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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Amakuru (talk | contribs) at 09:31, 29 September 2021 (reformat as requsted move, per Number 57 comment below). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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Mass move request

Requested move 29 September 2021

– Should this article and other similar ones (those listed in the template at the bottom) be moved to titles of the following form: "[Year] San Marino [election/appropriate term]" ?  — Amakuru (talk) 09:31, 29 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Survey

  • Yes Rather unambiguous per WP:COMMONNAME; the demonym is obscure and practically unknown. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:24, 27 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes to page moves per WP:COMMONNAME, etc. GoodDay (talk) 02:38, 27 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes, the adjectival form should usually be used, but it seems reasonable that this be an exception. Elli (talk | contribs) 04:17, 27 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • No Just because San Marino is a lesser known country (thus its demonym also being lesser known), I do not think an exception for it should just be made because of that. What makes San Marino different from other lesser-known countries (and their demonyms)? --boldblazer 05:26, 27 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes. The adjective Sammarinese rarely appears in English sources covering events such as these, and I honestly didn't even know what it meant when I first saw it at ITN/C yesterday. There is an obvious WP:RECOGNIZE benefit to making this change.  — Amakuru (talk) 07:16, 27 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • No COMMONNAME is irrelevant here – the naming guideline WP:NCELECT instructs use of the adjectival form of the country name. The term Sammarinese was used in the coverage of yesterday's referendum by the BBC, Guardian, Sky News, Euronews etc, so it's hardly obscure. Also, this is an RM, not an RfC, so I suggest it is is reformatted as such (which will also mean the articles are tagged so more people can see this is under debate. Cheers, Number 57 08:34, 27 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    WP:COMMONNAME and WP:RECOGNIZE, as sitewide policies, obviously trump localised naming conventions - particularly one like this, which has been found wanting before, in the case of "Central African presidential election" etc. It's time people started thinking about what's good for readers, and using the nomenclature found elsewhere in the sources, rather than applying a "convention" just for the sake of it.  — Amakuru (talk) 11:19, 27 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    COMMONNAME isn't applicable, because elections and referendums are titled using a formulaic system. Otherwise we'd end up with Brexit referendum as a title. Number 57 11:59, 27 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    "Brexit referendum" could actually be an appropriate title, especially since it would be far more WP:CONCISE. Anyway, enough distraction: WP:CRITERIA are always applicable. Your legalistic interpretation of one guideline (which is, legalistically speaking, lower in the pecking order than the article title policy, and, as indicated at the top, "occasional exceptions may apply") does not offer a compelling reason why we should override the widely accepted article title policy. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 12:07, 27 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    "Brexit referendum" would certainly be a good title. I'm actually surprised it isn't there. Or at the very least "2016 Brexit referendum". We moved the main article to Brexit, from whatever convoluted title it used to have! And COMMONNAME applies everywhere, there's nothing like it "isn't applicable". It's a sitewide policy, which is designed to make things easy for readers.  — Amakuru (talk) 13:07, 27 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    @Number 57: I tried pinging every possibly relevant Wiki-project. RfCs are also advertised at places like Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Politics, government, and law, so there's no issue that this would not have enough participation. You're absolutely free to go add tags to every relevant article, though given the amount of them I think a discussion advertised more widely than just via article tags was the obvious solution. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 11:48, 27 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    If you turn this into an RM and list the articles as detailed here, RMCD bot will automatically add the tags to the articles and talkpages in question. Number 57 11:59, 27 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • No per others. San Marino is a small country, so "Sammarinese" is a small, non-recognized demonym.  – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 15:00, 27 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    That's nonsense. It has been demonstrated below that Sammarinese is an obscure and mostly unused term, even relative to the size of San Marino, which is a country many people have indeed heard of. There's a reason why newspapers are distinguishing between "German election" and "San Marino referendum", and there is simply no justification to be doing this, other than the WP:POINTy rationale that "the naming convention says so". Well I'm proud to say that I ditch naming conventions if they don't serve our readers.  — Amakuru (talk) 16:23, 27 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    As said below, we use "Faroese" and even "Dutch" frequently, so an unambiguous-if-niche adjective should provide no problem. The only precedent I see for this is when we use "United States presidential election" instead of "American", but that's only because the latter is genuinely ambiguous.  – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 18:27, 27 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • No. WP:NCELECT is clear here and even includes "Faroese"—a similarly underreported polity—as an example, so it's not like it doesn't apply after a certain scale. 𝄠ʀᴀᴘᴘʟᴇ ꭗ 15:14, 27 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    @Grapple X: WP:NCELECT is a guideline, which allows for exceptions, as does every single rule on Wikipedia. There is a coherent argument, which you fail to address, why we should apply the more convincing guidelines of WP:CRITERIA (which is policy, coherently applied site-wide with even less exceptions: see also WP:LOCALCONSENSUS - you have not provided any reason why we should ignore COMMONNAME, for example). See also the excellent analysis lower about how uncommon the demonym is related to others, which is certainly different from the situation with "Faroes" and "Faroese" (ngram) RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 15:32, 27 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    I see a guideline as a soft default, something that takes a convincing argument to move away from. I've never had, nor seen, confusion over "sammarinese". It may not be as common as "French" or "Chinese" but it's unambiguous in that it certainly can't apply to anything else, and is in no way unintuitive in ways that demonyms we use freely like "Dutch" can be. I don't see that a move based on "I've never seen this before" is merited when it's not ambiguous or prone to mistaken usage. I'm also concerned that any gulph in usage would only be exacerbated by us moving away from using the correct term, wherein we would simply create a vicious circle instead of allowing our correct usage of it to be a point of knowledge. 𝄠ʀᴀᴘᴘʟᴇ ꭗ 17:08, 27 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    It's not the place of encyclopedia writers to take a stand on an issue (WP:NPOV) are enforce what we believe to be correct (WP:RGW). Writing an encyclopedia is an intellectual but wholly uncreative endeavour. If sources overwhelmingly use "San Marino" instead of "Sammarinese" or "Sanmarinese" [which at least has the distinction of being linguistically logical], then we follow them, to help our readers find the information. Somebody looking for the very natural 2019 San Marino election would be disappointed to find a red link... I'll also note that NCELECT seems to be very non-uniformly enforced (and probably for good reasons), there's hundreds of examples, from 2021 Alberta municipal elections (not 2021 Albertan municipal elections) or 2017 Saarland state election (not 2021 Saarlander state election or 2021 Saarlandian state election) to 2016 Philippine presidential election (as already pointed out below) or 2019 United Kingdom general election (certainly not 2019 British general election). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:02, 28 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    It's the place of an encyclopaedia to be correct and consistent where possible. None of these arguments seem to stem from anything other than unfamiliarity. To me this seems very much like the wug test, wherein someone may not have known the term before but it really seems impossible to mistake it once it's seen. If you're concerned about editors searching for "San Marino" elections and not Sammarinese elections, that's what redirects are for. As for "linguistically logical", that's bunkum given that we have no problem using "Dutch" (and how is that derived from the Netherlands, or their endonym Nederlander?). I would also refute a comparison to "British" as it is not one and the same with United Kingdom, which encompasses more territory than just Britain, that's apples and oranges. So in the absence of any practical concerns I am not swayed by the notion that "some people haven't heard the term so we shouldn't use it". 𝄠ʀᴀᴘᴘʟᴇ ꭗ 10:07, 28 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    As I said, it is not the place of an encyclopedia to correct usage. See WP:RGW. You are free to think what you want about "none of these arguments seem to stem from anything other than unfamiliarity"; but your position is then at odds with established policy (WP:COMMONNAME) and is instead based on some dubious wording in a guideline which was not submitted for approval as such. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 11:39, 28 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    You're mischaracterising what I'm saying. I'm not trying to "right great wrongs", I'm merely opposed to making an exception in this case on subjective grounds, and no amount of badgering based on your opinion or on assuming motives other than I've stated is going to sway me. 𝄠ʀᴀᴘᴘʟᴇ ꭗ 11:42, 28 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    You're literally saying we should be correcting common usage because it's wrong. Might not be the usual sense of RGW, but that's pretty much the spirit. As for "subjective grounds", that's also outright wrong. Anyways, since you're accusing me of badgering and are an unmoveable object yourself, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 12:00, 28 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes Per Amakuru and COMMONNAME. SpencerT•C 23:30, 27 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • No The sources of the election use it, and we even have a Sammarinese page. Of course the denonym isn't very well know, it's a very tiny country that is very rarely on the medias : the country itself isn't very well know. That's no reason not to use its proper denonym.--Aréat (talk) 02:21, 28 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    And what does the demonym not being well known have to do with reasons why it should be used (reasons which should conform with the article title policy)? If it is, indeed, "not well known", then it explicitly shouldn't be used if there's a better option (there is), per WP:COMMONNAME. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:30, 28 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm saying San Marino isn't any more well know than Sammarinese, hence why COMMONAME doesn't make the first preferable to the second.--Aréat (talk) 03:33, 28 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    That's factually wrong. See the numbers given in the discussion section; and also just have a thought: ever heard of the (former) San Marino Grand Prix? Or notice how reputable sources don't appear to be using the demonym (AP has "San Marino residents"; Reuters avoids it and the only instance where it could possibly have been used reads as "San Marino women", not "Sammarinese women"); ... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 03:43, 28 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    You've been given sources already about the use of the denonym's use. San Marino Grand Prix is a translation, of course it doesn't use it. Saying the denonym should never be used because sources that aren't well aware of San Marino in the first place don't use it is circling reasoning. Are you advocating for pages such as 2020 Alaska Measure 2 or 2008 California Proposition 2 to be renamed "referendum? Because I can tell you nobody that isn't well aware of the US system will search for these referendums in such words. COMMONAME doesn't mean using words that people who don't know about the matter would use.--Aréat (talk) 04:03, 28 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    The only usage of "Sammarinese" in the sources is in translation of "Unione Donne Sammarinesi", and even this is incoherently translated, as many others use "San Marino Women's Union" France24, (BBC uses both versions!). Go take a look at what my comment said instead of making a strawman of it, and then go look at the article title policy, which explicitly states that official names or technical names are not worth two pence if they're not commonly used (so William Jefferson Clinton is a redirect to Bill Clinton and not the other way around; it is Westminster Abbey and not "Collegiate Church of Saint Peter at Westminster"; so on so forth). Absolutely same thing here. If nearly everybody uses "San Marino" (a ratio of 35:1 is "nearly everybody"), then so do we, even if it technically isn't a demonym (FWIW, Wikipedia guidelines allow for reasonable exceptions, see WP:5P5, and you have not provided any counter-argument as to that other than "it's a guideline"). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 04:11, 28 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    "COMMONAME doesn't mean using words that people who don't know about the matter would use" - actually, exactly the opposite. Titles should be commonly recognisable, and something that the average reader is likely to look for, as stated at WP:CRITERIA: "Naturalness – The title is one that readers are likely to look or search for and that editors would naturally use to link to the article from other articles. Such a title usually conveys what the subject is actually called in English." RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 04:32, 28 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

Do you mean (example) change to 2019 San Marino general election? GoodDay (talk) 02:28, 27 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

While Oxford Dictionary gives Sammarinese, Cambridge Dictionary gives Sanmarinese as an adjective (with "n" instead of "m"). That's odd. Brandmeistertalk 07:29, 27 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It seems from ngrams that both forms are in use, with varying levels over time: [1]. The discrepancy kind of adds to the idea that this isn't really a well-established and recognizable adjective.
To add a bit of data to the debate, I've done ngram comparisons for a few miscellaneous countries with demonyms (but excluding those that also have a language named after them, because that could skew the statistics):
  Country name Demonym Ratio Ngram
San Marino / Sammarinese 334249 8992 37.2 [2]
Ghana / Ghanaian 4673926 722337 6.5 [3]
Austria / Austrian 10723818 6448359 1.7 [4]
Kenya / Kenyan 6962904 1187595 5.9 [5]
Bangladesh / Bangladeshi 5256352 585456 9.0 [6]
Philippines / Filipino 7580205 1853269 4.1 [7]
What this shows is that "Sammarinese" is *much* less widely used in books in comparison to its parent country, than any of the other demonyms are. Therefore I think it's reasonable to make this an exception to general naming conventions for usage reasons. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 13:17, 27 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Elections in the Philippines use the word "Philippine", e.g. "2022 Philippine presidential election". There is some unfinished business on Philippine vs. Filipino. Howard the Duck (talk) 14:17, 27 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
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