Wikipedia talk:Moving a page/Archive 3

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Video Wikipedia talk:Moving a page/Archive 3

WhatLinksHere

There is an issue with Special:WhatLinksHere. When moving an article, only the moved article appears as a redirect in WhatLinksHere under the new article name and the talk page redirect does not appear in WhatLinksHere. GeoffreyT2000 (talk) 03:56, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

@GeoffreyT2000: I strongly suspect that this is closely related to Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 141#Category membership issues, in that the links tables (which is what is used to generate both WhatLinksHere and the lists on cat pages) are lagging behind reality. --Redrose64 (talk) 23:53, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

Maps Wikipedia talk:Moving a page/Archive 3

Seeking consensus on talk pages

Why is there nothing here about when and under what circumstances it's appropriate or advisable to discuss a proposed page move on the article's talk page first, rather than just being bold and doing it? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 09:37, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

There is. WP:MOVE#Before moving a page. --Redrose64 (talk) 14:57, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

I beg to differ. That's about going to Wikipedia:Requested moves. I'm talking about when I'm thinking of moving, say, Adolf Hitler to, say, Der Feuhrer, but before I do so, I go to Talk:Adolf Hitler and flag my thinking and seek feedback, because I think it may be controversial and may not attract universal agreement.

I only use Wikipedia:Requested moves when I have tried to execute a non-controversial (or agreed) page move but found my way blocked (I don't have administrator-like powers). In all other cases, I either discuss my thinking on the article's own talk page, or simply move the page. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:18, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

I think you misunderstand Wikipedia:Requested moves. Sure, you can be bold and simply move the page if you believe the move will not be contested, and there is nothing technically blocking your ability to perform the move. You may use the technical section of Wikipedia:Requested moves to request administrator help if there is something technically blocking your ability to do it yourself. Going to an article's talk page and flagging your thinking and seeking feedback is precisely what Wikipedia:Requested moves is all about - all RM discussions take place on the specific article talk page which is the topic of discussion. The WP:RM page is simply a bot-generated listing of the discussions that are happening on individual talk pages, which is used by editors who "watchlist" such discussions and administrators to look for discussions which are ready to be closed. Wbm1058 (talk) 21:27, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

Yes, it is true that "all RM discussions take place on the specific article talk page which is the topic of discussion". But there are times when the discussion takes place on the article's talk page without ever involving WP:RM at all. Is there any rule that says that all such discussions must be funnelled via WP:RM? Not to my knowledge.

So, there are two ways of starting a discussion about a page move:

• (a) raise it at WP:RM, or
• (b) raise it directly - and only - at the relevant article's talk page.

I always go for option (b) unless there is something "technically blocking [my] ability to perform the move", in which case I'll consider option (a) if I have the energy to re-learn the syntax of such requests (in other words, if I think the move is important enough for me to spend my time going down the bureaucratic route).

Do you see what I'm saying? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 23:06, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

Option (b) is option (a). If you go to the article's talk page, and (without starting a new section) add at the bottom {{subst:requested move|(new name)|reason=(your reason why)}}, a bot will update WP:RM automatically. --Redrose64 (talk) 00:01, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

I see you saying that you don't want to be bothered with learning either the syntax {{subst:requested move|(new name)|reason=(your reason why)}} for starting discussions about potentially controversial moves, or the similar syntax for requesting uncontroversial moves, as you think that's too bureaucratic. Perhaps you can use {{Help me}} to ask someone else to do it for you. Some editors don't like the one-week limit on discussion (though that can easily drag out to a month or more if a consensus doesn't form right away), or that they have to request a move that they're not sure should really be made, and want to just start an informal and less structured discussion. I'm not keen on that, unless it's just putting up a trial balloon before deciding to initiate the more formal request. If a move is made based on a local consensus that wasn't advertised at WP:RM, then you risk WP:CONLIMITED objections later on, after others discover the fait accompli move. Wbm1058 (talk) 01:59, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Yes, that's exactly what I'm on about. Let me explain. At last count, I have made 1,544 page moves throughout my 12-year Wiki-career. Some of these (a small number) have indeed come after going through WP:RM. A larger number have involved a local consensus at the relevant talk page. But the vast majority have been relatively minor, and I considered it was not necessary to discuss them beforehand, anywhere at all.

Have any of these 1,544 moves been objected to, or even reverted? Yes, a small number, probably about 1%. So, experience tells me that the risk to which you refer is not significant. Or maybe I tend to dabble in the less trafficked articles; God knows, someone has to.

My query came about as a result of a rare reversion of one of my moves (George Frideric Handel's lost Hamburg operas to Handel's lost Hamburg operas). The editor who reverted my move expressed his objections at my talk page, thus: "It is normal practice to open a talk page thread before moving an article title. You shouldn't just barge in and do it unless there is an obvious error".

So, on the question of how to go about obtaining a consensus in general, he and I are in agreement: use the talk page; no mention of WP:RM.

But before responding to him, I wanted to check exactly what the guidelines actually say about these procedures. And that's where I discovered a lack of any mention of the procedure that is widely used (I could find thousands of examples if necessary).

So, if the position is that all page move discussions must be conducted under the aegis of WP:RM, we should say so. But if it's perfectly acceptable for them to occur with the support of a local consensus only - as long as the participants are prepared to risk the move being countermanded by a global consensus at some later time - then we should also state that explicitly.

But saying nothing at all about local consensuses is not a goer. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 03:21, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

When no specific instruction or guideline exists, I think the rules of common sense apply. Thus, it would be perfectly OK, in my view, to boldly move a page if the title contains errors of capitalisation, spelling, italicisation, or if it clearly breached a title convention established for articles in that subject areaa. However, changing the wording of a title to a personal preference, without notification or justification, is a slightly different matter. Common sense (and common courtesy) suggests some discussion before the action, on the talk page at first, resorting to RM only if matters can't be resolved by local consensus. Brianboulton (talk) 14:36, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

Right, some common sense applies here. If you can quickly come to a local consensus, that's fine. You'll bypass the need for an independent third party to determine consensus and close the discussion. However, if it soon becomes apparent that there is substantial disagreement, I suggest not delaying too much in opening a formal, advertised discussion. If you have a long, drawn out discussion before advertising it, you can have problems with new editors arriving on the scene who aren't up-to-speed on the issues, and have to rehash them. Most page moves are technical and routine in nature; I do a lot of those myself. There is usually a significant backlog at RM, so it's helpful not to burden independent admins with too many routine moves. Wbm1058 (talk) 18:11, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

@user:JackofOz as other have said common sense comes into it. However in the case of a good faith move that you have made that is reverted by another: Then what?

Let us take George Frideric Handel's lost Hamburg operas as an example case.

I think that if user:Brianboulton (the editor who reverted your move) had explained his/her reason for his/her revert on the article's talk page, rather than on your user talk page, it might have encouraged others interested in the article's title to get involved the merits of the two possible titles. However that is not what was done.

You have made a bold move and it has been reverted. You are now faced with two choices. You can simply leave it alone (there are millions of other articles), or you can initiate a discussion on the talk page of the article with or without a RM request. If you choose not to involve RM, and the only person who responds is user:Brianboulton, then unless the two of you reach an agreement there will be no consensus. (As no consensus if often the outcome of these limited conversations, then as the move initiator why not short circuit the process and use the RM process to try to build a wider consensus for what you believe to be a move to a more appropriate title?)

However if you have initiated a conversation on the talk page without RM and if there is no consensus, then either the page remains where it is, or the disagreement over the article title is escalated with the dispute resolution process. If one of you chooses to escalate then WP:RM is a better process to use than the other options (such as a WP:RfC), because it is specifically tailored to handling page moves. Those who lurk at watch WP:RM often have a broad knowledge of WP:AT policy and its naming conventions (supporting guidelines) and so can help steer less experienced editors to make decisions based on policy rather than their own personal preferences; and unlike an RfC there is a defined close procedure with appeals built in for a RM request.

Because in the past there have been move wars, to stop that happening there is a tradition of only moving a page if there is a consensus to do so, and a specific section of guidance at WP:RM designed to stifle page move wars (see WP:RMUM).

-- PBS (talk) 20:22, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for that, User:PBS.

Making an uncontroversial move - if you can, do it yourself!

I considered it uncontroversial, so I moved it.

I now see there was a bigger picture that I failed to see at the time, viz. similarly named articles all using the same format. That just shows that it's not always possible to know with absolute certainty whether a move would be controversial or not; one must use one's best judgement. One should never be criticised for being bold if one is operating in a reasonable and non-malicious way.

If the page has recently been moved without discussion, you may revert the move and initiate a discussion on its talk page.

User:Brianboulton is very welcome to initiate such a discussion on the article's talk page.

But that gets me back, via a circuitous route, to my original question. Rather than someone boldly moving a page and then having it reverted and then discussing the matter at the talk page, what's wrong with commencing a discussion at the talk page as the first step in the process? It's not always necessary to go through WP:RM, it's really not. I just think these guidelines should explicitly allow/recognise this sort of procedure. Particularly as it is widely practised and always has been and always will be. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:48, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

Policy and guidelines are just that. If you want to start a conversation on the talk page of an article before moving the article then of course you can do so. There is really no reason to say as much, because if bold moves are tolerated then by extension so to are conversations on a talk page about potential moves. If you do not get a clear consensus to move the page then presumably as an experienced and conciousness editor you would not make the move. However in this case, what you did was was acceptable as the bold move was in made good faith. This is what usually happens and we do not have to say as much. This page only comes into play if you are blocked from making a move or if you think that the move will be controversial. If you move a page and the move is reverted (unless you can persuae the person who reverted the move to revert their revert, the move is controversial and a RM will be needed to move it to your preferred name). This process was originally introduced, like the Wikipedia:Requests for history merge to be a non-controversial technical page. However within hours of its creation there was the first "oppose"[1] and it started to become a clearing house for controversial as well as technically difficult moves. -- PBS (talk) 21:08, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

... an experienced and conciousness editor - why, that's the nicest thing anyone's said to me for a long time. Thanks.  :) -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:26, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

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