Talk:Prayagraj/Archive 3

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Archive 4

Time to revisit name change from Allahabad to Prayagraj?

I believe a consensus was reached on the name of this settlement last October following the renaming. I am opening a discussion in relation to whether this still remains the consensus now.

To me it appears that there is inconsistency in application of WP:COMMONNAME in relation to different articles. In India the settlement of "Mohali" was renamed "Sahibzada Ajit Singh Nagar" and the opening sentence reads "Sahibzada Ajit Singh Nagar, also known as Mohali" with the legal name first. Outside of India, in the case of Astana in Kazakhstan, the opening sentence reads "Nursultan, formerly known as Astana" and references to Astana within the article have been changed to Nursultan just two days following the renaming of that settlement.

I suggest that the opening sentence change to "Prayagraj, previously known as Allahabad," to inprove consistency across Wikipedia. Cordyceps-Zombie (talk) 11:19, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

based on your suggestion, to maintain consistency I have copy edited Mohali to state "Mohali or Ajitgarh officially known as Sahibzada Ajit Singh Nagar is a city in the... ". Because when there is a problem you fix the problem, You dont extend the same problem everywhere on the pretext of maintaining consistency. Now as far as the "revisit the name" is concerned, unless strong evidence is presented that the WP:COMMONNAME is changed, the article will not be renamed to anything else. --DBigXrayᗙ 11:30, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

OK, that is one way to fix the current problem. What will you do to the corresponding district which is here Sahibzada Ajit Singh Nagar district? You can't have different names for two eponymous entities can you? Also will the same be applied to Astana as well? Cordyceps-Zombie (talk) 12:33, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

Cordyceps-Zombie, DBigXray, The district was named as Sahibzada Ajit Singh Nagar district at the time of article creation where it mentions Mohali in the first sentence. I think what Cordyceps has done is OK. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 16:58, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

Cordyceps-Zombie and Fylindfotberserk, I have renamed the district to Mohali district. and explained the reason on its own talk page as this page is not the right place for that discussion. --DBigXrayᗙ 17:17, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

@DBigXray:, as you pointed out earlier, the official website has now moved to https://prayagraj.nic.in/. --Rsrikanth05 (talk) 12:11, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

• cool Rsrikanth05 but still doesn't meet the criteria --DBigXrayᗙ 16:34, 25 March 2019 (UTC)
  • I'm not sure the Bangalore Mysore rationale should apply here. Those were minor spelling changes, bare phonetics. In the case of Prayagraj vs Allahabad, it's a total name change, much like Chennai-Madras or even the ongoing discussion at Astana to rename it to Nur Sultan. --Rsrikanth05 (talk) 18:30, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

@ ">DBigXrayᗙ I believe Cordyceps-Zombie is correct that it is now time to revist the name of page. The guidelines state for WP:COMMONNAME: "Wikipedia does not necessarily use the subject's 'official' name as an article title; it generally prefers the name that is most commonly used (as determined by its prevalence in a significant majority of independent, reliable English-language sources)." As alot of time has passed since the name legally changed, there is now strong evidence to indicate that Prayagraj now has a majority prevalence in independent, reliable sources. All western media sources like CNN Yahoo , Associated Press and Time magazine and even "the Weather Channel" mention Prayagraj as the primary name for the city with some going on to mention Allahabad as the previous name. Academics have also started using the name Prayagraj as the primary name of city previously known as Allahabad. Some links below materials published by academics usuing Prayagraj as the primary name , , . Further examples of this change in prevalence is exemplified by the people opposed to the name change who have nevertheless adopted the Prayagraj as the primary name in their articles and other published work. The official opposition party's mouth piece National Herald has in numerous published works mentioned Praygraj as the only name for the city previously known as Allahabad , . Even the left-wing leaning newspaper "The Wire" has adopted the change.

The name has officialy, legally changed. The name has also been adopted by people all around the world regardless of their political affiliation showing a majority prevalence and cultural change. This meets the requirements of wikipedia for the Name change. A failure to change the name will create confusion for readers of wikipedia and would not help educate the readers further the goals of wikipedia.

Kushagr.sharma1 (talk) 02:54, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

References

• Kushagr.sharma1 thanks for the ping. It seems you did not understand how the common name is decided. When the media houses start using a new name it does not change that time. The usage of the new name has to exceed the usage of the old name. I appreciate your efforts in finding the refs to back up your claim but what you have done is a WP:CHERRYPICK of links that support your claim. A quick google search for news results using the name Allahabad punctures your claim that all the media houses are using the new name. I would request you to be patient. The change may come in a few months or years. Only time will tell. No one is confused here in India or the international readers who read this page. It is clarified quite clearly. regards. --DBigXrayᗙ 06:47, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

">DBigXrayᗙ . Hi, Thanks for your prompt reply. From my understanding there is no requirement or mention of uniformity in the wiki sources on the usage of name and only a "majority prevelance". Your point can also be punctured through the same search. Out of the top 10 links you have provided on the google search only 1 talks about Allahabad the city while the rest talk about the university, high court and railway junction all who's legal name has Allahabad in it. On the contrary a google search for Prayagraj [1] shows all searches mention the city of Praygraj all by different newspapers. Now for the links I previously provided it may seem like I am cherry picking and that is because I picked all the sources outside of India and sources that oppose the government. If you want I could probably find indian sources from the media aswell to help show the normalisation of Prayragraj even more. However if the opposition of the government, academics and international news sources are using Praygraj it means the change has already happened and Praygraj is the De-Facto name all across the world. Please try to objectively look at this and tell me what is the threhold for "majority" and how it can be proven because right now I feel you are being very subjective. Kushagr.sharma1 (talk) 15:23, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

Kushagr.sharma1 Google search results 1.46 crore hits on "Prayagraj" but a whooping 5.05 crores on "Allahabad" as of 21:18 IST 13 June 2019. Although there are other ways to do it, this is just a glimpse that times hasn't come yet to change Allahabad to Prayagraj. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 15:45, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

'However, if you set the search as from the day the name was changed to today then I believe there will be more searches for Prayagraj than Allahabad (I can't do this as I do not use google)'Ranamode (talk) 23:31, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

DBigXrayᗙ. Really appreciate your efforts to engage with me on this but I disagree once again. I dont think your Google search results argument can be relied upon for several reason. 1. Those searches dont reveal reliable wikipedia sources 2. Allahabad includes the name of the university, railway junction, airport, bank which have all not been changed and are not disputed. 3.The results also include sources from the last decade, which would mean no change would be practical anywhere on wikipedia and wikipedia would fall behind with the changes being made in the world. I dont believe you have countered my points, I would request you to please explain to me why the international media, opposition to the government adopting the new name is not enough to indicate a change in prevalence. Thanks. Kushagr.sharma1 (talk) 19:55, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

Kushagr.sharma1, Check this Pageviews Analysis [2]. Allahabad is still the common name. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 13:53, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

Nope. Like seriously? Wikipedia as a source? Here where Allahabad is current page name will any case have higher view count. If Prayagraj was current name on Wikipedia then it would have by default have higher view count as all wikilinks are currently written as per current name. Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not a reliable source. JayB91 (talk) 05:40, 23 June 2019 (UTC)

• I see most of us agreeing that the page should move to Prayagraj. The city has changed its name legally and physically (no signboard or any marker exits with the old name anywhere in the country anymore), All the newspapers and international media cite the new name as stated above. Locally it is being called Prayagraj since last year by the residents. WP:Commonname argument seem redundant as the new common name seems to be Prayagraj. Astana to Nur-sultan moved faster while we are still dragging our heels for the inevitable page move. High time we moved the page. JayB91 (talk) 05:32, 23 June 2019 (UTC)

That's one of the tools besides the name need to get internationally recognized especially in English media. Doesn't matter what locals call it. I personally refer to the placer as Prayagraj, so what? Even Bangalore hasn't been moved to Bengaluru. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 14:56, 23 June 2019 (UTC)

Interesting discussion. It seems to me the person insisting on not changing the text despite being presented with so many data points by other users, is clearly acting with bias for reasons best known to him/her. Without providing any datapoint to support his/her argument of keep on relying on "still not changed - Common Name" which in no manner is a measurable quantity.

I would request wikipedia to assign an unbiased reviewer for this case to make an early decision. If wikipedia wants to be representative of facts this sentence should have been changed much earlier. I also hope in future indefinite arguments like this will be discouraged - "it might take months to years for an official name change to be reflected on wiki". Nuiaq.labs (talk) 03:59, 6 July 2019 (UTC)

That's a reasonable request, Nuiaq.labs. For the relevant article titling conventions, please see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic names). Either immediately below or (probably better) in a fresh message thread at the foot of this page, appeal for a change of title. When doing so, show how your suggested title is superior to the current one in terms of these titling conventions. See what kind of responses you get here. If there's agreement, good. If you're out-argued, well, those wanting the current name to stay ought to be able to say what new evidence would get them to change their minds. If you get no response, or anyway no intelligent response, then you might craft a rather more formal "request for comment": please see Wikipedia:Requests for comment for instructions and suggestions for how to do this successfully. -- Hoary (talk) 07:00, 6 July 2019 (UTC)

Nuiaq.labs Should not be calling users biased. It is a common procedure in Wikipedia whenever there's a name change as per WP:COMMONNAME. Go through archives of this talk to know more. You can open a Move Request and RfC. Just to tell you that this is an English Wikipedia and thus the name "Prayagraj" needs to get more international recognition than the older "Allahabad". Even "Bengaluru" is still "Bangalore" after multiple move requests in the past. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 14:07, 6 July 2019 (UTC)

@Fylindfotberserk Bengalore is a variation of the name of Bengaluru. So this case doesn't apply here involving a complete name change from Allahabad to Prayagraj. What does apply here is the name change of Astana to Nur-Sultan as well as Swaziland to Eswatini. These were swiftly changed on Wikipedia in accordance with the official name change.

Also lack of response to valid points raised by Kushagr.sharma1 indeed points towards some bias in this case, which may be intentional or unintentional.RandiGashti (talk) 14:41, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

He already understood why it is not changed. If you read the full thread, you will also understand. --DBigXrayᗙ 16:29, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

When Indian Government has change the name from Allahbad to Prayagraj, why don't you guys change it? This is how you are humiliating the sovereign power of taking decision of a country. This very unfortunate. Ek dharmayodha arya (talk) 20:14, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Go through WP:COMMONNAME again and all those discussions and RfCs in the archive of this talkpage. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 08:31, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

@Ek dharmayodha arya: Do you think the sovereign power of decision making of India has control over the names of entities on English Wikipedia? If so, what is your opinion of the sovereign power of Germany over the names of articles on German topics here? Should we change the article "Germany" to Deutschland, and the name of "Munich" to München? If not, why not? What about the sovereign power of Italy, over the name of their capital city, Roma? Should we change the "Rome" article, too? Pretty soon, we won't be English Wikipedia anymore; we can just write a letter to 206 countries, and ask them what to call all our city articles, and wait for them to instruct us. Does that seem like a good idea to you? Do you see the point? The bottom line is this: we don't really care what it's called officially in India; we care what reliable sources in the English language call it.

However, your approach may have a lot more sway at Hindi Wikipedia, where, surprise! it's still called इलाहाबाद. Maybe try to convince them to change it, first. But even if you are successful there, that has no bearing on what it is called here, on en-wiki. Mathglot (talk) 10:28, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Mathglot, Thanks for the explanation. I don't know how many times we have to explain that. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 12:27, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

I just randomly checked news articles and as we can see, major newspapers like times of India are still using Allahabad [3] [4] [5]DBigXrayᗙ 14:06, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

Yup. I rarely see Prayagraj in news articles. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 17:15, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

Dude, you just quoted three reports from the same' newspaper. Here are some from the last few weeks including two published within the last 24 hours. And I'm taking the same ToI that you listed, along with The Hindu, and HT. [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12]. HT and ToI list city as Prayagraj as where the report came from. --Rsrikanth05 (talk) 19:09, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

(Redacted) Nuiaq.labs (talk) 05:05, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

Nuiaq.labs, on 6 July 2019 you asked for a change of title. I responded. Both messages are in this message thread.

• Again, you have two options: (i) say how the current title fails to accord with en:Wikipedia policy; (ii) concede that the current title does accord with en:Wikipedia policy and work to have this policy changed.
• If there has been a story from a reliable news source that any editor has behaved in a problematic way, you're free to bring up the matter, perhaps at "WP:ANI". But "social media discussion" is worthless, no matter how much of it there may be.
• The rationale behind making this article available in nations where English isn't normally a first language is that there's no reason not to: there's no reason to discriminate, and the architecture of the internet makes non-discrimination easy. (Authoritarian nations can and do provide their own censorship, ostensibly to "protect" their citizens from dangerous thoughts.)
• By "wikipedia employees", do you mean "employees of the Wikimedia Foundation"? If so, note that Wikipedia:Contact us says "Edits are not the responsibility of the Wikimedia Foundation (the organisation that hosts the site) nor of its staff and edits will not generally be made in response to an email request"; I think that you can take "edits" to mean "editorial changes".

-- Hoary (talk) 06:01, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

(Redacted) Nuiaq.labs (talk) 09:45, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

Nuiaq.labs, it seems that you want to right great wrongs. For that purpose, this is not the right website. -- Hoary (talk) 11:30, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia has its own set of rules and guidelines. People should know that. The article has gone through one RfC and multiple discussions and the decision was status qvo. Note that Bangalore is still Bangalore after 5-6 RfCs. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 13:07, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

The name of page should be changed to Prayagraj. And Allahabad should be mentioned as former name. Currently the official name is just mentioned as a footnote. Aimaadi (talk) 05:29, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

The standard should be as the page for Chennai is maintained. Aimaadi (talk) 05:32, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

@Aimaadi: You are too late. We had a change of name discussion earlier in August, and it is over. There will be no more move discussions for Allahabad for at least a year. -- Toddy1 (talk) 05:36, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

@Aimaadi, we follow WP:COMMONNAME. Also notice that the name of the Madras city was changed to Chennai in 1996, many years before Wikipedia came to be. The article was created with the name Chennai, not Madras. A better comparison would be with Bangalore, which after 15 years and multiple move requests, is still Bangalore, not Bengaluru. Wait for Bangalore→Bengaluru to happen first. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 08:36, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

The decision to keep the name Allahabad even the city has been informally known as Prayag for ages and officially changed the name to Prayagaraj and shutting down the discussion on it for a year shows the biased nature of whoever is monitoring this page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.242.120.14 (talk) 01:29, 21 January 2021 (UTC) The argument of google searches pretty much baseless. Most results when someone searches for Allahabad are related to institutions named after the city not the city itself. Prayagraj is the relevant name of the city. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Raghu487 (talk • contribs) 01:42, 21 January 2021 (UTC) Just reading through some arguments against the name change by (talk). Don't you think you are trying to right great wrongs by resisting the formal name change and striking off any further discussions until a year. And how are people comparing Bangalore/ Bengaluru with Prayagraj. Bombay and Madras were changed to Mumbai and Chennai, Bangalore was a mere phonetic change. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Raghu487 (talk • contribs) 02:12, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

No comparison. Reiterating, when the names of Bombay and Madras were changed to Mumbai and Chennai in 1996, Wikipedia didn't exist. The articles in Wikipedia were created with the current names. See the first edit/version of the articles [13] [14]. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 09:45, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

It's a bad excuse to say Wikipedia didn't exist when the name was changed so we stick with the prevailing name. That statement clearly doesn't indicate consistency. I see nothing but political motivation to keep the name from changing. And based on the previous arguments, I can safely say there is no scientific measurement to see which name is most used. One of the moderator has no clue whether he is looking at a news regarding "Allahabad" the city or different institutions based on the name Allahabad such as Allahabad bank, university of Allahabad. Its all just what mods feel and nothing more. The name of the page should reflect the official name as there is a significant population already use the new name and Prayagraj is what it's officially called. Can any of the mods can explain the double standard regarding "Astana" page being renamed as Nur-Sultan despite the former being the most prevalent of the two and was renamed later compared to Prayagaraj. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Raghu487 (talk • contribs) 04:49, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

Excuse? It is a fact that Wikipedia didn't exist that time. Second, we do not use official names, but commonnames. That should be clear by now. As for the other institutes bearing the name Allahabad, a simple google 'news' search using the terms, with quotes "Allahabad city" and "Prayagraj city" yields 54,900 and 6,770 hits respectively. So, not gonna happen soon. Bangalore → Bengaluru will happen before it. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 10:15, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

I would suggest whoever keep repeating "google search" to at least open up the results that show up when they do the search. Most of the results for "Allahabad city" are from Times of India that uses Allahabad along with other city names on the header for shortcut for city news. But the articles itself refer to the city as Prayagraj. Its uncommon for people to search "Delhi city", "Mumbai city", "Bengaluru city". People search "Mumbai", "Delhi", "Bengaluru" etc., unless they want to search specifically for city instead of other things named after it. There is no need for anyone to search for "Prayagraj city" since "Prayagraj" fetches the results. There is nothing scientific about Google hits explanation you provided. Next time instead of looking at the numbers, open the results and read the articles for the reference of the name. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Raghu487 (talk • contribs) 03:46, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

When will be the discussion close most of the comments are seems to be in favour of changing the name Bharat0078 (talk) 14:19, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

I just searched Prayagraj and Allahbad both on Google. When I searched Allahbad, Google automatically converted it into Prayagraj by a small description below my search. I am not sure why Wikipedia is so slow to adopt official changes. I support changing the name to Prayagraj. Karyasuman (talk) 11:10, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

It's rather irrational to cite number of Google hits as a rationale for changing (or not changing) the name of any entity. Any sensible individual will note that this favors a prior name, since it will contain all hits prior to a name change (and may include the old name even when using the new name for reference). The city is referred to as Prayag in the modern day. What possible rationale is there for not changing it, beyond editor agendas? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Melkor was right (talk • contribs) 19:55, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

RFC - Discussion about name change of the article

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

When does the discussion start, whether to rename the Article as Prayagraj?

Can anyone start it?

--Tecumseh*1301 (talk) 07:27, 24 August 2021 (UTC)

Previous discussion

If you want it started, why don't you go ahead and start it? -- Hoary (talk) 08:31, 24 August 2021 (UTC)

Tecumseh*1301, there have been numerous discussions about this before, but that doesn't necessarily mean that there shouldn't be another one. But, since plenty of editors may be tired of rehashing the same old arguments on both sides, in order to have a better chance of success in your Rfc, do your due diligence, by having a look at WP:RFCBEFORE, and reviewing previous discussions on this page, and in the Archives. If you can come up with some new, compelling information that has never been seen before in previous discussions, you're more likely to generate a lively discussion, and perhaps persuade other editors that a move is warranted. If you just repeat old arguments everyone has heard before without bringing new or changed circumstances to the table, then the outcome will likely be a repeat of previous discussions. Hope this helps, Mathglot (talk) 06:35, 27 August 2021 (UTC)

I'll contribute something to the discussion here. From some brief Googling I was able to find "Prayagraj" mentioned independently (without "... formerly known as Allahabad") in a number of reliable and independent non-Indian sources (thus read by a Western audience.) See:

1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6.

Now previously the change was still blocked by WP:COMMONNAME, but I find this a weak argument and easily exploited, as "common" means different things to different people and to different audiences, and old names stick around for a long time, which can be used to shut down any changes. Furthermore, in previous cases such as Nur-Sultan, this policy was ignored, and the city was changed very quickly from Astana to the new official name, Nur-Sultan. In fact, a proposal that wanted to rename Nur-Sultan back to Astana per WP:COMMONNAME, was opposed by other users. There are even more examples, such as Mbombela (Google Nelspruit and see how many results you still get), Kropyvnytskyi, which no user opposed and was immediately renamed per the official name, and Nof HaGalil where there was no discussion at all and WP:COMMONNAME was never a concern. Many more examples of WP:COMMNONNAME violations can be found but it's not necessary to list them all. Now I understand that rules need to exist to maintain quality standards, but such double standards are unexplainable.

My last argument, is that the name Prayagraj has since been incorporated into the names of other locations and buildings, see Prayagraj Junction railway station and Prayagraj Express. In my opinion, these names indicate recognizability of the name Prayagraj. --Glennznl (talk) 20:43, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

It would be more accurate to say that someone sneaked the change from Allahabad Junction railway station to Prayagraj Junction railway station through the RM:TM process as though it were something that nobody would ever dispute. That they succeeded is not evidence supporting a change from Allahabad to something-else.-- Toddy1 (talk) 21:21, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

@Toddy1: Fair enough, but let's not lose focus. --Glennznl (talk) 21:28, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

Regarding the Prayagraj Express - it is the name of a train service - if you look at the 11:42, 8 June 2006 version of the article, it says "Prayag Raj Express is a express train which runs between cities of Allahabad and New Delhi". So the name of this train service (at least on Wikipedia) is much older that the official change of name of the city. So again, that the article is called Prayagraj Express is not relevant to the name of the article on Allahabad.-- Toddy1 (talk) 21:32, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

@Toddy1: Okay, do you have anything to say about the use of Prayagraj in trusted sources and the non-importance of WP:COMMONNAME in previous cases? --Glennznl (talk) 21:40, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

As non-Indian, i think Allahabad is used in very credible and recognizable top news sources like BBC, CNN, AFP, AP, Reuters, etc and all Indian news are demmed unreliable when takin Allahabad/Prayagraj issue. 36.77.95.92 (talk) 23:38, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

Replying to IP user: As shown in the links above, Prayagraj is used by top news sources too and Indian sources have not been included to prevent including possible bias. --Glennznl (talk) 09:05, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

English is one of the official languages in India, and lots of books and newspapers are published in English in India. One of the best arguments for Wikipedia continuing to use Allahabad, is because of its prevalence in English-language publications from India. (Though the P-word should also be used, because it is becoming almost as common as Allahabad in India.)-- Toddy1 (talk) 09:24, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

@Toddy1: In that case, including Indian sources, I googled both Allahabad and Prayagraj and browsed the first 4 pages of Google News. For Allahad, almost all mentions were actually for "Allahabad High Court". Excluding the court with "-court" resulted in the majority of results being articles about "Allahabad University" and "Allahabad Bank". For Prayagraj, only the city itself is meant when looking for news articles featuring "Prayagraj". This would make Prayagraj the prefered name per WP:PRECISION. As mentioned by yourself, Prayagraj "is becoming almost as common as Allahabad in India", but when refering purely to the city, Prayagraj actually seems more common in most recent news articles. --Glennznl (talk) 12:10, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

Regarding the double standards, you can raise it on those other article talk pages and ask why they were moved against WP:COMMONNAME, if they were. Or you may take it to ANI or other noticeboards about the violations. But referring to them here and asking why this article hasn't moved yet isn't really the best argument for the RM/RfC. Only the first sentence with the 6 sources is the argument that you would need here and expand upon. — DaxServer (talk to me) 08:24, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

There are countless examples of the English language Media using and preferring „Prayagraj“.

Should we write all the links, will the article then be named „Prayagraj“?

Again and again another Indian writes here on Wikipedia again, why the City is still Not being renamed on English Wikipedia.. when it finally is renamed, Do you think that people will wonder as often why the City is not called Allahabad anymore..

--Tecumseh*1301 (talk) 02:41, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

Tecumseh*1301, a week or two ago I inferred from your message at the top of this thread that you wanted an RFC. If you want an RFC, why not start an RFC? (Or do you not want an RFC?) -- Hoary (talk) 09:25, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

Prayagraj is the current name of the city. DW uses Prayagraj, Reuters is also using it as mentioned above. Even a far left anti-India newspaper such as The Guardian is using it here, MSN is using it, fox news, Euronews, etc. Some extreme far left newspapers e.g BBC, is also using the name 1:32 min (sorry for the video, difficult to find anything positive about India in the BBC and sometimes reluctantly using it. In summary, as a non-Indian, western citizen, I can say that in western English, Prayagrag is definitely the most used name for this city nowadays therefore the article should be changed to Prayagraj. --Lambrusquiño (talk) 19:56, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

@Lambrusquiño I don't see why your commentary of the far-left-right anti-for-India is necessary at all. — DaxServer (talk to me) 07:16, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

@DaxServer: Similarly, you could have just commented on his evidence. --Glennznl (talk) 16:38, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

RfC discussion

• There is no way of deciding issues like this where the usage may be changing. I'm no expert on the area, but if someone said Allahbad, I'd know what country it is, and until today I've never hear of Prayagraj. The experience of random people here like me should not be considered as evidence. DGG ( talk ) 22:45, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

• I stay away from controversial articles usually, but I cannot believe that there is so much fighting and debate over this article's moving. I know this falls under WP:OTHERSTUFF but Nur-Sultan was moved from Astana with ease. I can't help but wonder why there seems to be particular resistance when it comes to an India-related article. I don't care for the 'centuries of oppression of Hindus' or the 'systematic oppression of Muslims', just keep it consistent. The current consensus elsewhere is that pages should be moved to reflect the official names, as is seen at Astana→Nur-Sultan. Therefore, I believe that it wouldn't be out of the ordinary to move Allahabad→Prayagraj. Please just forget the politics for once so we can actually keep things consistent here. (JayPlaysStuff | talk to me | What I've been up to) 01:26, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

There is a simple logic why should Allahabad page be changed to Prayagraj. What is the purpose of Wikipedia articles? To provide information right? So anyone coming here to search for Allahabad or Prayagraj will always land on the correct page and the opening line of the article will clarify why someone is seeing Prayagraj while s/he searched for Allahabad or vice versa. Rules/Guidelines are made to make things organized, that doesn't mean we should be stuck with those. Rules are subject to interpretations like WP:COMMONNAME, most of the people opposing the name change cite example of google search and English newspapers (most of those use both Allahabad and Prayagraj). Citing google search number of pages to determine commonness of a name would be foolish, because for the same reason Donald trump's page should mention that Trump is an idiot (no offense - just to cite an example) because this phrase search yields search pages to the tune of 30 millions. with advent of technologies WP:COMMONNAME is no more relevant (most will comment this is not the right place and if I feel this rule is not relevant so I should start discussion at the right place). Not changing the of this page is more to do with special resistance to India specific articles (which most of the opposers will deny and their denial doesn't matter). Personally, it doesn't matter to me if this article's title is Allahabad or Prayagraj, because whichever name and wherever I search, I will always land to this article's page. But logically it has to be Prayagraj. If the opposers of this name change cite rules as the reason and they really feel that wiki rules are so important and must be followed, then they must start conversation and revert other pages names like Eswatini back to Swaziland. Please don't ask me to start that conversation because in my opinion the name change is correctly done and for the same reason it should be done with this article as well. Rohit klar (talk) 12:45, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

• Support May I ask, when will the name finally be changed to Prayagraj? Look at evidences present here by Tecumseh, Jay and Rohit. 🌌Zoglophie🌌 17:35, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

The name will be changed when ordinary English readers are actually mainly using the new name. WP follows, not leads use among English speakers. The evidence is that most at present aren't even aware of the change - I certainly wasn't. BTW is has nothing to do with any 'anti-Indian' prejudice. People from Czech Republic make exactly the same complaints about their name changes. Pincrete (talk) 06:21, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose (Summoned by bot) Wikipedia does not use the official name, it uses the name most common to English speakers the evidence offered still strongly implies that the older name is more used by Eng speakers. The Guardian for example has nearly ten times as many uses of 'Allahabad" (About 1,070 results as opposed to About 115 results for Prayagraj, and almost all uses of Prayagraj relate to the Kumbh Mela). BTW the rename discussion below is invalid if an RfC is occurring at the same time. One or the other should be closed or both will be void. Pincrete (talk) 06:21, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

Allahabad vs Prayagraj from 1980 – 2019 per Google ngrams

• Strong oppose for two reasons:
  • per Wikipedia's article title policy, which says:

    Wikipedia does not necessarily use the subject's "official" name as an article title; it generally prefers the name that is most commonly used (as determined by its prevalence in a significant majority of independent, reliable English-language sources).

  • a comparison of actual usage of the two names between 1980 and 2019 shows that usage of Prayagraj has been increasing steadily since 2015, but Allahabad is still used over 50 times as much in books.

There may be a time to change the article title to Prayagraj, but we are very far from that point now. Note: for those wishing to contribute to this Rfc, you will strengthen the impact of your !vote by backing it with a Wikipedia policy or guideline; simply stating a preference, or making an appeal to "official" status carries very little weight here. Mathglot (talk) 14:34, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Requested move 20 September 2021

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

The result of the move request was: NOT MOVED. The arguments in favor of the proposal aren't based in policy while the opposes are.

• There is a numerical consensus against the move. The contrast grows further sharp, if weighed by the age of accounts.
• The first two supports by JayPlaysSTuff and Glennzzl invokes a move-precedent. However, I fail to see how the two precedents can serve as an appropriate yardstick.

• "Most of the reliable sources have begun using the new name after the name-change" — this was the main thrust driving those RMs, something which has been conclusively rejected over our case. Other editors have also pointed the perils of using WP:OSE.

• Vajra Raja's support might be a valid pov but it has no basis in established policy. Tecumseh's arguments are borderline rants (as is RohitKlair's)^{Clarifying on Havelock Jone's comment} based on predictions and whatnot.

• Rohit Klair's is indeed devoid of policy - he name-drops COMMONNAME but fails to explain/exhibit how COMMONNAME is met by the target.

• desmay's counts are clearly wrong.
• Toddy1's replies, in support of opposition, have been brilliant and I did not spot a single effective counter.
• Nonetheless, some of the opposes were ludicrous. But overall, the massive superiority of their arguments over the other camp was quite evident. Thanks, (non-admin closure) TrangaBellam (talk) 20:36, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

---

• Allahabad → Prayagraj. — Per above discussions in favour of motion, I'm finally proposing name change of this article. There are ample reliable English foreign news sources now that establish the city's common name as Prayagraj as cited already. Tecumseh*1301, JayPlaysStuff and Rohit klar you may wish to move your comments in this appropriate section. 🌌Zoglophie🌌 17:55, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

Edit : Mathglot, Glennznl, Toddy1, 36.77.95.92, Lambrusquiño and DGG please feel free to comment here as well.🌌Zoglophie🌌 18:42, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

• Speedy oppose An RfC is under progress — DaxServer (talk to me) 17:59, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

DaxServer discussion is open for more than a month now, clearly it is in favour. 🌌Zoglophie🌌 18:05, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

The RfC is open just 4 days ago, contrary to what you see. This is the exact reason why I have put the subheadings to convey this (which apparently didn't work?) — DaxServer (talk to me) 21:02, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

There have been multiple discussions even before Rfc if we go through the History section of page. Let us stop fooling around too much (It's already 3 years) and let this one go on. 🌌Zoglophie🌌 09:00, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

I wasn't aware asking for a centralized discussion in the already existing RfC is fooling around — DaxServer (talk to me) 09:43, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

• Question: To the Requestor of this page move @Zoglophie:: As this is a controversial page move, which involves changing the 400-year-old name of a city that has been important historically, politically, and socially, and the name, moreover, has been changed by a partisan state government: in which WikiProjects did you advertise the move request? On WT:INDIA you posted a full two days after this page move began. Did you post in WikiProjects Pakistan, Bangladesh (as they too were successor states of the empires to which Allahabad belonged for 330 years (Mughal, British) and most especially Wikipedia talk:WikiProject British Empire (as Allahabad was the capital of the North-Western Provinces)? Did you post in WikiProjects History, Journalism, and Medicine? The last because Allahabad was the hub of many cholera epidemics during the 19th century. I believe this RfM has not been conducted in a manner that elicits the opinion of the cross-section of WP's editorship that is either familiar with the name or with the issues arising in such name changes. Quite a few, if their statements are to be believed, are locals, ie. from the city. Best, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:45, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

• Support As I said before, the current consensus on other articles is that names should be changed to reflect official names, as seen at Eswatini and Nur-Sultan. Stop being political so we can keep things consistent. (JayPlaysStuff | talk to me | What I've been up to) 19:31, 20 September 2021 (UTC)
  • It's actually the name changes that are political, is it not? -- Necrothesp (talk) 11:14, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
• Strong support Repeating some arguments: Prayagraj is found in western media (1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6), Prayagraj actually seems more common in most recent news articles when only refering to the city (exluding Allahabad "-High Court" -"University" and "-Bank" from search queries), and lastly, a precedent has been set to prefer official city names when usage in media has been attested, the most notable recent example being Astana -> Nur-Sultan. --Glennznl (talk) 20:10, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

• Comment There has been a lot of misinformation in the above claims and discussion - Wikipedia:Official names clearly states:

While common names are generally preferred over official names as article titles, there are some valid exceptions. These are documented in the specific-topic naming conventions.

People often assume that, where an official name exists for the subject of a Wikipedia article, that name is ipso facto the correct title for the article, and that if the article is under another title then it should be moved. In many cases this is contrary to Wikipedia practice and policy.

It's a very easy mistake to make, and a very common one. There are several places in which editors are urged to read the article title policy before proposing or supporting name changes, but for one reason or another, proposals based entirely on official or legal names just keep coming.

Equally. it is irrelevant what name is used by local people/media, who will be the people referring to the place most frequently, and so appearing most frequently in Google searches. The people in Vienna, Austria use Wein, Österreich; those in Munich, Germany use München, Deutschland; those in Rome, Italy, use Roma, Italia - but we are not going to change our titles for any of these articles - neither city, nor country, because of local, or aggregate, usage. These examples clearly show that this is not "colonialism", or other accusations, as are often claimed - it is the names that English speakers, this being the English Wikipedia, associate with these places. - Arjayay (talk) 20:43, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

Comment Prayagraj has increasingly been adopted by the mainstream sources. Encyclopedia Britannica, for example, changed it to Prayagraj. Google Maps uses Prayagraj. Bing Maps uses both, but Prayagraj first. Oxford Reference now lists Prayagraj (the complete entry is Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh/India (Prayaga, al-Ilahābād /Illahabas, Allahābād)). I haven't looked thoroughly into this, I must say. Arjayay: you make good remarks there, as you typically do. Note though that all those are equivalent and minor variants, phonetic.... Roma and Rome, Munchen and Munich etc. And those are spellings in local language and not the primary English spelling equivalent. Allahabad and Prayagraj aren't. It is more of a "Madras or Chennai" type change. Unfortunately "Allahabad or Prayagraj" is one with religious-emotional angle for some sides. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 01:20, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

Arjayay I never used the word Colonialism in any of my comments but somehow the doubts are generated when policies are not fair and equal. For example Macedonia to North Macedonia, Astana to Nursultan, Eswatini from Swaziland. These changes were swift, there were no instances if somebody raised the WP:COMMONNAME there. The discussion for changing Nursultan back to Astana failed. All these were done not many years ago. Talking about those German and Austrian places, it is minor spelling changes and CANNOT be compared with this one. Here, if we talk in true sense Prayag was used centuries ago only to be changed by invaders later on around 16 th century. Now after 3 years from 2018 it's reversion again to Prayagraj, You can look it's been established as Common name used everywhere around the World (see these above comments, it is just not locally referred as Prayagraj). And it means World is now relating to name change with only and only exception of Wikipedia. 🌌Zoglophie🌌 09:00, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

• Support: Wikipedia article titles should reflect the official name of administrative regions. Therefore this page should be moved to Prayagraj. There has been set precedence of changing Wiki pages in response to administrative name changes. For example, when Macedonia was officially changed to North Macedonia, this was adopted throughout Wikipedia articles. Historical names are included in the history section or mentioned in the intro, but not used as the article title. A previous comment debated official names compared to common names. However, that convention is generally meant to be applied to specific topics such as official drug names vs common names, scientific names of species vs common names, etc. Administrative regions should be kept as accurate as possible to prevent unnecessary complications and to not provide antiquated information. Vajra Raja (talk) 03:08, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

  Comment: Official names should not be used as article names ipso facto, and this is not only for generic drug names and such, as you claim per WP:NCGN. This is also not something to be debated here, and should be discussed on the guideline page if you think it ought to change. Uness232 (talk) 20:25, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose as a foreigner who doesn't much know about Indian history, i think this article should be keeped as Allahabad as the majority of international news source still called the city as Allahabad, even for non-English newspapers. 36.77.94.253 (talk) 11:30, 21 September 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose Wikipedia does not use the official name, it uses the name most common to English speakers, compare with Bangalore (another city in India that has undergone a name change). Although the official name is ‘Bengaluru’ we use the former on Wikipedia. The fact that may institutions in the city use ‘Allahabad’ such as the Allahabad High Court and Allahabad Bank proves that it is still the more common name for English speakers. Ale3353 (talk) 14:58, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

Ale3353 Yes, the most common to speakers now is Prayagraj. It is now present in various news sources and articles in google search. The highcourt chose to retain it's name as Allahabad, but it does not mean Prayagraj has not been in common usage if we speak in present context. The bank named after Allahabad is now merged with Indian bank and no longer remains as separate entity. Even Bangalore should undergo a name change for the same reason (it was way back in 2014). I would also expect some experienced user to comment on the inconsistencies in name changing conventions as shown already. 🌌Zoglophie🌌 15:26, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose (Summoned by bot) Wikipedia does not use the official name, it uses the name most common to English speakers the evidence offered still strongly implies that the older name is more used by Eng speakers. The Guardian for example has nearly ten times as many uses of 'Allahabad" (About 1,070 results as opposed to about 115 results for Prayagraj, and almost all their uses of Prayagraj relate to the Kumbh Mela). BTW the rename discussion is invalid if an RfC is occurring at the same time. One or the other should be closed. Pincrete (talk) 06:13, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

@Pincrete: Your comparison using The Guardian is flawed, as you used mention of Allahabad of all time. When only searching for mentions of the past year, Allahabad and Prayagraj have the same results, for the Guardian atleast. --Glennznl (talk) 14:21, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

Well that would be fine then, as long as the reader limited themself to reading something written in the last few months! Actually they STILL aren't equal if you limit to recent times - Allahabad still predominates in 2020 and 2021. Pincrete (talk) 18:13, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

Yet Pincrete this policy does not follow the same for every place like Astana, Macedonia and Swaziland. These changes are recent and still the Wikipedia title uses their official names. One doesn't even know if any of them has reached common usage in their new names, but still it was ignored. Only in the case of India, Prayagraj even with strong evidences of recent usage by high quality websites in Google still does not pass the Common usage criteria of Wikipedia, how strange is that. Prayagraj is famous for Kumbh mela and it is widely known for the very reason, in addition with confluence of three rivers. Those search results are thing of past when name wasn't changed, but now it is used to refer it as a city namely Prayagraj. Give your opinion in this matter. 🌌Zoglophie🌌 08:43, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

North Macedonia (which is what you probably mean) took many years to resolve, and the addition of a prefix isn't difficult to understand or master. You, and other supporters are simply repeating the same things over and over - which doesn't make them any truer on the nth repeat, WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS is always a threadbare argument - I can point to cases where policy has been properly applied and name changes resisted until fully established. All the evidence is that while most sources are sometimes now using the 'new' name, the old name is still being used with massively greater frequency. And no, this is not anti-Indian prejudice, though it could be indirectly because the new name is more difficult/less recognisable for English native speakers. Commenting on every post you disagree with is simply going to alienate RfC-ers and highlight how much you have lost the central argument. Pincrete (talk) 13:39, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose. As with most Indian name changes like this, the common name even in India remains the old name. -- Necrothesp (talk) 11:13, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

Necrothesp absurd comment, care to elaborate? 🌌Zoglophie🌌 11:54, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

What you actually mean is, you don't agree with it! See WP:COMMONNAME and WP:OFFICIAL. Where's the proof that Prayagraj is now the common name around the world? -- Necrothesp (talk) 12:00, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

• Decline to vote; procedural close – This Rfc is invalid while another Rfc started earlier on the same topic is still ongoing. You can see my !vote in the other Rfc here. Mathglot (talk) 14:38, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

Here some sources to refer 1, 2 3 4 5 6 7 🌌Zoglophie🌌 14:43, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

@Zoglophie:, I think you've adequately made your point, and everyone knows where you stand on the issue. Please consider not responding after every post, and read WP:BLUDGEON. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 14:50, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

Allahabad vs Prayagraj from 1980 – 2019 per Google ngrams

• Strong oppose for two reasons:
  • per Wikipedia's article title policy, which says:

    Wikipedia does not necessarily use the subject's "official" name as an article title; it generally prefers the name that is most commonly used (as determined by its prevalence in a significant majority of independent, reliable English-language sources).

  • a comparison of actual usage of the two names in books between 1980 and 2019 shows that usage of Prayagraj has been increasing steadily since 2015, but Allahabad is still used over 50 times as much as Prayagraj.

There may be a time to change the article title to Prayagraj, but we are very far from that point now. Note: for those wishing to contribute to this Rfc, you will strengthen the impact of your !vote by backing it with a Wikipedia policy or guideline; simply stating a preference, or making an appeal to "official" status carries very little weight here. Mathglot (talk) 14:34, 22 September 2021 (UTC) struck my previous !vote, and copied my response from the earlier Rfc here after that one was archived. Mathglot (talk) 14:50, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

• Comment Did the references I provided do not fulfill the guidelines for common name? Washington Post, The Guardian, New York Times?? Furthermore, It might seem I'm repeating the same thing again and again, but why no person is talking about 'possible' exceptions of 3 places changed to their official names? Here, Here, Here Two of those changes were done in 2019 itself! Not pointing towards any specific editor. 🌌Zoglophie🌌 15:18, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

  No one is obligated to satisfy you; I strongly advise you to read WP:BLUDGEON. If you have strikingly new and compelling information to bring to bear that will cause minds to change, then fine; but if you are simply repeating old arguments over and over again, then you will be approaching WP:DISRUPTIVE behavior. Please step back; your best strategy now is watchful waiting. Mathglot (talk) 15:26, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose at the moment. Google scholar searches suggest "Allahabad" was used approximately three times as much as "Prayagraj" even since 2019. As such I see no basis for a change at this time. Vanamonde (Talk) 15:46, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose Google Scholar usage of Allahabad is prevalent in comparison to Prayagraj since 2019 (the name change occurred in October 2018). (The total usage shows Allahabad is used extensively while Prayagraj isn't). The Ngram shows the same (from Mathglot's comments). Although the usage of Prayagraj is picking up, Allahabad is still the widely used name. (struck my !vote at the beginning as the RfC is closed as moot) — DaxServer (talk to me) 16:04, 22 September 2021 (UTC) (Updated with scholar links over all time — DaxServer (talk to me) 16:26, 22 September 2021 (UTC))
• Strong oppose per DaxServer. Dāsānudāsa (talk) 13:57, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
• With Google scholar for the period 2019-2022, 24% of references use the P word, and 76% use Allahabad.^{Allahabad Prayagraj}-- Toddy1 (talk) 19:24, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
• Strong Support

Google scholar shouldnt be mentioned so much, because if it would be taken as the strongest Argument, than no terminus would ever change, people would still say "Macedonia" and not "North Macedonia" there are a mot lore examples.

Of course it takes a little bit of time until people will get used to the New Name, but with the media supporting the new Name Prayagraj , this will prevail in Not auch a long amount of time.

This is a never-ending discussion, because the residents strongly Support the name Prayagraj and will express their feelings via Wikipedia, only Look at the numbers, how often people write via English Wikipedia why the City is still being called Allahabad here, while

on the majority of Wikipedias the City is called Prayagraj, because for instance on Scandinavian Wikipedia they Support the Right of self-determination.

If you change it now to Prayagraj, you will Do the Right thing.

Plus I would like to know what the difference is between 2019 and 2021 Google scholar usage is in comparison. 2019 the name existed for a few Months, how does it Look in 2021 so far?

--Tecumseh*1301 (talk) 20:14, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

Where is the evidence for your claim that "residents strongly Support the name Prayagraj"? Do you mean residents of Berlin?-- Toddy1 (talk) 21:34, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

Google Scholar results by year (as of 25 Sep 2021)
Date range	Allahabad	Prayagraj	% P
2017	9,950	66	0.7%
2018	9,310	98	1.0%
2019	8,660	1,230	12.4%
2020	8,500	2,120	20.0%
2021	5,690	1,910	25.1%
2019-21	16,300	5,280	24.5%

-- Toddy1 (talk) 09:52, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

An exclusionary search using Google Scholar by year (as of 26 Sep 2021)
Date range	Both Allahabad and Prayagraj	Allahabad (excluding Prayagraj)	Prayagraj (excluding Allahabad)	% both	% A only	% P only
2017	54	9,900	12	0.5%	99.3%	0.1%
2018	58	9,250	40	0.6%	99.0%	0.4%
2019	687	7,960	536	7.5%	86.7%	5.8%
2020	1,150	8,000	865	11.5%	79.9%	8.6%
2021	1,170	4,700	747	17.7%	71.0%	11.3%
2019-21	3,090	15,900	2,150	14.6%	75.2%	10.2%

-- Toddy1 (talk) 10:50, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

I click in the links with the numbers but I dont find the numbers on Google Scholar. Where exactly on the site do you find for example 209 entries for Prayagraj on Google Scholar in the year 2021 so far? Where Do you get These figures from?

--Tecumseh*1301 (talk) 20:53, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

Here — DaxServer (talk to me) 22:50, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose There are three reasons to oppose: (a) statistics, (b) logic, and (c) history. It is rarely the case that all three combine in such synchronicity, that a teacher has no hesitation in bestowing by grade F in the blue book. First the stats. (a) According to WP:SOURCETYPES, "When available, academic and peer-reviewed publications, scholarly monographs, and textbooks are usually the most reliable sources." In scholarly books published in the 21st century, two decades being a good sample for modernity, there are 121,000 that use "Allahabad" exclusively, i.e. with no mention of Prayagraj. On the other hand, there are a measly 1,900 using Prayagraj exclusively. We are talking 67 to one. This is not squeaking through by a statistical margin of error. (b) Logic. The notion that the birthplace of the world's First Cholera Pandemic and the confluence today of two highly polluted rivers is somehow the King of the Confluences (prayag (confluence) + raj (king)) doesn't seem to add up. See my pictures in Vishnuprayag, Nandprayag, Karnaprayag, Rudraprayag, and Devprayag and my hand-drawn map File:HeadwatersGanges1.jpg. (c) History. Allahabad is more than a confluence of two rivers. It is a city with history. It has a university. It has some pretty British-era buildings, which Indians, to their credit, have maintained more fastidiously than they have their holy river. So please forget this page move. Instead, go into the Himalayas and live a little, and see the other prayags, take a plunge in their brisk waters, and when you emerge, this silly Wiki-lawyering hunched over your laptops regurgitating your half-digested bookish knowledge and newfound zeal over a patently absurd page move will be a faraway memory. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:45, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
• Very strong oppose As a people from outside India, i believe that the city name should be Allahabad than Prayagraj. In my country, i have been told to know the city as Allahabad, which is eligible per WP:COMMONNAME. Non-english language (aside from Indian language) media continues to refer the city as Allahabad, which is a good name. 114.125.236.140 (talk) 04:22, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

So this IP address User is going to log in the next time from another device and duplicate his view with another "oppose". Do we really want to recognize these posts by IP adresses plus.. you clearly refer to your non-English speaking country/non-English Media, well we discuss English-language usage of the name Prayagraj / Allahabad so this absolutely is Not the Right topic.--Tecumseh*1301 (talk) 13:22, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

@Tecumseh*1301: I suggest you strike your comment out immediately. Baseless accusations of sockpuppetry may result in a block of your account. — kashmīrī ^TALK 17:11, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

• Strong Support - The official name is now Prayagraj. Allahabad can be mentioned in the article as a common name. But as of now, people here in India have started to use the name Prayagraj rather Allahabad also all the official notices, media houses common people even international media is nowadays, using the new name. This move should be done at the earliest. HiWikiEdit (talk) 04:40, 25 September 2021 (UTC) (banned sock — DaxServer (talk to me) 14:39, 26 September 2021 (UTC))

•  Comment: Just an observation that all the Support !votes but one have been cast by editors either having less than 1,000 edits or under 2 years old, whereas established editors tended to Oppose the move. — kashmīrī ^TALK 09:08, 25 September 2021 (UTC)
•  Comment: Why on earth do you write this.. really? this is so cheap, you want to declare All support-Writers stupid and Not experiencws and with that Not able. But still the Support section is better than no name IP-addresses in the oppose-section, Who wrote only this one comment in their first time on Wikipedia.

The one, who sits in a glasshouse shouldnt throw with stones.

But anyway lets take it easy and not comment any longer, others should be able to write their Points of view as well.

More interesting would be if you or anyone Else could answer the already often asked questions:

1. Why was Macedonia moved to North Macedonia (or many other geopraphical city names, like the ones that Ukraine renamed) on English Wikipedia and why Do yo argue here with Prayagraj, and please tell big differences Not tiny ones.

2. And maybe you are able to tell us the Biggest Argument for the oppose-section with everyone mentioning Google scholar, they include 2019 and 2020. A more accurate year would be 2021, I dont know how to See percentages on Google Scholar, maybe you can help me with understanding this.

How is the percentage of the two names Prayagraj and the A-word for the year 2021)?

--Tecumseh*1301 (talk) 23:34, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

Why Macedonia was moved to North Macedonia: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Macedonia) — DaxServer (talk to me) 08:55, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

With Dnepropetrovsk (formerly Yekaterinoslav):

1. Requested move 19 May 2016 the article was not moved from "Dnipropetrovsk" to "Dnipro", because it was shown that the WP:COMMONNAME was Dnipropetrovsk.
2. Requested move 17 July 2016 the article was not moved from "Dnipropetrovsk" to "Dnipro", because nothing had changed since May 2016
3. Requested move 16 July 2017 it was moved to "Dnipro", because by 2017 English language usage had adopted the new name and there was enough evidence to prove the change in usage for the city.

Note that some articles related to Dnepropetrovsk were moved much later, for example Dnipropetrovsk International Airport was moved to "Dnipro International Airport" in April 2021 - again the reason is that Wikipedia follows real life. So as long as the airport used the nice old name, and the old name was in general use, it was impossible to justify changing the article.-- Toddy1 (talk) 16:36, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

An exclusionary search using Google Scholar by year (as of 27 Sep 2021)
Date range	Both A and P	Allahabad only	Prayagraj only	% both	% A only	% P only
2021	1,170	4,710	747	17.7%	71.1%	11.3%

-- Toddy1 (talk) 16:18, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

Comment - Toddy1 The search result of Allahabad alone includes Allahabad High court and Allahabad Bank and Allahabad Safeda a Guava variety as well. Out of the first page search result of 10 only 6 are referring the city. Could you refine your search to exclude Allahabad University, Allahabad Bank and Allahabad Safeda then post the result? This filter will surely reduce the number significantly Rohit klar (talk) 23:37, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

An exclusionary search using Google Scholar by year (as of 28 Sep 2021) cherry-picked to favour Prayagraj by excluding sources containing any of the following: "bank, "university", "safeda".
Date range	Both A and P	Allahabad only	Prayagraj only	% both	% A only	% P only
2021	344	728	209	27.1%	56.7%	16.3%

-- Toddy1 (talk) 07:02, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

An exclusionary search using Google Scholar by year (as of 28 Sep 2021) cherry-picked to favour Prayagraj by excluding sources containing any of the following: "bank, "university", "safeda", "high court".
Date range	Both A and P	Allahabad only	Prayagraj only	% both	% A only	% P only
2021	344	697	209	27.5%	55.8%	16.7%

-- Toddy1 (talk) 07:19, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

An exclusionary search using Google Scholar by year (as of 28 Sep 2021) cherry-picked to favour Prayagraj by excluding sources containing any of the following: "Allahabad Bank", "Allahabad University", "Allahabad Safeda", "Allahabad High Court".
Date range	Both A and P	Allahabad only	Prayagraj only	% both	% A only	% P only
2021	1,140	4,340	755	18.3%	69.6%	12.1%

Sorry if this process of developing exclusionary searches seems long-winded. But it is important to have confidence that the tool is doing what we think it is doing.-- Toddy1 (talk) 07:41, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

The numbers game is flawed by definition. Should we now exclude Allahabad villages in Iran, or Allahabad neighbourhood in none-other-than Pakistan? There's no such thing like a perfectly exact number. There'll always be another thing to filter after removing all the pleasantries that Pakistan presents, even in WP apart from real-life. — DaxServer (talk to me) 08:27, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

An exclusionary search using Google Scholar by year (as of 28 Sep 2021) cherry-picked to favour Prayagraj by excluding sources containing any of the following: "Allahabad Bank", "Allahabad University", "Allahabad Safeda", "Allahabad High Court", "Iran", "Pakistan".
Date range	Both A and P	Allahabad only	Prayagraj only	% both	% A only	% P only
2021	986	3,340	632	19.9%	67.4%	12.7%

No problem! -- Toddy1 (talk) 08:48, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

I didn't expect you would add the exception 😅!! Thanks though! — DaxServer (talk to me) 10:29, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

The problem with exclusions is that they exclude valid results as well as possibly a few invalid ones - for example Allahabad+Iran Prayagraj+Iran.-- Toddy1 (talk) 11:45, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

It is practically impossible to get the perfect result, but yes, these exclusions in search give pretty fair info of data available for both the names.Rohit klar (talk) 20:45, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

• Comment. Some of these comments opposing this articles move are falsified claims. Many of these are by unnamed users, one was literally summoned by a bot. Others are arguably providing misinformation for misdirection. Necrothesp incorrectly states, "As with most Indian name changes like this, the common name even in India remains the old name". This is easily refuted, by comparing Bombay to Mumbai, Calcutta to Kolkata, etc. There has been no rational basis to why the name shouldn't be moved , except by the precedence of misinformation. Vajra Raja (talk) 04:19, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai are the only instances of such a name change being widely accepted in the wider world (hence my use of the word "most" as opposed to "all"!). See Talk:Bangalore, for instance. Eleven attempts to change the name on Wikipedia have failed! -- Necrothesp (talk) 09:10, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

Refuted claims against the use of Prayagraj. Prayagraj was historically the common name used since the Vedic Era. Furthermore, it is currently used in the modern era as the official name of the administrative region. This would be the equivalent of naming Istanbul as Constantinople. Vajra Raja (talk) 04:54, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

No, it really wouldn't. The difference is that Istanbul has entered common usage and the city hasn't been known as Constantinople since the 1920s. Surely you're not claiming the same for a city that has recently been renamed (whether it was once known by this name or not)? These things don't just happen overnight, whether the Indian government would like them to or not. It took centuries for the rest of the world to start using the name Istanbul! -- Necrothesp (talk) 11:02, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

Not at all saying you are wrong about WP:COMMONNAME and Istanbul right now @Necrothesp (as the current name of the article would show), but I think I have to say this for people to stop using Constantinople -> Istanbul arguments in any debate like this, as it is incredibly complicated.

It really isn't fair to say that it took centuries for the rest of the world to use Istanbul, rather it took, well, we don't know how long it took. As Istanbul (eis tin polin) is fundamentally a Greek name, it was used by Greeks and Turks colloquially since at least the 12th century (and Westerners after some time as well, although as Stamboul). What most people would call it before the 1920s is very complicated though, even in English where we only have two options; until the Turkish government made it mandatory to in the 1920s at least, some variant of Konstantinoupoli, whether that be Constantinople, Konstantiniyye or many others, remained popular. Other names such as Asitana and Tsargrad also enter the mix sometime after the 14th century in certain contexts, complicating matters even more, as it is likely the most popular name was a plurality, not a majority. So, @Vajra Raja, please do not play the Istanbul card in any situation, the mess of that city's name is so bad, we have a separate page for it. Uness232 (talk) 01:07, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

• Comment this show the comparision of intensity of searches between Allahabad and Prayagraj. If we look at this graph, there is not much difference between both the names. And Prayagraj exceeds the usage by a bit, combined by the fact it has been used commonly in media houses around the world. zoglophie 10:55, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

Google Trends comparison for worldwide Web Search 2004 – September 2021

• Allahabad (search term) and Prayagraj (city) (link)
  Allahabad (search term) and Prayagraj (city) (link)
• Allahabad (search term) and Prayagraj (search term) (link)
  Allahabad (search term) and Prayagraj (search term) (link)
• Allahabad (search term), Prayagraj (search term) and Prayagraj (city) (link)
  Allahabad (search term), Prayagraj (search term) and Prayagraj (city) (link)

Based on this I would say "Prayagraj" as "city", as Google suggests in the results (Knowledge Graph?), is comparable to that of Allahabad. However the term "Prayagraj" without any inputs from Google is nowhere and only being looked after the renaming. I'd say it's inconclusive in terms of whether Prayagraj is dominant search usage — DaxServer (talk to me) 11:30, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

You have to be very careful with interpreting results from computerised tools. Is the tool answering the question you think you have asked it? According to the graph the result for "Allahabad" and "Prayagraj (city)" have been more-or-less the same since January 2004. But the term "Prayagraj" was rare before 2018. So it seems most likely to me that Google is recognising that "Prayagraj" is a word that means "Allahabad", which is why the results are very similar. I have seen this quite a bit with Google searches - a search for one term also gives you results for other synonymous terms.-- Toddy1 (talk) 14:54, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

Google Trends results are almost completely useless for the purposes of discovering the correct name for an article. They show what users are searching for, which is ipso facto not a reliable source on the topic, but a compendium of data of non-reliable sources (users who are searching). On top of that, logically, they will search for the term that they are *not* familiar with, rather the one that they see and hear every day, so the data may favor the *less* frequently used term. The data you display above are interesting and reliable for showing what users are querying, and nothing more.

Let's put the question to Google Trends: Is Elvis alive, or dead? Well, I guess now we know the answer to that question; the user searches logged by Google Trends provide the answer. Mathglot (talk) 23:02, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

• Strong oppose Google knowledge graph is irrelevant here. It is not Prayagraj High Court, but it is still Allahabad High Court, University of Allahabad, Railway Recruitment Board Allahabad, CGHS Allahabad, Allahabad Nagar Nigam, and the government of India's website is still saying "Allahabad" (see this). It seems there are some political controversies regarding its name change which are not suitable for Wikipedia, and hence cannot be implemented here. A chief minister's decision on name change makes this move request irrelevant for Wikipedia as it is a free and collaborative project that works on real occurrences than presenting bot-generated facts.[15]. Once people identify Allahabad High Court, University etc. as Prayagraj High Court.... this move request seems needless. TheBirdsShedTears (talk) 19:43, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

• Comment - It's really disappointing to see how people are posting here (both opposing the name change and supporting the name change). Wikipedia is expected to be a neutral platform but looks like this trait is not learned. Most posts here either have a sarcastic or derogatory tone. Even wikipedia co-founder seems unhappy and feels this platform not anymore neutral [16], which is quite evident from the discussion going on here. This is just to remind everyone that unless the preconceived notion is dropped (by both opposers and supporters) unbiased discussion is impossible Rohit klar (talk) 00:00, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

Sorry, @Rohit klar: but there are all sorts of routes to a consensus. Sarcasm, satire, humor, as long as it is not personal, is not in itself an obstacle. Larry Sanger did once try to start a much-supervised and much-purified encyclopedia after he left Wikipedia, but it fell flat. So, relax, tell us instead whether you oppose or support and why. Best, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 01:39, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

• Support' - Fowler&Fowler I support for the reason which I had mentioned earlier as well. I ask a question, how would anybody land on this article's page? Either through search engine like Google or a search within Wikipedia right? You search Prayagraj or Allahabad, both will take you to this page. Wikipedia's purpose is to provide encyclopedic information to its readers. Suppose this page is renamed to Prayagraj and there is a redirection from Allahabad to Prayagraj, anyone searching for Allahabad will land here and the very first line of the article will tell the reader why he is seeing Prayagraj and not Allahabad as article title. This will also inform him/her that the city's name is Prayagraj not Allahabad. WP:COMMONNAME policy should be applied rationally, like any other law/rule. This policy makes perfect sense for article tiles like Bill Clinton and not William Clinton. Here the difference is, Bill Clinton is also one of his (nick)names, but Allahabad is no more a name of the city. I don't see any logical reason to keep the article name as Allahabad. The same applies to all similar articles be it Roma (not Rome) or Eswatini (not Swaziland) to name a few. In my opinion we would be doing more justice to the purpose of wikipedia by renaming this article as Prayagraj and providing a redirection from Allahabad.Rohit klar (talk) 20:45, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

  While you're correct that we *could* name it Prayagraj and everyone could still find the article via a redirect from Allahabad, it is equally true that we could rename the article Sangam City and everyone could still find it via redirects from the other two names. However, that is not an argument for renaming it to Sangam City, and your argument suffers from the same invalid reasoning. You are also correct that WP:COMMONNAME policy should be applied rationally, and based on the what the data actually shows, not least the diagram above representing the frequency of occurrences in books, clearly the overwhelming choice based on COMMONNAME at the present time is Allahabad. By the way, besides search, one of the main ways someone would end up on the article page is by clicking on a wikilink in some other article. There are 3,044 such links—here are the first 500 of them. Mathglot (talk) 04:46, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedians are reverted if they change the current article name to Prayagraj anywhere in wikipedia, so using wikipedia links cannot be more biased and useless in this discussion. --Lambrusquiño (talk) 19:12, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

@Rohit klar: Who has the mandate to change the name of an old city? The government, which changes every four or five years? The people? True, politicians are elected by the people, but they are elected by a majority, sometimes only by a plurality. If a politician won by 60 to 40, and the losing candidate preferred Allahabad, we don't change the name to Prayagabad.

As I have pointed out in my comments above (see WP:SCHOLARSHIP) in books published by academic publishers in the 21st century, Allahabad is Preferred to Prayagraj by 67 to 1. As the name was changed in 2018, nearly three years ago, unless the ratio drops down to 7 to 1, there is no logical reason to change it.

Then there is Europe. We don't change Venice, Florence, Milan, Rome, Spain, to Venezia, Firenze, Milano, Roma, España. English language encyclopedias have been around for two centuries. They have never used European names. That is because the Europeans don't care, they haven't for four centuries. The tourists from the Anglosphere keep coming regardless.

People keep citing statistics and accessibility, but the imperative here is encyclopedicity, in other words, the name that best reflects the sum-total of knowledge about the topic, and that among other things requires stability in an encyclopedia. Unlike politicians, knowledge does not change every four or five years. Prayagraj is not even close to reflecting encyclopedicity. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 00:35, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedians are reverted if they change the current article name to Prayagraj anywhere in wikipedia Probably because the naming conventions guideline outlines that the same name as in the title should be used consistently throughout the article, unless there is a widely accepted historical English name for a specific historical context, and applies to all articles. — DaxServer (talk to me) 07:39, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

• Comment Actually, quite frankly spoken, the discussion should end Right now, because we have predecessors!

We are able to relate this discussion about a name change with other recent ones, and it will be obvious, that if those articles were in fact renamed right here on English Wikipedia, it has to be done with Prayagraj the same way. You cant do it, and then all of a sudden not do it any more.

• Swasiland was renamed eSwatini
• Illitschivsk was renamed Chornomorsk
• Dnipropetrovsk was renamed Dnipro
• Macedonia was renamed North Macedonia

the list goes on and on.

With the examples listed above, residents acceptance of the new Name plus Media acceptance is arguably very much less than in the case of Prayagraj.

So, if you rename those articles, you have to rename Allahabad to Prayagraj, you just have to, because the guidelines should be the same, shouldnt they..

--Tecumseh*1301 (talk) 22:22, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

You have misunderstood how it works. Articles concerned with Dnepropetrovsk were only renamed with the new Dnipro name when there was evidence that the new name had become the commonly used name in the English-language. There were right-wing nationalist editors from the Ukrainian diaspora, Lvov and Kiev who wanted the change done much sooner. As for local residents, they called the police to try to stop council workmen from cutting the "petrovsk" off a large metal sign showing the city's name -- Toddy1 (talk) 07:49, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

@Tecumseh*1301

• Swaziland → eSwatini → Eswatini discussions here: Talk:Eswatini
• Illichivsk → Chornomorsk - I don't see any discussions
• Dnipropetrovsk → Dnipro - Talk:Dnipro (The first one was interesting)
• North Macedonia - Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Macedonia) as a result of binding consensus overseen by Arbcom. I suggest you to drop Macedonia arguments in the future

I hope these answered your questions as to why those articles were renamed and why not. I don't plan to respond anymore to these kind of comparisons (even if new examples were given). The only thing that matters is the Wikipedia:Article titles, which outlines how the article titles need to be decided (obviously). — DaxServer (talk to me) 09:32, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

• Strong support' for moving the article to Prayagraj, the current name used in english for this city with all evidence presented by other users. Prayagraj is used by most newspapers and news here in the UK and other english speaking countries. If we are going to use Google Ngram to decide a city name then Nur-Sultan should be moved to Astana, see Ngram here. Currently, Allahabad is a city in Iran, which should take the main name. I would like to add that wikipedia should not be used for religious or political agenda which I suspect is the reason some users oppose moving the article. I just realised of this discussion because an user left a threatening message in my user page for something a said months ago. --Lambrusquiño (talk) 18:58, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

• Support There are 1,31,00,000 results for Allahabad on Google News, while there are 2,20,00,000 results for Prayagraj. Prayagraj is more WP:COMMONNAME and clearly passes WP:NAMECHANGES. desmay (talk) 22:08, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

  I'm afraid you made a mistake somewhere. I'm not sure why you're using Google News, but if that's what you want to use, then it's ten-to-one in favor of Allahabad, or more precisely: 6,630,000 to 684,000. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 02:41, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

You seem to have confused two names with each other. Your two links show 96,40,000 results for "Allahbad" and 1,25,00,000 results for "Prayagraj". Indeed more results for Prayagraj. desmay (talk) 04:16, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

No, I'm sorry, the numbers I posted are valid, as anyone can verify with a click. Unfortunately I am unable to point out where your error lies, as your figures are unclickable and I'm not sure where you are getting them from. Cheers, Mathglot (talk) 04:42, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

I tried the two links posted by Mathglot. The results were: Allahabad about 10,300,000 (0.45 seconds), Prayagraj about 620,000 (0.42 seconds). In other words 94.3% Allahabad, 5.7% Prayagraj.-- Toddy1 (talk) 07:38, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

But if you vary the search terms to exclude the other name, you get different results for Google News: Allahabad only about 9,920,000 results (0.22 seconds), Prayagraj only about 263,000 results (0.24 seconds) – this is Allahabad 97.4%, Prayagraj 2.6%.-- Toddy1 (talk) 09:25, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

Mathglot, it is possible that Google is showing different results for editors based in India. I think that comparing the raw counts of Google News results is close to meaningless for either side of the argument. Rublov (talk) 12:22, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

@Rublov:, agreed, which is why News shouldn't be used (unless you check numerous, representative countries, which you can do in Preferences, but that's a lot of work). Mathglot (talk) 15:27, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose per Toddy1, without prejudice against a future RM should the balance of evidence shift in Prayagraj's favor. Rublov (talk) 15:52, 2 October 2021 (UTC)
• Vote Count thus far

• How do I love thee Prayagraj? Let me count the ways:

• Lovers: 1) JayPlaysStuff 19:31, 20 September 2021 (UTC) 2) Glennznl (talk) 20:10, 20 September 2021 (UTC) 3) Vajra Raja (talk) 03:08, 21 September 2021 (UTC) 4) -Tecumseh*1301 (talk) 20:14, 23 September 2021 (UTC) 5) Rohit klar (talk) 20:45, 29 September 2021 (UTC) 6) Lambrusquiño (talk) 18:58, 30 September 2021 (UTC) 7) desmay (talk) 22:08, 1 October 2021 (UTC) and 8) 🌌Zoglophie🌌 as Requester.
• Unlovers: 1) 36.77.94.253 (talk) 11:30, 21 September 2021 (UTC) 2) Pincrete (talk) 06:13, 22 September 2021 (UTC) 3) Necrothesp (talk) 11:13, 22 September 2021 (UTC) 4) Mathglot (talk) 14:34, 22 September 2021 (UTC) 5) Vanamonde (Talk) 15:46, 22 September 2021 (UTC) 6) DaxServer (talk to me) 16:26, 22 September 2021 (UTC)) 7) Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:45, 23 September 2021 (UTC) 8) 114.125.236.140 (talk) 04:22, 24 September 2021 (UTC) 9) TheBirdsShedTears (talk) 19:43, 27 September 2021 (UTC) 10) Rublov (talk) 15:52, 2 October 2021 (UTC) In my book, generally the votes of IPs don't count ("If the four ~~~~ don't fit, then you can't acquit.") So the unlovers and lovers are tied at 8. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 22:03, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

• Comment In order to win this the lovers will need a whopper of a win (as the sitting name is Allahabad), an avalanche of love, and I don't see that happening. So, instead of editors here wasting more community time with general purpose nonsense, I would like to invite a neutral admin to close the RM. the proposer of this ill-conceived, ill-timed, and ultimately ill-fated page move to withdraw the RfM. Controversial page moves such as this, which involves changing the 400-year-old name of a city because a partisan provincial government has changed it, requires a level of consensus that is already inconceivable in light of a critical mass of opposition here. Wikipedians have better things to do that this silly stuff. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 22:25, 2 October 2021 (UTC) Updated in light of the discussion below. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:05, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

@Fowler&fowler: Sorry, but this is not a vote; and secondly, if IPs don't count in your book, then you need to get another book as there is nothing in policy that says anything of the sort. Beyond that, idiosyncratic lists of vote tallies by involved editors don't help; they just encourage more pointless comments of a similar nature by others who may take a different view of the tally than you, none of which gets us to closure any sooner. I would urge you to consider removing your post above (and it's fine to remove this reply of mine along with it at the same time). Cheers, Mathglot (talk) 01:27, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

@Mathglot: I'd be delighted to remove my comment if you also allow me to remove all the "supports/opposes," and "strong supports/opposes" and any other signs of a "vote" in the chaotic discussion above. Please note WP:STRAWPOLL can be used as an indicator though not a determinant of consensus. Please also don't quote me WP rules; I know them. I don't count IPs because they could easily be sockpuppets. The vote right now is tied at 8, and given the way this discussion is proceeding, there is little chance that it will ever reach the level of unanimity needed for a consensus to change. It already has a critical mass of opposition. It is best we all save time. I agree with you that an admin will not close it until the requisite time is up; therefore, I have amended my previous post (see above) and am now asking the proposer of the page move to withdraw it in the interests of letting Wikipedians do more constructive things. Thaniks for your input. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 11:07, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

There was no reason to strike your closure invitation; the 7-day RM listing period lapsed a week ago, and the RM has not been relisted; it is sitting in backlog waiting for an available closer. Mathglot (talk) 16:40, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

PS I have also posed a question at the top for the Requester; I believe this page move request was not sufficiently advertised in the WikiProjects that have a bearing on such a page move. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:12, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

I'm a non-lover too! Dāsānudāsa (talk) 16:58, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose Not yet the COMMONNAME outside India, or even perhaps inside it. Come back in 5 years. Johnbod (talk) 18:13, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

• Comment - so, if you count the number, why Not include the dozens of folks opening a new discussion thread opting for the name Prayagraj for the last years. (including the deleted ones - by the way were those deletions righteous?) and of course the ones answering that they oppose the name change.

Should they Not be included because they simply weren't on this page at the Right time - that would be ridiculous.

And speaking of ridiculous. I yesterday checked Google Scholar and Google Trends for a number of similar articles, you know where a city's Name was changed and so was the English Wikipedia article's name afterwards.

Astana always and still is more common than Nur-Sultan.

Swaziland in comparison to eSwatini as well, although less.

So is Illichivsk compared to Chornomorsk.

And Dnipropetrovsk to Dnipro.

Actually all of the Ukrainian old city names are more popular than the new ones.

As well as Macedonia / North Macedonia.

Always the old names are used more on English.

But.. the article's names were changed, sometimes pretty quickly.

So aside from the pretty popular name Prayagraj being used in Media and it's Population, beside it being the original Name of the City, and it's official Status and it being the article's name within other Wikipedias, and of course with counting all people on this talk page opting for Prayagraj in comparison to Against it, this article's name simply has to be changed if English Wikipedia doesnt want to ridicule itself, with applying rules differently.

--Tecumseh*1301 (talk) 18:12, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

I replied somewhere a while ago, not sure to whom, that if there are objections against other page moves, one may find the respective talk pages and raise the objections. This page is not for throw-all-things-I-don't-agree-for-a-move debate as to why those pages are moved, or not moved. I have never heard of the Ukranian towns until you mentioned here. If they are actually against our article titles policy, then they should be moved. I wanted not to reply, but you don't seem to get the point that the names are based on the article titles policy, not based on Ukranian towns, nor Eswatini nor East/West/North/South Macedonia.

• Talk:Nur-Sultan
• Talk:Eswatini
• Talk:Chornomorsk
• Talk:Dnipro
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Ukraine
• Talk:North Macedonia

Go there and raise the objections with all the findings that you just discovered, or simply open a move request over there. Talk:Allahabad is most probably, like a 100%, the wrong place for discussion about those article moves. — DaxServer (talk to me) 18:43, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

EngVar

The current format (at least the notice) is set to EngVar. Should this be changed to Indian English or be left at EngVar with no national variant? — DaxServer (talk to me) 21:00, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

EngVar is fine; it used to be "Commonwealth English." Indians have sadly abandoned what used to be Standard Indian English. There was a time before the advent of the internet when linguists had great hopes for it. Some even forecast codification in the form of grammars, dictionaries, and usage guides. ... Sidney Greenbaum said ominously that it would require great confidence in their regional variety in the face of change. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 22:16, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

?? What does "set to EngVar" mean? The article notice says "This article is written in Indian English, which has its own spelling conventions...", and that hasn't changed recently. WP:ENGVAR is the policy, not any specific variety. Johnbod (talk) 14:05, 4 October 2021 (UTC)

Should have been more clearer in the beginning. My question arose from the same inconsistency, where the talk page said it's written in Indian English, while the article has {{EngvarB|date=August 2020}} but not {{Use Indian English}}. — DaxServer (talk to me) 14:35, 4 October 2021 (UTC)

Ah! Well, I think it should be {{Use Indian English}}, though, as Fowler says, what that means is a bit unclear these days. I have an Indian English dictionary/usage guide somewhere (covering words not in Br Eng). Johnbod (talk) 14:46, 4 October 2021 (UTC)

Propose an 18-month moratorium on move discussions for this page

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

After the August 2020 move discussion, we had a 12-month moratorium on move discussions for this page, and that worked well. We have just had a move discussion. I propose that we have an 18-month moratorium on move discussions for this page.

• The advantage of this for people who want a move is that in April 2023 there will be data from all of 2022 and 2021, which might support a change. There would even be 3-months worth of data from 2023, which might be useful. The trend seems to be for increasing use of the new name, so new data would help people who want the change.
• There is no point having a move discussion much before then, because the data will be much the same as now, so all people will have to do to defeat a move request is to quote much the same data as now.

-- Toddy1 (talk) 10:37, 4 October 2021 (UTC)

• Support - Far too much time is being wasted in going over and over the same old arguments, time which could be usefully spent improving the encyclopedia. The common name of a place does not change overnight, over a few weeks or even a few months, so 18 months seems reasonable - Arjayay (talk) 11:00, 4 October 2021 (UTC)
• Support - Yes, please. Does it allow to close the discussions or just the RM requests? — DaxServer (talk to me) 11:14, 4 October 2021 (UTC)

If the moratorium is worded "move discussions", then both.-- Toddy1 (talk) 13:01, 4 October 2021 (UTC)

• Support clear consensus that Allahabad is the common name right now based on the above discussions, and the underlying data isn't changing anytime soon; this discussion is just becoming a time sink. For what it's worth, most people I know outside of Uttar Pradesh still use "Allahabad" as the name for the city, including myself, whatever the BJP wants to say, and given that Allahabad seems to be the common name within India too (as far as I know), I'm seeing little reason to reopen this discussion till mid-2023, by which time it is pretty much possible the data may have changed. Given there is the state election next year in UP, I'd wait for the dust to settle after that election before taking a call again on this; should the BJP lose, there's the possibility the name change could be reversed. In short: there is no reason to discuss this again and again while the data is unlikely to change much. JavaHurricane 07:17, 6 October 2021 (UTC)
• Support per JavaHurricane, and also keeping in mind that hardly anybody in eastern UP calls Allahabad, "Prayagraj" (much like Banaras is still the local common name for Varanasi). — kashmīrī ^TALK 08:17, 6 October 2021 (UTC)

I was once on a train to Varanasi and asked the people opposite me if Varanasi was the next stop. They couldn't understand what I was talking about. It was only after I googled what the former name was and asked them if we were nearing Benares that they understood me! Dāsānudāsa (talk) 10:40, 6 October 2021 (UTC)

• Support Yes please. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 08:21, 6 October 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose 18 months, support 6 months. I don't find the body of evidence marshalled by the oppose voters on the RM to be that impressive. For instance, one support voter noted that many Western news outlets, including The New York Times, Reuters, and CNN, are using "Prayagraj" rather than "Allahabad". Unfortunately a large number of unsubstantiated support voters derailed the conversation and prevented a more nuanced discussion, but I don't see the clear consensus that others here claim. A binding moratorium on discussion of a contentious issue should not be taken lightly, and 18 months is far too long. Therefore I propose 6 months instead. Rublov (talk) 10:42, 6 October 2021 (UTC)

  I have posted a notification to WT:INDIA to solicit more comments. Rublov (talk) 10:48, 6 October 2021 (UTC)

  Most references to Allahabad are not in the realm of news and current affairs. We are an encyclopedia, not a travel guide (which upon reading users might be looking to book a flight.)

That Allahabad that was the capital of the North-Western Provinces in the second half of the 19th century, however, is encyclopedic information. The supporters of the RMs have been creating WP:DISRUPTION on Wikipedia by starting RMs whenever the mood strikes. I would even support a moratorium of two years Fowler&fowler«Talk» 11:03, 6 October 2021 (UTC)

There have been exactly two RMs for this article, with a gap of one year between. That is hardly disruptive. True, there have been many other discussions of changing the name outside of the formal RM process, but those discussions are non-binding and no one has to participate if they don't want to. Even for our article on Kyiv, which has seen no fewer than 13 RMs over the years, the latest moratorium lasted only a year. Rublov (talk) 14:50, 6 October 2021 (UTC)

Time wasted is time wasted whether in a wild RM or wild circuses. (Or since they hearken to the public spectacles of yore, should I say circi?). The name change went into effect in October 2018 (i.e. three years ago) The fact remains that in Google Books published in the 21st century, (with limited preview) "Allahabad" is used exclusively over "Prayagraj" by (the ratio) 59 to one (click on "Tools" to see the numbers) and in scholarly books with the same parameters by 61 to one. Please note our imperative WP:SOURCETYPES. The fact also remains that 21/3=7. Please tell me how this ratio will come down to 7 to one in six months? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:47, 6 October 2021 (UTC)

PS Or are we saying that Kama Maclean's classic Pilgrimage and Power: The Kumbh Mela in Allahabad, 1765-1954, Oxford University Press, 2008 does not count in an English language encyclopedia that caters to the world, only the ephemeral train schedules published by partisan governments do? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:28, 6 October 2021 (UTC)

These arguments are best kept for the RM discussions :) — DaxServer (talk to me) 17:08, 6 October 2021 (UTC)

• Comment I agree with Rublov. I don't think we need an extended moratorium and, given that this is a new official name, 18 months is way too long to reconsider the article title. --RegentsPark (comment) 14:55, 6 October 2021 (UTC)
• Support up to 18 months. Johnbod (talk) 14:58, 6 October 2021 (UTC)
• Support. 6 months is too short to show any meaningful shift among publications that are not obligated to use the official name, which is all that really matters; I'd support 12 months, or 18. Vanamonde (Talk) 16:32, 6 October 2021 (UTC)
• Support 18-month moratorium, because it's WP:DISRUPTIVE of editors' time (on both sides of the dispute), and because it seems clear that the same arguments are trotted out each time, with little difference between discussions. If the data showed that we were near the tipping point, then I'd vote for a 12-month moratorium but we are from that point now, according to the best data we have available. If new data comes to light which differs starkly from the current situation (such as credible evidence of a steep change in the proportion of frequency of usage in the coming months) then I'm fine with reducing it to twelve months. Mathglot (talk) 21:26, 8 October 2021 (UTC)
• Support up to 18 months per all above. Repeated RMs on the same topic simply aren't healthy. O.N.R. ^(talk) 21:11, 9 October 2021 (UTC)
• Support But i proposed 24-month moratorium instead 18-months in order to prevent any RM of this article because in my country, the name is still Allahabad. 36.65.44.135 (talk) 10:42, 14 October 2021 (UTC)
• Support But 24-months moratorium instead 18-months in order to prevent any page move regardless whether it is good faith users or not. 114.125.229.69 (talk) 10:44, 14 October 2021 (UTC)
• Strong support But with 24-month moratorium of page move instead of 18 months. The move request should not resumed until October 2023 at least. 116.206.35.11 (talk) 10:50, 14 October 2021 (UTC)
  • IP editors 36.65.44.135^location, 114.125.229.69^location, and 116.206.35.11^location are all from Palembang and by a remarkable coincidence all have the same opinion. It is possible that they are connected.-- Toddy1 (talk) 11:33, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

• Strong oppose: Now that Allahabad has officially been renamed as Prayagraj for over three years now. Prayagraj has entered the news media and other reliable encyclopedias. I read WP:WIAN, according to which the following should be reliable modern English language sources allowing for a name change on Wikipedia: Encyclopedia Britannica, Wall Street Journal, New York Times. There is no reason to withhold a name change for so long when we actually have more references coming up. In fact, Allahabad as the name for this place has become obsolete, and no major English news media calls it Allahabad since atleast early 2020. There should be a move discussion, and no moratoriums be placed. Thanks! ---CX Zoom(^he/_him) (^{let's talk}|_contribs) 06:59, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

  It would be great if someone could point me to a tool that finds the number of times a place is referred to as Allahabad and/or Prayagraj in sources generally considered reliable, i.e., aren't partisan websites, news media, blogs, books or pamphlets. ---CX Zoom(^he/_him) (^{let's talk}|_contribs) 07:24, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

Look at the tables in Talk:Allahabad#Requested move 20 September 2021. You will see that the numbers have a link, so that you check them by clicking on the link. If you look at User talk:Tecumseh*1301#How to do evidence in Wikipedia move discussions it tells you how to create such tables for other subjects. According to Tecumseh*1301, with the links there is a difference in searching via a mobile device (where no number is shown) and a computer (which shows a number).-- Toddy1 (talk) 08:41, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.