadly accepted by the community. The magnitude of this move review is becoming preposterous. It is fine to be in agreement with the move result, but let us not suppress community discussion and consensus building. There will never be a convincing argument to that end. Οἶδα (talk) 00:28, 7 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The question - per Wikipedia:Move review - is whether the close was "within closer's discretion and reasonably interpreted consensus in the discussion". The fact that there is pushback from people who feel like they missed out in having their say is irrelevant. You are making WP:CONLEVEL mean something it was never meant to mean: there was nothing in the discussion or the close that "overrode community consensus on a wider scale". StAnselm (talk) 04:55, 7 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
And BilledMammal did not reasonably interpret consensus in the discussion, as outlined repeatedly above by Srnec and SilkTork. Refer to these posts and perhaps respond to them (you have not). Οἶδα (talk) 08:42, 7 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That is precisely the issue. But you won't receive any interesting responses, just editors obfuscating the fact that they wish to stifle discussion. Unfortunately, several editors here are unwavering on the topic. They are adamant to suppress community consensus on a wider scale. Because apparently what constitutes consensus to them is a discussion from a limited group of editors that resulted in virtually no substantive discussion (only two arguments were put forth that included mention of Wikipedia policies and guidelines). And when you demonstrate that it has not been broadly accepted by the community nor is it sufficient to cause the revision of over 10,000 articles they will just tell you that plenty of other paltry discussions have been accepted as consensus in the past so we needn't go into the matter further. Οἶδα (talk) 23:07, 6 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse. Look, if the community wants to establish a policy requiring that RM requests be held open for a longer time, or held open for a longer time with respect to some particular class of articles (based on number of incoming links, page views, past discussions, or whatever else), that's fine, implement that policy. As it stands, however, this was a policy-compliant close, and a fair reading of consensus in the discussion. BD2412T19:36, 6 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Relist per WP:CONLOCAL and Pppery. My inclination is that this was the "right" outcome but given the scale of the change and the amount of discussion in the initial move request compared to here suggests there's more the community wants to consider in this matter. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 02:01, 7 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I absolutely think it's the purpose of move review to assess if the correct consensus was determined as determined by appropriate weighting of policies, of which Consensus and its subsection about Local Consensus being one that is relevant here. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 05:02, 8 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse (uninvolved). The closer accurately evaluated the consensus. The mere fact prior discussions did not come to the same conclusion does not mean that consensus here was not different. The discussion was listed appropriately at all applicable areas, and others had their chance over 2+ weeks to comment in favor of or against the move proposal(s). I believe BD2412 puts it very well above. If the community wants to discuss different requirements for how long move requests must be open, or for a required notification of all past editors if a new move request is opened on a page they had previously commented on a move request, then that's fine. But this closure was made in line with current policies and procedure, and people feeling bad/regretting that they didn't go to comment before it was closed does not change that fact. This MR here is not the place to re-hash the arguments in favor of or opposed, and even the "new" information that was presented does not actually support overturning (weekly viewers cannot be extrapolated from daily viewers, for example). Thus the close should stand, and normal procedures for beginning a new move review followed if editors feel it is necessary. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 22:55, 7 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Relist per above. I had mistakenly thought that this was settled, but it seems to not be the case. For a majorly disruptive page move like this (with so many incoming links), perhaps there should be a mandatory extended discussion period and a central watchlist rather than solely relying on project notices. SounderBruce01:28, 8 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion period was already extended. As for central watchlist, there is the WP:RMC for now. Anything beyond is a separate discussion on refining the WP:RM process. – robertsky (talk) 04:46, 8 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn (no consensus). The discussion was inadequate. The nomination was confusing with obliquely presented facts, to a fault. The sole pertinent question of “is there a PrimaryTopic” was not sufficiently examined. As the nomination is at fault, do not relist, but allow a fresh nomination after a short pause. SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:38, 8 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse the close was clearly correct; the arguments for the move were stronger and had 5-2 support. None of the "overturn" arguments here have brought compelling and factually-accurate arguments; the larger participation here is thus not cause to relist. In particular: (a) because the move is moving a DAB page to the previous title, the temporary "broken links" are not an inconvenience; (b) the two-week listing period was sufficient, and longer than most moves; (c) while the "8-digit viewership" argument in the nomination is confusing, it is beyond dispute that the two stations have viewing figures that are comparable in scale; (d) neither the 2011 nor 2017 move requests have compelling arguments against this move; in general the appeals to a prior consensus do not justify a relist. Walsh90210 (talk) 04:39, 8 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It is not he point of move review to relitigate the move, but to determine if the close was correct. So it isn't anyone's job to bring compelling and factually-accurate arguments for or against the move here. Srnec (talk) 20:26, 8 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
At this point, enough people have complained about the outcome that a new discussion appears inevitable, regardless of where consensus is. I see no reason to prevent that discussion. Walsh90210 (talk)
Overturn/relist (uninvolved). The closure was not wrong at the time (as Extraordinary Writ argues), but that's not the only valid basis for a move review. Equally valid is significant additional information not discussed in the page move discussion. It's clear from the length and substance of the commentary here, that significant information was not discussed in the RM. For example, editors have begun to debate assessments of page views and incoming links. No matter whether you agree any of that information should ultimately change the outcome, a reopened RM the place for it to be discussed. The closer is right that the closure could not have considered arguments that had not yet been made by any editor, but it is wrong not to reopen the discussion now that they are being made. Adumbrativus (talk) 06:13, 8 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think page views or incoming links are "significant additional information" as both were readily available during the move request. ~~ Jessintime (talk) 12:58, 8 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse (uninvolved). The closure correctly analyzed the consensus in the discussion; on my read of it, I don't see any strong arguments for the American network retaining its primary topic status. The procedural objections to the move are poorly founded as well. Two weeks is an above-average duration for an RM to be open, and gestures to past discussion results are not especially compelling – particularly since the last RM before this one was seven years ago. Consensus can change, especially over more than half a decade. ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 15:20, 8 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse (uninvolved). Per the above, I don't see any strong arguments in the original thread for the US channel to retain the primary topic. - SchroCat (talk) 16:44, 8 July 2024 (UTC) (Italic section added at SchroCat (talk) 20:46, 8 July 2024 (UTC))[reply]
This is move review. It isn't anyone's job to provide such arguments here. If you want to see some, you should probably ask for a relist. Srnec (talk) 20:26, 8 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I’m well aware of what this page is and its purpose, and don’t need the lessons, thanks. I’ve clarified for the hard of understanding. - SchroCat (talk) 20:46, 8 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse.BD2412 has said it very well: this was a policy-compliant close, and a fair reading of consensus in the discussion. I said very little in my own !vote, because it seemed sufficiently clear where the stronger argument was; I cannot fault the closer for judging likewise. Arbitrarily0(talk)21:50, 8 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse (uninvolved) this was a move discussion which needed to be closed, was relisted twice, and the arguments against weren't necessarily very strong. I don't see any problem with this at all. SportingFlyerT·C22:46, 8 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I will also note given that this seems to have triggered a lot of discussion, starting a new move request immediately may not be a bad idea with the old request as the status quo. SportingFlyerT·C22:50, 8 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I would suggest the closer strongly consider this idea as I do think it's consensus of what I've seen here - what happened is endorsed but it is allowed for a new discussion to be immediately be opened. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:08, 9 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
What are you talking about? It wasn't relisted twice and there were no arguments made against it at all in _this_ move request, even though many arguments were made against it in previous requests. Also the request to move only ever appeared on the talk page. This was a "stealth" move.Ergzay (talk) 15:43, 22 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Relist (uninvolved with the move discussion, although I did express some opinions on the post-close link retargeting). Two reasons I support reilsting. First, when a large number of editors express to the closer that they would've voted had they seen the discussion, reopening is the right thing to do per WP:NOTBUREAU. Second, I'm just not seeing any strong arguments for the move. The nomination is based on data that is both wrong (ABC News Australia doesn't get 8-digit viewership per week) and presented in a misleading manner (comparing weeks to days), there is one "per nom" which is agreeing that a broadcaster with 7.7 million weekly views is on equal footing to one that gets 49 million weekly views, there is one that is just WP:IDONTLIKEIT, one that is anecdotal, and one that is "as above" (which would be valid if any of the above actually had a strong policy-based argument). --Ahecht (TALK PAGE)15:16, 9 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The move was listed correctly and ran for over two weeks (double the advised norm) and included a relist too. The voting was clean and clear and the closer followed practice and policy in doing the close (despite your mischaracterisation of the !votes). How many bites of the cherry do you want to turn this into US.WP, rather than EN.WP? - SchroCat (talk) 15:53, 9 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Not really. Your mischaracterisation of the arguments of other editors, however, isn't exactly a shining beacon good faith, so I wouldn't press the point too far. - SchroCat (talk) 16:33, 10 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
7 million daily viewers does not necessarily equate to 49 million weekly viewers. If the same 7 million people watch ABC (US) every night of the week without fail, they only have 7 million weekly viewers. In other words, you cannot compare apples to oranges just by painting the apples orange. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 01:52, 13 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Relist or overturn - This move discussion is highly contentius that should be closed by an admin. I believed given the 50/50 chance this should be relisted for the final time. I am uninvolved. ToadetteEdit!19:15, 9 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse (uninvolved). This discussion was open for more than two weeks and projects notified. Closing as move was completely reasonable given the arguments. People are pointing at the nationality of editors and saying it should be relisted on that basis. Seriously? Tom B (talk) 21:48, 9 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Relist (uninvolved) - This is a significant move and we can ensure a lot more people are happy with the outcome by giving it some more time and gather more input. -- Netoholic@00:41, 11 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Relist (uninvolved). Yes, the close was fine in a vacuum. But the result is surprising and contested. Per WP:NOTBURO, this is not "you snooze you lose", there was a late surge of supports and it's possible people ignored the request as unlikely to succeed. Just relist it, which should have happened for a close RM anyway as a courtesy rather than going to MR. SnowFire (talk) 00:23, 12 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse (uninvolved): Only because relisting will result in some obvious participation bias. People who oppose the move are much more likely to look at the discussion than people who support the move (because it has already been done). The additional attention at this MRV doesn't help. The only way I would support a relist is if it's done at a global scale so it is not obviously skewed one way. CFA💬15:31, 18 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
How is participation bias relevant to policy? The move discussion was never published on the relevant pages as a banner to notify people that it was occurring.Ergzay (talk) 15:48, 22 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Relist (uninvolved): Stating my opinion again here as I've just realized that there was never a banner placed on top of the ABC News (now ABC News (United States)) page. That means that editors would have had to manually go on to the talk page to discover that a move discussion was taking place, severely limiting the audience of the discussion. Edit: Apologies I appear to have missed the banner even in the edit log. Ergzay (talk) 15:51, 22 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The above is an archive of the move review of the page listed in the close of this review. Please do not modify it.
