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Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3Archive 4Archive 5→Archive 8

What the heck???

A clear majority of people in the above debate have supported a change, many reasons have been given for the change. The previous title RM a few years ago was closed too early. Why on earth has the outcome of the above debate been to keep the article in the same location.

This is a shocking conclusion. BritishWatcher (talk) 13:30, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Moves are based on consensus, not majority. Orange Tuesday (talk) 13:32, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
Does consensus need unanimity? The clear majority supported a change. What a complete waste of over 10 days of people taking part in this RM and attempting to justify a change if their views are overruled and we are stuck with this non English name on an English wikipedia website.
What a joke. BritishWatcher (talk) 13:35, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Consensus

I read through all the supporting argument, and there was no clear argument made, no benefits explained, nor evidence of any confusion with existing name, nor a need to disambiguate. Lots of personal preference, no discussion on the broader impact. Lots of looking around Google, not much looking around Wikipedia

The argument also didn't address other pages, such as

which would be implicated/affected by the renaming. If you think that this decision is in error, and it requires a larger approach then please look to Wikipedia:Requests for comment to make it an holistic argument. billinghurst sDrewth 13:57, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

What is the point in having a RFC when a clear majority in support of something doesnt make any difference anyway. It would be a complete waste of time like this has been. I thought the argument was clear. This is the English wikipedia and the common English name should be used for its title. Côte_d'Ivoire does not look like an English name as far as im concerned, i think its in a foreign language. My god the world would be a complete mess if we were dictated to by every single country demanding their name be spelt always in their own language. I am just lost for words, where will it all end. :\ BritishWatcher (talk) 14:09, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
An RFC is a broader community discussion, and would involve all the pages with the naming, and the named project, etc. When I have further reviewed the history of the archives, there is the third discussion (1st), which is not clearer annunciated in the above discussion. A consensus on this topic would be an indication of a clear and decisive position, with indications of the effects and how they were going to be managed and that wasn't evident. The point of a review is so that we do not to trivialise matters to be a discussion to the language origin of a name, and instead to consider the broader implications of the effects of a decision. The tool for your desired change is an RFC, and the choice whether to use them or not are yours, and yours alone. billinghurst sDrewth 14:30, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
So if we have a RFC and a majority (along the lines of the above RM vote) supported using Ivory coast throughout wikipedia not just changing this articles name, would it be implemented? or would we simply be told there is no consensus because a minority disagree? BritishWatcher (talk) 14:37, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
Consensus will still rule, and one cannot predict an RFC, nor the outcomes, the best guide is the history of what has preceded it. The advantage of an RFC is that they guiding solutions, and would be seen to be all encompassing, though they take longer. Wikipedia:Requests for comment/All Special:PrefixIndex/Wikipedia:Requests for comment billinghurst sDrewth 14:56, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
I too was shocked, whats the point of voting? Are you saying that if one person voted BUT with a really good point, he would overrule 20 people against him? But to be honest this shocked me because in the last RM there was no majority, now there IS a majority but still no move? It is clear that sources are split, but because this wikipedia uses English surely THAT is more important than what a country wants us to call it? The UK government wants us to call Derry; Londonderry, but on Wikipedia we don't (and yes, sources are very split there too). Bezuidenhout (talk) 18:29, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
Move requests are not majority votes and never have been. I'm sorry if you expected otherwise, but that is just not the way the Wikipedia works. Orange Tuesday (talk) 18:37, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
Majority view or not, i reject the view that the above (completely pointless debate as it has been ignored and overruled) made a stronger case for the article to stay at its present location. I accept the technical argument billinghurst has mentioned about the implications for other articles. But that is a matter for those articles or a wider debate. This RM should have been about this page and the arguments made on both sides relating to this article. BritishWatcher (talk) 18:42, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
The admin didn't say the that there was a consensus for Côte d'Ivoire. He said that there was no specific consensus and that both terms are acceptable in English usage. That seems like a fair assessment of the above discussion to me. Orange Tuesday (talk) 19:07, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
There was far more support for the article to be moved to its correct English name at Ivory Coast than there was to keep it here at its French name. Just imagine if every single country on the planet proclaimed they want their country always described in their own language. This English wikipedia would be a complete joke when it comes to country article names. BritishWatcher (talk) 19:11, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
Yes well, we don't live in that alternate universe. We live in the universe where one country requested that we use its native name 25 years ago. And over the course of that quarter-century, "Côte d'Ivoire" has gradually entered English usage and become as common as "Ivory Coast". Yes it is more common in some contexts and less common in others, but it is still common, and while you may not personally feel that "Côte d'Ivoire" is English, the multitude of English sources that use the term untranslated tell a different story. English usage is not dictated by your personal preferences. That's why this wasn't a vote. Orange Tuesday (talk) 19:25, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
I dont know what disturbs me more, the outcome of this RM or the fact this little african country is able to attack the English language in such a way and dictate to the world with such arrogance in a way no other country does. Some demand certain titles be used, but as far as im aware they do not try to impose its language name be adopted in other languages. Is the English language the only language attacked or does this country try force other languages to adopt French spellings too? BritishWatcher (talk) 19:31, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
Oh i have thought of an example, The Republic of Ireland trying to make nations call their prime minister the "Taoiseach" but that is slightly different to forcing the English speaking world to call a country by its French name. BritishWatcher (talk) 19:37, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
"attack the English language"? Will you listen to yourself? You're veering hard into nationalist POV territory now. This discussion is not about what Côte d'Ivoire has the right to do. It is about current English usage and nothing more. Orange Tuesday (talk) 19:42, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
The fact remains the majority of people who took part in the RM considered the facts and decided that they believe Ivory Coast is the Common English name still for this country. That may change in a decade or two as the attack on the language continues. This has nothing to do with nationalism. I dont speak a word of Spanish and never want to but i would reject the idea a French spelling be imposed on the Spanish language by a few individuals sitting in some government building somewhere. BritishWatcher (talk) 19:49, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
Yes, the majority wanted a move. So what? RMs are not votes. And frankly, your insistence on framing this as some kind of "attack" suggests to me that you have no interest in assessing the situation objectively or impassionately. Orange Tuesday (talk) 19:57, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
Ive assessed the situation and come to my conclusions on this matter long ago. I have laid out some of my concerns about the verdict of the RM below. I feel rather strongly about this matter, i am sorry but to me it does seem like an attack on the English language.. not by editors here, but by the state and the basic principle of what is taking place. You shrugged off my point about how the world would look if all countries acted in this way, but you must admit it would be a mess. BritishWatcher (talk) 20:02, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
Maybe it would be and maybe it wouldn't, but as long as it remains a hypothetical scenario it's not really our concern. We are writing an encyclopedia based on reliable sources, not trying to save the English language by enforcing some kind of etymologically pure country naming standard. Orange Tuesday (talk) 20:09, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
With the exception of the implications for other articles which i accept is an issue but question if they are meant to play a role in deciding the outcome of this individual RM i do not see how it is a fair verdict on the above debate.
  • "there was no clear argument made" - Even if the outcome was to reject the argument, to claim no clear argument was made throughout that RM is shocking.
  • "no benefits explained" - Using the English Common name for the English language wikipedia would seem a benefit to me.
  • " nor evidence of any confusion with existing name" - The fact we are having to have this debate about the article title is evidence of there being confusion with the existing name. People in the west know it as Ivory Coast and think the current title is its FRENCH name which should not be the title of the article on the English Language Wikipedia.
  • "Lots of looking around Google, not much looking around Wikipedia" - This point really took the biscuit. What other country article uses a non English title/name on the English Wikipedia.
I am simply shocked at the outcome of this RM. I am lost for words. BritishWatcher (talk) 19:23, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
You have both made valid points but Orange Tuesday, surely the English language comes first over what a country wants us to call it (assuming results are split equally, which they are in reality not)? Bezuidenhout (talk) 22:11, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
Côte d'Ivoire is used in the English language. Just because a phrase is derived from another language doesn't make it not English! We incorporate loanwords into the language all the time, especially when we're dealing with foreign geographical names. This is a basic linguistic point that seems to be eluding everyone.
When I talk about sources being split, I'm not talking about sources in one language using one term and sources in another term using another. I'm talking about English sources. The evidence presented in the RM clearly showed both terms being routinely used in a wide array of English language sources. Reputable news agencies, official government sources, scholarly articles, general google resuts, there are multiple examples of both names being used in all of these areas. Sometimes they're used together, and sometimes only one is used. There are contexts where Ivory Coast is more common than Côte d'Ivoire (e.g. World Cup coverage), and there are contexts where Ivory Coast is less common than Côte d'Ivoire (e.g. diplomacy). But I don't think there is any clear evidence for either term being the single most commonly used term in the language as a whole.
Ultimately we have to look at English sources to determine English usage. It is not as simple as picking whichever name sounds less foreign. Orange Tuesday (talk) 22:35, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
I understand the 'sources split' phrase, but if sources are split, then why is the article at Côte d'Ivoire? Why not at Ivory Coast/Côte d'Ivoire? I know a title like this is unpracticle, but what I want to know is why if both names are as common as each other is the article placed at it's current name? Bezuidenhout (talk) 07:30, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
Why is so much weight being given to a debate that took place 5 years ago when you have simply dismissed everything people have said in the RM that took place over the past 15 days claiming that nobody made any clear argument. Oh and is it possible to have a review of the closure of this RM, i would like a second or third opinion before we move on to this RFC phase which is going to take weeks. BritishWatcher (talk) 10:53, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
Aah, ok I understand now. To be honest though we really need to start finding out which name is actually in common usage. I would go for Ivory Coast because it's the safe option, since Cote and Côte are split themselves. Just for reference German wikipedia has a HK thing where in the University of Leipzig they analyse the occurance of a name/word in German for example Danzig is more common than Gdansk in German. I think English wikipedia needs to get one. The link to the German word thing is here. Bezuidenhout (talk) 11:13, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
@BritishWatcher. I gave no weight to the initial conversation, as I indicated that was discovered afterwards. I addressed a question that was asked. Of course you can ask for a second administrator's opinion, I will drop it onto the administrators' board to see if there any takers. billinghurst sDrewth 11:35, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
Thank you for making that post on the noticeboard. BritishWatcher (talk) 12:02, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

As an independent administrator, I support the close of this requested move. There was no consensus, and consequently the default action is "no change". I see above that there is some confusion, so in this context what I'm trying to say is that there was no broad agreement either way, and the default action in cases where there is no broad agreement either way is to maintain the status quo. --Deskana (talk) 11:44, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

But there was much more support for a move than there was for it to stay at this location, it was not just a difference of one or two votes. BritishWatcher (talk) 12:02, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
It's not just about counting votes, because this isn't a vote. There was no broad agreement either way, mainly because there was such a split of people opposing and supporting. --Deskana (talk) 12:08, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
I am also an independent aministrator and have read the above discussion. I was about to say the same thing. Where there is no consensus, the default is the status quo. And there is no consensus, even if there were more people supporting the move than against. Dougweller (talk) 12:12, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
There was a split of people supporting and opposing. The support side had 4 more although if it wasnt for the backlog which delayed the vote close the gap would have been bigger. How is it fair that the article remain in this location when majority supported a change and the case has been made extensively within the RM about why a change is needed. Especially as the previous request moves close was questionable. BritishWatcher (talk) 12:15, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
ok i give up, thanks for the feedback here and over on admin board. It is ashame there was not enough of a consensus to move this article to the correct English language location. Sigh BritishWatcher (talk) 13:20, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
Don't forget: the English name is Cote d'ivoire. The English translation is simply ivory coast - big difference.
The English name is Ivory Coast. It may not be the official name of the state which the state dictates everyone use in an attack on the English language, but plenty of wikipedia articles are not at their correct official names. BritishWatcher (talk) 16:34, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
"an attack on the English language"? Are you serious? Of course, India insisting that we use the names they originally made up for their cities instead of the bastardized ones we came up with is an "attack on the English language" too. How un-English of them. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 22:11, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
A country can rename its own cities if that is what it wants, Bombay was a much nicer city name than Mumbai but its up to the state. That is very different to a country imposing a French spelling of its name on the English speaking world. As i said to someone above, imagine if every country went around saying we demand you only say our country in our native language. List of countries by native names gives you a good idea.
I absolutely do consider this an attack on the English language, not by editors here but the conspiracy that has taken place to impose a French name and suggest it is the English spelling for something when it clearly is not. I was thinking about writing a letter to Her Majesty's Government to rant about this country giving aid to countries that seek to undermine the English language in such a way. It would make me feel better. BritishWatcher (talk) 22:20, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
You're actually serious, and believe what you're saying. OMG. Even Star Trek has the Prime directive. The English language does not own the world. We absolutely f'd up the existing names of cities and countries with our arrogance and stupidity. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 22:33, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
Nobody is suggesting the English language owns the world. It is however the most dominant global language on the planet thankfully and English speaking nations should be standing up and defending that language rather than pandering to the whims of certain nations. Startrek had the Universal translator, we do not. BritishWatcher (talk) 22:46, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
God forbid that you ever have to find Cote D'Ivoire on a map, but can't because it doesn't say "Ivory Coast". (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 23:35, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
Luckily for me my map still says the correct English name Ivory Coast then isnt it. Oh and i will thankfully never have a need to locate this country on the map anyway. BritishWatcher (talk) 23:42, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
Actually I had this discussion earlier, there is no real English name. Ivory Coast is the english translation but not the only English name. I am for Ivory Coast but Orange Tuesday correctly said that Cote d'ivoire and Ivory Coast are both uses in english so therefore they are both the english names. The situation is different to places such as Rio de Janeiro, where the english translation never entered circulation, unlike here. Bezuidenhout (talk) 08:41, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
I accept Ivory Coast today has no official status as its "English name" and that this country has been successful in imposing a french name on the English language in official areas like international organisations. Despite its relentless war on the English language, Ivory Coast still does remain in wide use and a majority supported the article be moved to its correct location. But this isnt going to change anything sadly, the article is stuck at its French name. BritishWatcher (talk) 09:03, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
Hmm, I for one am not a native English speaker and yet prefer to have the name in English in the English language Wikipedia. By the way it'd be nice to go through the discussions of the articles in German and Spanish to see their reasoning as to why the article is not at "the-current-name-I cannot-actually-write-without-having-to-search-through-the-special-characters-a-good-ten-minutes", but at the "Ivory Coast" version of the respected articles. My German was not goof enough and I gave up. For me the best reasoning is: The common English speaker will search for Ivory Coast and will expect to see that article since he cannot possibly search for (insert current article title) without copy-pasting the name from somewhere. That'd be the first shocker. The second will come when he tries to read the name. I for one cannot. There are no such characters in English and I do not (I really don't) know what the stressed diacritic "o" sounds like. For me this wasn't about anyone imposing anything or attacking (?!) anything. It was just about common sense and been helpful to the reader. The reader of the English language wikipedia, that is. But obviously that won't be happening any time soon.--Laveol T 01:44, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
The English alphabet doesn't contain the character é, but résumé, fiancée, café, and neé are all common English words. It also doesn't contain ã or í, but "São Tomé and Príncipe" is still the English name for the island nation in the Gulf of Guinea. Los Angeles consists entirely of foreign words, but it is still a correct place name in English. Just like São Paulo, and El Salvador, and Río de la Plata, and Champs-Élysées, and Burkina Faso, and Trois-Rivières, and Île-de-France, and Cinque Terre, and Des Plaines, and so on and so on. There are innumerable examples of this kind of thing. Orange Tuesday (talk) 03:04, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
And what is the English equivalent of all those names? Is there any? Was it ever used in scientific literature? If the answer is no, I don't see how these are relevant in the current discussion. If your point is only to have an answer and not necessarily a good one to every argument in favor of a move, you should've pointed it out already. --Laveol T 15:01, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
"River Plate" was the accepted English name for years before being supplanted "Río de la Plata". "Three Rivers" and "Isle of France" were also used in older English literature. This type of change happens all the time. It is a perfectly natural evolution of the language. Orange Tuesday (talk) 17:25, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
The point I want to make is this. Why shouldn't other countries and their government be able to dictate how English speaking people refer to country in English? A countries' name is very important to that country and who they are; why should we not respect a country's wishes when it comes to what they wish to be called? What gives anybody the right to make up names for other countries or people and not care about what that country and their people wish to be called? As English is one of the dominant languages in the world, shouldn't a country's right to be called what they want in English be more respected? When immigrants come into Britain or America, we do not ask them to anglicize their name. If they wished to be called Wang Hai Ming or Daisuke Nishikori or Amir Ismail, we allow them to be able to keep their native names, and we even allow them to change their name any time they wish to anything they wish. An attack on the English language? The English language is what we make it to be, nothing more, nothing less. In this case, there are plenty of examples, where we use originally French terms in English vernacular. What if English speakers decided to call Cote D'ivoire Loserland? Should not Cote D'ivoire be able to object to that? JohnWycliff (talk) 03:24, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
"When immigrants come into Britain or America, we do not ask them to anglicize their name. That sort of thing use to happen. The colonization of Britain and Europe as a whole by immigrants since the second world war sadly shows no respect for the host nation, immigrants are not expected to change, we have to change to appease them. The United States being a nation of immigrants is in a very different position to the struggles we face in Europe. But that is a completely different matter and we are going off topic.
The fact remains a country should not dictate its perfectly legitimate English name be replaced by clearly a french name. The country in question has the absolute right to demand its official name be used in international organisations like the United Nations, it has NO right to demand people in the English speaking world call it by its French name. Today Ivory Coast is widely used in the English speaking world, there was clearly more use of Ivory Coast overall in the sources above, a majority supported a change to Ivory Coast but we are stuck with this title because years ago a group of people decided this article had to be at its official name and now its very difficult to get enough "consensus" to change. BritishWatcher (talk) 08:58, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

It is what suppose to be best for the Encyclopedia, i could care less what the Ivory Coast government wants or if Ivory Coast fell off the face of the planet for that matter so please take your political correctness argument over to the Dutch Spanish Portuguese language Wikipedia and ask them why they are not respecting the Ivory Coast wishes also OT arguments are Apples and Oranges when comparing why we say Los Angeles El Salavador(being those are historical used names that go way back similar to how Ivory Coast goes way back) , Cote d'Ivoire and Ivory Coast is a totally different story we have a government who in the mid 80's say hey do not like this so please call us this, but Ivory Coast has still stayed in common usage obviously since this time--Wikiscribe (talk) 04:22, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Well said BritishWatcher (talk) 08:58, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
Yes, "Ivory Coast" has stayed in common usage but "Côte d'Ivoire" entered common usage alongside it, which makes both of them commonly used phrases in English and either one acceptable as an article title. Whether one is "clearly French" or not is irrelevant. That's just a question of etymology. Furthermore, what the Dutch, Spanish, and Portuguse Wikipedias do is of no relevance here. We are concerned with English usage and they are concerned with the usage in their own languages. Orange Tuesday (talk) 17:34, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

I have raised some of the issues here at Wikipedia talk: Requested moves. PatGallacher (talk) 16:59, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

With near parity in usage, or at least strong dispute on whether there is parity, should not objectivity impose on us to use the official name, the name in which the country itself wants us to use and in which the official government entities have accepted? This is an encyclopedia. We use official names for locations (simply because of the fact that they are official) when we recognize the need for it. Especially because there is a dispute and there is significant parity in popular usage, we should therefore refer back to the official common name.
Ivory Coast has certainly stayed in common usage true, but significant numbers of media, governments, international organizations, and documents, and people use Cote D'ivoire - whether or not Cote D'ivoire is more popular to use than Ivory Coast is mainly in dispute with regards to people, not the media, or the government, or documents. Coupled with the fact that Cote D'ivoire is the official name, the scale should swing in favor of Cote D'ivoire.JohnWycliff (talk) 04:41, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
But Wikipedia is not a government or media outlet or product of document writers. It is an encyclopedia for a general, English-speaking readership. Two important guidelines for title articles are to use common names and to use English. If you check the intro line of the current[1] Côte d'Ivoire national football team article, it reads "The Côte d'Ivoire National Football Team... represents Côte d'Ivoire (commonly known as 'Ivory Coast' in English)" (my emphasis). That such a note should need appear in the intro line is a testament to the unsuitability of Côte d'Ivoire as a title per WP:UE and WP:UCN. Your own misspelling of the French name compounds this case. — AjaxSmack 07:38, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Requested move

{{movereq|Ivory Coast}}

aborting this discussion in this format. billinghurst sDrewth 10
13, 11 July 2010 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Côte d'Ivoire → Ivory Coast — Since a majority of participating users recently weighed in favor, I propose moving this article to its common English name per WP:UCN and WP:UE. — AjaxSmack 07:56, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

  1. Côte d'Ivoire is not English and is in violation of Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English) (and Côte d'Ivoire is not quite French, the official language of Ivory Coast [that would be Côte-d'Ivoire]) Even if a foreign term is in use as well, "Use what would be the least surprising to a user finding the article."
  2. Côte d'Ivoire violates Wikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic names) which states that, "The title: When a widely accepted English name, in a modern context, exists for a place, we should use it. This often will be a local name, or one of them; but not always."
  3. Côte d'Ivoire is less commonly used than Ivory Coast and violates Wikipedia:Article titles#Common names
  4. Côte d'Ivoire violates guidelines such as Wikipedia:Guide to writing better articles#Use other languages sparingly ("Non-English words should be used as titles for entries only as a last resort") and Wikipedia:Guide to writing better articles#Principle of least astonishment (/kot divwaʁ/ is supposed to be English?)

In addition, there are many other excellent reasons and statistical evidence presented above and in Talk:Côte d'Ivoire/Archive1

The primary argument for Côte d'Ivoire seems to be that the Ivorian authorities have dictated the usage of this form and that the UN concurs. Howver, Wikipedia is not beholden to following the dictates of any specific regime nor is it a manual of diplomatic protocol. It freely uses common English terms such as Burma, South Korea, East Timor, Brunei, and Vietnam that are in violation of UN and/or official usage. (And other language Wikipedias do the same with Ivory Coast.) — AjaxSmack 08:07, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

  • Strong Oppose - multiple move requests in this short of time is becoming disruptive. Ivory Coast is a mere translation. Just like San Diego is the official English name of a city in the US even though it's 100% Spanish, and Mumbai is the city in India, AND we could drive through Wales and come up with dozens of town names that match their name in Wikipedia yet aren't really English, let's leave this one as it is. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 09:47, 11 July 2010 (UTC)
Your comparisons are irrelevant. Mumbai is now used internationally by major news sources. The BBC for example only use the term Mumbai, yet they still say Ivory Coast when talking about this country. Renaming a city is completely different to a country trying to impose a french language name on the English language. San Diego is the official english name of the city, can you tell me an English language alternative for that one? BritishWatcher (talk) 10:09, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

I have aborted this move discussion as it seems to be a case of Wikipedia:I just don't like it. Direction was given that the implications were wider, and that the means to take this further was more holistic with regard to looking to have a Wikipedia:Request for comment. There are many situations with alternate solutions, eg. Template:Gdansk-Vote-Notice and I would suggest that you look to look to a solution that is a consensus rather than trying to impose your point of view. A solution has to be broader than just this page. billinghurst sDrewth 10:13, 11 July 2010 (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.

Religion sub-title

I thought Religion is a level 3 heading underneath Demographics, is there a wiki rule that I have missed? Bezuidenhout (talk) 21:55, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Talk vs. Article

Just imagine all the time you people could have spent improving this article together, instead of arguing about the name. This could have been a featured article by now instead of just B or C-class. P. S. Burton (talk) 17:20, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

And the time you spend making this comment could have been spend finding reference for this article.
People choose themselves what they find important and what they want to spend their time on at wikipedia. If you don't find it as important, you can just go do something else.TheFreeloader (talk) 20:21, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
...but then again, I suggested the same thing about improving the article long ago. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 20:25, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
All the time i wasted on this talkpage trying to get the incorrect French title changed to the English title would not have been spent on the article itself anyway. So no loss here. BritishWatcher (talk) 20:37, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
All the time i treasure on this talk page trying to get the correct French title to remain instead of changed to the incorrect English variant would not have been spent on this article as it is already better that what i usually work on. delirious & lost ☯ ~hugs~ 21:31, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Maybe more users would find the article and contribute if it was at the English name of the country and they didn't think they had accidentally stumbled on the wrong thing. — AjaxSmack 01:39, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

They would have to be pretty brain-damaged to see the page, with the map, and with both names of the country in bold text in the first sentence, and still "think they had accidentally stumbled on the wrong thing". Are we assuming that most of our readers are badly-programmed robots? -GTBacchus(talk) 16:58, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
Clearly you failed to read all of the above (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 09:46, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
100% of all news I have read or heard mentioned "Ivory Coast". Just saying. Rehman 13:02, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
And just last week I read a news article in the Economist that used "Côte d'Ivoire". Anecdotal evidence doesn't really count for much. Orange Tuesday (talk) 15:24, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Motion to close this discussion, just being used for random arguments. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 15:28, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Ivorian/Ivoirian

Even if both are valid, can't the article settle on one?
I recommmend Keep Ivorian and Delete Ivoirian from the article.
Ivoirian looks suspiciously like Ivoirien(ne), and that's not English.
Varlaam (talk) 18:38, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Infobox naming

At the time of writing, it states that the heads of government and state are disputed. Indeed they are, but is it not better to name the would-be individuals on the infobox? A similar problem exists with Gaza and the West Bank (Hamas and Fatah) but on the State of Palestine article, the hopefuls are both named. Evlekis (Евлекис) 23:53, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Please see discussion above, the consensus seems to be to have it as "in dispute". --Natural RX 23:56, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Silly squiggles in article name

If we can't use the common English name because of some politically correct BS, why can't the article at least be moved to Cote d'Ivoire so that it's at least possible to type in the name in the URL and not get a redirect? There's no common way for me to type that squiggle on an English keyboard, and none of the workarounds are as easy as just dropping all the extra bangs, booms, and pizazz on top of the letters. Sticking apostrophes on top of letters, thats annoying but at least sort of common .. but nobody should have to see that ^ mounted on that o, in an English language encyclopedia. It's just not right, in fact, it's almost obscene. Zaphraud (talk) 09:48, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Whether you like it or not, those "squiggles" are part of the country's name. Don't ask me why, but the French name is the one used officially, even in English-language contexts. Ivory Coast is often used unofficially, but Cote d'Ivoire is just wrong. Bazonka (talk) 22:17, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
This may be an English language encyclopædia, but it covers foreign subjects too. Sometimes those foreign subjects use foreign languages, or at least diacritical marks. If your local keyboard makes it harder to type in the correct name, a redirect should do the job for you; if even redirection is annoying, the best solution is for you to stop reading about foreign subjects lest your eyes be offended by even more foreign characters or other "politically-correct BS" in the content. bobrayner (talk) 23:38, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
Bob, if this was Facebook I would like that comment. Bazonka (talk) 10:22, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
I'm in favour of keeping the accents in question, but it brings the question of other countries to mind. If we can call the Ivory Coast Côte d'Ivoire, why does say, South Korea not redirect to 한국? Perhaps this should be taking place for all countries, regardless of their alphabets? (I'm actually being serious here, not sarcastic - does Wikepedia have a policy for this?) 77.101.60.220 (talk) 12:20, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
Deutschland redirects to Germany, since that's it's English name. I fail to see what's special about Côte d'Ivoire vs. Ivory Coast, the latter being the normal English name. The redirect should be the other way. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 12:34, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
한국 is a bit different to Côte d'Ivoire - the diacriticals are easy enough for anglophones to read, but the korean text isn't. We even have an article on Uli Hoeneß - which contains a letter unfamiliar to most anglophones - but Игорь Александрович Нетто would be a step too far, I think. As far as policy goes, I think there's a subtle tension between centralised policy and the rules set by individual wikiprojects - the centralised policy having more emphasis on what english-language sources use (which is decidedly mixed in the case of Côte d'Ivoire) whilst geographical wikiprojects often pay more respect to local languages. (If you go to a wikiproject on some technical subject you might find that sometimes they favour names in line with some standardised technical nomenclature over and above WP:COMMONNAME). bobrayner (talk) 13:07, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
Indeed projects do violate the common-names rule. The example I like to use is Edelweiss. Maybe you recall this song from The Sound of Music:
Leontopodium alpinum, Leontopodium alpinum,
Ev'ry morning you greet me...
Leontopodium alpinum, Leontopodium alpinum,
Bless my homeland forever.
←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 13:09, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
...and of course, one needs only to type Cote d'Ivoire (without the diacritical) to get to this article anyway, so the issue with the "squiggly" is moot. Besides, at Christmas, do you sing "The First Noël" without complaint? Or are you perhaps naïve enough to believe that diacriticals are not a part of your everyday life? (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 13:36, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
I usually see it spelled as "naive". I have often seen Noël spelled as "Noel", and I have a songbook that spells it the English way, Nowell. Songs are a different story from country names anyway. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 13:42, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
You're such a naïve knave :-P ! In US English, "naive" without the umlaut would be pronounced "nave" (perhaps sometimes "nive") ... and Nowell is the Old English spelling. Perhaps we need a Ye Olde English Wikipedia, full of forsooth's and such? (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 14:03, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
I think there's no point to dispute about the correct spelling. I've also noticed about the symbols at the top of o. And there's no difference in a redirect and the article itself. The redirect is for some people who don't know or don't have time to get the right keys. It is okay for me if it you can't type those special characters. Maybe there are Ivoirian Wikipedians who may help with this issue. And for me, I consider this a language barrier since there are some who want the English spelling whilst others wanted to remain with the original. They are still the same, same country, but only having different spellings depending on the preferences.

Sir Jazer 13 (talk) 10:53, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Election dispute

I have noticed that the President and Prime Minister in the infobox has changed over the past month between Gbagbo, Ouattara and a disputed statement. In the interest of neutrality and avoiding edit wars, I would like to change it to "in dispute" and link to Ivorian presidential election, 2010. Thoughts? --Natural RX 19:52, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

We should not take sides in a political dispute. We should report all significant points of view without endorsing any of them.   Will Beback  talk  23:43, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
There is not a dispute about who is running the Ivory Coast—everyone knows that's Laurent Gbagbo. There is a dispute about who has the legitimate claim to the Presidency—a question of legality. But when we state who is the President, questions of legitimacy and legality should not even enter into the equation. Everyking (talk) 02:43, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
Ouattara has the votes, Gbagbo has control. Hence I think it would be seriously POV to list only one or the other in the infobox. We shouldn't take sides. Either show both claimants, or don't name a president at all. I do like the "disputed" wikilink to Ivorian presidential election, 2010 - that's a nice touch. bobrayner (talk) 03:30, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
Who has the votes is irrelevant. The election dispute is another matter entirely. We're talking about who is running the country. Everyking (talk) 07:33, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
I also like the "in dispute" link. Fyunck(click) (talk) 08:24, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
In dispute is better. I don't think there is that much clear information on how much control Gbagbo has on the ground, especially in the north. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 09:09, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

If legal questions are factored into these things, then what do we do about other situations around the world? For example, say one person claims to be the legitimate head of state when he is actually in exile, having been forcefully removed from office. What then? What about the assortment of "governments-in-exile" seen around the world, past and present?

What do we do if neither Gbagbo nor Ouattara relinquishes his claim to the office? Will it be considered "in dispute" indefinitely, regardless of who is actually in charge on the ground? I don't think this "in dispute" business has been thought through very carefully. Everyking (talk) 04:02, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

I think you have a point if, eventually, neither Gbagbo nor Ouattara make it into office. But I think we need to consider that there may be a solution soon, as Ouattara is already recognized as the election winner by most of the international community and the UN, and Gbagbo is facing diplomatic pressure and threats of military ouster from African leaders. It may suggest a solution in the short-term, but I would support changing it back to displaying "who is running the Ivory Coast" if nothing came to fruition a few weeks from now. --Natural RX 04:27, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
Doesn't this line of reasoning fall afoul of WP:CRYSTAL? It seems like you're saying we should decide the matter according to future possibilities, rather than present-day realities. Everyking (talk) 06:18, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
I don't think it's a crystal problem - quite the opposite, as the situation on the ground is unclear - and it's unlikely that we get 100% accurate neutral news reporting at the moment.[2] As the moment it appears that Gbagbo has more guys with guns, whilst it appears that Ouattara has more ballot-boxes. Both claim legitimacy. When the situation is clearer we could say more, but in the meantime I think it would be seriously non-neutral for wikipedia to name one or the other as president. There's not much room in the infobox to describe the situation accurately & neutrally so I'd rather link to an article that explains the problem in more depth. Personally, I wouldn't mind listing both contenders in the infobox (plus the dispute link), but some other people commented here opposing it. bobrayner (talk) 10:06, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
Normally, our practice is that we consider "the guy with the guns" to be president. When there's a coup somewhere, we don't say that the presidency is "disputed" between a junta and the constitutionally legitimate head of state—we report the facts on the ground. That's not an endorsement of one side or the other—it's just a statement of fact. Everyking (talk) 17:45, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

In dispute is appropriate for now, I think. Neither side has a clear advantage and it could easily go either way. Once one side or the other gets the upper hand we can change it. Macd21 (talk) 16:58, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

It is Gbagbo de facto, but the de jure status is what is being disputed. Côte d'Ivoire has had its fair share of split governance down the years when the north functioned as a sort of independent community. I still believe that naming the individuals of each office is better than "disputed" alone. It gives the observer something to read where an intended slot has been designated. One can in any case click on the links to see the names of the hopefuls but it just means extra work. Evlekis (Евлекис) 20:32, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Unclear

14 Jan.: "Houphouët-Boigny became increasingly feeble and died in 1993. He favoured Henri Konan Bédié as his successor.

[edit] Bédié administration In October 1995, Bédié overwhelmingly won re-election against a fragmented and disorganised opposition. He tightened his hold over political life, jailing several hundred opposition supporters. In contrast, the economic outlook improved, at least superficially, with decreasing inflation and an attempt to remove foreign debt.


Election results of 2002 in Côte d'IvoireUnlike Houphouët-Boigny, who was very careful in avoiding any ethnic conflict and left access to administrative positions open to immigrants from neighbouring countries, Bedié emphasized the concept of "Ivority" (French: Ivoirité) to exclude his rival Alassane Ouattara, who had two northern Ivorian parents, from running for future presidential election."

It seems HKB became president somehow ("re-election"). So, was he elected and then re-elected, or did he follow H-B through some other means (appointment / grabbing of power / ?)? If AO has "northern Ivorian parents," then how does this exclude him from falling under the concept of "Ivority"? 220.69.215.226 (talk) 01:06, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Bédié was President of the National Assembly and as such was Houphouët-Boigny's constitutional successor. He completed the remainder of the five-year term to which Houphouët-Boigny had been elected in 1990, and then won another five-year term in the 1995 election. As for Ouattara's parents, their nationality is a hotly disputed issue. Everyking (talk) 06:13, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

RFC: Côte d'Ivoire or Ivory Coast

Should Wikipedia refer to this country as Côte d'Ivoire or Ivory Coast? The argument for Ivory Coast is that the most commonly used name by English sources for this country, and therefore per WP:NCGN should be called Ivory Coast. The argument for Côte d'Ivoire is that both terms are equally common used in English, and therefore it should be kept at its last stable name, which is Côte d'Ivoire. I would like to remark that for the sake of consistency this is a discussion about what to call the country in all articles where in it is referred to.TheFreeloader (talk) 17:52, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Three previous naming discussions

Hypothetically if we take CDI's side and sources were split (50:50), then surely even that would be split between Cote d'Ivoire and Côte d'Ivoire? We have seen that some media use both, surely therefore this means that Ivory Coast is the most common name in media and usage? I have personally (here in the UK) never heard anyone say/write/speak about Cote d'Ivoire, to me its always been IC, especially with the football :) Bezuidenhout (talk) 18:12, 11 July 2010 (UTC)
  • Ivory Coast is the common English name for the country in question. The English language wikipedia should not be using the french language name. Ivory coast should be used throughout the English language wikipedia for obvious reasons. BritishWatcher (talk) 18:19, 11 July 2010 (UTC)
  • Coverage of the recent FIFA World Cup, for one, has clearly established that Ivory Coast is the normal name of this country in English. PatGallacher (talk)
  • As to Ivory Coast, yes as an English speaking Canadian i have known that that is the English translation however i have throughout my life known the country by Côte d'Ivoire. As to coverage of the World Cup using Ivory Coast one need only look at the team's crest, as taken from FIFA File:FIF NewCrest.png, wherein it is blatantly obvious that Côte d'Ivoire is the name in use. Dito for the team on the English fifa.com [3] To have the country article by one name and then national teams and organisations appear under another name is just odd. bbc.co.uk is split over the name; you need to search both to find all mention. Just because i love to cite it, the CIA World Fact Book lists it as Côte d'Ivoire https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/iv.html while listing every other country by it's common English name. delirious & lost ☯ ~hugs~ 21:48, 11 July 2010 (UTC)
The article about the North Korean team is placed at Korea DPR national football team, while the country is placed at North Korea. Although the North Korean national team's article should in my opinion get changed too, as I would mean WP:COMMONNAME takes precedence over whatever FIFA has to say about the matter.TheFreeloader (talk) 23:03, 11 July 2010 (UTC)
Lets not fool ourselves. There are so many clauses in various Manuals of Style so as to render things to various uncommon names it is not funny. Just look at any person known by two letters and a surname. Most do not put a space in their name, many articles are titled with a space because the wikipedia:manual of style says it can be done despite that making it an uncommon name, and still throughout many such articles the space between the letters is not present (ie the content of the article actually uses the common name). Such is also the case for anything else, even countries. Éire is an article on the word itself, Ireland is an article on the island, and Republic of Ireland is for the country. I mention this because it gets me every time. I type Éire when i am looking for the country. Suggesting a national team article be renamed to make it fall in line with the country is a little different from suggesting a country be renamed despite (all?) other articles, logos, and well most anything i can think of officially having the country in common usage by a different name. Not that i am a big fan of them but i thought my CIA link above pretty demonstrative of official accepted English name from the country so many here come from. Anyway... delirious & lost ☯ ~hugs~ 22:47, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
  • I've made this case up above several times but I'll restate it again here for completeness. Despite being composed of French words, "Côte d'Ivoire" is an English name for the country. It is used -- untranslated and on its own -- in a large number and variety of reliable English language sources. There are certainly contexts where "Ivory Coast" is more common (sports coverage, certain news agencies). But there are also contexts where "Côte d'Ivoire" is more common. In official/diplomatic sources, for example, Côte d'Ivoire has completely displaced Ivory Coast as the commonly used name. Côte d'Ivoire also seems to be more common in recent sources. If we search Google Books or Google Scholar for English-language publications in the last decade, Côte d'Ivoire is the clear winner by a significant margin. People who say that we should use "English name" instead of the "French name" don't seem to fully appreciate the way that English can take on place names from other languages (see, for example, how "Livorno" has replaced "Leghorn", "Trois-Rivières" has replaced "Three Rivers", and to a lesser extent, how "River Plate" has generally fallen out of use in favour of "Río de la Plata") WP:EN is not about etymology, it's about usage. And I think the most even-handed appraisal you can make of the usage is that it is generally split. I've certainly never seen clear evidence to establish that one name is generally more common than the other. And given that, I don't see any compelling reason to change away from the current convention of using "Côte d'Ivoire". Orange Tuesday (talk) 23:36, 11 July 2010 (UTC)
Actually, Google Scholar returns 19,600 results for Ivory Coast searching English results within the last ten year[4], and Cote d'Ivoire (and Côte d'Ivoire) returns 15,500 results [5]. If you look at Google Books, you get the same kind of results for the last decade, with 58,500 results for Ivory Coast[6], and 49,000 results for Cote d'Ivoire [7]. And finally if you look at the last decade on Google News, you get 87,600 hits for Ivory Coast[8] and 30,700 hits for Cote d'Ivoire[9]. Pretty clear evidence if you ask me, especially the last one, with almost 3 times as many results for Ivory Coast as for Cote d'Ivoire.TheFreeloader (talk) 00:27, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
Sorry, we've been talking about this so long that all the google searches have run together in my head. Looking back on the RM, it was Google Scholar and Google Books showing evenly split usage in the last five years. [10] [11]. The "clear margin" I was thinking of was in the main Google Search itself, which has several million more English language hits for Côte d'Ivoire. [12] [13] I think that still supports what I'm saying: Usage is split, with Côte d'Ivoire being more common in some contexts and Ivory Coast being more common in others.

In fairness to Canada French is an official language there along with English even in Ontario French is a co official language along with English so that is a hazy situation because i have caught the major News Agency the CBC similar to great Britain's BBC still using Ivory Coast[[14]] but using the French term as well to a lesser extent[15],either way you slice it (as said before) Ivory Coast is the older name and is still in common use and with that said how did it get the article name Cote dIvoire name to begin with? Because it is the official name perhaps...and the Governments preferred name or will the nay sayers come back and say well Cote dIviore is the common name also sure it is but could it be demonstrated it is more common than the much Older/Histroical name Ivory Coast? Of course not--Wikiscribe (talk) 01:58, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

  • Whoa, "coverage of the recent FIFA World Cup established Ivory Coast as the normal name"??? What World Cup were you watching? Even the British guy on TheScore, and the British announcer both called it "Cote d'Ivoire", and the flag icon ALWAYS was labelled "COI". (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 09:30, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
That was their official title but alot of the reporting i saw said ivory coast when talking about it. BBC -[16] , the Guardian [17] , The telegraph [18] , Yahoo [19] , Daily Mail [20] , Bloomberg [21] , Reuters [22] , Russia Today [23] , The sun [24] , New York Times [25] , Washington Post [26] . I could go on and on but you get the idea. Nobody is claiming that the government of this country uses Ivory coast officially anymore, but it is simple fact that the world media still refers to it as Ivory coast even if they sometimes say the french name as well. The English language name should there for trump the French language name on the English wikipedia BritishWatcher (talk) 09:42, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
Some more.. Financial Times [27] , Sky News [28], The Mirror [29] , The Times [30] , France 24 (A French news channel in English even used Ivory coast [31] , Fox News [32] , Australian Broadcasting Corporation [33] , Canada Broadcasting Corporation [34] ... Im starting to run out of news organisations i know. Every single one seems to have used Ivory coast atleast once to refer to this country's team at the world cup this year. BritishWatcher (talk) 09:58, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
Just to touch on France 24 for a second, it highlights the matter perfectly Searches on France 24 for Côte d'Ivoire finds 0 results [35] , where as searches for Ivory Coast finds 90 results [36] . How come the English language French News channel uses our term if use of the French term is so widespread within the English speaking world? This would be funny if it wasnt so serious. BritishWatcher (talk) 10:14, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
But again, World Cup coverage is just one context, and sports events often have rules all their own for this kind of thing. The Dutch team was extensively referred to as "Holland" during the tournament, even though it's very uncommon to see that term used for the Netherlands in normal news coverage. Orange Tuesday (talk) 13:10, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
Indeed, but we have sources proving Ivory Coast is used by reliable sources for all sorts of things. We accept the government and there for all official diplomatic relations / organisations it is a member of are handled by saying the French name, as that country has demanded, but that is very limited compared to Ivory Coasts use in many parts of the world when talking about many different things. I just wanted to back up Wikiscribes point that Bwilkins rejected about the world cup showing Ivory Coast is still heavily used as its common English language name. BritishWatcher (talk) 13:19, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
Well, Bwilkins was talking about televised coverage and you're talking about print coverage and those are two different things. Orange Tuesday (talk) 13:25, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
Well on Sky News / BBC news im sure they used Ivory coast. What was said during the matches i do not know, when ever ive watched a match ive had it on mute because of those annoying horns but i would be very surprised if at no point the commentators or presenters said "Ivory Coast" BBC Sports website certainly used it. BritishWatcher (talk) 13:36, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
I believe the announcer feeds that CBC picked up in Canada were possibly from BBC. Just as they alternated regularly from "Netherlands", "Holland" and "the Dutch" during play-by-play yesterday, they also would alternate between "Cote d'Ivoire" and "Ivory Coast" during their matches. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 13:40, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
(insert name of the Deity of your choice) forbid that happen! Seriously. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 13:34, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
If this goes to a vote my write-in goes for O My Grand Land Of Love. delirious & lost ☯ ~hugs~ 22:47, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Oh really maybe next we will censor articles so governments will be happy? If that held weight Burma would be called Myanmar also this is not Holland- Netherlands situation either and sarcasm is not on order here if you can't be mature see your way out of this naming dispute because it is not helpful--Wikiscribe (talk) 16:00, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Holland/Netherlands is not quite a good example, see we use Holland often informally but most educated people know that 'The Netherlands' is the correct name. This is different to Ivory Coast and Cote d'Ivoire because Many people don't really 'switch' between the terms? I am shocked that sports commentators apparently did so? Bezuidenhout (talk) 16:34, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
That's correct. Most educated people know that The Netherlands is the correct name, and English language news services basically use that name exclusively. But during the World Cup, "Holland" becomes a commonly used name for the team, being used in all manner of reputable sources [37]. I'm not saying the two situations are identical, just pointing out that the World Cup is only one of many contexts, and wide usage there doesn't automatically translate to wide usage in every field.
And let's try not to blow things out of proportion. Censorship isn't an issue here. We're talking about a simple naming dispute. Orange Tuesday (talk) 18:57, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
So... when can we move it to 'Ivory Coast'?? Another thing I didn't mention earlier was that how to we actually get the page to move? If a voting system doesn't work, then does it just never get moved? There was also a clear majority, not just like 3 vs. 4. Should we just scrap RMs? Moves are obviously impossible to achieve so should we just anchor all articles to never be renamed? Bezuidenhout (talk) 12:11, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
Interestingly enough, "The Ivory Coast" is a historical region, not originally a country ... Cote d'Ivoire was a country chunked out of that region. Makes moving more of a challenge, of course as the terms are not interchangable. I do not expect there to ever be a consensus to move this article: it's simply a case of WP:IDONTLIKEIT. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 12:42, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
Just because you can't get the outcome you want on one page doesn't mean the system is broken. RMs are not majority votes and consensus isn't just about how big the majority is. Orange Tuesday (talk) 13:05, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
I can understand WP:IDONTLIKEIT if there was a sole person going: I prefer Ivory Coast, but this is quite a few people debating whether Ivory Coast should be used instead. There is valuable evidence that Ivory Coast is the most commonly spelt name (since Cote and Côte are even split), and how can you measure the power of an argument in words? Bit bias there? I know what you're saying Orange Tuesday, I think I've heard it about 7 times, but every time I hear it I keep asking the question.. well how can we move it then? Do we need like someone to write an essay or find 500 reliable sources saying Ivory Coast is more common? I just don't get it, so all this Support and Oppose are useless? Should we not just bother with that and instead just say 'I think' or 'I don't think'. Bezuidenhout (talk) 13:30, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
Of all the arguments put forward on this page, Bwilkins still seems to be the strongest. I do not support a move at this time. AniMate 22:46, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
Which arguments? BritishWatcher (talk) 23:03, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
Where he rightly is incredulous that you consider this an attack on the English language for starters. That you are so offended that "this little african country is able to attack the English language" is telling about your POV here. I agree that the argument that FIFA coverage has established Ivory Coast as the preferred name is spurious at best. I agree that the Ivory Coast is a historic region, one we should probably have an article on, thus making the argument that the article should be moved weaker. I also agree that these multiple, recent attempts to move this are getting disruptive. AniMate 23:50, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
I do consider this an attack on the English language, a French name is being imposed on the English language, i can not even type this country's article name on my keyboard, i have to keep using copy and paste to get that o. You can think this is a good thing, but the fact people justify this being the present article name proves the word has been imposed on the English language. When i said "little African country" it was not out of some disrespect, i am just pointing out it is incredible that a small nation is able to dictate to the entire planet how we are meant to call their country in our own languages. The official name of the country's football team is Cote dIvoire, the majority of the media coverage in western english language sources used Ivory coast when talking about it. I have linked above and below a source showing use of Ivory Coast from dozens of major media sources that this English language wikipedia depends on, despite the official name of the team being the French language one, they all have still used Ivory coast. As for ivory coast potentially needing a new article, strange this might only have become an issue now and that at best according to people above the sources are split on if we should say cote/ivory coast. Clearly all reliable sources in the world dont have a concern about its former historic region. As for the multiple recent move attempts, are you serious? From what i can see there has been a formal move request in 2005, 2007, 2010 and one that was opened and closed in a short period of time by an admin the other day suggesting we do a RFC instead. That is hardly disruptive. Does this question get raised on the talk page a lot? You bet, thats because its at the wrong article name. People come here and wonder why its using a french name on an English language wikipedia. I wonder how many times it would have been raised on the talk page about Ivory coast being the wrong name if this article was at that location. Of course we will never know, but id bet it would have been raised less times. BritishWatcher (talk) 00:28, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
Do you suggest we move Rio de Janeiro to River of January? After all, the name isn't English. Brazil should be ashamed for imposing Portuguese on us poor English speakers. AniMate 01:19, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
Actually, just go to List of country name etymologies and start move discussions on several of those countries as they are easily translated into English. I suggest we start with Costa Rica. It's right above Cote d'Ivoire in the list and really should be at Rich Coast. AniMate 02:10, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
While we're at it, let's move Trois-Rivières to its historical English name of "Three Rivers". You can't type that one on an English keyboard either. Orange Tuesday (talk) 05:23, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
lets sort this article out first shall we? Then perhaps i will look into those ones. BritishWatcher (talk) 09:24, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
Umm i do not understand your point. You say the fact it is an historic region makes this more complicated because the "terms are not interchangable". So why does Ivory Coast redirect to this page? This point about its history makes 0 difference to the situation at hand. Oh and your arrogance when dismissing our concerns about this matter, considering a majority of people SUPPORTED a move and all the evidence that has been presented is incredible. BritishWatcher (talk) 23:03, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

And a few other sources to continue my list from above. The Press Association [38] , Setanta Sport Ireland [39] , Skysports [40] , Voice of America [41] , The Associated Press [42] , Aljazeera [43] , CNN [44] , Press TV (Iranian state owned ) [45] , American Broadcasting Company [46] , CBS [47] , NewsWeek [48] , New York Post [49] , Wall Street Journal [50] , USA Today [51] , The Independent [52] , Daily Record [53] , Scotsman [54] , HeraldScotland [55], Irish Times [56] , MSNBC [57] , The Daily Express [58] .

The above are all recent sources, almost all of them about the ivory coast in the world cup. Ill look for a new batch in a day or two. BritishWatcher (talk) 21:29, 14 July 2010 (UTC)


Can someone please provide me with the source showing that this country opposes use of the term Ivory Coast? There is no source from what i can see in the article, source number 5 simply says "its government officially discourages this usage, preferring the French name Côte d'Ivoire to be used in all languages", but there is no link" BritishWatcher (talk) 23:15, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Oh and if this country dictates that every language in the world use its french name, why does the German, Spanish and Portuguese wikipedias use their own wording? Why is it only the English language wikipedia that seems to be dictated to? BritishWatcher (talk) 23:28, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
Perhaps "Côte d'Ivoire" hasn't become as commonly used in those languages as it has in English? I don't know. It's not relevant in any case. This is the English Wikipedia and we are concerned with English usage.
And honestly, how can you expect people to take your argument seriously when you keep breaking into hysterics about Côte d'Ivoire's nefarious plot to destroy the English language? If you can't deal with this question objectively then you should probably consider taking a break from this discussion for a while. Orange Tuesday (talk) 05:23, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
If it has not become more commonly used in those languages then it sounds even more like an attack on the English language. I say such things about this issue because i believe it to be the case. If i was just here ranting then people should not take me seriously, but most of my comments have not been just rants. I have provided a source showing ivory coast (the vast majority of them about the recent world cup) from almost every single major western news organisation. Every single major British paper, American papers, American news channels, British news channels, Sports channels, Canada and Australian channels, even Russia today, France 24, Al Jazeera so this is not just about Britain or America. Ivory Coast is the common English name for this state. Despite the fact the team was called its French name, all those reliable sources decided to say Ivory Coast.
Taking a break from this matter is sadly no longer an option. It is frustrating when you win a vote with a majority yet the article stays in the same place, and then to have people dismiss it as just WP:IDONTLIKEIT is insulting. Sadly this matter is going to take up a lot of my time. BritishWatcher (talk) 09:31, 15 July 2010 (UTC)


Oh and could we also please advertise this RFC in a few other places? WP:GEOGRAPHY , WP:Countries and WP:History perhaps. . BritishWatcher (talk) 23:50, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Côte d'Ivoire is the official English language name used by the United Nations. It is also used by the US government, as in the CIA Factbook. Most other English language resources also use this name, as you can see by scanning through its DMOZ categories. It appears UK sources prefer 'Ivory Coast'. For consistency, I think Wikipedia should continue to use Côte d'Ivoire. Flatterworld (talk) 07:03, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Should we move South Africa to Republic of South Africa? Should we move Macedonia to FYROM? WP:COMMONNAME is the battle that is going on here. Yes, Ivory Coast is used exclussivly in the UK, as the first time I ever heard Cote divoire was when I visited this page. And for the last time we can't move Rio or Troi rivier because they are the usage in ENGLISH, we have established this LONG ago. In this case Ivory Coast is the most common written form. It is also unpracticle since it is very difficult for me to get the ô on my keyboard. Yes, the redirect helps, but when creating a report on the country, that would be alot of copying and pasting. Bezuidenhout (talk) 09:19, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
Well, in many places in the UK the common name may indeed accidentally be "Ivory Coast", but the only thing as a North American that I have ever known it as has been Cote d'Ivoire. Your argument about moving "South Africa" to "Republic of South Africa" is disingenuous, as pretty much every country has a full name like that - the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, the Dominion of Canada, etc. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 09:36, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
But that is his point, we do not put articles at their official or full names, we go with the common english name and all the evidence ive seen says Ivory Coast is still more common than Cote D'ivore. In the UK ivory coast is heavily used, but i have provided sources above showing its use by CBC, CBS, ABC (american+Australian 1s), Wall street journal, Washington Post, New York Times, New York post, Fox News, France 24, Al Jazeera, Russia Today, Hell even Iranian state controlled Press Today has used Ivory Coast. I can check for more sources i guess. Whilst i am doing that could someone please find me the sources saying this country discourages its Ivory Coast name from being used? Thanks BritishWatcher (talk) 09:43, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Ok, so you're not convinced by Rio de Janeiro, San Diego, etc. How about this: the article on former NHL goaltender Dominik Hašek - none of us "english-speakers" have ever spelled it with the accent on the "s". Manchester United centre fullback Nemanja Vidić has an non-English accent on the "c", and we allow it as the article title, just like team-mate Javier Hernández has not one, but two accents on his full, official article title. Oh no! The captain of the Gunners article is titled Cesc Fàbregas, and they have a goaltender with the article named Łukasz Fabiański! The shame! It's an affront to English! (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 10:59, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps we could focus on the matter at hand? I was hoping for a source about this country's continued opposition to Ivory Coast.

I have produced a little table below. This compares the search results of the English / French names for 15 broadcasters. This is not a complete list, I will be producing a more extensive list f newspapers and press sources later on, along with more TV broadcasters.

15 Television Broadcasters uses of the French and English Names
Organisation Name Ivory Coast Côte d'Ivoire Info on Broadcaster
BBC News 13600 647 British State Broadcaster
Russia Today 505 4 Russian State English Language Broadcaster
Al Jazeera (English) 235 10 Middle Eastern outlook English Language Broadcaster
Sky News 671 4 British Broadcaster
France24 (English) 1670 2* French English Language Broadcaster
RTE 2560 15 Irish State Broadcaster
Press TV 107 4 Iranian State Controlled English language Broadcaster
Fox News 495 5 American Broadcaster
CBC 5120 21 Canadian Broadcaster
CBS 449 4 American Broadcaster
ABC News 13100 101 American Broadcaster
ABC (Australia) 118000 27 Australian Broadcaster
CNN 626 10 American Broadcaster
ESPN 53200 209 American Sports Broadcaster
SkySports 71400 13400 British Sports Broadcaster

Just one note i want to point people to, the France24 English site says 2 results found, i have checked those 2 links and they both only say the French name in the comments section rather than the article by the company itself. So basically that figure in reality is zero. Oh and i included the final column because i wanted to show this is not just a United Kingdom thing, English language broadcasters from throughout the world (including France) use the English name Ivory Coast more. If people want me to put sources for the above table in a list somewhere i will but its just a basic advanced Google search of the broadcasters website for each term (both using the ""s). Anyway, a much larger table will follow later mostly focusing on newspapers. BritishWatcher (talk) 11:25, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Proving that media sources are just as dumb is not going to change the legal name of the country, or it's expected and its valid use in the English language. Wikipedia is not a democracy, and this happens to be one of those topics where even WP:CONSENSUS will not help - "winning a vote" means nothing. Why not spend useful time improving the article as it is, or perhaps writing an article about the region formerly known as the the Ivory Coast in English, as opposed to wasting time trying to right some personally percieved affront. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 12:29, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
Just when i think your comments cant shock me anymore, they do.
Proving that media sources are just as dumb - Very helpful, these happen to be some of the most respected reliable news sources the English wikipedia uses and depend on. I will be adding a second table below of respected news organisations you can insult too.
is not going to change the legal name of the country - Nobody is trying to. Côte d'Ivoire is the official name of this country, i fully accept that. It does not make it the common name for the state and most country articles are not at their official title (almost none are)
Wikipedia is not a democracy - Yes i saw for myself wikipedia was not a democracy when a majority voted for change but were overruled.
and this happens to be one of those topics where even WP:CONSENSUS will not help - Excuse me? If there was clear consensus it would be invalid? Why is that?
Why not spend useful time improving the article as it is - I will spend my time how i like, i happen to think this article being at an incorrect location and the English language wikipedia using a French name throughout wikipedia is a serious problem which needs to be addressed.
or perhaps writing an article about the region formerly known as the the Ivory Coast in English - Ivory Coast has redirected to this page for years, the idea all of a sudden we need a second article which would probably violate WP:Content forking is strange.
as opposed to wasting time trying to right some personally percieved affront Its not a personally perceived affront. I think wikipedia is incorrectly using a french name when it should be using its common English name. If the sources did not back me up and a majority had not voted for a change, i would not be having this debate with you now.
Oh and i am still waiting for some sources saying this country still discourages the use of Ivory Coast. BritishWatcher (talk) 12:58, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
This has now reached WP:LAME standards. See especially the section on Voßstrasse, and some previously mentioned European city. I have no horse in this race, other than an open mind and wisdom. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 13:18, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
Yes, it is getting lame but I asure you the Vostrasse debate is much different and less significant than this one. Especially when the recent world cup used the name under which the article isn't placed at. Bezuidenhout (talk) 18:32, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
I am very glad you have an open mind and wisdom, hopefully if we provide you with enough proof that Ivory Coast is the more common name than Cote d'Ivore you will change your mind and support our position. What are your views on the first batch of newspapers below? BritishWatcher (talk) 14:38, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

First batch of 15 major newspapers, these are American/British. Next batch will be more of an assortment from different nations.

Organisation Name Ivory Coast Côte d'Ivoire Info on Organisation
The Guardian 4250 82 British National Newspaper
The Sun 1440 0 British National Newspaper
Daily Mail 6520 167 British National Newspaper
The Independent 1820 139 British National Newspaper
The Express 307 0 British National Newspaper
The Telegraph 6270 60 British National Newspaper
The Mirror 509 1 British National Newspaper
Financial Times 388 1 British International Business Newspaper
Wall Street Journal 354 13 American International Newspaper
New York Times 4090 87 American Newspaper
New York Post 662 84 American Newspaper
Washington Post 526 159 American Newspaper
Los Angeles Times 182 8 American Newspaper
Chicago Tribune 198 87 American Newspaper
NewsWeek 113 61 American News Magazine

Oh i am still waiting for that source saying this country still discourages the use of Ivory Coast, thanks. BritishWatcher (talk) 14:35, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

A few papers from Canada, no clue how popular they are, i am just working my way through a big list i found.

Organisation Name Ivory Coast Côte d'Ivoire Info on Organisation
Toronto Sun 130 0 Canadian Newspaper
Toronto Star 530 10 Canadian Newspaper
Toronto Globe and Mail 1250 56 Canadian Newspaper
Toronto National Post 3430 171 Canadian Newspaper
Ottawa Sun 88 0 Canadian Newspaper
Ottawa Citizen 6600 3 Canadian Newspaper
London Free Press 89 0 Canadian Newspaper
Vancouver Sun 17700 166 Canadian Newspaper
The Province 3900 8 Canadian Newspaper

It is going to be a very long night i think. BritishWatcher (talk) 15:19, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Newspaper style guides aren't always based on common usage. The NY Times used "Rumania" until like 1990. Orange Tuesday (talk) 15:30, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
Newspapers may not use something because its the common name, lots of newspapers using it makes it the common English name for the state. I am looking at the tables above and i honestly am shocked at how overwhelming the case for this article to be moved is. It is stunning this has been at its French name for so many years. BritishWatcher (talk) 15:42, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
Lots of newspapers using "Ivory Coast" makes it the more common English name in the context of newspapers. And Britannica and Columbia having their pages at "Côte d'Ivoire" makes that name the more common English name in the context of encylcopedias. And the CIA, and the UN, and State.gov, and other government/diplomatic sources using "Côte d'Ivoire" makes that name the more common English name in the context of government/diplomatic sources. And English language books published in the last year using "Côte d'Ivoire" more often than "Ivory Coast" makes Côte d'Ivoire the more common English name in the context of English language books published in the last year. And Google Maps, Bing Maps, National Geographic, and Mapquest using "Côte d'Ivoire" makes that name the more common English language name in the context of online maps.
Common usage is influenced by all of these areas and more, including ones that we can't possibly measure with a Google search (like how the term is used in day-to-day conversation, or on the radio, or on printed world maps and atlases). It's not as easy as putting a bunch of numbers in a table and seeing how big the ones on the left are. If things were that simple, we'd never have these disputes in the first place. Orange Tuesday (talk) 16:01, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
Continuing with that thought, how do we decide how to weigh these different areas? Do we decide that newspapers are more reflective of common usage than reference materials? If so, why? What's our evidence for that? Circulation numbers? Yes, plenty of people still read newspapers, but how many of them read articles about Côte d'Ivoire, compared to the number that only read the local news or the sports section? How do we quantify the former group, and do they really outnumber the people who are learning of Côte d'Ivoire through Britannica or the Factbook? (Not to mention all the people who have learned about the country through Wikipedia during the nine years that this article has been at its current name). Do we give more weight to publications that focus on foreign affairs? If so, how do we interpret the Economist favouring "Côte d'Ivoire"? And how do we weigh that against the English version of Le Monde Diplo using "Ivory Coast"?
When a name is clearly the most common English name, these kinds of questions are trivial, since all the sources generally agree. But when there's real split usage, like we have with Côte d'Ivoire and Ivory Coast, they suddenly become really difficult to grapple with. It's easy enough for conversations like this to devolve into throwing numbers at each other, but unless we can put those numbers in context they really aren't going to tell us anything. Orange Tuesday (talk) 16:17, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
"Do we decide that newspapers are more reflective of common usage than reference materials? If so, why?" Partly yes, nobody is claiming that Ivory Coast is the country's official name there for we accept international organisations be it FIFA or the UN use the French name. How do we judge common use today? The media, not just newspapers but of course there are other factors to take into account. The media use shown above overwhelmingly prove beyond any doubt what so ever that Ivory Coast is the common name for western English language media. If we can all accept this point then i will start looking at more detail to other factors like book uses. I see some links some way up during the RM debate where it was shown Cote d'Ivoire had more than Ivory Coast, but as someone pointed out at the time.. the list included French books, we are talking about English only books so a more closer look at that will be needed.
But at the end of the day, i do happen to think the overwhelming media usage tells us the commonname. BritishWatcher (talk) 16:31, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
The book searches in the RM were restricted to English language books only but the specifics of that particular google test aren't the issue here. My problem is that you've decided that "the media" (by which you specifically mean those western news media outlets whose archives you can search through with a Google search) should be considered the main indicator of common usage. How did you come to this criteria? Why that particular version of "the media"? Hell, why any version of "the media"? Why does "the media" outweigh Britannica or the Factbook in this case? Orange Tuesday (talk) 16:49, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
Heh, because he knows I work for "the Canadian media", but I've never written "Ivory Coast" in any article in my life. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 16:57, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
The media seems a far more reasonable way of tracking common usage than a static article. We do not know why Britannica decided to put its article at a certain location, maybe it just wanted to use the official name as a default. Wikipedias policies are rather different, we are meant to go with the Commonname. I am showing English speaking media sources from around the world which overwhelmingly use Ivory Coast and not Cote d'Ivoire. The teams official name at the world cup was Cote d'Ivoire yet still the English speaking media chose to use Ivory Coast more. BritishWatcher (talk) 16:55, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
But the news media is only ONE dimension of common usage. WP:COMMONNAME tells us to look at "major international organizations, major English-language media outlets, quality encyclopedias, geographic name servers, major scientific bodies and scientific journals" to determine the common name.
In fact, let's look at each of those items one by one.
  • Major international organizations: Tend to use Côte d'Ivoire.
  • Major English-language media outlets: Tend to use Ivory Coast.
  • Quality Encyclopedias: Britannica and Columbia at least use Côte d'Ivoire.
  • Geographic Name Servers: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic names and the NGA GEOnet Names Server both use Côte d'Ivoire (with the latter accepting "Ivory Coast" as a variant)
  • Major scientific bodies and scientific journals: I'm not really familiar enough with Scientific literature to assess this but off-hand I'd call a split. Google Scholar can favour one or the other depending on how you tweak the parameters.
In any case, your focus on "the media" as you've defined it is way too narrow. Orange Tuesday (talk) 17:20, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
The news media is just one dimension, however considering the overwhelming evidence that Ivory Coast is used by far the most it is a big factor in determining what the common name for this country is in English. We can go over other matters over the next few days of course, there is no rush. Today i am focusing on getting enough tables done to prove beyond any doubt at all that Ivory Coast is the common name used by the English speaking Media throughout the world. Something i do not think was clearly accepted in the previous RM. I will probably focus on books and maps next, of course such things must look over a long period of time not just recent use. This article is not just about the country since it demanded never to be called Ivory Coast. Speaking of that demand, i am still waiting for some sources to prove this country still discourages its use and the original declaration. BritishWatcher (talk) 18:01, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
It is very important to restrict ourselves to recent use as much as we possibly can. We're trying to assess what the common usage is in English as it is spoken and used right now in the year 2010, not what it was in the past or may become in the future. Orange Tuesday (talk) 19:59, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
May I add this: listing the Ottawa Sun, Toronto Sun, Vancouver Sun and London Free Press separately is also disinginuous as those are effectively the same newspaper ... likewise with your others...you might also want to know that some of those Canadian newspapers now use American spelling, instead of Canadian/English intentionally. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 16:28, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
I have no idea about the ownership or status of these newspapers, i simply searched different websites that were linked on a page of Canadian newspapers. The Ottawa Sun and Toronto Sun may have the same owner, but they had separate websites i searched and got different results for. As for what type of English they use, that makes no difference to me. It is very clear from the evidence above that Canadian, British and American newspapers all use the same term more often and that is Ivory Coast. BritishWatcher (talk) 16:35, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
I have to credit both Bwatcher and Orange because Brit gave a very long and extensive list of media, while Orange has correctly pointed out that yes Media is important, but so are the other important factors of WP:COMMONNAME. The situation is getting similar to the Netherlands and Holland, however it is a practicle version, since the article can exist peacefully under both names (well that's obviously not true now ^), but it seems that politics and all the 'official' and formal stuff seems to use Cote while unofficial and therefore the majority of sources use Ivory Coast. Btw Bwilkins, surely the English used doesn't matter? If Canadians use American English and Americans are the majority of English speakers then you have just shot yourself in the foot? Bezuidenhout (talk) 18:42, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
What does "majority of sources" really mean in this case though? How are you defining the number of sources you're considering when you're talking about this "majority"? Does each newspaper count as one source? Each article? How does one newspaper article compare to one entry in the CIA World Factbook? Seems to me like trying to compare the number of sources over such a broad number of contexts would involve a lot of apple/orange comparisons. Orange Tuesday (talk) 19:59, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
Well because informal speaking is more common than formal speaking. For example people don't use United Kingdom of Great Britain and North Ireland, just Unitied Kingdom or even UK. But because wikipedia is one of those formal/informal places, there comes a problem. And I understand your point that a large number of newspapers are outweighed by a few official and important organisations, but we don't follow their rules? Britannica and the CIA is an excellent example of Cote d'Ivoire usage as they use Cote d'Ivoire but also use North Korea and Macedonia (instead of DPR Korea and FYROM respectivley). I am personally still for Ivory Coast due to media rather than official usage and because here in the UK Cote d'Ivoire is not used. Bezuidenhout (talk) 20:15, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
Well I have a few problems with that. First, Britishwatcher's tables don't prove that "Ivory Coast" is more common in "informal speaking" generally, they show that it's more common in news media coverage specifically. Second, there is a problem of definitions. How do we define "formal" vs. "informal"? I mean, I wouldn't call journalism informal exactly, it's just has a different set of formalities than, say, a State department page would have. Third, WP:COMMONNAME doesn't deal with formal vs. informal or even official vs. unofficial. It deals with common vs. uncommon, and the way we determine commonness is by looking at a wide spectrum of sources, including those that are more "formal". We don't have to follow anyone's rules, but the fact that CIA and Britannica use these names is important for us to consider. As significant reference sources, they contribute to common use just as much as the news media, and when they use a different term it suggests to me that the usage is split. Orange Tuesday (talk) 21:20, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

One other batch

Organisation Name Ivory Coast Côte d'Ivoire Info on Organisation
The Bild 206 2 German Newspaper
The Indian Express 650 8 Indian English Language Newspaper
The Times of India 1170 5 Indian English Language Newspaper
The Hindu 203 4 Indian English Language Newspaper
The Australian 301 0 Australian Newspaper
The Canberra Times 94 0 Australian Newspaper
Sydney Morning Herald 6420 1 Australian Newspaper
New Zealand Herald 2880 122 New Zealand Newspaper
TVNZ 4710 2 New Zealand media company
China Daily 410 36 Chinese English Language Newspaper
South China Morning Post 67 0 HongKong English Language Newspaper
The Standard 111 1 Hong Kong English language Free Newspaper

There are many other news sources that could be listed, but one term is clearly used far more often than the other which makes Ivory Coast the more Common Name used by the English Language media for this Country. Anyway, we still need the sources describing that this country still discourages the use of Ivory coast and sources of when it originally started demanding Ivory Coast not be used. Also someone still probably need to post a link to this RFC on some other project pages. BritishWatcher (talk) 19:28, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

The sources you keep asking for aren't particularly relevant to the discussion. First off, there's no real question that it actually happened. The state participated in the UN under the name Ivory Coast in 1960 [59] and now participates under the name Côte d'Ivoire [60], meaning that at some point the government must have requested to use "Côte d'Ivoire" in English. I don't think there was ever anything on the scale of some kind of formal declaration like you're imagining, but I did find two references to this request on a quick google archive search. [61] [62]. But this is all beside the point anyway. We are assessing English usage as a whole here, and the government's preference (which is clearly for Côte d'Ivoire) doesn't really affect the argument for keeping the page at its current location one way or another. Orange Tuesday (talk) 19:59, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
I am glad we agree we should base this on English language usage, and not what the government of this country wants now or in the past. Despite changing their name decades ago it is clear many English speaking media sources continue to overwhelmingly use Ivory Coast, even when talking about their sports team which uses the official name. If book usage over the past 5 or 10 years is more equally split should we not accept the usage by the media? These are most of the major news media sources the English language wikipedia uses. BritishWatcher (talk) 20:22, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
No, we should examine all facets of usage (reference materials, government sources, geographical name servers, international organizations, scholarly articles), like WP:COMMONNAME tells us to do. Ivory Coast's dominance in the news does not clearly translate over to those other areas of usage. Orange Tuesday (talk) 21:20, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
Ivory Coasts dominance in the news trumps the other factors and makes it the Commonname used / known by more people in the English speaking world. More are likely to know a term from the media that uses it day in day out for all sorts of topics over the name used by pen pushers at the United Nations or some science convention. BritishWatcher (talk) 21:30, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
You'll have to point me to the policy which dictates that news media trumps every other kind of English usage. I don't think that's really how we do things. Orange Tuesday (talk) 21:39, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
It is a reasonable way of determining common usage, Wikipedia often fails when it comes to commonsense, but it all comes down to someones point of view at the end of the day. You choose to give more weight to official usage / and recent scholars. I choose to give more weight to the vast majority of the English language media which is viewed/used by far more people in the English speaking world than what gets put on an official document at the United Nations. BritishWatcher (talk) 21:48, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Sigh, i am following another RM somewhere else on wikipedia at the moment, currently there is a majority of one in favour of the move. Im betting by the time it does get closed it will probably still have a smaller majority in favour of the move than here, yet i bet it will be moved. I will not be impressed. BritishWatcher (talk) 20:59, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Sigh, that must be just terrible for you. Anyway, looking at Google Scholar without any restrictions on time frame you get 84,400 for Cote d'Ivoire and 97,100 for Ivory Coast. However, by limiting a search one can see that starting in 2005, the majority of papers are using Cote d'Ivoire (15800) rather than Ivory Coast (15000). In 2006, Ivory Coast has 14,100 and Cote d'Ivoire has 15,700. In works published since 2007, Ivory coast drops to 11,800 while Cote d'Ivoire is up to 15,800 hits. Since 2008, Ivory Coast is down to 8,580 and Cote d'Ivoire is at 15,300. In 2009, Ivory Coast has just 5,120 hits in Google scholar as opposed to 9680 for Cote d'Ivoire, which is almost double. In 2010, 1360 works use Ivory Coast and 2840 use Cote d'Ivoire. That's more than double. This suggests that Cote d'Ivoire has become the preferred name among scholars. For the record, this is a very rough, basic search of Google Scholar. I haven't looked any deeper than the just the numbers. AniMate 21:07, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
You can add "&lr=lang_en" to the end of those urls to restrict your results by language. This changes the margins to:
  • n/r: 54500 (CdI) vs. 91400 (IC)
  • 2005: 15800 (CdI) vs. 14700 (IC)
  • 2006: 15600 (CdI) vs. 13500 (IC)
  • 2007: 15400 (CdI) vs. 11100 (IC)
  • 2008: 12000 (CdI) vs. 8090 (IC)
  • 2009: 7180 (CdI) vs. 4840 (IC)
  • 2010: 2240 (CdI) vs. 1310 (IC)
Generally smaller margins, but as much smaller as I would have thought. Orange Tuesday (talk) 21:37, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
It will be terrible yes, because it will highlight the RM should have resulted in a move as there was a majority.
Wise Scholars have less of an influence / reflection of the "common name" of a state compared to day to day use of the country name by the English language media covering everything from sport, politics and war. Do you think the general population of the United States or the United Kingdom will recognise the term some scholars use or will they know a term used by the media? BritishWatcher (talk) 21:24, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
You continue to fail to realize that nothing on Wikipedia is about majority, it's about strength of argument. Ever visited WP:AFD? Dozens of article with more "yes" than "no" !votes are kept. You keep missing that point, and making the same argument over and over again, only with tables. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 21:29, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
It's funny Animate because the Côte d'Ivoire results are actually split between Côte d'Ivoire and Cote d'Ivoire! Should we move the article to Cote d'Ivoire then? Is that the point you are getting across? Bezuidenhout (talk) 21:31, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
The only point I'm trying to get across is that Ivory Coast is not the preferred name in scholarly works. AniMate 21:35, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
Only when you restrict it to the previous few years. Ofcourse that would not have applied at all when this article was originally stuck at this title many years ago. So if that is justification for this title now, it wasnt then. And yet we only have this title today because the old name wins by default in the "no consensus" game. BritishWatcher (talk) 21:42, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
I would support such a move. At least id be able to type the damn country name on my keyboard then. BritishWatcher (talk) 21:32, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
That's really more of a technical limitation than anything else. There are a lot of websites which spell "São Tomé and Príncipe" as "Sao Tome and Principe", but I think we generally accept that both are "the same name" for the country. Orange Tuesday (talk) 21:37, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
"technical limitation" lmao isnt it ashame we do not take technical limitations into account when deciding article names? Doesnt matter that the vast majority of people cant even type the damn name, it should still be the primary spot. BritishWatcher (talk) 21:42, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
This is an issue common to every article with an accent in its title (there are thousands upon thousands of those) and it's one of the reasons we employ redirects. I don't see why this is suddenly a huge problem? Orange Tuesday (talk) 21:46, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
The indignity of being redirected here because of accents must indeed be a hardship. AniMate 21:49, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
In a case where there is a clear valid alternative, which many view as the primary title it is a problem. Technical limitations should be taken into account. Clearly not a matter for here to decide, but its just one of those many flaws of the wikipedia project. BritishWatcher (talk) 22:03, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
I have nightmares about this article name, typing in the "cote d'ivoire" is not something id do when looking for this article, i will always continue to use Ivory Coast, the true English language name for this country. When i type cote d'ivoire on this talk page it feels like im typing a word backwards or something, its disturbing. Its like when you look at a Japanese website where everything is the wrong way round. We should not have to suffer in such a way! BritishWatcher (talk) 22:03, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

If this is giving you nightmares or you find typing certain words disturbing, that's kind of a personal problem. Many people, myself included, think this isn't and shouldn't be a big deal. Fortunately for you, you can type in Ivory Coast, Cote d'Ivoire, or Côte d'Ivoire and you end up in the exact same place. Try not to be scared of the weird foreigners and their unwillingness to conform their language to exactly what you think it should be. AniMate 22:17, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Trouble is the opposite is the case. This is them telling us to conform our language to something they think it should be. Despite our keyboards not even being able to type out the name properly. BritishWatcher (talk) 22:27, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
You have trouble holding down your ALT key, typing 0244 using your number pad, then letting go of the ALT key? (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 22:34, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
I should not need a special code to be able to type the name of this country. If this article was at its English language name there would not be a problem. Im not pressing Alt 244 everytime want to type an O. BritishWatcher (talk) 22:38, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
Lmao, oh actually i do! I am on a laptop which has no number pad. Alt and the normal 0244 does nothing. BritishWatcher (talk) 22:40, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
You can hold down the Fn key to activate the secondary number pad if you have one. Or just type "Cote d'Ivoire". Everyone will know what you mean and you'll wind up in the same place anyway. And again, why is this relevant to the move discussion? Orange Tuesday (talk) 22:42, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
Actually, you don't have to do anything. Typing in Ivory Coast or Cote d'Ivoire all bring you to the same place. AniMate 22:48, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
Doesnt work for me, only symbol i end up with is the euro. Its all part of the problem with the current article title and its use throughout wikipedia, its not fit for purpose for many of us. Im waiting for more people to respond to the RFC, ty by the way for posting on those Wikiprojects earlier. BritishWatcher (talk) 22:53, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
Yes i type in Ivory Coast, its just silly that i cant even type this article title on my computer with out having to enter a special code or copy and paste. BritishWatcher (talk) 22:53, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

There are many here who are turning this Request for Comment, into the basis for a "he said, she said" argument, and the repetitious statement of the same stale points. To me it would seem that the same people ploughing the same ground with the above morass is going to drive off insight from others, and have this commentary proceed nowhere. billinghurst sDrewth 05:59, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Well ill take a few days break from posting on this page to wait and see if others respond to the RFC, but what exactly do we do if this RFC produces nothing? Whats the next step, or do we need to consider another RM considering it would only take a few more votes either way to get an outcome. BritishWatcher (talk) 09:55, 16 July 2010 (UTC)
Again, you miss the point: this is not a vote. Media usage does not determine article name: other encyclopedia usage is more likely to hold sway, because this too is an encyclopedia. The article will never move - the best part about banging your head against a wall is how good it feels when you stop doing so. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 11:05, 16 July 2010 (UTC)
If the vote showed very clear community support (larger than the majority we had in that past RM) i fail to see why the article would not be moved. Wikipedia may not be a democracy, but it would be a damn disgrace and joke if the clear wish of most people was overruled by a single admin even though the case for moving is clear and justified. Your refusal to accept that consensus may change is shocking. BritishWatcher (talk) 09:16, 17 July 2010 (UTC)
Ugh, consensus is never going to overrule every other argument that everyone else has put against your move again and again and again. This isn't frickin rocket science. It doesn't matter if you go out and find 300 xenophobes to !vote in your favour, there is only one possible result in this situation, no matter how many times you spin it. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 09:45, 17 July 2010 (UTC)
I'm not sure I'd accept a blanket characterisation of those who favour using the English name as xenophobes (although xenophobes should certainly feel welcome to participate). Part of my support for the move (in addition to the WP:UE and WP:UCN guidelines) derives from personal and professional interaction with numerous Ivorians who overwhelmingly refer to their country (in English) as "Ivory Coast", hardly a xenophobic motivation. (I realise this is original research but it is a legitimate motive if not a rationale for using the common English name.) — AjaxSmack 03:12, 18 July 2010 (UTC)
Hey whoa, you just added something new to what I was suggesting that went well beyond my meaning. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 10:06, 18 July 2010 (UTC)
WP:COMMONNAME may be a worthy attempt to defuse argument, but it is a tool that favours innate conservatism and, in some circumstances, cultural imperialism. We have taken on board changes such in the English language such as Bombay-->Mumbai etc. without significant loss of life and in my view we have no business telling people what their country is called - whether or not a majority of UK/US news sources use it. The problem here is that it is alleged that the government's preference (Côte d'Ivoire) is not that of the people's. However, no evidence for the latter has been supplied. I'd favour Côte d'Ivoire unless and until it is. Ben MacDui 20:27, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
I can type Mumbai on my keyboard! Besides this is about the preference of the English speaking world, the wishes of the people of this country and its government is secondary. Nothing reflects the English speaking world better than its media, and in almost every single case, western media says Ivory Coast more often than this French name. Glad we have something to disagree on after that rather uncomfortable moment the other day though ;) BritishWatcher (talk) 20:52, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
Indeed yes - a relaxing moment and somehow I am reminded of something - yes that's it. Ben MacDui 18:34, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
lol, this is what came to my mind. [63] BritishWatcher (talk) 19:34, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Surprising outcome of the process. There is clearly a commonly used English name for the country, and a Wikipedia policy that indicates that in such a circumstance the English name should be preferred. The first time I came to this article I found it surprising that the name of the country I had always known as 'Ivory Coast' had been discarded here in favour of the official French 'Côte d'Ivoire'. Ce n'est pas question de la xénophobie, mais des normes qui s'appliquent aux titres des articles. I object to the debate being characterized as one between xenophobes and the 'enlightened' as this is a charge used to shut down discourse, by trying to personalize the attack. There are good reasons in favour of both names; however, in my view the naming conventions of Wikipedia indicate that for the moment Ivory Coast would be the preferred name. The fact that the name of the article in versions of Wikipedia in other languages reflects and respects those individual languages (from Panté Gadéng in Aceh to An Costa Eabhair in Irish to Côte d'Iviéthe in Norman to Elfenbesnkusten in Swedish) confirms that this is the normative approach. Corlyon (talk) 12:30, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Once again, as noted above, this is not a situation where I have called those who disagree "xenophobes". I stated that one could bring the current arguments and a few dozen xenophobes all to say "change it", it will not make one iota of difference in the long run. An official country name is not, and never should be up for RM debate. Again, (for the 3rd time), I did not say that anyone who wants to change the name is a xenophobe. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 13:25, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
Probably better to have avoided the use of the loaded term to begin with. Could you direct me to the naming convention or policy that would prevent Wikipedia's use of a non-official country name? I have been guided by the following:
  • The title of an article should generally use the version of the name of the subject which is most common in the English language, as you would find it in reliable sources (for example other encyclopedias and reference works). This makes it easy to find, and easy to compare information with other sources. Often this will be the local version, as with Madrid. Sometimes the usual English version will differ somewhat from the local form (Aragon, Venice, Normandy; Franz Josef Strauss, Victor Emmanuel III, Christopher Columbus). Rarely, as with Germany or Mount Everest, it will be completely different.Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(use_English)
  • Sometimes, English usage is divided. For example, US newspapers generally referred to the Olympics in Torino, following official handouts. However, newspapers in other parts of the English speaking world still use Turin. Use what would be the least surprising to a user finding the article. Whichever is chosen, one should place a redirect at the other title and mention both forms in the lead.Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(use_English)
  • The title: When a widely accepted English name, in a modern context, exists for a place, we should use it. This often will be a local name, or one of them; but not always.Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(geographic_names)
  • When a widely accepted English name, in a modern context, exists for a place, we should use it. This will often be identical in form to the local name (as with Paris or Berlin), but in many cases it will differ (Germany rather than Deutschland, Rome rather than Roma, Hanover rather than Hannover, Meissen rather than Meißen). If a native name is more often used in English sources than a corresponding traditional English name, then use the native name. An example is Livorno, which is now known more widely under its native name than under the traditional English name "Leghorn".Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(geographic_names)
  • Articles are normally titled using the most common English-language name of the subject of the article. In determining what this name is, we follow the usage of reliable sources, such as those used as references for the article.Wikipedia:UCN#Common_names Corlyon (talk) 14:33, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

RFC Comment It sounds like there are good reasons on both sides of the debate, making it difficult to come to consensus. But this shouldn't matter because it's not an issue of any real consequence. Whatever the final verdict is, I'm sure there will be the appropriate redirects for the losing name, as well as a good description in the lede of the final article about the name issue. Also, whatever the final verdict is, reopening the debate in a couple years may be more productive, as it seems like what is considered the common name is changing fairly quickly.

I propose that the side that graciously lets the other side have it their way be declared as the better, more mature editors. The sooner this is resolved, the sooner all you bright people can move on to more useful ways of improving Wikipedia.

And since it hasn't been mentioned here yet, I would like to direct your attention to the sad story of the Wikipedia debate over whether the article for heavier-than-air flying contraptions should be called "Airplane" (American-spelling) or "Aeroplane" (remainder-of-the-Anglophone-world spelling). Because everyone was so stubborn, the article is now called "fixed-wing aircraft", which makes nobody happy. --RSLxii 18:43, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

PS. Lest my comment above be mistaken as a 'neutral' stance, I should say my vote is to keep it as "Côte d'Ivoire", from a pure practical standpoint. It seems like a big, needless effort to change the wording of all the dozens of articles associated with the country. But I will still declare the editors that first drop the issue to be the more mature out of the bunch. --RSLxii 23:32, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

It has gone very quiet. A few days ago there was an article on the Wikipedia front page In The News section about the case involving toxic waste dumping in the Ivory Coast, 2006 Côte d'Ivoire toxic waste dump. I decided to take a look at the sources for that article and see what term those sources use. I can not say i am surprised about the result. Of 49 sources, about 10 mentioned neither term, about 6 were dead or unclear, 2 said both Ivory Coast and Cote d'Ivoire (both cotes were quoting someone or a statement) and 1 said only Cote d'Ivoire.

That left a massive 30 sources out of 49 only using the term Ivory Coast. The English speaking media overwhelmingly uses Ivory Coast as mentioned previously. It is shocking that we take advantage of all these sources to have articles which use a completely different name.

Ivory Coast is the English WP:COMMONNAME for this country. A majority of people in the recent RM supported a move to Ivory Coast, yet this article remains in an incorrect french location. BritishWatcher (talk) 18:28, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

I give you more credit than you apparently deserve. Why is so much of your work so good, but you have the fact that the real name of a country happens to be French stuck on your craw so badly? There is no valid reason for this article to be named anything but what it is - no matter how hard to you try to convince the free world. RFC's such as this can go on for 30 days. There's no linguistically possible way that it can you the way you're working on. Go work on some articles. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 19:59, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
lol, i take this matter very seriously. If the RM had clearly shown i was alone then i would not mind. But to have a majority and be stuck with this article title when a lot of the evidence suggests it belongs at Ivory Coast is very frustrating. I need to dedicate more time to this issue not less sadly. BritishWatcher (talk) 14:33, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
  • Here from RFC and not really my area but one thing I do remember as part of general knowledge is the insistance that Côte d'Ivoire be called Côte d'Ivoire even in English which is why NGOs and such use Côte d'Ivoire even in English. So I would just leave it is as it is. MilborneOne (talk) 18:16, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Just passing through, but english speakers mispronounce the names of lot's of countries. Do you think that the chinese call their country china in chinese or that spain is pronounced spain or that mexico is pronounced mexico or that germany is pronounced germany. The title of the article should be Côte d'Ivoire since its redirected from ivory coast but in terms of being referrenced in other articles I would say it would be easier on everyone who can't type cote d ivoire to use ivory coast. Does it have to always be referred to one or the other? Overall it shouldn't matter that much. I haven't really read too much into the discussion. Good luck.Preciseaccuracy (talk) 04:40, 3 August 2010 (UTC)


Well that RFC appears to have been a complete and utter waste of time as i expected it would be, yet again Request for Comment has been proven to be an awful way of trying resolving something, it gets a few differing comments and halts the debate for about a month and lets it fade out. So i guess we are stuck with this awful title that most of us can not even type whilst wikipedia continues to use sources which mostly describe the place as ivory coast. How wonderful. BritishWatcher (talk) 18:06, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

You miss the fricking point: this is not an article that can have it's title changed. For crikey's sake, you're intelligent - get this one through your skull a little better. You can RFC or RM it until monkeys fly out of your butt, it cannot change. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 17:37, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
You might want to read up on WP:CIVIL. Actually, as WP:COMMONNAME states the rules, it is community consensus which chooses what to call an article when no single common name is present.("When there is no obvious common name for the topic, as used by a significant majority of reliable English language sources, editors should reach a consensus as to which title is best."). So I would call it a bit of an overstatement to say that this article never can change name, as you know, wp:consensus can change.TheFreeloader (talk) 01:11, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
It has been a few hours without a comment on this. Perhaps it is time for another RFC. Perhaps this one can be an RFC to agree on how often to have RFCs and other discussions on this renaming. This is the 7th discussion on this talk page in the last year about moving it. There are presently 8 discussions in total on this talk page and by my reckoning on division of discussions another 9 readily found in the archives about moving the page however to get the true count one need read the diffs of archive 1 as things from 2002 through late 2005 are only found in the history of that page. Something about enough is enough and just let it be comes to mind.
I am simply very much in favour of Côte d'Ivoire and would for certainty start an RFC should this ever end up at the "awful title" Ivory Coast. Point being the eternal fight would come from the other side should it ever be moved. Not to mention all of the reverted moves that are in the history, a few of which are no longer listing in the move logs but are listed in talk archive 1. This has been going on for 8 years now that i can find record of. For how long do you push for change of consensus? One person 3RR'd moving it to Ivory Coast a little over 4 years ago now. I can't find a time when the article has lasted at Ivory Coast for any significant time. Then there is the matter that it would appear to have been created at Cote DIvoire, a variation purely for then-existent technical restrictions.[64] Later a competing article was created at Ivory Coast and once they were merged this eternal fight began. delirious & lost ☯ ~hugs~ 08:45, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
Of course it should be "Ivory Coast." Complainers can find all sorts of caveats on the Internet to pretend that "Cote D'Ivoire" is "common" in English. Sure. Try the name on the next person you meet. The average person will say "huh"? The average American in monoglot. Brits may be better at French. This is clearly French.
We use "Florence" not "Firenze", "Austria" not (uh) "Oesterreich" (sp?) etc. If I say "Ivory Coast" there is a 65% chance that an American will recognize it and place it in Africa on the correct side. Maybe 15% chance with the French spelling. Let's stick to English spellings, English usage, and the English keyboard! Student7 (talk) 12:18, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
Pour le plaisir, je dis non. Vive Côte d'Ivoire!
This is not written for the American who knows no better. Globally both are used. The country uses the French when referring to itself in English. So do many other new agencies, governments, and international organisations. If examples of all caveats can be found then i do believe that means one is not pretending that something is but rather demonstrating it to be so. delirious & lost ☯ ~hugs~ 17:52, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
You know, like FIFA. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 18:55, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
Although it should be said that FIFA isn't the best indicator to go by on this issue, as they do have a tendency to use official names over common names. They also call North Korea Korea DPR. The same goes for many other international organizations as all will aim for being as diplomatic as possible and are not tied by policies about using common names like Wikipedia is. I still think the evidence is clearly for that in daily usage "Ivory Coast" is much more commonly used than "Cote d'Ivoire", as English-speaking news outlets have used "Ivory Coast" more than twice as much as "Cote d'Ivoire" the last ten years[65][66]. I do not think Wikipedia's aims for the language which it uses is much different from the aims of media, in that both prioritize of comprehensibility and recognizability over being diplomatic. I am however not sure that it is such a good idea to revive this issue, as there seems here to be a minority dead set against letting a consensus form on this issue. Trying to revive this issue will probably just get this closer to WP:LAME than to a consensus.TheFreeloader (talk) 20:00, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

<cr> If it's a minority then why hasn't the majority been able to put this article at it's rightful place at Ivory Coast? I'm not sure I've seen it any other way on the tv news or newspapers. Vote to see if you get 2/3 or call in a mediation cabal and get them to choose. What can you lose? Fyunck(click) (talk) 19:25, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Check the archive here. The last move request allowed to proceed saw a clear majority (11/18) of participating users favouring the English name but the closing admin overruled the result of the discussion. — AjaxSmack 01:36, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
You of course have read WP:NOTVOTE, WP:CONSENSUS, WP:NOTDEMOCRACY .... (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 16:49, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
Of course, it's clearly contentious - it has declared that its English name is also Cote d'Ivoire ... how can moving it to a name that actually denotes a region not therefore be contentious? (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 16:49, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

This should be called Ivory Coast on en.wikipedia.org —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.110.140.233 (talk) 03:46, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

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