Talk:Clutha River

Requested move 7 January 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 to move EdJohnston (talk) 04:48, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

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Clutha River → Clutha River / Mata-Au – Various sources use the dual name, as shown in the move request from 15 September 2021. Additionally, the use of dual names is becoming more common in New Zealand. Michael60634 (talk) 05:33, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose. Overwhelmingly the commonest name in English-language sources. Only moved after an RM last year. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:25, 11 January 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose. The current name is definitely the most common. Also, last RM (ended with move to this name) happened just more than half a year ago. Alfa-ketosav (talk) 16:16, 12 January 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose. Let’s please not relitigate this over and over without some change in circumstance. If I weren’t already an involved party I would close this as an inappropriate RM. Present title is WP:COMMONNAME, as well as more concise and natural, per WP:CRITERIA (with no loss to precision or recognition). — HTGS (talk) 04:22, 13 January 2023 (UTC)
• Support It's been the official name for 25 years, we may's well update it. Also provides clear disambiguation from other Cluthas. Being changed recently isn't by itself a reason to oppose the change - Milford Sound / Piopiotahi was changed 3 times in the last 3 years. TreeReader (talk) 07:16, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

  Milford Sound was not moved three times. It was moved once based on a badly worded wiki project guideline, and then, once that guideline was changed, it was discussed twice with the result that it was moved back. The same thing happened here, but now we have someone (agf) naïvely missing the context around the moves. — HTGS (talk) 20:51, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

  Right, Milford sound was moved twice, my bad. The point remains that recent-ness of the change isn't a reason to ignore the request to move. What seems to happen is that the same arguments are used in every single move request, and the only reason they change back and forth is how many interested editors see the move and have the energy to vote. TreeReader (talk) 00:02, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

  My impression is that the more participants from outside New Zealand, the more likely a move is to end in the non-dual name, and (imo) better follow policy and standards as they are applied to every other article on Wikipedia. But either way, I don’t know that reopening discussion without a change in circumstance is productive to the general atmosphere. — HTGS (talk) 01:15, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

  You do also get a higher risk of people misapplying policy and standards, though. Such as by assuming that a dual name is a construct on the part of the nominator (such as "Derry / Londonderry" or "Mount Taranaki / Egmont" would be) as opposed to something which is actually used as a name, to whatever extent that may be. Turnagra (talk) 01:40, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

• Support The dual name for the river has extensive usage in all the sort of sources which WP:WIAN tells us to use, especially when discussing the river in a contemporary context (many sources use just Clutha River when discussing the river in a historical context around the gold rush, which is consistent with Wikipedia's usage of outdated/historical names. Use of a dual name is consistent with dozens of other geographic features which have official dual names, including the rivers Dart River / Te Awa Whakatipu, Avon River / Ōtākaro, Ōpāwaho / Heathcote River and Waiau Toa / Clarence River, among others. In addition to the precision bonus mentioned above, the current title is no more natural than a dual name, and contrary to other users' claims is much more recognisable by virtue of covering all three names the river may be known as in a neat little package. Further to this, complaints about the length of time between move requests seem slightly disingenouus when the current title was reached by a move request roughly the same length of time after the previous one, with much lower participation. Turnagra (talk) 09:14, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

  All of those rivers use the dual name as “natural” disambiguation… an argument you make whenever possible, yet you now want to use them as examples to set our clocks by? I can accept there’s a certain amount of logic to the natural dab angle—even if it’s not the dab I would use—but that’s not necessary here. — HTGS (talk) 10:09, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

  Excuse me, the Ōpāwaho / Heathcote River doesn’t need disambiguation from any other Heathcote. It might be time to reevaluate that while we’re in the reevaluation mood. — HTGS (talk) 10:12, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

  I tend to agree. That page should be moved as well. --Spekkios (talk) 12:23, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

  WP:POINT. Turnagra (talk) 17:33, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

  WP:NOTPOINTY. But honestly, I did a cursory check and that river is a great counter example to this page. The dual name is in common use, and there’s probably as many written sources using the dual name as the single name. If it were to be moved it would only be for the advantages inherent to a shorter name (as with United Kingdom vs United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland). — HTGS (talk) 20:36, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

  I used those examples as they're rivers. We could also use Aoraki / Mount Cook, Lake Ellesmere / Te Waihora, Codfish Island / Whenua Hou and so on. Turnagra (talk) 17:34, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

  Yes, but the point is that dual names on Wikipedia usually have some strong basis for their use outside of consistency, because they are inconsistent with the entire rest of the world’s place names. I could suggest we use the Māori names for all of these places because then we would be consistent with the Whanganui River, the Mangakino Stream, Lake Taupō and Mount Tarawera, but I would be cherry picking consistency where there is no basis for it. — HTGS (talk) 20:46, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

  The big difference was that there was a major change in the guideline between the first two move requests. As far as I can tell nothing new has been brought to this move request Aircorn (talk) 18:25, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

  Disingenuous is as disingenuous does. — HTGS (talk) 20:58, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose: This is a WP:SNOWCLOSE. "Various sources" does not prove that the name is the WP:COMMONNAME, and in terms of our process, doesn't mean anything. "Becoming more common" does not prove that the name is the WP:COMMONNAME, and is clear WP:CRYSTALBALL. No, we do not "update" names because it's official and we "might as well", that's completely antithetical to the Wikipedia standards. --Spekkios (talk) 09:17, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

  I said 'might as well' because I was trying to be polite. I think updating the name of this article reflects common language in NZ, so yes, I call it updating. This is not about every technical wiki rule you can dig up. It is about using New Zealand English for articles about New Zealand. NZE includes Māori placenames. You seem strongly opposed to ever using Māori names, even though this is about dual naming, where both names sit equally. I accept we're always going to disagree on this.TreeReader (talk) 00:07, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

  The New Zealand English place name for this river is "Clutha River". Look at the number of articles in the last year that use Clutha River compared to the dual name. It's not even close. Go ask people what name they call this river and I guarantee you they will answer "Clutha River" and not "Clutha River Mata Au", just like people these days are going to probably answer "Mount Taranaki" when asked what the mountain near New Plymouth is called. The current name is a reflection of what the river is actually called by the majority of people who live there. You can't claim that "NZE includes Māori placenames" as a catch-all to argue for a using a name for an article that people simply don't use in normal conversation.

  Furthermore, I completely reject the idea that I "seem strongly opposed to ever using Māori names". That is complete bullshit. I support the appropriate implementation of Wikipedia naming WP:CRITERIA, and not using things like having "both names sit equally" as if that is what Wikipedia uses as it's naming criteria. Read through the policies on naming and point out to me where "both names sit equally" is used as a guideline instead of making accusations about the intentions of other editors. --Spekkios (talk) 02:33, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

• Support. Dual names are becoming increasingly more common in NZ English. I note NZ news outlets incl. Radio New Zealand, Stuff and Otago Daily Times have used the name in their reports within the last year.[1][2][3] VolcanicMan (talk) 11:00, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

  We can just as easily point out when those outlets haven't used the dual name in the past year, eg: RNZ, Stuff, ODT. --Spekkios (talk) 22:05, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

• Support This name is constantly increasing in usage. It meets all the requirements of Widely Accepted Name at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic names)

Major English-language encyclopedias (examples: Encyclopædia Britannica, Columbia Encyclopedia); - Encyclopedia Britannica uses the dual name

Widely used atlases (examples: The Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World, the Oxford Atlas of the World); - These now use the full name

Gazetteers (examples: Cambridge World Gazetteer, Columbia Gazetteer of North America, Omni Gazetteer of the United States of America); The NZ Gazetteer uses the dual place name

Databases such as the Geographic Names Information System; - This is a US system. The NZ place name gazetterer is where NZ place names are recorded and uses the dual name. So does the US Library of Congress

Maps (such as those from the National Geographic Society), whether printed or electronic. NZ Topo map use the dual name as does Google Maps

Many governments have an agency to standardize the use of place names, such as the United States Board on Geographic Names (see BGN below), the Geographical Names Board of Canada, etc. - In new Zealand that is Toitū Te Whenua Land Information New Zealand and the New Zealand Geographic Board. They update and maintain the gazetterer. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ShakyIsles (talk • contribs) 20:11, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose no new evidence has been presented since the previous move request, where it was proven that the common name is the current article title. WP:CONCISE and MOS:SLASH are also reasons to prefer the current title. BilledMammal (talk) 06:19, 18 January 2023 (UTC)
• Support as per nom, and as per the supporting comments made by others above. Rather than go back over the usual talking points, two new contributions:

• "Go ask people what name they call this river and I guarantee you they will answer "Clutha River" ". This argument has been used in many New Zealand move discussions. It's an inherently biased argument, in the sense of selection bias. Of course the answer to that question will depend on who is asked. If they are people you know or meet, they're likely to return the same answer as you would.
• Another key citation: Te Ara: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand is using Clutha River/Mata-Au

Somej (talk) 00:08, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

The Te Ara link kind of sums up the whole situation. The title, a caption and the first sentence use the dual name. There follows 17 mentions of just "Clutha" without the other part of the name throughout the article when referring to the river (plus a few mentions to ships or people that are not helpful in determining common name). Basically the dual name is in the process of becoming more popular, but is still vastly out numbered by just plain "Clutha" Aircorn (talk) 00:26, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

In a theoretical poll of 10,000 people I highly doubt that the majority of them would answer "Clutha River Mata Au" over "Clutha River". Te Ara does use "Clutha River / Mata Au" once, and then proceeds to just use "Clutha" for the rest of the article, which is actually an argument in favour of the current title. --Spekkios (talk) 02:19, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

"I highly doubt" = "I assert". Opinion noted.

"Majority" - Wikipedia doesn't operate by majority voting.

Somej (talk) 18:34, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Do you assert otherwise? Do you understand that the majority of the population using a name would be evidence towards WP:COMMONNAME? --Spekkios (talk) 04:46, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

Please rephrase your reply to align with Wikipedia:No personal attacks Somej (talk) 23:30, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

There are now personal attacks in my reply. I would appreciate an honest answer to my question. --Spekkios (talk) 08:19, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

Ignoring the substance of this conversation, but that's one of the most hilariously unfortunate typos I've seen. Turnagra (talk) 08:46, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

Yeah I snorted at that one.

@Somej, aside from whether or not that was a personal attack—because I’m having a real hard time seeing it that way—you might do well to actually follow that link and read it, especially First offenses and isolated incidents. — HTGS (talk) 13:32, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

Note to closer: User:TreeReader notified users Turnagra and ShakyIsles of this RM. These users are non-neutral, given their participation in discussions above, as well as in other, equivalent move discussions. While this is WP:VOTESTACKING, I only bring this up here as simple notification of facts, not as pursuit for censure. — HTGS (talk) 21:59, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

As I mentioned in my reply to TreeReader on my talk page, I was already well aware of this move request and was in the process of formulating my post when they messaged me. I also alerted them to the issues with that sort of post, and as a result they reverted their message to ShakyIsles. It also seems like somewhat of a questionable move to try and discredit two users who are frequent participants in moves like this and almost certainly would have commented anyway - especially since we both have different views to yours on this and doing so could sway the outcome. Turnagra (talk) 01:41, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

I didn't even see the message in question. It appears it was quickly removed. I was made aware of the requested move as I follow this page (as i do with most NZ rivers) and I have made frequent edits to this and other pages of NZ geographic features over a number of years. ShakyIsles (talk) 01:05, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

One of the issues with canvassing is that it can backfire by discrediting the !votes of editors who would have contributed anyway; you contribute to most of these discussions, and ShakyIsles contributes to many, but neither of you contribute to all. I don't see a consensus to move even counting your !votes, but it is an important lesson to learn as this is the second time editors supporting these types of moves have been caught canvassing. BilledMammal (talk) 10:37, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

I think you're adding 2 and 2 to get 5 here - I obviously have no control over what other users do (much as I'd love to...). Perhaps it comes down to there being a much wider range of people who support dual names but have less engagement in this process or experience (and less experience with what is and isn't allowed), in contrast to the smaller but more persistent group who oppose them? Turnagra (talk) 18:44, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

This is what I was trying to avoid; I’m not looking to discredit anyone, nor is this the place for a conversation about user behaviour. The editor who closes the RM can easily assess and decide how to deal with the impact on the decision. FWIW, I believe Turnagra when he says he would have voted anyway; I have less faith in ShakyIsles, as he would definitely have been notified by a post and its removal on his talk page.

As Turnagra has pointed out, I believe TreeReader got the message loud and clear from Turnagra, but anyone who has more advice for her should comment on her talk page, not here. Turnagra, I fully respect your pointing out your side of the situation, but if you want to talk to me about how I brought this up or whether I should have, please do so on my talk page. (And I think BilledMammal was talking about TreeReader, as general advice, not necessarily directly to you.) — HTGS (talk) 20:52, 1 February 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.

References