Requested move 27 November 2018[edit]

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: No consensus: after a month of discussion, it is clear that there is an irreconcilable difference between those in the WP:CONSISTENCY camp and those in the WP:COMMONNAME camp. No prejudice against another RM after a cool-off period as long as everyone is pinged, nor against taking this decision to move review as it appears that there is a 6-6 split between support and oppose. (closed by non-admin page mover) SITH (talk) 01:55, 27 December 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]


Norwegian First Division → 1. divisjon – Norwegian First Division has never been and will never become the name of this league. Due to consistecy in naming of the world's football leagues this site should be named 1. divisjon, or at least 1. divisjon (Norwegian football). Since 1991, 1. divisjon has been the only correct name for this second tier apart from the sponsor-affiliated names (Adeccoligaen 2005–2013, OBOS-ligaen 2015–) The reason for my view is that this anglification or Englishing of 1. divisjon does not look good and examples of better naming are many; In Germany, 2. Bundesliga is not called "German Second Division", 1. delid on the Faroe Islands is not named "First Division" and Ligue 2 in France is not named "League Two". Reitimwinkl (talk) 11:56, 27 November 2018 (UTC) --Relisting. Iffy★Chat -- 08:31, 7 December 2018 (UTC)--Relisting. Galobtter (pingó mió) 19:35, 18 December 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

  • Division 1 (Norwegian football league) is not a name used by any sources, so would be ridiculous. Norwegian First Division at least makes sense as a name. Joseph2302 (talk) 22:15, 18 December 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]
    • On WP the parenthetic part is called disambiguation and is not part of the name of the topic. —В²C ☎ 22:39, 18 December 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in WikiProject Football's list of association football-related page moves. GiantSnowman 20:42, 18 December 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Discussion[edit]

There seem to be at least two issues raised above that need some thought here IMO:

Both have appeared in other recent RMs. Andrewa (talk) 15:18, 26 December 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Recognisability[edit]

As I said above, the proposed titles are very generic. IMO they are likely search terms for other locations and other sports. Does this matter? I think it does when a proposed title is as extremely generic as these are, with only small differences making them unambiguous from other sports and locations that do appear in reliable sources, even if not by exactly that name. But, where do we draw the line? This is such a big issue I think it deserves a section all its own. Andrewa (talk) 15:18, 26 December 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Requested move 5 October 2021[edit]

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

– I propose moving all the Norwegian men's football divisions from level 2 to level 5, in addition to the women's level 2. The reason being consistency in the article titles. As this is the English Wikipedia, it seems only reasonable that English language sources should have an impact on the names, especially when the current Norwegian names are not very prevalent in neither English nor Norwegian sources. For example, SofaScore, SoccerStats.com, FootyStats.org, Tribuna.com, and RSSSF (Norwegian football archive) all refer to the second level as the Norwegian 1st Division (or Norwegian First Division), and the lower divisions should match that name for consistency. There are also pages like Soccerway and FcTables.com who refer to the league as 1. Division, which is an incorrect translation of 1. divisjon. A correct translation would be "1st division". The Norwegian Football Federation, Altomfotball, Eurosport, VG, and Global Sports Archive refer to the Norwegian 1st Division by its sponsored name, OBOS-ligaen, which is not ideal as a Wikipedia title. Sources that refer to the second level as 1. divisjon are: NRK, NIFS, WorldFootball.net and National Football Teams. The titles I would suggest are Norwegian 1st Division, Norwegian 2nd Division etc. But they are in no way set in stone. Another opportunity is to substitute the number in the titles with letters, so that Norwegian 1st Division would become Norwegian First Division. However, I think Norwegian 1st Division should be used in that case because it is more concise and a better translation of the Norwegian "1. divisjon". The names should not be confused with Category:Divisions of Norway though. Yet another opportunity is to use the Norwegian names, but it is worth mentioning that a proposed move to 1. divisjon in 2018 reached no consensus. Another question to be had is whether the word "Division" should be capitalised or not. Also keep in mind that there are of course many templates, categories and season pages that go with these articles that would also have to be moved should this proposal be accepted. Sørhaug (talk) 11:37, 5 October 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in WikiProject Football's list of association football-related page moves. GiantSnowman 11:44, 5 October 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Option 1: Move all to Norwegian X Division
Option 2: Move all to Y.divisjon
Then everyone can say Support option 1 OR Support Option 2. Might be easier to see results that way. RedPatch (talk) 12:37, 5 October 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Per WP:UE: In deciding whether and how to translate a foreign name into English, follow English-language usage so it doesn't matter if it is a correct translation or not. That doesn't mean that the fact an incorrect translation is used for an article title can't be explained in the article. Stevie fae Scotland (talk) 21:43, 6 October 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]
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.

Over-capitalization[edit]

Did nobody notice that in RGlochester's new link above, and news in general, first division, second division, etc. are uniformly lowercase? So any objections if I just fix this? Dicklyon (talk) 18:48, 11 March 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Dicklyon, there have been multiple requested moves already. You don't reverse them with a casual "can I just fix this?" Submit a new RM because this is, per the WP:RM instructions, "potentially controversial". – wbm1058 (talk) 21:17, 11 March 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Since none of the previous RMs considered this capitalization issue, I would think it routine to just fix it. But I'm asking first if anyone watching this article would be bothered by that. Dicklyon (talk) 23:28, 11 March 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Dick, I'm really tired of this. They "didn't consider it" because they all assumed that Norwegian First Division is the proper name of a specific entity. Not a generic descriptor of some generic thing. This is the same deal as the NFL Draft. This should be automatic for needing an RM. Whenever a title is up for move, all aspects are up for possible consideration. Given there have been multiple previous discussions, it's a huge stretch to assume that nobody noticed it was a proper name that shouldn't be proper. – wbm1058 (talk) 23:42, 11 March 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Well, that is why I asked. But if you insist that an RM is needed, based on speculation that someone might object, we can do that. Dicklyon (talk) 23:48, 11 March 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Moving this is a BIG DEAL because it's not just this page. There are nine divisions and the first four have articles, so there are several impacted pages. – wbm1058 (talk) 23:47, 11 March 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Yes, there will be some work involved. Dicklyon (talk) 23:48, 11 March 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Requested move 11 March 2022[edit]

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

No consensus to move. After much-extended time for discussion, and one rescinded earlier close, there is still a clear absence of consensus for a move at this time, and a reasonable argument that the current titles are permissible. Discussion basically appears to be a back-and-forth "are too/are not" on the question. BD2412 T 03:59, 5 April 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]

– These division terms are not usually capped in sources. They are uniformly lowercase in news, and don't appear often enough in books to get stats (and some of the capped uses in books are about military divisions). Other pages dependent on these main ones will also be affected, as before. Dicklyon (talk) 23:56, 11 March 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]

  • Comment These are not ipso facto proper nouns/names. They are descriptive of a category. Specificity may be a feature of a proper noun/name but it is not defining of a proper noun/name. As already stated, specificity is achieved by the definite article - which we see in these cases. Because there are differing views on what should (or shouldn't) be capitalised the broad community consensus per MOS:CAPS is to determine what is conventionally capitalized; only words and phrases that are consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources are capitalized in Wikipedia. With only limited English language book sources, news sources are a reasonable corpus to rely upon. If the "first division" may refer to the Eliteserien, then we can look to the other divisions. Searches for the second and third divisions that show similar mixed usage that does not support capitalisation. WP:CONSISTENT applies to similar articles and this is a group of similar articles (ie the Norwegian league) but an argument to consistency has a diminishing reach. For example, "province" is not always capitalised when used as part of an article title (see here) but capitalisation is usually consistent within a country because the reasons to capitalise (or not) vary from country to country. Consistency does not reasonably extend outside this group. Cinderella157 (talk) 10:24, 16 March 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Comment Norwegian capitalises proper nouns but it does not capitalise "1. divisjon" etc for these names. Hence, they are not considered proper non/names in Norwegian and there is no good reason to assert that they should be translated to a capitalised form. Cinderella157 (talk) 00:04, 22 March 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • And Sørhaug is asserting that the English language sources referring to the second division are actually referring to the first division. That sort of ambiguity will still exist for Anglophone readers (this is En WP) regardless of whether one uses "division" or "divisjon" in the title. It hardly takes a master linguist to tell that they are the same (ie they translate directly). But the division and the tier are actually misaligned. WP:AT would allow us to choose a less ambiguous title. Cinderella157 (talk) 04:43, 24 March 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • So what is your proposal for a less ambiguous title? Many editors here have pointed out that "First division", etc is ambiguous (thus they oppose the move), and so they believe that "First Division" (the status quo) has less ambiguity, as it appears to be a proper name. Natg 19 (talk) 17:08, 24 March 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • There is no argument being made that "First Division" is somehow less ambiguous than "first division". I am not certain what might be a good title but I am seeing that "tier" can be used to refer to the level unambiguously. I also see that they have other names, such as the OBOS league. I can only say that it would be silly to continue with names that are clearly ambiguous. Cinderella157 (talk) 00:30, 25 March 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]
    • "First Division" is less ambiguous because it is the proper name of a specific league, not a generic term describing the level of play. Compare with International League which is the capitalized proper name of an American minor baseball league. Calling this "international league" would be a misnomer because in the current makeup it's not an international league. All teams in the league have home fields in the United States, but the name comes from the fact that in its history the International League had teams in Canada and Cuba as well as those in the United States. We don't have this problem that association football leagues have because there are plenty of English-language sources that capitalize the baseball league's name (the American League actually is an international league, because Toronto Blue Jays) . "First Division" might still need disambiguation between men's and women's leagues, and other sports with a "First Division" such as hockey, but not between leagues for the same sex and sport. Really though, I don't understand your objection to closing this. We shouldn't be moving from one ambiguous name to another, at best, equally ambiguous name (though as I just said, one I feel is even more ambiguous). The issue should be taken up as a naming convention for association football teams, as this issue impacts more than just Norway, and effects hundreds, probably thousands, of articles. – wbm1058 (talk) 14:51, 27 March 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]
"Division" is clearly ambiguous here as evidenced by the ambiguity of use in the sources. I would presume that you are using "proper name" in the grammatical sense. Capitalisation does not resolve the ambiguity. There is often a false perception that proper nouns|names are capitalised therefore capitalised words are proper nouns but whether a word is a proper noun is a matter of grammar while capitalisation is a matter of orthography. The two sets are quite different properties. We hear and understand proper names in speech but we can't hear capital letters. As I said, Norwegian capitalises proper nouns yet "divisjon" is not capitalised in this name. Whether the ambiguity we have here exists in other sports/leagues is another matter, as is whether terms are consistently capitalised in sources that would lead us to capitalise them. Cinderella157 (talk) 23:32, 27 March 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Per Wikipedia: A proper noun is a noun that identifies a single entity and is used to refer to that entity, such as Africa, Jupiter, Sarah, or Amazon, as distinguished from a common noun, which is a noun that refers to a class of entities (continent, planet, person, corporation). I guess that is a grammatical concept. In modern English orthography, it is the norm for recognized proper names to be capitalized. So, yes, Norwegian First Division is a single entity, not a class of entities. The assumption here is that this single entity is the WP:primary topic for this proper name, i.e. the men's football league is highly likely—much more likely than Norwegian First Division (women) and Norwegian First Division (ice hockey) combined—to be the topic sought when a reader searches for Norwegian First Division. I'm open to the idea that there is no primary topic, but that would not be a reason for moving this to lower case. Norwegian first division (lower case) would be a broad-concept article about the class of all second-level sports divisions in Norway, and such an article would cover both men's and women's football and ice hockey, and any other sports with second-level divisions. We should not move any article to a title that changes the scope of the article (or at least without prior agreement that a scope change is necessary). Bold changes in an article's scope usually bring trouble, so this proposal is, again, a nonstarter. – wbm1058 (talk) 15:35, 29 March 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]
A name is a noun phrase. A noun phrase that is not a proper name can identify a single entity when used with the definite article. We refer here to "the Norwegian First Division"/"the Norwegian first division". Uniqueness is not defining of a proper name. However, true proper names are arbitrary and not descriptive of their referent. This is not such a case. Proper nouns are linguistically cross-cultural. Norwegian capitalises proper nouns but does not capitalise "Norwegian 1. divisjon" in the context of this article. It is clear evidence that the phrase is not a proper noun. "Division" is ambiguous, since not only is the lowercase being used to refer to the first tier competition in English language sources but the upper case also appears to be referring to the first tier competition per these.[8],[9] It is a redherring to argue that an article for all second tier sports across Norway might exist or that readers might perceive such an article could exist. Readers are most likely to be searching for a particular sport (or the military use) but for which tier of a sports competition is ambiguous - certainly in soccer. If anything the title (regardless of capitalisation) might be perceived as a disambiguation or, if they are actually searching for the second tier mens' soccer competition in Norway, a fortunate confluence. For a short title such as "Norwegian First Division" or "Norwegian first division", ambiguity exists regardless of capitalisation. It can only be resolved by context, such as in the lead or by a less ambiguous title. If anything, the evidence is suggesting that the English language WP:COMMONNAME for the second tier competition (this article) is "Norwegian second division". Cinderella157 (talk) 03:42, 30 March 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.
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