Talk:Ayodhya district

Edit notice

Given the continual attempts to change the name despite consensus against and closure/moratorium in the discussion above, I've added an edit notice to the page, visible in preview mode only, and set to expire 22 December 2022, which is three months after the end of the moratorium defined here, to give time to monitor behavior post-moratorium, and to consider removal or extension of the notice. It can be removed at any time, given a consensus to do so. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 19:40, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T201595

One reason the attempted changes keep happening may be due to the large number of mobile interface users who do not see the notice. There are various WP:Phabricator tickets open on this mobile deafness issue, and they've been there for some years. WMF development has their own prioritization procedures, of course, to determine what gets to the top of the queue to work on, but any registered editor is welcome to sign up for updates on a Phab ticket, or even to contribute to them. The edit notices issue is tracked by phab:T201595. For more on mobile web deafness generally, see WP:THEYCANTHEARYOU. Mathglot (talk) 19:17, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

@Mathglot: Please could you set up an edit notice like the one you did in September 2021. Such notices are helpful.-- Toddy1 (talk) 06:47, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

@Toddy1:, sure, busy with some stuff at the moment; I'm a bit forgetful–can you ping me in a day or two if I haven't done it by then? Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 07:01, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

 Done. @Toddy1:, should be done, now. Can you check my work, read the notice, check that dates look correct, follow/check the links? Thanks. Mathglot (talk) 06:28, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

Thanks. All seems fine. -- Toddy1 (talk) 07:08, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

Requested move 14 March 2023

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

The result of the move request was: no consensus, moratorium until September 14, 2024. There yet again does not seem to be a consensus between the Wikipedia:Common name and Wikipedia:Official name. The proposed moratorium passes. (closed by non-admin page mover) {{ping|ClydeFranklin}} (t/c) 00:38, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

Per consensus at Wikipedia:Move review/Log/2023 April, the above closure is overturned to moved to Ayodhya district. The moratorium until September 14, 2024, will remain in place. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 03:37, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

---

Faizabad district → Ayodhya district – WikiEdits2003 (talk) 19:49, 14 March 2023 (UTC) — Relisting. BilledMammal (talk) 23:41, 29 March 2023 (UTC) — Relisting. {{ping|ClydeFranklin}} (t/c) 00:30, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

Survey

• Oppose – The data simply does not support it. This echoes User:Fylindfotberserk's March 2021 comment in a previous Rfc, since which little has changed:
  • web: "faizabad district": 131k :: "ayodhya district" = 51k
  • Scholar: "faizabad district" 1,860 :: "ayodhya district" 121

Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 09:29, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose. I agree with Mathglot. I noticed that their search results including a few results for Faizabad in Afghanistan. So I repeated their searches excluding Afghanistan, Pakistan and Wiki. It affected the numbers, but not the conclusions. Interestingly it showed that for news, the usage is about equal. Note that when I went to the last page of search results for news, the numbers dropped massively.

Search results excluding Afghanistan, Pakistan and Wiki
	"Faizabad District"	"Ayodhya District"
Web search	187,000	98,500
Scholar search	1,060	86
News search (first page)	1,300	1,400
News search (last page)	228	217

-- Toddy1 (talk) 10:55, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

• What am I missing here?. The place was renamed a few years ago, so of course sources published before that would use the old name. What matters is the usage in the sources published since then. If you restrict the the news searches above to results from the past year, you get 13 pages for the new name [1] vs. 3 for the old one [2]. Unless I'm missing something, this clearly indicates the new name has caught up now. – Uanfala (talk) 15:52, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

You can do this for Google scholar as well. The Uttar Pradesh cabinet approved the change of name in November 2018.^[3] So this is how Google scholar results vary by year - note that there is some miscoding by Google, for example a 2020 document showed up in the 2000-2017 group:

Search results excluding Afghanistan, Pakistan and Wiki
Scholar search year	"Faizabad District"	"Ayodhya District"
2023	5	2
2022	55	28
2021	50	12
2020	67	19
2019	58	10
2018	85	0
2000-2017	505	6

-- Toddy1 (talk) 16:57, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for these results. I've had a look at the first page of 10 results for Faizabad for 2022. Only the first two genuinely support the usage of "Faizabad". One has only a passing mention of the place when reporting on a 2017 study, another was actually published in 2019, while those two [4] [5] were published in 2022 but reported on fieldwork that took place earlier (in 2013-4 and 2019-20 resp.). This one likewise discusses only historical data (from the 19th century). This one employs both "Faizabad" and "Ayodhya", while other one uses only "Ayodhya". That one refers to the place in Pakistan. Overall, of these 10 results, only 2 (possibly up to 4) support the older usage. – Uanfala (talk) 17:51, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

Checking book results, limited to last three years, via unbiased search open to both terms at the same time: Results: 28–7, in favor of "Faizabad district" (counting documents, not individual terms). For scholar, of the top 50 we have results: 25–15 (same query, same time restriction; tally is number of documents, so multiple mentions in the same document counts as "1" hit; fifty requested, you may have to page through results to get all 50.) Mathglot (talk) 18:27, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't think I'm able to see how these tweaks address the problems I pointed out before? – Uanfala (talk) 15:17, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

Name Ayodhya adheres Wikipedia:COMMONNAME and based on statistics it is injustice to title Ayodhya which in reality makes sense WikiEdits2003 (talk) 18:36, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

• My point here is to say that Ayodhya district named after Ayodhya not Faizabad as mentioned Both are distinct place

  So Naming District Faizabad is completely changing it's true identity

  And name Ayodhya is no doubt Wikipedia:COMMONNAME WikiEdits2003 (talk) 16:57, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

  You're not missing anything, wrt news. It's normal that newspapers reports news events and changes; it's what the news is. Media companies that published articles about non-events, such as, " 'Faizabad district' still used a lot, despite official name change" would not sell any newspapers. (edit conflict × 3) Mathglot (talk) 17:07, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

  Wikipedia:Reasonability rule

  Example:

  Lucknow district is named after City of Lucknow which is more popular and have more population and that's why district is named after Lucknow so that also applies here too because Ayodhya is more popular name for district that's why renamed

  If District would have named for example Superior district then its not a common name WikiEdits2003 (talk) 17:51, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

• Support. Whatever your opinion of the politics that led to the name change five year ago, and whatever your view of the continuing disruption to this page, it's clear that the official name has now become the common name. The Google News results for last year show that the new name has outpaced the old one by a factor of four. As for the Google Scholar links, if the first page of results is representative, then once you filter out the irrelevant results (i.e. historic discussions, entries in bibliographies, etc.) then the new name is at least as common, or up to twice as common, as the old name. – Uanfala (talk) 15:17, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

  Per data presented above, it's clear it hasn't. We rely on WP:COMMONNAME, which is one of the policy criteria at WP:AT, rather than official name changes, and to the extent that news sources report news, they should all report official name changes (as they all did, and as well they should) but that does not mean that that is part of our article title naming criteria, and indeed it is not. Mathglot (talk) 04:58, 21 March 2023 (UTC) redacted; Mathglot (talk) 19:39, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

  Yes, per the data above exactly! I'm not sure I understand the latter part of your comment though. Are you suggesting that news sources should be ignored when looking at usage? – Uanfala (talk) 17:02, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

  News sources should not be ignored; they should be interpreted per the criteria in article title policy, including the remarks on "official name" usage. Sorry for the confusion on meaning; I had left out a word (fixed). Mathglot (talk) 19:39, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

  Sorry, I still totally fail to get your point. Obviously we should be following the article titles policy, no-one is suggesting otherwise. The relevant question here is: after the official name changed in 2018, which usage has prevailed in reliable English-language sources, the old one or the new one. That's what we're supposed to be looking at, right? – Uanfala (talk) 22:14, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

  Right. Mathglot (talk) 22:38, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

  My point was then: when we look at Google News results for the past year, we see some uses of the old name, but a lot more for the new one. We agree on that point, right? It's your counterargument here that I don't understand. – Uanfala (talk) 22:54, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

  Yes. Sorry if I wasn't clearer, but I've said enough; time for others to bring their point of view. Cheers, Mathglot (talk) 01:43, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

  Well, I was hoping we could clear whatever misunderstanding there's been. And I like to think there's been a misunderstanding, because otherwise I find your opposition completely incomprehensible. So far, it seems like slam-dunk obvious case for the move. – Uanfala (talk) 20:01, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

  If the concern with the Google News results is that they cast too wide a net and so also catch unreliable sources, then just pick you favourite publication in search only there. For example, see the Times of India hits for the past year: 27 for "Ayodhya district" [6] vs. just 5 for "Faizabad district" [7] (of these five, 3 appear to be incorrectly dated, 1 is a false match, while another uses the term only when referencing the renaming from 5 years ago). So, effectively all of the pages on this online newspaper now use the new name.

  And if we want to seek reliable sources from Google Books or Scholar instead, then we need to make sure the results are actually about the contemporary, and not historic, context. I've already outlined above why at least three quarters of the Google Scholar hits for Faizabad need to be discarded on these grounds. I can see a similar pattern on Google Books, but with an even heavier skew towards historic contexts. – Uanfala (talk) 23:58, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

  Districts are generally named after most populous or most popular place and Ayodhya is obviously more popular than Faizabad WikiEdits2003 (talk) 15:47, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

  [8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16] WikiEdits2003 (talk) 09:07, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

Discussion

• Proposed 18-month moratorium before the next move may be opened. It's getting *really* tiresome, and WP:DISRUPTive, to have to deal with these repeated move requests, which are made regularly, completely oblivious to the fact that nothing whatsoever has changed since the last one, and that the data does not support a move at this time, and that it is a giant time-waster for numerous editors. I have nothing against changing the title of this article, if and when article title policy supports it, but I *do* have something against being called here repeatedly, to state the same thing, over and over and over again. I don't doubt the good faith intentions of the OP, but this needs to be throttled down, so we don't waste editor time needlessly. Future good-faith editors should be gently reminded that this has been decided recently already. The next move request should not occur before September 14, 2024, when perhaps, the picture will be different. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 09:36, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

• Agree with an 18-month moratorium. What Mathglot says makes good sense. And an 18-month moratorium has worked with Allahabad.-- Toddy1 (talk) 10:57, 15 March 2023 (UTC)
• Yes please to the moratorium. Dāsānudāsa (talk) 11:53, 15 March 2023 (UTC)
• Question: Are there any analogous disputed article titles for districts and the like? While the politics of this decision do recall those which surround the naming of Allahabad, that is the name of a singular city, and its official name will never be viable as a common name as it is not recognisable or pronounceable name from the perspective of the majority of the Indian public. Whereas the name of districts as opposed to cities is generally not expected to be an interpretation of popular opinion. The title of this article has no bearing on those of the respective cities involved and I wonder if a similar decision to retain a defunct official name has been made elsewhere.

It also may be worth pointing out that if you are to look at many local government websites for districts in India and Pakistan you will find content copy and pasted directly from English Wikipedia on them. It is quite likely that at least some of the recent news articles which used Faisabad district as the name did so simply because that is the title of this article. --عُثمان (talk) 01:07, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

Are there any analogous disputed article titles? Yes, I have seen them for other places in India, South Africa, and the Ukraine. Some go one way, some go the other. Local people often do not like name changes - people in Dnepropetrovsk called the police to try to stop council workmen cutting off the "petrovsk" in a sign in the city. -- Toddy1 (talk) 13:46, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

That would be another example of a city. I mean for an administrative entity distinct and named differently from a city contained within it. عُثمان (talk) 04:27, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

Dnepropetrovsk is an example. The government renamed the city "Dnipro" in 2016, but the oblast remained Dnipropetrovsk oblast.-- Toddy1 (talk) 10:15, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

@عُثمان title must be changed to Ayodhya district. it is commonly Known now. allahabad will also be changed after April 2023. Rahil1610 (talk) 18:11, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

Ayodhya district must be the title name

I am from Bikapur town, in Ayodhya district. In last few years Ayodhya is the common name of this district. I don't want to show you any source for it. Because everyone knows that Ayodhya is now common name. Ayodhya district is good for the title name Bikapur (talk) 01:47, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

"I don't want to show you any source for it" isn't really how things work round here... Dāsānudāsa (talk) 10:02, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

From my opinion Ayodhya is far common name than Faizabad WikiEdits2003 (talk) 15:44, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

That is not what Google shows.-- Toddy1 (talk) 18:51, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

Huh? Where? – Uanfala (talk) 23:54, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

@Uanfala change the name as Ayodhya district. Rahil1610 (talk) 18:09, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

@Toddy1 obviously Google will show faizabad because it was official 2 years ago. Does it take 10-20 years to pass that count as according to you ??! what a stupid arguments. Rahil1610 (talk) 18:19, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

@Bikapur it's been more than 2 years and it is still as Faizabad. while officially declared as Ayodhya district. I agree. change it. Rahil1610 (talk) 18:18, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

move Faizabad district to Ayodhya district

move it as it's official and commonly being used. Rahil1610 (talk) 18:20, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

The official name of this district is Ayodhya district since 2018. Wikipedia should change the title name as Ayodhya district. Ayodhya district is also now the common name of this district. Bikapur (talk) 18:34, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

 Not done - We use the Common names in English for our articles, not the "Official names", as changing the name breaks internal links to those articles, and is confusing to our readers: Bangalore was renamed Bengalūru, as the city's official name in 2006, but we still use Bangalore.
As a longer standing example, Wien has been the official name of the capital of Österreich (another official name) for hundreds of years, but we won't be changing either name in the foreseeable future - Arjayay (talk) 19:35, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

The name Ayodhya has always been enshrined in the hearts of the people. And this is the beloved name of this district. The common name of the city of Bengaluru is still Bangalore, for all I know. But the famous and common name of this district is Ayodhya and this is the correct name. If you don't want to change the name of Faizabad district on Wikipedia, don't change it but don't give useless examples which have no meaning. Bikapur (talk) 19:50, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

@Bikapur exactly my point, nobody says faizabad anymore. By the way he doesn't have the ownership of wikipedia. it will be changed after sometime. Rahil1610 (talk) 10:27, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

@Arjayay if you don't know, there is a feature of redirect for any other name in wikipedia, i wanna tell you. Official name is official afterall. it will be change. Rahil1610 (talk) 10:30, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

Please change the district name as Ayodhya district

The government had renamed Faizabad district as Ayodhya district in 2018. The name Ayodhya is the most famous and common name since 2018. Due to the name of this district being Ayodhya, the people here have got proper recognition and popularity. Every time you give the example of Bangalore city and say that we did not change its name. You have changed the name of both Gulbarga city and district to Kalaburagi on Wikipedia. Please change the name of Faizabad district to Ayodhya district. Chaure Bazar (talk) 21:15, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/karnataka-belgaum-mysore-names-of-12-cities-changed-kannada-223614-2014-10-17

you are right The Karnataka government had renamed 12 cities in 2014, including Bangalore and Gulbarga. Even in Wikipedia, the name of Gulbarga city and district has been changed to Kalaburagi. Ayodhya is the correct name of this district. It is a request to Wikipedia that you change the name of this district to Ayodhya district. Bikapur (talk) 21:50, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

Relisting comment: One last try... {{ping|ClydeFranklin}} (t/c) 00:30, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Closure overturned—article renamed

Could someone please link the discussion for the overturning of the closure of this RM? Adding Extraordinary Writ. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 20:17, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

To editor Mathglot: the MRV discussion at Wikipedia:Move review/Log/2023 April, "Faizabad district", is linked in the MRV talk template at the top of this move request. Welcome. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. ^{put'er there} 05:32, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

It's been years, so ayodhya district should be named as ayodhya district. Not faizabad Rahil1610 (talk) 01:37, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

Move Faizabad division to Ayodhya division also. Rahil1610 (talk) 01:38, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

Request this be named to Ayodhya

Hello, I was trying to look into ayodhya information and I was quite shocked that this article still uses old name, which at this point has become ancient history in India and for tourists looking to visit the city. I find this counterintuitive to wikipedias goal as being a free open encyclopedia of knowledge, when it refuses to change with times. I came across this trying to find places of interest in ayodhya for tourism purposes, given my coworker who is from this city references her city using "ayodhya" Yukmenk (talk) 01:39, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

Hi @Yukmenk, you may be correct in some aspects, as you have stated that the rename will benefit tourists and provided an example of your coworker referring to it as Ayodhya. However, it is important to note that Wikipedia requires evidence to support claims and must follow the principle of WP:COMMONNAME. Technical evidence has been submitted by users in the Talk:Prayagraj discussion, which has resulted in a peaceful debate and subsequently renaming from Allahabad to Prayagraj. If you have strong evidence to support your proposal, please provide it here and request a move. However, please refer to the aforementioned discussion on the rename/move before doing so." 456legend(talk) 07:15, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

Move review started here Wikipedia:Move_review/Log/2023_April.— Preceding unsigned comment added by CapnJackSp (talk • contribs) 04:44, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

Please change Faizabad division Wikipedia page title name

As the name of this page has been moved to Ayodhya district, so now the names of the pages like Faizabad division, (Kumarganj, Faizabad), (Amaniganj, Faizabad), (Maya Bazar, Faizabad) and Faizabad Cantt be also changed to Ayodhya division, (Kumarganj, Ayodhya), (Amaniganj, Ayodhya), (Maya Bazar, Ayodhya) and Ayodhya Cantt respectively. Bikapur (talk) 08:28, 6 May 2023 (UTC)