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Untitled

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Ottoman or Egyptian Campaign? The Ottoman participation in this conflict was nominal; in reality it was Muhammad Ali's project from start to finish. Vassiliev, for example, consistently refers to the invading forces as "Egyptian." "Egyptian Occupation of Arabia" might also be suitable, as the Egyptians continued to govern the area until 1840. -- Slacker (talk) 03:45, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

After carefully reading the article about Muhammad Ali of Egypt I think things are not as easy as that. In 1799 the ottoman sultan Selim III sent him to Egypt as member of the ottoman army. In 1805 he was recognized by the Porte and appointed Ottoman viceroy of Egypt. Though technically and de facto he probably was autonom and independant enough to rule as he wished. This was to some extant normal for Turkish governors, Pashas and Agas and maybe others at the time and the very thing the reforms of the ottoman sultan Mahmud II later tried to change. At least until the desaster of the egyptian fleet at the Battle of Navarino in 1827 Muhammad Ali probably saw himself as part of the Ottoman Empire and himself a subject of some sort to the Sultan at Constantinople. The First Turko-Egyptian War may be seen as the official break with the sultan in 1831. The conflict with the Saudis was in 1811-1818 even befor the egyptian campaign in Sudan. The Saudis had taken the Hejaz in 1802 from the Ottoman Empire and if indeed the ottoman Sultan sent Muammad Ali to reconquer Arabia, then I think it should be called an Ottoman affair carried out by their egyptian representives for that is what Muhammad Ali was at the time, though later he may have been an independend sovereign of his own. - But that was later. --T.woelk (talk) 12:58, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Point taken, but if the Egyptians invaded after being asked to do so by the Ottomans, that doesn't mean it wasn't the Egyptians who in fact invaded and not the Ottomans. I just feel this title may give the impression that there were Turkish troops and officers involved, or that the Porte had an active role in commanding the conflict, when in reality this was a campaign by the army created by Muhammad Ali. I suppose we can make that clear in the body of the article. -- Slacker (talk) 17:20, 31 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm - I would agree that the troops involved started from the "ottoman province" of Egypt for this campaign. But how do you define "Egyptian troops". Soldiers who had been born, raised and trained in Egypt? William Facey states in Dir'Iyyah and the first Saudi State, p65, 1997, (ISBN 0905743 806) that the army of Ibrahim Pasha who had been born in what is today Greece and may have been of albanian heritage, incuded 3000 North African Cavalrymen and North African, Turkish and Albanian Infantry. The medical force seems to have been mostly of Italian origin (Scoto, Gentili, Todeschini and Socio)and the siege engineer Vaissiere was French. He also names the cavalry commanders 'Awzun Ali and Rishwan Agha though not making any reference to their origins. So I conclude that the Turkish and Albanian units in Ibrahim pashas army may have included some of the regular ottoman troops that Muhammad Ali pasha had brought with him when he landed in Egypt in 1799, himself an ottoman officer at that time. --- going to bed now --T.woelk (talk) 21:50, 31 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes he did use a lot of North Africans, but I meant that it was an army raised by Muhammad Ali himself, according to modern standards, and not an army supplied to him by the Porte, at least that was my impression. But if he was using Ottoman troops that landed with him in Egypt, then that would indeed be different. Since I don't know for sure, I guess we should leave the page as is. Thanks. -- Slacker (talk) 22:00, 31 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Commander

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for every battle that says Muhammad Ali Pasha I will remove Muhammad Ali since he was not even there for these battles. Or was he? In all the Turkish articles it does not cite Muhammad Ali as a commander. Let me know. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cauca50 (talk • contribs) 19:29, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 3 November 2017

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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. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: moved. Jenks24 (talk) 11:43, 12 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]


Ottoman–Wahhabi War → Wahhabi War – The article was repeatedly moved in the past few years without any relevant discussions ([1][2][3]). And, as obvious from the above 2008 discussion, whether to use "Ottoman-Wahhabi" or "Egyptian-Wahhabi" remains somewhat controversial ("Saudi" is much less common). The campaign involved an army raised by Muhammad Ali of Egypt, but was launched in the name of the Ottoman Porte. So I'm proposing a new title, Wahhabi War, that is both NPOV and used by several sources:

  • Support per nom and a perusal of Google Books results. Other names used include "Turko-Wahhabi War" but "Wah(h)habi" alone seems more common and avoids the confusion noted by the nominator above. —  AjaxSmack  03:20, 5 November 2017 (UTC)[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 31 December 2020

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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 discussion.

The result of the move request was: No consensus to move (non-admin closure) (t · c) buidhe 18:59, 14 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]


Wahhabi War → Ottoman–Saudi War – Ottoman–Saudi War is the Real name of the War, not Wahabbi War. D4rkeRR9 (talk) 16:36, 31 December 2020 (UTC) —Relisting. —Nnadigoodluck███ 18:16, 7 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  •  Comment: If moved, it should be Ottoman-Saudi War (with a hyphen), as per MOS:DUALNATIONALITIES (combining form). —Biscuit-in-Chief :-) (/tɔːk/ – /ˈkɒntɹɪbs/) 01:54, 1 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose for now. "Ottoman-Saudi" is anachronistic, as "Saudi" is a common term for "Saudi Arabia", which did not exist as a kingdom until 1932. Moreover, the scope of this article is a bit weird. The Wahhabis have been at "war" generically since 1744. And have certainly been at war with the Ottomans since at least 1802. This article is covering just a single campaign. "Egyptian invasion of the Hejaz" would be a more accurate description. Or at least "Egyptian-Wahhabi war", particularly as the Ottomans were not directly involved, and indeed (if some sources are to be believed) the Ottoman Porte was kinda hoping it would drag out, and that both the Egyptians and Wahhabis would pummel and weaken each other. Walrasiad (talk) 09:23, 1 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support the proposed move. Ottoman-Saudi is the commonly used term in both Turkish and Arabic. There is nothing anachronistic about the term "Saudi", since that's what the House of Saud (and the land unde its rule) was called then and now. Saudi Arabia as it is now only emerged in 1932, but the Saudi domination of parts of Najd (Central Arabia) dates to the 18th century. Muhammad Ali's Egyptians were independent in practice, but officially still part of the Ottoman Empire, something that they acknowledged. Ανδρέας Κρυστάλλης (talk) 15:49, 5 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@TheEagle107: This is true, but "Wahhabi" denotes the religious doctrine, "Saudi" the state and territorial domain. Of course, the relationship is symbiotic in this case, but this was the Saudi state (that's how it's called in Arabic, الدولة السعودية الأولى), not the Wahhabi state. Unfortunately, there is the tendency of ex post facto projection (especially since 9/11) of the religious/ideological element, whereas we are talking about states and rulers. For example, the Soviets in the Cold War were the Soviets, not the Leninists. Ανδρέας Κρυστάλλης (talk) 18:28, 6 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Ανδρέας Κρυστάλλης: Anyway, I would like to suggest adding all the appropriate titles to the preface of the article (the article's introduction). For example: Ottoman-Wahhabi War (1811–1818) (also known as Egyptian-Wahhabi War, Ottoman-Saudi War, Egyptian-Saudi War)... All these titles are used in books and websites, and should be mentioned at the beginning of the article, in accordance with WP:NPOV.--TheEagle107 (talk) 23:01, 6 January 2021 (UTC)[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.

Article’s name

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There is no term called Wahhabi، it is neither sectarian nor a name for nationality, this term is used by anti-Saudi groups As a kind of criticism or attack, As for the controversy over the use of the name (Saudi), this is the real and common name and it was used by the British in documents in the 19th century, in addition to that (Saudi) represents the name of the ruling family that has been ruling the country since 1744, If you notice that there are articles on Wikipedia named "First Saudi State" and "Second Saudi State" though there is no country called Saudi Arabia at that time, so the real name for the article should be “Saudi-Ottoman” war. Aziz bm (talk) 11:19, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]


The term "Wahhabi" refers to the followers of the religious doctrine preached by Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, there is nothing inherently "anti-saudi" about it's use. The state ruled by the Saudi family was referred to at the time as "Emirate of Diriyah", the term "first Saudi State" is a retroactive classification. The motivations behind the war were also expressly religious, not national, including this with the fact that other Nejd tribes aside from the Saudi family also participated in the conflict in support of the Wahhabi ideology making the proposed "Ottoman - Saudi War" much less adequate in describing the conflict, the phrasing "Ottoman - Wahhabi War" is more accurate and contains no implications that would bring into question the neutrality of the arti

Name Change

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We should change the name to the Ottoman-Wahhabi War, because just "Wahhabi War" is very bland and is probably not the greatest title to this conflict. PanjshirLions (talk) 10:05, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Neutrality

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TheEagle107 Elaborate specifically where the article is not neutral and does not correspond with the sources. Both Ottoman and Wahhabite persepctives are represented. A totally pro-Ottoman article regurgitating their anti-Wahhabi themes is not acceptable by the Neutrality standards. Shadowwarrior8 (talk) Shadowwarrior8 (talk)

Shadowwarrior8 Represent all point of views neutrally and with due weight, even if you disagree with the view. Articles that compare views need not give minority views as much or as detailed a description as more popular views. Can you tell me what is the reason for adding this phrase "Muhammad Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab, the leader of the Wahhabi Reformation"?!--TheEagle107 (talk) 12:15, 18 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

TheEagle107 This is a war article and one state's view cannot be asked to be overly promoted, in this case, Ottomans. "popular" , "minority" etc these are subjective terms. Any objective evidence that Ottoman view is most popular? Infact Ottoman invasion is viewed negatively in arab circles. Promoting a Turkish nationalist view of the conflict cannot be accepted.

As for the phrase the leader of the Wahhabi Reformation", it signifies the theological background underlying the conflict. Ideas of Wahhabites perceived as "Reformist" in that context , vs what was considered "Traditional" by wide majority of Muslims. It is relevant since the conflict was justified on that basis by either parties. (talk) 12:30, 18 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Egypt Eyalet Suggestion

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Ottoman Empire should be listed above where it says Egypt Eyalet. PanjshirLions (talk) 07:24, 6 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Name’s Neutrality

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I’m initiating this discussion to point out that the term Wahhabi has negative connotations and has been used predominantly by the Ottoman and western scholars. It’s also to be noted that Wahhabi is a modern slur used against Saudis; not that it’s offensive to many or them but it certainly isn’t neutral. 2A0E:CB01:24:8D00:69DC:C1D5:5A3F:78C6 (talk) 04:03, 2 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Wahhabis of Nejd Victory?

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How are the Wahhabis considered victorious when the war resulted in the destruction of the Emirate of Diriyah? The establishment of the Emaryare of Najd is cited in the "results" box here, but that happened 6 years later and it hardly justifies the use of the term "victory" here. The peace treaty is also cited, although the war resumed months after it was signed. Azeezm4r 10:03, 27 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I would also like to say here that the name Wahhabi war is not very informative. A war against whom? The British? The rival Al-Muntafaq? The name "Ottoman-Egyptian expedition in Arabia" seems better. Azeezm4r 10:24, 27 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Recent infobox disruptions

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There has been a marathon of disruptive and/or unexplained edits to the infobox for most of this month. Now that the page is semi-protected and the edit-warring is paused, I'm looking for the last stable version before those edits started, and it seems to be this, so I've restored that, which means these changes were reverted. Please discuss if another version should be restored instead.

Crucially, one of the unexplained edits in this period was the removal of "Egyptian-" from the infobox result (here), which later non-constructive accounts then edit-warred to re-insert. The more stable version that's been restored uses "Egyptian-Ottoman victory". Is there a consensus about this one way or another? Courtesy ping to @Vbbanaz05, @Cinderella157. R Prazeres (talk) 16:49, 27 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  • The Eyalet of Egypt was a province or administrative district of the Ottoman Empire. It is not a separate belligerent. Muhammad Ali was governor/viceroy of Egypt under the sultan and their action was ordered. Paraphrasing MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE, the infobox is not a place for nuance or detail but a simple summary of key facts. Other edits I have made have edit summaries explaining why they have been made in accordance with the prevailing P&G. Cinderella157 (talk) 22:07, 27 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 26 November 2024

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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 discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved. I see a consensus that "Wahhabi war" is not a proper name here, so "war" should be written in lowercase (WP:NCCAPS). (closed by non-admin page mover) Toadspike [Talk] 09:16, 18 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Wahhabi War → Wahhabi war – Per WP:NCCAPS and MOS:CAPS, this is not consistently capped in sources. See google scholar search here. Cinderella157 (talk) 01:13, 26 November 2024 (UTC) — Relisting. Feeglgeef (talk) 17:38, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. If it's the name of the war then it is a proper noun and therefore capitalized, per both of the cited policies and simple English writing convention. Otherwise, it implies that the topic of the article is any war involving Wahhabis/Wahhabism, or the ideology of war in Wahhabism, etc. The Google scholar search, if anything, exemplifies that problem, because at a closer look many of the results are merely sources that include the words "Wahhabi war" in any context, rather than referring to this specific war. Many of the reliable sources I can see that refer to this specific war do capitalize it (e.g. [4], [5]). A blunt ngram search suggests that the fully capitalized version is twice as common as the alternative.
Note: That said, there may be another WP:COMMONNAME altogether or a more descriptive title might be preferable. In particular, many scholarly publications (maybe most) seem to use "Ottoman-Wahhabi War" or something similar (e.g. [6], [7], [8], [9], [10]). It might be useful to consider that kind of alternative. But otherwise, "Wahhabi war" on its own, non capitalized, merely makes the title more vague with no benefit. R Prazeres (talk) 01:58, 26 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per R Prazeres and the n-grams (although the n-grams show a back-and-forth casing see-saw, uppercasing now seems stable as the common name). Plus, as of this writing, the lowercased version is so ignored on Wikipedia that ever since the article was created in 2004 it has been a red link (a 20-year red link is dubious as the common name). Randy Kryn (talk) 02:20, 26 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment The criteria established at MOS:CAPS is essentially a statistical question. It is not a question of showing that there are sources that capitalise the term but the proportion of capitalisation and whether this is consistently done in sources. True proper names are not descriptive and this is not inherently a proper name. Ngrams do not distinguish expected uses of titlecase (eg reference titles, headings and captions) from use in prose, where the latter is what we need to consider. Ngrams can be contexturalised such as this and this search, where the latter gives no results. Contexturalised, the ngrams indicate that this is far from consistently capped but they also indicate a small sample set. That the n-grams show a back-and-forth casing see-saw also indicates a high signal-noise ratio. It would be better to confirm results against google books (here) and google scholar results already presented. Cinderella157 (talk) 04:43, 26 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I understand the good intentions here, but it is not a statistical question when the first line of MOS:CAPS also states: "[...] unless the title is a proper name". Names of specific wars are proper names, period. "Wahhabi War" is a name, not a descriptive title. (Whether we have the right name is another matter, per my comment above.) Since changing capitalization changes the meaning, this has implications for WP:CRITERIA. There is nothing in our policies which recommends overriding WP:CRITERIA, WP:RS, and standard English convention to enforce one interpretation of one style policy (MOS:CAPS), especially when there's nothing more than fallible and unclear Google-based arguments to go on. I've seen this in an RM before (here) and it wasn't well-received then either. R Prazeres (talk) 09:00, 26 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    You are actually quoting from WP:NCCAPS not MOS:CAPS. In fuller context, the lead further states: For details on when to capitalize on Wikipedia, see the Wikipedia Manual of Style sections on capital letters ... [linking to MOS:CAPS]. MOS:CAPS states: Wikipedia relies on sources 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. Determining whether a particular phrase is consistently capitalized is essentially a statistical question. WP:LOWERCASE (part of WP:AT) emphatically tells us to use sentence case. It invokes WP:NCCAPS. While a proper noun|name is the name of a particular thing it is not a defining property since specificity can also be achieved by use of the definite article (the) and other modifiers. Not all names are proper a noun|name. Some names are descriptive and not true proper names. Capitalisation in English is not confined to proper noun|names. It can also be used for emphasis or significance but per MOS:SIGNIFCAPS, we don't do that. The relevant P&G is clear. Cinderella157 (talk) 10:17, 26 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. This was a major full-scale years-long war, not a couple of weeks of skirmishes, with n-grams showing well over 2/3rds for uppercasing. More importantly, as R Prazeres says, wars on Wikipedia have proper names. Per SIGNIFCSAPS and MOS:PROPER, proper names are uppercased. What should be done instead of arguing like parrots over percentages is uppercasing all major war pages on Wikipedia (are any not uppercased?). WP:CRITERIA and WP:CONSISTENCY uphold major wars as proper names across w. mainspace. War is Hell, with proper names. Randy Kryn (talk) 13:45, 26 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    If this were a proper name we would see an ngram like Mississippi River or Arthur Wellesley and not something like two-thirds capitalisation (before accounting for expected uses of title case). It is a proper noun is an assertion made without substantiation. It is a proper noun because it was a long (important) war is capitalisation falling to MOS:SIGNIFCAPS - which tells us not to cap. MOS:PROPER tells us to cap proper nouns but proper noun tells us that a proper noun is not a descriptive name. MOS:PROPER does not alter the general advice in the lead of MOS:CAPS - that is how WP determines what is capped and treated as a proper noun on WP. While many war articles on WP are capped, this is not done with absolute consistently, as a search will show. That is because capitalisation is primarily determined by MOS:CAPS on a case by case basis. WP:CONSISTENT is not an end-around WP:LOWERCASE to use titlecase for article titles - that would be a pettifogging argument. By the way, War is not Hell per this ngram. Cinderella157 (talk) 23:51, 26 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Are there any major war pages which are lowercased on Wikipedia? If not, and this one is over 2/3rds uppercased, don't you maybe think that that's enough considering both site-consistency and 70% consistency. As for Hell, I seem to recall a discussion somewhere that decided that it's a proper name, along with Heaven, or visa versa. Dicklyon was involved, maybe he'll (see what I did there) recall. Randy Kryn (talk) 01:59, 27 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    p.s. Found very few, so I've uncontroversially added North Yemen civil war on WP:RM in case someone would like to object (the pesky n-grams). Randy Kryn (talk) 03:20, 27 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Note to the p.s. Turns out Dicklyon had boldly gone where no man had gone before and lowercased North Yemen Civil War in April 2024. I don't know why. Glad that this one has now been caught, but who knows how many others have gone undetected (The Dicklyon Effect). Randy Kryn (talk) 13:01, 27 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    That's another example of a name made up by Wikipedians being echoed in sources as if it's a proper name. In 2006, when Yemen Civil War was moved to North Yemen Civil War, pretty much all the sources used North Yemen civil war. Dicklyon (talk) 21:57, 27 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Straight off the top of my head (and by your criterion) we have Syrian civil war. WP:OTHERCONTENT (otherstuffism) arguments are not of themself a substantive argument. They only have weight if they evidence best practice, which in this case is the prevailing P&G regarding capitalisation. I am sure that if we exposed the body of articles to the same standard, we would find many that are incorrectly capitalised - as was done in this RM where a similar argument is being made. As for 70% on uncontexturalised ngrams, the usual percentage to cap is higher and 70% is nothing like Mississippi River or Arthur Wellesley. If we look at the most recent ngram result Wahhabi war leads while if smooth out the random noise you describe further, it goes down to 60%. As for Hell, you refer to this RM, where hell is capitalised in that context but not more general contexts like to hell in a handbasket (see also ngram here). Cinderella157 (talk) 03:46, 27 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    This is a point that needs to be made more in RMs: if the discussion has become a debate about ngrams, then it has gone off track. The core of WP:COMMONNAME is finding the common name in actual reliable sources. Logically, if "Wahhabi war" is the common name in RS, then I expect at the very least to be presented with a significant selection of direct examples. I've provided many examples of varying usage so far: as mentioned, they only lead me to suspect, if anything, a different common name altogether, not the current proposal. When searching for sources that clearly refer to the war, I struggle to find examples that unambiguously use "Wahhabi war" as a name for this conflict. The most convincing ones are these: [11], [12], [13], with the latter and a possible few others being fairly dated sources.
    Meanwhile, when I look at the rest of the results that make up cited ngrams like this and this, they're full of hits where this string of words corresponds to different or unrelated usage, including:
    • "Wahhabi war camp" ([14]),
    • "Wahhabi war machine" ([15])
    • "Wahhabi war-like ambitions" ([16])
    • "Egyptian-Wahhabi war" ([17])
    • "the Wahhabi war against the hidden unbelievers" ([18])
    • "the Wahhabi war on democracy" ([19])
    • "the Wahhabi war- riors" ([20])
    • "the Wahhabi war potential" ([21])
    • "the Wahhabi war chest" ([22])
    • "neo-Wahhabi war" ([23])
    • "Sherifian-Wahhabi war of 1925" ([24])
    • And even "known as [...] the Wahhabi war" but referring to a 1957 incident ([25]).
    This exemplifies why conclusions based on ngrams alone are liable to be mirages. In this case, they are practically useless. R Prazeres (talk) 06:44, 27 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    It was not I but you that introduced ngram evidence. To counter your ngram, I also provided a contexturalised ngran. I also said: It would be better to confirm results against google books (here) and google scholar results already presented. It would be disingenuous to imply that I am relying on ngram evidence. In proposing the move, I relied on google scholar evidence, where snippets allow irrelevant hits to be discerned and discarded. Cinderella157 (talk) 09:20, 27 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I did not intend to misrepresent your position in particular, apologies if it seemed like that. Nonetheless, so far the only substantive evidence that has been presented since my first comment (which contained several points: [26]) have been ngrams, accompanied by your argument that this is a "statistical question". Accordingly, I am warning about this line of evidence/argumentation. My other recommendations are outlined above. Thanks, R Prazeres (talk) 21:25, 27 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    This is essentially a statistical question in that we need to determine the proportion of usage in sources (quantitatively or qualitatively) for each form and not that there are sources which support one or the other. We need to look at a random sample and not cherry-pick those that suit a particular proposition. It is not a race to see who can find the most sources for one or the other. Ngrams can be a very useful tool for this because it draws across a large corpus (a sub-set of google books) that is independent of the observer. There are limitations: the sample may still have too little data or there might be other contexts as you correctly identify. Context should be cross-checked against google books. I am not relying on ngrams for similar reasons but a review of google scholar (initially) and google books. For example at this page of the book search, I see two sources that cap v 4 that don't and the balance (4) appear to be out of scope (such as Wahhabi War Machine). On this page of search results, I see the same proportions. Viewing the results more fully, the term is not consistently capped in source. Cinderella157 (talk) 02:31, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    The "random sample" argument makes no sense, that's not only arbitrary and ignorant of the data, but it defeats the purpose of WP:RS, which is what Wikipedia (titles, content, and all) is based on. Let alone the continued lack of consideration for other WP:CRITERIA issues I raised from the start. I'm glad you're looking at the sources more closely, yet you still skipped the individual contexts of the results, repeating the problem above. On this page you linked, the only source I see that comes close to supporting your point is this one, which is a vague index item. This one in fact uses "Ottoman-Wahhabi war" (going back to the point I made far above), this one is a quote that doesn't name the war at all, and the others are either out of scope or out of any context. Over at the second suggested page, a similar thing: this is a good example, but two others are 19th-century sources ([27], [28], the latter being a reprint of an 1814 text by Jean Louis Burckhardt), which are not good indication of current usage, while two other recent sources capitalize and the rest are out of context. The proportions are not as you present them.
    It's clear that this discussion will continue in circles, so I'll end on this behavioural note: you accused me above of "cherry-picking" and yet I was literally the first one in this whole discussion to even provide direct examples that supported your position (first paragraph of this comment) while looking at the data from the links you provided yourself. And in your latest comment below ([29]) you've insinuated bad faith from Randy Kryn and myself ("smoke and mirrors misdirection"). This is not constructive behaviour in an RM about the capitalization of a single letter.
    If any further response is really needed from me here, please ping me. R Prazeres (talk) 08:18, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    R Prazeres, I think that the substantive point you wish to make in this discussion (overall) is that there is a better alternative for naming the article? If so, you should make a explicit proposal and case for that title - eg Propose alternative X as a new dot-point. Until then, the only substantive proposal is for capitalisation of the present title.
    Where I said: We need to look at a random sample and not cherry-pick those that suit a particular proposition please read in the fuller context. I was broadly describing two process: one which tries to objectively addresses the criterion at MOS:CAPS and one which doesn't. Where I used cherry-pick I was describing a process that is not objective. My comment was not intended as a comment on your behaviour but the general process. The "random sample" argument makes no sense. MOS:CAPS tells us: consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources. Because we are addressing the criterion in MOS:CAPS, where I have referred to sources (eg a sample of sources) I am referring to independent, reliable sources. Cinderella157 (talk) 06:30, 30 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support – sources don't support treating this a proper name. Many of the sources don't even call it this; e.g. this one calls it the Egyption–Wahhabi war. Not every event has a proper name. In the previous 2017 RM that had it moved to this title, several of the sources quoted in support used "Wahhabi war", not capped. Dicklyon (talk) 06:26, 27 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Dick, please read the very good analysis by R Prazeres just above which was posted a few minutes after your comment. It takes apart the n-grams and other sources and puts them back together in favor of opposition to this RM nomination. Randy Kryn (talk) 13:07, 27 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Hardly convincing, esp "Names of specific wars are proper names, period." Look at the stats: it appears as "The Wahhabi War", but much more common in the last 100 years as "the Wahhabi war". Notably absent, due to being less frequent, are "The Wahhabi war" and "the Wahhabi War", with "the" and "war" in opposite cases. This suggests that the capitalization of "War" is commonly associated with contexts that capitalize "The", which are more likely to be titles (of works, chapters, sections or whatever) or list entries, while lowercase "the" is more commonly associated with sentence context, which is where we need to look to see if sources treat it as a proper name. They don't. Dicklyon (talk) 23:48, 27 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    This has to be some sort of new argument fallacy. Perhaps we should ask SMcC if it is. First one uses certain evidence to reach a conclusion and then one discredits that evidence to reach the same conclusion. That is a smoke and mirrors misdirection. Perhaps you should reconsider your rational for opposing the move Randy Kryn. Cinderella157 (talk) 02:36, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Either you have misread my comment or I was unclear. I'm referring to the RP's comment at 6:44, a few minutes after Dicklyon's, where they point out that even the under 1/3 of n-grams that now show lowercasing as the name of the war are being inaccurately overcounted. Their analysis shows that lowercasing of the war's proper name being much less than 1/3rd, which makes uppercasing even more predominant. No fallacy involved, just my inapt description of RP's important new analysis. Randy Kryn (talk) 09:40, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I have not misread what you have written or what RP has written. They have shown that there are sources reported in google books that use the term Wahhabi W|war in other contexts. They conclude that: In this case, they [ngrams] are practically useless. No other editor (except yourself) disagrees with this, which is why no other editor is relying on such evidence. Given your further edits below (in clarification) you were unclear. You presume that these other contexts only use lowercase. For searches of google books for Wahhabi W|war, roughly half (or slightly less) of the search hits do not refer to the subject of this article. Furthermore, these other contexts use both upper and lowercase (eg as mentioned herein: Wahhabi War Machine). The conclusion you would make is based on a false premise. Cinderella157 (talk) 04:11, 30 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm missing your/his point, too. Those n-gram stats clearly show lowercase in the lead until after WP capped it in 2006, and still more than 1/3 lowercase since then. And as I pointed out before, a bit of context to focus more on sentence context puts lowercase clearly in the majority. Yes, some of the lowercase are for non-relevant contexts; but search books for "the wahhabi war was" or "the wahhabi war of" or "the wahhabi war form" or "the wahhabi war with" or "the wahhabi war began" or such variations and you see pretty much just lowercase war; also you see lowercase in sentence-final "Wahhabi war." or phrase-final "Wahhabi war," though that's harder to search for. Capitalized ones similarly have other uses, such as "The Wahhabi War Machine" – actually, that seems to be about half of the capitalized uses that I can find in books. Dicklyon (talk) 17:23, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    N-grams, as I understand it, reflect the present common name. Not the past common name, or "until Wikipedia started capping", but as it's being reported as of 2022 (the latest sampling for n-grams). With over 2/3rds uppercasing, along with sitewide near-consistency in the capping of "War" of this size and duration, that seems a major step towards keeping the title uppercased. N-grams are not the whole story, and in some cases should be ignored solely because of the reasonings by R Prazeres and Dicklyon about inaccuracies in both upper and lowercasings. Yet if they count for any percentage of the closers reasoning in this discussion then they weigh in on the side of uppercasing and for keeping the present title. Randy Kryn (talk) 04:14, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    No, n-grams give you a view of statistics over time. The stats for recent years are unfortunately dominated by the huge increase in crappy electronic publications, not just actual print books and magazines like it was initially. Dicklyon (talk) 05:02, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, they do give that valuable and interesting view. But Wikipedia's titles are decided by the present common name and not by the past common names (which are used as alternate names). As for what passes for sources nowadays compared with the good old days, and if they should even be counted, that's both opinion and OR (even if a correct assessment of the source of n-grams, there is still little way to know if your view is correct or not).
    Back to the discussion, my point that wars of this size and duration are almost always and maybe always uppercased on Wikipedia, in combination with the points made by R Prazeres and the over 2/3rds uppercasing in n-grams, seems to weigh on the side of keeping the present casing. Randy Kryn (talk) 12:10, 30 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. Generally seems to be regarded as a proper name. -- Necrothesp (talk) 11:51, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note – Lots of wars are not treated as proper names. E.g. these articles (none of which are redirects):
    Dicklyon (talk) 02:22, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support—Prazeres, no, 2/3–1/3 is not "consistently capped". Tony (talk) 04:39, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. Not even close to consistently capitalized in sources; see GScholar results, too. This "if its the name of a war it must be a proper name" shtick is a tedious personal opinion based on philosophy notions that have nothing to do with typography (see WP:PNPN for a summary), and is against MOS:CAPS, MOS:MILCAPS, WP:NCCAPS, etc.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:18, 7 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Note: WikiProject Turkey, WikiProject Albania, WikiProject Military history, WikiProject Egypt, and WikiProject Saudi Arabia have been notified of this discussion. Feeglgeef (talk) 17:39, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[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.
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