Talk:Hillary Clinton/April 2015 move request

Requested move

Request move from:

Hillary Rodham Clinton → Hillary Clinton

Electoral history of Hillary Rodham Clinton → Electoral history of Hillary Clinton

Hillary Rodham Clinton awards and honors → Hillary Clinton awards and honors

List of books by or about Hillary Rodham Clinton → List of books by or about Hillary Clinton

Political positions of Hillary Rodham Clinton → Political positions of Hillary Clinton

This move would presumably extend to the names of categories and Wikiprojects relating to Hillary. Note that certain titles regarding her are already at the shorter titles (Hillary Clinton presidential campaign, 2008, Hillary Clinton presidential campaign, 2016, List of Hillary Clinton 2008 presidential campaign endorsements), and will not be affected by this move.

This move is proposed for the following reasons:

• Recognizability: Many readers have expressed confusion with the title because they are unaware of Hillary's use of "Rodham" -- this is especially true for those from countries outside the U.S., as "Hillary Clinton" is almost always used in the rest of the English-speaking world. As of her campaign launch on April 12 of this year, the prominence of the use of "Hillary Clinton" on her most public self-representations (such as her campaign page and newly-created Facebook page, which has already drawn millions of views), intensifies this situation. There is no need to allow possible reader confusion when an alternative is available that is not confusing to anyone.

WP:COMMONNAME presents the guidance that: "Wikipedia prefers the name that is most commonly used (as determined by its prevalence in reliable English-language sources) as such names will be the most recognizable and the most natural".

Plainly and simply, "prevalence" is indicated as being the issue that determines the common recognizability of a name.

"Hillary Clinton" is primarily and more commonly presented in a larger number of secondary sources than can be found using "Hillary Rodham Clinton". In particular, people speaking or releasing statements about Hillary, including current and potential political opponents, most frequently refer to the her as "Hillary Clinton." Using search engine testing for instance:

• site:www.wsj.com/ "hillary clinton" gets "About 75,900 results"

site:www.wsj.com/ "hillary rodham clinton" gets "About 1,340 results"

as per: List of newspapers in the United States by circulation

• site:telegraph.co.uk/ "hillary clinton" gets "About 72,700 results"

site:telegraph.co.uk/ "hillary rodham clinton" gets "About 2,930 results"

as per: List of newspapers in the United Kingdom by circulation

• Ngrams raw data favours "Hillary Clinton"
• Google trends indicates that in the last twelve months (beginning after the close of the last move request on this topic) there has been a spike in Google searches for "Hillary Clinton" over "Hillary Rodham Clinton". Over the past year (and particularly since June 2014), people performing Google searches were at least 28 times as likely to search for "Hillary Clinton"; however, since her announcement of candidacy and the reveal of her campaign website and Facebook page, people are now more than 100 times as likely to search for "Hillary Clinton". By contrast, people are about as likely to search for "Hillary Rodham Clinton" as to search for "Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton".

In view of "prevalence" in sources, "Hillary Clinton" is by far the most her "commonly recognizable name."

High level sources:

It has previously been argued that "high-level sources" should be given special consideration. Per Wikipedia:Verifiability#Reliable sources, "academic and peer-reviewed publications are usually the most reliable sources". With respect to solely these highest-level sources:

• Google Scholar returns since 2014 show "about 3,710 results" for "Hillary Clinton" and "about 613 results" for "Hillary Rodham Clinton".
• The Social Science Research Network directory of peer-reviewed scholastic journals returns the following:

• "Hillary Clinton" gets 1,560 results
• "Hillary Rodham Clinton" gets 324 results

• JSTOR, another archive of peer-reviewed scholastic journals returns the following:

• "Hillary Clinton" gets 3,667 results
• "Hillary Rodham Clinton" gets 1,324 results

• JSTOR results are searchable by date range; a search for results from only the past year shows a substantial increase in the proportion of scholarly publications using "Hillary Clinton":

• "Hillary Clinton" gets 138 results
• "Hillary Rodham Clinton" gets 23 results

• Since the previous discussion, the predominance of "Hillary Clinton" in these highest-level sources has increased from 73.5% to over 85.5%.
• A search of records from the United States Government Publishing Office indicates that in the past year there have been 105 U.S. government documents published that reference "Hillary Clinton" while only 30 U.S. government documents published that reference "Hillary Rodham Clinton".

• Naturalness "Hillary Clinton" is a name which fits with the WP:NATURALNESS description of a "title ... that readers are likely to look or search for and that editors would naturally use to link to the article from other articles." This is clearly shown in extreme results from a "Hillary Clinton" : "Hillary Rodham Clinton" Google trends search.

About 2300 main pages link to the redirect page "Hillary Clinton" which can be judged to overlap significantly with the

About 2800 main pages that directly and/or indirectly link to "Hillary Rodham Clinton". This number should be noted to be inclusive of pages that include/also include redirects from namespaces such as Hillary Clinton, Hillary Rodham, Hillary R. Clinton, Senator Hillary Clinton and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and will also be inclusive of pages that include widely used templates ¹²³⁴ which are amongst pages that use redirects such as "[[Hillary Rodham Clinton|Hillary Clinton]]" and "[[Hillary Rodham Clinton|Clinton]]"

• Preciseness/Conciseness: The conditions of Preciseness are fully met with concision with "Hillary Clinton" immediately and precisely identifying her. Nothing more than that is needed. There is no other "Hillary Clinton" from which disambiguation might be needed.

• Consistency: Presentation of only a first name and last name, even where a middle or maiden name exists, is more common with human names generally, and particularly with human names found throughout Wikipedia. For example, we use Elizabeth Dole (not "Elizabeth Hanford Dole") and Laura Bush (not "Laura Welch Bush"), even though the longer forms can often be found in high-level biographies.

• Hillary's preference: "Hillary Clinton" is presented in the public arena primary sources and particularly in primary sources related to political campaigning: for example in campaign ads, announcements, on ballots, twitter, facebook and websites.
  • Her twitter account: https://twitter.com/hillaryclinton presents: "Hillary Clinton @HillaryClinton" - as appearing as page title and on all posts. "Rodham" was not used.
  • Her facebook page https://www.facebook.com/hillaryclinton makes several mentions of "Hillary Clinton" but makes no mention of Rodham.
  • Her facebook campaign page https://www.facebook.com/Hillary2016 presents: 43 uses of "Hillary Clinton" inclusive of 27 uses of "Hillary Clinton for President 2016" (as at 11/04/2015). "Rodham" was not used.
  • At http://www.hillaryclinton.com, "Hillary Clinton" is the web page title text as shown through any "Hillary Clinton" web search that reaches the main page. The name "Hillary Clinton" similarly appears within the text of many of the site's pages as well as, of course, in the web address itself. The name "Rodham" only seems to appear twice and both times in signatures, once on an English page and once on a Spanish page.
  • http://www.hillaryclintonoffice.com/ presents: "Hillary Clinton", "CONTACT THE OFFICE OF HILLARY CLINTON", "Office of Hillary Rodham Clinton, 120 West 45th St...". Notably, the site's own "Bio" page, https://www.hillaryclinton.com/bio/, completely omits the use of "Rodham" despite describing her childhood at length.
  • The facebook page give prominent reference to hillarypac.org which makes 14 references to "hillary clinton" without references to "rodham" being made.

• WP:NOTSHOWCASE/WP:NOTADVOCATE Wikipedia only responds to real world situations of actuality and does not give any special consideration to any privately expressed view as to how a subject may personally want to have their name presented.

• Title Stability - On this high visibility article, it may be desirable to have a stable title. The current title has prompted numerous previous proposals to move this page as proposed. While the majority of respondents in those previous proposals have generally favored a move, enough support was not garnered to avoid a "no consensus" finding. The most recent discussion (initiated March 31, 2014), resulting in a substantial majority of 44 editors favoring the move and 20 opposing the move, was closed as "no consensus"; the prior discussion (initiated in June 2013), resulting in a majority of 12 editors favoring the move and 10 opposing the move, was initially closed by a non-administrator as moved, but reversed on review due to the reasoning of the close, not the discussion itself. It is proposed that these discussions show that there is a consistent preference of the community to move the page, and that this preference has continued to grow over time. Furthermore, there have been substantial changes favoring the title "Hillary Clinton" since the last discussion, most notably her launch of a campaign where "Hillary Clinton" is her most prominently used style of conveying her name.

• Revisions to policy page. During the past year, the policy on article titles has evolved, including the "nutshell" which is a consensus summary of the policy. As this diff shows, the conciseness and naturalness standards are both new in the nutshell, and this change of emphasis supports "Hillary Clinton" instead of "Hillary Rodham Clinton" per the discussion above. Another new part of that policy page is the following: "neither a given name nor a family name is usually omitted or abbreviated for conciseness", which implies that omitting or abbreviating middle names and other names for conciseness is usually fine. Indeed, a further new part of the policy states: "When deciding whether to use middle names....[s]ee also WP:CONCISE above."

Calidum T|C 14:43, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

Discussion guidelines

Please be civil, and respect the viewpoints of others. Please do not engage in battlegrounding. Please assume good faith and do not engage in personal attacks.

Users either supporting or opposing the move should indicate at least the most pertinent reasons for doing so. This will help the closing admin(s) determine consensus.

Comments that are placed in the wrong section may be moved to the correct section by administrators or other participants. Excessively lengthy or off-topic discussions may be collapsed.

Survey

Support

1. support I agree, as the main objective of wilipedia is to provide unbridled access to quality information and more occasionally users are genuinely perpexeled when they hear a new term or name which they usually aren`t attuned to and this also most cerstains confuses the reader hence it is most appropriate that we alter the title to simple Hiilary clinton and the arguments presented above are more then ample to justify this valid and authentic standCreator Xavier (talk) 11:22, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
2. Support it's about time we do this. The research provided in this move request is solid and relevant. - Cwobeel (talk) 14:49, 26 April 2015 (UTC)
3. Support per nom. Articles should be at the name that comes to mind when the typical reader thinks of the subject. Wikipedia does not stand on the kind of formalities that dictate the style of information outlets with inflexible editorial boards that can not easily adjust to changes in usage by an article subject or by people in general. I have watched the talk page for this article for a long time now, and it is a steadily increasing trend that an editor who has never been involved in this question before will arrive there and note that they are confused to find "Rodham" this title, and propose to move the page to "Hillary Clinton". It is inevitable that eventually this will lead to the page being moved, so we might as well do it now and avoid both future confusion and future extensive discussion of proposals that new editors will continue to bring. bd2412 T 14:56, 26 April 2015 (UTC)
4. Support per WP:COMMONNAME. As stated above, her own Twitter feed and websites don't use Rodham. Reliable sources also do not report on her using Rodham. 331dot (talk) 15:37, 26 April 2015 (UTC)
5. Support per WP:COMMONNAME, recognizability, and indeed every factor presented in the move proposal. Also, all the subsidiary articles' titles will work much better with the common name. (In terms of mentioning Hillary Rodham Clinton as formal iteration of her name, can simply mention that bolded in the lede, either in the same sentence with her full birth name, or in the sentence right after that.) Cheers to Calidum (and anyone else who helped) in factoring that excellently worded proposal. ADDED: I think Ruth Bader Ginsberg is the perfect example of someone to contrast this situation with. Softlavender (talk) 16:23, 26 April 2015 (UTC)
6. Support per WP:COMMONNAME and the simplicity of not having a maiden name. The "Rodham" doesn't add anything in disambiguation, so the shorter version should be used. – Muboshgu (talk) 16:34, 26 April 2015 (UTC)
7. Support per all of the reasons described in the move request, especially conciseness.Anythingyouwant (talk) 17:26, 26 April 2015 (UTC)
8. Support per WP:COMMONNAME & because there's no other bio-article of a Hillary Clinton, therefore 'Rodham' isn't required to clarify wich Hillary Clinton we're mentioning. GoodDay (talk) 18:45, 26 April 2015 (UTC)
9. Support - Personally, I've never, ever heard her being addressed as Hilary Rodham Clinton. Now, sure, I'm British, but as far as I've noticed, Hilary Clinton is the COMMONNAME, pure and simple. BD2412's comment about "an editor who has never been involved in this question before" - well, that was me not that long ago. And given that her official website (at least, I'm hoping hillaryclinton.com is that) explicitly states "Hillary Clinton is running for president. Watch the video. Share it with your friends. Let’s go." - not Hilary Rodham Clinton. Yes, people have the right to go by their maiden names if they so desire. Yes, she achieved things whilst still using her maiden name as her only surname. But when people take the name of their husbands, then that's often what we begin to refer to them as - want an example? Cheryl Cole, even though the height of her career was arguably attained when she was called Tweedy still - and note she's still known by the Cole name, even if her surname doesn't reflect that any more. Why is that? COMMONNAME, again. Yes, Hillary Rodham Clinton is used in reliable sources - but that doesn't make it the primary name, does it? No, no it doesn't, and I think anyone trying to argue otherwise is cherry picking at best. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 18:53, 26 April 2015 (UTC)
10. Support per COMMONNAME and a blind, objective reading of reliable sources as represented in Ngram Viewer. As evident there, HC has always led HRC and the gap has only grown wider with time. The data ends with 2008 (with HC leading by 2.8 to 1 (73%) and the gap still widening), but there is no reason to believe that (1) the trend has reversed since, and (2) the trend has reversed enough to put HRC ahead. To satisfy the COMMONNAME policy, we needn't look any further. As I understand it, arguments are supposed to be policy-based, and I don't see much policy in opposing arguments; certainly nothing as clear-cut as COMMONNAME. Any selectiveness in choice of sources is necessarily subjective, and there would be no way for a closer to choose one selection without imposing his or her own personal opinions. If Ngram Viewer showed the trend reversing by 2008, I might be more open to other criteria, but it does not. ―Mandruss ☎ 18:58, 26 April 2015 (UTC)
11. Support per the above because "Hillary Clinton" is more commonly used, despite the fact that "Rodham" is used by some reliable sources. I've rarely ever heard Hillary's maiden name in the media, though, where the vast majority of mentions take place. And Lukeno94, the official website is https://www.hillaryclinton.com/, so yeah, I think people are going to call her "Hillary Clinton" more often than "Hillary Rodham Clinton". Epic Genius (talk) 18:59, 26 April 2015 (UTC)
12. Support per COMMONNAME and reliable sources, and her own, informal, usage of her own name in her official campaign channels. However: we can, and should, use "Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton" in the intro sentence, because that's her full, formal name, and add "also known as Hillary Clinton or Hillary Rodham Clinton" -- which are two, slightly different versions of her name, both of which she uses in public life. -- The Anome (talk) 19:09, 26 April 2015 (UTC)
13. Strong Support - It is clear that HC is the WP:COMMONNAME. That being the case, there'd have to be some really good reason to maintain HRC. I don't see one. NickCT (talk) 19:11, 26 April 2015 (UTC)
14. Support per COMMONNAME. Sources mostly speak of Hillary Clinton and not Hillary Rodham Clinton. Mbcap (talk) 19:14, 26 April 2015 (UTC)
15. Support - Per WP:COMMONNAME. I don't see any special reason why this topic should be treated differently from every other topic. In fact, I'm surprised that it's taken this long to fix this. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 19:14, 26 April 2015 (UTC)
16. Strong Support. As the above proposal clearly lays out, multiple Wikipedia policies are overwhelmingly on the side of this move, most importantly among them WP:COMMONNAME. It is time for this move to finally happen. Rreagan007 (talk) 19:14, 26 April 2015 (UTC)
17. Support per above, WP:COMMONNAME and the fact she's known as Hillary Clinton - Do we call Barack Obama "Barack Hussein Obama II" or Gordon Brown "James Gordon Brown" .... No!, Therefore IMHO there's no reason why this shouldn't be moved to the correct name either. –Davey2010^Talk 19:34, 26 April 2015 (UTC)
18. Support again. She is commonly known both in her own country and throughout the world simply as Hillary Clinton. -- Necrothesp (talk) 19:58, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

    

    A comparison of the search interest for Hillary Clinton compared directly to Hillary Rodham Clinton. EoRdE6^{(Come Talk to Me!)} 23:57, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

19. Strong Support per WP:COMMONNAME. On my unbiased research I found that she is referred to 3-10 times more often as Hillary Clinton, than Hillary Rodham Clinton. That easily overrules arguments about what name is used in personal sources, what matters is what name she is known by, what name she currently uses in her campaign and most importantly what name is used in the majority of news sources. [My image to the right clearly displays what I am referring to and why it should be moved.] EoRdE6^{(Come Talk to Me!)} 20:13, 26 April 2015 (UTC) [Amended 23:57, 27 April 2015 (UTC)]
20. Strong support per WP:COMMONNAME and WP:CONCISE. She uses this name professionally in many different arenas of life. Reliable primary and secondary sources consistently prefer the more concise name. (Even if George W. Bush's dad wasn't famous, I would still support George W. Bush as the location of the article, because he wasn't typically referred to just as "George Bush". His dad was, though, so if W had never reached the notability of his dad, I'd support moving George H. W. Bush to the base title. WP:CONCISE can't be used to override WP:COMMONNAME, but here the two actually work together.) Red Slash 20:40, 26 April 2015 (UTC)
21. Support I came here thinking I could come down on either side. I'm convinced by the support side. On the one hand, the fact that Ms Clinton uses HRC in her recent book needs to be taken into account. We should take into account the subject's preference. On the other hand, it does not seem to be a strong preference because there is a wealth of campaign material in which she simply uses "Hillary Clinton". And outweighing, by a long way, any preference on the part of Ms Clinton is the clear evidence that the preponderance of reliable sources use "Hillary Clinton". Certainly the news outlets all do. And having had a search though JSTOR, Questia and Google Book, I'm not convinced by the argument that more scholarly sources use HRC: I see no evidence of a preference among scholars. --Mkativerata (talk) 20:41, 26 April 2015 (UTC)
22. Strong support - I have been in favor of this for some time now. BMK (talk) 20:57, 26 April 2015 (UTC)
23. Strong support per WP:COMMONNAME. She is known as Hillary Clinton. It follows the same pattern as other well known political figures and should be followed here. Casprings (talk) 21:00, 26 April 2015 (UTC)
24. Support outside the mini-universe called "America" she is 100% referred to as "Hillary Clinton", and, as it happens, many people within that universe call her Hillary Clinton too. This is as simple a requested move as I have ever seen. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:43, 26 April 2015 (UTC)
25. Support - per the WP:COMMONNAME. HC is known by this name mostly and the scholarly sources also use the name. 45.34.15.160 (talk) 22:41, 26 April 2015 (UTC)
26. Support - after thinking this through, I find myself leaning towards support as the common name as shown in reliable sources such as CNN, Miami Herald, The Atlantic, Chicago Tribune, and CBS News. Additionally, her official website is "hillaryclinton.com". Snuggums (talk / edits) 23:11, 26 April 2015 (UTC)
27. Support per WP:COMMONNAME, WP:CONCISE and WP:MIDDLES. She is more commonly known without the "Rodham" and probably always has been, and I don't believe there are any other Hillary Clintons such that disambiguation is required. And even if there were, then WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. Her husband's article is not William Jefferson Clinton and in fact that is one of the first examples given in the relevant guideline. This really is a very easy and clear cut case; I am quite surprised that it has caused so much drama here, and I expect to see it at Wikipedia:Lamest edit wars some time in the future. Ivanvector (talk) 23:29, 26 April 2015 (UTC)
    • Rodham isn't her middle name. Justen (talk) 02:21, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

    I didn't say it was; MIDDLES happens to be the correct guideline shortcut for maiden names as well. Ivanvector (talk) 03:50, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

28. Support per WP:COMMONNAME. I have yet to hear anyone say they will vote for against Hillary Rodham Clinton, they say Hillary Clinton because that is the name most commonly used.The arguments against the rename focus on the name used by scholarly sources and herself as an author. These, however, are often different to the common name used, as there are many instances of someone with the same name appearing on the scene decades or centuries later, and so these sources "look to the future" to avoid possible confusion. Relying on them would force us to change thousands of other entries. We have WP:COMMONNAME for a reason. If some people want to delete that Guideline, let them try that directly rather than on an article by article basis. Flatterworld (talk) 23:42, 26 April 2015 (UTC)
29. Support The only thing that surprises me more than how often we discuss this is the fact that, holy crap guys, we're like the only ones who still consistently use her middle name. Like, in common usage. Come on. Born2cycle's much-maligned "yogurt rule" absolutely applies here: this will continue to be a perennial issue until the move is made. At that point, there may be some residual conflicts, but it will eventually become a non-issue. I hope that doesn't sound like a threat—that's just the only way I ever see this playing out. (P.S. Ping me if you want to discuss this; it's going to be too hot for me to add to my watchlist.) --BDD (talk) 00:47, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

    Rodham isn't her middle name... --Guerillero | Parlez Moi 02:50, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

    That is completely irrelevant. Rreagan007 (talk) 04:59, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

30. Support per WP:COMMONNAME and current use. If anyone wants to peek at all the first ladies at whitehouse.gov every last one of them is listed by maiden name and married name (Barbara Pierce Bush) and many by middle name, maiden name and married name (Mamie Geneva Doud Eisenhower. If she is running for President as Hillary Clinton, then let's keep it simple. Montanabw^(talk) 02:52, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
31. Support. In English it's most common to refer to Westerners, at least, as "Firstname Lastname" without any middle name(s). That's the style Wikipedia should be following in general unless there's a reason not to do it. When this article was created, there was a real perceived reason to use Mrs. Clinton's middle name: her strong preference, at that time, which was followed by sources. Now both the sources and Mrs. Clinton's own usage have shifted, so the argument for using "Rodham" is weak, and we should use the typical format. Moreover, the comparison to Ruth Bader Ginsburg is very apt - thinking about the actual coverage both women have received for a minute will tell you where the numbers lie just as well as the numbers do. There is some value in seeking to retain a stable article title that has withstood multiple move requests, but not as much as there is in matching current sources. 209.211.131.181 (talk) 03:31, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
32. Support per WP:COMMONNAME: it's the name by which she is known in British media - I'd never heard of the "Rodham" name until seeing it here in WP arguments. And the statistics shown above are pretty convincing too. And the norm on WP is "one-given-name surname" unless there's a strong reason to do otherwise. PamD 07:55, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
33. Support, per WP:COMMONNAME, in particular for the world-wide audience that is interested in this article. While I was aware of her maiden name, I basically never saw or heard of it in common discussion here in Germany. To move beyond the anecdotal, I checked Google Ngram. For the German corpus (which goes to 2009), it shows a fairly consistent 8-1 preference of the version without her maiden name. The French corpus has 7-1, Spanish is 11-1, Italian is 14-1. Those are the major world languages which use a latin alphabet and are covered. While this is the English language Wikipedia, and we give special consideration to English sources, we should also take into account the expectations of our non-native language users. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 07:58, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
34. Support. Primarily per WP:COMMONNAME, but also per the well argued case laid out by User:Calidum. Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 11:21, 27 April 2015 (UTC).
35. Support both per WP:COMMONNAME and PamD's comments above. Prioryman (talk) 11:52, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
36. Support per WP:COMMONNAME and recognisability. Wikipedia has repeatedly rejected the preference of a subject in other cases - e.g "Cat Stevens" not "Yusuf Islam" or "Lily Allen" not "Lily Rose Cooper" during a period when the singer was using her married name professionally (she has since reverted her professional name to Allen). There is no reason why this subject should be treated as an exceptional case and not have the article at the most familiar name. Timrollpickering (talk) 11:56, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
37. Support. The COMMONNAME arguments simply win out for me. Here in Australia, I have quite literally never seen the full name "Hillary Rodham Clinton" used - the first I heard of it was when looking at Wikipedia - and probably very few people, other than widely-read people or those with a special interest in American politics, would associate the name "Rodham" with this individual. (So essentially per PamD.) I also agree with all the very well reasoned points put forward by others. — This, that and the other (talk) 12:23, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
38. Support per WP:COMMONNAME, in my experience she is almost always referred to as Hillary Clinton in American and well as international English media. Winner 42 Talk to me! 12:46, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
39. Support - Most common search term. The longer name will continue to redirect. The full name appears in the biography. What is so hard to understand about this?!?!? Carrite (talk) 15:51, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
40. Support per WP:COMMONNAME, as well as previous comments in this section attesting that ""Hillary Clinton" is the commonly used term word-wide, and the well-formulated case put forth in the nomination statement.--JayJasper (talk) 16:24, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
41. Support per WP:COMMONNAME and everything in the outstanding nom. Assessing someone's personal preference is not our job. Our job is to assess the most common usage for referring to a particular subject in reliable sources. The proposed title is clearly indicated when we do this. --В²C ☎ 16:38, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
    • I wish also to reply to Tarc's point about it being the "height of chutzpah" for supporters of change here to claim disruption. Time and time again obstinate opposition to title change has been shown to be disruptive when a controversial title like this one is finally changed and the controversy is resolved accordingly. This phenomenon is described in detail at The Yogurt Principle. --В²C ☎ 16:48, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
42. Support — No one in the media calls her Hilary Rodham Clinton. Like nobody says Barack Hussein Obama. I just don't think her middle name shouldn't be featured in the article unlike Neil Patrick Harris who is well known by that. (Film Guy on Wiki (talk) 21:32, 27 April 2015 (UTC))
43. Support Per WP:COMMONAME, Hillary Clinton is by far the most common way that people refer to her, so we should default to that. Rationalobserver (talk) 22:00, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
44. Support per WP:COMMONAME. The only question is whether enough people who don't normally give a shit about these things (meaning the vast majority of humankind) show up to participate. Those in the United States, I would plead you to consider that internationally, this is even more of a no-brainer.--Milowent • ^hasspoken 23:10, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
45. Support per WP:COMMONNAME from google results to sources provided. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 00:10, 28 April 2015 (UTC)
46. Support per WP:COMMONNAME and the above. Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) ^{may the force be with you} 00:12, 28 April 2015 (UTC)
47. Support per WP:COMMONNAME. If Wikipedia was to survey people today, the vast majority would not know that Hillary Clinton has Rodham in her name. If you listen to any televised media, absolutely zero use "Hillary Rodham Clinton" to address her. If you search on the web, an overwhleming majority pertains to "Hillary Clinton" as opposed to "Hillary Rodham Clinton". Teammm ^talk
    _email 01:02, 28 April 2015 (UTC)
48. Support A few years ago on might have been able to make the case that "Hillary Rodham Clinton" met WP:COMMONNAME, but it is not even close now. I searched her campaign site for "Rodham" and could not find it. --I am One of Many (talk) 02:45, 28 April 2015 (UTC)
49. Support. Both names are sufficiently precise and neither is offensive, but the move is favored by WP:COMMONNAME and WP:NATURALNESS, especially given EoRdE6's evidence above. kennethaw88 • talk 02:51, 28 April 2015 (UTC)
50. Support - Nothing has changed since my last RM. Hence the support :D. Mark Schierbecker (talk) 07:14, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

    oh, now, I'd think that one through a bit..... At the last RM she was simply a private citizen recently retired from the cabinet, who some thought might or might not run for President someday. And she had no Facebook page and was keeping a much lower profile. Contra today, a declared presidential candidate much more in the news with a newly launched "Hillary Clinton" campaign website, newly launched "Hillary Clinton" bio, newly launched "Hillary Clinton" Facebook page, and many other outfeeds of information pressing "Hillary Clinton" as her name. Much has changed. Pandeist (talk) 07:26, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

51. Support. As an educated resident of Europe with moderate interest in politics who, to quote Milowent, "doesn't normally give a shit about these things", I've hardly ever seen that "Rodham" as part of her name, so the current title fails WP:RECOGNIZABILITY for me. Yes, I know the background, and we probably don't have to move this article, but the title violates the principle of least astonishment, so such move requests will likely be repeated. So why not move it now? No such user (talk) 07:18, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

Oppose

1. No, no, a thousand times no per the thousand times this has been suggested, well, eight or nine. She uses it on all her books and papers (many of which were published before her marriage), on her official papers, and loves her family name so much that's she's always used it as her official name. Since I'm male I don't fully know and appreciate the well acknowledged choice of women to keep their entire name as they prefer it, which seems to conform with policy here. Just to be clear, 'Rodham' is not her middle name, it's her family name and one she used as a stand-alone name in her accomplishments before marriage. Again, a fully acknowledged woman's right not to have it considered a middle name, but a part of her name (during last year's discussion Jimbo Wales asked her what she'd prefer on her Wikipedia page, and she got word to him that 'Hillary Rodham Clinton' was her personal choice). Randy Kryn 15:33, 26 April 2015 (UTC)
2. Oppose Will expand later but for now incorporate by reference the last 3 admin panel close and opposes that resulted in the name remaining at Hillary Rodham Clinton, which is both encyclopedically suited to the subject, as shown by looking at reliable encyclopedic sources for biography, and the subject's preference, as well a "appropriate" under Wikipedia policy. I will note that it is incorrect as claimed above the sources do not report her name. Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:18, 26 April 2015 (UTC)
3. Oppose per whitehouse.gov, Hard Choices (2014), and past consensus that WP:COMMONNAME prefers the common name in scholarly, academic sources to online sources. Brittanica also uses "Rodham Clinton" and Clinton is noted for her achievements pre-marriage. –Chase (talk / contribs) 16:53, 26 April 2015 (UTC)
   • Inclusion in scholarly sources has little to do with common recognisability. The p/g states "Wikipedia prefers the name that is most commonly used (as determined by its prevalence in reliable English-language sources) as such names will be the most recognizable and the most natural". In any case I have presented reference to biographical materials below and, even here, references are split between Hillary Rodham Clinton and Hillary Clinton. GregKaye 20:14, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
4. Oppose for many reasons. First, though it has already been pointed out, some of the reasons given above are not valid. For example, the claim that HC is her preference, which has often been shown not to be the case. To take just one example, her autobiography from just last year has HRC on the cover. Hit counts are also invalid and misleading in a case like this, since (to give just one reason) it is quite common for articles to mention her as HRC once at the beginning, and then use a shorter version throughout the article. As for the argument that using two names is “more common with human names generally”, that’s irrelevant. It may indeed be more common for people to go by just their first and last names, but that is a preference, not a rule, and it is quite common for people to go by more than two names (or less, for that matter) when they choose to do so -- case in point, Philip Seymour Hoffman. Some editors also claim that HRC is not used in reliable sources. To quote another editor, “You may wish to mention that to reliable sources since they don't seem to have gotten the message...” Omnedon (talk) 17:47, 26 April 2015 (UTC)
5. Oppose There are two arguments against the nomination:

   Hillary Rodham Clinton uses that as her name. A primary source perhaps, but to exclude reality on that basis would be ridiculous. This is someone's name after all. In the case of Chelsea Manning, WP was vehement in taking their choice of name over all argument from officialdom.

   Secondly, any issue of commonname is easily dealt with by redirects, just as we do it for so many other BLPs. Andy Dingley (talk) 19:29, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

6. Oppose the mass move since I can't justify supporting all of them. If they had been broken into multiple requests I'd likely have gone: Oppose; Support; Support; Support; Support -- — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 19:09, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

   Note: The above comment was originally posted to Talk:Hillary Rodham Clinton. Epic Genius (talk) 20:16, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

7. Oppose per Andy Dingley. What's the problem for the HC folks to just use a redirect? Smallbones_(smalltalk) 20:42, 26 April 2015 (UTC)
8. Oppose This has been longstanding usage. I'd also point out that her recent private email address is "hdr22" (Hillary Diane Rodham). Her longstanding use and self reference is to retain "Rodham". That electioneering has sometimes changed usage to "Hillary!" or "Hillary Clinton" doesn't change the longstanding use of "hilary rodham clinton" ("hrc") especially retaining "rodham" in personal correspondence. --DHeyward (talk) 20:44, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

   Specific oppose to List of books by or about Hillary Clinton The pen name of Hillary Diane Rodham is Hillary Rodham Clinton and a number of books are written about her with, at least, title name as Hillary Rodham Clinton. GregKaye 20:46, 26 April 2015 (UTC) Struck in light of content in discussion below. I will remain generally neutral. GregKaye 05:48, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

9. Oppose
   • A shame that a handful of editors who should have found better things to spend their wiki-time on have instead chosen to waste the community's, but, here we are. The hurdle that they have to climb here though is to show what has changed since the last genuine RM (not the aborted one from a few weeks ago), and so far there is really nothing. The last RM, closed by a trusted panel of 3 neutral administrators found that despite the pro-rename faction having more than a 2-to-1 numerical advantage in the final tally, that there was no consensus to move. While proving the wiki-adage that our deletion/rename/etc.. processes are not votes, it also showed how weak the pro-move argument was, that it was countered by half the voices. All they have, and all they have ever had, is "I found it lots of times in Google", where as the leave-it-as-it-is argument has relied on higher-quality scholarly and professional sources (as WP:RS prefers...books, journals, and the like...all of which use the subject's full name more often than the shortened one. The subject's own preference is not a firm indicator of what the Wikipedia must do, as nowhere in our guidelines do we specifically give weight to the subject's wishes, but nowhere in said guidelines does it say subject preference is to be ignored either.
   • One aspect of this nomination that is amusing, bordering on the disingenuous, is the notion (in the section labeled "title stability") that repeated failed attempts to achieve consensus to move is disruptive, and that if they could just get the article moved to "HC", then *poof* the disruption goes away! How wonderful, right? Here's another radical notion as to how to stop the disruption; stop $^&* nominating it for an RM year after year after year. It is the height of chutzpah to declare the lack of consensus to be disruptive, by the very people that are inciting the disruption.
   • Finally, what we have to address here is that, really, we're at the point where RM after Rm after RM is just the epitome of disrupting Wikipedia to make a point. This is not a real-life topic war, no one in the Real World^(tm) is fighting HC vs. HRC. This is internal Wiki-squabbling, like Manual of Style fights, diacritics, infoboxes and all that. Look at the recent talk page history of one of the primary RM movers and shakers. Middling, unimportant wrangling, one after another after another, to the point where an admin is suggesting a step back for some perspective lest the topic-banhammer is needed. This is what we're dealing with here, a concerted effort to enforce a personal preference in syntax, nothing else.
   • Reject this RM, and impose a minimum 2-year moratorium on another, for the sake of the Wikipedia. Tarc (talk) 21:09, 26 April 2015 (UTC)
10. Oppose apparently this is going to be battled endlessly. The bare facts are that she writes under Hillary Rodham Clinton, announced herself to the world during her husband's campaign as HRC, and of course the press often uses the shorter name--it's called headlinese. With all due respect, were she undergoing a sex change, I wouldn't oppose a new chosen first name. But this public waffling is simplay a tension between HRC's genuine personal beliefs and the momentary advice of her handlers. We're an encyclopedia, not an organ of the press or her campaign strategists. The redirect exists, no one is confused who reads the article. Not even people born after 2001. (Who reads just the title of an article?) This endless tendention need a stake put through its heart. μηδείς (talk) 21:33, 26 April 2015 (UTC)
11. Oppose. A search for either HRC or HC will find this article. Each is as recognisable. Hillary's people told Jimmy she prefers HRC. On a matter such as this, where neither name diminishes the reader experience, we should respect the preference of the subject over a style guide. It is a matter of respecting the human dignity of our BLP subjects. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 00:05, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
12. Oppose None of those voting support are arguing that Hillary Rodham Clinton isn't her name just that it isn't the one they most commonly associate with her, there isn't even the hypothetical case that someone looking for the article will be unable to find it as this is easily and invisibly catered for by redirects.--KTo288 (talk) 00:13, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
13. Oppose as HRC is what she chooses to be called when not abbreviating for brevity or convenience. under WP:COMMONNAME we have John F. Kennedy rather than Jack Kennedy, so it cuts both ways. Also HRC is more scholarly. Like others, I'd probably have voted support for all derivative articles to just have HC. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 00:42, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
    • Like many others, you have lost me. So educate me, please. What does what she chooses to be called have to do with any Wikipedia policy? Ngram Viewer shows John F. Kennedy far more common (COMMONNAME) than Jack Kennedy, so what's your point there? What connection does scholarly have to policy? Nothing personal, I'm just using you for a general response to a lot that's in both sections, Support and Oppose. ―Mandruss ☎ 00:51, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
14. Oppose per reasons already stated by Chasewc91 and Tarc. -- WV ● ✉ ✓ 01:08, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
15. Oppose -- per our Article Title changing policy(and [[conciseness]]), our Naming Convention policy and COMMONNAME policy
    • COMMONNAME -- It is known that Hillary Rodham Clinton is the articles common name, especially considering the time period where she became publicly known(1972-2000). In order for recent trends to be used for a common name, a name change needs to happen. HRC has not changed her name, and has specifically stated she prefers to be addressed as Hillary Rodham Clinton.
    • Scholar(HRC, HC) and ngram results favor Hillary Rodham Clinton. The attempt to state that Hillary Clinton is trending more than Hillary Rodham Clinton is flawed and irrelevant, since there has been no name change and recentism is not a policy based argument.
    • Article title policy specifically states that:

      for biographical articles... neither a given name nor a family name is usually omitted or abbreviated for conciseness.

      Also, our Naming Convention policy specifically states we should give weight to an article subjects preference on BLP grounds. HRC has stated on several occasions that she prefers Hillary Rodham Clinton.
    • As for article stability, our Article Title changing policy specifically states:

      Changing one controversial title to another ... is strongly discouraged. If an article title has been stable for a long time, and there is no good reason to change it, it should not be changed.

      There has been no name change, nothing to give credence to any title change, for moving this article. The ongoing threats from people who believe the article should be named "Hillary Clinton" is not a good reason to move the article. There is no policy that states that, nor should there be. The article has been named "Hillary Rodham Clinton" since 2001, almost 14 years. It's beyond credulous to state 'article stability' as a reason for a move. Dave Dial (talk) 01:38, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

    As pointed out below, your claim about Google Ngram favoring HRC is based on a misunderstanding of how the query interface works and is wrong even for the time period you prefer, and indeed any time period where Clinton had any prominence. Your Scholar interpretation is similarly flawed, if not to the same degree. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 07:09, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

16. Oppose. wp:spnc actually tries to reconcile wp:at and wp:blp, and I think it brings an interesting viewpoint that has largely been glossed over in this and past discussions (although I realize I'm not the first to reference it here). The subject prefers, by her own account, "Hillary Rodham Clinton." And unlike Cat Stevens, for instance, many reliable sources include "Rodham" on first reference. And while I don't believe it is the intent of my fellow editors, stripping a woman of her maiden name despite her wishes — because of a Wikipedia article titling policy — strikes me as pretty clear violation of one of our five pillars, wp:iar. The generic article titling policy is, by its own admission, geared towards making article titles as short as is reasonably possible. wp:spnc clearly indicates we should care about the preference of the subject. And given that the commonality of neither "Hillary Clinton" nor "Hillary Rodham Clinton" are trivial, who are we to choose one over the other? The reason each of these discussions end without consensus is because even reliable sources have failed to adopt a single "preference." In that case, we should defer to the subject herself and leave the article where it is (and should be). Justen (talk) 02:13, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
17. Oppose...for now - I still think its too soon to know if any of the evidence shown is a true set pattern or if the statistics are going to drop further. If you look at the Google trend, it actually seem that it is too soon for that to be seen as evidence yet. Dropping from 100 to 23 the following day and that being the end of that evidence is simply not convincing me.--Mark Miller (talk) 02:25, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
18. Oppose per WP:TITLECHANGES, WP:NOT and User:Omnedon's comments in this section above. Article titles should not fluctuate with changes web hit results. Sources of the calibre used in an encyclopedia continue to use her full name. User:Flatterworld states in the Support section above that, "I have yet to hear anyone say they will vote for against Hillary Rodham Clinton, they say Hillary Clinton because that is the name most commonly used." No, they say simply "Hillary" which is why Wikipedia does not use spoken English usage for encyclopedia article titles. When she is sworn in as president and drops the Rodham, let's revisit the issue. —  AjaxSmack  02:49, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
19. Oppose exactly per oppose statement that is numbered 10 above currently, which I see was written by editor Cirt. --doncram 02:55, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
20. Oppose. I'll try to explain my reasoning why we should stay with the current title of "Hillary Rodham Clinton", without putting up too much of a wall of text. — Wasted Time R (talk) 11:06, 21 April 2015 (UTC) Note:User: Wasted Time R asked me to post this in his absence. My comments will be posted separately. Tvoz/talk 04:19, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
    • It's a common name. Common name counts in news stories are subject to many distorting effects due to contexts where shorter forms are compelled (use in headlines, captions, quotes, disambiguation, later references, etc). But every New York Times story (recent example), Washington Post story (recent example), Los Angeles Times story (recent example) and Associated Press piece (recent example) uses "Hillary Rodham Clinton" upon first reference in the article text. These news organizations have long been considered as the elite in the serious U.S. media. So even if you believe from the counts that move proponents put forward that "Hillary Clinton" is the most common name, it is clear that "Hillary Rodham Clinton" is a common name and not some odd or obscure choice.
    • Common name is not always supreme. The idea that the most "common name" always prevails over accuracy and formality and self-identification is a WP myth. There are many exceptions carved out. Hence Diana, Princess of Wales and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge (far from the most common use for either); United States presidential election, 2016 (who says it with that word order?) and United States Senate election in New Jersey, 2008 (absolutely nobody says it like that); Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress (several more concise forms of that get more Google hits); United States Ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Council (common use would use US and UN and omit other words); "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)" (more often referred to without the parenthetical part); Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (hello, Obamacare) and Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 (say what? common use is "Bush tax cuts" or "first round of the Bush tax cuts"); and so forth. These are not isolated cases of "other stuff exists" that can be dismissed but rather are illustrations of where whole subject areas are systematically exempt from "common name" (British nobility, elections, military aircraft, ambassadorial positions, song titles, federal laws). Another good example in the biographical context is that "Jacqueline Kennedy", "Jackie Kennedy", and "Jackie O" all get more search engine hits than "Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis" does, and by the crude common name argument should win. But we correctly locate the article at Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis because that was the name she used in the latter stages of her life and the name that serious media referred to her by then and after her death. In practice we do not determine article titles solely by Google hit counts or other popularity metrics and we often value correctness and other considerations.
    • Correctness, official name, and self-identification. So why not make this another exception and call her by her official name and the name she uses? For a number of years after becoming married she did not use "Clinton" at all, in part to keep her professional life separate from Bill's, in part as she later said as a "gesture to acknowledge that while I was committed to our union, I was still me." Living History pp. 91–92 Political realities in Arkansas led her to start using Clinton in 1982, but she subsequently made clear both in Arkansas in 1983 and again once she reached the White House as First Lady in 1993 that she preferred the "Hillary Rodham Clinton"; see this 1993 New York Times piece and this 2015 Politico piece for background on her name usage during these periods. The point is that the "Rodham" isn't just some whim; it's there for a reason. It is the name used by her First Lady page and her official Senate page and her official former Secretary of State page. If she does get elected to the presidency, it seems quite likely that she'll use "Rodham" as part of her name in that office, just like she has in all previous offices. All of the books she has written have been published under "Hillary Rodham Clinton": It Takes a Village (1996), Dear Socks, Dear Buddy (1998), An Invitation to the White House (2000), Living History (2003), and Hard Choices (2014). Her signature is "Hillary Rodham Clinton". And lest there be any doubt about which name she prefers in this context, when Jimbo asked her people during last year's RM, the answer came back "Hillary Rodham Clinton".
    • But wait! She's campaigning as Hillary Clinton now. Yes, it's true that during a few of campaigns she has been involved in, she has dropped the 'Rodham' in her campaign materials. This is true when Bill was running to regain the Arkansas governorship in 1982; true during her 2007–08 presidential campaign; and true so far in her 2016 presidential campaign that has just begun. The first of these was clearly for political reasons, but the presidential ones may just be because short-and-snappy carries the day in campaign messaging – indeed for 2008 she was mostly just referred to as "Hillary". See this 2015 NPR piece for more. The campaign difference can, and has, been handled by the naming of the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign, 2008 article in the past and the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign, 2016 article now. But the bottom line is that the names she has used during her life break down something like this:

      Hillary Rodham – 34 years including when first married

      Hillary Rodham Clinton – 29 years including all the major offices/positions she's held

      Hillary Clinton – 4 years while campaigning.

    • Stability. This article has been at "Hillary Rodham Clinton" for essentially its entire existence on WP. It became a GA and then an FA article under this title. It got written up in the press multiple times under this title. It keeps getting subjected to RM's but in the end the title has always stayed where it is. It gets upwards of two million page views a year on average and with web links, our redirects, and search engine predictive completions (they pop up with this article and its lead image and capsule biography after just typing "hilla"), it's hard to credit the view of some move advocates that this title has been causing a loss of readership or confusion about who the subject is. Nothing has changed since the last RM except that the 2016 campaign has begun. But the use of "Hillary Clinton" there is nothing new either, since it already happened during the 2008 campaign and she went back to her regular name once that was over. Two recent data points that she still uses "Hillary Rodham Clinton" in non-campaign situations: It's the name used for the title and first reference on her bio page at the Clinton Foundation in the most recently archived version as of late March 2015 (before she resigned from there in order to run for president); and it's on the cover of the paperback edition of Hard Choices due out late April 2015. Changing the article's title now just because of some 2016 campaign materials would be falling prey to WP:RECENTISM at its worst. This is a biography of her whole life, and "Rodham" has been part of her name for almost that whole life.

    Thus I believe the article should remain at "Hillary Rodham Clinton". — Wasted Time R (talk) 11:06, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

21. Oppose when a woman marries she is allowed to continue to use her maiden name on her books if she wishes. Campaign materials naturally lean to brevity, and as before she will likely go back to full name when campaign is over. So for stability, leave as is. If at any point she really starts using "Hillary Clinton" on her books we can move then. In ictu oculi (talk) 08:35, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
22. Oppose - per In ictu oculi and others. More stable, and that is what she uses on her publications and has throughout. This is not about Google counts, or what you recently see in the street/on the TV/in the newspaper, this is about what her name is. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 14:15, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
23. Oppose agree with Dirk's comments, the re-direct is here so it is not like there is any disambiguation. --Ombase (talk) 15:18, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
24. Oppose Stability suggests that the name should remain as is. And as noted above: WP:TITLECHANGES says: "Debating controversial titles is often unproductive, and there are many other ways to help improve Wikipedia. The people advocating this name change started multiple parallel "discussions", and a discussion about having a discussion, before getting to this. The editors responsible have put on a master class in how NOT to handle an issue like this. Whatever the outcome of this vote, the editors responsible for multiplying and prolonging the discussion in this way owe us all an apology. David.thompson.esq (talk) 18:50, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
25. Oppose WP:COMMONNAME applies, but there are two common names in use, HRC and HC. We should also be taking into account the views of the subject, and she seems to prefer HRC. When Charles Salvador changed his name, is was updated quickly on wikipedia, even thought the press still regularly refer to him by his previous name. Chelsea Manning was initially changed quickly, and it was noted in the media how quickly that change was, it was moved back to Bradley, but settled on Chelsea within a couple of months. Common name says the name commonly used, but we don't use nicknames, even when the press use them a lot. John Prescott was never moved to Two Jags, a redirect for Barack Osama does not exist. If the press nicknamed her Minnie Mouse, we would not move the page there unless she used the term herself. Martin451 21:24, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
    • Per WP:MOS#Identity Disputes over how to refer to a person or group are addressed by Wikipedia content policies, such as those on verifiability, and neutral point of view (and article titles when the term appears in the title of an article). When there is a discrepancy between the term most commonly used by reliable sources for a person or group and the term that person or group uses for themselves, Wikipedia should use the term that is most commonly used by reliable sources; if it isn't clear which is most used, use the term that the person or group uses. (my bolding). She publishes under HRC, hence when in doubt, use HRC Martin451 21:43, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
26. Oppose per Wasted Time R and Martin451 --Guerillero | Parlez Moi 22:15, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
27. Oppose Hillary Rodham Clinton → Hillary Clinton

Oppose List of books by or about Hillary Rodham Clinton → List of books by or about Hillary Clinton

Neutral on the other three

• Recognizability? It is absurd to suggest that Rodham makes the name less recognizable, except to the ignorant listening only to news media. Every scholarly source covering the entire biography makes prominent mention of Rodham, in titling, or introductory first mention.
• Regarding "List of books by or about Hillary Rodham Clinton", "Hillary Rodham Clinton" is all across the list.

• COMMONNAME. The proponents are grossly conflating this so-called shortcut with vernacular, in a big step away from scholarship and respect for scholarly sources. At WT:T, there has been bear agreement that this COMMONNAME shortcut is unfortunate, but it remains probably becuase it is too late. Regardless, the policy points to usage in reliable sources. It points to WP:V, where scholarly, secondary sources are preferred, sources that do not include running media commentary.

Looking at mere usage in a crude collection of online usage is to collected polluted data, because the data contains repeated usage. In any coverage of any subject in any reasonable depths, repeated reference drops to abbreviated short forms. A book on cats does not repeat "Siamese Cat" one thousand times, but introduces the cat with the proper name, and thereafter refers to the Siamese, without "cat". Simillarly, biographies will introduce Hillary Rodham Clinton, as the subject defining name, but afterwards, to avoid ugly repetition, will use the first name, last name, or initials. Similarly, in the article, after first introduction, the subject defining name is shortened.

Looking at the proponents reference to reliable sources, they confuse search engine data returns that trawl reliable sources, with reliable sources. Google scholar aims to search reliable scholarly sources, but the google search result itself is not a reliable source. Similarly with google ngram, it collects data from books that include good sources, but it collects bad data too, as well as the above mentioned problem of counting repeated mentions equally. Attempts to be clever in cleaning the data immediately crosses the WP:NOR line. WP:NOR policy is important for good reason. Anyone who knows about raw data processing knows that filtering and processing introduces considerable arbitrary input in the decisions made on how to filter and process.

Instead, in reference to reliable sources, we should look at the specific reliable sources that are used, and these overwhelmingly, in titling or introduction, include Rodham

• Naturalness. Using the name that appears on most biographies is undeniably natural. Editor convenience, in refering to the subject in a narrow context, but wanting to link to the full biography, is a poor reason to alter the biography. The piping of links is trivial, and produces a better product for the reader. Any inline reference to the whole person, inclusing of her full lifetime, naturally will include Rodham, because Rodham is an important part of her identity.

• Concision. Concision is not brevity, but a balance of important information against brevity. The question is whether "Rodham" is important. It is, because Hillary Rodham was notable pre-Clinton, becuase it is included in every book she has authored, and because she is on record as wanting Rodham included in here usual name. Note that the title is not long.

• Preference. Her preference is stated, certainly in respect a complete biography. Her preference with respect to a current political campaign is different.

• Usage. The supporters make frequent use of the ward "usage". "Usage" should not be a major factor in questions of titling. The question addressed here is not how the subject should be named in routine usage throughout the article, but how good sources, which should be scholarly sources that cover subject entirely (not just the last campaign), and especially reputable biographies that aspire to tell a complete story, how these sources title the subject, or if titling is not applicable, how they formally introduce her.

--SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:02, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

Neutral

1. I'm parking it here just while I work out whether there's really any reasoned argument against to be made. Pandeist (talk) 19:15, 26 April 2015 (UTC)
   • Undecided at the moment, will need some thought Snuggums (talk / edits) 19:19, 26 April 2015 (UTC) Moved to support
2. Strongest possible neutral This discussion is a waste of time. We should keep it at its current name, because it's a perfectly acceptable, well recognized name, and so there's no impending need to move it. Please note, I would make the exact same argument if it were already at the other title. We have two roughly equivalent names we could have this article at. Since they are equivalent, neither has a major advantage, and so there's no need to move from one to the other. Or the opposite either. The discussion has no reason to happen. --Jayron32 19:24, 26 April 2015 (UTC)
   • Just a note; it may be a well recognized name in the States, but internationally? I'm pretty sure if I asked anyone I know in the UK who Hillary Clinton was, that they'd know; but if I said "Hillary Rodham Clinton", they'd either not know the name, or ask "is that the same person as Hillary Clinton?". Wikipedia has to, after all, show an international viewpoint, not just Americancentric or Eurocentric or whatever. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 23:46, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

     In that case, WP:ENGVAR applies: We don't change to the British usage if the person is American. Please note, I would not argue for a move if this were at the other name. To the contrary, we should not move articles at a widely recognized name. This is a widely recognized name. It's a waste of time to move from one widely recognized name to another. We should leave this here, in perpetuity, for no other reason than it isn't wrong, it is a widely recognizable name, and it's a waste of effort, time, and bits better spent on more fruitful endeavors. --Jayron32 00:27, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

   I'm far from convinced that ENGVAR applies here. US sources seem to be somewhat in favour of HC; international ones are overwhelmingly in favour anyway. "Not wrong" is hardly a useful or valid argument. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 00:30, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

   Not wrong is the only valid argument here. Neither name is better, so why move it? --Jayron32 20:43, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

   COMMONNAME so clearly falls on Hillary Clinton that it isn't funny. Most of the evidence for HRC seems to be based on people cherry-picking US sources from a randomly picked time period, and disregarding anything that disagrees with them - and when it comes to international sources, there's no contest. HC wins there by a country mile. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 00:32, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

   Only because it is a shortened form used in the same piece once her full name has been introduced. If such uses were eliminated, the numbers, while the still favor Hillary Clinton over Hillary Rodham Clinton, do not favor it enough to keep bringing the matter up. This is not an endorsement of the Hillary Clinton name as better, and saying that is not an endorsement of the Hillary Rodham Clinton name as better. Just a statement that, based on the evidence I can see and the arguments presented by both sides, that neither name has clear reason to be the favorite. --Jayron32 14:52, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

3. Neutral. Please note that this is not intended to indicate a preference to keep but to present arguments that I personally think are of importance and which I would ask admin to consider in deciding on this case. The case for support, with arguments being presented on the basis of WP:UCRN and WP:NATURALNESS, are, I think, overwhelming. However I also think that there are mitigating circumstances that may be considered and, in the light of which WP:IAR may validly be applied. The clear fact is that Hillary Diane Rodham most prevalently presents herself as "Hillary Clinton". However it can also be judged that her decision to do this comes within the context of an, arguably, extremely biased and prejudiced US political context. The argument here is that, in a context in which Hillary Diane Rodham may, arguably, be affected by bias and prejudice, that Wikipedia may, with validity, adopt a counteracting bias in the opposite direction. The suggestion here is that a valid application of WP:SHOWCASE/WP:ADVOCATE may be used. In essence I consider that the only valid WP:PG based argument in favour of retaining a title presentation as "Hillary Rodham Clinton" is WP:IAR. GregKaye 20:38, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

   Just to clarify, Since I began listening in since I proposed the last failed RM and, I believe, for a good time before, I have not heard the name Rodham once in connection to "Hillary Clinton" and think that any direct interpretation of WP:UCRN in relation to prevalence of use can only favour a move to "Hillary Clinton". GregKaye 04:00, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

4. Comment Didn't we just have this discussion a little while ago? Are people going to keep proposing this move until it finally gets enough support? There really should be a limit on how many times a debate can happen about retitling an article, like once a year. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 22:16, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

   You can make it so you're not able to try any more move requests for a period of time... but this would have to be by consensus, and would probably be an even greater waste of effort. Banak (talk) 23:07, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

   This was already a thing, and the restrictions were complied with in full. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 00:33, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

5. Neutral. I've read both arguments and believe both sides make good points. She is commonly known by both names and that would suggest leaving the article as is. On the other hand, I believe the evidence shows that "Hillary Clinton" is used more often than "Hillary Rodham Clinton". In the end, I believe this is a minor issue about which even Mrs. Clinton doesn't care. What matters is the substance of that article, not whether her middle/maiden name is used. For these reasons, I am (at least for now) neutral on this issue. SMP0328. (talk) 00:56, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
6. Neutral. My position exactly mirrors that of SMP0328. Either article title is just fine, and frankly there are far better things to do than waste more time discussing the matter. Anyone searching for Hillary Clinton will be redirected to Hillary Rodham Clinton, so what's the big deal? As far as the "Google hits" argument is concerned, it's a pain in the ass to keep writing "Hillary Rodham Clinton" so I imagine lots of writers simply say "Hillary Clinton" or even "HRC" for brevity. -- Scjessey (talk) 13:32, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
7. Neutral OK, we could change her name while she is running for president, but then we might just be having debates over whether to change it back once she's in office. I do think it's important to take BLP subjects' wishes into account, but I haven't heard her tell the world, "I want my wiki Bio to be titled Hillary Rodham Clinton." There are better uses of time than to continue debating this. Wbm1058 (talk) 13:59, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

Discussion

Other search results

• Google News Archive: -- "Hillary Rodham Clinton" -- 47,600 archived results

• Google News Archive: -- "Hillary Clinton" -Rodham - 34,500 archived results

• Newspapers.com: -- "Hillary Rodham Clinton" -- 16,992 results

• Newspapers.com: -- "Hillary Clinton" -Rodham - 8,458 results

• Yahoo News: "Hillary Rodham Clinton" -- 9,414 recent results

• Yahoo News: "Hillary Clinton" -Rodham - 13,018 recent results

This shows that the true vast majority of reliable sources address HRC as HRC, throughout her time as a public figure. She was a known public figure before she even added the name Clinton to Hillary Rodham, there is no good reason to change the article title, per WP:TITLECHANGES. Dave Dial (talk) 16:16, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

section 1

• @Alanscottwalker: I haven't read every reliable source on the Earth, but the ones I read do not refer to her using Rodham. 331dot (talk) 16:21, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

• Your support !vote is ridiculous. Every source on Earth? Did you even bother to read any of the past move requests, or any source? This just shows how systemic bias works, without editors even knowing it. Dave Dial (talk) 16:32, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

• My comment about sources on Earth was a reply to criticism of my post by the used I named, not my rationale for support. Please show me where it is written that I or any user must research the entire history of a page before posting a comment about a proposal regarding it. My opinion was solicited, I have given it. No more, no less. It's disappointing when others like yourself make negative comments such as that. Instead of making such comments, why not simply point out reasons for disagreement or correction? That said, I can only go by what I read, as can any person. 331dot (talk) 17:30, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

I further invite you to support your claims regarding sources by linking to some that back up what you are saying. 331dot (talk) 17:31, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

Sure.

"Hillary Clinton" -Rodham -- Google News archive search:34,500

compared to:

"Hillary Rodham Clinton" Google News archive search:47,600

Dave Dial (talk) 17:47, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

Now look at the headline of the very first result to come up under "Hillary Rodham Clinton" - "Hillary Clinton pledges support for Yankees" (from 1999); the article also has a quote from Rudy Giuliani referring to her as "Hillary Clinton". That's the very definition of "common name". bd2412 T 17:53, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

One example out of tens of thousands of hits makes a definition? Omnedon (talk) 17:55, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

Wow. So even though the article starts off stating:

"Hillary Rodham Clinton, who grew up rooting for the Chicago Cubs.."

-You think the headline is more of an example? I see. So Twitter handles, headlines and campaign posters count, while real world names mean nothing. Sheesh. Dave Dial (talk) 17:59, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

One example out of tens of thousands of hits makes a definition when it is typical, even when digging all the way back to 16-year old newspapers. Rodham should be mentioned in the lede; if this were an argument that it should be removed from the article entirely, that would be a valid point. It is inapplicable to the question of what is someone's common name. Also, the fact that Hillary Clinton uses "Hillary Clinton" for her Facebook page is a thousand times more significant that her Twitter handle. bd2412 T 18:07, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

A thousand times more significant than her Twitter handle? Who assigns these numbers for significance? I would argue a move request that bases it's significance on Twitter, Facebook and campaign slogans is absurd. Instead, we should use Wikipedia policy. You know, policies that state:

If an article title has been stable for a long time, and there is no good reason to change it, it should not be changed.

and WP:SPNC, which cites BLP policy and weight should be given to the subject of an articles preference of name. Dave Dial (talk) 18:16, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

I am curious about the strange dichotomy between these Google news archives results (which all seem to be far out of date) and the general results from Google News:

9,640,000 hits for "Hillary Clinton"

443,000 hits for "Hillary Rodham Clinton"

Of course, the archives results total fewer than 85,000 total articles, and from the thousands of stories in thousands of newspapers, there must be millions of actual uses, which is what a general search reflects. The larger set would seem to be more reflective of reality. bd2412 T 23:17, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

It's unclear to me what we're looking at there. Google News Archive implies that the archive might be defunct, and might simply be a redirect to Google News. Google News says, The service covers news articles appearing within the past 30 days on various news websites. ―Mandruss ☎ 23:29, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

Yea, people who have lived only in the Google reality would think that there would have to be MILLIONS of results. That's if you are counting multiple instances of the same article, reprinted on different outlets, blogs upon blogs that aren't even reliable sources. That is one of the main problems with your google fallacy. It's not a reason to move an article. Everyone knows that Hillary Rodham Clinton is a common name. Everyone 40+ years old has heard it repeatedly throughout the 90's. Look at the Yahoo News result, for a more recent true hit count of news results.

*"Hillary Clinton" -Rodham -- 12,949 results

*"Hillary Rodham Clinton" 9,954 results

As you well know from the last MR, from 1970-2000 HRC was the common name, more-so than HC. There has been no name change, so recent trends are not a policy based reason for an article move. Dave Dial (talk) 00:07, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

You might be surprised to learn that there are actually thousands of English-language printed newspapers around the world, and while many use AP stories and other centrally produced content, many also produce there own content. Of these, most will have reason to write something about as public a figure as Hillary Clinton at least every few weeks, over the thousands of days that she has been a significant and worldwide public figure. bd2412 T 00:16, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

• Another example of the systemic bias of Wikipedia. Editor user:Anythingyouwant adds reasoning here for a move, citing Article Title policy

  Another new part of that policy page: "neither a given name nor a family name is usually omitted or abbreviated for conciseness", so omission of middle names and other additional names for conciseness is usually fine.

  Hillary's family name is Rodham, it's NOT her 'middle name'. So the editor cites policy that would prevent a move from HRC to HC, and doesn't even realize it. Unfortunately, there will be many such !votes like this. Totally disregarding policy as if it doesn't exist, because the editor has no clue. Dave Dial (talk) 16:39, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

• Actually, since she took the surname Clinton upon marriage, Clinton is her family name. Rodham is her maiden name (or birth name if you will). I'm saying this to avoid confusion, because if people start talking about family name ambiguously, that doesn't help but rather confuses the issue, so it's best to use crystal clear terms like maiden name (or birth surname), versus married name (or married surname). Softlavender (talk) 16:50, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

• Really? So her family name is gone like smoke because she got married? Is that the case for any male person? What's crystal clear is that Rodham is her family name. Period. HRC did NOT take the Clinton name when she got married. She went by Hillary Rodham for years, until 1983. So it would help if editors actually knew the difference between policy, reality and made up stuff. Dave Dial (talk) 16:54, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

• Maiden name is defined as "a woman's family name before she got married and started using her husband's family name".[1][2] "Rodham" was the subject's "family name" before she got married, not now. That is all I can, will, or want to say about it.Anythingyouwant (talk) 17:23, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

• @Chasewc91: Your statement that scholarly sources prefer HRC over HC is incorrect. The nomination clearly shows a strong preference amongst high level sources (ie scholarly, academic ones) for "Hillary Clinton." Calidum T|C 16:58, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

• That's blatantly and patently false. In fact, the MR should be altered because the reasoning at the intro is dishonest, at best. Dave Dial (talk) 17:06, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

• Some sources use a mix of both "Hillary Rodham Clinton" and "Hillary Clinton"; I have searched extensively and have yet to find a scholarly source on this subject that addresses the subject at length but does not refer to her in some places as "Hillary Clinton". The trend for high-level peer-reviewed academic publications in the past year (the important period for this move request, since it is addresses changes since the last one) is to use only "Hillary Clinton". This can be confirmed by a simple search of SSRS, JSTOR, and Google Scholar publications. bd2412 T 17:25, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

• Yes, and the reason why this move request is so blatantly dishonest is because the same people (you, Calidum and NickCT) were also the main editors from the last move request. And you KNOW that the ngrams and google results were flawed. You KNOW that the results showing "Hillary Clinton" -Rodham had many an instance with the name "Hillary Rodham Clinton". Yet the results leading off this MR are hidden with caveats like "since 2014" and such. You also know there has been no name change, and article title policy advises against moving contentious moves for stable articles. You also know since the last MR that policy has changed to give weight to the BLP subjects preference of their name. Which should make even more difficult to move HRC to HC. And despite all that, have worded the MR in a totally biased manner. Disregarding policy and reality. Dave Dial (talk) 17:35, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

• The ngrams and Google results are not flawed; sources tend to use "Hillary Clinton", even if a minority also use "Rodham" at some point. Certainly the Google Trends indications and results from other search engines are not flawed. The editors who participate in this discussion are perfectly capable of seeing these things for themselves. bd2412 T 17:46, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

• The Twitter argument is poor since Twitter usernames must be <16 characters and display names <21 (source). @HillaryRodhamClinton = 20 characters. "Hillary Rodham Clinton" = 22 characters. It would be technically impossible for Clinton to use her full name in either her username or display name. –Chase (talk / contribs) 16:58, 26 April 2015 (UTC)
  • Facebook has no such restriction, and yet her Facebook account has now been created under "Hillary Clinton". That is a significant change not explained by any editing restriction. bd2412 T 17:04, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

Actually, the Twitter argument is not poor. There are two parameters on Twitter: Your name, and your handle/username (the @ thing). The name has no such length restrictions, yet she uses only Hillary Clinton for that as well [3]. Nor does she use the initial R in her username (@HillaryRClinton), as she might well do if it was important to her. Softlavender (talk) 19:05, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

Wrong. If you look at the link I've provided, display name is only allotted 20 characters. –Chase (talk / contribs) 20:34, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

I stand corrected. Softlavender (talk) 23:41, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

@Omnedon: You wrote "Hit counts are also invalid and misleading in a case like this, since (to give just one reason) it is quite common for articles to mention her as HRC once at the beginning, and then use a shorter version throughout the article." Google results numbers are numbers of articles, not numbers of individual iterations of the phrase, so these hit counts are not misleading. Softlavender (talk) 18:17, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

@Omnedon: You said, To quote another editor, “You may wish to mention that to reliable sources since they don't seem to have gotten the message. Actually, these are primary sources, written by people possibly connected to Clinton herself, so they show the maiden name at first, much like many other sources about a prominent person world. The vast majority of sources assume that we know what they're talking about when they say "Hillary Clinton". Epic Genius (talk) 19:07, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

@Andy Dingley: You said, In the case of Chelsea Manning, WP was vehement in taking their choice of name over all argument from officialdom. Secondly, any issue of commonname is easily dealt with by redirects, just as we do it for so many other BLPs. WP:COMMONNAME was the basis for the Chelsea Manning article being moved. If anything, the Chelsea Manning case supports the move request here, as it was moved to the current common name rather than keeping it at the past common name. WP:COMMONNAME is very clear that the common name should be used as the article title. Just because other articles may violate this policy is not a good argument for this article to do so. Rreagan007 (talk) 19:52, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

@Tarc:, do you consider it User:GregKaye, User:Scjessey, and User:Wester are "disrupting Wikipedia to make a point" when each of them proposed at Talk:Hillary Rodham Clinton that the page be moved, within the past few weeks? None of them have been involved in any previous discussion of the issue, but each of them independently arrived at the page and felt that the title was wrong. This happens frequently, and will continue to happen to matter what any previous move participants do, until the page ends up getting moved. bd2412 T 21:18, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

I have to agree that accusations, personal attacks, or rancor, or even the semblance of them, have no place in this move discussion (no matter how frustrating the back-and-forth over the months/years has been); and failure to present points clearly and civilly, rooted only in policy, will only impede one's goal, especially when it comes time for the closing admins to take stock. Softlavender (talk) 21:52, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

@User:BD2412 - Note that although I indicated my personal preference was that "Hillary Clinton" made more sense to me when I offered up a useful source on the issue, I did not specifically advocate for a page move. -- Scjessey (talk) 13:20, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

@Chasewc91: Interesting that you link is whitehouse.gov/1600/first-ladies/hillaryclinton and that the article in that link refers to her as Hillary Clinton was elected United States Senator from New York on November 7, 2000. and Hillary Clinton currently serves as U.S. Secretary of State. Did you notice it now omits the Rodham part in recent years, because that has changed? EoRdE6^{(Come Talk to Me!)} 21:46, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

section 2

• (Discussion moved from under my Support !vote. --В²C ☎ 01:49, 28 April 2015 (UTC))
  • There are arguments and many editors on both sides here. To characterize this as "obstinate opposition to title change" dismisses those that feel that the current title is the right title and who have said precisely why. And yogurt has nothing to do with this. Omnedon (talk) 17:16, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
    • This list was compiled by proposal opposer Wasted Time R:

      Hillary Rodham – 34 years including when first married

      Hillary Rodham Clinton – 29 years including all the major offices/positions she's held

      Hillary Clinton – 4 years while campaigning.

    In other words, in contexts where using the name most commonly recognized really matters in the real world, while campaigning, the subject herself uses Hillary Clinton. Of course I'm dismissive of the opposing arguments (not the people making them!). They are indeed reflections of the reasons people just don't like HC as a title, but their arguments are not based in policy. They're mostly rationalizations, like the absurd attempts to downplay the dominating role that WP:COMMONNAME plays in deciding our titles, by highlighting a few cherry-picked odd exceptions, without justifying why an exception is warranted by policy in this case. --В²C ☎ 19:54, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

    • But arguments for keeping the article where it is are indeed policy-based. You just don't like them. And you call them rationalizations, and absurd, and talk about cherry-picking. That's not the situation. Reasonable people can disagree; but you can't seem to accept that. Omnedon (talk) 20:00, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
      • There are policy-based arguments (good) and non-policy-based arguments (bad) on both sides, and we should all strive for the good. Perhaps we can agree on that much? ―Mandruss ☎ 20:06, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
        • I would not agree that arguments not based directly on Wikipedia policy are, by definition, bad arguments. However, having said that, I would agree that policy-based arguments are best. I guess the point is this: some editors tend to characterize their opposition as having nothing but bad arguments, and especially when there are so many editors on both sides, that's just not fair. I believe that HRC is the correct title for reasons given by many editors. Others believe HC is the best title. If we cannot reach consensus on this, then the article can't be moved, according to policy. Omnedon (talk) 23:06, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
          • No, policy says nothing about participants having to agree on what is the "best" title. The point of a proposal is to determine which title meets title policy best. But I agree almost all opposers are discussing this as if the former is the goal (as compared to the support argument presented fully in the nom). That's my point, and why I think it's appropriate to dismiss the opposing arguments. --В²C ☎ 00:05, 28 April 2015 (UTC)
            • You are dismissing arguments that have their basis in policy by blindly saying that they do not. Some of the reasons given in the nomination are questionable on their face. The point is that there are arguments on both sides. Since you will not acknowledge that the opposing arguments have any value, that pretty much puts paid to any discussion that can be had with you. But that is no surprise; it's your modus operandi. Omnedon (talk) 02:22, 28 April 2015 (UTC)
              • Omnedon, making it personal reveals the flaccidity of your position. It is true that those who do not like HC rationalize basis for their opinion by desperately clinging to a few points on the oppose side that vaguely refer to policy, but these are overwhelmed by the direct support of the support side by policy, primarily as outlined in the nom (the few arguably dubious claims there aside). It's not even a contest. --204.115.183.4 (talk) 15:57, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

    • • The 63 years that Hillary was known as "Rodham" are over, are they not? Epic Genius (talk) 02:00, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

section 3

Moved from under Beetstra's Oppose !vote. ―Mandruss ☎ 12:05, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

• No, actually, per COMMONNAME, it's about what reliable published sources call her. If they predominantly called her Minnie Mouse, the article would be titled Minnie Mouse (politician) and the first sentence would convey other names such as HC and HRC. Where to send the redirect "Minnie Mouse" would doubtless be a battle of Wagnerian proportion, as the cartoon character had the name first but the politician is probably more important than the cartoon character. ―Mandruss ☎ 15:27, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
  • @Mandruss: No, actually, she is calling herself, and that is a very allowable primary source, Hillary Rodham Clinton. And throughout this thread, many sources are calling her Hillary Rodham Clinton. Most of the sources that call her Hillary Clinton are the campaigning sources or the sources that name the campaign. Her name is Hillary Rodham Clinton. "the politician is probably more important than the cartoon character" .. that either reeks of plain campaigning for Hillary Clinton, or you are actually able to provide a plethora of reliable sources stating that Hillary Clinton is more important than the cartoon character. As I doubt you do the latter, that gives quite some weight to your arguments in why you want this article renamed. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 21:20, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
    • @Beetstra: Ok, so I went too far with the silly mouse example. Anyway, the simple HC-HRC comparison in Ngram Viewer shows HC leading by 2.8 to 1 as of 2008, with HC increasing since about 2000 and HRC in a gradual but steady decline since 1998. Any Oppose argument based on COMMONNAME, then, has to also subjectively choose which sources are most meaningful, and that is prone to cherry-picking, conscious or otherwise. I believe this means that COMMONNAME clearly supports HC. What is the policy basis to suggest that the primary source should override such a strong COMMONNAME argument? ―Mandruss ☎ 21:41, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
      • @Mandruss: No, that is the task of the person/group that is suggesting the change - they should show that the most important references use 'Hillary Clinton' and the less important references use something else (and that is similarly prone to cherry-picking). You obviously have now taken the stance that the references that are discussing/naming the campaign are the more important references and the references that discuss/name the use of her own name by the subject are the less important (I repeat, that is obviously the stance that supporters of Hillary Clinton('s campaign) would take). You make the point that because most of the sources (and hence Google) are referring to the campaign, and hence also most of the reliable sources are mentioning the campaign, by definition means that that is the common name. I do not believe that is how the statistics for a common name should be counted. Correlation != Causation. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 22:27, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
        • @Beetstra: You obviously have now taken the stance that the references that are discussing/naming the campaign are the more important references - How can you say that when I'm using data that ends in 2008? I've said nothing about the campaign. See my !vote if you're interested in understanding my position. ―Mandruss ☎ 22:52, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
      • @Mandruss: This has nothing to do with the date, it is here your argument that the count as given by Google, Yahoo, whatever can be used for a determination of the commonname, where it is obvious that because of the run for presidency most of the results will go to campaigning (and that skewing of the count started years ago when she started to campaign on a large scale). What I am saying is that those counts can not determine the commonname in any form, and I think that we can not determine it (and especially now she is running an active campaign). Therefore, we should probably speedy close this discussion and have it again in about 2 / 6 / 10 years (2 years after the end of this campaign is she fails to become president, or 2 year after the end of her presidency). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 04:46, 28 April 2015 (UTC)
        • The common name is the common name, regardless of the reason or context for that choice by reliable sources, and COMMONNAME says nothing about dismissing reliable sources because we don't like their context, each of us pushing for our own personal criteria of choice. We might as well do away with the policy altogether and just apply our own judgment on a case-by-case basis. If one thinks that would be a good idea, they're welcome to advocate for that; for now, the policy exists and should mean something. ―Mandruss ☎ 12:16, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

Ngrams and stuff

@DD2K: You cited this Ngram Viewer to support your Oppose. The help for Ngram Viewer says this about the use of the hyphen: "subtracts the expression on the right from the expression on the left, giving you a way to measure one ngram relative to another." Thus, you appear your red line appears to be plotting the difference between the "Hillary Clinton" ngram and the "Rodham" ngram. The "Rodham" ngram would include any occurrence of that name, whether or not it refers to Hillary. This would explain why that plot is negative, as there are bound to be more occurrences of "Rodham" than "Hillary Clinton". As I read it, those results are not valid for this purpose, and should be replaced with these. ―Mandruss ☎ 02:13, 27 April 2015 (UTC) Edited after reply. ―Mandruss ☎ 06:41, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

• I don't believe that's correct, and I've had this debate before. The results showing just Hillary Clinton include results where HRC is described as HRC. In fact, in some of the results the books were named HRC. One needs to subtract Rodham(from "Hillary Clinton") and compare it to "Hillary Rodham Clinton". Otherwise the results are flawed. Dave Dial (talk) 02:23, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
  • When you had the debate before, did it result in a consensus that you were correct? If not, how is that significant? I can only repeat that "Rodham" would have to include all Rodhams, not only Hillary. And, I fail to see how a simple comparison of HC to HRC could be flawed. But I'll leave it there for other commenters and the closer. ―Mandruss ☎ 03:31, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
  • Your Google Ngram result gave me pause, until I checked the advanced usage. What you are doing is subtracting the number of hits for just "Rodham" from the number of hits for "Hillary Clinton". See here for a view showing all three terms, and here for one showing HC vs. HRC vs. the wrong (HC-R). If you go up to 2008, the prevalence of HC becomes a lot more pronounced. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 08:33, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

• @Stephan Schulz: -- If you are correct, and I'm not positive you are, then the results would look like this. I put the years as 1983-2000, both because that is when HRC became a public figure AND when the article was created. Those are the criteria for article creation. The results until 2008 do show a trend towards HC, from HRC, but that is only a criteria if there was a name change. There has not been and Hillary Rodham Clinton has stated she prefers to be addressed as such. So, according to Wikipedia policy, the trend does not matter. As HRC became a public figure and the article was created as HRC, and there was no name change. Also, I see you and some others have cited that in Europe, or the UK, or Germany, HC is more prevalent than HRC. While that may be true, we give deference to article titles by the country of origin. We have a redirect for Hillary Clinton to the HRC article, so the most that would happen is that our readers would be educated. That is hardly a bad thing for an encyclopedia. Dave Dial (talk) 14:58, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

• Google Ngram searches for the exact phrases given. It does not use "-" as a subset operators (i.e. "show all occurrences of 'Hillary Clinton' without those that also have 'Rodham'). Results for "Hillary Clinton" do not contain "Hillary Rodham Clinton" to begin with. Google Ngram also does not use pages or books that contain a phrase as a "hit", but basically treats the whole corpus as one long document and counts how often the phrase occurs in the full corpus. Take a look at your query expanded by adding plain "Hillary Clinton". I have to say that I don't find your argument for a 2000 cut -off compelling in the least. We are not retroactively judging the creators of the article back in the stone age, but we try to decide what the best name is now. Also see WP:BURO and WP:IAR. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 15:21, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

Well, you would definitely have to ignore policy to move the page from HRC to HC. So I'll give you that. The other stuff is just your opinion and goes against Wikipedia policy. The reason we have Wikipedia policies like the country specific results for titles and self published names is to prevent moves like this. That and the fact that many reliable sources definitely use(just today we have the AP using her correct name 3 times in 1 article, and the SF Chron also) "Hillary Rodham Clinton(especially books and scholars), there is no policy based reason to move this page. So it's not as if sources have stopped using her correct name. This move is just ridiculous and not policy based at all. Stripping HRC from her family name for no reason seems very sexist. Dave Dial (talk) 16:13, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

If we strip "HRC", what does that leave? The Politician Formerly Know As Hillary? Or just Illay Odham Inton? We are not talking about removing part of her name, we are deciding under which primary search key we file her article. And even in the US, HC consistently leads HRC. If we trust Google Ngram, by 2008 its by a factor of 2.5 to 1, and in 2000 (your preferred date) its 1.6 to 1. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:27, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

Let me also add that country specific names are very common on Wikipedia. We have an article about Diana, Princess of Wales, not Princess Di or Diana Spencer. We have an article on Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, not Kate Middleton. We have an article on Wilhelm_II, German Emperor, not Frederick Albert. We also have an article named Kaiser, not Emperor. The reasons vary, but educating our readers is an important one. Dave Dial (talk) 16:20, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

I'd submit that we can educate readers about Hillary's maiden name without including it in the title of the article. I mean, assuming they read at least the first sentence. ―Mandruss ☎ 16:40, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

Yes, that's true. But what policy based reason is there for moving the article from HRC to HC? There just isn't one. It has been acknowledged by the main move supporters that HRC came to prominence using the name "Hillary Rodham Clinton", and the majority of reliable sources used that term while addressing her when this article was created. Since both HRC and HC both get you to the same article, why move it? What if HRC is elected President and is addressed as President Hillary Rodham Clinton(per her request to the press and historians), and this page is moved now. Shall we move back in 2017? 2018? Why move it at all. A Wikipedia based policy is not there for such a move. It's just absurd. I know a lot of good editors automatically state that the article should be named HC(whether it's because they don't know better or just are not familiar with US and Wikipedia policies), but there just is not any good policy based reason to move this article. Reliable sources still refer to her as HRC, most especially in the more advanced sources. Dave Dial (talk) 16:57, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

Let me also add, Wikipedia is not a crystal ball, but IF Hillary Rodham Clinton does win the Democratic nomination(and there doesn't seem to be any serious challengers), AND wins the Presidency(she IS ahead in most all the polls against all serious Republican challengers), what name do you think the press is going to refer to her as? President Clinton? We already had one of those. Most press will happily take her suggestion to refer to her as Hillary Rodham Clinton, just because it's easier to refer to her as President Rodham Clinton than any other name. So this mover request is not only premature, it has a high degree of having to be reversed in the future. Dave Dial (talk) 17:19, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

The press called George W. Bush "President Bush" despite there already having been a President Bush. If they need to distinguish the two, they will call her "Hillary Clinton" (or "President Hillary Clinton") as they do now. bd2412 T 17:23, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

That's not entirely true, and you know it. They used it sometimes, but the press distinguished by calling GHWB "the first President Bush", or Bush 41. They also, when writing, stated President George HW Bush, or President George W Bush. That's one reason why our articles for those two Presidents are named George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush. Dave Dial (talk) 17:35, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

The Bushes have the same first and last names; the middle initials are the point of distinction. Thank you, however, for pointing out that the press can also refer to the Clintons as "the first President Clinton" and "the second President Clinton" or Clinton 42 and Clinton 45, as the case may be. bd2412 T 17:41, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

True, that will be used while speaking and for brevity, but you must know that when writing journalists and authors(especially historians and scholars) will use the preferred name of President Hillary Rodham Clinton. You have to know that. Dave Dial (talk) 17:54, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

I think writers resting on formality will use "Hillary Rodham Clinton" to the same extent that they use "William Jefferson Clinton" and "Elizabeth Hanford Dole". bd2412 T 18:13, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

Dave, I really don't see how you can reasonably say that my !vote, and those of many others, are not policy-based arguments for HC. They are policy-based arguments that differ from your policy-based arguments. Could we possibly stop making hyperbolic statements like that? ―Mandruss ☎ 17:30, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

Sorry Mandruss, I don't mean to diminish supporters of a move. I just cannot see a policy based reason to MOVE the article. Our policies say that stable article titles should not be moved without a good reason, and since the subject is still referred to as Hillary Rodham Clinton in much of the press(especially more advanced and scholarly outlets), there doesn't seem to be a good, policy based reason. Most especially when you take into consideration the two new polices we have since the last move request.Subject preference(which lists BLP considerations) and Concise which states: "neither a given name nor a family name is usually omitted or abbreviated for conciseness". It's hard to argue that HRC's family name isn't Rodham. Dave Dial (talk) 17:54, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

We seem to have entered the dreaded black hole of circular argument. If our policies say that she shouldn't be moved without good reason, the question becomes whether a blind and objective measure of RS is a good reason per COMMONNAME. Many think it is, you disagree; I get that. WP:CONCISE gives one "family name" example pursuant to your quote, and it's Oprah vs Oprah Winfrey. Is it patently unreasonable to postulate that they're talking about a person's current surname, not the maiden names of married women? No one is proposing moving her to "Hillary". ―Mandruss ☎ 18:14, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

What about the usage by all her opponents?

Since her announcement of candidacy ALL of her opponents, female or male, married or not, from the left and from the right, have acceded to that primacy of use established on Hillary Clinton's website/Facebook page/all other aspects of her rollout, referencing her solely as "Hillary Clinton." This evinces a universality of recognition that the common name here is "Hillary Clinton" because neither she nor anybody opposed to her projects any utility in reducing the clarity inherent in using that name. For example, here is left-most Senator Bernie Sanders, “I do have doubts that Hillary Clinton or any Republican out there will take on big-money interests who control so much of our economy," and on the other side here is corporatist/rightist Carly Fiorina (hmmmm, not Carly Sneed Fiorina), "Hillary Clinton must not be president." Statements similarly reflecting "Hillary Clinton" can be found from declared and undeclared candidates on both sides -- Ted Cruz and Martin O'Malley; Rand Paul and Elizabeth Warren; Marco Rubio and Lincoln Chafee; and yet I cannot find a single statement by a single potential 2016 rival which disagrees with Hillary Clinton's own website. Pandeist (talk) 19:35, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, I agree, Hillary Clinton is more commonly referred to, so that's what the name of this article should be. No word on whether she is a fit candidate for president, because I'm not voting. Epic Genius (talk) 19:41, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

Yes but I'm keen to see if opposers of the move have any answer to this proposition. If not I'd have to cut the estimation of opposition neatly by half. Pandeist (talk) 20:20, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

Here are more. Just yesterday here is Rand Paul, "There's only one candidate beating Hillary Clinton in Iowa now." And here is sometimes mentioned Dem Senator Amy Klobuchar, "we have seen Hillary Clinton being attacked for various things." Pandeist (talk) 21:40, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

This is a serious question, can no opposer of the page renaming rationally answer for this? If none can I am liable to change my vote to support the move, and sooner than later.... Pandeist (talk) 01:53, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

The key word is "opponents". Her opponents want to tie her hand and foot to her husband, Billy Bob Clinton, he of Monica fame. They will be running against him as much if not more than her. So of course they want to remind the voters that she is a Clinton. If they used her full name they'd be reminding voters that Hillary had more time as just Hillary Rodham than as a Clinton, and that her career has surpassed his on some levels. In presidential campaigns she is 'Hillary Clinton', or just 'Hillary' (can we rename the page 'Hill' for brevity?), and that is the way that ball bounces. In real life and career, she's Hillary Rodham Clinton and proud of it. A good but morbid way to judge how she thinks of herself: I take out my WP:CRYSTAL and look at her tombstone and yes, her full name will attach itself to her through eternity, death being the opponent on which Hillary Rodham Clinton - with the Rodham proudly attached - will have the last laugh. Randy Kryn 11:11, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

If we are going by tombstones, we would need to move Betty Ford to Elizabeth Bloomer Ford. bd2412 T 17:28, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

@Randy Kryn: I can believe that critics on the right wish to pin Hillary to Bill, but does this make sense as to applied to opponents on the left? To Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and such? Pandeist (talk) 22:29, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

Comment on time since the last RM discussion

@Liz: Just FYI, the last RM discussion was a year ago [4]. If you've been seeing other discussions lately about the article title, they haven't been RMs, but only informal discussions about the possibility of a RM. Softlavender (talk) 22:24, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

Note: I have moved this discussion down from the "Neutral" section:

• @Liz:, the last full discussion was initiated over a year ago (in the interim, various newbie editors have wandered by to propose various title changes, and those have been speedily closed without discussion). The issue is that editors who have never seen the article before happen upon it, are confused by the title, and propose to change it, even though they have no idea that anyone has proposed this before (the current discussion was prompted by exactly that kind of proposal). We can't punish new editors for not knowing what old battles have been fought under different circumstances, but new editors will make move proposals as long as the title is confusing to at least some of them. bd2412 T 22:25, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

Well, it seems like it just happened, if I recall correctly, there was a moratorium on suggesting article title changes for a while there. But maybe it is just vivid in my memory and it was a year ago. I remember it being contentious. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 22:33, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

It was contentious - that might be why it is vividly remembered! ;-) bd2412 T 22:36, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

One person, many valid names

I've added the words "also known as Hillary Clinton or Hillary Rodham Clinton" to the intro, which seems to be appropriate regardless of the decision regarding this move. As far as I can see, she has had, or used, the following names:

• Hillary Diane Rodham, her official birth name
• Hillary Rodham, the name she used, and was most commonly referred to by, before her marriage
• Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton, her official name after taking her husband's name
• Hillary Rodham Clinton, her preferred name for herself. both then and now
• Hillary Clinton, the name the public knows her by, which is also the name she primarily uses in her official campaign materials

All of these names are, or have been, in their respective contexts, valid names for the same person, and she currently uses both of the last two herself, in two different contexts -- The Anome (talk) 20:23, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

• Personally I wouldn't put also known as, because she's not known as Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton. I would remove the word "also". Softlavender (talk) 20:53, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

Hugh Mungo Grant

@Anthonyhcole, you say that "Hillary's people told Jimmy she prefers HRC. On a matter such as this, where neither name diminishes the reader experience, we should respect the preference of the subject over a style guide. It is a matter of respecting the human dignity of our BLP subjects." So, if Hugh Grant's people notify Jimmy's people that Mr. Grant would like his Wikipedia page to be titled "Hugh Mungo Grant" then we would have to comply to respect Mr. Grant's human dignity notwithstanding Wikipedia policies?18.51.3.209 (talk) 00:33, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

When a credible expression of preference comes from a living person that we write about, we give it appropriate weight in our deliberations. Where it won't negatively affect our readers' experience, we should always honour their preference. It's about respecting human dignity, and a name is a very important part of identity. Let me know when Hugh requests a title change. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 01:10, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

As you know, "Mungo" is really part of Grant's legal name. Does that matter, or can any subject of a BLP successfully request a random middle name for their BLP? Maybe Elizabeth Warren would like "Elizabeth Presidential Warren" or what have you. The fact is, Hillary Clinton could make "Hillary Rodham Clinton" her common-name at the drop of a hat if she wanted to. Instead, she wants her common name to be "Hillary Clinton" except when dealing with particular demographics like Wikipedia-users. You realize that, right? It's not like this kind of situation has crept up on us all of a sudden, and yet no one has successfully amended the relevant policies to allow BLP subjects to alter their article titles by contacting Jimmy.18.51.3.209 (talk) 01:33, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

That weirdly-skewed demographic: Wikipedia-users. By the way, are you also contributing to this discussion using your user name? You're obviously an experienced editor. What user name do you usually use? --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 02:42, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

In any event, the argument put forward here is invalid because it is not analogous. To my knowledge, if Hugh Grant did come forward with such a request it would be surprising, out-of-context, possibly even a joke, coming out of thin air for no apparent reason. In the case of Hilary, she has used the longer version formally for a long time, and has made public statements about it and why. It is part of her identity, and she has expressed a preference. Does her preference absolutely override all else? Of course not, and the supposition that the Hugh Grant case is similar is a straw man argument - it isn't *just* the preference of the subject that matters, but the preference of the subject, reasonably expressed, is one factor among many.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:57, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

@Jimbo Wales: Even as one factor among many, we need to consider not only the preference expressed, but the strength of preference, telegraphed by the actions of the subject. If there was a dispute about whether your article should be moved from "Jimmy Wales" to "Jimbo Wales", and the basis was a substantial preference in the media for the latter, how strongly would you feel about the proposal? I submit that a preference must be weighed in light of the actions of the person expressing that preference. Some editors have suggested that the prominent use of "Hillary Clinton" in her campaigns is just branding, but it is persistent, intentional, and successful branding that is under the control of the candidate, and we rename articles on brands when the owner of the brand succeeds in taking steps to change the perceived name of the brand in the public mind. bd2412 T 17:15, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

She's a person. This is a brief biography of a person, not a summary of a brand. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 11:58, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

She's a person who is intentionally presenting herself in the most prominent way possible as "Hillary Clinton", and is thereby succeeding in convincing most of the world that this is her common name. That cannot be discounted. bd2412 T 14:10, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

It can and should be discounted. Per our policies. The article name is supposed to be the common name used while the subject came to prominence. Everyone who is 40+ years old knows that every time the media referred to HRC in the 90's(and before), they described her as Hillary Rodham Clinton. It was droned into our brains during the healthcare debates in the early 90's, and 'Whitewater' throughout the mid-late 90's. Recent trends can ONLY be taken into considerations if there were a name change. There has not been, and in fact HRC reiterated she prefers to be addressed as 'Hillary Rodham Clinton'. Dave Dial (talk) 14:22, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

Can you point me to a policy that says the article name "is supposed to be the common name used while the subject came to prominence"? That seems to run counter to the idea of ever changing an article name to suit the changing plurality of references, even though it is a common practice to change article names for exactly that reason. For example, the Willis Tower certainly came to prominence as the "Sears Tower", Jenna Coleman came to prominence as "Jenna-Louise Coleman", and Odisha came to prominence as "Orissa". All have since been renamed in Wikipedia. bd2412 T 14:32, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

If Ngram's the question, just plain "Hillary" is the answer

• Might I point out that if we're going to go by Ngram, HRC is by far most referred to as simply Hillary? If ghits is the criterion, Hillary is the only possible answer. μηδείς (talk) 02:08, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
  • Surely some of those hits for just "Hillary" actually describe Edmund Hillary, or other people named "Hillary". What is the most concise title to exactly describe this subject, and only this subject? bd2412 T 02:46, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
    • But again we are going by recent Ngrams or ghits or whatever. Do a verbatim search for "Hillary" and Edmund Hillary might show up. Do a news search, and see how many headlines call her anything more than just Hillary. The Ngram game is just a game. μηδείς (talk) 04:26, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

DD2K (aka "Dave Dial") weird Google date range error

@DD2K: Aka "Dave Dial," I am confused as to why your Google Scholar searches have this weird date range parameter showing only results from 1970(?) to 2000. Is there a reason you're not showing results from 2000 to 2015? I am guessing it is because those results show "Hillary Clinton" as being three times as used, but maybe you just put in those date ranges by accident? I do hope there's a good explanation, because it initially looks a bit shady. Somebody else pointed out another error by you in your ngram formulation -- and then you deleted both comments. If people have to resort to classic misdirection techniques to abet their positions, they simply ought not be counted. Pandeist (talk) 02:14, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

• As I stated in my oppose, the valid dates are 1970-2000. because that is when the article was created(2001). The only policies given are for article creation, not renaming articles. Our policy on renaming articles is clear(via my links to policy). Dave Dial (talk) 02:20, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
• Also, do not accuse me of things that are obviously false. If you bothered to read my whole comment, or the past move request, you would see the reasons. And you should not make new threads with editors handles in them. Dave Dial (talk) 02:27, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

  I might've bothered to read it if it were better written. I haven't made up my mind yet, but you're certainly making it up for me in a hurry. Pandeist (talk) 02:30, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

• More rudeness from you. It doesn't surprise me. Don't let me stop you from !voting any way you choose. This is not a vote, and is based on Wikipedia policy. So the 'vote' could be 75-25(like it was last time) and policy based reality still would need to trump numbers. And our policy is clear, imo. Dave Dial (talk) 02:35, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

• And I'm not "voting" -- I'm contemplating a neutral evaluation of policy based reality. A tiebreaker, if you will. And what you perceive as rudeness is a mirror. Contemplate that!! Pandeist (talk) 02:38, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

List of books by or about Hillary Rodham Clinton

@GregKaye: I noticed your comment about the List of books by or about Hillary Rodham Clinton part of the proposal. I actually had been working on a move request just for that list, a while back. It was on the back burner, but since you mentioned it I thought I'd add my comments on it here. I don't expect this to necessarily change your opinion, but I did look into it and would like you to consider what I have found.

• First, the current title is nine words and fourteen syllables. It can be reduced to eight words and twelve syllables by taking out one word that readers are rarely, if ever, going to type in when looking for such a list, since more than nine times out of ten, a person searching for anything about its subject is going to type "Hillary Clinton." (This is actually a question independent of the name of the article on the subject, because that is still only a three word title.) As per WP:SHORTFORM, it is common for this reason to use a shorter form of the original title for subtopic titles. Probably the most comparable examples from that section would be: Madonna (entertainer), but Madonna bibliography, not Madonna (entertainer) bibliography, and Brandy Norwood, but Brandy discography and List of songs recorded by Brandy, not Brandy Norwood discography or List of songs recorded by Brandy Norwood.
• Second, although Google Trends does not have enough information to generate comparisons for the phrases "books by Hillary Clinton" versus "books by Hillary Rodham Clinton" or "books about Hillary Clinton" versus "books about Hillary Rodham Clinton," it does provide the following numbers for "Hillary Clinton books" versus "Hillary Rodham Clinton books," which shows that the common search term for such a list of books would use "Hillary Clinton," by an average ratio of about 60 to 1:

Hillary Clinton book trends

• Third, by way of comparison, several notable websites that have freestanding lists of books in some way related to Hillary Clinton leave out "Rodham" in their names. For example, the National First Ladies Library titles their page Bibliography: Clinton, Hillary, Goodreads website has a "shelf" of books by and about Clinton titled Popular Hillary Clinton Books, Oprah Winfrey's O Magazine has an online feature called Hillary Clinton's Bookshelf (a list of books recommended by Clinton), and the Notable Names Database (NNDB) has a Hillary Clinton: Bibliography. There is not a single reliable source anywhere (or any source at all other than Wikipedia and Wikipedia mirrors) that actually uses the specific title "List of books by or about Hillary Rodham Clinton."
• Fourth, Hillary Clinton is to date most notable for her 2008 presidential campaign, and her declared 2016 presidential campaign, both of which she has carried out under the name "Hillary Clinton," and for which the relevant articles are titled Hillary Clinton presidential campaign, 2008, Hillary Clinton presidential primary campaign, 2008, Statewide opinion polling for Hillary Clinton for the United States presidential election, 2008. This topic is covered in a good many of the books listed, such as the liberal The Case for Hillary Clinton, the conservative Liberal Fascism: The Totalitarian Temptation from Mussolini to Hillary Clinton, and the "neutral" Almost Madam President: Why Hillary Clinton 'Won' in 2008. Moving that page will make this title more inclusive and more consistent with the articles on Clinton's most notable activity, her presidential campaign. We even have an article title, HRC: State Secrets and the Rebirth of Hillary Clinton.
• All this taken together makes a good case, in my opinion, that whether other pages are moved or not, the list of books really should be moved to List of books by or about Hillary Clinton. Thanks! - WPGA2345 - ☛ 04:00, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

Thank you WPGA2345 for genuinely informative content for which I am grateful and which will certainly be on my mind as I continue to consider my position. BTW, not that this carries any weight of argument, I consider myself to be a prime author of this RM having contributed at least half of its content.

An additional content that I thought of adding was as follows.

A search in books on ("Hillary Clinton" OR "Hillary Rodham Clinton") AND (Biography OR Autobiography) on 15 April 15 sequentially listed the following 10 results of books classified as "Biography & Autobiography" or "BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY". The sequential list also includes reference to books placed in other categories and these have been given a double indent. A sequential approach was taken so as to not selectively present content in a partisan way.

1. Living History by Hillary Rodham Clinton 2012 - 629 pages
2. Hillary Clinton: A Biography by Dena B. Levy, ‎Nicole R. Krassas 2008 - 130 pages
3. Hard Choices By Hillary Rodham Clinton 2014 - 656 pages
4. HRC: State Secrets and the Rebirth of Hillary Clinton By Jonathan Allen, Amie Parnes 2014 - 448 pages
5. TIME Magazine Biography--Hillary Rodham Clinton By Garth Sundem 2014 - 5 pages
   1. Hillary Clinton By Jean F. Blashfield 2010 - Juvenile Nonfiction - 112 pages
   2. Hillary Clinton: A Life in Politics By Jeff Burlingame 2008 - Juvenile Nonfiction - 112 pages
   3. Hillary Rodham Clinton: Secretary of State By JoAnn Bren Guernsey 2009 - Juvenile Nonfiction - 112 pages
   4. Hillary Rodham Clinton By Bernard Ryan 2009
   5. Hillary Clinton By Sally Lee 2011 - Juvenile Nonfiction - 24 pages
   6. Hillary Rodham Clinton By Sarah Tieck 2010 - Juvenile Nonfiction - 32 pages
   7. Hillary Rodham Clinton: Politician Dennis Abrams 2009 - Juvenile Nonfiction - 144 pages
   8. further instances of Juvenile Nonfiction are not included on the list
6. A Woman in Charge Carl Bernstein 2007 - 640 pages "Drawing on hundreds of interviews with colleagues, friends and with unique access to campaign records, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author Carl Bernstein offers a complex and nuanced portrait of one of the most controversial figures of our time: Hillary Clinton."
   1. Shaping Ethos: A Perspective of the Hillary Rodham Clinton Presidential Campaign's Online Rhetorical Strategies, January-December 2007 Daniel Flores 2007 - 99 pages
7. Dictionary of World Biography Barry Jones 2013 - BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY - (~0.7 of) 934 pages entry on Bill Clinton, Mentions "Hillary Diane Rodham" once and "Hilary Clinton" three times
8. Michelle Obama: A Biography (Google eBook) Alma Halbert Bond - 167 pages with "Hillary Clinton" being used 6 times (inc. first use) and "Hillary Rodham Clinton" used 3 times
   1. Oprah Winfrey: A Biography: A Biography, Second Edition (Google eBook) Helen S. Garson 2011 - Social Science - 212 pages with "Hillary Clinton" being used 6 times (inc. first use) and "Hillary Rodham Clinton" used once
9. Barack H. Obama: The Unauthorized Biography (Google eBook) By Webster Griffin Tarpley 2008 - 436 pages with "Hillary Clinton" being used 19 times (inc. first use) and "Hillary Rodham Clinton" used three times
   1. The Rhetoric of First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton: Crisis Management Discourse (Google eBook) By Colleen E. Kelley 2001 - Language Arts & Disciplines - 311 pages

Basically there seems to me that usage in books reference slightly favours "Hillary Rodham Clinton" and the fact that Hillary Diane Rodman publishes under the "Hillary Rodham Clinton" pen name I think is a further argument for presenting this as a part of the current, I believe, encyclopedic title.

While I do not believe that a marginal prevalence in books for the use of "Hillary Rodham Clinton" should carry any great weight in the general (Hillary Rodham Clinton → Hillary Clinton) naming debate within our largely news dominated media society, I certainly think this information to be of great relevance in regard to a perspective move of: List of books by or about Hillary Rodham Clinton → List of books by or about Hillary Clinton.

To me a difference in 14 and 12 syllables is of little consequence when our aim is to develop encyclopedic content.

The scope of the RM was increased to cover multiple pages on 23 April by BD2412.
I personally think that the difference in Hillary Diane Rodman's self presentation in regard to her publishing endevours might have set this particular subject area slightly apart.

GregKaye 05:25, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

It may also be relevant to note that, in searches in books:

"Hillary Clinton" books gets "About 94,700 results" while

"Hillary Rodham Clinton" books gets "About 18,100 results"

GregKaye 05:39, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

Is it really though? Since these google results have been shown to be flawed, at best. As one can see just by clicking on your results there, every single result on the first page from the "Hillary Clinton" books search has "Hillary Rodham Clinton" as the main name of HRC. Every. Single. Result. Sans the 'graphic novel', which has a cartoon of HRC stating she kept her family name to have her own identity, much to the chagrin the parents. Dave Dial (talk) 05:59, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

• Unfortunately, ever since Google started massively spamming the Books results with completely unrelated books (this started a few years ago), Google Books results counts cannot be trusted at all. Softlavender (talk) 11:35, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

TY Softlavender and I don't dispute this. Never-the-less the use of any form of search list from an organisation that may be interpreted not to themselves have any preference of name use provides a potentially neutral context within which name usage may be assessed. GregKaye 07:52, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

New evidence - Op ed signed "Hillary Clinton" in today's Des Moines Register

This is new evidence directed particularly towards those editors who oppose a move based on the name Hillary Clinton uses with respect to "publications". Specifically, Hillary Clinton published an op-ed piece in today's Des Moines Register, and signed it as "Hillary Clinton". This is not a piece purported to be from a campaign staffer or any other person, but directly from Hillary Clinton herself. bd2412 T 21:27, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

So in other words, more "look what I found on Google today". Tarc (talk) 23:28, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

No, it was reported in other news outlets. It can't be dismissed that easily. bd2412 T 23:36, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

Oh, do you mean these news outlets?

• Hillary Rodham Clinton gave a shoutout to some of the Iowans she met on...
• For the average Iowan flipping open Monday's Des Moines Register, the opinion piece from Hillary Clinton...

You will never win on the "here's what I saw in the news today" argument, as many Rodham uses can be cited alongside non-Rodham uses. Tarc (talk) 02:03, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

For the record, Clinton herself was signing her own name as "Hillary Clinton" in that op-ed. Epic Genius (talk) 02:09, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

Yes, that is the point which seems to have eluded Tarc; Hillary Clinton can sign an op-ed however she wants; she chose to sign it "Hillary Clinton". I really don't see how the significance of this development is hard to understand. bd2412 T 02:14, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

What in the world are you talking about? I don't see any signature from that link at all. And even if she did 'sign' something saying "Hillary Clinton", how does that count against the thousands upon thousands of signatures of "Hillary Rodham Clinton"? You know, the thousands and thousands of official documents she has signed? You guys crack me up. Dave Dial (talk) 02:42, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

It doesn't need to be a handwritten signature. A typed signature does just fine. And maybe she signs official documents with her maiden name because they're, you know, official. Epic Genius (talk) 02:59, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

There is neither a typed signature nor a handwritten one that I can see. Since both you and BD2412 have made this claim, point to people where HRC has 'signed' this op-ed as HC. Otherwise, this claim is a farce. Dave Dial (talk) 03:15, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

Most web browsers now incorporate a word search function. Open the article in your browser, figure out how to do that word search, and search for "Hillary Clinton". Right at the beginning you will see: "Hillary Clinton, Special to the Register". That is how an op-ed in the Des Moines Register is signed. bd2412 T 03:28, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

Wow. You've got to be kidding me. Dave Dial (talk) 03:33, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, seriously. It blows my mind. Clinton herself used "HC" as the name that she would be using at the top. Just wow. Epic Genius (talk) 13:20, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

• Do you mean the "HILLARY CLINTON is a Democratic candidate for president and former secretary of state."? Who signs in third person? I would call that a back announcement by the editor. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:42, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

• No, I am referring to "Hillary Clinton, Special to the Register", at the top. bd2412 T 12:36, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

• Ahh. OK. Thanks. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:05, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

• That is where the reporter's name would usually go, but the point still stands: Clinton must have chosen to use that as her displayed name in the article. Epic Genius (talk) 13:23, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

Bd-whatever continues to whiff on the point here; for every utterance of "HC", I can pull up an instance of "HRC", day in and day out. That is why past RMs close and no consensus and why this one will/should eventually wind up that way as well. This is a dead heat, and since we're already sitting on "HRC", that is what we stay at. If no good reason is presented to rename an article, then you don't rename it. Simple. Tarc (talk) 04:15, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

"Bd-whatever"? Is that supposed to signify that you are unable to read numbers? bd2412 T 13:21, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

Tarc's first point is correct, and it means that Supporters are pretty much committing suicide by even engaging in such arguments. As Tarc said, the burden is on the Support side. By far the strongest Support argument is a blind, automated reading of all reliable sources, per COMMONNAME. ―Mandruss ☎ 13:33, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

Indeed. The problem that Tarc embodies here is what I call the Wyoming/Virginia problem. Tarc can "prove" that Wyoming has twice as many people as Virginia if, for every person I name from Virginia, he names two from Wyoming, until we run out of time after each naming a few thousand people. If we disqualify raw data results (like Google hits and Census data), then Tarc can convince a neutral arbitrator (and himself) that he has thereby proved that the empty sagebrush of Wyoming has twice the population of Virginia. Of course, this also deviates from one of our most standard and most recommended practices in RM discussions - citing Google results and other search engine returns to demonstrate the relative commonality of use for a particular name. There is no reason to suspect the particular search engine results provided, or the trending proportionate increase that they reflect over the past year, in the use of "Hillary Clinton" as the default identifier for this subject. bd2412 T 13:43, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

Or, more accurately, Tarc can convince the arbitrator that you have failed to make your case. Opposers don't need to prove anything, they only need to divide the arguments enough, and confuse the discussion enough, to make consensus for move impossible. Whatever works. ―Mandruss ☎ 13:57, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

That's an assumption of bad faith. As someone who opposes this move, I am not here to "make consensus impossible". I feel this article is where it should be, and have said why. So have others. Omnedon (talk) 14:03, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

I wasn't lumping all Opposers into one group. I would have thought that would be obvious. But there are enough of them that fit that description to get the job done. Anyone who cares to take me to ANI for that observation is welcome to give it a shot. ―Mandruss ☎ 14:05, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

I agree with Omnedon. That's a pretty outrageous assumption of bad faith, and that "take me to ANI" comment is just an unnecessary ratcheting-up of rhetoric. Your accusations are just as unwelcome as the tactics you are accusing people of. It's my feeling that this move discussion had outlived its usefulness ages ago. At the end of the day, redirects mean it doesn't fucking matter what the article title is. -- Scjessey (talk) 14:13, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

Bd's strawmen aside, the point remains that both HC vs. HRC usage can be found in many sources at any time, so again, what we have always had on this issue is a no-consensus deadlock. Perhaps some see it as a bit unfair and a "first mover" problem that the article first settled on HRC and thus remains by default, but "it is what it is". If you can't come up with a genuine need to rename the article, then it should remain as-is per WP:TITLECHANGES.Tarc (talk) 14:13, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

Then do away with COMMONNAME entirely, if its application is not genuine. ―Mandruss ☎ 14:16, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

WP:COMMONNAME aside, the fact that editors are even now pointing out that it fails WP:RECOGNIZABILITY for some portion of the population is a genuine need. bd2412 T 14:18, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

Again, the point; both HC & HRC have a valid claim to WP:COMMONNAME. Tarc (talk) 14:33, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

Only one is causing WP:RECOGNIZABILITY issues. What's wrong with using the title that more people will recognize? We have a pretty strong policy that says we should. bd2412 T 14:37, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

There's no issue with WP:RECOGNIZABILITY. HRC has gone by HRC for like, ever. And REDIRECTS make the whole issue moot anyway. I don't care which title is used, but the arguments for using one over the other are flimsy on both sides. I just don't see a compelling reason for changing anything. -- Scjessey (talk) 14:55, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

I am sure that you personally have not had an issue with WP:RECOGNIZABILITY, but there are editors who have come to this discussion, to previous discussions, and to the article talk page, who have had that issue (and those are just the ones who are involved enough with Wikipedia to be able to note the issue in these fora). We must assume good faith when other editors have such a problem (in this case, one that is easily solved by moving the page and having the redirects run the other way). bd2412 T 14:59, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

Oh, come on! Nobody has come to Wikipedia and been unable to find Hillary Clinton, or figure out that Hillary Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton are the same person. I just don't know how you can possibly claim otherwise. HRC used Hillary Rodham Clinton consistently until at least 2006, so only people less than 9 years old could possibly be confused, and the redirect solves that problem anyway. -- Scjessey (talk) 15:05, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

We are talking about now, not about 2006, when everyone outside of professional sources is calling Hillary "HC". Redirects take up server space, too, and the more views that redirects get,the more useful it is to move that article over that redirect. Epic Genius (talk) 15:12, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

All I can say about the WP:RECOGNIZABILITY issue is that if people are coming here (or other places) and saying they have a problem with it, I take them at their word. As for "people less than 9 years old", that presumes that someone who was, say, three years old (or six, or ten) in 2006 should have been aware of the name being used by the Senator from New York. I don't know about you, but I probably had little knowledge of senators from outside my own state until I was at least a teenager. Of course, that is not even addressing English-language news in countries like India. bd2412 T 16:01, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

If there has been a COMMONNAME-based argument for HRC that doesn't pick-and-choose sources and assert that they are more meaningful than all reliable sources combined, I've missed it. ―Mandruss ☎ 14:36, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

• There is no question that Hillary Rodham Clinton prefers to be addressed as such. None. Despite the vast original research and synthesis done here by some supporters of this move. We have Hillary herself stating that in 1978 and again in 1983:

  "I need my own identity too."

  Then in 1993, she stated again she wanted to be addressed with her family name included, as Hillary Rodham Clinton:

  It's Hillary Rodham Clinton. Got That? "Hillary Rodham Clinton has been the First Lady's name all along, since 1982. We're at a loss as to why people think this is something that we're just trying to change now."

  And then we had in 2014, her reiterating once again, she prefers to keep her family name.

  "To your question, "Hillary Rodham Clinton" would be the preference."

  So please stop with this OR, and realize the ONLY sourced statements we have from her preference are that she prefers HRC. That and the fact we have policies which state we should not move stable articles, and the fact that HRC came to prominence using that name, there is no question the article title is correct now and should not be moved. Dave Dial (talk) 14:48, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

• I have already asked you to point me to a policy that says the article name "is supposed to be the common name used while the subject came to prominence", and given you examples of titles that have changed when common use changed. Can you point me to one, or are you wrong about that? bd2412 T 14:52, 28 April 2015 (UTC)
• So now we have "We should call her 'Hillary Rodham Clinton' because she said so, and not because 300 million people call her 'Hillary Clinton' and somehow COMMONNAME doesn't apply to famous politicians"? Is that a policy now? Plus, articles with millions of views have been moved before, so TITLECHANGES is an irrelevant point. Epic Genius (talk) 15:07, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

• You know that it says recent trends should only be considered after a name change, and there has been no name change. In fact, we have actual reliable sources stating that HRC wants to be addressed as HRC. All these Google hits are not evidence of real, reliable sources. Google updates their algorithm all the time(500-600 times a year), so the results CANNOT be used as a replacement for actual reliable sources. Even today, with all of the "Hillary Clinton" hoopla, Yahoo News results show a almost dead heat between HRC and HC. When you search throughout history, the totality of sources far favor HRC over HC. By a large margin. Dave Dial (talk) 15:35, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

You keep misusing search engines. Your search would e.g. eliminate all pages saying that her father was named Rodham, or that mention the string Rodham in any way. Making the search sharper [5] vs. [6] yields a comfortable majority for RC over RHC. And with respect to "When you search throughout history, the totality of sources far favor HRC over HC. By a large margin" all I can say is "". And yes, Google changes its algorithms. So what? Don't you use it anyways? Results for this question have been fairly consistent despite all the changes. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:27, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

Errr. Those result numbers are exactly the same. And I'm going to ask you once again to move your comment from my oppose vote, before I remove it. The discussion thread is for discussion, the survey are for the voting. As described in the instructions here. Dave Dial (talk) 16:31, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

We're beyond circular here, and I'm out. Y'all have fun! ―Mandruss ☎ 14:51, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

Google Search Interest

By using Google Trends to gauge search interest, there is a clearly much higher value for Hillary Clinton than there is for Hillary Rodham Clinton. You can personally verify the graph at http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=Hillary%20Rodham%20Clinton%2C%20Hillary%20Clinton&cmpt=q&tz=. EoRdE6^{(Come Talk to Me!)} 00:04, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

Multiplying and prolonging the discussion

• The following comments were added in response to the post of David.thompson.esq dated 18:50, 27 April 2015 which originally had a content inclusive of "[[User:GregKaye|Greg]] et al have put on a master class in how NOT to handle an issue like this." but which was apparently edited back from a use of personal name reference at the same time as I made my reply. I have moved this content in response to request from bd2412 with of: "editors (on both sides of the question) who have made responses to individual !votes in the survey section to move those discussions to subsections in the discussion section. That will keep things tidy." David.thompson.esq is of course perfectly entitled to move things back. GregKaye 07:33, 28 April 2015 (UTC)
• David.thompson.esq
  • in good faith I started the thread Talk:Hillary Rodham Clinton/Archive 21#Requested move 9 April 2015 (retracted on a technicality);
  • As an intended positive contribution I presented a Talk:Hillary Rodham Clinton#proposal to change the opening sentence into which I then added the sub thread: Talk:Hillary Rodham Clinton#Change to more general topic of article name and, arguably, Wikidrama due to the perception that things were getting ludicrously off a valid track;
  • Intending to offer a positive argument for the defense of the HRC title I then started the thread: Talk:Hillary Rodham Clinton#A legitimate use of a SOAPBOX PLATFORM that Rodham does not use? and I have presented these arguments below;
  • Lastly after a whole string of pointed comment I stared a sub thread on Talk:Hillary Rodham Clinton#Lacking civility. GregKaye 19:20, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
    • Yes, Greg, and please don't do something like that again. Combining your (by my count from your description above) 5 threads or "subthreads" and the thing someone started on the Village Pump, we had six different locations where people were being asked to opine on this issue; at least five of which were going simultaneously. This significantly contributed to the epic level of time-wasting on this trivial issue. I don't question your good faith, but I hope you can recognize that -- whatever your intentions -- the result was a bad result which should not be repeated. David.thompson.esq (talk) 19:38, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
      • The first content was in response to the great relative prevalence of reference to "Hillary Clinton", the second content was on a different topic, the third content was in response to editors going awol, the fourth content was an assist and the fifth content was due to edits many of which I contend were uncalled for. 19:53, 27 April 2015. I also think that it is fair to note that proposers of the move were far from being the only people to multiply threads and we certainly weren't the people who prolonged them. GregKaye 07:33, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

  Nothing wrong with carrying on any of those discussions at all. It seems to me that David.thompson.esq Is a fellow who went and posted "tl;dr" in a whole bunch of discussions on different topics in this field of discussion. Now, since that stands for "too long, didn't read" that tells us something. It tells us that Mr. thompson.esq has a short attention span and lacks patience to read things through, and yet is quite pleased to comment in blissful unawareness on the things he has not read. Taken at face value, that explains the whole of his participation. Pandeist (talk) 07:41, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

Changes to WP:NATURALNESS

Since the beginning of this RM discussion the edits have been made to WP:AT that affect WP:NATURALNESS. In this case additions for the sake of disambiguation are considered to be excluded from title content when assessments related to naturalness are made, GregKaye 07:47, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for providing that. What's your take on its impact here? Pandeist (talk) 07:54, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia view stats

Hillary Rodham Clinton has 10 times more pageviews on Wikipedia than Hillary Clinton, so it would seem nobody is having any trouble finding it. There's no reader confusion and no technical reason for moving. -- Scjessey (talk) 16:05, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

Very incorrect assessment. Hillary Rodham Clinton's page view stats include ever page that redirects to it include Hillary Clinton, and other links directly to it, as most traffic comes from these. For example a google search for Hillary Clinton will link directly to the HRC page no matter what that person actually searched. EoRdE6^{(Come Talk to Me!)} 16:08, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

Uhhhhh..Isn't that the point? Readers are not having a problem finding the article. That's blatantly obvious. Dave Dial (talk) 16:19, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

Closing and structural issues

Closing requirements

Discussion on how to close an anticipated contentious discussion are starting to pollute the main talk page. I think that should be avoided, as multiply tangential to discussions about edits to improve the article. Better to discuss here.

I suggest that a three person panel of admins to close the discussion might be nice. It ensures no gut reaction by a drive by impatient admin, not that this is commonly seen. Participants should not preclude the possibility that the discussion with be consensus-seeking. One side may largely persuade the other. In this case, the close may be trivial. Someone is suggesting that the hypothetical panel should be composed of RM-experienced closers. Ultimately, if the close is improper or otherwise poor, there is WP:MR. In general, the closing of RM discussions is in my opinion very good. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:10, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

• A closing panel has been requested. bd2412 T 13:47, 15 April 2015 (UTC)
• I'd ask the closing panel to take into consideration the reasoning and subsequent clear decision by last year's closing panel. Thanks. Randy Kryn 15:43, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

Section order request

Hi. For fairness wouldn't it be more logical to not have the 'Support' and 'Oppose' sections, but just let people add their comments when they arrive at the party, ah, I mean page? Although I haven't been involved very long in name change requests I haven't seen this form before. The 'Support' section, which people will read long before they even spot the 'Opposed' section well down the road, will likely become the length of a novella. Why not just toss the scorpions into the jar at the same time, which seems fairer somehow. Randy Kryn 2:20, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

• This is the typical layout for discussions that are expected to be lengthy so that it is easier for readers and the supervising administrators to see who has expressed what opinion. This was done at Talk:Chelsea Manning/October 2013 move request, and is the format always used for RfA discussions (see, e.g., Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Jakec) and often for any other kind of proposal where the discussion is expected to be lengthy and involved (see, e.g., Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Proposal: creation of "style noticeboard"). You can see from those discussions (and from a substantial number of unsuccessful RfA discussions) that this structure does not interfere with the ability of participants to register opposition. A good example of this is Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/AlanM1, which had about as many participants as the last move discussion on this topic. The goal of this structure is to avoid confusing the discussion and impeding the community and the closers from seeing what is going on. bd2412 T 02:51, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

  Alright, thanks for the comment and the recent history. The unfairness comes from someone who's "undecided" coming in and reading the page from top to bottom and seeing all the 'Supports' before getting to the 'Opposed'. But I guess the closers know what to look for. It just all seems like a huge waste of time, but some editors seem to be gearing up for it. Thanks again. Randy Kryn 3:27, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

1 year lock-in

I have no opinion on the issue itself at the moment, but in accordance with the close at Village Pump I request the RfC explicitly invite the closer to consider a 1-year lock-in against repeated move requests. And regardless of the RfC text, the discussion at Village Pump provides abundant basis for reasonable closer discretion in the matter. Alsee (talk) 00:50, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

There is some question about what power admins have to impose moratoria absent consensus of the community in favor of that outcome. That said, I am not sure that this is the best place to discuss such a proposal, since the focus of this page should purely be on the question of whether the article should be renamed. bd2412 T 01:46, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

Any moratorium, I think, should be a question for the closer(s). It should be based upon discussion of a moratorium in the RM discussion. I think there is no good reason to worry about it before starting the RM. The question of a moratorium presumes a no consensus outcome, a presumption which is probably a bad thing. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:03, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

I supported a moratorium in the Village Pump discussion, but there was no consensus favoring one. I continue to support the idea, but would not impose my preference on the community unless consensus shifts in favor of it. bd2412 T 15:59, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

Consensus in the Village Pump discussion was clearly against any moratorium. An admin has no authority to go against community consensus in imposing a moratorium. Rreagan007 (talk) 19:21, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

@Rreagan007: - re "Consensus in the Village Pump discussion was clearly against any moratorium" - That wasn't the closer's interpretation. NickCT (talk) 22:44, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

@Rreagan007: You are misunderstanding or misrepresenting the outcome. Consensus was against extending the previous moratorium. As I argued myself, the previous moratorium properly expired. However the close also stated "In addition, there is broad support in both "camps" that if a RM does take place then its result needs to be "locked in" for at least a year to prevent the issue being debated to death (with a year being repeatedly suggested)". Broad support in both camps. I am merely asserting it is within closer discretion to include a lock-in period. This move debate has clearly been a time-sink in the past, and it's going to get an extraordinarily thorough examination now. The closer may impose a lock-in, or decline to do so, after reviewing any pro and con arguments presented here and at village pump. The closer can consider any and all issues in selecting an expiration date, and I firmly submit "the day after the election" as an absolute maximum due to the possibility of needing to change this into a President Clinton page. Alsee (talk) 22:52, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

I had not noticed that part of the close. I withdraw my assertion that there was no consensus. Certainly, once the page is moved, it will be both disruptive and futile for anyone to quickly propose moving it back. bd2412 T 22:55, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

Okay I see that closing statement now. I was going off my memory of the actual discussion and the votes for and against a future moratorium were, at best, evenly split. I realize that it isn't just a vote count, but I do question the closer's assertion that "there is broad support in both 'camps'" for a moratorium. That statement seems grossly inaccurate given the actual discussion that took place. Rreagan007 (talk) 23:10, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

• A moratorium (one year) and other procedural restrictions were established at the last RM. So, it is within the purview of a closing admin to institute a moratorium. (In that RM, closed 31 May 2014, the result was: No consensus, default to endorse, and procedural restrictions established: No further move request may be started until February 2015, and between February 2015 and February 2017, or the closure of the next valid move request, whichever is earlier, no move request is to be made unless it is at least 5,000 characters in length.) Softlavender (talk) 22:58, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

Notifications Sent

For the record, User:BD2412 maintained a list of all past participants on this discussion. I have sent all those users notifications of this discussion. NickCT (talk) 19:19, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

Thanks so much, NickCT and BD2412. Softlavender (talk) 12:03, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

Talk-page about this Talk space move request

Shouldn't there be a Talk page where side discussion about this Move request can be handled? Like for RFA proposals/discussions which are held in Wikipedia-space, where it is helpful that there is a corresponding Wikipedia talk page where side discussions are okay and do not disrupt the main discussion of the proposal.

I am going to treat this new section now as a Talk-page, for the moment, and make a side discussion-type comment here, below. I don't mind, would be happy to see, if this were moved to any more proper location for a Talk-page type discussion. -doncram 17:53, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

Yes. We definitely need another place to have even more discussion about this, because so far it's only being discussed in about 3 or 4 places. We should setup a move request for deciding whether or not to move the discussion about the move request, and obviously that should also have its own talk page...

...OR...

We could've kept all the discussion on Talk:Hillary Rodham Clinton, because if we're honest all this bullshit is totally unnecessary and it really doesn't matter if the article is at Hillary Clinton or Hillary Rodham Clinton. </rant> -- Scjessey (talk) 18:29, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

I fully endorse Scjessey's rant. This move request is over a de minimis matter and expanding an additional forum is very bad idea (no offense). SMP0328. (talk) 18:38, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

Pretty much what I've said all along; like diacritics and Style Battle wars, this is a pointless waste of time. The move-supporters are clocking in at ~60% at the moment, so they are still a ways under their numbers from the last RM, which did not go their way either. Tarc (talk) 18:42, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

Of course, if we went by numbers, the article would have moved long ago. We (allegedly) go by weight of arguments... ;-) --Stephan Schulz (talk) 18:50, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

We definitely have a gigantic "weight of arguments" on this matter, though we still have a long way to go before we get to the unadulterated glory that was the title discussion for Star Trek Into Darkness. -- Scjessey (talk) 20:39, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, or we can move this to the Wikipedia namespace instead... Epic Genius (talk) 00:46, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

Nice use of personal essay reference

Here is my side comment: There are a couple references in the discussion now to BornToCycle's personal "Yogurt Principle" essay (at User:Born2cycle/Yogurt Principle). I want to say I appreciate Born2cycle mentioning and linking to that, even though I have disagreed with B2C in some past discussions and I think I do disagree with at least part of what the essay says. A couple others here, already familiar with the essay, commented negatively about it, like the essay doesn't apply. Okay. But, do let's appreciate it that this editor has taken the time to write a proper essay, and refers to it briefly. That is courteous and far better than an editor with a known viewpoint writing out pretty much the same opinion out again and again, with just small variations, in new discussions. (And wasn't there an wp:ANI proceeding recently about some newish editor pasting in their fairly long opinion in each of too many multiple discussions?) So, in favor of BornToCycle, I want to say I commend their having written the essay already, and I support others going and checking it out. I haven't read all the above discussion, and I could easily be missing some other good examples, but I am not offhand aware of any other editors' personal essays prepared that express their views relevant to this kind of article naming question. Thanks, B2C! cheers, --doncram 17:53, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

Any argument that relies on a personal essay will likely be discounted in the final analysis by the closing admins. This is another one of those editors who has spent an inordinate amount of time waging these sorts of pitched battles (see Talk: Sarah Jane Brown and archives, for one). Tarc (talk) 18:47, 27 April 2015 (UTC)