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Should the naming format for elections/referendums be amended to move the year to the front of the title? – re-opened 20 October 2018 by User:Number 57. 20:21, 20 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I'd like to propose amending our naming format for elections/referendums to move the year to the front of the title; so, for example, French presidential election, 2017 would be 2017 French presidential election. I think this has several advantages:

1. It brings election articles in line with the vast majority of other articles with years in the title and Wikipedia:Naming conventions (events), which states that order of a title should be when, where, what
2. It allows the article titles to be used in prose, as the current format cannot be used (one could say "the 2017 German federal election resulted in a hung parliament")
3. It would make certain election articles titles more logical (for instance United States Senate election in Florida, 2018 would become 2018 United States Senate election in Florida
4. It would make the titles of related articles more logical (for instance Fundraising in the United States presidential election, 2016 would become Fundraising in the 2016 United States presidential election)
5. It would automatically sort elections by year in categories

I mentioned this a year ago at WP:E&R and a valid point was raised that currently you can start searching "French presidential election" and you get the whole list. This is an advantage, but as far as I can see, the only one. A way to keep this benefit is to still create redirects from these titles.

The full list of article types and their proposed new format is:

This will involve moving many thousands of articles (I will notify as many relevant WPs as I can find), so I propose that if this passes, a bot run is set up to do it (see separate discussion below). Cheers, Number 57 20:41, 6 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Survey

• Support. Although we've always done it this way, this proposal really does make a lot of sense. The Drover's Wife (talk) 01:55, 7 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Support though I'll point out that this would eliminate the somewhat convenient option to use a pipe trick to lop off the year in running text. Ibadibam (talk) 04:08, 7 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose Elections should be primarily categorised by location rather than the year. The Australian federal election in 2013 is more similar to the Australian federal election in 2016 than the German federal election in 2013. Onetwothreeip (talk) 04:26, 7 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Just to be clear, I'm saying that searching "French presidential election" and then getting the list is a very big advantage to the current format. Onetwothreeip (talk) 05:09, 8 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

As I noted above, this can be solved by having redirects. Cheers, Number 57 11:08, 8 September 2018 (UTC)cinsequentia :::Would redirect actually be the entries that appear in the preliminary search results? I am very sceptical of that, it does not appear to be the case. Onetwothreeip (talk) 11:13, 8 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. Start typing 2017 French presidential election, and you'll see that it shows up even though it's only a redirect. Number 57 11:15, 8 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Support since it does read more naturally that way and is consistent with other temporal articles, though I am a bit tepid since it's been this way for so long. There are a handful of articles that have multiple years or months also in the title, which isn't a barrier to change but one thing to consider. I'm not sure how piping the links would be any different though. Reywas92^Talk 05:28, 7 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Support WP:NC: passes naturalness, precision, conciseness and consistency. Passes recognizability, but not as good as the other four characteristics (most elections are just called "Fooian <whatever> election" on the approach to it, then is appended by the year later on). The current convention feels as if the title is a disambiguation, which, again, can be true if you emphasize a currently ongoing election in some cases, but resolves itself in time. Howard the Duck (talk) 08:09, 7 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment Support I guess the proposed format could, in general, adhere better to WP:NAMINGCRITERIA, and specifically to WP:NCE (in fact, I don't know why the naming conventions on elections are in NCGAL rather than in NCE when they are treated as events elsewhere (i.e. this)). However, I am concerned as to what should be the format for years with a plurality of elections (February 1974 United Kingdom general election and October 1974 United Kingdom general election would feel awkward as article titles, for example). Impru20^talk 15:16, 7 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think it would be as you suggest. I guess these examples possibly appear awkward as we're not used to seeing titles like that. However, that would be how the elections would usually be referred to, and the articles themselves already start with that exact wording format (plus it matches the related articles February 1974 Dissolution Honours and October 1974 Dissolution Honours. Number 57 18:57, 7 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    • Ok then, in such a case I think there is no reason why I should not support this. Moving to full support. Impru20^talk 12:01, 8 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Strong support (Summoned by bot) Long overdue. I've been thinking about why it wasn't like this before. — Mr. Guye (talk) (contribs)  04:42, 8 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Support Not sure that this title format is quite as nice aesthetically, but it's definitely an improvement in naturalness, which is one of the relevant criteria. There's a marginal improvement in concision, and it adds something to syntactic consistency with "Next ____ general election" articles. Ralbegen (talk) 11:53, 8 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose The election is the main topic of the article, not the year. Hence I feel it makes sense to use the year as a point of differentiation after the title of the actual event.Kiwichris (talk) 06:09, 11 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Should the articles then be phrased Election for {Office} of {Location}, {year}, so that the word "election" is first? Ibadibam (talk) 22:06, 11 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Support, as the more logical format. I've created accidental redlinks and links to redirects quite often while writing, because the current format is counter-intuitive. Vanamonde (talk) 14:57, 12 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose Sources that put the name first are usually those from the country involved, and everyone will understand whivh 1974 election is being discussed. That's not the case in WP. DGG ( talk ) 05:28, 14 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Strongly Oppose Putting the date first in any title, of anything, makes no sense. I have never seen an article in any medium that put the date first. Why not? Because it makes no sense. Peter K Burian (talk) 13:28, 16 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Peter K Burian: It's standard Wikipedia practice. Have you not noticed that almost all our titles with dates in have the year at the start? 2018 FIFA World Cup, 2018–19 Premier League, 2018 Atlantic hurricane season, 2017 Las Vegas shooting, 2013 Egyptian coup d'état etc etc. Number 57 16:30, 16 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Of course, the date is often essential but not as the first "word" of a title. This is the norm and it makes sense: Canadian federal election, 2015 Peter K Burian (talk) 23:28, 17 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

But it's not the norm, as has been demonstrated above and below by Impru20 (However, your citing of the Canadian election example makes me wonder whether you have misunderstood the purpose of the discussion – the proposal is to move all election articles, not just one I mentioned, so the Canadian one would be moved too. The current title of that specific example is therefore irrelevant in the context of this discussion as all election titles are currently at that type of naming format). Number 57 15:10, 18 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

It is more than practice, actually. It is an actual Wikipedia naming convention. Impru20^talk 18:22, 16 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Support - it'll reduce the amount of piping around links to the articles. Cabayi (talk) 09:55, 17 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Support - I came to this debate somewhat neutral. However I've read through these votes and have realised that it would make more sense to be "Year Event" than "Event Year". I get that people might want to search for a specific event by name, but the year being at the front would direct them to their search a bit quicker than it being at the end. As above, also, there are already sporting and cultural events which have the year at the front so we'd be putting things in line with that too. doktorb _words^deeds 16:41, 17 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• (Summoned by bot) Support — Would reduce the amount piping (per Cabayi and seems more natural and better to me.
  Regards, SshibumXZ (talk · contribs). 15:04, 18 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Mostly oppose, except to your point 4, which I do think would be better. Otherwise I prefer the current convention. Nevermore27 (talk) 18:38, 19 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• WP:BADNAC. Contentious. Bad close. That was not a consensus. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:10, 19 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose – The present convention is more appropriate for election articles specifically, allows easy searching by region, and avoids awkwardness when months are added. The reality is that we should not be bound by an iron rule of date before event when it doesn't make sense to do that. There isn't a navigation problem anyway, as redirects can be provided. I do not see the benefit of this change. Point four makes sense, but there is no reason why those articles cannot have a different format, regardless of the location of the election articles. I specifically oppose a 'bot run' on the grounds that it doesn't allow for nuance as opposed to the appropriate title in specialist cases. Point four makes sense, but there is no reason why those articles cannot have a different format, regardless of the location of the election articles. RGloucester — ☎ 15:10, 20 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Specifically, the current naming convention (i.e. the one having the year placed last) goes against WP:NAMINGCRITERIA as well as WP:NCE. On the one hand, because it goes against WP:COMMONNAME, WP:NATURAL and WP:CONSISTENCY (which are better fit by the proposal of using the year first), has a (very marginal, but anyway) disadvantage on WP:CONCISE and brings no difference with WP:PRECISE. On the other hand, elections are a type of event: aside from the fact that it is quite peculiar how did they get included under NCGAL in the first place (they were unilaterally added here in 2009 under no rationale), it only leads to confusion that elections are regulated under a different naming convention than that used for other events. It would be fine if that came as a result of some explained reasoning or consensus, but it is neither explained nor was such a convention conceived as a result of any discussion (its original wording dates back to an unilateral edit in 2004).

Then, the practice of placing the year last has actually led to frequent issues on the naming style of specific articles (as can be checked here and here), so the proposed change can only mean an improvement on this. Impru20^talk 15:39, 20 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry, but I don't agree. Any article title with the year first feels unnatural to me, and certainly is not a common name of any description. They are WP:NDESC titles. The natural format in English syntax is 'American presidential election of 1925'. No talk about naturalness can be had, as we are simply not using natural titles at all. We are using Wikipedia jargon, which is based on headlinese. There is no confusion. Do what you like, but I'm quite certain it will only make article titles clunky and more unnatural. RGloucester — ☎ 16:00, 20 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

You may find unnatural yourself, but WP practice shows otherwise. In practice, most of these articles do indeed use the <date> <place> <event> wording in the lead's bolding anyway despite the title being <place> <event>, <date>; and WP:NCE shows how natural is the use of the year first in article titles. The NDESC form of the titles would be the one you point out, not the one shown in the pre-existing convention. Besides, it is not clear how would the change make the titles "clunky and more unnatural" when other events have been named like this for years in WP! Impru20^talk 17:40, 20 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Standard English syntax never puts the date before an event. Wikipedia has used that format, but not because it is natural. The natural format in English is 'Event of Date'. As I said, the Wikipedia format is based on news jargon, not natural English usage. The reason it is 'clunky and unnatural' is because the year is only included for disambiguation; the actual topic is 'Such and Such election'. It is natural for the most important piece of information (the topic) to come first, and the disambiguation second, as in the standard English syntax 'British general election of year' or 'General strike of year'. RGloucester — ☎ 17:58, 20 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe it is because I am not an expert on standard English syntax, but I feel that "Event, date" is definitely not natural. You are mixing up what standard English syntax is with what naturalness is. "2017 German general election" may not be standard English syntax, but it is natural. "German general election, 2017" is neither standard English syntax nor natural. Just because you see "German general election of 2017" as more befitting of standard English syntax does not mean that, subsequently, "German federal election, 2017" is correct in that sense.

Besides, when I talk about naturalness, I am talking of WP:NATURAL. In this sense, either "<Date> <demonym> <event>" or "<Demonym> <event> of <date>" would be more natural disambiguators than the current "<Demonym> <event>, <date>". No matter how you put it, the current convention is unworkable when you need to add a link to the election in text, and one must usually resort to link piping for that.

And general strikes? You mean like 1926 United Kingdom general strike, 1922 Italian general strike, 1892 New Orleans general strike, 2018 Spanish women's strike, 2017 Brazilian general strike... and I could follow. Impru20^talk 18:34, 20 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Support This makes a lot of sense. All the new article titles make more sense and read more smoothly. I see this as making it much easier to link articles, letting you scrap the pipelinks in many cases. It will also look much better when the elections are linked in the "Main article" templates at the tops of sections or the "About" templates at the top of articles. The only change I would make would be in the "By-election (US Style) where I'd remove the possessive from the state name. So it would be 2010 Virginia 11th congressional district election instead of 2010 Virginia's 11th congressional district election. I tested out the issue mentioned above about searching by region, and confirmed that redirects solve the problem. The other benefit I see is that it would make categories like Category:General elections in the United States more navigable. ~Awilley (talk) 15:29, 20 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Awilley: I think that is part of a separate issue over the naming of the districts (i.e. Virginia's 11th congressional district is at a title with an apostrophe). Ideally election articles should match the name of the district/constituency in question. Number 57 15:32, 20 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment I just want to reiterate my support from above, including my specific support for all the examples and for the use of a bot. Both YYYY (Location) (type) election and (Location) (type) election YYYY are prevalent in reliable sources. As stated in the proposal, easy searching by region remains through redirects. I marginally prefer the style (Location) (type) election, MMM YYYY aesthetically, but aesthetics aren't a requirement of WP:NAMINGCRITERIA. Naturalness is, and MMM YYYY (Location) (type) election is more natural. It also gives consistency with other events, which contributes to another naming criterion. None of the naming criteria favour the status quo. If there are specialist cases which haven't been mentioned already, the wide scale of promotion of this re-opened RfC should bring them to light. Certainly the change in policy shouldn't be stopped based on the theoretical existence of edge cases. Ralbegen (talk) 15:41, 20 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Support, would be way more natural. I always search by year first. Never understood the current naming format. Renata (talk) 15:43, 20 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Support. If I start typing in the search bar, "United States Presidential..." it's going to take a lot of letters before I am even offered years, and then there are hundreds of them (both general, and "in-state"). If I start typing "1912 United States..." I will get that election must faster. However, we should also get rid of the possessive case in these titles, and have 2010 Virginia 11th congressional district election rather than 2010 Virginia's 11th congressional district election. See, e.g., 538's Virginia 11th, not "Virginia's 11th". bd2412 T 15:52, 20 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • @BD2412: Are you suggesting getting rid of it from the election articles, or also from the articles on the districts themselves? Cheers, Number 57 15:56, 20 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    • Just from the election articles, basically per WP:SHORTFORM, since it refers to the same thing. bd2412 T 16:00, 20 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose. I do not see the value in making all those edits, and I also approach things geographically first... so I'd look up "Polish parliamentary election" before "1993 parliamentary election" (and then try to find Poland) -- even if I knew the year. Which is IMO unlikely for all but the most famous contests (international or local). Markvs88 (talk) 16:05, 20 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Support per natural English syntax and simplicity of a bot run. The argument against—that elections are primarily categorized by location rather than the year—is misleading because the titles are not in the context of an alphanumeric categorization; if the "big to small" argument were fully applied, titles like "South African general election, 2019" would be moved to "Election, general, South Africa, 2019", which might make good indexing but would be a syntactically very poor title. Doremo (talk) 16:07, 20 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Support and leave the old name as a redirect. Though I guess one would have to prepare the bot, otherwise it would be quite tricky. Juxlos (talk) 16:16, 20 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  @Juxlos: As the operator of the proposed bot to do this (Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/TheSandBot, which is also the reason this RfC was reopened), I can say that leaving the old title as a redirect is not an issue and was already planned (and implemented, I just need the list and the bot could be going within minutes, it is mostly just a policy matter). --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 17:00, 20 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Support as a title it is understandable, and it is far less of a hassle to include it in prose. Constantine ✍ 16:25, 20 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Support per nom's arguments and WP:NAMINGCONVENTION, provided that due care is paid to identifying exceptions. No real opinion regarding a bot because I don't understand these things! Jdcooper (talk) 16:32, 20 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose - WP should be written for readers, not editors. It's far easier and more intuitive for a reader to find the article they're looking for by starting to type "Irish general elect-" and have them all appear in the search box, rather than them having to already know that the most recent Irish general election was in 2016. This is an unnecessary move of >30,000 articles for little advantage. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 17:09, 20 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

This is explicitly mentioned in the proposal as something that can be dealt with by redirects. TheSandDoctor mentions above that the bot is already set up to leave old titles as redirects, so the search box would retain its existing functionality for users. Ralbegen (talk) 17:11, 20 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Doesn't matter - there are basically no good reasons to do it one way over the other. It's all a matter of preference, and readers/editors who prefer it the other way can be addressed through redirects. Just pick one and stick with it. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 17:15, 20 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  I guess this is really oppose per WP:AINTBROKE. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 17:15, 20 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  Actually, the mention of AINTBROKE has no sense here. It has been pointed out that the bot is ready and that it would be a matter of just minutes to conduct the moves while leaving the old titles as redirects. Thus, we can obtain the advantages of the change (and there are a few of them) without any of the disadvantages of the pre-existing convention in a quick fashion. Besides, AINTBROKE would be of application "if there is no evidence of a real problem", but the pre-existing convention has actually been a source of various problems throughout the years. Obviously not for the shorter Spanish general election, 2016-like titles, but yes for the Portland, Maine mayoral election, 2011-like titles or other longer and unnatural-looking titles. The conflict with NAMINGCRITERIA and NCE remains an issue. Impru20^talk 17:23, 20 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  Just to clarify, the bot could be started in minutes, assuming I am online and able at said time. The duration of time it would take to move over 35,200 articles would be longer, probably several hours from start to finish. It should be noted though that is just a guesstimate based on previous work I have done and some basic math assuming a move takes 1 second and that the bot is run at full speed. This would take considerably longer if the bot speed was limited artificially by, say, 5 seconds in between moves. Basically, it would take mere minutes to start, but actually completing all moves, YMMV. Each second delay would result in a one fold increase in the time taken when compared to full speed (ie 5 second delay = 5 fold increase). --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 17:29, 20 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  It would still be a reasonable amount of time given the number of articles involved, anyway. The purpose of my answer was to highlight that the benefit is clearly there when considering that the pre-existing convention has created problems for years, if not for over a decade. Impru20^talk 17:36, 20 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Number 57, thank you for breaking this down by type. Overall, I support, as redirects should resolve the primary concern about the new titles being hard to find, and most of the new titles are more natural (especially under "Election-related articles"). Oppose the "US ballot measures" change because it seems like the significant majority of those pages, where the title is a proper name (e.g. "California Proposition 10"), never followed the existing guideline and I don't feel the new phrasing is natural (I've said more about this here and here at the BRFA). Uncertain w.r.t. the "By-election (US style)" titles; I think bd2412's proposal above is less awkward. — Earwig ^talk 17:30, 20 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Support More natural way of referring to things. It was right that the debate was reopened to enable a larger number of editors to comment Lyndaship (talk) 17:36, 20 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose The current article format makes hierarchical sense with the order of where, what, when. Suggestion: Make a redirect in the proposed format for each article to achieve the goals stated. Cheers, HopsonRoad (talk) 17:45, 20 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Is there any particular reason that the order should be where, what, when rather than the when, where, what that WP:NCE recommends? Ralbegen (talk) 17:50, 20 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@HopsonRoad: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (events) states that the order of article titles should be when, where, what. This is an effort to bring this convention into line with pretty much all others. Number 57 17:52, 20 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Ralbegen and Number 57: Thank you for calling attention to WP:NCE. As I read it, it pertains to one-off events, not regular, recurring events. So, when I search on "Place X election" in the WP search box, those are the characters that would show up, followed by dates. I would then pick a date. This may be possible with returns from redirects, as well. I don't know. Sincerely, HopsonRoad (talk) 18:01, 20 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

NCE guideline is completely irrelevant when dealing with recurring events. Furthermore, it's hard to take such a page seriously when it makes such strange assertions as "This is the common name (Rule #1 applies), but redirects to Nanking Massacre, which in view of everything that happened is probably a better title since more than just rapes occurred. However, "massacre" probably shouldn't have been capitalized". Apparently some people haven't bothered to look up the word 'rape' in a dictionary...what's more, they then editorialise about capitalisation? 'Bizarre' and 'absurd' both come to mind. The relevant policy, WP:AT comes first, and the AT criteria clearly support the present convention of 'topic disambiguation', rather than 'disambiguation topic' for recurring events. RGloucester — ☎ 18:11, 20 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@HopsonRoad: It's a good point that WP:NCE uses examples that are one-off. That said, bringing elections in line with this format would improve consistency, which is one of the policy naming criteria. Redirects at the existing titles would still allow the search box functionality you're describing, which I think is really important and valuable for readers. Personally, I wouldn't be supporting the proposal if that functionality would no longer be available. Ralbegen (talk) 18:14, 20 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Consistency between apples and oranges is neither desirable nor sensible. I do not want to bite into an apple and taste orange. RGloucester — ☎ 18:16, 20 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@RGloucester: NCE guideline is completely irrelevant when dealing with recurring events.

2000 Summer Olympics, 2004 Summer Olympics, 2008 Summer Olympics, 2012 Summer Olympics, 2016 Summer Olympics, 2020 Summer Olympics...

2014 Atlantic hurricane season, 2015 Atlantic hurricane season, 2016 Atlantic hurricane season, 2017 Atlantic hurricane season, 2018 Atlantic hurricane season...

Should I follow? Elections seem to be the only kind of recurring event not abiding to NCE. Impru20^talk 18:19, 20 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

'Other stuff exists' is not an argument. The present convention for election articles is better for election articles. That's my last point on this matter. RGloucester — ☎ 18:22, 20 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

From WP:OSE: This essay is not a standard reply that can be hurled against anyone you disagree with who has made a reference to how something is done somewhere else. Though a lot of Wikipedia's styles are codified in policy[...]. From WP:AT, which is a policy you referenced above, we have the criterion: Consistency – The title is consistent with the pattern of similar articles' titles. Ralbegen (talk) 18:29, 20 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Again, I do not consider recurring events and one-off events to be similar, and more importantly, I do not consider events that are not elections to be relevant when deciding how election articles should be titled. Consistency within the topic area of elections does matter, but consistency with other non-related topic areas is irrelevant. Please, spare me the trouble of having to reply any further to this mess. RGloucester — ☎ 18:33, 20 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@RGloucester: "Other stuff exists" is not an argument, but WP:CONSISTENCY is. You know what is not an argument? WP:IDONTLIKEIT. We have plenty of recurring events abiding to NCE; elections are the only kind of event which have a different treatment. And no reason other than personal preference has been brought as of yet for the current "<Demonym> <election>, <date>" format to be preserved. Impru20^talk 18:35, 20 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Obviously, you've not read what I've written. This whole debate is a folderol. Do what you like with the titles of these articles, but do not kid yourself into thinking they are any more 'natural'. I do not even like the present scheme. I simply consider it the lesser of two evils, and more in line with WP:AT. But, you're determined, so you'll get what you want, no matter what damage it does to the encylopaedia. RGloucester — ☎ 18:42, 20 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Please, no. If you suggest that the proposed scheme does damage WP, then we have an issue, because NCE and other recurring events do follow that scheme (and yes, elections are a specific sub-type of recurring events, but just like the Olympics, wheather seasons or the such. WP:AT applies to all of these alike, so the difference in treatment is not justified). Then, I do not think that the people supporting the change do it because they see it may cause a damage to the encyclopedia. Impru20^talk 18:56, 20 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• As a FINAL, really final, comment on this subject, I'd like to note that NCE guideline was unilateraly changed, without discussion of any kind, to favour the 'when first' approach in 2015. Prior to that, NCE made no such prescription, and so many of the arguments above about the prior existence of NCE make no sense at all. I'm sure this won't halt anyone from continuing to do what they see fit, but, the reality is, all of these guidelines stink, and are filled with prescriptions that have no real basis in consensus, created by singular editors to encourage fait accomplis. I've seen this all too many times...but fine, make one person's change to the guidelines years ago without consensus the basis for moving thousands of articles. Go ahead. RGloucester — ☎ 19:40, 20 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment. An editor may feel really strongly on this issue, I get that. Still - commenting on other editors' contributions - nearly a dozen times so far - might be taken as bludgeoning the process. You've had your speak? Grand. Let others have theirs. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 19:55, 20 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, spare me. I've said about five times now to STOP directing comments at me so I can get out of this nonsense. I will not, however, allow canards directed at my person to stand unanswered. RGloucester — ☎ 19:57, 20 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I am not sure whether Bastun referred to yourself, to myself, or to both (or to Number 57). Nonetheless, I would suggest any user getting involved in this discussion to avoid commenting on the contributor and keep this constructive. Bludgeoning is applied when the exact same argument is repeated over and over again, not when new arguments, explanations or examples are brought into play (further, it is ironic because the RfC was re-opened precisely because further input was sought, which I think everyone involved here did contribute to). In my personal case, as I made my point of view fairly clear, I do not have any issues with withdrawing from the discussion. Impru20^talk 20:05, 20 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

My comment was not directed at you, RGloucester. Thank you for the explanation of WP:BLUDGEON, Impru20, but I assure you it was unnecessary. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 08:05, 21 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Bastun: So much unnecessary was your disruption in this discussion. This could have very well worked by using our personal talk pages, instead of having to engage in further (and unrelated) talk here. Specially when this was done in a "throw the stone, hide the hand"-style, confusing readers as to whom were you referring to. Impru20^talk 08:15, 21 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I requested that people not attempt to refute or argue every point made by others, Impru20. Yet here we are, engaging in further (and unrelated) talk here. I'm done, goodbye. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 08:28, 21 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Your fault, my friend Bastun. If you play with fire, you get burned. Bye. Impru20^talk 08:31, 21 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Partial support. While I find "2016 United States presidential election" natural, I don't find "February 1974 United Kingdom general election" natural, still less "9 December 1922 Polish presidential election". If it is to go by year, it should go by year in all cases, e.g. "1974 United Kingdom general election (February)", "1974 United Kingdom general election (October)", "1922 Polish presidential election (9 December)", "1922 Polish presidential election (20 December)". Scolaire (talk) 20:11, 20 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose. The year is a qualifier, or disambiguator, of the subject, not the other way round. Readers are far more likely to search on the subject first and then the year, so the year is better placed at the end. Bermicourt (talk) 20:30, 20 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Support but List of Donald Trump 2016 presidential campaign endorsements should be List of 2016 Donald Trump presidential campaign endorsements or should have a better title anyway. Some of these articles where it's tricky to figure out how to move the date to the front are just poorly named. I intend to move some of them to names which better reflect current consensus, such as merging the two December 1922 Polish presidential elections into one article. Including my !vote, the tally currently stands at 22 23 support, 10 oppose. Onetwothreeip (talk) 21:51, 20 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose, largely for the same reasons as Bermicourt above, the year is the disambiguator and the search term will normally be the election type. And as has been pointed out, multiple elections in the same year be disambiguated as "1974 (February)" at the end rather than shoe-horned in at the start. Sionk (talk) 22:02, 20 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Bermicourt and Sionk: (and anyone else opposing on the grounds that the year is a disambiguator) Almost all event-type articles on Wikipedia start with the year (Impru20 has quoted many examples above regarding strikes, hurricane seasons, Olympics etc). Why should elections be different? Also, did you see the statement that redirects can be used for searching? Number 57 22:40, 20 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    • You're flattering people if you really think everyone knows the years where elections have taken place. In my view it is more likely the average reader would search for the type of election, rather than guessing the year. And if it's not broke, why fix it? Sionk (talk) 23:01, 20 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
      • @Sionk: The point was that people will still be able to search starting with "Polish presidential election" etc because the search function includes redirects. This has been discussed a few times above. Number 57 23:50, 20 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose - this is one of those cases where you could style it either way, but for historical reasons we chose to do it the current way and we should not change it. Wikipedia values incumbency, and we usually favour the first non-stub titles for articles (including when there are ENGVAR issues at stake) because once people are used to a particular format for naming, WP:RECOGNISE and WP:ASTONISH (if you change the thing) come into play. Now obviously if there were a persuasive reason to move the pages, as there generally is when an RM discussion is closed as "move", then that would be fine, but IMHO none of the support reasons above are very persuasive. It's just an alternative and equally good but not better way of styling the articles. FWIW I also think Bermicourt and HopsonRoad make good points above. The title should start with what the thing is, with the year at the end as that is a qualifier, not the fundamental identifier of the page. Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 22:48, 20 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Amakuru: There is precedent for this type of mass move - football season articles (of which there are also many thousands) orginally had the year at the end, but around 2009 it was decided to move it to the start in line with practice elsewhere. I don't think inertia is a particularly good reason for not making a change. 23:50, 20 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Support to the following suggestions: 1) Standard election/referendum name and 2) By-election (ROW style). Oppose By-election (US style), I'd presume the correct nomenclature is "Virginia's 11th congressional district special election, 1861|, not "Virginia's 11th congressional district election, 2010". I would support a move to the new nomenclature of "1861 special election at Virginia's 11th congressional district". No opinion on other suggestions. Howard the Duck (talk) 05:54, 21 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Support - making sure to cast my opinion here. Per Wikipedia:Naming conventions (events) - events should be "When, Where, What" - that is just much more logical to read and write. Per WP:NAMINGCRITERIA#Naturalness - readers could either start writing "US presidential election..." or "1972 US presidential election" - the first option will return 10 results, none of which are for 1972, while the second one will return the results already at "1972 us" - while yes, a redirect could solve this issue, this goes to show that for searching, the more natural one is the year. Per WP:NAMINGCRITERIA#Conciseness - if we really want to nitpick this, then the title is even shorter due to not needing a comma or brackets around the year. Per WP:NAMINGCRITERIA#Consistency - this change brings these groups of articles in line with all other event articles on Wikipedia. To my fellow editor, Amakuru, claims that we tend to keep historical titles, I see no basis for that claim in any policy or guideline, in-fact, a week at WP:RM shows that stable titles that have been with a title for years are changed when an editor that cares enough, notices that those titles fail to match with Wikipedia updated policies and guideline (as an example, the 2016 WP:DATERANGE change which articles are still being sent to RM). Also, just to be clear, I support the bot usage; I support the naming style examples; I support the use of days and months, if those are to be kept in the title; I support Impru20t in merging this guideline with WP:NCE. I oppose the claim that WP:NCE does not cover recurring events, as it clearly does and states this in the date section: The date is not needed when the article pertains to events that are unlikely to recur, meaning that the use of dates should be used when the event is likely to recur, such as elections. I oppose the need for any article specific RM as that would be WP:Stonewalling and gaming the system and for the same reason, I oppose the caveat raised earlier that if an editer reverts the bot then that would be OK. The person reverting must have a pretty good justification as anything else would be WP:IDONTLIKEIT and WP:ICANTHEARYOU. I'm pretty sure that any reason that editor might have, the issue would have probably be raised in this discussion already (the bot should probably direct to this RfC in the edit log). And finally I oppose any further use of this RfC as a precedent in re-opening RfCs. This should be a very rare exception. --Gonnym (talk) 06:01, 21 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Meh per Ivanvector. In general I find the oppose comments more compelling so take that as you will. This is a matter of taste. It doesn't suit mine, but if it suits yours, fine. I couldn't care less if the change were made. What would be the difference from just making redirects? Those would require far less discussion than a mass move of 35,000 pages. This whole thing feels like a discussion on template colors. I worry our time could be put to better use. Wugapodes [t^hɑk] [ˈkan.ˌʧɹɪbz] 08:47, 21 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Support. Having the date first makes the title into a usable noun, makes the titles sortable, and generally makes things cleaner. Worth the renaming. --Yair rand (talk) 15:31, 21 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Support. Since the proposed destination titles can actually be used in actual prose, this will be a boon to editing, in addition to being consistent with how we name other events on Wikipedia. This is especially true in visual editor, where it would make the page much easier to find in the insert link function, since search threads that begin with "[Year] [Location]" will immediately turn up the desired page, vs search threads that force you to either type out everything or type out "[Location] [Type of Election]" and then scroll through a long list which is usually not in chronological order. This would also reduce time wasted piping links (e.g. if the redirect at the natural language title doesn't exist 1972 Canadian federal election vs Canadian federal election, 1972, or if you don't want to waste time potentially futilely typing out that natural language title). Since redirects would be created by the movebot, people can still use the old page titles essentially as they would have before. ---- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 16:26, 21 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment - I have no strong views on this but do have a couple of comments on categories. Firstly, are categories going to be re-named as well as articles otherwise we will have a mismatch e.g. 2016 United States presidential election v Category:United States presidential election, 2016. Secondly, whilst this may help in sorting some categories, sorting in other categories may be end up being corrupted e.g. the articles in Category:2018 elections in Asia will all be listed under "0–9" rather than under the correct alphabet.--Obi2canibe (talk) 19:20, 21 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Category seating issues can run both ways, and can generally be fixed on the article pages. bd2412 T 19:52, 21 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Support: Existing style always seemed strange. This is more natural and consistent with other types of recurring events. ViperSnake151  Talk  21:21, 21 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• I can support with caveat, caveat being that the bot has no license to edit war. It gets one move per article and if the move is undone or altered for any reason other than ANI/AN-consensus vandalism, any further move has to be manual and may go to RM if not handled informally. (If RM is required for technical reasons, i.e. you can't make the edit to move the article back, then the bot's opinion should not count toward making it a "contested" move in that proceeding) I should think that should be obvious - the bot is being approved for one job, after all, not permanent edit warring - but I just want to be clear. Furthermore, as a part of that, the bot should *tell* users they can revert it, preferably in the edit summary and its user page. Also, of course, people have brought up some good examples of pages that should be excluded in advance so that people don't have to move them back. "To err is human, but to really foul things up you need a computer." Wnt (talk) 23:21, 21 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose current format is easiest to read and in a logical format (ie. what the election was, and then when). Do not support any change to this, and I also don't think there is enough evidence there is a problem worth solving. --Tom (LT) (talk) 07:53, 22 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• We're at 27 28 support, 13 oppose now. How long should this go for? Onetwothreeip (talk) 08:49, 22 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • 28 supports. I'm pretty sure that Number_57 is supporting their own proposal. --Gonnym (talk) 09:04, 22 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

28 is correct. I did count Number 57's proposing as a vote, but there was someone else I missed. Onetwothreeip (talk) 09:21, 22 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Support The current names are somewhat clumsy, and the proposed titles make a lot more sense. Lugnuts ^{Fire Walk with Me} 12:35, 22 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Support More natural wording.  pythoncoder  (talk | contribs) 14:18, 22 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Support, I've long thought the current wording was unnatural and it makes sense to bring these articles in line with WP:NCEVENTS. -- Tavix ^(talk) 15:50, 22 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose The old system is easier to read and more logical, I would say leave well enough alone. 16:38, 22 October 2018 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by PrussianOwl (talk • contribs)
• Support The proposed new wording is more natural. Calliopejen1 (talk) 17:58, 22 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Support. This is how elections are most commonly referred to in English prose texts. Sandstein 20:10, 22 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose per Tom. Laurel Lodged (talk) 20:59, 22 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose. I objected to the haste with which a low participation RFC was being used as the basis for >35k bot-driven page moves, and wasn't sure which way I would jump if I assessed the substantive merits.

So I approached this with an open mind, and took the nominator's five points in turn:

1. "brings election articles in line with the vast majority of other articles with years in the title and Wikipedia:Naming conventions (events)"

   I don't see any great principle here. Yes, consistency has its advantages, but so long as we have consistency within each topic set, consistency beween topics is less crucial. More below.

2. "allows the article titles to be used in prose, as the current format cannot be used"

   The example given is "the 2017 German federal election resulted in a hung parliament". The proposed renaming would indeed allow that sentence to be written without piping the link, but such cases are rare.

   Most articles refer to elections in a context where the full name is superfluous, so piping will still be needed to avoid repetition of words which already unambiguously implied by the context. E.g. an article on the XYZ Party in Ruritania wouldn't say "XYZ won a majority of seats in the 1995 Ruritanian congressional election, the 1997 Ruritanian congressional election, and the 2002 Ruritanian congressional election". In each case, we'd pipe the link to strip out the words "Ruritanian congressional", and probably also structure the sentence to avoid repeating the word "election".

   So that's a minimal gain, but it comes at the price of losing the ability to hide the year by a pipe trick. We won't be able to write [[Ruritanian congressional election, 1954|]].

3. "It would make certain election articles titles more logical (for instance United States Senate election in Florida, 2018 would become 2018 United States Senate election in Florida"

   at best a marginal again, The question of which is more logical depends on your focus. If your focus is on the 2018 election, then bringing 2018 nearer the front helps. However, if your focus is on Florida, then the date is better at the end.

4. "It would make the titles of related articles more logical (for instance Fundraising in the United States presidential election, 2016 would become Fundraising in the 2016 United States presidential election"

   again, at best a marginal gain, whose benefits depends on your focus. If your main interest is the 2016 election, then good news. However, if your interest in the broad (and perennially hot) topic of campaign finance in US elections, then the current order is better.

5. "It would automatically sort elections by year in categories"

   But it would lose automatic sorting in other categories which are not sorted by year

   e.g. Irish general election, 2011 is currently[1] categorised

   • [[Category:2011 elections in Europe]]
   • [[Category:2011 in Irish politics|General]]
   • [[Category:General elections in the Republic of Ireland|2011]]

   If this was renamed as proposed, we could indeed drop the sort key on Category:General elections in the Republic of Ireland, but we would have to add one to Category:2011 elections in Europe. So zero net gain, just thousnds of sort keys to add.

   Similar issues with Glenrothes by-election, 2008. It currently[2] has a DEFAULTSORT with no at-specific inline keys, and after renaming it would still need that. No gain.

   Oregon gubernatorial election, 2002 currently[3] has 3 categories, each with a sort key. The "Oregon" sort key on Category:United States gubernatorial elections, 2002 is currently superfluous. After renaming, the "2002" sortkey on Category:Oregon gubernatorial elections would become superfluous. So no gain.

So overall, points 2–4 are neutral; the gains come with roughly equal downsides. They don't point us in either direction.

That leaves me only with point #1, the principle of consistency. As above, I am not thrilled by rigid consistency betwen diverse topics, and I don't think that WP:Naming conventions (events) actually supports the nominator's assertions. It says that In the majority of cases, the title of the article should contain the following three descriptors: When the incident happened; Where the incident happened; What happened.

Note that it just says to include these 3 points. Nowhere does it explicitly assert a general principle of "year first". And most of rest of the page is taken up with numerous topics where other naming formats are preferred.

So in the end it seems to me that what we actually have here is a much weaker broad convention than claimed, with many exceptions ... and almost zero net advantage to either format.

If we were starting from scratch to build an encyclopedia, I'd say toss a coin on this proposal. But when we already have so many articles with so many wikilinks, and so many category sort keys which may need attention, it seems to me that only significant effect of this proposal is a massive amount of work in updating navboxes and sort keys, and consequential renamings of many hundeds of topic categories (e.g. Category:United Kingdom general election, 2015 → Category:2015 United Kingdom general election) thousands of set categories (e.g. Category:Minnesota elections, 1907 → Category:1907 Minnesota elections. I would much prefer editors' energies to be devoted to improving content rather than to this zero-sum card-shuffling which will beat the living daylights out of the watchlists of editors who work in these topic area.

I am also left disappointed by how the nominator pitched the RFC. Opening statements are supposed to be neutral, but so far as I can see, in points 2–4 the nom selected only one half of a less cleacut picture. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 13:22, 23 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Just pointing out one thing in order to keep it brief: while the other points are debatable, point 1 is untrue. We do not even have consistency "within the topic set". Ordinary elections use the "Demonym type election, date"-format, but future elections use the "Next demonym type election"-format (not "Demonym type election, next"). Precisely, the change would help to bring consistency not only beween topics, but also within the same topic area. Impru20^talk 17:10, 23 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Edit: This circumstance also affects point 5, actually, since as of currently you still need to sort key future elections as these are not automatically categorized by place. Impru20^talk 17:15, 23 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

(ec) Wow. It's hardly a surprise that with-a-known date uses different naming format to topic-with-title-incorporatig-known-date.

Stretching the notion of consistency in that way and using the big stretch to describe my point with an unqualified label of "untrue" doesn't look to me like a good faith form of discussion. We are here to form a consensus, not to lob dodgy allegations of untruth. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:26, 23 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Could be hardly a surprise, but it is not "consistency within the topic set" (which is how you worded it). Obviously, the formatting is different, and the proposed change would make it to be fully consistent within the topic set. Thus, and the fact that WP:CONSISTENCY is a WP:NAMINGCRITERIA, pretty much solves the issue with point 1. And I said it was untrue because it is untrue: we do not have consistency within the same topic set when it comes to the date placement. Please, assume good faith: I was neither attacking nor accusing you of anything. Impru20^talk 17:51, 23 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Impru, if you want me to assume that you are acting in good faith, then don't start out by accusing me of spouting untruths on the basis of your attempt to equate two very different types of article. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:11, 23 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I just said point 1 was untrue, and I explained why. I did not "accuse you of spouting untruths". That's a wording you are using that I have never written. I do not wish for this to be moved into personal territory just because you saw your argument was not sustainable in the terms you had exposed it. Besides, I do not have to ask you to assume good faith, as that's a Wikipedia policy and I already told you I was neither attacking nor accusing you. This said, I see we are not discussing on content any longer so I withdraw from this bit of the conversation. Impru20^talk 20:21, 23 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Support. While I'll agree that the gain is marginal, I also think that overall consistency is a nice thing to have, and as long as the weightlifting will be done by bots I'm content with the proposal, as it would makes the article conform to WP:CRITERIA much better. Category sorting for many entries has been broken indeed, but can be probably fixed by another bot run. To take one of BHG's examples, I'm not even sure if it's wise to sort entries in e.g. category:By-elections to the Parliament of the United Kingdom in Scottish constituencies by location, as it's currently the case, or the sorting by year, by the new naming scheme, would be better. No such user (talk) 13:43, 23 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Support - Most of these moves are a clear improvement, especially because they remove the awkward comma. Tazerdadog (talk) 19:00, 23 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Strongly Oppose. I do not see the value in making all those name changes, and probably leaving behind many references within articles. I am still correcting Elisabeth I Most readers approach elections geographically first. They look up Pennsylvania state elections, 2014, not 2014 Pennsylvania state elections. They might also look at Pennsylvania state elections, 1914, or Pennsylvania state elections, 1814, but not the reverse "1914 Pennsylvania elections ..." which is illogical.--Dthomsen8 (talk) 22:17, 23 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Not really, Google Trends shows that the usage is evenly split. Hddty. (talk) 07:50, 24 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Support. I've long regretted creating a situation that was difficult to reverse, and didn't foresee that I would still be annoyed by the article names all these years later. In fairness to my past self, there was already an article named United States presidential election, 2000, so I was following precedent. But IIRC, there was a person or two that suggested giving the election articles names like "2000 United States presidential election", and I might have even argued "nah, too much work!". I'm really grateful @Number 57: and @BD2412: are taking up the cause, and hope this RfC successfully results in a change. -- RobLa (talk) 03:38, 24 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • In case anyone cares, I found a 2003 discussion about this topic: Talk:United States presidential election, 2000/Archive 1. Looks like I had even suggested ditching the comma back then, and attributed the precedent to a dopey mistake on my part. @The Cunctator: apparently tried to get me to fix it, but alas, I wasn't inclined to undo the mess. -- RobLa (talk) 03:57, 24 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Support But keep all titles as redirects. ^Thanks, L3X1 ◊distænt write◊ 04:13, 24 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Support I've always found titles like United States Senate election in Florida, 2018 to be confusing/awkward. Overall an improvement; more clear and logical, and as per above, consistent with the naming of other events. Galobtter (pingó mió) 13:38, 25 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose per BrownHairedGirl. Spleodrach (talk) 15:42, 25 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Weak support As an experienced Wikipedia user, election articles are often hard for me to find because of this different kind of naming convention. However, I believe this is mostly because I'm used to a different practice in other articles, and it's not really a problem for not-active-Wikipedians that would warrant moving thousands of articles. So just a weak support. --Pudeo (talk) 22:23, 26 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Strongly oppose - for something like elections, which are recurring, the location is more important than the date. When someone is searching, the location is the most important factor. Saying that issue is solved by re-directs really doesn't address that the name of an article should be the common name, as others have pointed out. If it is considered necessary to have a re-direct for every single article, that is actually a recognition that the common name is the geographical one, not the date. I also don't think we should get too hung up on the naming convention issue, because conventions are just that: conventions. When you have 35,000+ articles already named with the geographical location first, that is itself an indication of a broad consensus of how to name election articles: the place where the election is occurring is the most important identifying feature. I also agree with the comments made by HopsonRoad, Bastun, Markvs88 and RGloucester, so will not repeat them, but I think they are on the mark. --Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 18:31, 27 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Bot run

As mentioned above, I proposed a bot run to move all election/referendum articles in the manner outlined in the table above. This is for specific comments about the bot run; for example, should the bot run be limited to certain formats of titles (for example, the proportion articles, which I am sympathetic to as I find the current titles quite awkward) and others done manually on a case-by-case basis.

The list I've created also contains a small number of standardisations to be made whilst moving the year (for example, there were a mix of "Endorsements in/for the Fooian general election..." (in this case I went with the majority usage, i.e. "for"). These can be removed if anyone is unhappy with the idea of doing this at the same time). Cheers, Number 57 14:57, 20 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Suggestion I suggest that the articles be left with their current titles and have the bot create a redirect that supports the natural speech version for linking from articles. HopsonRoad (talk) 17:48, 20 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment: There is no need for a separate vote on the bot. Any person asking this be done manually is just trying to game the system and to make this not happen. --Gonnym (talk) 06:03, 21 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, Number 57

Since I started this discussion on re-opening the RFC, I want to thank @Number 57 for the way he has responded.

Many people might have reacted defensively to the complaints, or even been hostile, but Number 57 has been consistently courteous, civil and actively helpful. He has taken on board all the concerns about the first run of the RFC having too little participation and too little explanation of what was involved, and too little attention to the use of a bot.

In re-opening the RFC, Number 57 has addressed all these issues:

• Widespread notifications, to 252 WikiProjects ✔
• Clear mention of the bot in the notifications ✔
• Explanation of the some of the many different styles of renaming involved ✔
• Separate discusison section on the use of a bot ✔

There now seems to be a very good chance that the RFC will have broad participation and consider all the issues, and that its outcome will reflect a broad consensus.

Thank you, Number 57. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 04:02, 21 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note that I have just tagged[6] the guideline as "under discussion", while discussions are underway above about whether the RFC adequately established a broad consensus. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 05:47, 20 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Now that the RFC has been re-opened, I have amended[7] the "under discussion" notice so that it links to the re-opened RFC at #Proposed_change_to_election/referendum_naming_format. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 04:08, 21 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]