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Requested move 9 January 2015

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: I am, to the best of my knowledge, an uninvolved administrator, but for full disclosure, I was asked to comment here by a discussion participant whom I do not believe I have previously interacted with.

I have reviewed the talk page extensively, and I do not feel that there is consensus in any direction as to what the article should be titled. Both sides have made important points, but ultimately, there is not enough agreement. As per longstanding Wikipedia practice, we are going to keep the article title as is. As this discussion has been had several times, I would suggest disengaging for a while (at the end of the day, the title of the article is not worth this much time spent on it--there are more important things in the article that I can already see needing change), observing where the state of the world is in a few months, and marshalling the arguments for changing the title into a more unified and coherent request for comment and move.

Best, NW (Talk) 23:12, 17 January 2015 (UTC) NW (Talk) 23:12, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant → Islamic State (islamist rebel group) –


A proposal is made to rename the page. I would like to thank John Smith the Gamer for providing the criteria on which to decide a name. The qualifier is Islamic State (islamist rebel group) as described in the first sentence of the lead. I assume the lead is well sourced. I will make points on WP:AT which has just been mentioned in a previous post by John Smith.

  • Recognizability- The title is very familiar to people in the subject area. Firstly a combination of the US's non-use of their name as part of the strategy to deligitamise them and to counter their influence has led to a media circus on issues surrounding the name. This has made the name notable in and of itself. Secondly, I took the liberty to do a google serach and news. Results are self-explanatory.
Google news:
  • news(no limit): "islamic state" with 3,390,000 results [1]
  • news(past month): "islamic state" with 344,000 results [2]
  • news(no limit): "islamic state of iraq and the levant" with 38,400 results [3]
  • news(past month): "islamic state of iraq and the levant" with 3,200 results [4]
Google search:
  • search(no limit): "islamic state" with 45,600,000 [5]
  • search(past month): "islamic state" with 6,700,000 results [6]
  • search). "islamic state of iraq and the levant" with 710,000 [7]
  • search(past month): "islamic state of iraq and the levant" with 23,800 results [8]
  • Naturalnes - I think it is well known that the name is islamic state. I thought the only way to ascertain that in an objective way would be to do a google trends search. I ran the search for the names with a limit set to last 12 months in the category of news so that we could see the relationship between the use of the name, the date the name was declared and trends in how much it has been used before and after the decleration.
  • Google trend on "search terms" in the news category (limit last 12 months):
  • "islamic state" compared to "islamic state of iraq and the levant"[9]
  • What can be seen is as follows from the trend results:
  • Both terms were negligible on the internet over time graph before 7th June 2014
  • After the decleration there is a massive spike for the term "islamic state" but the name isil stays at the very low level as before
  • Only in october was there some increase which is due to america's strategy to not give them any legitamacy. The difference in interest between the two name is big with "islamic state" being used a lot more
  • Regional interest shows 'darker' for IS term than ISIL. Regionally the term IS is most popular in Australia, Canada, UK, US and India. For the term ISIL it is just US. If you click to city mode for IS you will see how bright the map gets. Compare this is to ISIL which regionally is less dark and in city mode there is not enough data to even present a graph.
  • It is hoped that this information also makes it clear that the argument; but people type islamic state to go to the other article here[10], is without merit. It is highly unlikely that people decided at the beginning of june 2014 to start reading about the normative islamic state. This is because most english sources talk about a caliphate when they talk about what the group represents as opposed to a normative islamic state.
  • Precision - the term is sufficiently precise to unambiguously identy the article's subject and distinguish it from other subjects as the proposed name will be Islamic State (islamist rebel group).
  • The name has become so widespread that it has become associated with the group. It is like the example of BlackBerry here [11], even though it is a fruit.
  • Conciseness - The new name is no longer than the current ISIL one and also the qualifier qualifies the group.
  • Consistency - I am not sure what this means.
  • WP:COMMONNAME - Shown above that islamic state more common than isil.
  • WP:SPNC - Shown above with search, news and trend that IS has much more weight than ISIL. The WP link gives an example of Cat Stevens who is not moved to Yusuf Islam. That is because analysis of sources demonstrate that Cat Stevens has more weight than the latter name. The same approach should be taken here.
  • WP:BLPSELFPUB - This does not apply here but I will entertain it anyway. The name that we are going to source is not from a self-published or questionable source but from reliable sources who name the group as wuch. Plus even on the wp:BELPSELFPUB link it says (highlighted portion):
"Living persons may publish material about themselves, such as through press releases or personal websites. Such material may be used as a source only if..."
We are not going to be using self-published sources so this does not apply. We will be using the name that has the most weight within sources.
  • John Smith you have mentioned your preference for keeping the name as it is. You point to:
  • "ISIL is the most common name" - The results above with search, news and trend show that the statement is totally unsubstantitated. Any editors who disagree, please could you substantiate it.
  • the name (islamic state) is " rejected almost universally" - The results above with search, news and trend show that the statement is totally unsubstantitated. If it was rejected almost universally then why so many more sources and searches than ISIL. America wants people to think that it is universally rejected as part of their battle of hearts and minds. Our purpose is an encyclopaedia, we do not exist to fight a battle of hearts and minds but to collate the sum of all human knowledge. Any editors who disagree, please could you substantiate it.
  • ISIL is "slightly less ambiguous" - maybe but the islamic state name has become so widely used that it is like the blackberry situation. No I would say even more as majority of people do not even know what a normative islamic state is but everyone knows what a blackberry is (a fruit but also a phone company). I would say Blackberry is more ambiguous as article name for the company as opposed to the name islamic state.
  • ISIL is "slightly more recognisable" - again unsubstantiated as you can see from search, news and trend above.
  • "the name Islamic state is "slightly less natural" - again unsubstantiated. If it was less natural it would not have been used by so many people as seen by search, news, trend.

For the reasons I have outlined in response to John Smith the Gamer I would like to propose a page move to Islamic State (islamist rebel group) Mbcap (talk) 08:37, 9 January 2015 (UTC) Mbcap (talk) 08:34, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

  • Oppose for a bunch of reasons, but I'll just highlight that seeking to delegitimize ISIL is an goal shared by NATO, EU, GCC, Arab League, Russia, Iran, China, Australia, New Zealand, and other countries, plus the UN. Wikipedia is not the place to WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS by fighting against what an editor wrongly labels an American propaganda effort. The locals and adjoining nations all oppose ISIL and use the Daesh term, not Islamic State. As for the search results, you can't use them like that because instances of "Islamic State of Iraq and Levent", "Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham" "so called , self proclaimed etc Islamic State" and real entities like Islamic State of Afghanistan all will get counted in the search results for "Islamic State". Also, this is a truly novel title as shown by this search which returns nothing but this proposal. Legacypac (talk) 09:36, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
  • Support This isn't about delegitimizing or legitimizing said group. The fact that you bring up this point as a reason to oppose the name change is your own personal opinion getting in the way of Encyclopedic truth and fact. As this is the English Wikipedia, what the 'locals' (I'm assuming you mean Iraqis and Syrians) refer to the group as is irrelevant, even if 'Daesh' is the preferred expression. Fact, since June 2014 the group formerly known as The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria changed its name to The Islamic State. Instead, Wikipedia is adhering to the old and outdated title in the name of political correctness. Why should an Encyclopedia dedicated to the world in which we live in be commanded by governments or transnational bodies such as NATO or the UN? Is this some sort of censorship of fact in an effort to win some sort of propaganda battle? If so, it has no place in any Encyclopedia, much less Wikipedia, a place where many people come to gain knowledge and insight instead of listening to the regurgitation of the U.S State Department and mass media outlets. It's a blatant point of view being expressed and completely opposes WP:NPOV. To sum up the 'Islamic State' is far more popular than ISIL as stated by Mbcap. This suggests that it is therefore in line with WP:COMMONNAME. The fact that results for the Islamic State were negligible before June 2014 then suddenly boomed post June 2014 suggests this. It is factually correct to refer to the group by its current name and not a previous name which no longer has meaning to the group, except if you are the U.S government. Finally, to keep ISIL just to avoid offending certain people or to keep in line with a certain POV held by other groups such as the U.N and NATO is reckless and shouldn't determine what goes into an Encyclopedia. StanMan87 (talk) 10:04, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

*Oppose Until I see or find a source/search that clearly demonstrates the term Islamic State is in greater use than ISIL/ISIS I will assume that name Islamic State is not the most used term by English language speakers. Care must be taken to avoid false positives. John Smith the Gamer (talk) 10:51, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

  • Support Having searched news outlets for the term "Syria", I found 7 which used "Islamic State", 2 which used "the Islamic State group", 1 which used "the militant group which calls itself “Islamic State”" and 1 which used ISIL. I now believe "Islamic State" is the the common name. John Smith the Gamer (talk) 18:22, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

*Support (as the nominator) Per my reasoning above in line with policy and also below, I am satisfied that Islamic State (or The Islamic State) is the most common name. Mbcap (talk) 03:09, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

Comment - in light of issues raised by Gregkaye and PBS, will abstain for the time being until an informed decision can be made. Mbcap (talk) 20:19, 10 January 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose apologies to admin but this is a duplication of my "oppose" with explanation presented below based on stats and NPOV issues. GregKaye 20:42, 10 January 2015 (UTC)
  • Support per WP:COMMONNAME and arguments raised by Mbcap. it is evident that the phrase 'Islamic State' is more commonly used then Islamic state of iraq and the levant. --Ritsaiph (talk) 02:04, 11 January 2015 (UTC)
  • Support (as the nominator) Per my reasoning and more google searches on alternate names but in the same modality to control for variables (ie. search for IS vs ISIL or search spelled out. But do not mix one acronym vs spelled name for the other), I am satisfied that Islamic State is the common name. The other issues raised about there no being islamic state in these sources, are arguing over qualifiers. I will say again to clarify, the things being disputed here are qualifiers and not the name. Islamic State militants means the militants of the islamic state group. The islamic state group means the group that is called the islamic state. We can always decide on a qualifier later. The qualifier will need its own search to determine which qualifier is most used by reliable sources. Middle eastern news sources are unreliable and if you disagree, please look at press freedom in the middle east with the notable exception of Israel and maybe one other. So in summary this name meets WP:TITLE and WP:COMMONNAME. It is also recognizable, natural, precise, more concise than the current name and will also be consistant because if the name goes through, we will be making a name change across all related articles. My support has stregthened even more on the back of WP:NATURAL, WP:POVNAMING and also WP:TITLECHANGES. Please see below in the discussion, where I elaborate on these points. The most important thing to bear in mind when changing articles names as per WP:TITLECHANGES is: "In discussing the appropriate title of an article, remember that the choice of title is not dependent on whether a name is "right" in a moral or political sense.". 04:53, 11 January 2015 (UTC), 21:31, 11 January 2015 (UTC),Mbcap (talk) 21:46, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

Mbcap Firstly you are putting your conception of common name here above the more central Wikipedia issue of NPOV. Secondly any search on "is" is not to be. The search here on "IS" in News dramatically failed to find results on IS as an acronym. The first result I got was of Alex James: the rowing machine is back to haunt me and other results, as far as I could see, consistently presented "is" as a form of verb. Thirdly, as elsewhere mentioned, if there was to be a move, on your arguments on reference to common usage ISIS would be the name used. (ISIS gets "About 12,500,000 results" on News in the last month while "Islamic State" gets "About 1,100,000 results" on News in the last month. Then we get to the WP:NPOV issues. There should not be an issue here in normal circumstances but for the fact that the group has chosen a controversial name that many find objectionable. The article even has a section entitled "Criticism of the name "Islamic State" and "caliphate" declaration" and the opening paragraph of the lead (here) presents the text "In June 2014 the group renamed itself the Islamic State (IS) but the new name has been widely criticized and condemned, with the UN, various governments, and mainstream Muslim groups refusing to use it. This is a fair representation. Ban-Ki Moon stated, "As Muslim leaders around the world have said, groups like ISIL – or Da’ish -- have nothing to do with Islam, and they certainly do not represent a state. They should more fittingly be called the "Un-Islamic Non-State". Many people have Mohammedan based faiths who do not believe that this group is representative of Islam and yet the group, with qualification removed, have declared themselves "Islamic State" while claiming authority over all Muslims. Wikipedia's NPOV indicates that we cannot support a POV name that faces opposition anywhere near as strong as this. GregKaye 09:01, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

I will not strike my support as I do not want to constantly strike once I have put my position on here. (I will strike if I am persuaded otherwise) Kaye I do not agree with your reasoning and I will attempt to explain. I am sorry for the long read.

It has to be stated that in any inductive process, be it a google search or to ascertain the relationship between the interaction between higgs particles and their rate of decay, you always have to control for variables. This is a fundamental principle of empiricism which itself is a branch of epistemology. Otherwise the question of "How" is left to making unsubstantiated conclusions. In the same manner here, your search will have to be like for like. Acronym (IS vs ISIL or ISIS) or fully spelled out, should be the rule when doing the searches.

  • I know you have mentioned that IS dramatically fails to bring results for islamic state but that could be explained once you understand the basics of how algorithms determine search results if you are not aware already.
  • You have to bear in mind the great disparity in results when comparing acronyms with IS getting very high results.
  • You then have to factor how many different things IS could refer to and how many different things ISIS could refer to.
  • Then you have to think of all those different possibilities and think which one is most commonly used. By that I mean for the acronym itself, how many different things could it refer to.
  • The search "is" is used like the word before used in this sentence a lot more than as an acronym. This just means that results with "is" as a third person singular verb, is a lot more common than IS as an acronym, when taking the entire "is" cohort into consideration. Therefore those results are expedited to the top of the search.
  • Same for ISIS or ISIL (just assume from now on I mean both acronyms), they are used more frequently for this group in comparison to the entire "ISIS" cohort with its different possible meanings.
  • Look at disambiguous pages of those words to see how many different things it could possibly be. The list is very long. As an example, in the British costume drama Downton Abbey, the Dog before it was killed off (I wonder why?) was called ISIS. There is an Egyptian figure called ISIS as well. You will never be able to tell how many of those search results consist of the word in the context you mean as google only displays the top 1000 results even though the search can run into million or billions.

That was difficult to explain in words but I will attempt to illustrate what I mean with the example below. Lets assume two words are searched with different possible meanings. Both these words can also mean the same thing like in this case. I will call one word kappa and the other lambda. I have kept the ratio between the results the same to reflect the results for the acronym search above.

  • A search for kappa returns 2000 results but the top results do not reflect the version of the word we were searching. Lets say the bottom 30% were the only results with terms we meant.
  • A search for lambda returns 100 results. This word also means many different things but the most commonly used version of the name is in reference to the kappa term. Lets say 60% referred to our intended version of the word, or even 90% which I think is unrealistic.

What would you be left with? 600 results for kappa and only 60 (or even 90) for lambda. This is why we cannot use the reasons which you have given. This is also a reason why we should not use acronyms for search as there is no way to ascertain what the results as a cohort imply. I could possibly do it, but I would guess it would take me about 25 days to learn the theory behind how the google algorithm works and that is not time I can spare at the moment.

Secondly the name is not a NPOV issue. The page title will not be Islamic State. I would object with volition if that happened. Instead we will qualify the name with the qualifier most used in reliable sources. It could take the form of any of these or any others you can think of:

  • "Islamic State (group)"
  • "Islamic State (militant group)"
  • "Islamic State (islamist rebel group)"
  • "Islamic State (Jihadist organisation)
  • "Islamic State (Terrorist organisation)
  • "Islamic State (ISIS) or (ISIL)"
  • "Islamic State (extremist group)"

The criticism of the name appears heavily in the lead and if it does not we will endeavour to make it prominent provided it is in proportion to the entire text. We also have to make a concerted effort to improve the page for the normative Islamic State which will enable readers to weight up the information themselves which I have no doubt they will appreciate. Of course I understand your points about the widespread condemnation from all sorts of organisations, groups and peoples. This will off course be incorporated into the article to provide as much balance as needed. When it comes to the issue of the name, I will address with reference to WP:POVNAME which says:

  • "When the subject of an article is referred to mainly by a single common name, as evidenced through usage in a significant majority of English-language reliable sources, Wikipedia generally follows the sources and uses that name as its article title (subject to the other naming criteria)." - Yes this is a common name and used by majority of English-language reliable sources.
  • "Sometimes that common name includes non-neutral words that Wikipedia normally avoids (e.g. the Boston Massacre or the Teapot Dome scandal). In such cases, the prevalence of the name, or the fact that a given description has effectively become a proper noun (and that proper noun has become the usual term for the event), generally overrides concern that Wikipedia might appear as endorsing one side of an issue." - Yes this is the case here. The word may seem to some people to be non-neutral but by the reasoning just given, that concern is over-ridden in this case.
  • "Notable circumstances under which Wikipedia often avoids a common name for lacking neutrality include the following: Trendy slogans and monikers that seem unlikely to be remembered or connected with a particular issue years later, Colloquialisms where far more encyclopedic alternatives are obvious." - This word is very likely to be remembered and will be connected with this issue for the foreseeable future. The word is also not colloguial
  • "Article titles and redirects should anticipate what readers will type as a first guess and balance that with what readers expect to be taken to." - I think this is a very important reason. People type islamic state into wikipedia to come read this most of the time. This will make life a lot easier for the reader when looking for this article. If there was anytime to think about reader convenience, now would be it.


I hope I have made my reasoning clear which I believe to be in line with policy and also the most neutral. I have also taken into consideration some guidelines I read last week which I cannot remember the name of but they were something similar to: ignore all rules and don't be a lawyer sticking to every policy. They said that improving wikipedia was more important than rules if they were an impediment. I also read the reasons why you cannot also use that as an excuse to do whatever you want. I have taken this into consideration as well but I think they apply more to non-controversial issues. I will nevertheless still consider what you have said when time permits. Even though I disagree with your reasoning, Too many times, one does something thinking it is the right thing, only to discover the great error that was made later on. For this reason, I need to reflect so as to make sure I do not leave anything out when making my final decision. It is a guarantee that if this name is not the common name, I will oppose this request even though I put it through. I will keep you posted. Mbcap (talk) 16:42, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

  • Oppose per WP:TITLECHANGES – The proposed title is rubbish. Firstly, natural disambiguation is preferred over parenthetical disambiguation. The present title is thus a better form of disambiguation. Secondly, the present title is stable, and does the job it needs to do. Given the controversy over the monicker "Islamic State", it seems much better to stick with the present title per WP:TITLECHANGES. The proposed title will not solve any of the problems we have presently, and hence, there is no reason to switch to a different controversial title that could be considered non-neutral. It is absurd to claim that "Islamic State" is the common name. Usage is incredibly varied and shifting, with different monickers used by the same people on different days and in different context. No one name is truly more common. It is a sheer muddle, which is why it makes sense to stick with the present title. For all these reason, I must oppose any moves at this time. Nothing has truly changed since the last move request. RGloucester — ☎ 19:07, 11 January 2015 (UTC)
RGloucester as a proposed title that may fall foul of natural disambiguation but which arguably avoids the non-neutral name problem, what do you think of ISIS (islamist rebel group) or just ISIS which currently redirects to here? GregKaye 13:01, 12 January 2015 (UTC)
I strongly oppose all change from the present title, per WP:TITLECHANGES. I strongly disagree with parenthetical disambiguation being used as a vehicle for commentary, as it is with "islamist rebel group". "ISIS" is not an acceptable title for an encylopaedia article. It does not reveal any information to the reader, and is unnecessarily obfuscating. RGloucester — ☎ 16:35, 12 January 2015 (UTC)
Thank you User talk:RGloucester for your comment. Could I kindly ask you to provide your input in this discussion if it would not be too much trouble. You are holding an oppose position. I think myself and the editors who support this move would appreciate your insight into this issue. We may find that we are wrong, and realise a huge hole in our position. You help would be gratefully appreciated. Please comment below in the news page break section if you decide to give us your insight. Mbcap (talk) 19:28, 12 January 2015 (UTC)
His input was very clear. Legacypac (talk) 10:25, 15 January 2015 (UTC)
His input was a drive by vote using a policy out of context. As wikipedia is not a democracy, we do not go by votes on issues like this but the merits of the arguments put forth. This enables the closer, whomever that may be, to see which position best reflects the broad consensus of Wikipedia editors as they all cannot be present here. Mbcap (talk) 12:44, 15 January 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose: The nominator used a wrong policy for proving the recognizability and naturalness. The results are never trust-able. Is "Islamic State" a general term used, is it related to countries with "Islamic State" or any thing else. Current title is precise, concise and is consistent wit the previous trends. I think we should stay with the current title or at most use the acronym ISIL (or ISIS) as the title. Besides, "Islamic State" (even "Islamic State" + qualifiers) is not deemed neutral enough to be used as a title. As you know we may, some how, ignore neutrality when there's a single commonly used title which is of course not the case here. So, As I said before, I suggest ISIS or some think like this. Mhhossein (talk) 05:16, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
I extend an invitation to yourself, to provide your insight as to why you think I used the wrong policy. What about the 16 news magazines, of which most use Islamic State? The list has also got links to the latest article which you are welcome to see for yourself. There is also a list of broadsheets who use the term Islamic State with links provided for the latest article I could find. You are welcome to look at them yourself. Mbcap (talk) 05:29, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
@Mbcap: Hey! I already explained why I think you used a wrong policy. By the way, I checked the magazines. How if I find 16 magazines using different terms for this group? Mhhossein (talk) 19:27, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
far below I've proven that the 16 mags you selected do not on balance use Islamic State very much, and use other terms far more. Legacypac (talk) 10:25, 15 January 2015 (UTC)
Completely false, what you have demonstrated is that the entire list of news magazines all use Islamic state or a version with a qualifier. However the same cannot be said for any other version of the name being called for here. Mbcap (talk) 11:07, 15 January 2015 (UTC)
  • Support for Islamic State with the title holding the disambiguation qualifier (group). As has been demonstrated by both myself and Mbcap the overwhelming preponderance of independent and reliable third party sources use the term Islamic State, with or without a descriptive qualifier. The state and international organizations often cited as using ISIS or ISIL are committed opponents of the article's subject and refuse the term Islamic State as a component of their conflict with the group, i.e. it's part of their propaganda effort. Plus, Islamic State has the benefit of being the group's actual name. GraniteSand (talk) 00:17, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
@GraniteSand: So according to your justification, can I conclude that those who support the term "Islamic State" are the supporters of this group? Mhhossein (talk) 05:40, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
No, why do you ask? GraniteSand (talk) 06:13, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
GraniteSand: Based on what you said: "...refuse the term Islamic State as a component of their conflict with the group, i.e. it's part of their propaganda effort." Mhhossein (talk) 19:30, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
You seem to be stuck in an an either-or logical fallacy, or at least are assuming that I am. GraniteSand (talk) 01:30, 15 January 2015 (UTC)
You've been pushing a name widely rejected by the world for over 3 months- and in some countries people are being arrested for being about as supportive as you seem to be for ISIL propoganda. so it's a valid question. Legacypac (talk) 10:25, 15 January 2015 (UTC)
Saying he believes that one of the reasons that IS is not used by some high profile groups is down to propaganda does not mean that using the name IS is the same as supporting IS. I do not believe any editor here is anything but opposed to IS. John Smith the Gamer (talk) 12:57, 15 January 2015 (UTC)
It is not necessary to accuse a fellow editor of pushing when he is trying to be impartial about a topic whilst trying to stop people who are themselves obviously pushing. No one here is calling for Islamic State. If that happened, I am sure we all would object. The proposed name is qualified. The pushing that has been seen here in regards to the current name despite all the reasoning given to suggest otherwise, if perceived correctly can only be described as political advocacy. Widely rejected by the world holds no weight. Widely rejected by reliable sources, now that is a different matter entirely. Mbcap (talk) 13:17, 15 January 2015 (UTC)
John Smith the Gamer: The problem is that GraniteSand never said "One of the reasons." He said :"The state and international organizations often cited as using ISIS or ISIL are committed opponents of the article's subject and refuse the term Islamic State as a component of their conflict with the group, i.e. it's part of their propaganda effort." Mhhossein (talk) 18:14, 15 January 2015 (UTC)
  • OPPOSE controversial names: ISIL has multiple common names, however, "Islamic State" is the one which is the most inaccurate and offensive, and the most widely criticized by too many organizations and polities. I think the name "Islamic State of Iraq and Syria" (ISIS) seems more common than the current name and is even uncontroversial so a move to that is possible, however, I prefer we should keep the current title. WP:TITLECHANGES: "If an article title has been stable for a long time, and there is no good reason to change it, it should not be changed." Khestwol (talk) 06:05, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
Opposing a name change because it's controversial has absolutely zero grounding in our policies. Your assertion that "ISIS" is more common has been thoroughly falsified in this very section of the talk page. GraniteSand (talk) 06:17, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
Hello Khestwol, would you be kind enough to provide your take on this issue in the discussion below. It would be more helpful than linking a policy out of context. I think you may need to check if your definition of stable is accurate as there have been 6 move requests in about 6 months. Also, it is with great regret that I say this but your opinion regarding the word being offensive or innacurate do not hold any weight on this matter. In fact they are all together useless. We are here to build an encyclopedia and not to right great wrongs or to engage in political advocacy. However if you still insist, please come by my talk page and I can recommend a few organisation's one can join which may be of interest to you. Now to policy, wikipedia policy considers it "inaccurate and offensive" to use it's resources as a tool of political advocacy. In deciding the Article name, please refer to the relavent policy. We use the common name and the common name is Islamic State. As for your statement about the group being criticized by many organizations, please see discussion below; we do not consider if the name is morally or politically right when deciding on the article name. Mbcap (talk) 06:55, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
Note Khestwol, proposed name is not Islamic State but Islamic State (islamist rebel group). It is entirely accurate becuase it is not only common and featured by countless accredited media agencies in variations such as IS, Islamic State group or Islamic State militants but the groups official name. Per WP:COMMONNAME the proposed change is justified. Per WP:TITLECHANGES, your basis for rejecting the proposal is null and void: ""Islamic State" is the one which is the most inaccurate and offensive". WP policy clearly states ----> "In discussing the appropriate title of an article, remember that the choice of title is not dependent on whether a name is "right" in a moral or political sense." You also are making the mistake of referring to the POV opinions held by those groups/organisations who have a certain stance on the group in question "widely criticized by too many organizations and polities". As for you claiming the article name is stable, that is a contentious claim, there have been 6-9 or so name changes and proposed name changes alike, hardly stable by reasonable standards. StanMan87 (talk) 07:04, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
The title has not changed since Aug 2013, and that was a minor change. That is freaking stable given the attempts to change it that have all failed. Legacypac (talk) 10:25, 15 January 2015 (UTC)
Note The name Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant is completely recognisable while not being dependent on parenthesis based disambiguation. It still contains the text "Islamic State..." while conforming to the guidance given in WP:NATURAL, a guideline that only goes as far as saying: "If natural disambiguation is not possible, add a disambiguating term in parentheses".
Regardless of this and the clear guidance given in WP:NPOV editors are placing rhetorical repetition of the single text from a mid point in WP:TITLECHANGES an continually pushing this in bold text and, unfortunately, I am forced to follow suit.
I have been following the ISIL situation from the beginning and was personally appalled by what I regarded as inexplicable choices by news agencies particularly Reuters to use "Islamic State" in presentations regardless of the fact that government sources and notable commentators were not doing so and certainly not at that time. For sure, if Reuters had been a Wikipedia editor at that time this (to me) inexplicable and non representative use with no qualification would have been challenged. ISIS, I still contend, is the predominant designation for the group but even if it wasn't, this would not matter. Wikipedia is not some kind of pen pushing WP:BUREAUCRACY that kowtows to violations of NPOV wherever they come from. To me I think that the example of Burma is instructive as it presents a number of parallels. We don't take the stats in News in isolation.
  • Burma got "About 11,400 results" in news in the last month
  • Myanmar got "About 124,000 results" in news in the last month
Of course Wikipedia could use the title "Myanmar" but, even though this could be done with no need for parenthesis based disambiguation, as in the case of ISIL, there are more important issues such as NPOV that have to be considered. We can't just ignore the views seemingly of the majority of the Muslims in the world many of have their lives or liberties threatened by the group. GregKaye 11:09, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
Well I don't care how appalled you are, this is an encyclopaedia and not a place for political advocacy. What I find inexplicable is, trying to use an encyclopedia in a way where an article name is pushed through for political purposes even if that name is the common name and in line with all other policies. Editors are repeating policy in regards to; "In discussing the appropriate title of an article, remember that the choice of title is not dependent on whether a name is "right" in a moral or political sense", because policy does not seem to get through to certain editors on this page. Not to mention the inaccurate citing of the WP:NPOV policy when it comes to article titles. The policy on article title is at WP:AT and on the NPOV page it only has a section dedicated to it.
Reliable sources in the majority use the proposed name of Islamic State. It truly perplexes the mind as to how you think another name is more commonly used. And what does, "even it it wasn't, this would not matter", mean. Of course it matters. We use the common name. Most of the notable magazines use Islamic State and I just completed the broadsheet newspaper list further down which also showed that nearly all of them use Islamic State. Yes this is not a Bureaucracy, but that is not an excuse to go against what is appropriate based on policy and the perspective of 5 other editors. Natural disambiguation cannot be applied here because the example given on the link you posted is of the English which can refer to the people or language so they have "English language", etc. In this case, I am beginning to think you are using that to further a political cause. Please read what WP:NOTADVOCATE, this is not a place for; "Advocacy, propaganda, or recruitment of any kind: commercial, political, scientific, religious, national, sports-related, or otherwise." It says "of any kind". This drivel needs to be thrown straight out regarding whatever is "inexplicable".
I have no knowledge of Burma so will not comment about that.
Journalists are governed by a code of ethics and so is Reuters. Reuters and all the other reliable media outlets, they follow such standards and apply it to themselves and this only attests to their editorial integrity. It is why people respect them and know that even if times get hard they will still deliver reliable information. As to the statement about NPOV being considered; it has been considered, please read WP:POVNAME because I do not want to constantly paste information here. Mbcap (talk) 12:20, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
The main thing that I think editors here should care about is WP:NPOV which is one of the pillars of Wikipedia and which has been correctly cited. We have a title currently that correctly uses WP:NATURAL disambiguation. I find it inexplicable that editors are ready to ignore the views Muslim leaders who politicians like Ban Ki-Moon are quoting.
I know that Wikipedia has a rule, which in this case I think counts as bureaucracy, which says that secondary sources should be the first to be considered but, in this case, I think that this is nonsense. How the hell did journalists come to the decision to ignore the wishes of the majority of the Muslim world so as to follow the preferences of a a group of liberty and life taking killers? Secondary sources have a high rate of use of "Islamic State" and terms like ISIS. Daesh is also used alot in some sectors. Many highly notable primary sources in the Arabic and Western world use Daesh, ISIL or ISIS.
Again to me I think that the example of Burma is instructive. IMO editors would do well to take a look.
The typical line of ethics taken by journalists that I have seen revolves around doing whatever it takes to get content that presents something controversial or eye catching and that achieves targets of sales or clicks. Even in this context, and as said, I found Reuter's approach to be inexplicable. Reference to my reasoning on this is found in Archive 12#Copy of letter sent to British Broadsheets and Reuters. My research and action here gained unanimous praise from editors at the time and my conclusions remain unchanged. In the meantime I think that we should retain what I regard to be an NPOV and naturally disambiguated title wording. Allowing an unqualified designation "Islamic State" to be written across Wikipedia would, in my view, kowtow to the groups POV while ignoring the views of a larger Islamic contingent. GregKaye 20:30, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
Yes WP:NPOV is very important and it says regarding naming;
  • "If a name is widely used in reliable sources (particularly those written in English), and is therefore likely to be well recognized by readers, it may be used even though some may regard it as biased."
So that clears that up. As to WP:NATURAL disambiguation, it is not a free pass to allow political advocacy to take place because it has already been mentioned NPOV has to be maintained. The two options are:
  • Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (or Islamic State or Iraq and Syria) --- both of these not used in the majority of reliable sources and heavily biased in that it is part of the propaganda.
  • Islamic State with a qualifier - used by majority of reliable sources.
Therefore we use a qualifier, which has been the trend also in the source, to name the page; Islamic State (islamist rebel group). This will help us achieve balance just like the reliable sources are doing. What would be biased would be to call the page "Islamic State" which no one is proposing.
When it comes to naming articles, the view of politicians or Muslim leaders, are empty air. Secondary sources are what matters. This is not a beaurocracy but this is also not the place for advocacy or propaganda(see WP:NOTADVOCATE). Since we are on the topic of what Wikipedia is not, I would also like to point out that Wikipedia is not censored (see: WP:CENSOR) which states:
  • "Any rules that forbid members of a given organization, fraternity, or religion to show a name or image do not apply to Wikipedia, since Wikipedia is not a member of those organizations."
This explains why we use pictures of Muhammad because the views and rules of majority of Muslims do not apply to Wikipedia.
You are welcome to say all the drivel you want about journalists but unfortunately they are the ones who contribute to secondary sources and we use secondary sources here. Your statement about "life taking killers" also clearly demonstrates your animosity towards the group (this is understandable), and it shows that your perceived lack of impartiality may affect your work on this page.
I read the closing instructions posted above (WP:RMCI) and it said regarding consensus:
  • "Consensus is determined not just by considering the preferences of the participants in a given discussion, but also by evaluating their arguments, assigning due weight accordingly, and giving due consideration to the relevant consensus of the Wikipedia community in general as reflected in applicable policy, guidelines and naming conventions."
This leads to me to another thing Wikipedia is not which is a democracy (WP:DEMOCRACY). We do not go by votes here but by the merits of the arguments put forth. Unanimous praise or drive-by voting, does not mean anything as the arguments are based on the above quoted statement.
My finishing statement is about the POV pushing that is taking place by editors here and the double standards they apply. It is done so blatantly and the extreme biases held show how it could possibly affect the page. Most sources show the new name so now we have fore-bearers of truth saying we should also consider middle-eastern/arabic sources. Editors have the audacity to use PressTV as a reliable source (please see section below titled;"Middle East English Media terms used"). PressTV is an Iranian mouthpiece which runs stories like this[12]. That region is full of dictators and authoratarian regimes whose media are dictated to by the rulers. A press that is not free, is not reliable as can be demonstrated by the poor excuse that is PressTV. I hope this[13] also explains why sources from that region are not acceptable. Having said that I will welcome any sources from that region which are known as reliable such as the Jerusalem Post, Hareetz, possibly Al-Jazeera and possibly some Lebanese sources or any others I have missed out. Mbcap (talk) 01:53, 15 January 2015 (UTC)
Mbcap The heart of WP:NPOV I believe is represented in its introductory statement which, in code, is presented as: "All encyclopedic content on Wikipedia must be written from a '''neutral point of view''' ('''NPOV'''), which means representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without bias, all of the significant views that have been [[Wikipedia:Verifiability|published by reliable sources]] on a topic." The topic here concerns the neutral presentation of verifiable data. It doesn't take a lot of effort to see that various translations and various acronyms of the Arabic ad-Dawlah al-Islāmīyah fil 'Irāq wa ash-Shām are widely used across media and there is no problem here.
What is a problem is that the group have chosen a incredibly extreme POV name. This is a group that has been widely rejected by Muslim authorities and groups as being un-Islamic and yet claims to be the "state" for all of Islam. Is it possible to get more POV than this? Wikipedia is not to be used as a WP:SOAPBOX. Otherwise known as "WP:NOTADVERTISING", "WP:NOTADVOCATE" and "WP:NOTPROMOTION" etc., this guideline states
Wikipedia is not a soapbox, a battleground, or a vehicle for propaganda, advertising and showcasing. This applies to usernames, articles, categories, files, talk page discussions, templates, and user pages. Therefore, content hosted in Wikipedia is not for:
  • 1 Advocacy, propaganda, or recruitment of any kind: commercial, political, scientific, religious, national, sports-related, or otherwise. An article can report objectively about such things, as long as an attempt is made to describe the topic from a neutral point of view.
I do not think that Wikipedia's code of ethics (within its guidelines) can allow us to use a name that is well documented as being rejected by a wide range of groups.
That you have a problem with a description of "life taking killers" for a group of extremely well documented "life taking killers" I think shows your bias. They are serial killers that repeatedly kill their captives and kill those that are perceived to pose a potential threat to their militant control.
Please do not insult with words like drivel when applied to fair contextual arguments. You had appealed to a notion of a Journalistic code of ethics which, when push comes to shove, time and time again has been shown not to apply. Journalists came sixth in this list of despised professions. Codes of ethics are fine but we live in a real world. My content that you complained about was in reply to you.
You have stated: "the view of ... Muslim leaders, are empty air". WTF. 'SIL have started an expansionist war within which they have killed Sunni clerics and others and Shia's in great number. They even chose the Sunni Islamist group Hamas as first target over Israel and you, inexplicably state that the view of Muslim leaders, are empty air. Please qualify this. There are far more people with Mohammedan based faiths in disagreement with "Islamic State" than that are in agreement and, on the basis of NPOV, these views must be represented. The name "Islamic State" is quite fairly represented in the current title but I think that there is no grounding in NPOV to permit the unqualified title "Islamic State" to be plastered across widely ranging articles in this encyclopaedia as this would, I think, unfairly express the group's POV at every point. There is no censorship here. "Islamic State.." is still part of the name. All there is is a denial of a soapbox being given to a minority religious group that is widely denounced as a cult when many more widely accepted religious groups, whose views are not empty air, think very differently.
Finally please do not cast WP:ASPERSIONS about "Editors". You have been repeatedly asked to argue the point and not the editor. Who exactly are you saying has "double standards"? Who? Now, in argument on a point here you cite non specified "editors" while providing links to content that (in time checks today, five days ago and a month ago) has never been in the article. If any editor sees a problem with a source like "PressTV" then feel free to either find a more appropriate source, edit it out or raise issues on the talk page so that a consensus discussion can be broached. I have also raised the subject of reliability at Wikipedia talk:Identifying reliable sources#"relatively reliable". I can see that some media organisations in some locations might even be considered as being perhaps as much a primary source as a secondary source. However, the prevalence of against ISIL content in the middle-east must be taken into account. Even al-Qaeda and al-Nusra reject the groups claims and, in this most extreme of contexts, I don't see how Wikipedia can support them.
I echo the sentiment of the editor that started the above sequence of dialogue, "ISIL has multiple common names, however, "Islamic State" is the one which is the most inaccurate and offensive, and the most widely criticized by too many organizations and polities." GregKaye 09:53, 15 January 2015 (UTC)
Please do not equate wiki policy with your person opinions. As to your entire post which mostly consists of even more drivel and empty air, I am not going to entertain this or "qualify it" as this talk page is not a forum for general discussions on the subject. I am not here to debate politics or morality. We are here to document knowledge and not to put spin on it. The way we do that is to follow a standard that we have set for ourselves way before this group came to such international prominence. As to the aspersions, I apologise. I will try my best to argue to point but that is made very hard when efforts are made to use an encyclopedia as a political advocacy tool. The one part of your post which was actually good was the comment about NPOV but as it has been mentioned, please read the relevant section on that page in regards to article titles. No one here is saying to call this page Islamic State. I would be against that too. The suggested name is "Islamic State (islamist rebel group)". This name not only reflects reliable sources but also avoids the use of the normative version of the name being used as propaganda on one side and the current one which is being used as propaganda by the other side. Therefore NPOV is achieved. A request is being to move so that it is not called the current name because the policy demands it. The new name is qualified in line with sources and this can be discussed later. You cannot naturally disambiguate "Islamic State" by adding on "of Iraq and The Levant" as this is just the same as the current unsuitable name as reflected by policy. You may not use an acronym as it is not primarily known by ISIL or ISIS. Pages such as NASA or NATO use acronyms because they are known by that and it is rare for anyone to know what they stand for. A topic has to be almost exclusively be known by its acronym for it to warrant that name. Look at AIPAC or ABC for example, the name is written out fully. Mbcap (talk) 11:00, 15 January 2015 (UTC)
I agree with GregKaye and Legacypac's rationales and research who have thoroughly refuted Mbcap. I still think the current title is fine. Khestwol (talk) 20:21, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Further discussion

Previous Consensus Decisions and Failures to Reach Consensus

feel free to add to this list

  1. Consensus Reached: Rename; 13 August 2013; Islamic State of Iraq and Syria → Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant; Moved
  2. Consensus Reached: Requested Move; 12 June 2014; Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant → Islamic State in Iraq and Syria; not moved to the initial proposal but moved to Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
  3. No Consensus:Requested move 2; 29 June 2014; Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant → The Islamic State; no consensus - proposal failed
  4. Unclear Requested move; 31 July 2014; Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant → Islamic State of Iraq and Syria; Procedurally closed
  5. Consensus Reached: Requested move; 8 August 2014; Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant → Islamic State; Not moved. Clear consensus against simply "Islamic State".
  6. Not clear Move; 20 August 2014; Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant → Islamic State (organization); Quick close (no move)
  7. Rough Consensus Reached: Move request - 6 September 2014;7 September 2014; Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant → Islamic State; Not moved, rough consensus against
  8. Consensus Reached: Requested move 17 September 2014;17 September 2014; Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant → Islamic State (Organisation); No consensus for the move
  9. Consensus Reached: Use ISIL as the abbreviation not IS or ISIS
  10. Consensus Reached: moratrium on moves - leaving title as Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
  11. Consensus Reached: delete ISIL's self declared name for a province
  12. Consensus Reached: delete self declared names
  13. Consensus Reached: delete self declared names
  14. Consensus Reached: delete many self declared names and related pages
  15. Consensus Reached: delete self declared names
  16. Consensus Reached: delete self declared names
  17. Consensus Reached: delete self declared names
  18. Consensus Reached: delete self declared Provinces
  19. Consensus Reached: delete self declared names
  20. Consensus Reached: delete self declared name
  21. Consensus Reached: delete ISIL's self declared name
  22. Consensus Reached: delete category of ISIL controlled areas
  23. Consensus Reached: use ISIL not ISIS or Islamic State

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Legacypac (talk • contribs) 11:48, 9 January 2015

More comments

  • Comment Yes the trend analysis is the most important bit, if you want to read one thing in my proposal read that. StanMan87 - no we do not use the official name but we use the common name which aheres to WP:ARTICLETITLE. Judgin strictly by policy, the name change is warranted. This is not the place for American propaganda. Also I just read the link you posted toWP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS. That shows that what you are suggesting should not be done. We are not here to right great wrongs just like the various organisations and countries you state want to. We are not a nation state or even a democracy (I read this somewhere - Jimmy wrote it) but what we are is an encyclopedia. Therefore we follow our own policy. Mbcap 10:09, 9 January 2015 (UTC) Mbcap (talk) 10:20, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
    Mbcap it does not matter what the trend is in ghits, what matters is usage in English language reliable sources (see WP:UCRN). Also note that that section of WP:AT includes the sentence "If the name of a person, group, object, or other article topic changes, then more weight should be given to the name used in reliable sources published after the name change than in those before the change". -- PBS (talk) 10:36, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
  • Comment The only basis to reject a proposed name change is citing what Legacypac has already mentioned, that if we refer to IS as this then they are legitimized and that the U.S and NATO say this so Wikipedia must follow suit none of which bear any resemblance to an Encyclopedia, but some sort of propaganda magazine which I cannot stress enough. A change of name has been long overdue by about 7-8 months. StanMan87 (talk) 10:18, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
  • Comment Sorry I was editing my post above and when I pressed save I saw your comment was below mine StanMan87. In regards to your point we here follow wikipedia policy. Our policy dictates how we do, what we do and nothing else. This is an encyclopedia and therefore we must abide by our policies so that we maintain our integrity. The above arguments are empty air. Editors are requested to bring forward policy based objections. If an editor presents their opinion but does not relate it to policy then that opinion is not welcome here. I think people would appreciate not having to read propaganda no matter how noble the intention of such propaganda. Mbcap (talk) 10:26, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
  • Comment I thought it would be commonsense for an Encyclopedia such as Wikipedia to use the correct and up to date terminology for a group such as IS. Why that needs to be linked to a Wikipedia policy is way beyond me. StanMan87 (talk) 10:35, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
  • Comment
Had double edit conflict
In response to Stan, as I've said to you twice, I'm not convinced that just by virtue of them choosing that name that it is "the right name"
In response to Mbcap
You asked about consistency, the description of which is: "The title is consistent with the pattern of similar articles' titles. Many of these patterns are listed (and linked) in the box of Topic-specific conventions on article titles." Consistency isn't really relevant here, other articles can be edited to be consistent with this one. Of the five good characteristics of a title, precision appears to be the only one of which there is likely of to be much discussing that doesn't come under which name is the common name.
You are correct that I did not substantiate the remark of ISIL being more commonly used than Islamic state. However, most of the results for Islamic State appear to be for Islamic State (type of government). The acronym ISIL seems to be beating Islamic State. [14]. I'm not familiar with this tools, though. I don't know how to ensure we only deal with search queries relating to Islamics Sate.
Note that anything that "Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant/Syria/Al-sham" contains "Islamic State", so caution must be taken when searching.
Note that a some sources may call it ISIL/ISIS without expanding the name (ISIS is hard to search for because of other usage of same acronym)
When I say the name is rejected almost universally, I mean that few recognise its rights to it (i.e. that they are *the* Islamic state), rather than claiming it's almost universal non-use.
The reason I brought up WP:SPNC was due to it's parallels individual's names and groups names. The most interesting thing about is the way it links to WP:BLPSELFPUB saying it is particularly relevant which I take as an indication that a person cannot just change their name by saying that they do so, rather they need a reliable source to agree with their name change. If this is correct, I see no reason why a group be would able to if a person can't. This was to counter claims that we should choose whatever name ISIL chooses because it was "the right name".
I believe that the most common terms should be used as the name, but I lack the skills to confirm what I suspect (that the term "Islamic State" is in lesser use than "Islamic state of ..."
If you think I've missed any any responses to your previous questions let me know, as well as any more questions/rebuttals. I'm going to try to find search results to check the common name before making a vote. John Smith the Gamer (talk) 10:43, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
John Smith the Gamer, yes I agree with your points generally. If what you say about name being used in reliable sources after or before decleration is valid; I do not have the neccessary skill to judge that or to even know how to ascertain it. I am extremely busy so I must leave now. I put the proposal forward as it needed to be discussed from time to time (as PBS says). I am happy which ever name is chosen here as long as it follows wikipedia policy as I have great trust in them. It does not matter to me if ISIL, ISIS, IS, Daesh or any other name is used as long as it follows the aforementioned policies. However it would be a day of gloom if pro-american propaganda is allowed to dictate how we design our encyclopedia. I am repulsed by propaganda be it from US, Russia, Iran, China or any other country which thinks it can use our team here like a, wholly owned information war strategy company, as a subsidery of the armed forces. Mbcap (talk) 11:06, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
Mbcap, I also agree with you generally, though I find myself on the opposing side. I also lack the skill and also want to follow Wikipedia policy. I share you dislike for propaganda, though I do not know how much is in play here, which I suppose is how propaganda is used best. I personally would be slightly worried if this article did get named Islamic State as children may misunderstand if they came across the article. I'd like to thank you for being civil and assuming good faith when posting here, and wish you luck with what you are rushing to. John Smith the Gamer (talk) 11:16, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Thank John. I appretiate you saying "personally" when expressing your opinion which I completley understand. Hard things will always come our way in these uncertain times. I think you have been kind with your words and for that reason I wish to persuade you that you should overlook everything but policy.

If policy points to ISIL at the end of this discussion, then happy I will be to go forward and vice versa with Islamic State. Personally I do not think a child would come across this as both names are not well known to children. There are efforts being made to moderate muslim schools in some part of the western hemisphere so children learn in a pure secular fashion. Regardless you may still worry. Just to give you a comparison to something completley unrelated, I too worry. My worry is paedophilia. Within my own profession it is widely known that paedophilia will eventually become a sexual orientation and will no longer be classified as a psychiatric condition. It will go through the same evolution that homosexuality went through. I know that when the day comes and talks have already started in scandanavia, that paedophilia will no longer be a crime or disease or a taboo in society (of course relationship with a child will not be allowed but they will be open about it). I think at that time too we will have a difficult time editing the encyclopedia because there is always that struggle between doing what is right based on an objective criteria and what your connsciounce tells you is right. Though both are admirable, I ask which one would provide the most momentum going forward.

News magazines which use Islamic State:

  • Economist [15]
  • Newsweek [16]
  • New Republic [17]
  • Businessweek [18]
  • NewStatesman [19] uses ISIS in brackets
  • New Yorker [20]
  • The Spectator [21] with ISIS acronym
  • The Atlantic [22]
  • Der Spiegel [23]
  • The Week [24]
  • Mother Jones [25]
  • The weekly standard [26] with ISIS and ISIL acronym
  • National Review [27] with ISIS acronym
  • The Nation [28] with ISIS acronym

Google trends

  • a search on:
"Islamic State", "Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant", "Islamic State of Iraq and Syria", "Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham" and "Islamic State of Iraq and"
shows that "Islamic State" is by far the most commonly used of these terms. It should be noted thought that all the other terms make reference to "Islamic State".
  • a search on:
"ISIS", "Islamic State" and "ISIL"
shows that ISIS is by far the most commonly used of these terms.
GregKaye 14:19, 12 January 2015 (UTC)
Greg, is there anyway we could create a new section in this discussion at the bottom where we can carry the conversation forward. It is a bit difficult to follow the conversation, the way it is at the moment.
"Acronym vs acronym" or "full name vs full name". ISIS could be 76 other things. This is a more accurate search (searching in news and limited to time beginning July 2014 to now):
  • "Islamic State" vs "Islamic State of Iraq and Syria" vs "Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant" ------>[29] - Islamic State leads
  • "IS" vs "ISIS" vs "ISIL" -------->[30] - IS leads
What do you make of that? If you dispute this then can I ask you to defer to WP:ACRONYMTITLE. I admit however that "IS" is not a good search as it could also be so many things.
I have propsed that we consider 4 things when deciding what is common name. We should do:
1. Google Trend search
2. Google news search
3. See what notable newsmagazines use (already done)
4. See what the top 50 most notable broadsheets use (nearly done - I will complete when I get time)
We combine the results together and we choose whatever is most common. Please anyone, can we start a new discussion section so we can all post in order. It will make it easy to follow the conversation. Mbcap (talk) 03:52, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
I just noticed a flaw in this. This is so silly and I am the one who started using it first. Google trends gives you a graphical representation of how often a term has been searched for in relation to total volume of searches so it cannot be used to ascertain the common name. What people search on google is not a reliable source. Lets just discount google trends completely. I have crossed my search off above. Mbcap (talk) 04:07, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
Mbcap Please note that it is argued that there are more policy issue concerns here than just interpretations of Use Commonly Recognisable Name. You have already presented information on word usage and have repeated the same information at a later stage. On seven occasions you have repeated your quote from midway in the text of WP:TITLECHANGES and now seem to want to repeat your same commonly recognisable name arguments all over. This whole discussion was started in five hours of the initiation of a consultation on possible name change has since continued apace. Please note that the name "Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant" is commonly recognisable. It contains the text element "Islamic State ..." and provides natural disambiguation in regard to the subject topic.
This thread has had sections added "For the proposed name" and "Against the proposed name:" reply could be left with the former but, without starting a new section, you pasted in repeated content with shouted presentation, did nothing other than to repeat Legacypac's fair comment on NPOV with no refutation given and repeated content that was previously presented in the "For the proposed name" section. How much of the above content do you now want repeated again?
Please note Wikipedia:Google statistics#Google Trends search statistics GregKaye 04:50, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
I have made my points. I have quoted policy left, right, centre, up, down and even in the fifth dimension. No one is arguing here against this apart from you and legacypac. You argue one policy and when it transpires that policy supports the move, you skip onto something else. Give me one example of where I have dodged any concern you have had. News magazines, majority use islamic state. Broadsheets, majority use newspapers. Google news search done without bias, shows islamic state has majority. On top of this there are a good few policy guidelines that support this move which I have either referenced or quoted. When I make a point, I try to back it up with a policy or a reference or a search. Whereas you make statements like, "Please note that the name "Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant" is commonly recognisable. " That is just a passing statement and with no evidence to back it up.
You then go and make empty allegation such as, "did nothing other than to repeat Legacypac's fair comment on NPOV with no refutation given". let me quote you WP:TITLECHANGES for the 4 or 5th time:
" "In discussing the appropriate title of an article, remember that the choice of title is not dependent on whether a name is "right" in a moral or political sense.""
I did give you a refutation directly from policy. You criticized my news magazine list until it showed majority use Islamic State. You then criticize the alleged "POV" nature of the title and then I quote policy. You decide to ignore this consistently.
Regarding your unhappiness at the bold text, I learnt that from someone else on this page and thought it would be a good way to highlight the main points of my post. But after you raised your issue with it, I apologised to you and said I would not do it again. Mbcap (talk) 05:17, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

News Sources break inserted

News Sources that use Islamic State:

Bar one or two, these are the major broadsheets in the english speaking world. If I have missed any my apologies. Actually I have. But I do not have the time to do a search on them. I have done 46 here. All of whome use Islamic State. Some qualify it in a bracket and they differ on their qualifiers.

All of these sources use the term Islamic State unless qualified. I would like to ask other editors is this still not enough to warrant consideration for name change. I would like to know so we can discuss the qualifier within the bracket.

New added comment on 14 Jan 2015: sorry for the delay in completing the table. I did not sign every comment above so it is clearer to see the information. Instead I am signing here. 15:28, 9 January 2015 (UTC), 15:32, 9 January 2015 (UTC) Mbcap (talk) 06:37, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

John Smith the Gamer The google trend link you posted was broken so I recreated it and you are right. ISIL is the most common search term. Do we take an acronym search into account and do the above sources use of islamic state merit consideration? If the answer is no then I will also oppose page move(I know I requested it). Mbcap (talk) 17:14, 9 January 2015 (UTC)


It is entirely possible that "ISIL" in those searches refers to something else in a large number of cases, for example NASDAQ: ISIL share prices. You are free to decide what merits consideration. There is no policy on considering acronyms as far as I know, and even if there were you'd be free to say you think we should ignore it. Last time (before I came to this page) two editors opposed on the basis they did not consider the name to be accurate whilst it appears to have not got through because of it being "too early" to tell if the term would be adopted. I am now going to do some searches and consider switching from oppose to abstaining/supporting. John Smith the Gamer (talk) 18:01, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Other notable English news magazines (not from US or UK):

  • Macleans (from Canada) [78]
  • 3 of the main news magazines from India --->

Mbcap (talk) 02:45, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

I have been doing some research into how news works and I found that a lot of news providers depend on news agencies to sell them content. There are only four global agencies agencies so I searched their content to ascertain what term they used. The agencies are number below 1-4 with the corresponding term written in bold:

  • 1. Agence France-Presse -- The Islamic State [82]
  • 2. Associated Press -- The Islamic State group [83]
  • 3. Reuters -- Islamic State [84]
  • 4. Agencia EFE -- The Islamic State [85] This is a different news website but they have used an Agencia EFE news release.

I am not exactly sure if there is a difference between Islamic State and The Islamic State. I glanced at the archives and it seemed like a complicated discussion. Clarifying by a more experienced editor would be appreciated.

Apart from AP the others use Islamic State or The Islamic State. I do not know if this bears any say on the naming issue. Collating all this together reveals the following number of notable sources:

  • New agencies -- 3 out of the 4 global agencies use Islaimc State (exception AP) I think this may explain your search result John Smith the Gamer
  • News magazines-- 18 out of 19 most notable english news magazines use Islamic State (exception is TIME)
  • Broadsheet newspapers-- 48 of about 55 most notable broadsheets from US, UK, Canada and Australia use Islamic State(may have an indian or japanese one as well)

If anyone wonders how I knew what was notable. I did not know. I just read the notable section of the articles for news agency [86], this for news magazine[87] and this for broadsheets[88]. I did the search for all news agencies and English news magazines. The list for broadsheets was very big so I picked the ones that sounded most well known and respected to me. I know this is not ideal so I am happy for anyone to do a full search of all notable broadsheets, if you so insist. Mbcap (talk) 02:59, 10 January 2015 (UTC) Mbcap (talk) 02:48, 10 January 2015

I think an editor previously mentioned that the name used after the name change in reliable sources carries more weight when deciding on name change. I did a book search for both terms with time range between 29/06/2014 to 10/01/2015. Both searches on google books[89][90] returned no results. Mbcap (talk) 18:50, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

Reading WP:RS, it says we can also use scholar based sources. I did a google search but I was unable to restrict the time limit by month. Even then it was difficult to differentiate between the two results as when I searched ISIL (spelled out), I also got islamic state articles, and when I searched Islamic State, I got articles about other groups and normative version of islamic state. Therefore I did a search to find a list of political sciences journals ranked by Impact factor and found this[91]. This could also help us ascertain which name is more common after 29th June 2014. If I get time this week I will try to do it and post the results.

Note: If you click on impact factor, there is a disproportionate criticism section. The value of I.F. is well substantiated at least within medical and biosciences. It is calculated by dividing the total number of times the journal has been cited, by the number of possible citable material in that journal the previous year, so it is a very good indicator of the popularity and reach of the journal. Mbcap (talk) 19:09, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

  • (as per vote! moved to correct section above) Oppose, Mbcap in this thread above you made six references to the group as "ISIS". Even here "ISIS" was your designation of choice. Even if we were to ignore the vast POV issues surrounding the name "Islamic State", even if we were to solely consider the form of statistical comparison that you seem to be advocating, ISIS then becomes a more obvious choice of designation.
  • ISIS gets "About 19,700,000 results" on News
  • "Islamic State" gets "About 3,410,000 results" on News
  • ISIS gets "About 4,530,000 results" on Books
  • "Islamic State" gets "About 218,000 results" on books
  • "Islamic State" gets "About 6,460,000 results" on News in the last month
  • ISIS gets "About 12,500,000 results" on News in the last month
  • "Islamic State" gets "About 1,100,000 results" on News in the last month
If there was a name to be chosen for the group based on stats (and even before strong NPOV arguments weighed in) the name to be chosen would be ISIS. GregKaye 20:00, 10 January 2015 (UTC)
Mbcap you seem to have been selective in the survey that you have done. I checked the first couple of new entries you gave the BBC does indeed seem to use Islamic State and then explain other usages against that, but while the Guardian may use Islamic State some/most? of the time it does not do so exclusively, in this article Peter Beaumont in The Observer (the weekend version of the Guardian) on Saturday 4 January 2014 uses "The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant – known by the acronym Isil –" and the uses "Isil" throughout the rest of the article, so given that the second entry in you list is not representative of always using Islamic State, how confident are you that your survey is accurate and representative of news outlets not just for the one link you provide to each organisation but in the general usage? Also there are other reliable sources to be considered which you have not done any form of survey for, what do the Governments of the Anglosphere countries use, what do the international bodies such as the United Nations, the European Union and the Arab League (in their English language publications) use? -- PBS (talk) 20:04, 10 January 2015 (UTC)
Listing CNN as using Islamic State is a huge red flag that the research presented was done with a specific goal in mind, damning the facts. Anyone who reads or watches CNN knows they slavishly use ISIS. I see only one Arab/Turkey/Middle Eastern world English media on your lists. The provided link only says Islamic State once (essentially quoting a supporter of ISIL) and then uses IS for the rest of the article. [92] Since the regional media are closer to the issue that also suggests bias in selection of data. Legacypac (talk) 20:13, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

Greg Thank you for your input. I am really sorry I can not really look into this at the moment. However, you are welcome to find out what term is most common.

PBS I am not sure what you are saying. I looked for major news outlets and took a recent story they have published. Then I saw which term they used in the title of the article or if the name was not in the title I saw what they used in the text. They may well have said, they are also known as this or that. I can not say for certain. I though since they used Islamic State in the lead and made the comment about the other name it meant the former is the one the news outlet uses. If I have made a mistake in that interpretation, I am sorry.

If you are both right, I will happily vote to oppose this move request. I have also just struck (or deleted) through my "support" comment above so I can make an informed decision after what you have both presented has been clarified. Please could someone also check the agency information I have posted. I am sure they are correct but just in case in light of the issues raised by PBS. Mbcap (talk) 20:17, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

@Mbcap, News outlets may have a style guide that dictates what they use. It is clear from the BBC web postings that they have made an in house decision to use IS (just as they have to use Burma), but other news outlets may or may not have made a specific decision on this issue, and just leave it up to journalists to use whatever they prefer. You can not just "[take] a recent story they have published" and extrapolate from that that all the articles published by that organisation always use that term. For example many newspapers take their copy from the news agencies and do not edit it in house, so if they use more than one new agency their usage will reflect the house style of those agencies, and that means even if the agencies are consistent (and they may not be) the newspapers that use multiple agencies (and do not edit the copy) will use more than one term. In other cases you find that the news-desk in a publication have decided to use one name and the travel department will use another (eg the news-desk may have a policy of using IS, but the travel desk that takes Foreign Office memos on safe places to visit may use the terms the Foreign Office use eg ISIL). For all these types of reasons, it is necessary to to run a survey on each publication to see what they currently use -- one web page is nowhere near enough to ascertain usage in most news organisations. -- PBS (talk) 20:36, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

Legacypac Thank you for pointing that out. It would seem I did not read the page carefully. Yes I did have a goal but it wasn't in the sense you are suggesting. I searched through as many broadsheets as I could and also those news organisations that I know of. I took a recent article and searched islamic state with "Ctrl+F". The one that showed it was used in the title or main text I posted here. The ones that did not use islamic state I did not report here. So yes and no to your suggestion of research done with specific intent. If you still think I did it with an agenda, then my apologies, it was not done with malicious intent. Regardless, I want to thank you for checking my work and I would like to ask if you would be kind enough to check through the rest of my work. I know you must be busy but I think it is important that someone checks the validity of the information presented here. As I have stated, because of the issues just raised by yourself, GregKaye and PBS, I have deleted my support comment above. Hopefully when these issues are clarified, I will vote for whichever name meets policy. Also can I tag John Smith here so he is informed of the new issues raised (I don't think that would be canvassing?). I think he may too think differently in light of the previous comments. Mbcap (talk) 20:28, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

How is this different to what I have stated. It is clearly written above in my previous comment that they use "Islamic State Group".

Note: GregKaye please also factor into your search for ISIS that it could refer to many things including this[93]. As you see there are a lot of things a search for ISIS could be. I think it may be better to do a search for ISIS. I did a quick google search in the different modalities and found they had this for "islamic state of iraq and syria":

  • News 8,050,000 results (about 6 million more than islamic state) [94]
  • News limited to past month 65,800 results (islamic state has 1,100,000) [95]
  • Books 127,000 (islamic state has 218,000) [96]

So you see the results are not obviously clear. When you spell the name out it looks for the name so its more accurate. If you put isis it will take into account all the other isis's in that disambiguous link I have posted. The same could be said for islamic state as when you search you do not know if it searching for normative islamic state. I hoped the news search would help avoid that. Right I need to do some revision now. Mbcap (talk) 20:50, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

Legacypac how is the information above which I posted different to the one you found. It is written in the my comment above regarding AP: "2. Associated Press -- The Islamic State group"

Also I would dispute a search using an acronym as has been done with ISIS. If you search on google books for "IS" you get around 2,200,000,000 results. If you search google news for IS you get 241,000,000 reuslts. This is not a fair comparison as ISIS, just like IS, also means many other things. Once spelled out though the google test spells out a different picture, one that supports islamic state as common name. This has been elucidated above. 20:54, 10 January 2015 (UTC) Mbcap (talk) 21:01, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the concern, but there is no need, I have this page on my watchlist. Also, as far as I can tell, because I have already posted here keeping me informed of any change in discussion would not be canvassing. In future, if a discussion is on an article talk page that I have frequently posted on or you have good reason to believe otherwise, assume I do not wish to be informed via my talk-page about it. John Smith the Gamer (talk) 21:06, 10 January 2015 (UTC)
John I want to assure you I have acted in good faith and I do not have an agenda. I always try to ascertain the facts and after weighing the evidence, I make a decision. The concerns above I do not believe are merited apart. As you can see, I have replicated Gregkayes search on news and books and the results still support islamic state name. Apart from CNN which was a video (I overlooked this, for this I can only apologise), the rest are written articles which I checked and then double checked. They all use islamic state but they may be qualified in varying ways like:
  • Islamic state also known as ISIS, ......
  • Islamic state also known as islamic state of iraq and syria.....
  • Islamic state also known as ISIL......
  • Islamic state also known as islamic state of iraq and the levant
  • Islamic state (IS) or it might say Islamic state (ISIS) or it might say Islamic state (ISIL)
  • Islamic state (qualifies it varying ways not in brackets like; a militant group, a rebel group, a jihadist group, terrorist group) is ......

In all these situations it uses islamic state as primary name. I have checked the sources thoroughly and made sure the article I used was a recent one, preferably a january 2015 article. I did the same for news magazines of which the overwhelming majority used islamic state. They may have also used qualifiers but they always used islamic state as primary name. It is entirely possible that my scouting of the issue is uninformed so I have struck my support comment. Having said that I do not think the opposes above, warrant that decision. The evidence points absolutely to the contrary. 3 our 4 of the only global agencies use islamic state as well as the other source I have posted excluding CNN. Even still I will abstain, maybe I am blind and not seeing the huge hole in my argument. I really need to go now because if I spend any more time here I will fail my final medical exams. Mbcap (talk) 21:29, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

Note: Mbcap please also factor into your considerations that the ratio of uses in News in the last month is 12:1. Please keep reference to the stats. Please also ping. GregKaye 21:45, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

Why is the ratio 12:1. Surely it should be 6:1 since it was just over 6 months ago that they changed their name. Surely it would make sense to see which name is being used more commonly after the name change. Someone pointed this out as one of the criteria for considering which name to use, re. how often a given name is used after decleration of new name. Regardless I will explore the issue when I get time. Legacypac also raises concerns below about how even though the source mention islamic state, it is qualified or later on in the article they may use different names. This holds true for the current name as well. They dont use the full name everytime in the article as well. They refer to it via acronym or other qualifiers. Also just like islamic state being qualified at the start of a report, the same is done for islamic state of iraq and the levant. This name is also used the same way. The variation in the qualifiers is fine for now I think as we can debate qualifiers later. Mbcap (talk) 21:59, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

Mbacp, I do not question your good faith, as I think have said before. As far as I can tell, every action you've taken has pointed to good faith and trying to be representative. I'm not sure if you saw, but after I conducted my own news searches I changed from opposing to supporting. Note I looked in the article itself rather than in the titles. I posted my results below, but I found the majority (>50%) used "Islamic State" without any alteration such as "so called..." or "... group". Also, I'm finding it hard to follow where I'm meant to post this, because of the varying intendedness. John Smith the Gamer (talk) 00:13, 11 January 2015 (UTC)
Thank you. I also think you have acted in good faith. I have struck my support so I can re-evaluate the evidence when I get time. After analysis, I will make the decision that is warranted. I do not think though that I will change my mind as all the evidence points contrary to the opposer's. I decided to give it consideration only after Gregkaye & PBS raised an issue. However I must write here that I strongly think Legacypac has a conflict of interest here. I have very strong reasons for this as he wanted to get the moratorium extended "since the world opinion has gone even stronger against legitimizing the group by the "Islamic State" name". As I have mentioned before this is not a propaganda tool as per OED definition (no matter how noble the intentions) but an encyclopedia. For this reason, I ask all editors here to double check his work and I ask the admin supervising this to disregard his vote completely. I assume good faith on his part but I prefer to build a neutral encyclopedia. 00:44, 11 January 2015 (UTC) Mbcap (talk) 01:37, 11 January 2015 (UTC)
Mbcap Re: "Why is the ratio 12:1." Because the search I was referring to related to News results for the last month. More specifically the ratio is 11.3636:1 ("About 12,500,000 results" on News in the last month : "Islamic State" gets "About 1,100,000 results" on News in the last month).
Re: "I have checked the sources thoroughly". No you haven't. You can't just pick and choose references. Please check ISIS gets "About 12,500,000 results" on News in the last month. Results shown present "ISIS" as "primary name". GregKaye 07:27, 11 January 2015 (UTC)
Re: "No you haven't". Yes I have. I discounted qualifiers. The Islamic State group or Islamic State Militants or Islamic State Group, those are the names. Regardless of these 3 names which have qualifiers, most say Islamic State. Here is a comparison search for IS against your ISIS search with 233,000,000 results[97]. I have explained above why your analysis is incorrect. (of first page returned is not islamic state). I think I have misunderstood your ratio comment, please do clarify if you can. Mbcap (talk) 20:31, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

User talk:RGloucester thank you very much for turning to policy. You reference WP:TITLECHANGES which says;

  • " If an article title has been stable for a long time, and there is no good reason to change it, it should not be changed."

This page has had 6 attempted requested moves in the last 6 months which has meant this page is very unstable. It is my hope that once we change the name to Islamic State, the page will be stable for the foreseeable future. I also want to thank you for referencing WP:NATURAL. I would like to say that I agree with your assertion but only because the policy says so. The relating of that to this title I feel is misleading. This proposed title, "Islamic State" is so notable because of the debate surrounding the name, that the name "Islamic State" has become, what I would say is like the "Blackberry". On top of that it is the common name when you do a search with controlled variables. For that reason it is in no danger of appearing disambiguous. To elucidate this point and also to clarify what I said before I would like to quote WP:TITLECHANGES which says about considering title changes (I will put it in Bold so everyone can draw their attention to this):

  • "In discussing the appropriate title of an article, remember that the choice of title is not dependent on whether a name is "right" in a moral or political sense."

You have also referenced that the title is non-neutral. I would say according to [[WP:POVNAME] this name is the best name to use. It is the common name and because of its widespread use together with the concerted effort to not allow its use, has led to the exact opposite intended effect, meaning it has effectively become a proper noun. If you read the first paragraph to the POVNAME link above, you will see that this has taken place when naming for example, the Bonton Massacre. It then goes on to say about using non-neutral names:

  • "In such cases, the prevalence of the name, or the fact that a given description has effectively become a proper noun (and that proper noun has become the usual term for the event), generally overrides concern that Wikipedia might appear as endorsing one side of an issue."

So you see there is no danger of Wikipedia seeming biased or seen an endorsing one side or the other. I think even more than this statement, the above one about discounting moral or political sense is very crucial point to bear in mind.

For these reason I will discount any concerns of bias as well political or moral nonsense. The latter two especially bears and warrant absolutely no consideration. I hope I have made my points clearly and ask that you reconsider your decision in light of what I have highlight from the links to policy you posted. Links which were used to back up an oppose position. If you feel I am wrong, please do let me know. Mbcap (talk) 21:29, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

User:GregKaye, firstly through WP:COMMONNAME, your contention on ISIL being used more than IS is false. Secondly, the basis for your concern about WP:NPOV is irrelevant. You state that a neutral point of view needs to be maintained, while declaring that using the phrase Islamic State is totally unacceptable, by throwing the POV of those opposed to IS, and citing what "the UN, various governments, and mainstream Muslim groups" think. You are essentially saying that we should use a name no longer relevant (ISIL), with not as much recognition as IS, as has been proved in order to appease certain groups of people and organisations, just as Legacypac stated in his vote "I'll just highlight that seeking to delegitimize ISIL is an goal shared by NATO, EU...". This is blatant POV. I'm frustrated that Wikipedia has been left behind for nearly 8 months on this issue, and want an accurate article page name. No POV is being expressed by arguing facts. If it were up to you, the article would be what you cited above, the "Un-Islamic Non-State", which has no factual basis, merely your own POV. Since when does a persons feelings or personal beliefs override facts on an Encyclopedia?? Amazing, it's as if Wikipedia has become a mere one-sided PC blog. StanMan87 (talk) 00:34, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

StanMan87 You make the unfounded accusation that, 'If it were up to you, the article would be what you cited above, the "Un-Islamic Non-State' and I ask you to strike that. This is the view of the secretary general of the UN which has also been echoed by various world leaders. There are many that argue that the group are un-Islamic and that they are by no means representative as a state. Muslim leaders have none the less suggested the use of UIS (un-Islamic State). My suggestion is nothing so radical. If there is to be a name change then it should be to ISIS, ISIS (islamist rebel group) or similar. I have made no "contention on ISIL being used more than IS is false". My contention, which I had broached long ago on a previous thread, is that if a move is to be made it should be to "ISIS". WP:NPOV must be maintained. We cannot go to extremes in our titles either way. GregKaye 07:26, 12 January 2015 (UTC)
Greg I apologize, I appear to have misquoted you. I thought you stated that yourself and were not quoting Ban Ki-moon. It may be the view of the U.N and a majority of world leaders, but this doesn't support any policy that I am aware of. An article can't be called a name just becuase influential people hold an opinion on what that name should be (aside from the official one). Doing so would constitute a Point of View being pushed. I have different opinions on what is POV in this case. I do not consider the title Islamic State (islamist rebel group) a POV title as, facts are facts. How can stating something which is factually true and official be POV? Fact, they are called the Islamic State. Case closed. To reiterate, I wasn't the one to have bestowed the name The Islamic State on the group, they did that themselves. Do I want to label them the Islamic State? No, it's too vague. If you see in a previous discussion that got blocked due to a moratorium, my main preference was the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Shām, with Islamic State being a secondary preference. However, I now realize that even ISIS is wrong. It's is factually wrong. Why should an Encyclopedia use an outdated name on an article? As much as I do not like the name, facts are facts. It is commonly used, and official. I could care little about hurting a persons feelings in renaming the article to a sensitive name such as The Islamic State (islamist rebel group). I didn't edit Wikipedia thinking about moral concerns, just merely to help document history. And in my opinion, labeling the group an outdated name to intentionally "delegitimize" is POV, becuase the name is no longer in use, you are using it for personal reasons namely for ethical/moral considerations which Wikipedia doesn't allow: "In discussing the appropriate title of an article, remember that the choice of title is not dependent on whether a name is "right" in a moral or political sense.".StanMan87 (talk) 10:14, 12 January 2015 (UTC)
I greatly respect what you say but think that we are having disagreements about application of NPOV here. As I see it there are two sides to the story. The group declares themselves as "Islamic State". Other Mohamedean groups/population are in uproar with many refusing to use the name in preference for designations such daesh. Grand Sufis also express condemnation. As mentioned the Ban Ki-Moon quote began ""As Muslim leaders around the world have said, groups like ISIL – or Da’ish -- have nothing to do with Islam..." He was conveying opinion. NPOV has been applied to the article in many ways. Wikipedia has rejected wording used in news articles before. For instance in relation to beheading incidents Wikipedia has rejected reference to murder as it implies illegality and has similarly rejected reference to execution as it implies legality. We simply say that a person was killed. Similarly the group calls itself Islamic State. A great many people find this contraction to be inappropriate at all levels. ISIS is still a very widely used title and I think that this gives us the best NPOV option available. "...(NPOV), which means representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without bias, all of the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic. Personally I agree with Ban Ki-Moon and have regularly used a personal designation for the group as 'SIL. I think many people who compared Islamic teaching and the practices of this group would come to similar conclusions. However personal views should not be an issue in regard to the neutral presentation of content. In surrounding content a quote from midway in WP:TITLECHANGES has been repeatedly, boldly and rhetorically presented that "that the choice of title is not dependent on whether a name is "right" in a moral or political sense." It is dependent on POV GregKaye 10:53, 12 January 2015 (UTC)
Good points raised. I can see we are interpreting WP policies differently in this context. Now I know why there are religious people who argue with each other over interpretation of laws/scripture, even though there are clear cut words written down before them. Fascinating. I really can't see a consensus being reached at this point. But if the article were to change to ISIS, would it be the Islamic State of Iraq in Syria, the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Shām or just ISIS? I much prefer ISIS to ISIL. If we slug this out for a little while longer and Islamic State is not accepted, then I'd support a measure to adopt ISIS and remove ISIL. But only once if this discussion fails i.e the move towards Islamic State (islamist rebel group). StanMan87 (talk) 11:11, 12 January 2015 (UTC)
StanMan87 It is an interesting question. The media most commonly use ISIS. Governments use ISIL. Arabs, the French etc. use Daesh/Daish. Very few references are made to the "Islamic State of Iraq and translation according to preference". I first expressed my preference for ISIS in September ISIL/ISIS/"Islamic State"|here. ISIL has been used for continuity with the Levant title and nothing more. I do not know the history of first use but I guess that ISIS referred to the "..of Syria" rendition of the name." GregKaye 12:41, 12 January 2015 (UTC)
I could not agree more. I will repeat again, according to WP:TITLECHANGES; "In discussing the appropriate title of an article, remember that the choice of title is not dependent on whether a name is "right" in a moral or political sense."
Therefore do not worry, the issue of delegitimizing the group has no say on the matter as you can read the bold writing above. Mbcap (talk) 00:50, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

For the proposed name:

  • WP:COMMONNAME checkY - The term "Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant" is loosing (if not already) its usage among the majority of internationally accredited media sources in the English language. This is indisputable, see above for the lists. The research from both Mbcap and John Smith the Gamer strongly suggest this. The fact that results for the "Islamic State" were negligible prior to June 2014 then boomed is proof enough, let alone the plethora of other web-searches such as IS or the Islamic State group. What "regional media" as Legacypac cites, is irrelevant. What ever term the Arabic media favor doesn't apply to the English Wikipedia, as this Wikipedia caters to the English speaking world as its first and foremost audience.
  • WP:TITLECHANGEScheckY - The argument that renaming the article to the Islamic State breaches morals and ethics is null and void. If editors would like to express moral righteousness, Wikipedia is not the place for it. As stated above, "discussing the appropriate title of an article, remember that the choice of title is not dependent on whether a name is "right" in a moral or political sense." Furthermore, the title is not a stable solution. See the past name changes 9 (including this one), which counter Legacypac's assertion that the article is indeed stable. This name is not sustainable becuase it is outdated, wrong and not commonly recognized due to that fact that most international media sources don't use it. If this discussion fails, another will emerge for these reasons.
  • WP:NPOVcheckY - Anything which is true and pertains to fact ultimately cannot be considered to express a certain POV. Moral/Ethical/Political considerations do not apply. A Neutral point of view is to call things as they are with no bias one way or the other. By naming it the Islamic State (islamist rebel group), the fact has triumphed and no POV has been expressed as the group is known by that designation. It is unfortunate that such a name has been chosen, but editors who are against this on the other hand shouldn't be editing on Wikipedia if they are unable to keep a partial view. Per WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS, it is not up to individual editors to challenge grievances that they have over a sensitive issue. As WP:NPOV states, Wikipedia is about "representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without bias, all of the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic." Reliable sources from the lists of news agencies shown above are in agreement that the name is indeed the Islamic State. What is POV is when you deliberately sabotage an article to conform with a certain mind set. For instance, Legacypac voted to oppose the name change by stating that "seeking to delegitimize ISIL is an goal shared by NATO, EU, GCC, Arab League, Russia, Iran, China, Australia, New Zealand, and other countries, plus the UN." In other words, he/she is supporting the usage of the term ISIL as it is meant to appease and conform to the wishes of those that share a particular stance on the Islamic State for various reasons. This cannot be considered NPOV.

StanMan87 (talk) 01:17, 12 January 2015 (UTC)


Against the proposed name

  • Fails WP:COMMONNAME' as demonstrated by the poorly compiled and cherry picked data above, and the good but incorrectly dismissed data on the wire services and regional media. Also not one source supports the use of the specific proposed name.
  • Fails WP:TITLECHANGES The title has been stable a long time "and there is no good reason to change it, it should not be changed. Consensus among editors determines if there does exist a good reason to change the title. Any potentially controversial proposal to change a title should be advertised at Wikipedia:Requested moves, and consensus reached before any change is made. Debating controversial titles is often unproductive, and there are many other ways to help improve Wikipedia." Clearly the proposed title IS controversial and consensus is quite unlikely.
  • Fails NPOV per governments, media, UN, and Muslims worldwide saying "Islamic State" is very controversial, POV, inappropriate etc. Also, Greg did not say Un-Islamic Non-State as his opinion, the head of the UN said that.

Legacypac (talk) 01:38, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

How is 6 attempted move requests in about 6 months a stable name. Clearly editors have felt the need to change the name regardless of what name they were hoping to change it to. So this claim is unsubstantitated. Actually I will quote WP:TITLECHANGES near the end of comment to show how false the NPOV fail comment is.
It does not fail WP:COMMONNAME because some people cherry pick which data to use and which policy to follow. The Google search supports my assertion if you search like vs like. There is a very good reason to change the title as I will explain below.
The following list from above is not cherry picked but they are the most notable news magazines[98]. Please substantiate how I cherry picked these. Name me any news magazine more notable than these apart from Times magazine.
News magazines which use Islamic State:
  • 1 Economist [99]- Islamic State (IS)
  • 2 Newsweek [100] - Islamic State
  • 3 New Republic [101] - Islamic State
  • 4 Businessweek [102] - Islamic State
  • 5 NewStatesman [103] Islamic State (also known as Isis) - word is only used once in the article so we do not know how they would have called it if they referred to the group many times.
  • 6 New Yorker [104] - Islamic State -
  • 7 The Spectator [105] - Islamic State - ISIS acronym and Islamic State
  • 8 The Atlantic [106] - Islamic State
  • 9 Der Spiegel [107] - Islamic State (IS)
  • 10 The Week [108] - Islamic State
  • 11 Mother Jones [109] - Islamic State
  • 12 The weekly standard [110] - ISIS and ISIL and Islamic State
  • 13 National Review [111] ISIS acronym only for title then Islamic State for rest of the text
  • 14 The Nation [112] ISIS acronym for title then first time mention "Islamic State (ISIS)" then "Islamic State" for rest of article.
I searched all the articles that were notable from here[113]. I arranged them by country and searched all of the ones from US and UK including Der Spiegel. So you see there is no cherry picking here. Out of the 16, the overwhelming majority use Islamic state primarily in the text and in the lead.
Result for the major news magazine US and UK (plus one from Germany)= 14 out of 16 use mostly Islamic State in their work(only major newsmagazine not to use name was Time magazine and the other I do not remember) - Majority (9/14) do not even mention the other acronyms The only thing I missed was that I actually searched 16 apart from the Canadian and Indian ones which are above. I am not going to do any more news magazine searches.
You said "Fails NPOV per governments, media, UN, and Muslims worldwide saying "Islamic State" is very controversial, POV, inappropriate etc. Also, Greg did not say Un-Islamic Non-State as his opinion, the head of the UN said that."
WP:TITLECHANGES says about name change---> In discussing the appropriate title of an article, remember that the choice of title is not dependent on whether a name is "right" in a moral or political sense.
Therefore comments relating to governments, UN or Muslims worldwide, do not hold any weight when it comes to the consideration regarding Article name and so it has no affect on this page move request. However those opinion do matter when writing the actual body of the article. Mbcap (talk) 03:06, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Mbcap Your picking and choosing of examples is getting ridiculous

ISIS is again proven to be the primary designation for the group. This has been previously been clearly demonstrated and, in contexts presented, how does your presentation above not count as POV pushing? You can dress things up with repeated use of bold as much as you like but it just goes to further highlight your selective representation. GregKaye 05:29, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Greg, can I ask you a sincere question? Are you trying to insult my intelligence? You say my examples are getting ridiculous. I find your attempts to dodge you way around the different policies I have cited without explanation and the inaccurate Google searches that you have brought up which I have explained, to be ridiculous. I have no bias on this issue. If it turned out the group is called "Toad Hammer", I would look to get the name changed to that. All those news magazines I evaluated, I did so by finding the most recent article I could find by them on the group. All the results are above in bold. You may look through them all you want. I wish I only had time. I would make the most beautiful table of google search terms comparing; ISIS vs IS, ISIL vs IS, spelled out ISIS vs Islamic state, spelled out ISIL vs Islamic state. Now if you did that search, I imagine what you would find, will back me up completely.

I welcome you to criticize every point I have made and bring it up. Please bullet point it so it is clear to me. I absolutely promise you, I will answer every single one of your concerns with due reflection. If I find your points to hold value, I promise to move to oppose this request. But please, I ask you to extend me the same courtesy. I would appreciate it if you could relay your posts with reference to policy. I would ask you to do searches with controlled variables. The above search is flawed in so many ways and the search itself is made redundant by my list above. Your search has results from January 2014 - that alone would warrant a discounting of the list you have made.

You ask me, "how my presentation does not count as POV pushing?" I want to re-assure you I am not POV pushing. I read policy and then make decisions. If someone informs me of breaking policy, I immediately start remedial actions. But I am doing this to balance the article, and the article is balanced when it follows policy. Mbcap (talk) 06:00, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Mbcap I have previously presented the results:
  • ISIS gets "About 12,500,000 results" on News in the last month
  • "Islamic State" gets "About 1,100,000 results" on News in the last month
At this stage I could go into splashing bold text around to push my point but I think that the statistics are clear.
You had asked why a ratio of 12:1 should be used. My reply was: "Because the search I was referring to related to News results for the last month. More specifically the ratio is 11.3636:1 ("About 12,500,000 results" on News in the last month : "Islamic State" gets "About 1,100,000 results" on News in the last month)." These are basic references as used across the board. ISIS is the most commonly used name for the group. This is a name that you have known about and which, in previous content, you have predominantly used and yet which did not feature in the long opening post with which you began this thread. If my results should be thrown out then maybe this thread should go the same way.
On POV, there are many national, religious and other groups that object to the use "Islamic State" or otherwise go out of their way not to use this designation. They find the find this designation to be inaccurate in its assertions and offensive. For WP:NPOV reasons it should not be used as a Wikipedia endorsed designation. In cases of controversy we should only go as far as to state what the group claim. GregKaye 07:02, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Greg I apologise if the bold text is annoying or giving the impression of pushing my alleged POV. I will refrain from doing it from this point forth. You search is deeply flawed. Firstly, ISIS could be 76 other things. Please see here[114]. So if you are going to do a search for ISIS then use IS for islamic state. If we keep the variables the same, the results no longer look so flaterring:

  • "islamic state of iraq and syria" - About 2,100 results" on News in the last month [115]
  • "islamic state" - About 3,600,000 results" on News in the last month[116]

So you see how disproportionate the results are. There is nothing to suggest that there is a function on google news search to allow you to discount the 76 other things ISIS could be referring to. I also now understand what your ratio meant. The ratio here is about 17,000 to 1 in favour of Islamic state.

Of course I know about the name ISIS. How does me using it mean I am doing what you are suggesting. I merely use the words interchangably because we have not ascertained what name this article should be.

The entire last section of your comment should be completely discarded as per WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS. Please do read it. Alternative forum for that sort of thing are available elsewhere on the internet. I could not care less about how any national, religious or other group feels when it comes to deciding the article title. I only care about following policy. At least in a controversial topic like this. You entire last section can also be completely discarded as per WP:TITLECHANGES:

  • "In discussing the appropriate title of an article, remember that the choice of title is not dependent on whether a name is "right" in a moral or political sense."

It is odd how this point gets overlooked everytime I post it. Plus Wikipedia does not endorse anything, but merely decides to collect the sum of human knowledge based on its policies. Only that way could it be seen as neutral. I will quote WP:POVNAME just to back up my claim;

  • " the fact that a given description has effectively become a proper noun (and that proper noun has become the usual term for the event), generally overrides concern that Wikipedia might appear as endorsing one side of an issue."

Islamic state has become a proper noun. Everyone knows about the name. It became a proper noun because some countries decided to make a big deal about the name and have it referred to as something else and the result of that was, it made the name more popular and more notable for the said attempt. And finally regarding your opinion in the last 4 sentences. WP:NPOV for name of articles is elaborated on, on the relavent policy page (WP:AT)from where I have quoted the above statements from. They illustrate how those opinions do not merit consideration. If there is anything else I could clarify, please do let me know. Mbcap (talk) 08:28, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Stop with the unscientific web searches. They prove nothing. Stop with the moralizing and saying that editors can't make moral judgements. Stop dismissing anything others say as POV and bias while you push a title that is proven very POV and controversial (tons of news articles say that). It is relevant what the international government opponents of ISIL call them - they falsely claim to be a state and that all governments are null and void when they arrive. Is is relevant what religious leaders call them since they claim religious authority over all Muslims. It is relevent what the UN calls this group. It is wrong to dismiss all the English languages media in the Middle East when English is the major second language and business language in the region? Don't you realize that smart people worldwide go to media close to the story for more insight? Why dismiss out of hand the editorial decisions made in Beirut, UAE, Jordan etc.in favor of editorial decisions of a paper in Oklahoma or London or Washington DC? Anyway, as I check your research the list of newspapers alledgedly all using Ïslamic State"is proving to be not so convincing on closer examination.

We are reflecting the sources and what the group is commonly called, though there is a range of names. But StanMan and you are coming at this from a preconceived idea that the answer MUST be Islamic State because that is what they call themselves. Just not true.

The current title is stable because, despite many efforts to change it, it has not changed. That is the definition of a stable title.

I understand you are studying to be a doctor. Say you decide that a patient has a specific blood disorder before you run tests. Next you selectively choose your tests to point you at the preconceived diagnosis. When you get results that point another direction anyway, you don't read them or dismiss them as inaccurate, saying of course they confirm what I know already. A doctor like that is a menace to society because they don't work from a scientific basis. Tossing out the sources you don't like - the UN and all world leaders (pushing propaganda) misrepresenting the position of the wire services, tossing out all the regional media (govt controlled), misrepresenting the uses in American media, ignoring all the Muslim leaders (who cares) and worse ignoring the wishes of the local people who are dying because of this group is just wrong.

How dare a few editors here think they have the moral high ground because they think they are building an encyclopedia while sucking up to the group's propaganda and highly offensive self declared name, and be damned what the rest of the world calls a group of marauding brutal slave taking, child raping, thieving thugs and killers? Legacypac (talk) 09:12, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Legacypac, the web searches are clear cut, Islamic State far exceeds that of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. Wikipedia prevents editors from making moral judgments, not me, WP:TITLECHANGES "In discussing the appropriate title of an article, remember that the choice of title is not dependent on whether a name is "right" in a moral or political sense." How can what you say not be considered POV? You stated yourself that you were against renaming the article The Islamic State (islamist rebel group) solely becuase it will legitimize them, and naming it ISIL is preferred becuase groups opposed to the them use it, therefore Wikipedia should. That was your contention which is, as far as I'm concerned, an ethical/moral argument against such a move which Wikipedia doesn't allow by itself. As for it being considered POV to call it the Islamic State (islamist rebel group), facts are facts. I came to Wikipedia to edit so that it would make a reader look at things which are factually correct, not intentionally wrong so as to "strike back" at the evil that is IS. This is no editors business. We are not here to follow the lead of groups, such as NATO, U.N, U.S, which have a strong POV on the group being discussed. We are not here to embark on a moral crusade. We are here to record, document the truth and fact, at least in my opinion. By labeling it ISIL or Da'aesh or whatever else under the sun and not what it is officially known as even when it is a commonly used term, Wikipedia is not performing the duty as an Encyclopedia. Is it relevant to document what other groups say about them? Yes, absolutely. That should go in the article. But to base what we call them on these groups to me is POV.
It must be Islamic State becuase the term has great recognition, and commonality. It is also there official name, yes. If you consider this to be 'stable', then we have different meanings of that word. If this proposal fails, another one will be proposed by another user again and again as it has been seen in the past with all the other proposals. Why? becuase ISIL is outdated, incorrect and loosing recognition in the face of IS. Many media institutions above are using IS/Islamic State and other incarnations such as Islamic State terrorist group or Islamic State jihadi/militant group. These all prove why IS meets the requirements for WP:COMMONNAME. As for studying to be a doctor, if you were referencing to me, no I'm not. I don't like the sources becuase they are POV sources, they are intentionally calling them ISIL/Da'aesh to fulfill an agenda, which is staunchly anti-IS. That isn't NPOV. I'm not defending IS and saying it is a heroic group. I wasn't the one who bestowed the title of Caliph on Abu Bakr al Baghdadi. But letting moral considerations get in the way of recording factual knowledge is just ridiculous. If that is the case, Wikipedia shouldn't be labeled as an Encyclopedia, as scholastic truth isn't taking the reins. As for sucking up to IS propaganda, it is not propaganda if it is real. The case is closed, the group is The Islamic State, it is fact. Unfortunate, tragic but a fact. Does this mean they are islamic? No, that's why the title is being proposed as Islamic State (islamist rebel group). As for your statement " a group of marauding brutal slave taking, child raping, thieving thugs and killers?", this is what I'm talking about. How can you call yourself a partial editor on this issue? I detest what IS are doing, particularly to the Yazidi women and girls and all women and girls who have been sold as sex slaves, as if they were objects solely meant for perverted sexual gratification.. (I'm going to stop ranting). But I do not let this affect what I say about the group on Wikipedia or how I edit about them. StanMan87 (talk) 10:50, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

StanMan has sorely misrepresented the basis of my opposition to a name change for this article. Perhaps actionably so. Threats to continue to disrupt the article by filing name changes are not a good idea.

Stability in the title is obvious as the current title has been in use since Aug 2013 and 7 formal attempts plus a bunch of informal attempts have failed to convince a large number of editors that a new article name is appropriate. Further about a dozen related articles have been written with either ISIL or Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant spelled out in the title. These articles have also, in some cases, had name debates yet all follow the ISIL name today. There are no articles, templates, or categories on Wikipedia that use any version of "Islamic State" alone.

Further, Wikipedia has rejected all names ISIL gives to its subunits, regardless of how official they are. There are no articles, templates or categories that use the groups chosen names for political subdivisions either. Policy has developed now that anyone creating Province of ISIL or Walyit of ISIL. Another user was banned last night for creating such promotional nonsense.

Wikipedia editors have determined that regardless of what ISIL calls itself and its leader that no where will Wikipedia call Bagdadi "Caliph" or use the term Caliphate unless heavily qualified. These are facts and blindly ignoring these facts about the collective decisions of editors here. It is not good for Wikipedia for editors to misrepresent the facts, put up flawed research to push a point, or threaten to disrupt the project with continued efforts to push a POV title against the clear concensus achieved over many months by hundreds of editors on the ISIL topic.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Legacypac (talk • contribs) 16:01, 12 January 2015‎

  • Mbcap in your 08:28, 12 January 2015 edit you said that my search (which indicated a ratio of 11 1/3 : 1 in favour of ISIS over "Islamic State") is "deeply flawed". How deep can the flaws possibly be? Its a ratio of 11 1/3 : 1 for goodness sake. You state (I presume from a count up of items mentioned at ISIS (disambiguation).) that "ISIS could be 76 other things". Really? In journalistically produced news articles in the last month? ISIS (disambiguation) lists items including: 6 fictional characters, 3 songs, 2 periodicals, a passed hurricane, a boat used in a summertime boat race and an episode of Smallville. The sample of items given in the ISIS Google results list do not give, that I saw in my scan, any reference that wasn't related to the Islamist group. I have however, in the past, seen a number of articles that have referred to ISIS or ISIL as claiming to be an "Islamic state". This type of article would also indicate flaws in the other direction. When I saw your list with the bold text I thought that this was something new added and not an augmented copy of previously presented material which may contextualise my comment above.
I have mentioned my concerns already but, in bullet form, they are.
  • WP:NPOV (not mentioned in your long opener despite being a common theme in previous threads) is the overriding issue is a central issue here and I think that Wikipedia needs to stick to the basics. We can't stand for propaganda against or for ISIS but must take a stance in the middle. Noone can "dodge around" policies like NPOV. It stands as a WP:PILLAR around which we must directly refer and apply. The case for this has been directly presented. No "attempts to dodge" "around the different policies" have been made here.
  • ISIS (not mentioned in your long opener despite being your former designation of choice) is, that I have seen, the most commonly used designation for the group. If a move were to be made with regard to article title this, even before NPOV issues were considered, would be it.
I hope that this answers your questions. GregKaye 10:19, 12 January 2015 (UTC)
User:Legacypac, please clarify, how is StanMan87 misrepresenting your comments? John Smith the Gamer (talk) 17:33, 12 January 2015 (UTC)
@User:John Smith the Gamer in this edit [117] he said "You stated yourself that you were against renaming the article The Islamic State (islamist rebel group) solely becuase it will legitimize them, and naming it ISIL is preferred becuase groups opposed to the them use it, therefore Wikipedia should. " I both disagree with his argument, and his misrepresentation of my comments. I'm arguing based on WP:COMMONNAME, consensus reached before, consistency, WP:TITLECHANGES, and various other reasons. In fact, the length of this thread alone is strong evidence that any title around "Ïslamic State" with any bracketed words after it obviously will not gain consensus. Perhaps we should SNOW close this thread and drop the idea. Legacypac (talk) 18:04, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Firstly Greg, please answer in order. You inserted your comment between StanMan87 and mine where I said "I could not agree more". This is seriously corrupting the context of our conversation. I may have answered between comments before but only after considering if my comment wedged between 2 previous comments would impact on the context of the conversation.

Legacypac you tell me stop the unscientific searches. I made the search more scientific than the incorrect search made by Gregkaye. Regarding your opinion piece which reads as drivel, I will quote WP:TITLECHANGES again:

  • "In discussing the appropriate title of an article, remember that the choice of title is not dependent on whether a name is "right" in a moral or political sense."

All this drivel about about equating your opinions with NPOV. Read the policy page for nameing articles at WP:AT and WP:TITLECHANGES. We do not consider moral or political rights when considering the name of the article. However we do consider them in the body of the text. In that light, when it comes to the article name, I could not care less what all those parties think. I am here to edit wikipedia based on policy and not to drive a political agenda here. How have you checked my list? I managed to get some time to make the list complete and all it did was show that most of the news magazines use Islamic State without any other qualifier. And no, I am not saying it has to be called Islamic State because it is the official name but that it should be the name that best reflects policy.

I will not entertain your comment about what my field of study may or may not be. I would say however, that doctors are told to follow strict policy and guidelines published by their resident countries Medical certification boards. So you see even doctors have to follow policy, even though they may hold different opinions.

A person who wants to use Wikipedia as a political tool, now that is a true menace to society. No one here thinks they have the moral high ground, because the moral high ground is considered obsolete according to WP:TITLECHANGES which I will quote again:

  • ""In discussing the appropriate title of an article, remember that the choice of title is not dependent on whether a name is "right" in a moral or political sense."

So again false. No one is threatening to name change the article in the future. StanMan87 merely pointed out that because of the numerous past attempts to change the name, if this issue is not resolved, the move requests will continue to come. There are no other articles with the proposed name because some editors are here for a political agenda and wish to use Wikipedia as part of the propaganda war on this group. No one needs you to do that. There are various other way you can contribute to this intervention against the group, but to use this encyclopedia as an extended arm of that attempt, is truly deserving of disgust. The group can be defeated in other ways.

I want to point out this comment I made on the military intervention page against ISIL page where I said we should also talk about the multi pronged attempt to counteract the group. If we write about the use of name as part of that attempt, how can we ever be taken as an unbiased source of this information if our own article page uses the non-common name which fails all other policy points as well.

Some editors are quite hurt by this groups actions. I could not care less about some chap has decided to name himself "Caliph" when it come to writing articles. I do not appreciate passing unsubstantiated comments like; misrepresent the facts or put up flawed research to push a point, or threaten to disrupt the project.

It has consistently been yourself who has misrepresented the facts. Others have put up flawed research to push a point. You are putting words into StanMan's mouth when you say he is threatening to disrupt the project. I kindly ask you to withdraw that comment against him.

User:GregKaye I have already explained how ISIS could be 76 other things. I will not entertain this line of enquiry any more. Also editors can not simply twist policy in such a way to fit their inherent biases, ie. it will help legitimize the group. I have already read WP:NPOV which if you read, it has a naming section. This offers you the option to read the policy regarding names in more detail if you click on naming subsection link which takes you to WP:AT. That then has a subsection "Non-neutral but common names". Read that and tell me how that conflicts with this name. Then read the comment about Title changes in the relevant link posted above and tell me how you are not going against the quote I have put up. Contrary to your statement that no attempts have been to dodge around different policies; well I will let this entire talk page reflect on the validity of that assertion. Mbcap (talk) 19:16, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Mbcap And I have explained why I think that those other things are less than likely to have made it into the December 14-January 15 news and how there have also been articles that speak of ISIS being an "Islamic state". If you do not want to entertain that news articles had a ratio for "isis" to "islamic state" references in the last month of 11 1/3 : 1, that is your choice. You address your comment to me, make unjustified accusation of inherent biases and quote another editor. I am pleased that you have read WP:NPOV which asserts that different sides of an argument need to be considered. I am also pleased that you have read WP:AT which specifies that "... The title indicates what the article is about ..." Conflicts abound.
  • "Islamic" - please get the point that many people of Mohammedan based faiths do not regard this group to be Islamic. They certainly do not appreciate this kind of reference to an Islam that is in any way associated with them.
  • "State" - this assertion is also highly disputable. I know that in the context of the proposed title the unnatural parenthesis (Islamist rebel group) is added as qualifier but the contraction to "Islamic State" would open the use of unqualified reference to "Islamic State" through the rest of Wikipedia. In the important eyes of academia and international relations, its not a state.
  • The absence of "of ..." - This has been the main issue that has been widely rejected and this is where I argue that WP:AT most fundamentally fails. The group have adopted a contraction of their name claiming not to be the state of their base region of Iraq and al-Sham but as being the state of all Islam. This is what many Muslims have roundly rejected. When the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is presented as the United Kingdom there is no insinuation that it is meant to be the kingdom of any area beyond its territories. When the United States of America is presented as the United States this is only meant to indicate that it unites the states that are part of its federation. When ISIS calls itself the Islamic State there is a real political, POV message being presented in the group's claim of authority over the lives, allegiances, choices and liberties of other people. Other groups including religious and national leaders have made strong statements against this.
WP:NPOV presents that different sides of an argument must be considered.
Please desist from casting slurs and aspersions even within insinuation. We could let this entire talk page reflect on a whole range of issues. We could and and I would say should leave it at that. If you have anything to say about the application of policy then say it clearly, directly and with justification. I would be personally grateful to all here if we could make direct argument relating to article content and leave it at that.
GregKaye 03:30, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
[Above reply to Mbcap placed out of chronological sequence]
  • In response to much of the above: I thank Legacypac for his speedy reply though whilst I agree that the word "solely" is clearly inaccurate, in my opinion, this is not to actionable. I believe the preceding comment about propaganda may have led Stanman to this conclusion.
  • Can we please stop accusing each other of ignoring evidence and POV-pushing?
  • Can we please keep our comments in order so this actually makes sense when I don't try to just read from the diffs? If you must insert a comment out of order because it's a reply please try to indent it. Bear in mind in some cases you may confuse people as to who sent it if you don't.
  • The chance of this passing are better than a Snowball's chance in hell, and WP:SNOW should not be used to close it, therefore. If you really think it comes under snowball, consult an admin, and I doubt they'll tell you different.
  • Having a POV title would not violate NPOV. It may or may not be recommended by WP:POVTITLE and WP:POVNAMING, but is not in breach of one of the five pillars. If it were, these would just say "use a neutral name".
  • The name being "outdated"/wrong depends what you mean. Wikipedia does not change the title of a page just because its subject wants its name to be changed. If you mean it is no longer the common name, then say so. If you mean the group no longer uses it, then say that.

John Smith the Gamer (talk) 21:57, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Policy of News Services (Quite different then claimed above)

Policy of AFP

One of the 4 major news providers from the begining and end of this policy statement [118]:

PARIS, September 17, 2014 – Faced with the kidnap and murder of journalists in Syria, Iraq and Africa, and the flood of horrific propaganda images churned out by the "Islamic State" group and its offshoots, it is time to reaffirm some ethical and editorial groundrules.

( bunch of other really relevant content)

We have decided no longer to use the expression "Islamic State" as the jihadist movement rebranded itself a few months ago. From now on AFP will refer to it as "the Islamic State group" or "Islamic State organisation", and as "IS jihadists" in headlines and news alerts. The Arabic acronym for the group's full original name, Daesh, while used by some governments including France, is hard for most readers to relate to. An international news agency cannot be pressured into using subjective terms like "terrorists" or "slayers". Nor can we alter the name an organisation has chosen for itself.

But we feel giving its name simply as "Islamic State" is inappropriate for two reasons. Firstly this is not a state, with borders and international recognition. Secondly, a great many Muslims consider the values driving this organisation to have nothing to do with Islam. The name "Islamic State" is therefore doubly likely to mislead the public.

I also note that use of IS does not mean that a news org is using "Islamic State" References to "Ïslamic State" in scare quotes, inclusions only in a headline for sake of brevity, and qualifiers like so called are instructive. Legacypac (talk) 20:38, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

Policy of AP

Posted Sept 16 [119]

Back in June we talked in this blog about AP’s preferred abbreviation for the fast-growing Islamic militant group in Iraq and Syria, known variously at the time as ISIL and ISIS. We explained why our preference was ISIL.

Things then changed with ISIL’s decision in July to rebrand itself as the “Islamic State.” In a recent story, we explained that AP now refers to the organization as “the Islamic State group” (not simply “the Islamic State”) and the reason for this approach. (and from the blog post)

Prior to the group’s self-declared rebranding in July, The Associated Press opted to refer to it as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL, believing it was the most accurate translation. (same reason used by Wikipedia editors)

The AP now uses phrases like “the Islamic State group,” or “fighters from the Islamic State group,” to avoid phrasing that sounds like they could be fighting for an internationally recognized state.

“The word ‘state’ implies a system of administration and governance,” said David L. Phillips, the director of Peace-Building and Rights Program at Columbia University. “It’s not a term that would be used to characterize a terrorist group or militia that is merely rolling up territory.”

Legacypac (talk) 20:48, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

Practice of Reuters

Can't find a post yet on editorial policy but "Islamic State militants" is the evident preferred term [120] when you do a site search. Sometimes they flip it around "militant Islamic groups such as Islamic State and Nusrah ..." or say "Islamic State fighters" They rarely use "Islamic State" unqualified except in quotes and occasional headlines. Legacypac (talk) 21:07, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

Practice of EFE

Can't find a policy statement but recent stories use pretty consistent phrasing. They use a qualified Islamic State with IS then IS for the rest of the article. Some examples:

  1. "jihadist Islamic State, or IS" and then IS throughout.[121] and
  2. "Islamic State, IS, jihadists" followed by "IS jihadists" [122] and
  3. "Islamic State, IS, jihadist group" followed by IS throughout [123]
  4. "Islamic State (IS) terrorist group" followed by "the IS", "IS militants" and "jihadists" [124]
  5. "The jihadist Islamic State" followed only by IS for the rest of the article [125]
  6. "The Islamic State (IS) jihadi organisation" followed by IS [126]

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Legacypac (talk • contribs) 21:32, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

Middle East English Media terms used

With recent examples. Checked by searching sites for Islamic State, ISIL, ISIS, Daesh. Note I have simply searched for the major english language news sources in the Middle East (most of which I read regularly for editing here), with no selectivity based on what terms they use.

  1. al-Akhbar - Lebenon - always ISIS - never Islamic State [127][128]
  2. al-Jazeera - Qatar - always ISIL - never Islamic State [129][130]
  3. The Daily Star - Lebenon - ISIS [131] Islamic State jihadist group (in an AFP story) [132] Islamic State [133] ISIS [134] so all over the map.
  4. almanar.com.lb/english/main.php TV stn in Lebenon - ISIL and terrorists [135] ISIL and "so-called Islamic State extremist group" [136] so-called 'Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant' (ISIL) [137] so-called Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant terrorist group [138] Libyan branch of ISIL terrorist group [139]
  5. kuwaittimes - Islamic State group [140] Islamic State [141] Islamic State group [142] The Islamic State (IS) jihadist group [143]
  6. hurriyetdailynews.com - Turkey - Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant - ISIL [144] anti-ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) [145] ISIL, [146]
  7. Gulf News - UAE - Always Daesh, never Islamic State, numerous examples with onsite search [147]
  8. http://www.khaleejtimes.com/index00.asp- Dubai - ISIS, never Islamic State [148] [149] Daesh (ISIS) [150] ISIS group [151]
  9. PressTV - Iran - ISIL [152] ISIL Takfiri terrorist group [153]

May add more later - anyone feel free to add to this post. Legacypac (talk) 03:33, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

I would discount all of these sources apart from Al-Akhbar and by a slim margin Al-Jazeera. That is because I do not think they are reliable sources which I think is the criteria here. The middle east is the worst in the world when it comes to press freedom. The notable exceptions are Israel and possibly lebanon. We need to take into account english language reliable sources which I feel are the western based news outlets. In the west there is total press freedom but the same cannot be said for middle east. The worst contenders I would say are probably Iran with the well known mouth piece Press TV and Kuwait is also shocking last time I checked. When I get time I will research if there are any reliable middle eastern sources of news. I on purpose did not search RT as well because I knew that was a well known Russian mouth piece. Mbcap (talk) 04:39, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

We are looking for common name, so discounting all the English media in the region while relying on what some paper in a minor US city uses is somewhat strange. Since you mention them, http://rt.com/trends/islamic-state/ shows a mixed bag with The Islamic State, ISIS, Islamic State militants, and The Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) all showing up in recent articles, indicating they have no policy on the point. Please go read WP:RS. AFAIK all the media outlets I posted are considered RS generally, and most are used as refs on the ISIL article. PressTV is widely viewe as a tool of Iran's Govt but they are the best source for seeing what PressTV calls the group. Discounting all the Middle Eastern english media as not RS is not in keeping with Wikipedia policy.

Legacypac (talk) 20:06, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

There is some case to be made that ISIS is a more widely used term in the media then ISIL however, even if it is, we should not move to that term because it is:

  • a less accurate translation (according to many RS)
  • Not the term preferred by governments around the world (by no govt as far as I have seen)
  • far to many other meanings - both a word and acronym
  • It is a common personal name, especially in the Middle East.
  • both ISIL and ISIS are english equivalents of the clearly prefered Arabic term Daesh
  • ISIL does not have any of the issues ISIS has listed, or at least not nearly to the same extent. There is one company who's ticker is ISIL and a couple obscure organizations that abbreviate to ISIL but pretty much ISIL has that acronym/word all to itself.

Legacypac (talk) 16:15, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Hey Mbcap, how can you discount those sources due to allegations on press freedom? Is there any policy in this regard? They are counted as reliable, although reliability should be checked case by case and statement by statement. All of the sources are reliable for understanding how the group is called. Mhhossein (talk) 18:36, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Refuting News Mag "Research"

In the Requested Move proposal there is a lot of bias research that was done poorly, (hopefully without the intent to mislead other editors). If you want to see how a source calls the group, you can't just pick a single article or ignore qualifiers. You need to search the sources site for different terms and look at various articles, and the totality and timing of the search results.

Inaccurate results struck, with accurate results after News magazines which use Islamic State:

  1. Economist [99]- Islamic State (IS) - (correct)
  2. Newsweek [100] - Islamic State Islamic State or Islamic State militants [154] or ISIS [155] or ISIL [156]
  3. New Republic [101] - Islamic State Islamic State and ISIS both [157]
  4. Businessweek [102] - Islamic State actually a mix, with Islamic State, "Islamic State group" also well represented [158], ISIL and ISIS earlier, and sometimes recently [159][160]
  5. NewStatesman [103] Islamic State (also known as Isis) - word is only used once in the article so we do not know how they would have called it if they referred to the group many times. searches show very inconsistent usage, but this article stands out David Cameron IS evil as pointing out a good reason not to use IS
  6. New Yorker [104] - Islamic State nearly always Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham or ISIS[161] An article called The Rise and Fall of the Islamic State[162] from 2008 does not talking about ISIL, highlighting the problem of just blindly looking at search results for a term as broad as Islamic State. (add clarification after question- this article is an example of a result I found that illustrates the dangers of searching without looking closely at the results, see below)
  7. The Spectator [105] - Islamic State - ISIS acronym and Islamic State. Interesting discussion of The
  8. The Atlantic [106] - Islamic State usage varies, for example they used Islamic State in headline, but ISIS throughout the article here and the term Islamic State a couple times in the article talking about the Vice documentry "The Islamic State" but ISIS in headline and throughout here
  9. Der Spiegel [107] - "Islamic State (IS)" [163]
  10. The Week [108] - Islamic State (behind paywall so can't search site to confirm)
  11. Mother Jones [109] - Islamic State ISIS [164][165] sometimes ISIL [166] very rarely Islamic State (the example given was a end of year photo collection that used Islamic State once in the short intro to all the top photos for the year.
  12. The weekly standard [110] - ISIS and ISIL and Islamic State
  13. National Review [111] ISIS acronym only for title then Islamic State for rest of the text. (usage varies, here they debate ISIL vs ISIS [167], ISIS [168]
  14. The Nation [112] ISIS acronym for title then first time mention "Islamic State (ISIS)" then "Islamic State" for rest of article. (but uses Islamic State somewhat rarely, seems to prefer ISIL [169] and ISIS [170]

CLearly the conclusion that these news mags have nearly all switched to "Islamic State" is not correct. There is a mix of terms used. Posted by Legacypac (talk) 04:09, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Clearly the conclusions aired many times before about the current name or the other names as being common name, are not correct either. What can be clearly seen though from the good work you have done, is that all of the 14 use Islamic State but not all use ISIL or ISIS or spelled out ISIS/ISIL. As for my intent, no it was not to mislead. I did what I could in the limited time I had. I welcome all editors to verify all my posts or even to check through all my contributions.
Regarding your accusation of blindly searching in regards to the New Yorker, that is completely false because I cited this[171] further up the page in the discussion. This is an article from 2015. I kindly ask you to withdraw your comment. If I have misunderstood your comment, please explain how you have linked a 2008 article to me "blindly searching" when I have not even referenced it. Mbcap (talk) 04:54, 15 January 2015 (UTC)
You misunderstand perhaps. The previous results suffer from Confirmation bias, as does your misinterpretation of the revised results. To overcome confirmation bias, these results come from surveying the entirety of each website through their internal search engine. The 2008 article I linked is not one you linked (I did not mean to suggest it was), it is only an example of an older article that came up in an "Islamic State" search, and the reason it comes up is that Islamic state is a very old concept/goal etc that gets discussed, so an article that includes the words Islamic and state or even islamic state (like the one linked) may have zero to do with the terrorist group. Therefore saying there are 50 million hits for "Islamic State" is not very helpful. You have to dig deeper in the results to discover what they mean. "Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant" (or al-Sham or Syria) means exactly one group so if searched in quotes gets accurate results. ISIL and ISIS are a little less distinctive but still almost always mean this group in news stories. "IS" is very problematic as a very common word. See this (funny example. Based on the improved results, the news ags you selected show that usage of various terms is very mixed, but there is strong evidence against a wholesale switch to "Islamic State" long after the group officially changed its name. You think there might be a really good reason for that? Legacypac (talk) 05:50, 15 January 2015 (UTC)
Oh, I see what you mean. Thank you for explaining it. I searched 16 of the notable news magazines from the page I posted the link for previously. (1) Am I right in saying this list above which you have updated now, has been surveyed? (2) It is also important to bear in mind that a survey should take into account those names which are used after the name change, which I presume you have done. Looking at this list, it shows they all use Islamic State but not all use the other names. (3) What is your take from the list? (4) By the way, you may want to put the "TIMES magazine" on the list above as well. They do not use Islamic State from what I could tell from the one search that was done.
I agree "IS" is problematic as it could mean an awful lot of different things. (5) "ISIS" or "ISIL" is also problematic as they are acronyms and they are not known primarily by those names. (6) I have been scouting the different articles on this subject on Wikipedia, and it is a bit frustrating to sometimes read ISIL, other times ISIS, other times Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and at other times Islamic State. That is 4 different names being used across the wiki and consistency in style would certainly improve the reader experience. (7) Moving on to the Google news search, I agree that is not a sensible way to go about this because the search does not only take into account. reliable sources.
I did not say there has been an overwhelming switch to the new name. The point being made was that Islamic state with its various qualifiers is used as primary name in the overwhelming majority of reliable sources. The news agency above also use Islamic State with its various qualifiers, as you have pointed out previously. The move here is not for "Islamic State" alone on its own. (8) The move here is for a qualified name; "Islamic State (islamist rebel group)".
Finally Legacypac, do you know how these move requests work. (9) How long do they take and who closes them? Who makes the final decision and (10) will they know to look in all these other sections of the talk page when coming to review the request. My apologies for the constant questions but the wiki page on this is not very helpful. Mbcap (talk) 10:28, 15 January 2015 (UTC)
Answering your questions which I've just numbered for u User:Mbcap (1) I used the 16 mags you selected, no more, no less. (2) I completely discarded anything published before July 2014 and gave heavier emphasis to Dec 2014-Jan 2015 articles, in other words, post name change, current stuff has more weight. (3) These 16 news mags are as confused as anyone as to what to call the group. There is no clear trend. (4) We can check TIME, I just followed your list. (5) There is a much stronger case for RS's using the ISIL/ISIS acronyms then for "Islamic State" Further there is little confusion over what ISIS/ISIL means, especially ISIL which is almost exclusively used for this group in the world while Isis is an English word. (6) I follow nearly all related articles and my assessment is 90%+ of the time Wikipedia uses ISIL or ISIL spelled out. We can't control this completely as anyone can edit but all the article titles follow this one (and most have been through move debates). There is no confusion in Wikipedia as to what we use - its Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, ISIL for short (see related article list on page elsewhere). (7) Good, agreed. (8) when you search the proposed title for exact match you only get this page and related cross WP postings of the move request. THerefore the proposed title is completely original (made up), while the current title, or its abbreviation ISIL and alternate translations and abbreviations ISIS are still, 6 months after the group tried to change its name, WIDELY used in the real world by the media and world governments, the UN etc. (9) unless exceptional circumstances like a WP:SNOW close, the Requested Move is open for at least 7 days, which have now elapsed, or nearly so. An uninvolved Admin (pity them) will assess the request and decide if there is consensus or not. It is not a vote, as the correctness of policy arguments and other factors are often assessed. This one is going to be hard to assess. Failing a consensus, or consensus against the move, there is no move. (10) I just did some light reorg to put relevant talk sections as subsections of this RM so it can all be closed together. Legacypac (talk) 11:07, 15 January 2015 (UTC)
Thank you for explaining, especially regarding the close. Moving on to the assertion, it is false that a stronger case can be made for ISIL/ISIS than "Islamic State" since the list above clearly shows all of them using Islamic State; sometimes on its own and other times with a qualifier. If anything, these names; ISIL/ISIL (or spelled out), can now be discounted due to the above. Mbcap (talk) 11:20, 15 January 2015 (UTC)
There you go with the confirmation bias again. Using your logic, 12/13 mags use ISIS or ISIL which are equivalent terms.Only the German mag does not. Legacypac (talk) 11:31, 15 January 2015 (UTC)
Is it really necessary to go down the acronym route. I really do not want to paste information from the acronym policy. All of them use Islamic state with or without a qualifier and not to mention the news agencies as well. Your allegation of confirmation bias, No there has been no confirmation bias. That label could easily be applied to yourself, unless you came up with your previous assertion regarding the name by using a search method that was well grounded in sound statistical techniques. Mbcap (talk) 11:40, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

This section has a POV title of Refuting News Mag "Research" which should be changed to be neutral as it was catagorically not refuted. They still all use Islamic State with or without qualifiers. The same cannot be said for the other names. Mbcap (talk) 12:37, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

In fact I did come up with my analysis using a much more scientific method then the method that you used. I explained that. The heading is just fine as it refutes the inaccurate data you posted above. Saying they all use "Islamic State" is at best a misrepresentation by omission as you are dismissing other names used by the same mags without noting they also use those names, often more often. Total misapplication of WP:COMMONNAMELegacypac (talk) 18:33, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.
  • Comment on closure In a context in which editors on both sides of the argument had, in my view, reached the point of repeating the same points again and again with the effect that I would think any potential new contributors may have been daunted by the extent of content I think, in this specific context, an initiation towards closure by an experienced admin was, arguably, fairly made. In normal circumstances I would not recommend repetition of argument (I joined in as well) or initiation for closure. GregKaye 12:35, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
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