I relisted the discussion at 02:36, 20 September 2021 (UTC), and this discussion was closed as Move at 04:13, 27 September 2021 (UTC), when no one participated after the relist. Kindly give a valid rationale before endorsing this. Neel.arunabh (talk) 21:09, 30 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse as closer. First of all, Neel.arunabh filed this MR just six minutes after leaving a message on my talk page: that hardly complies with the requirement to discuss with the closer. On the merits, it's not immediately clear what the complaint is. WP:RMRELIST states quite explicitly that "there is no required length of time to wait before closing a relisted discussion", and there's been no argument that I misread the consensus. (Nor could there be: the !voters were 6–2 in support, and the supporters had rather weighty policy arguments on their side that weren't really rebutted by the opposers.) I thus fail to see any grounds for overturning this. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 21:33, 30 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse the close. WP:MINNOW the closer for the inadequate closing statement. Advise him to add his summary of the discussion to the closing statement. Agree that Neel.arunabh should have given EW time to read, think, and respond. 6 minutes is absurd. One week is more reasonable. It’s not as if there was a mistake, just a request for a better explanation. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:53, 2 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Per your advice, I've expanded my closing statement. (Frankly, I wasn't expecting this to be a controversial closure: it seemed as though there was pretty obviously consensus. I suppose it's always best to be more cautious than seems necessary.) Extraordinary Writ (talk) 03:34, 2 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Just fyi, the caution needed goes both ways. While it is often a good thing to give a detailed explanation, closers must also be careful that the wording doesn't get them fired upon for supervoting. That's sometimes a delicate balance. And btw, my closures have been reviewed numerous times, and I can't remember a single one that I thought was controversial. P.I. Ellsworth - ed.put'r there14:29, 2 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
There were two main opposing arguments. First, "orchids can mean other things", which is not relevant when the plant family is already the primary topic for "orchid". Second, some users mentioned consistency. This was shown to be broken by other plant taxa such as cactus, fern and oak. Discounting those !votes, there is consensus for the move per WP:COMMONNAME and WP:NCFLORA. Vpab15 (talk) 11:49, 20 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse. <uninvolved> Had I closed this RM, I would have done so as not moved. Generally, the support arguments are weak relative to the opposers' rationales. There are at least two experienced science article editors in the discussion, Plantdrew and Peter coxhead, who had strong objections to the page move. A no-consensus outcome is a gift imho, because it means supporters are allowed to strengthen their arguments, hopefully come up with new arguments, and then try again in a few months to garner consensus for a name change. The longer the wait, the more likely the RM might be successful. That may not have been the best closure imo; however, it was definitely good enough. P.I. Ellsworth - ed.put'r there03:42, 22 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse. <uninvolved> It seems odd, like Columbidae, but without the easily understood justification that the commonname is weird to read. On looking, it is clear that the proposal was defeated by the "All species in the family Orchidaceae are orchids, but not all orchids are in the Orchidaceae" argument. What's needed is for this to be present in the article lede.
This is a case where article editors should get more respect than wandering RM regulars. Namely, Peter coxhead, stands out as the 5th top editor. I'll guess that Plantdrew is a plant expert editor? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:39, 22 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
There could be some criticism of the WP:BADNAC. The closer’s statement was not an impressive summary of the discussion, and why it was hopeless for developing consensus. My explanation is that neither side was persuading the other on anything. I think I see some basic assumptions are unstated and in disagreement, most basically, “what is orchid”? I think a better disambiguation page, maybe even a CONCEPTDAB, noting the word “orchid” predates genetic science that redefines plant families.
On yet another read through, “no consensus” is definitely right. Participants were not appreciating each other’s perspectives. What’s needed is more free-form discussion on the talk page to answer the question “what is an orchid?”, and for the answer to be grounded in quality sources and written into the article.
Overturn and move.<uninvolved> While I highly appreciate Peter coxhead's and Plantdrew's expert work, I think they exhibit bias towards scientific names, and their arguments here were fairly specious. The "not all orchids are Orchidaceae" argument, repeated several times in the debate, was rather superficial and not supported by evidence. It was effectively refuted by Ahecht: "Poor-man's" [orchid] in the name implies off the bat that it's not an orchid. That's like saying that we should move Stag beetle to Lucanidae because False stag beetles exist, and Vpab15 (why then Orchid redirects to Orchidaceae?). Peter's argument The point is that most of the 28,000 species have no human use against "plant of interest outside botany" provision in NCFLORA amounted to no true Scotsman. The "consistency" argument in opposition was defeated by counterarguments of moss, oak and fern. Other oppose arguments were mostly "per Peter" and a few were downright poor. In sum, "oppose" arguments largely went against the WP:PTOPIC and related clauses of the AT policy: since multiple meanings can be found for a vast number of titles, according to those we should never have primary topics. No such user (talk) 09:49, 22 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Respectfully, the point well made by Peter coxhead and others is that "orchid", while the ptopic (as the Orchidaceae family), is yet a very ambiguous term. So "orchid" thereby falls under the WP:PRIMARYREDIRECT editing guideline and should remain a redirect to the family. That's a strong argument, and anything else challenges the community consensus that formed the guideline. A very good reason is needed to challenge that consensus, and no good reason was given in the RM discussion. P.I. Ellsworth - ed.put'r there12:42, 22 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, to an objective observer that is a very weak argument to change the name of an article that has been titled with the family name for nearly 20 years now. There was no argument made in that RM to justify renaming the article, which gets on the average well over 1,000 page views everyday. Had you not been the proposer of the page move, had someone else proposed it and had you gone to that talk page to close the RM, you might be better able to objectively see where the closer and I are coming from. It was a good close. The only better close, as I said earlier, would have been a clean, sharp not moved. P.I. Ellsworth - ed.put'r there17:48, 22 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
There was no argument made in that RM to justify renaming the article – Um, how about WP:RECOGNIZABLE and WP:COMMONNAME? Nobody argued that the scientific name was wrong; just, that it is not recognizable to the general public. The opposing argumentation essentially revolves around WP:PRECISION, i.e. asserting that "orchid" somehow does not unambiguously define the topical scope of the article; but I still do not see any viable counterexamples presented, and most of it hand-waving. About the best one is Peter's Making the move should require showing that "orchid" is the most common term in reliable sources for "Orchidaceae", and I don't accept that this has (yet) been done, but then, it seems impossible to prove or disprove. No such user (talk) 08:43, 23 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
COMMONNAME is not always easy to distinguish and may not be in this case; however, if WP is to err, then it should err on the side of long-term status quo. As far as RECOGNIZABLE goes, that's also a weak argument since the family name begins with the word in question. So I stand by my statement that there was no argument made in that RM to justify renaming the article. P.I. Ellsworth - ed.put'r there22:36, 23 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
the family name begins with the word in question. Another plant family, Magnoliaceae begins with Magnolia. They are related, but not the same thing. The name "Orchidaceae" implies some relation to orchids, but only somebody with significant knowledge in botany will know the terms are synonyms. The average reader will probably not know that by reading the title alone. Vpab15 (talk) 23:06, 23 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse, uninvolved. I probably would have supported, but that's of course beside the point: both sides made not unreasonable arguments that resonated in policy, and the !voters were evenly split numerically. Per WP:NHC, "If the discussion shows that some people think one policy is controlling, and some another, the closer is expected to close by judging which view has the predominant number of responsible Wikipedians supporting it, not personally select which is the better policy." Since no view attracted the support of a predominant number of responsible Wikipedians, the discussion did not generate a consensus. Any other close would be a supervote, and I'm thus bound to endorse. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 00:40, 30 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn (uninvolved). Comments like "'Orchid' can refer to other things, as per Orchid (disambiguation), whereas 'Orchidaceae' is unambiguous" run counter to our naming conventions and should be given less weight. (It makes no sense to say "orchidaceae" is the primary topic for the term "orchid," but still deem "orchid" too ambiguous to have the page titled such.) The closer, however, seems to have simply counted votes -- the closing statement is essentially a headcount. -- Calidum03:03, 1 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that it was not an impressive closing statement, but I don’t think the question can be resolved by a better examination of the discussion. Instead, more discussion is needed, and whatever the title, there is problem with the article’s presentation of the facts of the meanings of the term “orchid”. SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:44, 2 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse (involved as closer). I am not sure how helpful it is for closers to endorse their own closes, but for what it is worth, having carefully considered all the thoughtful contributions above and re-read the discussion several times, I remain of my original view. The discussion clearly did not reach consensus and any other close would have been a supervote.
In retrospect I accept that my closing summary might have been fuller. In particular, I would have preferred to have included words analagous to Extraordinary Writ's statement above, which I think expresses the position exactly. Nevertheless, I reject the accusation that I simply counted the !votes. I have identified broadly the policies relied on on each side. As it happens, these invoked all 5 of the WP:CRITERIA (although one applied only on the margin). It may have been better stated explicitly, but it was implicit in my statement (a) that each side was making arguments sounding in policy and (b) that the two sides were arguing across each other. In retrospect, I should also have mentioned WP:NCFLORA, although this is essentially the argument from consistency and in any event took the matter no nearer to consensus. It is not for me as closer to attempt to weigh the criteria against each other: that is what the participating editors should have done.
I do not know that it is right to weight the votes of different categories of editors differently. I can certainly see an argument for giving more weight to the opinions of editors with relevant expertise, but I do not think we have any policy to that effect, and one might say conversely that "wandering RM regulars" have expertise of a different sort.
I also do not know that it is necessary or helpful for me to give my opinion as to why the discussion failed to reach consensus. I might have made some comments critical of the approach of individual editors towards building consensus, but I'm not sure that a closing summary is always the right place for that. There are some cases where the editors involved in a move discussion have entirely missed some central plank of the discussion (e.g. where nobody provides any evidence of how the article subject is treated in RSs) where it may be helpful to mention that, but this did not seem to me to be that case. SmokeyJoe is right that neither side was persuading the other on anything, but I doubt that saying so would add anything useful to the closing summary.
It remains my view that this was an appropriate case for a NAC per WP:RMNAC.
As pointed out by P.I. Ellsworth (whether or not it is a "gift"), a close of "no consensus" does not prevent a re-submission of the RM. For that to achieve consensus may well require the sort of free-form disucssion envisaged by SmokeyJoe, which may involve making some clarification in the article text. Some effort along those lines would seem to me to be more productive and more conducive to consensus building than rehashing the issues here. Havelock Jones (talk) 13:36, 3 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I endorsed your close, but “in retrospect” no NAC is a good NAC if it leads to a heavy contested MRV. A good NAC is helpful to the project, and generating MRV work seriously detracts from the net benefit of the NAC. In future, I hope you will better anticipate objections, and either avoid contentious NACs, or pre-empt complaints with a better quality closing statement. It is very hard to say how to do that, but easy to critique in retrospect, so, good luck. SmokeyJoe (talk) 09:55, 9 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The above is an archive of the move review of the page listed in the heading. Please do not modify it.
The closer made no attempt to determine consensus. Instead they seemed to have picked one of the !votes and agreed with it, adding their own novel rationale as further justification. It is a controversial topic, and the change to add "massacre" is a controversial one which has been discussed many times before, so should not have been moved without clear consensus. 2A00:23C8:4583:9F01:CD90:53D0:5B76:9D48 (talk) 09:00, 19 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse (uninvolved). Reading through the RM discussion without counting votes, this is an entirely reasonable and well-considered close, in line with policy and guidelines. I don't see any "novel rationale". I also note that although proposals to change the title to "massacre" alone have been discussed before, I don't see any previous RM proposing "protests and massacre". Station1 (talk) 17:45, 19 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse (comment from involved editor) - I second Station1's comment above. The close was diligent and well summarized. It accurately reflects the current consensus. ––FormalDude talk03:57, 20 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Procedural note: The OP did "attempt to discuss" concerns with the closer, but Sceptre was given only a couple of days to respond and has not made any edits since the first talk page post. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 04:53, 20 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse – there was clearly no consensus for a move to "massacre" on its own, but there was likewise no consensus for "protests" on its own, because the article covered more than just the protests leading up to the massacre or the massacre itself. I could have closed it as "no consensus" on a pure headcount on what people preferred, but discussions are not a vote and I found Ahecht's argument (which was echoed by a few other people) that we can have "X and Y" articles where they're closely interlinked (c.f. Hellmann's and Best Foods; people nearly universally call the mayonnaise one or the other) more persuasive to "it looks wordy". Sceptre (talk) 14:22, 21 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your fuller explanation. My apologies for not waiting for it on your talk page, as eluded to in the procedural note above; it was unclear to me what an appropriate wait was. I must say though your reply here does not change my view that the close seems more like a supervote, and ignores the proper policy based concerns of some, that is is not the WP:COMMONNAME, does not follow WP:CRITERIA, does not appear like that in reliable sources which means it does not satisfy WP:AND ("Avoid the use of "and" to combine concepts that are not commonly combined in reliable sources."). 2A00:23C8:4583:9F01:F8FC:3D1D:E982:7C1E (talk) 11:14, 23 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
