Wikipedia:Requested moves/United States

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

The result of the debate was no consensus. —Nightstallion (?) 11:44, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

This is the page to vote for the move United States to United States of America. Pages should be at the topic's official name, not the name it goes by. Almost every source I've seen has this topic under United States of America. Vote support if you think the page should be moved, oppose if you think it shouldn't. Voting ends 00:00, May 27, 2006. — Brendenhull 23:21, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Support

1. Support And no, you don't need to be logged on to vote. 70.51.9.190 19:16, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
2. Support I set up the vote, of course I support. — Brendenhull 19:19, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
3. Support The name of the state should be the name of the article. --Matthead 20:53, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
4. Support per User:Matthead. —RJN 21:03, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
5. Strong support Dpotop 22:17, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
6. Strong Support There is more than 1 United States,United States Of America and United States Of Mexico. Dudtz 5/20/06 6:47 pM EST
7. Support don't forget Winston Churchill's speech about a "United States of Europe". I think it's ok to use the full name in this case, just like in the case of People's Republic of China, in order to pre-empt confusion. Also if you are going to go by "most common name", it's certainly United States of America (USA). Gryffindor 17:11, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
   • US is a much more common abbreviation than USA, in my experience. United States is also a much more common usage than the full United States of America. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 05:50, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
8. support because "United States of America" is the official name, is common enough, and reduced ambiguity. Case in point: the article starts by calling it the "United States of America." "United States" should of course remain as a redirect to the page. — brighterorange (talk) 19:13, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
9. Support. "United States" is rather non-descript without adding "of America". −Woodstone 21:37, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
10. Strong support Article name should be the official name of the country. Sarbox 00:57, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
    • In which case, what should the name of the United Kingdom page be? —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 05:50, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
11. Support United States of America is much more encyclopedic that United States since the first one is the official name. —Black and White (_TALK^CONTRIBS) 01:03, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
    • In which case, what should the name of the United Kingdom page be? —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 05:50, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
12. Support I'm a bit confused as to the logic of those who are opposed to this move. "United States" is not a different name than "United States of America", it is only a short version. Heck, I bet more people use "the States" in conversation than "United States", but I doubt we'd want to title it that. -- Ned Scott 05:33, 22 May 2006 (UTC) -- Ned Scott 05:40, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
13. Support as per brighterorange and Gryffindor. sendai 05:46, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
14. Support per all of the above. —Nightstallion (?) 14:24, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
15. Strong Support Its the real name, not the shortened name. --larsinio (poke)^(prod) 15:30, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
16. Support - Runch 17:21, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
17. Support as per Dudtz Ruszewski 01:22, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Oppose

1. Oppose as per WP:NC: "Use the most common name of a person or thing that does not conflict with the names of other people or things." -- Mwanner | Talk 20:10, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
2. Oppose for the same reason as Mwanner. "United States" is used in the Constitution, in numerous federal laws and regulations, in nearly all newspapers, magazines, and journals, and in ordinary speech as the most common name of the United States of America. --Coolcaesar 21:46, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
3. Oppose — See Comments section below for reasoning related to my opposition. User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 23:02, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
4. Strong oppose in agreement with Mwanner. Article titles don't reflect "official" names, but common ones. While "United States of America" is somewhat common, "United States" is far more so. And I honestly doubt there are very many people who think of Mexico when they hear "United States." — Larry V (talk) 04:31, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
5. Oppose. If the page is moved, United States can stay a re-direct, but it can allow someone to remove the re-direct and make a dis-ambiguation page for other uses. Georgia guy 22:11, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

   I doubt this would stand. ~ trialsanderrors 23:49, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

6. Oppose per Mwanner. There is no plausible conflict here. Postdlf 00:48, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
7. Oppose. When I first came across the article on United States, I wondered why it wasn't named United States of America, but then I figured that the name United States is just as good, since it is more commonly used. For an encyclopedic source like Wikipedia, the article United States should best be left with that name, because that's what all other encyclopedias are doing, including the CIA World Factbook, a government site. Plus, a google search for United States yields more than three billion results [1], as compared to that of United States of America, with less than 900 million results [2]. The name of the country should be left in its conventional short form as the title of the article, but the first mentioning of the country should begin with its conventional long form, as what the article does.--Ryz05 _t 02:08, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
8. Strong oppose Circeus 03:35, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
9. Oppose per Mwanner. Also, an ease of use thing; so many articles must link here, it would be helpful to keep the article at the short name, so we can avoid redirects. Mangojuice^talk 05:32, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
10. Oppose It would require the fixing of thousands of links due to all the double redirects it would make. --Bachrach44 14:11, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
11. Oppose. If you don't like the naming conventions, then propose changing them, rather than proposing to move an article in clear violation of them. Proteus (Talk) 16:42, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
12. Oppose. There's nothing wrong with where it is. Unless you'd like to change Mexico to United States of Mexico. User:Zoe|^(talk) 18:07, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
13. Oppose — Per above args. — RJH 22:37, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
14. Oppose Above arguments. --TheDarkForest 04:34, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
15. Oppose. Wikipedia policy is to use common names, not official names. The most common name for this country is the United States, nor is any other entity commonly referred to by that name. Policy and precedent is quite clear. — Knowledge Seeker দ 09:52, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
16. Oppose: use common name to facilitate linking. Jonathunder 02:58, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
17. Oppose. Shall we move United Kingdom to United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland? —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 05:46, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
18. Oppose: use common names; it doesn't matter which one is official--Jiang 13:44, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
19. Oppose: WP:NC, link fixing issues, common name, and the move wouldn't improve anything. Mmounties (Talk) 17:02, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
20. Oppose: moving is hella dumb. --153.18.41.76 00:58, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
21. Oppose: "If a consensus is impossible to reach on precision, go with the rule of thumb, and use the more popular phrase." There is some precedent for using formal names for countries, such as those related to the Congo or China, but those need the more specific names because they mean distinct things. In the case of "United States" and "United States of America," they mean exactly the same thing. There is no distinction, so we go with the common name. ~ Booyabazooka 01:17, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Neutral

1. Neutral changing my vote from Support. I would still personally prefer ... of America, but as pointed out by User:Ceyockey below, United States is the common form in ecyclopedias (also [3] and [4]). I would still like to see more examples of common usage outside the U.S. ~ trialsanderrors 18:53, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

• Weak Neutral. If Wikipedia was just starting life, I would support the move, but by now I guess there are thousands of articles referring to this one now. I'd rather the effort to make the necessary changes was put into improving other articles. Markb 10:39, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Comments

WP:NC in a nutshell: Generally, article naming should give priority to

• what the majority of English speakers would most easily recognize,

Tie. Both seem easily recognized.

• with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity,

Strongly in favor of nomination. The only ambiguity is to the band. United States on the other hand is geographically ambiguous.

• while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature.

In favor of United States, but would make the third alternative, USA the frontrunner.

In balance, I favor the full original name which is common enough and unambiguous. I might support a move to USA though. ~ trialsanderrors 20:23, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

United States is not geographically ambiguous. The English Wikipedia caters to English-language users and few fluent speakers of the English language would reasonably think "United States" refers to anything other than the United States of America. Indeed, the use of "United States" to refer to the U.S. occurs in the U.S. Constitution itself (go read it). Americans are the majority of native English language speakers (that is, people using the English language as an active community on a daily basis, as opposed to people in other countries taking it to graduate from secondary school). --Coolcaesar 21:51, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

By 'Americans' I assume you mean the people of the USA? I do not understand your rational that they are majority of native English speakers - so what? don't assume only native English speakers use the English Wikipedia, and all the rest merely studied it to graduate from secondary school (by the way, don't assume most people 'graduate' from secondary school, either!) Markb 10:43, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Contrary to the nominator's stated rationale, Wikipedia's naming conventions explicitly do not call for articles to use official names. Rather they call for articles to be named for the most common name (see, for example Cambodia, (official name: Kampuchea)). In the present instance, the most common name is certainly "United States"— "...of America" is only added in the most formal contexts. This policy was upheld by better than 2 to 1 in a poll back in May, 2004, and there is no reason to change it now. -- Mwanner | Talk 23:48, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Technically, United States is the conventional short form. United States of America is the conventional long form. It seems like WP uses the short form in most cases, including Mexico over United States of Mexico (but not exclusively: see Taiwan or China). I'm not sure about the "in the most formal contexts" though. It seems reasonably widespread. ~ trialsanderrors 17:37, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Comments accompanying opposition by User:Ceyockey: There is no compelling reason to change the name. As for ambiguity, page moves are generally not done to satisfy disambiguation issues of the kind being discussed here (in my experience); there are other mechanisms for dealing with such. For example {{Distinguish}} in the case of potential confusion with Mexico — United States of Mexico being a redirect from an alternate, unofficial name. Further, as I've been reminded of on occasion, the availability of an official name that differs from an article title is not a compelling reason to move a page; the 'avoid legalese' argument applies as well to countries as it does to companies, the latter being where it most often appears in discussions (again, in my experience). User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 23:54, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Is "United States" an 'encyclopedic' title? According to Britannica Online, it is (article entitled 'United States' not 'United States of America'). According to MSN Encarta, it is (article entitled 'United States (Overview)' not 'United States of America (Overview)'). User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 01:17, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

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