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Talk:Teeswater sheep

Latest comment: 9 years ago by Anthony Appleyard in topic Requested move 25 August 2014
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Requested move 25 August 2014 edit

Latest comment: 9 years ago84 comments15 people in discussion
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: no move: no consensus in 58 days, last message was 14 days ago Anthony Appleyard (talk) 09:16, 22 October 2014 (UTC)Reply


Teeswater sheep → Teeswater (sheep) – Revert undiscussed move, see Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive847 #Undiscussed page moves by SMcCandlish. I'd hoped someone else might deal with this, but it seems not. There are a lot of these (this is just a first instalment), so please excuse (and ignore) any listings that are for any reason incorrect. Relisted. Jenks24 (talk) 16:10, 9 September 2014 (UTC) Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 13:34, 25 August 2014 (UTC)Reply

This is a contested technical request (permalink). Anthony Appleyard (talk) 21:06, 25 August 2014 (UTC)Reply
See previous mass-move request at Talk:Alentejana cattle#Requested move, which concluded to stick with natural, non-parenthetical disambiguation and lower-case species name.

Survey edit

different suggestions:
  • There are several radically different, even contradictory, types of move proposals here:
    1. Teeswater sheep → Teeswater (sheep) and the majority of the other cases: Oppose per WP:NATURAL. There's no reason at all to force unnatural disambiguation on these names. It's completely routine to disambiguate, in everyday speech and writing, everywhere, by everyone, in the form of adding the species name after the breed name, across the board, for all species of domestic animals. If you have a Cymric cat, you can reasonably say "I have a Cymric" to someone who knows cat breeds, and write that in a column you're submitting to a cat publciation, but you automatically use "I have a Cymic cat" any time you're addressing an audience that isn't necessarily going to know what you're talking about, which is always the case with Wikipedia when the name is ambiguous without it. The only exceptions to this practice are a) when the species name is already included in the formal breed name (e.g. American Quarter Horse, or b) when some alternative, unambiguous word or suffix for the species name is part of the formal breed name (e.g. Hound, -hound or -hund for various dog breeds). Keeping these at Teeswater sheep, etc., will be consistent with almost all other animal breed article names (some dog ones are an exception, and need to be examined as do a few other random stragglers not addressed here. A handful of parenthetically disambiguated breeds not mentioned here also need to move to natural disambiguation, e.g. Aspromonte (goat).
    2. Beltex, Bleu du Maine, Castlemilk Moorit, Dorper, Meatmaster, Perendale, Polypay → Beltex (sheep), etc. – Oppose per WP:DAB. These are all unique, made-up names for the breeds, and are not ambiguous with anything. Adding a disambiguator of any kind serves no purpose (not even one of the ones contemplated at Wikipedia talk:Article titles#Proposal/question: Should we disambiguate year-range work titles? and the ensuing, lengthy discussion about why we might sometimes (as with US place names) want to "pre-disambiguate". Nothing supports these renames at all. They would also directly conflict with naming in all other domestic breed categories; see, e.g. Africanis, Aidi, Azawakh; Burmilla, Chaussie, Peterbald; Abtenauer, Akhal-Teke, Appaloosa; Donek, Frillback; Amerifax, Droughtmaster, Square Meater, etc., etc., etc.. There are hundreds of breed articles at undisambiguated names because, like these, they're not ambiguous. Update: See WP:PRECISION policy, which specifically addresses this. While it enumerates a handful of supposed exceptions, this is not one of them, and even those are increasingly considered a WP:LOCALCONSENSUS problem. See User:JHunterJ#Local consensus vs. precision for a list of previous discussions of similar cases, which consistently close with a result to follow WP:PRECISION. Concession: One can make the argument that Meatmaster cattle would be more consistent with other cattle names, and that could be true. I'm just skeptical that consistency of that particular sort trumps brevity, under the WP:CRITERIA, etc. Our main consistency problem is just radically different treatment of very similar names, thus the large number of breed RMs I launched today (which avoid the parenthetical stuff at issue in this RM).
    3. Danish Protest pig, Laughing chicken, Philippine Native chicken → Danish Protest Pig (i.e., capitalize the species), etc. – Oppose by default per MOS:LIFE and per the WP:BIRDCON precedent, but tentative support if article-by-article, compelling reliable-source research proves that the WP:COMMONNAME in general-audience sources uniformly appends the species name as part of the breed name, which seems fairly likely in some of these exact cases, because of their ambiguity. This is consistent with other, similar article titles (some of which were already arrived at through RM discussions) not raised by nom here: Basque Mountain Horse, Norwegian Forest Cat, Bavarian Mountain Hound, Formosan Mountain Dog, etc. Failing that, then oppose per MOS:CAPS: If sources are not consistent on both including the species and capitalizing it (when the source also capitalizes "Protest", "Laughing" and "Native"), then retain the lower-case, natural disambiguation. However, this is maybe the wrong venue: Moves this particular and nuanced should probably be discussed individually on their own talk pages, not buried in a mass move that raises different issues in all other cases. Note also that nominator is being self-contradictory here, urging in all other cases for the form Danish Protest (pig) [which is contraindicated for other reasons]. Added note: I found the curious counter-cases of Georgian mountain cattle and Harz Red mountain cattle; they do seem to be real breeds, not landraces, so if we're going to capitalize breeds then "Mountain" should get that treatment here, whethe rto capitalize "Cattle" in those cases is the same analysis required for Danish Protest pig vs. Danish Protest Pig.
    4. Estonian Bacon pig → Estonian Bacon, and Forest Mountain pig → Forest Mountain – Oppose per WP:DAB and WP:COMMONSENSE; these are obviously too ambiguous to use for animal breed article titles on Wikipedia. Such names are only given in short, speciesless form when not ambiguous (see examples under "Beltex", above). Nom is also self-contradicting again, otherwise insisting on names of the form Estonian Bacon (pig). Such proposals also contradict already-established animal breed natural disambiguation patterns, e.g. Norwegian Forest Cat, etc., etc. I would potentially support alternative moves to Estonian Bacon Pig and Forest Mountain Pig (capitalized) for consistency, but only under the same reliably-sourced WP:COMMONNAME analysis on a per-article basis as in the above point regarding Danish Protest pig, etc. These seem notably less likely to make that cut, and see many similar names that do not, e.g. San Clemente Island goat, Black Pied Dairy cattle.
    5. Arapawa pig, Jeju Black pig, Morada Nova sheep, and Swabian-Hall swine → Arapawa Pig, etc. (i.e., capitalized species again) – Oppose. No rationale for such moves at all, as the pattern is evidently the same as that of, respectively, Teeswater sheep, Kerry Hill sheep, and hyphenated cases not mentioned in the list, like Chistopolian High-flying pigeon, Ural Striped-maned pigeon. Again, nom self-contradictorily wants to move the others to Teeswater (sheep), Kerry Hill (sheep), etc. As in the last case, if and only if the overwhelming preponderance of evidence gives one of these breeds' names with "Sheep" in it, then I'd support that move, but that's an RM for that article's own talk page. NB: This same sort of analysis needs to be done on some other animal breed article names, e.g. Chinese Crested Dog. What we have here are enthusiasts with different sensibilities insisting contrarily that "the X breed's real name(TM) is the Foo Bar Bandersnatch" while others are saying "the X breed's true name(R) is the Foo Bar, and only the ignorant would add the species, 'Bandersnatch' at the end, much less capitalize it as part of the breed name proper", and both are convinced of their righteousness in this incredibly important matter, with nom seemingly trying to take both sides at once in different cases for no apparent reason other than a reflexive urge to revert all efforts to bring some rhyme and reason to breed article names. There is arguably a clear case for our readers (why we're here, remember), to use names like Carpathian Shepherd Dog and Norwegian Forest Cat because without the species name they're confusing (seeming to be about a regional occupation and a woodland, respectively). No such case can be made for "Morada Nova Sheep" and these other examples.
    6. American Game chicken → American Game (chicken) – Oppose per all of the reasoning that already settled this at recent RMs of Australian Pit Game fowl and West African Dwarf goat, and thus per WP:FORUMSHOP. See also Continental Giant rabbit. NB: In nom's clouding of this RM with references to past irrelevant discussions, they conveniently didn't happen to mention these directly relevant ones.
    7. Auckland Island pig → Auckland Island Pig – Oppose per MOS:CAPS and almost all other animal breed article names of this sort (see already cited examples, and others from Amsterdam Island cattle, Channel Island cattle and Enderby Island cattle to Cumberland Island horse; the format <Placename> <Landfeature> <species> is a not uncommon type of breed article title, and <Placename> <Whatever> <species> is the #2 most common form after <Placename> <species>). This is the exact same case as Kerry Hill sheep, and an example of the nom self-contradicting again, going for "Auckland Island (pig)" format otherwise. The species, as noted above under Danish Protest pig, is not capitalized unless it is always included as part of the breed name in reliable sources due to the ambiguity without it. This never seems to be the case when the form is <Placename> <species> (including <Placename> <Landfeature> <species>) that is a real place not a type of place (as in "Norwegian Forest Cat"), since everyone knows that "I have a <Placename>" cannot possibly refer to the possession of an entire country, while "I have a Norwegian Forest" could actually refer to land ownership and "I have an American Quarter" to coinage. "Mountain" when referring to a specific mountain might be handled like "Island", but I'm not sure we have such a case.
    8. Any of the chicken cases could be moved to "<Whatever> fowl" (note the lower case) in theory, but only if a preponderance of reliable sources call them that. "Fowl" seems to be conventional only for a small number of breeds. Regardless, that hasn't been proposed here, and should be a case-by-case rename if necessary on specific article talk pages.
    9. It's possible that I've missed some other, differentiatable case, but this should be clear enough to separate the majority of these into distinguishable groups that others can address by number.

       — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  15:43, 14 September 2014 (UTC)Reply

  • Oppose – the existing titles appear to be mostly better, which I presume was SMcCandlish's intent in moving them (I'm not so much a fan of his point 2 that applies to a few, but I agree on the rest). The rationale for these proposed moves is unclear; it seems to be just that they were previously moved by SMcCandlish. If there are specific ones that share a rationale, they should be proposed as a smaller set so the point can be discussed. Dicklyon (talk) 21:03, 14 September 2014 (UTC)Reply
I've clarified the policy and precedent basis for #2, with an <ins>...</ins> insertion.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  23:28, 14 September 2014 (UTC)Reply
Well, I'm not suggesting that Beltex etc. are ambiguous, or need disambiguation; rather, that Beltex sheep would be more precise and recognizable for what it is. A win on consistency, too. But that's a discussion for elsewhere, if such a move gets proposed. Dicklyon (talk) 23:45, 14 September 2014 (UTC)Reply
@Dicklyon: Understood, but I strongly suspect it'll be a worm-can. The dogs project hate this idea with unleashed passion. When I moved some of "their" articles to names in this format because were already ambiguous and parenthetically disambiguated for no reason, they reflexively and dismissively reverted them all here. The blatantly self-contradictory nom wrote "Parenthetical disambiguation was used when natural disambiguation is not possible in ALL dog articles" then proposed moving every case like Armant dog back to Armant (dog), despite that being the exact opposite, and using parenthetical disambiguation when natural disambiguation was clearly possible and already being used. No one commented in that RM, hosted out of main talk space on their wikiproject page, except the project's own participants. I didn't see it in time to advertise it to WT:AT, WP:NCFAUNA and WT:MOS where people with a more generalized view might have been interested in commenting. Someone may try to use that micro-consensus as evidentiary of something, but it was just a status quo ante reversion, not a discussion on the WT:AT merits, which would surely have stuck with natural disambiguation. Anyway, if at this point in time, anyone tried to move a Beltex-like dog name, e.g., Briard to Briard dog with this sort of "pre-disambiguation" idea, it'd be a holy war. >;-)  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  09:06, 15 September 2014 (UTC)Reply
  • Oppose. Some of these might be reasonable moves, but they should be examined on a case by case basis, and not as a mass-move. While consistency is good... it can be taken too far (hmmm... perhaps WP:AT needs to address the issue of over-consistency?) A consistent title format that works for dog articles may not work for sheep articles, and vise versa. Flexibility is required. Blueboar (talk) 22:16, 15 September 2014 (UTC)Reply
  • Support:
"Philippine Native chicken" to Philippine Native Chicken,
"Swabian-Hall swine" to Swabian-Hall Swine,
"Danish Protest pig" to Danish Protest Pig,
"Arapawa pig" to Arapawa Pig and
"Forest Mountain pig" to Forest Mountain Pig as per WP:UCRN.
Proud capitalized Chicken and Pigs one and all :)
Weak oppose of all replacement of parenthesis as unnecessary and in contravention to presentation of similar terms in other locations ... and yet disambiguation is still provided so the presence of brackets or not may, arguably, be that big of a deal. A sheep is still a sheep whether or not it has been placed in a pen. I think consideration may also be given to the writers of the articles.
However I disagree with the principle of rejecting mass moves. Wikipedia should, arguably, operate on the principles of consistency and mass moves may, arguably, offer the best way to consideration of the full implications of a proposed raft of changes.
Gregkaye ✍♪ 11:13, 25 September 2014 (UTC)Reply
My view is that mass moves should be taken to the project pages, not individual breed articles, particularly where there is more than one animal involved; for example, people working on cattle articles may not be watchlisting sheep, yet these RMs affect both projects. There are many more of these out there, and they affect multiple projects. Montanabw(talk) 18:49, 25 September 2014 (UTC)Reply
  • OPPOSE TIMES 97: OMG!! what a mess. So many want to move articles and nobody to work on them. I oppose a blanket move of 97 articles because it is too much to be fair to the articles.
I am amazed, appalled, and shocked. I just can not imagine why we would want to take any article name and put a part of it in parenthesis to prove what? It does not enhance the article and it is unnecessary. Make it concise so short but then because it is now vague add a word in parenthesis that otherwise is just fine being included in the name.
I was convinced we need to be more than vague when I randomly chose Polish Helmet (just picked one I saw) to check out in references. I looked at 5 pages on Google and 5 pages on Bing (just to see) that totaled 120 hits that I looked at individually. What I found was amazing in that I saw and learned an unimaginable amount of information about the "Polish M50", the "Used Polish Military Steel Helmet", the "Polish WZ 93 Kevlar Helmet", the "Poland Wz67 - Brendon's Helmets", how to buy, sell, and everything one could imagine concerning helmets one would wear.
I did find three Wikipedia entries and "Polish Helmet Or Kryska Polska, A Breed Of Fancy Pigeon" that was on page two, one reference on page four and none on page five out of 120 hits. If you want to learn about helmets you wear then look up "Polish Helmet" but if you are interested in pigeons you need to add that to the search. This one needs to be fixed bad but to add parenthesis "Polish Helmet (pigeon)" just to add clarity that we are not exploring a helmet one wears? "Polish Helmet is a very short stub as is Helmet pigeon (parent), that need to be merged and forget parenthesis. Then "Humburg Helmet", the "Dutch Helmet", if they are plain-headed or shell-crested, as well as relations to the Nun pigeon can be explored in a good article. That would take editors wanting article improvements and not just moving a bunch of articles just to do it. I know pigeons are not the subject of sheep, chickens, or pigs but they all are (or will be) subject to indiscriminate move requests and many for absolutely no reason. Take it to the project pages!! You have got to be kidding me. One should always want to have the coyote guard the chicken right? Works great if you are not a chicken. Otr500 (talk) 03:58, 30 September 2014 (UTC)Reply

Discussion edit

Older discussion edit

Some of these comments were initially posted at WP:RM itself

@Justlettersandnumbers, while SMcCandlish is currently banned from making undiscussed moves (as of July 15) these moves were done prior to his ban. Would you object to having a centralized move discussion for all the sheep articles? It looks to me that some editors might support these moves. It's a lot of work for an admin to do a mass revert and then have to move all the articles back later per discussion, if that turns out to be the result. Why not have the discussion first? The issues in this set of articles don't even involve capitalization (as in Talk:American Paint Horse#Requested moves). It's only a question of natural versus parenthesized disambiguation. EdJohnston (talk) 15:01, 25 August 2014 (UTC)Reply

I'd also endorse this suggestion, with the obvious caveat that if the bulk RM ends as no consensus it will default to moving back to the previous titles. Jenks24 (talk) 15:17, 25 August 2014 (UTC)Reply
Works for me, with the caveat that it be a bulk RM on the merits, not a WP:POINTy "move these back because SMcCandlish didn't get consensus first" pseudo-RM. Given still-ongoing behavior by Justlettersandnumbers, I have some concerns. It'll go to full RM or RFC regardless, because the renames made sense under policy, others agree with them, and they tend to stick at natural disambiguation when these do go to full discussions (see, e.g., recent RMs of Australian Pit Game fowl and West African Dwarf goat, and many more over the years, like most horse breed articles), so there's no point in pre-emptively moving them around again. There's no actual evidence that the names they're at now are controversial (no one seems to think so but Justlettersandnumbers); rather, the controversy was the scale at which I was making such moves without a prior consensus discussion about them. The discussion is overdue; I expected it to happen a month ago.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  16:26, 25 August 2014 (UTC)Reply

Thank you, EdJohnston and Jenks24, for your comments. Points in order:

  • I'm truly sorry about the amount of work involved, for everyone, whatever happens. I suppose that is more or less a definition of WP:DISRUPTIVE editing - doing stuff that takes other people hours of work to sort out. I know I've already spent hours on this that I'd much rather have spent doing something else. There are hundreds of articles affected.
  • I don't see that another discussion is necessarily required for most of these; we've already had two, this about reversing McCandlish's undiscussed moves to "natural" disambiguation - this covers, e.g., all the Italian sheep breeds above, without exception; and this about reversing his undiscussed lower-casing of the animal name when it is part of the breed name, as in Auckland Island Pig above. Both ended with restoration of the status quo ante.
  • There are, I think, two other types of incompetent move in the complete list: the addition of an unnecessary "disambiguation" to a title that requires none, such as adding "chicken" to White-faced Black Spanish; and messing about with hyphenation against all the evidence in the sources, such as Naked-neck chicken when even in the hyphen-crazy UK it is called Naked Neck. Neither should require discussion to revert.
  • That said, I'd like those who will (or won't) have to do the hard work to make the call. If you don't mind, Ed? Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 19:38, 25 August 2014 (UTC)Reply
    • How about we open a formal move discussion for the first four sheep moves, and leave a note in the RM pointing to the complete list of sheep that SMM moved. That way if the discussion finds consensus to move back the first four, then an admin might go ahead and do the rest of the list as 'reverts of undiscussed moves'. That reduces the work involved but still gives a chance for consensus to be formed. EdJohnston (talk) 20:22, 25 August 2014 (UTC) Reply
    • Removed my earlier suggestion. This is now a regular move discussion for all the animals in the above list. It is a proposal (by User:Justlettersandnumbers) to put all of them back to their original titles. EdJohnston (talk) 02:16, 26 August 2014 (UTC)Reply
    • Some notes regarding Justlettersandnumbers's invective and assumptions:
List of observations about this RM

{{hatnote: On item on this list was wrong - Justlettersandnumbers (Jlan) didn't list this mass, mess RM here personally, but only at RM; it was moved here administratively as a relisting of a contested "noncontroversial" proposal.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  00:41, 18 September 2014 (UTC)}}Reply

  1. Pre-loading what is supposed to be a neutral discussion about article names with a boatload of wikipolitical and personalizing antagonism is a process violation. This is not a vote and nominators are not supposed to be campaigning, much less doing so in a way that verges on personal attacks. All of Justlettersandnumbers's aspersion-casting about my editorial judgment and competence seems to be happening because the nom's RMs now at issue, with only a handful of potential exceptions, are poorly supported by facts, policy, normal practice, or logic; it is an ad hominem fallacy attempting to hand-wave attention away from the lack of merit inherent in these proposed moves to names like Teeswater (sheep) or worse yet, Forest Mountain (?!).
  2. "I don't see that another discussion is necessarily required for most of these" – Of course it is. Neither of the prior discussions Justlettersandnumbers referenced, about unrelated articles, are particularly relevant. The first was about reverting to status quo ante due to moves being undiscussed, and whether the names comported with WT:AT policy was not the subject of the discussion, which was about addressing a process matter. I fully expect we'll be revisiting many of those dog article names in more narrowly defined, small groups, soon enough. We've already agreed that reverting to status quo ante in this case would be pointless if we're immediately (and now, already) going to get into discussion of the merits of different naming proposals. So it's essentially totally pointless to bring up the dogs reversion at all. The second was about a factual matter to do with capitalization in one particular horse breed case, which has nothing to do with the natural vs. parenthetical disambiguation matter at issue now. "Both ended with restoration of the status quo ante" – That's because it's what happens when a dispute arises over a move, until the dispute is resolved on the merits of the arguments (and it's not required that it be done, just common; WP:BRD is an optional process, not a policy.) In that case there had been no agreement to defer a status quo ante move until discussion on the merits, and that discussion still hasn't happened about those articles. In this case, there was such an agreement, and that discussion is happening in the #Poll section. Not comparable cases.

    That said, I think we do have something like a consensus, at least among editors spending much time on animal breeds, that (provided we continue capitalizing breed names, an idea that WP:BIRDCON suggests may be more controversial than most breed editors think it is), we should capitalize the species name when it is almost invariably included in the breed name, e.g. Norwegian Forest Cat. In some cases, such as American Paint Horse whether this is the case is open to dispute (plenty of reliable sources can be found that refer to the American Paint as such, so the case for WP itself insisting that the name "is" American Paint Horse may be an WP:NOR and WP:NPOV problem, in which case it should be at American Paint horse per MOS:CAPS and WP:NATURAL. It's not a case I would care to argue about in detail here, as it's just a distraction. It has no impact on the list of moves contemplated here, in which Justlettersandnumbers wants to prevent inclusion of the breed name entirely unless it's in the form of parenthetical disambiguation, for reasons that aren't very clear.

  3. "There are, I think, two other types of incompetent move in the complete list: the addition of an unnecessary "disambiguation" to a title that requires none, such as adding "chicken" to White-faced Black Spanish" – Skipping for now the second ad-homimen attack, it's not at all certain that an RM focusing on White-faced Black Spanish chicken will conclude that this should be at White-faced Black Spanish, and same goes for the other similar cases. Justlettersandnumbers themself have proposed several moves above that contradict nom's own position on this one, further indication that nom may be playing an "undo SMcCandlish" game instead of focusing on what the correct titles should be per our titling policy. We routinely (and naturally) disambiguate names for breeds and whatnot if they can be misinterpreted as referring to people or groups thereof. This accounts for a large number of disambiguated breed names, regardless of species, because most of them are partially or entirely geonyms, and these are usually interpreted as having or sometimes having human referents. (There are some other articles not mentioned here that need fixing in this regard, e.g. Brown Caucasian, Brown Carpathian, and Indo-Brazilian).
  4. hyphenation against all the evidence in the sources, such as Naked-neck chicken when even in the hyphen-crazy UK it is called Naked Neck. Yet another hand-wave to distract; that article title is not at issue here, and this RM raises a grand total of zero hyphenation issues. But while we're on it: The hyphenated form occurs, too. But given that the unhyphenated one is more common, that's a simple WP:COMMONNAME matter, and need not be a source of melodramatics. A rare case like this has virtually no relevance to the rest of this discussion, or anything else for that matter.
  5. "I've already spent hours on this that I'd much rather have spent doing something else." It really clearly wasn't enough given how malformed this RM is; is really kind of unbelievable that Justlettersandnumbers had the hypocrisy to refer to my moves as incompetent; I think I made a grand total of one actual error (the hyphenation case, and even an MOS purist would say it wasn't an error). No one required Justlettersandnumbers personally to list a bunch of pages for RM, much less in a big confused and self-contradictory pile. If something is too much for someone or they feel it's a waste of their time, they should something productive instead of "messing about", to use Justlettersandnumbers term, with article names they can't keep straight.
  6. It also noteworthy that in response to EdJohnston's request, Justlettersandnumbers agreed to rescind the request for status quo ante move reverts, because "It looks [like] some editors might support these moves. It's a lot of work for an admin to do a mass revert and then have to move all the articles back later per discussion, if that turns out to be the result. Why not have the discussion first?" I.e., a discussion on the merits, which is what I agreed to as well. But Justlettersandnumbers simply copy-pasted the request for reflexive status quot ante moves, word for word. (This would also seem to invalidate Jenks24's caveat about what to do in case of no consensus; the very act of not going by what was agreed to could invalidate this entire RM, which would give Justlettersandnumbers the result they want without having to present a rationale for a single page move, if Jenk24's suggestion were applied, reverting back to the article names as they were at the beginning of July, despite many of them being WP:AT policy problems.)
  7. Justlettersandnumbers's promise that this RM mess is "is just a first instalment" is troubling. It would be entirely appropriate for the closer to admonish Justlettesandnumbers to never launch a disruptively confused mass RM like this ever again. Hopefully, my numbered analysis of the different types of RMs the nom lumped together here may be enough to save this RM from being closed early as an abuse of process or simply too broken to proceed. It probably took more time to do this than Justlettersandnumbers "wasted", but I'll consider it time well-spent if we get more clarity and consistency out of this. Above all, it should not be used as a platform for yet more WP:POINTy move reverts without discussion of the merits of the vying article names. These titles have been stable for months, with no known objection other than that of Justlettersandnumbers in most if not all cases. Per WP:CONSENSUS and WP:CCC in particular, that's long enough with silence enough to indicate that they actually now represent a consensus. (Of course, I moved them in the first place to conform to broader, pre-existing consensus on how we name articles.)  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  00:07, 15 September 2014 (UTC) (edited from Sep 13 original)Reply
  • SMcCandlish, you're being unfair to Justlettersandnumbers in some of the above comments. Look at the page history of this talk page, Anthony Appleyard copy-pasted RM/TR request here to start this discussion. And although that's the standard practice for technical requests that are contested, it has made rather a mess of things here because of the large number of articles in question and the fact the nomination is so clearly intended as a technical request, not a full RM. But that's not Justlettersandnumbers' fault. And regarding restoration of the status quo ante, that is policy – see the article titling bullet of WP:NOCONSENSUS. Jenks24 (talk) 09:45, 15 September 2014 (UTC)Reply
Fair enough. I'll just rescind collapse-box the entire thing, rather than pick at the details, since it's probably not constructive anyway. Other than to note "This is now a regular move discussion for all the animals in the above list. It is a proposal (by User:Justlettersandnumbers) to put all of them back to their original titles", per EdJohnson, so I'm not the only one observing that this RM was in fact listed as a pointless mass-move request despite that being what we were going to not do. WP:NOCONSENSUS applies when there's a legitimate dispute. "Oppose everything SMcCandlish does no matter what it is" isn't one, meanwhile the names have stood with no troubles of any kind arising from them for months now (=new consensus, I'd say), and we all already had an agreement that we'd be forgoing the status quo ante reversion stuff as liable to be counterproductive. It's therefore disruptive and WP:LAME to have a huge pile of demanded status quo ante reverts here. I hope that the analysis and grouping of them I've done is enough that this mess can proceed in an orderly fashion. Meanwhile, I'm proceeding with other RMs, while avoiding any that would move "Foo (bar)" breed names to "Foo bar" ones, pending the outcome of this one. The upcoming ones I'm about to list are of a different nature, and properly grouped into separate multi-page RMs that focus on moves of the same exact kind.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  12:08, 15 September 2014 (UTC)Reply

Comment. As must be obvious from the initial remarks in this discussion, this was not originally intended to be a move request; if it had been so intended it would have been formulated very differently, and posted at WT:WikiProject Agriculture. Some points:

  • What's at issue here is whether or not to restore some hundreds of articles to the titles they were at before SMcCandlish moved them without discussion and without reference to the WikiProjects concerned or (that I'm aware of) to the few editors who actually contribute in this area (I'm thinking of BlindEagle, Steven Walling, JTdale, PigeonIP, Richard New Forest, Montanabw, Ealdgyth, I've surely forgotten many; and also, incidentally, myself).
  • There are a lot of these articles. The list above is merely the first hundred or so. The rest are listed here and here.
  • Many of these moves were made after McCandlish had been specifically told that such moves were contentious, and that the normal move request process should be used. All this has already been extensively discussed at ANI (now at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive847#Undiscussed page moves by SMcCandlish), where McCandlish was roundly criticised and banned for three months from moving articles.
  • McCandlish has decided (again without reference to WikiProjects or other interested editors) how he wants domestic animal breed articles to be named, and is apparently on a one-man crusade to impose that decision on the rest of us. Of course, as he worked his way through the categories, the mantra "like almost all articles in this and other animal breed categories" became less and less untrue.
  • In many of these cases parentheses were removed citing WP:NATURAL or with the mantra "use natural disambiguation not parentheticals when possible, per WP:AT policy". That policy reads:

    Natural disambiguation: If it exists, choose an alternative name that the subject is also commonly called in English, albeit not as commonly as the preferred-but-ambiguous title. Do not, however, use obscure or made-up names.

In some cases (the Teeswater is one) following the breed name with a species name produces a phrase that can be commonly found in English; in others, such as the Tacola, there is no evidence that the title McCandlish has chosen is ever used in English; Tacola sheep is a made-up name. These moves were made without due care to observe WP:AT policy.
  • McCandlish is now citing the titles of pages that he himself moved in other move requests.
  • Two specific types of move by McCandlish have already been discussed and reverted: his undiscussed moves of horse pages from Breed Name Species to Breed Name species here, and his undiscussed moves of dog articles from Dog Breed (dog) to Dog Breed dog here. Those two precedents cover all the articles listed above with the exception of the two that Anthony Appleyard raises valid objection to.
  • WP:BRD. There are surely inconsistencies in our naming of breed articles, and they may need to be discussed; that discussion, when it happens, should be based on the previous position, not the result of one person's attempt to impose his will on the project.
    Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 09:52, 17 September 2014 (UTC)Reply
Okay, let's try this again.
Itemized response. I doubt anyone actually wants to read this stuff, so I'll just collapse-box it again so people can skip it easily. Justlettersandnumbers should probably do the same with the above text-wall.
  1. Justlettersandnumbers (hereafter Jlan) already agreed to not pursue a WP:BRD revert, weeks ago, because the admin most likely to be performing those moves was skeptical (and others backed him up) that many if any of these names Jlan prefered would actually be adopted by consensus (which a status quo ante revert doesn't represent; it's a procedural stability action). The admin did not want to have to move them from their current names to the old names then back to the current names after further discussion. Nothing about any of that has changed, except Jlan's apparently selective memory. "What's at issue here", now, is not whether or not to do a mass BRD revert, but is precisely the community discussion about what these page names should really be, that Jlan said didn't happen. Jlan can't have it both ways, objecting that the original moves lacked a discussion, but now that discussion is under way, attempt to short-circuit it and demand that the pages go back to what Jlan wants them to be. That horse (or other domestic animal) has already left the barn. See WP:WRONGVERSION. Jlan's re-insisting on the rationale for a reflexive revert after already accepting why one isn't wise in this case, simply doesn't make sense, and seems to be a WP:IDHT problem. That can be shown to be a recurring theme here.
  2. Arguing that "the few editors who actually contribute in this area", and listing them by cherry-picked name, are the only ones with a stake here is not only a factual misrepresentation about who edits domestic animal breed articles, far more importantly it's a dismal failure to understand WP:OWN and even how Wikipedia works generally. All editors have a valid stake in all articles, without exception, and wikiprojects who claim an article is within their scope cannot exert special control over it (see WP:LOCALCONSENSUS policy). Jlan's perpetual insinuations, running for months now, that I and various other editors who do in fact write breed articles (just not the ones Jlan like as often as Jlan would like, apparently), as well as some who don't but are involved WP article titles policy discussions and frequent RM discussion contributors, somehow aren't welcome in these discussions is snide, ad hominem nonsense, and grossly misplaced elitism.
  3. Opening a WP:RM discussion about why four or five articles on breeds with nearly identical "Pied" breed names have completely different article title formats is not "a one-man crusade" (that's another personal attack by Jlan – there have been others, but I find hauling people to ANI or AE for personality problems to be distasteful, so I never do anything about them, to date), it's precisely the kind of discussion involving "other interested editors" that Jlan decries as not happening, so the characterization defies the reality right in front of Jlan's face.
  4. Going out of one's way to re-mention, in the most ad hominem way possible, the non sequitur about a long-resolved ANI case concerning whether move process was proper two or three months ago, the decision in which was agreement that RM should be used, and then Jlan following this by attacking me for using RM process, is hypocritical and disruptive.
  5. Jlan somehow expresses shock and outrage that, as cleanup efforts among inconsistent article names in breed categories have progressed slowly over several months, exclusively using RM processes since the ANI about not using RM, than the names have become decreasingly inconsistent. What could possibly surprise Jlan about it? It's how Wikipedia works.
  6. Jlan's renewed suggestion to move Estonian Bacon pig back to the absurdly misleading Estonian bacon (it fails both the precision and recognizability WP:CRITERIA) triggered immediate resistance, which JLan glossed over as if no one objected. That sure seems like IDHT again. The fact that I moved that article myself months ago says nothing about the quality of the move (all moves have to be performed my someone, after all – pages don't move themselves around), and my "citing" it (mentioning it – Jlan is misusing "citation" here as hyperbole, since an article name isn't a policy, guideline, arbcom decision or even essay that can be cited) in the context of another RM doesn't undermine that RM, which is based on policy not that particular example, one that is extremely unlikely to be reverted to Estonian Bacon anyway. Cherry picking one tiny sub-argument in one related RM discussion, about of dozens of them, to pick at on not-really-valid procedural technicality, isn't an argument, it's a hand wave distraction.
      1. Crucially (and possibly indicative of WP:OWN issues), no one has moved that, or any other of these articles, back. Jlan seems to think that the mass RM that Jlan agreed to back away from, an agreement now clearly being reneged on, is the only BRD revert anyone could have made. But that's patent nonsense; any one of these renames could have been reverted, without any RM process, without even a discussion, just a demand for a discussion, by any editor at any time before this more substantive discussion launched, yet it didn't happen. Every word of Wikipedia is written by changing a page here and seeing if it sticks. When it sticks, we move on and build on it, we don't raise histrionic, confused, WP:BATTLEGROUNDing and WP:POINTy, mile-long piles of process to wallow in. See WP:FILIBUSTER, WP:NOT#BUREAUCRACY, and WP:WIKILAWYER, and signal-to-noise ratio for that matter.
  1. Also crucially, there demonstrably is no controversy here, other than the one Jlan is personally manufacturing and perpetuating. Over two months of no controversy about the actual content of the current article names from anyone but Jlan personally is a pretty obvious indication that a new consensus has been formed. (It may be a clear indication of a few other things, too, but editor behavior issues are not an RM matter.) While silence is not the strongest consensus, between the mass RM filing, two ANI cases (one rejected as frivolous, the other resolved and followed without incident), and a number of related but properly formed RMs running concurrently and calmly, there is more than enough "advertising" of this issue that interested parties can comment. As of this writing, they're entirely against Jlan's proposed names. [Update: PigeonIP has also sided with Jlan, but raises no new arguments, and seems to have a confused view of capitalization in English.]
  2. The fact they were actual former names at one point doesn't make them any less proposed names now; too much time has passed, with too much explicit agreement to not reflexively revert. It's already progressed to a substantive discussion about the article titles' relative merits, in many cases, and in others, multiple commenters observe that the cases are particular and need to be the subject of their own individual RMs. The idea that discussion on the merits of what the names should be has to proceed from what the names used to be, the names Jlan prefers, is transparently farcical at this late date. Jlan is proceeding from a false basis that there's some kind of popularity contest to "win", based on some article titles equivalent of pole position, as if the current name of a page has special imprimatur or seniority, like an incumbent politician up for re-election, or someone relying upon squatter's rights to a domain name. As noted above, Jlan already agreed, upon admin advice, that reverting to the old names was not necessary to discuss whether the new ones were better, so this is yet another hand wave. #See Jlan's opening statement "I'd hoped someone else might deal with this, but it seems not.", and later "I'm truly sorry about the amount of work involved, for everyone, whatever happens. I suppose that is more or less a definition of WP:DISRUPTIVE editing." The first indicates that Jlan acknowledged over a month ago that there wasn't any actual controversy about the content of the moves (and Jlan knows the procedural controversy about the process by which they were arrived at was resovled at ANI, since Jlan cited that ANI case one sentence earlier). The second of these quoted statements indicates that Jlan also acknowledges the disruptiveness inherent the approach taken by this editor, who did it anyway, and is now trying to go back to that method despite the discussion having moved past it.
  3. Finally, I'm not sure why Jlan, except as another fallacy ad homimem, re-mentions old move discussions that aren't relevant to these cases, after it's already been pointed out why they're not relevant – American Paint Horse raised a debate about whether in that individual special case the species name was formally a part of the breed name, a question not raised about any of the articles at issue here, and the dog one was a pure status quo ante revert that, unlike the extant discussion as it has moved on now, did not address what the names should actually be, but only the process followed. Most of us understand that such arguments will not magically become relevant just because one repeats oneself. So, it's yet another, very clear, indication of a IDHT problem. The fact that Jlan's entire mass listing and repeated rehash arguments about it fails to discern even that the article names resulting from the horse and dog cases, like around half of the renames Jlan's mass-mess-RM proposes, directly contradict each other, is highly indicative of what the problem here is.
I could go on, but I don't think it would be useful to do so. I'm not angry at Jlan for having personality clashes with me; rather, the arguments presented by this editor to mire or derail this and related RMs are not sustainable under any RM-relevant rationale, and that's all that needs to be shown here.
I've suggested that Jlan (and Montanabw) and I shoudl probably engage in a formal WP:Dispute resolution process; much of this heat vs. light appears to be a personality conflict, not a WP:AT one, really.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  00:41, 18 September 2014 (UTC) Update: Montanabw has pointedly refused dispute resolution.[2]  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  06:43, 26 September 2014 (UTC)Reply

Newer discussion edit

  • Comment I really don't want to be involved in this messy business but I will point out to SMc where he questions why Fowl is only used on some chicken breeds - Fowl exclusively refers to birds within the poultry fancy with Game in their name (i.e.: Gamefowl). We don't have Rhode Island Red fowl, but Old English Game fowl is acceptable. Shamo fowl would make no sense because no Game in the name. You really have to take things by case by case. No one system is going to work. JTdale Talk 11:00, 17 September 2014 (UTC)Reply
    • Understood. Having a few breeds named "X Game fowl" isn't problematic, any more than having a few pig articles named "X swine" instead of "X pig" because the sources indicate it's conventional. No one has suggested some kind of robotic conformity enforcement that would prevent "fowl" or "swine", though the straw man position that such ideas are proposed has been common enough in previous related debates. The specific content of these and other ongoing related RMs is actually proof that no such "hyper-conformity" proposals are on the table at all.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  00:41, 18 September 2014 (UTC)Reply
      • response to No one has suggested some kind of robotic conformity enforcement. My impression is another one: Sebright and Pekin, that where Sebright (chicken) and Pekin (chicken) are at least Sebright Bantams and Pekin Bantam or Cochin Bantam to use a correct, not made up name. (WP:NATURAL says: If it exists, choose an alternative name that the subject is also commonly called in English, albeit not as commonly as the preferred-but-ambiguous title. Do not, however, use obscure or made-up names) --PigeonIP (talk) 12:55, 21 September 2014 (UTC)Reply
        • An alternative name would be perfectly fine. To address an example you used somewhere in your duplicative posts of this sort in multiple RMs: In cases where "Something Bantam" and "Something Somethingelse" are both covered at "Something chicken" (and you'd prefer "Something (chicken)") the correct name would actually be "Something chickens" since the article is covering two, not one, varieties of related chickens. This is standard operating procedure across wikipedia (see, e.g., Cue sports which is plural because it covers more than one related sport. To get back to bantam breeds, are there any that are not bantam variants of larger breeds? If not, use plural "chickens" for any cases where the bantam and larger variant are both in the same article.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  06:18, 26 September 2014 (UTC)Reply
  • "with the exception of the two": There may be others in the two extra lists pointed to hereinabove. And in "Shamo chicken → Shamo (chicken)": a main meaning of "Shamo" by itself is a Chinese name of the Gobi Desert. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 12:45, 17 September 2014 (UTC)Reply
    • Yes, there are many of these cases (see the other, more focused RMs I luanched the other day). WP:NATURAL instructs us to use natural disambiguation in such cases.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  00:41, 18 September 2014 (UTC)Reply
  • Comment My personal preference is to use the parens. This makes it much easier for me to find breeds by their name. Again, personal preference. Teaswater sheep as a title of an article, to me, would imply that is the name of the breed. It is not. The name of the breed is Teaswater. Of course, to have a name of an article with just such a title would be confusing and thus the parenthetical. Just my $0.02. BlindEagletalk~contribs
    • Except if Teeswater Sheep were the name of the breed it would be capitalized like that, not given as Teeswater sheep. Numerous editors of various different kinds of breed editors have been absolutely adamant about this.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  00:41, 18 September 2014 (UTC)Reply
    • SMcCandlish, thank you for explaining that. I see better where you are coming from, now. However, my preference is still to use the parens. I find it easier to understand. BlindEagletalk~contribs 19:17, 18 September 2014 (UTC)Reply
  • Neutral I've written many of these articles. I used the parenthetical because the word "sheep" (or "chicken" or "cow" or "pig") is most definitely not part of the proper name for these animal breeds. Its purpose is solely for disambiguation. This is quite important, since in most cases sheep are named for places. This editorial policy, at WP:NCDAB, seems quite clear to me. However, as to whether the parens are necessary or not seems a particularly academic question. As long as we use the disambiguation term where necessary, readers will be well served. I personally prefer to defer to whatever other primary authors in this area, like BlindEagle and Justlettersandnumbers, want to do. Steven Walling • talk 20:22, 17 September 2014 (UTC)Reply
  • Comment 1: I favor Steven Walling's comment that a certain amount of deference should be given to the article writers, such as JLAN in this case, with the caveat that titling consistency with a set of articles (dog breeds, horse breeds, sheep breeds, chicken breeds) should be maintained whenever possible (I say this in part because WikiProject Equine takes the opposite position on parenthetical titling for some very thoroughly discussed reasons that are not relevant here, but we have no intent to impose our views on other animal projects that have a different convention for standardization). Montanabw(talk) 21:32, 17 September 2014 (UTC)Reply
    • The utter lack of any form of consistency within almost all breed categories (much less between any of them) is why this ever arose in the first place. The horses category is much more consistent than most, which is a blessing, and I've repeatedly supported you in resisting moves that would thwart it, which you seem to forget. No one is accusing or suggesting that the equine wikiproject is or could be "imposing [their] views on other animal projects". Rather, we have a WP:AT policies that are being ignored by many articles in most of these categories. There is no provision at WP:AT policy "that a certain amount of deference should be given to the article writers"; we have that policy, and have elevated it to policy level, specifically to avoid the problems inherent in article writers dictating how "their" articles are named.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  00:41, 18 September 2014 (UTC)Reply
      • Before you came around, there was consistency at least within the pigeon category, focusing on parenthetical disambiguation. Same was true for poultry. Thank you very much. --PigeonIP (talk) 12:55, 21 September 2014 (UTC)Reply
Repeat: "almost all breed categories". Note that "almost all" != "all". The lack of consistency between them is a bigger issue than the exact contents of one of them in particular.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  11:45, 26 September 2014 (UTC)Reply
  • Comment 2: SMC's ongoing page move and titling disputes, combined with a penchant for rather vicious personal attacks while simultaneously accusing others of attacking him (see, e.g. Talk:Kiger Mustang are really getting out of hand and I am wondering if it time to discuss how to stop this endless drama. Montanabw(talk) 21:32, 17 September 2014 (UTC)Reply
    • Actually, you just proved my point with another personal attack. Thanks for being so unmistakably clear in this regard.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  00:41, 18 September 2014 (UTC)Reply
      • If you don't see how your behavior is coming across to others, then ask yourself why I am basically siding with people who hold a view opposite from my own preference on titles: It is because you are bullying them and in your insistence that your way is the only way, you are rapidly becoming one of the most tendentious and annoying people on wikipedia. That's not an "attack," that's a statement of reality. When you feel picked on, consider that it just might be your own behavior boomeranging back at you. Look in the mirror. Montanabw(talk) 08:26, 19 September 2014 (UTC)Reply
        • Okay, Montanabw is being extra-clear in admitting that they are "siding with" others against me, not on the merits but to make a point and to attempt to silence me personally. This editor clearly needs to read WP:GANG, WP:POINT, WP:HARASS, and WP:ARBATC, including its prohibition on personalizing article title debates, about which Montanabw was formally notified the day before they posted this. I've already suggested on Montanabw's own talk page to be amenable to WP:Dispute resolution, the proper venue for this stuff. Yet Montanabw just made it unmistakeably certain that this is a personal dispute for them, not a discussion about the merits of these renames, so they are disrupting WP:RM to pursue a personality conflict, even after it's been pointed out that this is what they're doing. It has to stop.

          There is no "my way" that I'm insisting on. We have clear article title policies, and I've made moves that conform to them, accepted some criticism for doing so without discussion, and now we're having that very discussion, which seems to be going the way I suggested anyway, since it's the way based on policy, not "my way" or "Montanbw's way". Other moves I've requested, on a policy basis not some random personal preference mind you, almost invariably also are accepted (see SMcCandlish/Logs/My RMs, July–August 2014 for just one month's stats, in which my RM actions are over 95% accurate in predicting move or don't-move outcome). Montanabw is conflating a) their previous, unrelated article-titling personal disputes with me (in some of which they were correct about that content, while I was in others), b) an ANI resolved over two months ago about move process (not content) in which Montanabw was involved, and b) the substance (content, not process) of the moves in question now. These are three different topics. Montanabw muddying the waters of the ongoing proceeding (and doing so again, in ways that demonstrate they don't understand how RM works, at WP:AN) on the basis of my alleged personality is the fallacy ad hominem, and a sterling example of a WP:NPA violation again. Montanabw has already had way more than enough warnings in that regard.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  16:26, 20 September 2014 (UTC)Reply

          • Nonsense. I am not trying to "silence" you (hell, I don't read most of this stuff you post, as it's tl;dr), I'm just trying to point out that you ARE being real annoying and obnoxious. It would be nice if you'd stop personalizing everything and make your points in a more concise manner. Montanabw(talk) 04:29, 21 September 2014 (UTC)Reply
The fact that you routinely ignore and dismiss disagreement with your views is a major cause of these disputes, their length (both in words and time), and their heatedness. Surely you must realize this by now.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  11:45, 26 September 2014 (UTC)Reply
  • I agree with Montanabw here. I can't even be bothered to contribute to this discussion because its such a mess, but all you seem to do SMc is throw accusations and policy links at people, half the time citing yourself. I've seen you start a discussion by accusing someone of disrupting Wikipedia simply because you disagreed with their interpretation of rules or their style of writing instead of discussing it sensibly or letting the person explain their changes. For gods sake start acting in a reasonable manner. JTdale Talk 11:01, 21 September 2014 (UTC)Reply
It's a mess because of the way it was launched. You're applying extremely selective judgement here. I'm being wordy, but PigeonIP, with his mile-long, repetitive lists is not? I'm "throwing accusations", but Montanabw's direct personal attacks don't count? RM is a WP:AT policy discussion in almost all respects, but only people other than me are allowed to link to policies? I don't know what discussion ("accusing someone of disrupting") you're vaguely alluding to; doesn't this post of yours constitute exactly the kind of "throwing accusations" you're <ahem> accusing me of? How am I not being sensible? Every single post I've made is grounded in reason, facts, policies; I'm sorry if this comes off as gruffness. When I'm subjected to ad hominem after ad hominem, I'm not terribly inclined to be cordial; being critical and distant is not incivility. If you think the debate is noisy, lengthy and noncollegial, why contribute to all three of those problems?  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  11:45, 26 September 2014 (UTC)Reply

Comment on pigeons edit

  1. Ice Pigeon: "pigeon" is part of the name of the breed, the article is about one breed of (fancy-)pigeon.
  2. Jacobin (pigeon): "pigeon" is not part of the breeds name.
  3. Dragoon pigeon: check out, if "pigeon" is part of the breeds name or not (or look for references on the correct english name); or it is a group of pigeons (like Carrier pigeon, Homing pigeon, Utility pigeons, defined by how they are used by us).
Looking for references or actually trying to understand the task at hand, he would have seen, that all breeds High-flying pigeons are called "Highflyer" (with some expections like the Tippler(s)). Maybe he would have known, that Chistopolian High-flying Pigeon is the breeds name, cause Christopolian high-flying does not work, or would have moved to Christopolian Highflyer[3] I was not able to find any references for the Ural pigeon, also there are a lot Ural tumbler breeds, the Orlow Tumbler/Orloff Tumbler (refering to Schütte and Schille: Orlowtümmler in German) and the Griwuni Tumbler, that is a russian "maned" tumbler. Maybe the breeds name is "lost in translation", there is a type of Griwuni Tumbler, that may be the one in question, but I do have no picture of that one to compare.
Thanks for the detailed level of the response, but this analysis is still missing the fact that WP:NATURAL requires us to use Jacobin pigeon not Jacobin (pigeon); there's no rationale for using parenthetical disambiguation here. If in a few cases like Ice Pigeon the "[p|P]igeon" part is capitalized because it's universally considered part of the breed name, that's surely fine, but lack of this circumstance would not call for using brackets.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  16:38, 20 September 2014 (UTC)Reply
Thanks for missing the fact, that "Fantail pigeon", "Helmet pigeon" and others are refering to groups of spiecial variations of pigeons... --PigeonIP (talk) 17:33, 20 September 2014 (UTC)Reply
I haven't missed that fact at all, and it has nothing to do with the naming, unless you're suggesting that they all each cover multiple breeds or varieties of pigeon, in which case the proper titles would be Fantail pigeons, etc. (note the plural). Still no case for parenthetical disambiguation.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  06:43, 26 September 2014 (UTC)Reply
btw. a Jacobin pigeon is the Danish Jacobin as well. --PigeonIP (talk) 17:54, 20 September 2014 (UTC)Reply
That would just be another case for natural disambiguation (to distinguish from Jacobins, in the original human sense, of Denmark), meanwhile WP:CONCISE would instruct us to use Jacobin pigeon not Danish Jacobin pigeon.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  06:43, 26 September 2014 (UTC)Reply

Comment referring to chicken edit

(refering to Listing of European Poultry Breeds and Colours, PCGB breed gallery, breed classification of the PCGB, APA recognised breeds and varieties)

Same issues as with pigeons, above. There is no case for using parenthetical naming. You're mistaking "Ancona chicken" as an assertion that that string is the name of the breed; but it's "Ancona" followed by natural disambiguation. No case has been made for violating WP:NATURAL policy and using parenthetical disambiguation to produce an unintuitive name like "Ancona (chicken)", which seems to refer to an individual notable chicken named "Ancona". No one is proposing that the official breed name is "Ancona Chicken", fully captalized like that (as it is for breeds in which the species name really is part of the formal breed name, as in American Quarter Horse and Norwegian Forest Cat. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  16:38, 20 September 2014 (UTC)Reply

PS: Why not move them back? Because it was already agreed, even by Jlan, over a month ago that a status quo ante revert would be a waste of time.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  06:43, 26 September 2014 (UTC)Reply

WP:Natural:
"The title is one that readers are likely to look or search for and that editors would naturally use to link to the article from other articles. Such titles usually convey what the subject is actually called in English."
WP:Natural expires when the WP:PRECISION criterion is not good enough. The natural disambiguation is one of three methods employed to avoid using an ambiguous title.
The sources don't lie: Google: "Sebright chicken" -Wikipedia"Sebright+chicken"+-Wikipedia&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8. Everyone, everywhere, all the time disambiguates breed names by appending the species (e.g. "chicken") or a synonym of it (e.g. "fowl") after the breed name whenever writing or speaking about a breed to people who are not necessarily going to be certain what they're referring to. This is universal, across all domestic animals, in English and I'd bet good money most other languages. WP:PRECISION is perfectly satisfied by this natural disambiguation. We've already been over this, and I've demonstrated this many times. You're confusing the idea "someone familiar with the subject would never use it in a context in which what they meant was already clear, e.g. in a chicken-related publication or forum" with the very different and easily, already disproven idea "someone familiar with the subject would never use it in any context, ever". And again, no one is making the case that the formal breed name include the species; that would be Sebright Chicken. No one's making thta claim about any breeds of any kind except those where the inclusion of the species in the breed name is reliably sourced as essentially universal (e.g. American Quarter Horse, Norwegian Forest Cat.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  10:23, 26 September 2014 (UTC)Reply
right, sources don't lie: Google Book Search results for
Lets have a closer look: some are on "Sebright (chicken)" others are about some chicken breeds and Domestic Pigeons from Sir J. Sebright. There is no reference to the Sebrights in Darvins The origin of species., for example.
--PigeonIP (talk) 11:13, 26 September 2014 (UTC)Reply
Oh, I agree with you that Sebright Bantam is a better name; I'm just disagreeing with your earlier suggestion that "Sebright chicken" is wrong. This discussion is further proof that many of these articles need an individual discussion on the merits of what their titles should be, and that reneging on the agreed moratorium on a mass revert to status quo ante of over two months ago would be worse than pointless.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  11:55, 26 September 2014 (UTC)Reply
  • To get back to bantam breeds, are there any that are not bantam variants of larger breeds? – Yes, there are. I pointed you multiple times to the Sebright (chicken). There are others as well. There is also large fowl without a corresponding bantam breed.
  • "Something chickens": SMcCandlish, you moved them all from "Something (chicken)" to "Something chicken", without any expertise. It is common, that, if there is a corresponding bantam breed to large fowl, it is mentioned within the article of the large fowl breed. The bantam breed title redirects there. In most of these cases it is not desirable to have a separate article on the bantam. That is, how writing poultry-articles works, it serves the reader and leads to a better quality of the articles. You don't have to rewrite the informations, that are relevant for both breeds. Those informations, that are interesting for readers not familiar with chicken. --PigeonIP (talk) 08:28, 26 September 2014 (UTC)Reply
  • Okay, then clearly we need "Foo Bantam" for any breed where there is only a bantam form, or for which there is a larger one as well but the bantam form has its own article. I agree that it's generally not desirable to have separate articles in the latter cases, but this is not a merge proposal. This doesn't affect the naming discussion otherwise. If "Foo" is classified as a breed, with two forms, do "Foo chicken" (natural disambiguation). If they're treated as separate breeds, but we want to cover them both in one article, "Foo chickens" (plural). This is not rocket science.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  10:23, 26 September 2014 (UTC)Reply
Articles are already about both. That is the situation at hand! There is no need to request merge (nor to split).
And please think about the reader here! Sebright Bantams and Sebright (chicken) are both fine. The inexpedienced reader is likely not to know, what to expect with Sebright Bantams; Sebright (chicken) is better, on this one (WP:PRECISE) --PigeonIP (talk) 11:13, 26 September 2014 (UTC)Reply
1) I know; I'm not the one who brought that up. I'm saying discussion of whether or not we want articles to be about both is off-topic here, so we need to stop going on about it <sigh>. 2) I am; Sebright Bantam (not plural), if that is the formal name of the breed in some registries, and Sebright chicken (not parenthetical) are both permissible names with regard to that breed, under our naming conventions. If the Sebright came in non-bantam form as well and the article covered both, it should be at Sebright chickens (plural) if they're treated as separate breeds with their own standards, or Sebright chicken if treated as variants of one breed with a single published standard. If "Chicken" is actually part of the formal breed name, it would be Sebright Chicken. If there were a notable individual hen named Sebright, her article would be Sebright (chicken). This is not difficult.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  11:28, 26 September 2014 (UTC)Reply

Comment refering to turkey breeds edit

  • one example: Sphilbrick moved page Buff (turkey) to Buff turkey: Use natural disambiguation when possible, not parentheticals, per WP:AT policy, and like virtually all other animal breed articles[9] (others where done by SMCs)
  • my reference: European list of Poultry Breeds and colours
  • Black turkey --> Black (turkey); the breed is at least not identical with the Norfolk Black, another black turkey (there is a mistake in that article)
  • Bronze turkey --> Bronze (turkey); this American breed is not identical with the German/European bronze, that was the GEHs Endangered breed of the year 2008; it is not identical with the Cambridge bronze, the Black winged bronze and maybe some others
  • Buff turkey --> Buff (turkey); the American breed is not identical with the German/European Buff Turkey, the English Buff Turkey (= nl: Engelsekalkoen buff) (see Listing of European Poultry Breeds and Coulours) and the buff czech turkey as well [10]
  • knowing this and taking in mind that Heritage turkey is not a breed, but a group of turkeys, what is the use of
    • Auburn turkey (breed or any auburn turkey?;
    • Royal Palm turkey (breed or group of breeds?)
    • Slate turkey (breed or group of breeds?) (by the way, the "Blue" or "Lavander" is another on within the PCGB[11]; misinterpretation? another American breed? The american blue turkey is another one... (see EE))
    • White Holland turkey (breed or group of white holland breeds?)

--PigeonIP (talk) 17:26, 20 September 2014 (UTC)Reply

Same issues as with pigeons and chickens, above.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  06:43, 26 September 2014 (UTC)Reply

comment on pigs mentioned in the RM edit

More pig-relatet RMs are at Talk:Asturian Mountain and Talk:Dutch Landrace#Requested moves. The Ukrainian Spotted Steppe (FAO) and Ukrainian White Steppe (FAO) don't have to be distinguished. On Talk:Dutch Landrace#Requested moves are some "Landrace moves" requested. If they have to be distinguished (like the Dutch Landrace), that shall be through a parenthetical disambiguation. Names like Dutch Landrace goat are very uncommon.[15] --PigeonIP (talk) 20:03, 24 September 2014 (UTC)Reply

Same issues as with pigeons, chickens, and turkeys above. On second thought, despite thanking you for the detail level earlier, at this point I'm fairly certain that adding rambling lists here is not elucidating anything, it's just adding verbiage to a discussion in which the principles and rationales for them are already clear enough.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  06:43, 26 September 2014 (UTC)Reply

Reliable sources regularly use natural disambiguation for these breeds edit

Of course, reliable sources (even when they mostly use just the breed name by itself when there's no ambiguity) regularly and predictably use precisely the kind of natural disambiguation as proposed here, when they need to be clear what species they mean (as WP always needs to; we can never presume that any given reader already knows that an article is about cattle or pigs or whatever before going to the article, as one might in a paper about cattle (etc.), and even those often use natural disambiguation anyway). Natural disambiguation is a natural feature of the English language (that's why it's called natural disambiguation, after all). I did this sorucing for a different RM (see Talk:Asturian Mountain#Requested moves) but it's equally applicable here, and similar source can be found for the entries on the RM list up top:

This convincingly shows that breeds have formal names ("Asturian Mountain", " Asturian Valley", "Finnish Ayrshire", "Dorset Down", etc.) to which capitalized species ("Cattle", "Pig", "Sheep" etc. are usually not appended, yet that they are regularly WP:NATURALly disambiguated by reliable sources in the real world, by appending lower-case species. This proves beyond any shadow of doubt that such a practice is not weird here, "a made up name", unnatural, etc. Natural disambiguation is a natural feature of the English language. THat's why it's called that. There is abosolutely no case make here for using unnatural, parenthetical disambiguation. Closing this RM, against prior agreement to not do a status quo ante revert, with a result that leads to just such a status quo ante revert, is simply going to lead in turn to a large number of renewed on-the-merits RM requests to put the articles at naturally disambiguated names, since both policy and reliable sources support this, and no argument backed by either can be or has been made for parenthetical. I'm prepared to make an RS list like the above for every single case on this list if that's what it takes to put a stop to this "let's make up random rules as we go along that are different for geese and for guineapigs and for ferrets". Enough of that nonsense. We have an article titles policy for a reason. WP:AT + WP:RS > WP:ILIKEIT, and there's no way around that, so let's stop stalling.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  18:07, 8 October 2014 (UTC)Reply

is all that fuss really about reading "sheep" in brackets as individual sheep? edit

// as implied with that edit// later added by PigeonIP (talk) 20:10, 24 September 2014 (UTC) so what does (sheep) mean?Reply

  1. individuum of the species sheep
  2. kind of sheep?

I'd love to see the policy on "how to read a bracket".

--PigeonIP (talk) 17:33, 20 September 2014 (UTC)Reply

The best I have seen on offer is: Bracket#Specific uses. You have mentioned WP:NATURAL which shows the extent of instruction in relation to Wikipedia:Article titles#Disambiguation. Otherwise there is a notable absence of mention of brackets in the guidelines. This absence of information may, in itself, say something. Gregkaye ✍♪ 11:54, 25 September 2014 (UTC)Reply
Well, the fact that the one example the policy gives of an animal term followed by a more general animal term is explcitly stated to refer to an individual animal, and hundreds of such animal articles exist using precisely this kind of parenthetical disamiguation (e.g. on racehorse articles) is a very strong indication that the RM contemplated here, to move numerous breed articles [back] to parenthetical disambiguation is a really bad idea.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  06:06, 26 September 2014 (UTC)Reply
    • Did I read this right? "Otherwise there is a notable absence of mention of brackets in the guidelines".
Parenthesis is covered at Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Naming the specific topic articles. #2) "A disambiguating word or phrase can be added in parentheses" but adds "but it is usually better to rephrase such a title to avoid parentheses (for instance, Vector (spatial) was renamed to Euclidean vector).". This is followed by "Natural disambiguation is generally preferable to parenthetical disambiguation;". Usually better to rephrase could be confusing. Adding "If natural disambiguation is not available, a parenthetical is used", might clarify things and possibly mean to use parenthesis as exceptions. I am not sure how we can wikilawyer this to exclude sheep, chicken, and pigs, attempting to add parenthesis to 92 out of 97 articles, but it will be interesting to see how it will play out. Otr500 (talk) 08:14, 30 September 2014 (UTC)Reply
Note. The outcome of this discussion may affect other recent move requests by SMcCandlish including:
Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 13:49, 24 September 2014 (UTC)Reply
You seem to have missed the critique of the reasoning by PigeonIP, et al., above. You're also making a bogus argument to authority and to tenure, in suggesting that "experienced editors in [the topic] area" know more about WP article titling policy that the rest of Wikipedia (see the essay WP:Specialist style fallacy for an exploration of why that's not reasonable [note: I'm not "citing myself" - it's not a guideline, it's simply a page in which some reasoning has been laid out so it can be referred to without re-re-re-repeating it]). You're next engaging in a straw man; no one has suggested anything at all like "Harvard university", much less on the irrational basis that "university" is a natural disambiguator; it's a false analogy. Finally, the outcome of this this RM is unlikely to affect other RMs at all, because it's a request for a status quo ante mass revert of moves from over two months ago, and does not address the merits of any of the names. I've broken them out into groups for discussion on the merits, and most responses to have have been in favor of the moves as they are, or suggestions that each article should be discussed individually. As noted above, there was already an agreement between me, yourself, and the admins most likely to be performing any such moves that we would not be doing a status quo ante revert, but rather discussion the names on their merits. Why is it that you're now so insistent on status quo ante reverts you already agreed not to pursue, and avoiding the substantive discussion of the names?  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  06:06, 26 September 2014 (UTC)Reply
And that's the tip of the iceberg of move requests, there are at least six across multiple articles. May want to consolidate all of these at WP:Agriculture. JMO. Montanabw(talk) 03:46, 25 September 2014 (UTC)Reply
It would be highly irregular to host an RM discussion on the talk page of a wikiproject in which participants are already taking sides in the debate, because every single !vote will trigger watchlist notices for most participants in the project, and this will lead directly to project members dog-piling any comment they don't agree with. It would be blatant vote-stacking and simply lead to a WP:MR dispute. Multi-article RMs are normally (actually, almost universally) hosted at the talk page of one of the articles proposed for moving, and the RM bot will notify the talk pages of the rest. This is standard operating procedure. It's also SoP to group RMs when the issues raised by them are the same or similar, as I've done with Blue Grey and the other small-group RMs noted immediately above. On multiple pages now, you've been venting in an ad hominem manner about this RM format as if it's some kind of wrongdoing on my part, but its the normal and expected method. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  06:11, 26 September 2014 (UTC)Reply
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.
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