Talk:Hillary Clinton/Archive 15

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Photo

The photo of Clinton in 2012, in the Political positions section, appears distorted and squashed. Unless it is just a problem with my computer or browser, if anyone else can see this and knows how to fix it, can they look into it? The picture looks fine on its file page btw. Richard75 (talk) 22:37, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

There isn't any photo in the "Political positions" section. Maybe your browser got complete confused and misformatted part of the article. Wasted Time R (talk) 02:19, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Suggested improvements

Congressional Republicans challenged her on several points, sometimes triggering emotional or angry responses from her.[331]

The focus should be changed to focus on Hillary. What in her testimony was she angry or emotional? The article is about her, not Republicans. The current non-specific sentence also might make some people think she's emotional.

I did not keep too much track of what she was emotional or angry about. Didn't she try to focus the questions on the need for increased security and not dwell on whether the attack was a reaction to the Muslim video or a planned terrorist attack? Auchansa (talk) 04:14, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

This is a reference to the exchange with a particular Republican senator and her response, which was the most replayed part of five hours of hearings. Now we have a subarticle, Hillary Rodham Clinton's tenure as Secretary of State, that goes into much more detail, and as part of three paragraphs that cover the January 23 hearings, contains this text:

Senator Ron Johnson, a Republican associated with the Tea Party movement, questioned her repeatedly on a different aspect, whether Ambassador to the UN Rice had misled the public after the attacks. This line drew the fieriest response from Clinton, who with voice raised and fists shaking, responded, "With all due respect, the fact is we had four dead Americans. Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night decided they'd go kill some Americans? What difference, at this point, does it make? It is our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again, senator."[252]

But we are constrained for space in this main biographical article, and the sentence above is an attempt to summarize this succinctly. But I am open to other suggestions for how to word this. And yes, you are right, her general response to Benghazi has been that questions about security lapses leading up to the attacks are a legitimate area of inquiry (and she agreed with all the points made and changes suggested by the Accountibility Review Board), while the questions about the Rice comments on the Sunday talk shows is a ridiculous made-up political issue only. Wasted Time R (talk) 05:05, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

I think it is quite likely that Hillary is very smart and did not want to be sucked into the mess and did not want to be a political mouthpiece to blame the attack on the video. What she probably wanted to say is "fuck, I didn't spew out the rubbish, don't blame me for Secretary Rice's talk show appearances". Furthermore, she's smart because she deflected the questioning to the end result. That would be like some bureaucrat being questioned about 9/11 and saying "stop these questions, WTC 1 and 2 have collapsed and thousands are dead". Secretary Rice was not so smart and volunteered to spew out non-sense in the Sunday morning TV shows.

However, I don't think this reference is pertinent for Hillary's bio on WP. Some may call it "undue weight". In the big scheme of things, the hearing is trivia for Hillary. Benghazi is not trivial for Secretary Rice, though.

I recommend leaving the sentence in the first part of this section out.

Frankly, the phrase about she being emotional is not very important to this article. I think that she being the first Secretary of State to visit the country of Timor Leste is more important. I am not joking. Her visit is memorable to the people of Timor Leste as well as the government of Timor Leste. Her anger on TV has no lasting effect. Auchansa (talk) 05:41, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Besides, Senate hearings are a show and theater. Once Obama was seriously questioning a witness and some other Senator took him back and asked him to do his homework before the hearing. In other words, they were trying to tell him that questioning is just political theater and that Senators usually know where they stand and are not swayed by testimony. Essentially, hearings are show trials. Afterwards, Obama became smart and played the game. Auchansa (talk) 06:07, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Your point is well taken about Timor-Leste - another example people use is Togo - and I have added her first visits to them to the article, along with a brief recap of her rationale for doing so. I disagree with removing any mention of the Benghazi hearings, though. Yes, they are nothing but theater, but that is also true of campaign debates. Perceptions in politics can often trump reality, something Hillary well knows, so it is relevant to include how she decided to handle the theater. (See Chuck Hagel's recent confirmation hearings for someone who apparently had no clue about how to do it.) Wasted Time R (talk) 14:41, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Problem with articles of this type

The problem with articles of this type is that we look very hard to have citations. However, it's very difficult to have a unified editorial direction with WP. Everyone has their own idea. There are no meetings. There are then the crackpots that get into some, but not all, articles. Without a unified editorial direction, it is easy to grab stuff, add a citation, and come up with a disjointed or unintentionally unbalanced section. This is true with all articles in WP.

Let's look at her Secretary of State section. Is this representative of her tenure? Without thinking, I can think of several areas. For example, did she have anything specific that she pushed Obama to do, even if Obama didn't do it? Don't tell me that Obama and Hillary always agree because in the campaign they were clawing each other's eyes out.

I know that Hillary had this reset button with the Russians, which isn't mentioned. Hillary had her ideas for the Middle East, which vary to some extent compared to Obama. How about Hillary's secret mission that was leaked out? Auchansa (talk) 05:55, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

I agree that what to put in and what to leave out is the single most important aspect of WP article writing. This article has a more unified editorial direction than many, however. As to your specifics, in general, Hillary and Obama have been on the same page. Don't let the 2008 campaign fool you - the reason primary campaigns often get personal and bitter is that there are few if any real issues to distinguish candidates, so they have look for something else. The two pretty much confirmed this during the recent 60 Minutes interview. The most important thing Hillary probably convinced Obama of was to add troops into Afghanistan (Biden was opposing); the article already mentions this. I haven't mentioned Russia and Israeli-Palestinian issues because the first is a naturally antagonistic relationship and the second is a perennial quagmire; neither would be expected to change much and neither did. As for secret mission, what are you referring to? Wasted Time R (talk) 16:04, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Clinton maintained a low public profile and built relationships with senators from both parties.[199]

This is an example. So someone found a phrase in an editorial and now they put it in WP. So other senators largely don't build relationships with senators from both parties? As far as low profile, Senators often have a huge ego. I have met some and some think they are God, even though they won't admit it. On the other hand, the average American probably can't name too many Senators so those with high profiles might include Senator Clinton (when she was one), Senator McCain, Senator Reid, etc.

I am not too interested to debate this one quote but it illustrates a point that getting a citation doesn't mean that it should be in WP. Instead, there should be critical editorial discussion and writing to make a good article. Auchansa (talk) 06:03, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

The source is not an editorial, as you claim, but a regular news report from the Christian Science Monitor, a well-regarded mainstream newspaper. Her low-profile strategy has gotten a lot of attention over the years - this sentence is actually a brief (perhaps too brief) summary of this from the United States Senate career of Hillary Rodham Clinton subarticle: "Upon entering the United States Senate, Clinton maintained a low public profile while building relationships with senators from both parties, to avoid the polarizing celebrity she experienced as First Lady.[9][10][11][12] (It was reported that when Elizabeth Dole joined the Senate in 2003 under somewhat similar circumstances, she modeled her initial approach after Clinton's,[13] as did the nationally visible Barack Obama in 2005.)[14][15]" Even more recently, people have compared Marco Rubio's low-profile strategy to Hillary's, see the Stephen Hayes comment in this piece. So I think this is important to include and, if anything, I would expand it with a Note. Wasted Time R (talk) 15:01, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

How did this get in the article?

This is currently part of Hillary Clinton's article. How did it make it in the article if it's locked for editing? Clearly this is wrong: Admission of US support to terrorist groups Hilary Clinton admits that the US government created and funded Al-Qaeda in order to fight the soviet union, and she even considers that as a good thing. But she claims that the Americans are fighting Al-Qaeda nowadays. She also admits that US funded Mujahaddin[344] and then left it for Pakistan government to deal with.[345]

It was just added by some editor a few hours ago and I've removed it. If you look at the actual YouTube clips, they are completely unexceptional - she just goes over the familiar history of the eventual blowback from the U.S. support of anti-Soviet fighters in Afghanistan. The point she's making is that even good ideas at the time can turn out to have very unintended consequences down the road. The text the editor added is not a fair representation of what she was saying, and her real position (which is hardly controversial) belongs in Political positions of Hillary Rodham Clinton if anywhere. Wasted Time R (talk) 05:15, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Images

We could use a discussion on updating images. I would like to see if we can replace the main infobox image, add at least one image (her official painting) and perhaps revisit whether or not to have the graphic poll images. I still see this as being given too much weight.--Amadscientist (talk) 00:17, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

I'm totally open to replacing the top photo if you can come up with something more current that can pass for a portrait and is of good quality and that WP has rights to. The official painting of her as First Lady done by Simmie Knox was thrown out years ago as not being public domain or fair use. (I can't find the discussion that led to that right now, but I remember it clearly.) The Gallup Poll favorability ratings definitely belong, as they graphically tell her story vis à vis public opinion and several mainstream publications printed similar charts at the end of the Sec State tenure. However, I really need to update the chart for the most recent years. I'm also open to combining all the years in one chart, instead of having three or four ones for different time periods. Wasted Time R (talk) 00:30, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

I think I remember that deletion discussion on the painting now. I believe it is because the copyright is still retained by the artist and there has been no attempt to OTRS it for permissions (which the artist may or may not be interested in doing). I think the charts are being given undue weight on her biography and can't help but wonder if the article could make it to FA if we split off into something like Public image of Hillary Rodham Clinton using those public poll in that article.--Amadscientist (talk) 21:01, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

In general, WP articles tend towards the wordy and need more charts, tables, and illustrations, not less. What is undue weight about graphically showing that she used to be very polarizing but now has widespread public acceptance? This evolution over time was dominant in the media coverage as she ended her Sec State tenure. And the existence of the chart has nothing to do with whether the article could make FA or not. The three previous FACs (one of them has a restart in the middle of it, so really counts as two) were all miserable experiences that ended in failure, in the last case because (IMO) the FAC delegates lost their nerve. The Mitt Romney FACs this past summer and fall were a miserable experience that ended in failure followed by an even more miserable experience that ended in success. The John McCain FACs five years ago were a miserable failure and a surprisingly easy success. Overall that's an 86 percent misery rate on FACs of active presidential candidates or possible candidates, which doesn't sound like a recipe for happiness to me. And in any case I still need to do more work on the Secretary of State section when I get the time, and there's a couple of books published in the last two years that I need to go through for useful content as well. Wasted Time R (talk) 03:55, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Follow-up – I have gone ahead and replaced the three separate favorable/unfavorable ratings charts with a single one, and updated that one to include the most recent results. I think this way the broad sweep of change in her ratings is easiest for the reader to see. I have added a caption and source that explains the biggest change points. Wasted Time R (talk) 14:04, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Impeachment committee role

Clinton's involvement in watergate is only briefly mentioned here, and the article only discusses how she was a member of the impeachment staff and was responsible for researching procedures of impeachment. Somehow, the part where she was "fired for lies and unethical behavior" is left out. There are multiple sources that confirm this: http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/52621 http://www.wnd.com/2008/04/60962/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jrockets (talk • contribs) 04:24, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

She was not fired by anyone. I have not seen any reliable, mainstream sources that say that Zeifman was even her supervisor on the committee. The Bernstein bio says that Bernard Nussbaum was her immediate supervisor (pp 96-97). The author of the piece you link to is a conservative op-ed writer who started his own news service which then folded. It's been republished by WorldNetDaily and by some site linked to Herman Cain, which are about as far from reliable sources as you can get. Were there differences of opinion on the committee about historical precedents and how those should influence the course in the Watergate case? No doubt. Did those amount to some grand conspiracy to do in Nixon while protecting the Kennedys, as Zeifman seems to think? There are no mainstream sources that support this that I have seen. Neither the Bernsein bio nor the Gerth/Van Natta bio say anything about this. They say mostly that Hillary like others worked long, sometimes tedious hours, and that she and the few other women on the staff had to post a sign telling the male staffers that they were not there to make coffee for them. Wasted Time R (talk) 10:48, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Edit request on 16 May 2013

"She is the most widely traveled secretary during her time in office" is awkward, both because of the verb tense (it's kind-of shifting between present and past) and because it's unclear whether it means just Sec'y of State or all kinds of secretaries. Please change it to "She became the most widely travelled Secretary of State during her time in office". 2001:18E8:2:1020:CDCA:8938:1F9F:A938 (talk) 15:03, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

 Done--JayJasper (talk) 16:25, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Requested move 5 (June 2013)

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

The result of the move request was: Moved to Hillary Clinton. Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 23:29, 18 June 2013 (UTC) (non-admin closure)

---

Closing statement Having read through the discussion, I think there is a clear consensus-based and policy-based result to be found here. I'm writing an extended closing statement to explain the logic I used in making this decision. First of all, I will outline the arguments I more or less discarded.

1. Twitter name - this I threw out as irrelevant, given there are character limitations in twitter handles and tweets, one would naturally choose a shorter name.
2. re: news headlines: "The first mention in the body of the bio article is the place to put the official name. The title should be the common name." I discounted this argument also, because news headlines are often trimmed to be shorter; headlines should not be used to determine commonname
3. The URL and name written on Clinton's website - again, this may be due to design decisions, and we preference secondary sources, not those from the subject
4. Raw google searches. Raw google search numbers are notoriously off, potentially by several orders of magnitude. The only way to get a reasonable number of hits is to click all the way through until Google returns no more results. In some cases, Google will claim millions of hits, but then only have a few thousand or hundred actual hits. Those numbers are wild estimates, and should not be used in rename discussions without care. I am a bit disappointed no-one did proper RS research like was done during move discussions at Talk:Ivory Coast.
5. Number of !votes. I didn't count the !votes, and still don't know how many opposed and how many supported. I'm sure someone will, and you can tell us all.
6. Yogurt rule. This is an invented rule which has had few demonstrations, and I did not invoke it here nor do I necessarily agree with its premise.

Arguments which I took account of:

1. We value correctness - and HRC is her "correct" name. This one I considered a fair amount, since the WP:COMMONNAME was a close call. However, I think other considerations, such as precision, overrode the value of any imagined "correctness" here. In addition, it was not demonstrated that "Hillary Clinton" was somehow a "less" correct way to refer to her (this is the only place where her own website comes in handy, to demonstrate that it's not *wrong* to refer to her in this way). WP:OFFICIAL was also bandied about a lot. Often, I feel people misread this to mean "official names should not be used", but that's not what it says. The fact that HRC is clearly her official name, and the stable name of the article, gave points to the oppose side.
2. WP:TITLECHANGES - "Changing one controversial title to another is strongly discouraged. If an article title has been stable for a long time, and there is no good reason to change it, it should not be changed." Often up for discussion is not the same as controversial, in my reading of the policy. I don't think either of these titles are likely to cause controversy - instead, they inspire wiki-debates, which are different - no-one is saying either title is somehow bad. Besides vandalism, the title has been moved 3 times to Hillary Clinton, and was moved back three times, and there have been 4 move discussions to date. However, those arguing for a move have made a claim, that there *is* a good reason to change it, and this is that more sources now use "Hillary Clinton" vs "Hillary Rodham Clinton" - this was the central claim of supporters, which I address below. Thus, we can move this in spite of WP:TITLECHANGES.
3. WP:PRECISE was brought up by several contributors. This one was a strong argument, and those opposing did not have strong counters to it, and this may have tipped the balance. PRECISE says that you should choose titles that are "precise enough to unambiguously define the topical scope of the article, but no more precise than that". The main counter to this was other presidents, like Lyndon B. Johnson. However, here WP:OSE applies, and I haven't dug into the sources to see if Lyndon B. Johnson is really used more frequently in RS than Lyndon Johnson, and no one provided strong statistics on that point either (raw google search numbers don't count, as mentioned above).
4. Conciseness was also brought up, which states: "The title is no longer than necessary to identify the article's subject and distinguish it from other subjects." While there was some debate as to whether HC is more precise than HRC, there wasn't any debate that HC is more concise. And, per my reading of precise and per several editors, HC is also no more precise than it needs to be.
   1. One counter to this was Obama, and since Obama is shorter than Barack Obama, wouldn't we move him there to be more concise by the same reasoning? I found this argument weak - in the US, most people have (at least) two names, and I don't think there is lots of evidence that there are RS that *only* refer to Obama as Obama. OTOH, there are many RS provided by editors below that *only* refer to Hillary Clinton. In other words, one name can't be compared to two names, in this instance.
5. WP:COMMONNAME This was the crux of the argument. There was some conflicting data in reliable sources - for example, it was asserted several newspapers lead with HRC, while many others always lead with HC. I saw this ngram, which looks at books - which have no length-of-text restrictions or deadlines - [1]. This graph was a great example of the argument being made by those supporting the move, which is that over time, usage has shifted. Indeed, the other piece of evidence provided for this was the list of books about Hillary Clinton, and it was claimed most used HRC, while another commenter noted that the later books more frequently used HC. I did my own count of the books in that list, and found that HC was used more frequently in the title than HRC (I didn't count children's books). I do agree with the oppose votes, that google searches should not be all deciding, and ultimately, they weren't. However, COMMONNAME says "most commonly used (as determined by its prevalence in reliable English-language sources)", so there is an explicit notion of counting here - hence the reason people go to google. On balance, the evidence I saw is that HC is used more prevalently than HRC in reliable sources - not by orders of magnitude, but more nonetheless. Almost every "support" vote made this same claim, and most oppose votes did not really contest it per se (e.g. they didn't contest raw numbers of uses).

So, based on the above, it came down to this. The weight of the evidence, per NGrams, book searches, and searches of news sources, is that *more* reliable sources used Hillary Clinton, and that this usage had been increasing over time. The ngram demonstrated that very well, as did someone's analysis of the book titles. Thus, per WP:COMMONNAME, we should prefer HC. But that wasn't enough in my opinion. Several oppose votes more or less agreed, and said that the usage is in the same ballpark, so other considerations must be taken into account. In defense of HRC, as Wasted Time R says, "correctness, formality, best sources' first references, official use, and self-identification should all outweigh whatever hits differences there are". In defence of HC, you have precision and conciseness. In this case, precision and conciseness are currently part of policy, the others are not. Thus, what swayed the balance was WP:PRECISE and WP:TITLE, which argue for conciseness, and Hillary Clinton is clearly both precise enough and more concise by the definitions given in the policy.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 23:29, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

---

Hillary Rodham Clinton → Hillary Clinton – Per WP:COMMONNAME. I can't believe the current title has survived several requests to move it to the most common and concise name used to refer to this article's topic. I call WP:YOGURTRULE.

Anyone pointing out the current title is her "official" name really needs to read WP:OFFICIAL.

Besides the groundless "official name" argument, what basis is there to keep the current title? That some reliable sources use it some times? So what? More sources use the proposed title more often, and that's what matters. The longer title is not more recognizable - everyone knows who "Hillary Clinton" is. B2C 22:46, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Just to clarify something for those who might not investigate it - the "Yogurt Rule" being invoked by the nominator is an essay that the nominator, Born2cycle, wrote a month ago. No one else has contributed to it and there is no discussion of it anywhere. And Born2cycle was an involved participant in the Yogurt name debate. Wasted Time R (talk) 00:36, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

Furthermore, the nominator's "Yogurt Rule" essay is based a misstatement of fact, as I have pointed out on the essay's talk page. IMO this essay should not be invoked or used as any kind of "rule". --MelanieN (talk) 14:19, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

Let's not get twisted into an argument over the YogurtRule, however one may feel about it's invocation. The are several solid reasons for changing the article name, as discussed in this thread. Dezastru (talk) 18:02, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

And at least as many for not changing it, as discussed in this thread... user:j (talk) 09:21, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose again. This is now the fifth time this has been raised. Everyone also knows who "Hillary" refers to, but we don't make that the name of the article. I don't have time right now to repeat the arguments against this move, nor do I think it is productive to keep bringing it up, with all respect. See Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, for starters. Tvoz/talk 23:10, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

The community has decided that Hillary has no WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, and so the dab page is located there. If Hillary redirected to this article, you might have a point with that. As to Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, she's originally notable, and more notable, for being a Kennedy; that is not the case for Mrs. Clinton. --B2C 23:40, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

The community has also decided, four times - most recently just months ago - that this article is properly named. Wasted Time R's recap below sums up the arguments quite well, and I concur completely. Tvoz/talk 04:14, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

• Support I'm not sure Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis is the best title for this person, but the issues with Hillary Clinton are not identical. PatGallacher (talk) 23:53, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

• Support Wholeheartedly support this proposal. There's been a marked shift over the years in the most common name used for Clinton. "Hillary Rodham Clinton" was very commonly used throughout the 1990s, but in the past 5 years or so, Hillary Clinton has become predominant. Sure, you'll still see that official name Hillary Rodham Clinton on her book covers, but most references to her now are just "Hillary Clinton," or "Secretary of State Hillary Clinton." Jackie Kennedy was never better known as Jacqueline Onassis or Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis than as Jacqueline Kennedy, so that is not a comparable case. Dezastru (talk) 00:05, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

Where is your evidence for this "marked shift"? And the Jackie case is comparable. "Jacqueline Kennedy", "Jackie Kennedy", and "Jackie O" all get more Google hits than "Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis" does, and by the crude common name argument should win. But we correctly locate the article at "Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis" because that was the name she used in the latter stages of her life and the name that serious media refered to her by then and after her death. Wasted Time R (talk) 02:04, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

My evidence comes from having lived through both periods and been generally aware of terms in common parlance in both periods. However, since you seem to want harder "evidence" than that, I see that a search of NewsBank's archives for mentions of text "hillary clinton" vs "hillary rodham clinton" in English-language news sources in the United States produces the following results:

before 2008

"hillary clinton"                   247,271

"hillary rodham clinton"      267,935

after 2008

"hillary clinton"                   330,384

"hillary rodham clinton"      159,883

NewsBank searches are a crude way of looking at this question, and are subject to a number of limitations, but these data accord with my general sense of how the terms are used more broadly. Dezastru (talk) 20:30, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

News searches often get misleading hits for the shorter form, as I discussed regarding your stats below. Anyway, I don't see these numbers as a compelling reason to change existing practice. In both cases they are in the same ballpark and as I've said below, correctness and serious/official use and BLP self-identification should be the determinant. Wasted Time R (talk) 02:01, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

In the same ballpark? No, they are NOT in the same ballpark. In recent years, "Hillary Clinton" has been mentioned TWICE as often as "Hillary Rodham Clinton" in the NewsBank archives. A 200% higher number is not "in the same ballpark." Dezastru (talk) 03:11, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

It's 100%, not 200%. And I'm using the phrase in the sense that cities with populations of 100,000-200,000 are in the same league and can be grouped together, compared to say cities of 1-2 million or towns of 10,000-20,000. Wasted Time R (talk) 12:39, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

I meant that it's "200% of" (not "200% higher than"). The question is which name is most commonly used, so framing the numbers in terms of ranges of population is inappropriate. A more apt comparison would be similar to the question, "In each of these two periods, which political party has held more seats in Parliament, Labour or Tories?" Dezastru (talk) 17:57, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose strongly yet again. This was already decided here and here and here and here, the last one being only six months ago. All the arguments for and against are going to be the same this time around. This is abuse of process, pure and simple, just like bringing an article to AfD five times because you didn't like the keep decision the first four times. It's basically hoping different people show up to !vote this time around and that you get lucky. That's not how consensus is supposed to work. And if you want a new argument, the Rodham biopic has been much in the news of late - see [http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-

207_162-57588014/carey -mulligan-eyed-to-play-hillary-clinton-in-rodham-biopic/ this CBS news story] for example - and so that part of her name will be in even more use than before. Wasted Time R (talk) 01:29, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

Anyway, just to recap, "Rodham" is the last name that she was born with and used even after marriage for a while and that she chooses to keep. That's why the biopic is being named Rodham. "Hillary Rodham Clinton" is her official name, see her official Senate page (archived) and her official former Secretary of State page and her signature. This was also the name she announced that she preferred when she became First Lady in 1993, see here. The serious media generally always refer to her as Hillary Rodham Clinton on first mention, see for example any New York Times article, such as this story from a week ago, or see any Washington Post story, such as this one from a few days ago. The Times also uses Hillary Rodham Clinton to title its profile page on her. This is her name, and this is what the article's name should be. And we've been through this over and over. Don't people have something better to do here than re-litigate this? Wasted Time R (talk) 01:55, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

Agree, on all points. Tvoz/talk 04:14, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

As nom I resent the insinuations here that violate AGF. First, I was not part of any of the previous discussions. Second, the last one resulted in no consensus; nothing was "decided". Last I check the way we reach consensus on WP is through discussion, and that's what this proposal is supposed to encourage.

This is the quintessential case to invoke the WP:Yogurt Rule: currently, WP:COMMONNAME justifies the proposed move; once the article is moved to Hillary Clinton, there will be no good argument based in policy to move it back to this title.

As to your second paragraph, did you even read the proposal? You did not address any of the points there. Have you read WP:OFFICIAL? Then why do you mention that the title reflects her "official" name? WP:COMMONNAME? WP:CRITERIA?

And going by the name of her biopic? Seriously? By that "logic" we should move Margaret Thatcher to The Iron Lady.. or to Margaret "Iron Lady" Thatcher. Please. --B2C 04:22, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

I wasn't implying lack of good faith, but you could have looked at the history and seen that this was discussed four times before and most recently six months ago. As for "no consensus", I believe all failed RM's get that designation, regardless of the margin. As for "Yogurt Rule", that's a non-binding essay that seems to translate to "We know we are right in our interpretation of all the rules and guidelines, we don't care what anyone else thinks." And I am bringing up the Rodham film not to indicate we name according to movie titles, but to counter the notion some have presented here that nobody knows about or cares about that part of her name. Wasted Time R (talk)

No, "no consensus" is different from "not moved". The latter means the present title has consensus support; the former indicates that there is no consensus either way. Timrollpickering (talk) 17:25, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

Look at these RM's here and here and here and here and more, all were closed as "No consensus" despite complete or near-complete opposition to the move. Maybe the practice varies among person doing the closer, but I do not believe "No consensus" on an RM should be viewed as an invitation to bring it up again. Wasted Time R (talk) 00:29, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Six months is not a long time when the previous discussion ended in no consensus. The fact that this keeps coming up and is brought up by different people suggests that the current title isn't the best and the fact that some irregular arguments such as WP:OFFICIAL get deployed support that. Yes it can be frustrating when an article title that one prefers is under challenge but that's a consequence of not having consensus for it. Timrollpickering (talk) 13:48, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

WTR, I note that those close summaries said "no consensus to move page", not simply "no consensus". If no consensus is reached to move the page, then by default it is not moved. "Not moved" might have been better, but the effect seems to be the same. It doesn't say that there was no consensus not to move the page. In any case, I certainly agree that there seems to be no reason to bring this up yet again so quickly. Omnedon (talk) 18:45, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

WTR says, "The serious media generally always refer to her as Hillary Rodham Clinton on first mention, see for example any New York Times article, such as this story from a week ago, or see any Washington Post story, such as this one from a few days ago." What about the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, NPR, The Telegraph, The Guardian? Are these journals less "serious" than the "serious" media you selected? (Incidentally, your assertion that the NYT and WaPo always refer to her as Hillary Rodham Clinton on first mention is not correct. The first mention, for articles that involve her as the primary focus, is usually the title, where it is usually rendered "Hillary Clinton," as in the WaPo article to which you have linked.) Dezastru (talk) 20:57, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

Newspaper headlines are written by different staff than the reporters, and their main concern is to use up minimal space, so yes they take all kinds of shortcuts including with names, sentence forms, verbs without antecedents (the New York Daily News was famous for these), etc. That sheds no light on this. Wasted Time R (talk) 00:32, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

You still haven't answered my question, in reference to your claim that "The serious media generally always refer to her as Hillary Rodham Clinton on first mention, see for example any New York Times article ... or see any Washington Post story," which is the main argument that you and those who share your opposition to the rename proposal are making. Why are the New York Times and the Washington Post the only "serious media"? Aren't the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, NPR, The Telegraph, and The Guardian, which DO NOT generally always refer to her as Hillary Rodham Clinton on first mention, just as serious media as the NYT and WaPo? The NYT after all couldn't bring themselves to use the honorific "Ms." or the word "gay" (rather than homosexual) until the mid 1980s. Dezastru (talk) 02:16, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

I get that you don't like the NYT, but nevertheless they are considered the most serious media of all the ones you mentioned. Possibly even more influential as a style leader though is the Associated Press, and they also use "Hillary Rodham Clinton" on first reference - see here and here and here and here and here and here and so forth. (Small exception: in their one-sentence breaking news alerts, they don't, such as this one and this one. I presume that's again a space issue.) Wasted Time R (talk) 11:43, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

WTR says, "'Hillary Rodham Clinton' is her official name, see her official Senate page (archived) and her official former Secretary of State page and her signature. This was also the name she announced that she preferred when she became First Lady in 1993, see here." First, as has already been said in this discussion several times, WP:COMMONNAME is a governing policy. Official names do not hold priority over common names. The first mention in the body of the bio article is the place to put the official name. The title should be the common name. Second, her own preferences, as indicated by usage, have varied over time. Third, as I already pointed out above, there has been a shift in preferences among many media sources for her name in the past 5 years or so, and per Wikipedia policy (WP:COMMONNAME), "If the name of a person ... changes, then more weight should be given to the name used in reliable sources published after the name change than in those before the change." So references to events in Clinton's life in 1993, or to Wikipedia discussions on whether to rename the article in 2007, or to "historical reasons" should carry less weight than what has been happening more recently, which is the period in which there has been a shift. Dezastru (talk) 02:53, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

Oh, and I suppose it was because she so strongly prefers "Hillary Rodham Clinton" over "Hillary Clinton" that when she launched a Twitter account and made her first Tweet today, it was from "Hillary Clinton" @HillaryClinton. Right? Right? Same as when you go to her website, HillaryClintonOffice.com, the FIRST page you see, which has a huge picture of her, says, in large font, "Hillary Clinton." There are only 6 words on that page (two of which are "privacy" and "policy"), so the argument that somebody was making an editorial decision due to space constraints won't wash. Dezastru (talk) 02:53, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

HillaryClintonOffice.com is a skeleton site (who makes a personal web site url with -Office at the end?) and Twitter is, well, Twitter, where if it can't be said in 140 characters it can't be said at all. (Even DYK hooks give you 200.) You can go to the Former Secretary Clinton's Remarks directory at the Department of State site and it, and every single page of hundreds underneath it, from her Arrival at the Department of State in January 2009 to Remarks at Final Town Hall Meeting With Department of State Personnel in January 2013, say "Hillary Rodham Clinton". The name of the person did not change, contrary to what you are asserting. Her new memoir is due out a year from now, per this AP report. If she drops the "Rodham" on the cover of that, then I'll concede she's decided to make a change in how she self-identifies. Wasted Time R (talk) 11:31, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

You're slightly inaccurate about Twitter. There is no character limit on display names as they're not part of the 140 character tweet and so she could easily display her name as "Hillary Rodham Clinton" if she wished. It's the Twitter username where space is a consideration (and there's a shorter character limit there - I cannot get my standard handle into it). Timrollpickering (talk) 13:34, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

• Support: WP:TITLE: Recognizability (suggestion is fine), Naturalness (suggestion is fine), Precision (suggestion is fine), Conciseness ("The title is no longer than necessary to identify the article's subject and distinguish it from other subjects" – suggestion is an improvement), Consistency (suggestion has no obvious problem). And WP:YOGURTRULE (suggestion seems to resemble yogurt suggestion). —BarrelProof (talk) 05:38, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose. Consensus can change, but there really should be a moratorium on bringing this up more than once per century. She has been well known as Hillary Rodham Clinton nationally for more than two decades now. Many reliable sources still refer to her with the inclusion of Rodham on first reference. And, while it's not a deciding factor for my opinion here, there is a biographical film in production called "Rodham" that's likely to have some impact on the continued common usage of her maiden name. user:j (talk) 06:26, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

• To counter two common threads above: I don't find the "Yoghurt Rule" (which is an essay, not a guideline or a policy) compelling enough to trump WP:NCP, and I doubt the assumption that the matter would then be considered "settled for all time." Secondly, concision does not override the naming convention, either (see, for example, WP:MIDDLES). It's also worth pointing out that, in my opinion, a better example than Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis is actually John F. Kennedy. It could just as easily be at John Kennedy, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, or even JFK for that matter. But, his "official" name (at least as prescribed by his presidential library) and, arguably, his most "common" name, are both John F. Kennedy. The subject of this article has a stated preference for the inclusion of her maiden name, that's what is used in the most cited reliable sources on first reference, and it's been her name in common usage for quite some time now. Hence, my oppose. Just thought it would be helpful to elaborate.  :) user:j (talk) 06:44, 8 June 2013 (UTC)
  • John F. Kennedy is the title of that article per WP:COMMONNAME. That is, that's what is used most commonly to refer to the subject of that article (much more often than John Kennedy, which is rarely used). JFK is also commonly used, but not as commonly as John F. Kennedy.

    The same principle applies here. While Hillary Rodham Clinton is commonly used, it's not used as commonly as Hillary Clinton.

    I can't believe you too are bringing up the title of the biopic. See my comment about Thatcher above. --B2C 07:00, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

    • I would actually argue JFK is more commonly used than John F. Kennedy, but I don't think concision is an improvement there (hence it not being the primary factor for WP:NCP). In any event, that's an argument for another article. Balancing common and "official" usage, I think the article is at the right title here, as I've said. Your response to the biopic title was more of a strawman than a rebuttal, but I did take note of it. I don't think I'm going to change your mind, and your current arguments haven't changed mine, so we'll see where the discussion leads... user:j (talk) 07:17, 8 June 2013 (UTC)
    • Agree with J. And JFK is not the only such example. Lyndon B. Johnson is located there, even though there are more Google hits for each of "Lyndon Johnson" and "LBJ". Stephen E. Ambrose is located there, because that is the name he published under, even though "Stephen Ambrose" gets more Google hits. "Common name" does not trump correctness, and thus we have articles located at Diana, Princess of Wales and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge even though more popular forms get far more hits. Wasted Time R (talk) 10:23, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

• Support it appears the only argument those opposed to this move are making is that this has already been discussed before several times. A) Consensus can change. B) The fact that this continues to be brought up should show that there is much support for the move -- would anyone actually argue to move it to the current title if it were moved to "Hillary Clinton"? C) In recent years she's been almost exclusively referred to as "Hillary Clinton." D) Her now defunct campaign website doesn't use "Rodham" nor does her current website. Hot Stop 16:14, 8 June 2013 (UTC)
  • Actually, hillaryclintonoffice.com does use the longer form repeatedly in its own "remarks". ╠╣uw [talk] 18:59, 8 June 2013 (UTC)
• Rename per WP:COMMONNAME and my past comments. What her "official" name is should have no bearing here. Timrollpickering (talk) 17:29, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose, per J, Tvoz, Wasted Time R, and the many who've already elaborated clear reasons for the current title in this and previous proposals. Querying Google, I see that the current and proposed titles both get raw hits in the low eight-figures – and in both cases Google presents a sidebar labeled "Hillary Rodham Clinton". However, mindful that raw Google hits don't tell the whole story, I also clicked through the list of external links in the article and noticed that the sizable majority of them use the longer form: US Department of State, White House, US Congress directory, VoteSmart, Federal Election Commission, C-SPAN, Charlie Rose, IMDB, WorldCat, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Open Directory, etc. ╠╣uw [talk] 18:48, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

  Google's sidebar comes from us, so using it to argue for or against a particular title is circular. Powers ^T 18:51, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

  True, thanks for clarifying. I'll just content myself with the numerous other major sources. :) ╠╣uw [talk] 19:04, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

╠╣uw says, "Querying Google, I see that the current and proposed titles both get raw hits in the low eight-figures." Well, let's dig a little deeper. I've run a few searches just now. Here's what they show:

Google (general search)

"hillary clinton"                   39,500,000

"hillary rodham clinton"      14,400,000

Google (general search)

"hillary clinton" -wikipedia                  146,000,000

"hillary rodham clinton" -wikipedia         7,720,000

Google, News

"hillary clinton" -wikipedia                  62,900

"hillary rodham clinton" -wikipedia     12,000

Google, Books

"hillary clinton" -wikipedia                  277,000

"hillary rodham clinton" -wikipedia     127,000

Bing (general search)

"hillary clinton"                   4,240,000

"hillary rodham clinton"         747,000

Bing (general search)

"hillary clinton" -wikipedia                  3,050,000

"hillary rodham clinton" -wikipedia        519,000

googlesearch of cnn.com

"hillary clinton"                   83,900

"hillary rodham clinton"        5,780

internal search of cnn.com

"hillary clinton"                   7,637

"hillary rodham clinton"         982

googlesearch of bbc.co.uk

"hillary clinton"                   16,000

"hillary rodham clinton"        3,040

internal search of abcnews.com

"hillary clinton"                   11,365

"hillary rodham clinton"        3,894

internal search of cbsnews.com

"hillary clinton"                   9,542

"hillary rodham clinton"      4,622

internal search of nbcnews.com

"hillary clinton"                   9,040

"hillary rodham clinton"      1,920

internal search of foxnews.com

"hillary clinton"                   9,814

"hillary rodham clinton"      9,107

googlesearch of site:charlierose.com

"hillary clinton"                   21,800

"hillary rodham clinton"             99

These search results show that "Hillary Clinton" references outnumber "Hillary Rodham Clinton" references by a very wide margin. Dezastru (talk) 21:40, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

Dezastru, you've got to be careful with searches like this. A news article that uses "Hillary Rodham Clinton" as first reference will often also come up with a hit for "Hillary Clinton" too, due to a headline use or caption use (where space constraints overrule everything). If you look for this CBS News search, for example, the first article actually does use "Hillary Rodham Clinton" on first reference, but the headline picks it up in the other count. Many of the rest of the first page of hits are to video streams where the brief caption is using "Hillary Clinton". If you look at this New York Times search result, for example, almost every one is using "Hillary Rodham Clinton" as first reference, but the headline picks it up. (And even with that, "Hillary Rodham Clinton" hits outnumber "Hillary Clinton" hits 61,200 to 47,600.) Wasted Time R (talk) 00:49, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Wasted Time R: Quite so. Dezastru: Since there's significant overlap in the usage of variants (as WTR notes), it's not quite that simple. Note too that any search with fewer terms will almost always return a longer list of results than a search with more, but that by itself isn't a determinant: "Obama", for instance, returns several times the hits of "Barack Obama", but is not the title WP uses (even despite primary topic occupancy). In this case the prevalence of the longer form in so many of the external links, including major government sites, is significant. ╠╣uw [talk] 10:38, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

The attempts to dismiss the higher numbers of "Hillary Clinton" mentions than of "Hillary Rodham Clinton" mentions would be persuasive -- if it weren't for the fact that the differences are so large. If the differences are all a matter of space constraints, as you claim, then one might allow for perhaps a 2:1 of "Hillary Clinton" to "Hillary Rodham Clinton," since, on average, an article will have one title and maybe a caption for a photo. But that's not the level of difference the data show. The differences, broadly speaking, are MUCH greater than that. And, WTR, selecting the NYT for a search is obviously going to produce results showing higher levels of HRC use, since that is that publication's editorial preference. (By the way, I'm curious how editorial decisions regarding space constraints affect searches for "Sandra O'Connor" vs "Sandra Day O'Connor".) Dezastru (talk) 03:26, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose Although my gut tells me to support, I think the historical reasons and BLP user preferences still carry.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 20:15, 8 June 2013 (UTC)
• Support, this is clearly the most common and most recognizable name. Pitbull (entertainer) isn't listed by his real or official name, even though if he was arrested or testified in front of Congress or was elected to the Senate, the New York Times would doubtlessly use his real name in their write-up of the event and opinion pieces commenting on it. We go with Pitbull, even though this name requires a parenthetical disambiguafier (which we otherwise strive to avoid), because it's his most easily recognizable, concise, common name. As is the proposed title for the former Secretary of State's article. Red Slash 00:12, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Nobody is arguing against the location of Pitbull or Ringo Starr or or John Wayne or Jimmy Carter or any of those cases. Those are all names that those people self-identify as, that they release artistic works as or publish books by, and so forth. Hillary identifies as, and publishes books as, and is referred to in official documents as, Hillary Rodham Clinton. Wasted Time R (talk) 00:58, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

And this idea that we always use the "most easily recognizable, concise, common name" is a myth. There are many exceptions carved out. Hence Diana, Princess of Wales and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge (far from the most common use for either) and United States presidential election, 2012 (who says it with that word order?) and United States Senate election in New Jersey, 2008 (absolutely nobody says it like that) and Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress (several more concise forms of that get more Google hits) and United States Ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Council (common use would use US and UN and omit other words) and Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 (say what? common use is "Bush tax cuts" or "first round of the Bush tax cuts") and so forth. And as pointed out above, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Lyndon B. Johnson are examples of exceptions directly comparable to this one. In practice we do not determine article titles solely by Google hit counts, and we often value correctness and other considerations, and this should be such a case too. Wasted Time R (talk) 01:12, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

But those are all long titles because there is no primary topic at the shorter version. Everyone called the election, well, the "election". Why didn't we have it there? WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. So we chose WP:NATURAL disambiguation. No such need here! Not a problem for Mrs. Clinton, who doubtlessly has primary topic on both Hillary Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton (one will always redirect to the other). Wikipedia:NAMINGCRITERIA requires that the title be precise, recognizable, consistent, common, and natural. There are a fair few things we strive for in naming titles but those are the biggies. Both titles easily satisfy all of those, which means we have to choose which one does it best. That's easy. I assert (and sources seem to back up) that "Hillary Clinton" is more common. So that should be the title of the page. (And both Kate and Diana should have their pages moved, as well, as those titles flagrantly fail WP:COMMON... but there is a special guidelines specifically and explicitly for royalty and nobility that I personally think is baloney, but is located here. So that explains them. Where's the justification for HRC?) Red Slash 08:11, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Regarding longer titles being used only because there's "no primary topic at the shorter version", that's not really so: see "Obama"→"Barack Obama", "Mao"→"Mao Zedong", "Beyoncé"→"Beyoncé Knowles", and a raft of others. In all these cases raw Google hits would seemingly favor the shorter form, but (per WP) hits alone are not the sole determinant of title. ╠╣uw [talk] 10:50, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

• Support once again. By far the most common name used to refer to her. "Official" names and even the individual's preferred name are utterly irrelevant to what Wikipedia calls someone. All that matters is how she is most commonly referred to in English-language sources. That is far and away plain Hillary Clinton. -- Necrothesp (talk) 09:08, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

What is your evidence for "by far" and "far and away"? Most of Dezastru's news search figures above are skewed by counting headline and caption usages, as I explained below them. Perhaps the one of professional uses that is least skewed is the Google Books one, where headlines, personal pages, casual blogs, etc are not involved. It shows both usages in the low hundred thousands – the same ballpark. That's when I think other considerations can come into play, as they already do for the many exceptions to common name that have been brought up. Wasted Time R (talk) 10:20, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

• Weak support. An ngram, taken from Google Books, shows that "Hillary Clinton" has always been more widely used than "Hillary Rodham Clinton" in books, and that the gap, through 2008, was widening. Support is weak because some of the discrepancy is likely due to second and third mentions omitting the middle name, and because both names are recognizable. On balance, though, I think there's enough evidence that the shorter name is more prevalent in reliable sources. Dohn joe (talk) 16:55, 10 June 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose, per Wasted Time R, Huw, and others. The current name is appropriate for reasons given by others, which I will not attempt to reiterate. As an aside, it is questionable for the nominator to refer to a rule that the nominator himself made up. Omnedon (talk) 18:03, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

  What about the ngram I posted, that shows that "Hillary Clinton" has always been more widely used - in books, not websites - and that the gap has been widening, not lessening? Doesn't that indicate that reliable sources prefer the short form? Dohn joe (talk) 18:35, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

Yes, it does. Dezastru (talk) 03:05, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, but no: the ngram shows usage throughout entire texts, which doesn't necessarily speak to the question of article title. After all, this ngram shows books using "Obama" far more than "Barack Obama" – yet the latter is our title. The reason, of course, is that names are often shortened after first use in contexts where the proper name is already established and understood; one doesn't have to say "Barack Obama" every time. The State Department, for instance, favors "Hillary Rodham Clinton", but once established uses other forms like "Secretary Clinton", "Senator Clinton", "Hillary Clinton"... and just "Clinton". ╠╣uw [talk] 10:32, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

╠╣uw: Not even remotely comparable. You can't say that mentions of a surname in isolation are comparable to mentions of the combination of first and surname. The surname in isolation will be used multiple times in any article, while the combined first and surname will only be used, generally, about once (maybe slightly more if counting separate uses for title and captions), whether we are discussing Obama or Clinton. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dezastru (talk • contribs) 17:57, 11 June 2013

• Oppose - Quite well-known as "Hillary Rodham Clinton", as demonstrated by editors above. Hillary has had a notable life independent of her president husband, and has herself emphasized her given name over the last 2-3 decades. There are shades of parochialism here, similar to the Sarah Brown (wife of Gordon Brown) renaming discussion going on. Tarc (talk) 02:59, 11 June 2013 (UTC)
  • Parochialism how? The point about her having a notable life independent of her husband would only be relevant if the suggestion was to rename the article Hillary Rodham. Since she still uses her husband's surname with or without her maiden name, this is utterly irrelevant. And her given name is Hillary! -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:56, 12 June 2013 (UTC)
• Support. Seeing as the ngram goes only to 2008, I will do an update. Since 2009, "Hillary Clinton" -"Hillary Rodman Clinton yields 45,600 GBook results, "Hillary Rodham Clinton" 10,500. During the 1992 campaign, she was always "Hillary Clinton." So she was quite well known under that moniker before she announced that she was "Hillary Rodham Clinton". For weeks afterwards everyone was confused, including Jesse Jackson. I had assumed people stopped using "Rodham" after that, although this ngram suggests that it was more common on first reference as recently as 2004. Kauffner (talk) 03:20, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

RE: During the 1992 campaign, she was always "Hillary Clinton." So she was quite well known under that moniker before she announced that she was "Hillary Rodham Clinton" : This is incorrect. She was actually known as "Hillary Rodham," both professionally as a lawyer and as first lady of Arkansas; see this for example. She added the "Clinton" surname when Bill began to have national ambitions, becoming "Hillary Rodham Clinton", but she had NEVER gone by plain "Hillary Clinton" prior to that. --MelanieN (talk) 22:19, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

She added Clinton in 1982. And it's true that nationally she was initially better known, by the broader public, as "Hillary Clinton," as a result of the 1992 campaign. Prior to the 1992 campaign, she was not known nationally.

before 1993

"hillary clinton"                   9,704

"hillary rodham"                    615

"hillary rodham clinton"         404

from NewsBank search (English language news sources, United States)

Dezastru (talk) 17:33, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks to you both for doing those ngrams. A picture is worth a thousand words. : ) Kinda like this picture, as already mentioned. Dezastru (talk) 03:32, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

Actually, a picture, a domain name, a Twitter handle, etc. can be worth many fewer than a million words. If you click on "Remarks" on that picture, you'll see she's introduced as "Hillary Rodham Clinton" before the various listed speeches. For domain names or website header design, it could make sense to exclude "Rodham" to conserve space. Here on Wikipedia, we don't have the same constraints. user:j (talk) 05:35, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

J: Agreed, we don't base titles on pictures. For instance, here's another ngram showing the usage of "Obama" strongly outpacing "Barack Obama" by several times (and growing)... but even combined with Obama's primary topic status, I'd hardly see that as a compelling justification to rename our article to just "Obama". Titling really is about more than hits, people. ╠╣uw [talk] 10:01, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

Userj: Not talking about domain names or Twitter handles. Talking about the FRONT page, the welcoming page, of the website. A page that has only 6 words ("contact," "remarks," "privacy," "policy," "hillary," "clinton"). It's the branding page; it's saying that this is her current brand name, the name that most people will think of first. Wikipedia bio articles use the common name for the title and put the official name in the first mention of the body of the article, similar to how a website would generally display the common name boldly on the welcoming page but use an official name elsewhere on the site. But we point this out only to counter the argument that Clinton herself prefers to be seen as "Hillary Rodham Clinton." Even if she changed her Twitter space name and her website's first page tomorrow, that wouldn't alter the fact that the name most commonly used for her by other users in a variety of media today is "Hillary Clinton." ╠╣uw: As I said above, mentions of a surname in isolation is not the same, so your ngram is not at all relevant. Dezastru (talk) 17:57, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

Nonsense. Barack Obama's "brand name" was "OBAMA." A single website header image does not erase several decades of her stated preference, nor does a Twitter username or display name that technically could not include her preferred name. Just like countless media outlets have demonstrated, it's easier to just print "Hillary Clinton" sometimes. That doesn't make it her preference and it doesn't make it encyclopedic. user:j (talk) 19:54, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

• Support With both titles recognizable, unambiguous, and common, I prefer the more WP:PRECISE form. --BDD (talk) 18:50, 11 June 2013 (UTC)
  • Did you mean concise rather than precise? I think they're equally precise. --B2C 20:41, 12 June 2013 (UTC)
• Support per BDD. "Hillary Clinton" is more precise than "Hillary Rodham Clinton". The "Rodham" is an unnecessary disambiguator. Not to mention, she is better known without her maiden name than with it. – Muboshgu (talk) 18:52, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

• "Hillary Clinton" is more precise than "Hillary Rodham Clinton"?? Did you write that backwards by mistake?
  "better known without her maiden name than with it" That depends on one's level of academic interest. Shortened versions are more likely in blogs. Longer versions are more likely to be used in introducing more serious coverage. Have you reviewed List of books by or about Hillary Rodham Clinton. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:11, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose. Hillary_Rodham_Clinton is well recognised, well used, preferred in formal use by the subject, and preferred noting the subject's pre-Clinton notable life. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:25, 12 June 2013 (UTC)
  • But Hillary Clinton is at least as well recognized, used more, and WP article titles typically don't use formal names. Pre-Clinton her life was not sufficiently notable to be in any encyclopedia. --B2C 15:34, 12 June 2013 (UTC)
    • Given the repeated references simply to "Rodham", Rodham probably would be wikipedia-notable. She was a notable person as Rodham. This article has been here a long time. This more precise is not over precise because it is well used. Of course shortened and abbreviated versions of anything are "used more", but usage counts are a poor measure of recognizability because repeated shortened versions follow an initial precise definition. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:12, 12 June 2013 (UTC)
      • Whether the initial reference in an article is "Hillary Clinton" or "Hillary Rodham Clinton", subsequent references will be "Clinton" or "Ms.Clinton" or "Mrs. Clinton", not "Hillary Clinton", so we can't ascribe the enormous usage discrepancy to that. Whichever is used more in initial references in articles is going to show up more often in usage counts. --B2C 23:03, 12 June 2013 (UTC)
        • In this very article, where the initial (title) reference is Hillary Rodham Clinton, "Hillary Clinton" occurs subsequently 98 times. "Hillary Rodham Clinton" occurs 49 times. This directly contradicts what you just said. Within a single document, there are often reasons to reintroduce the subject with intermediate precision. It should be expected that shortened versions, used only after an earlier long version introduction, can to be found several fold more often with a simple usage search. Occurrences in text is a poor measure of expected title for an encyclopedia title. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:02, 13 June 2013 (UTC)
          • I suggest the usage in this particular article is a non-professional rare anomaly. More typical is this article, which refers to "Hillary Rodham Clinton" twice, "Clinton" half a dozen times, and "Hillary Clinton" zero times.

            Can you find any professional reliable sources that use "Hillary Rodham Clinton" to refer to her (not the biopic) initially, and use "Hillary Clinton" later on? --B2C 00:48, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

            • Beginning at List_of_books_by_or_about_Hillary_Rodham_Clinton#Mostly_neutral, I'm finding that access to text is behind paywalls, or to be located in physical form. There is some text to browse here: http://www.amazon.com/Opinion-Ladyship-Hillary-Clinton-Politics/dp/0815335997 Yes, it introduces here as "Hillary Rodham Clinton" and includes multiple instances of lesser reintroductions as "Hillary Clinton".
              I think the references at List of books by or about Hillary Rodham Clinton to "Hillary Rodham Clinton" are sufficient to make the case for preferring "Hillary Rodham Clinton". --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:21, 13 June 2013 (UTC)
              • As to the question of whether Hillary Rodham would have been notable enough for inclusion here, by early 1982 (when she first started publicly using the 'Clinton' last name), she was: a former First Lady of Arkansas, and a somewhat controversial one (in part due to her not adopting her husband's name); the first female chair of the Legal Services Corporation, where she expanded the budget from $90 million to $300 million and successfully fought off the Reagan Administration's attempts to cut it; chair of the Arkansas Rural Health Advisory Committee; co-founder of Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families; the first female full partner at Rose Law Firm, the third oldest law firm in the nation and a bastion of Arkansas power; a former law professor who had published several journal articles on children's law, including one that was influential and frequently cited; a staff member of the House Judiciary Committee during Watergate; and the subject of a profile in highly-visible Life magazine for her college commencement address. So if a 4-million-article Wikipedia had existed in 1982, then yes I think Hillary Rodham would have had an article in it. Wasted Time R (talk) 02:37, 13 June 2013 (UTC)
                • Okay, maybe she was sufficiently notable to be in WP (had it existed) prior to adopting the Clinton surname. So what? Once she became more frequently referenced as "Hillary Clinton", the same arguments would apply to change the article title accordingly. --B2C 03:38, 13 June 2013 (UTC)
                  • Wikipedia has a definition for which sources are the "most reliable sources," and by those sorts of publications, she is more often referred to as "Hillary Rodham Clinton" on first reference. We're not being overly precise, we're simply being accurate. Just because someone is "more frequently referenced" by a given name does not mean we should be moving any given article. It's one factor, not the deciding one. user:j (talk) 05:40, 13 June 2013 (UTC)
              • I'm asking for articles like this one about her. The first reference is to "Hillary Rodham Clinton". The rest are "Mrs. Clinton" and "Secretary Clinton", not "Hillary Clinton". This is typical. --B2C 03:38, 13 June 2013 (UTC)
                • Newspaper stories are not academic reference material, aka encylcopedic. We should not be trying to replicate newspaper articles.

Newspaper articles are easy to retrieve, but for quality you should be looking more at stuff like is found here: List of books by or about Hillary Rodham Clinton. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:24, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

Actually, that list of books and articles by or about Hillary Rodham Clinton to which you refer confirms the pattern that we have been pointing out throughout this discussion: "Hillary Rodham Clinton" was more common prior to a few years ago. Most of the Hillary Rodham Clinton's on that list are from the 1990s. Over the past few years, "Hillary Clinton" has become preferred. So that is one further bit of evidence in support of a need for a renaming of the article. Dezastru (talk) 17:54, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose per WP:TITLE: "Changing one controversial title to another is strongly discouraged. If an article title has been stable for a long time, and there is no good reason to change it, it should not be changed." Also "Debating controversial titles is often unproductive, and there are many other ways to help improve Wikipedia." This title has been in place for more than a decade; Hillary Clinton redirects to it; there is simply no reason to change. --MelanieN (talk) 14:24, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

P.S. The comment above about John F. Kennedy got me to thinking about the names of U.S. presidents. They tend to be known to history, and to encyclopedias, under the name they chose to be known by as president. This may take the form first-middle-last (William Howard Taft), first-middleinitial-last (Lyndon B. Johnson, Dwight D. Eisenhower), first-last (Ronald Reagan, Barack Obama), or even nickname-last (Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton). In the case of Hillary, I don't think we need a crystal ball to figure out that if she were elected president she would choose to be known as President Hillary Rodham Clinton. --MelanieN (talk) 17:15, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

Her Twitter handle begs to disagree with you. – Muboshgu (talk) 17:29, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

Irrelevant. As noted below, Twitter handles are limited to 15 characters.[2] She couldn't have used Hillary Rodham Clinton even if she wanted to.--MelanieN (talk) 19:55, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

That, plus WP:CRYSTAL. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. In the present moment, she is using the "Hillary Clinton" brand a lot, such as at Twitter and at www.hillaryclintonoffice.com. Dezastru (talk) 17:46, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

Just noting this here so that the Twitter handle and display name don't continue to be used as ammunition for a bad move: Twitter usernames are limited to fifteen characters and Twitter display names are limited to twenty characters. "Hillary Rodham Clinton" could not have been used for either for technical reasons. It doesn't demonstrated a sudden sea change in her name. user:j (talk) 19:54, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

HillaryRodhamClinton is nineteen characters. Just saying. bd2412 T 00:44, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

For a Twitter username, that would be fine. For a display name, it would be unusual to strip out the spaces just to try to get it to fit. user:j (talk) 23:03, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

"And there is no good reason to change it" is the operative phrase here. We've shown that there are several good reasons to change it, so that part of the policy does not apply. "This title has been in place for more than a decade," yes it has. However, as we have shown, usage patterns, which Wikipedia is supposed to reflect, have been changing over the decade. So it's time the title changed as well. Dezastru (talk) 17:52, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

• Comment B2C, you say in the initial request, "I can't believe the current title has survived several requests to move it," which is very dismissive of all the previous discussions. That there were such discussions all ending in the same result surely indicates that there is good reason to keep the current title. I also question the application of "The Yogurt Rule"; as far as I am concerned there is no such "rule", just a recently-written essay expressing one editor's opinion. In any case, it must be clear that there is yet again no consensus to move. Omnedon (talk) 15:21, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

"That there were such discussions all ending in the same result surely indicates that there is good reason to keep the current title." That would be so, if no other facts had changed. However, as we have shown, usage patterns, which Wikipedia is supposed to reflect, have been shifting. Discussions on this topic from 6 years ago are no longer as relevant because the usage is different. (It's also interesting to note the changes even in the discussions. In the February 2007 discussion, to the 2 contributors in favor of a change of the title, there were 10 opposed. Each time this topic has been reconsidered, the numbers of those arguing for the a change has grown, to the point that there were more arguing for than against a change last November.) Dezastru (talk) 17:49, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

The last one was just months ago. To discuss it yet again so quickly is problematic. You seem to be suggesting that it should continue to be brought up until the change you desire is finally made. But as you can see from this discussion, there is still no consensus to move, and many still that feel this move is unwarranted. Omnedon (talk) 18:16, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

On the contrary. Changes should be considered whenever there are developments that warrant reconsideration. If absolutely nothing has changed, then there is no need for reconsideration. But when new information becomes available, or additional points of contention become apparent, there should be a reconsideration. That's one of the main advantages of an electronic encyclopedia that can be edited in real-time over a static, printed encyclopedia. Dezastru (talk) 18:30, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

In general, I agree with your second and third sentences. But there have been no new developments on this issue since the last time, and so it's a waste of editors' time. Omnedon (talk) 18:34, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

The last discussion did not provide data showing that there has been a shift in usage. As for wasting editors' time, editors who have better things to do should feel free to do those other things rather than waste time contributing to this discussion. Dezastru (talk) 17:09, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

If a move request is made, and editors have a problem with it, they may well choose to get involved; but this has been discussed many times before including just recently. Yes, it's a waste of our time. There is clearly no consensus to move. Omnedon (talk) 17:17, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

I was surprised by this title and the lack of consensus support to bring it better in line with title policy in previous discussions, hence, "I can't believe ...". I'm still not sure what's going on. There is no evidence that the longer form unnecessarily disambiguated with "Rodham" is more commonly used than the concise form even in first references in reliable sources.

The WP:Yogurt Rule essay speaks for itself. Whether a closing admin agrees with the essay's author (yours truly) that its application in cases like this where all three conditions are met improves titles and title stability on WP is entirely up to that admin, of course. --B2C 21:11, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

If you're not sure what's going on, then you are not comprehending the arguments given here in opposition to this move. There are reasons why some of us feel strongly that the current title is best, and that the move is entirely unnecessary. Omnedon (talk) 01:06, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

"Rodham" isn't an "unnecessar[y] disambiguat[ion]." It's not just a part of her legal name, it's the name she was born with, the name she kept for long after she was married, and the name that she has chosen to continue to use for nearly three decades now. In addition to being her legal name, it's the name she preferred to be known by when she was First Lady, when she was a Senator, and when she was Secretary of State. There's no reliable indication this has changed her mind on this, and given the widespread use of "Rodham" in scholarly works, there's no a reasonable basis for us to change the title of this encyclopedic article. What you're asking for is not more precise, it's just shorter. And given our ability to redirect Hillary Clinton here, there's really no reason for us to pretend "Rodham" isn't an important part of her name and public identity as verifiable through reliable sources. Hence why every discussion about this ends up going nowhere. user:j (talk) 22:08, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

I didn't say more PREcise; I said more CONcise. Last I checked concision was one of our WP:CRITERIA.

Rodham is unnecessary disambiguation because, if there was another notable "Hillary Clinton", "Hillary Rodham Clinton" would be a reasonable and natural way to disambiguate this use. But since there is no such other use; the disambiguation is unnecessary. Now, you may argue it's necessary for other reasons, but by "unnecessary disambiguation" I'm simply pointing out that as disambiguation "Rodham" is unnecessary. You can't argue with that.

Whether "Rodham" is or is not "an important part of her name and public identity" is not relevant. What is relevant is whether she is referenced more commonly in reliable sources with or without "Rodham". --B2C 22:30, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

We could argue over the definition of concision... It essentially means as brief as possible, and I think most everyone opposed here presents a very compelling argument that "Hillary Rodham Clinton" is as brief as is encyclopedically possible. (To compare that to, for example, "Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton," which is truly not concise enough by our standards, given there's no need to diambiguate.) But if the crux of your argument is wp:commonname, I would point out that the absolute shortest possible title, "most Google Hits," etc. are not the only factors to be considered by there. In fact, the policy specifically suggest considering other encyclopedias to help gauge the best encyclopedic title when there is doubt. Britannica, for example, includes Rodham in its title. user:j (talk) 23:29, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

We agree concision means "as brief as possible". I point out that Hillary Clinton is both more brief than the current title, and encyclopedically possible (as it currently redirects to this article). Therefore, it's the more concise choice. WP often does not use titles typical of traditional enyclopedias (and what might be considered "encyclopedic"). In cases where one name is clearly most often used in reliable sources to refer to the topic in question, we usually go with it. There is no question that both names are commonly used and acceptable per our policies, guidelines and conventions, but the more concise option meets WP:CRITERIA better than the unnecessarily long current title. --B2C 00:01, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

I do not agree that "concise" means "as brief as possible". It means, to use one definition, "Giving a lot of information clearly and in a few words; brief but comprehensive." It's not only about brevity -- concision strikes the balance between brevity and comprehensiveness. Shortest is not necessarily best, and in any case "concise" doesn't mean "shortest". The current title here is the best one, for the various reasons already given here. It is also a concise title. Omnedon (talk) 01:05, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

• Comment Hillary is new on Twitter, and her handle and display names are simply "Hillary Clinton", not "Hillary Rodham Clinton". Shouldn't we take it directly from her? – Muboshgu (talk) 17:29, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

Indeeed. As noted earlier in the thread. She could very easily have selected "Hillary Rodham Clinton" for the display name, yet she chose "Hillary Clinton." Dezastru (talk) 17:42, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

(Originally was going to place this in the area above where Twitter came up, but might as well place it here.) Twitter limits usernames to fifteen characters. Display names are limited to twenty. Her chosen name would not have fit in either. We don't need a crystal ball, just a time machine, to know that she has chosen (time and again) to be known as Hillary Rodham Clinton. user:j (talk) 18:00, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

I stand corrected on Twitter display names. Dezastru (talk) 18:30, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

• Support, significant imbalance of Google hits plus Twitter handle = common name. bd2412 T 00:44, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

Please read the preceding discussion before !voting; the "Twitter handle" argument has been debunked half a dozen times. --MelanieN (talk) 00:58, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

Oddly, the Google hits argument - which is a strong argument on its own, and certainly the stronger of the two I mentioned - has not been "debunked", and is fairly conclusive. However, I also noted above that HillaryRodhamClinton is nineteen characters, so I am not sure how the Twitter handle argument can be "debunked". As a matter of common sense, we can only assign weight to arguments, we can not deem them to be proved or disproved in any absolute sense. bd2412 T 02:17, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

Twitter handles are limited to 15 characters.[3] The 19 character handle HillaryRodhamClinton would have been impossible. So the fact that she used HillaryClinton for her Twitter handle adds nothing to this discussion; she did not have the option of using HillaryRodhamClinton. --MelanieN (talk) 02:27, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

And, as pointed out at WP:NCP, Google should not be the deciding factor. As has been discussed above, going on Google hits alone, we'd be moving John F. Kennedy to JFK and Johann Sebastian Bach to Bach (both of which could be accomplished readily given that the latter redirects to the former in both cases). We don't, because our article titles are not decided by Google keywords. We are an encyclopedia, not a search engine optimization experiment. user:j (talk) 02:33, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

There seems to be some confusion over Twitter handles vs Twitter display names. The display name limit is 20 characters, so HillaryRodhamClinton would have worked for a display name. (I think it's actually 40 characters, but without special expertise, a user wouldn't be able to access that higher character count.) user:j Nobody is saying that Google counts alone should be the deciding factor. And you're ignoring other arguments that have already been made refuting your points about JFK and Bach. WP:Title, which says precision is a top criterion for selection of titles ("Precision – The title is sufficiently precise to unambiguously identify the article's subject and distinguish it from other subjects"), would have kept JS Bach's article from being named "Bach," and would have been one of several reasons to not name JF Kennedy's article "JFK." Dezastru (talk) 17:53, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

The limit for a display name is twenty characters. Twitter's instruction is: "Enter your real name, so people you know can recognize you." Her real name is not "HillaryRodhamClinton," it's "Hillary Rodham Clinton." The former would work fine as a username, but it is not the intended use of a display name. In any event, Wikipedia is, once again, not a Twitter marketing experiment. I listed the character limits because it provides, far and away, the most rational explanation for why "Rodham" was omitted there but is still in use in her official biography, etc. Could aliens have descended from the sky and instructed her (or her assistant, more than likely) to not use Rodham when creating her Twitter account? I suppose it's possible, but the character limitat seems more probable. user:j (talk) 23:03, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

"I listed the character limits because it provides, far and away, the most rational explanation for why "Rodham" was omitted there" -- Omnedon should be chiming in that such reasoning is "pure speculation," any time now ... (see below) Dezastru (talk) 02:08, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

There's another new data point besides Twitter. The Clinton Foundation recently incorporated Hillary and Chelsea into it (previously it had just been Bill). The "About" menu on its website now has new bio's of Hillary and Chelsea, and the bio for Hillary uses "Hillary Rodham Clinton" on both its header and first reference. Wasted Time R (talk) 10:42, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

That is a point worth considering, but not nearly as significant. Likelihood that Clinton herself was directly involved in deciding how the front page of her website looks and what her Twitter display name is? I'd say 100%. Likelihood that she was directly involved in what her bio page looks like on the Clinton Foundation website? Much lower than that. A bio page like that is something that an assistant would throw together. Clinton herself may or may not have reviewed it. Dezastru (talk) 17:57, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

"Much lower"? Pure speculation on both points. What we do know is that the site in question does list her name as "Hillary Rodham Clinton". Omnedon (talk) 18:09, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose Wasted R said it well, so I just repeat his/her comments for those who would get lost in the discussion above. But before I do that, 2 other points:

The Twitter handle argument doesnt make sense because of the need for handle brevity in a max space of 140 characters.

Shouldnt there be the equivalent of a 3RR rule for repeatedly bringing this name change up without any new evidence?

OK, here is Wasted R's stuff again. May you read in peace:

Oppose strongly yet again. This was already decided here and here and here and here, the last one being only six months ago. All the arguments for and against are going to be the same this time around. This is abuse of process, pure and simple, just like bringing an article to AfD five times because you didn't like the keep decision the first four times. It's basically hoping different people show up to !vote this time around and that you get lucky. That's not how consensus is supposed to work. And if you want a new argument, the Rodham biopic has been much in the news of late - see this CBS news story for example - and so that part of her name will be in even more use than before. Wasted Time R (talk) 01:29, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

Anyway, just to recap, "Rodham" is the last name that she was born with and used even after marriage for a while and that she chooses to keep. That's why the biopic is being named Rodham. "Hillary Rodham Clinton" is her official name, see her official Senate page (archived) and her official former Secretary of State page and her signature. This was also the name she announced that she preferred when she became First Lady in 1993, see here. The serious media generally always refer to her as Hillary Rodham Clinton on first mention, see for example any New York Times article, such as this story from a week ago, or see any Washington Post story, such as this one from a few days ago. The Times also uses Hillary Rodham Clinton to title its profile page on her. This is her name, and this is what the article's name should be. And we've been through this over and over. Don't people have something better to do here than re-litigate this?

Bellagio99 (talk)

"That's why the biopic is being named Rodham." Why do people keep bringing up a biopic that hasn't even been made yet and that is about the period of her life before she became a national figure with enough notability to warrant her own Wikipedia article? ("I became even more interested after talking to Young-Il Kim [the screenwriter] on the phone: He told me that the script begins when Hillary Rodham is selected for the House judiciary committee, and that it ends with the moment that Nixon resigns. During this six or seven month period, Kim told me, Bill Clinton was making his first campaign for political office, running for the U.S. Congress in Arkansas." Slate)

And again, WTR argued that this has been discussed multiple times before and nothing has changed -- an incorrect assertion. There has been a shift in usage patterns in the time since several of those previous discussions occurred. No one presented data in any of the previous discussions documenting this shift. Dezastru (talk) 20:16, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

If there has been a shift in usage patterns, it would not be an event but a trend; and I question how much of a shift there has been since the last RM, whether or not such data was presented then. In any case, as has been said by others, there is more to this than trends in usage. This is a stable title. No compelling information has been presented that shows that we should now change that stable title, when in the past we have not changed it. Omnedon (talk) 20:30, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

To characterize a title so frequently and strongly challenged by such large numbers as "stable" is to use a pretty useless meaning of "stable" in the context of WP title decisions. Once again, I call WP:Yogurt rule: if the article is moved as proposed, there would be no strong argument to move it back to this less concise and less commonly used title, and, so, peace and stability (in a useful sense) will ensue. I accurately predicted this at Yogurt, and I predict it here for very similar reasons. --B2C 20:51, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

It's stable in that it has not changed for many years. Just because you wish it to change, and have requested a move just months after the last failed request, doesn't mean it is not stable. There is no consensus to move it, and so it won't move. Your predictions as to what might happen if it was moved are meaningless. Since it has survived five move requests and will survive a sixth, that makes it very stable indeed. Omnedon (talk) 21:00, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

B2C, are you saying that if this article is not moved, there will be no peace -- that you will not accept that it has not moved and continue to fight this? Omnedon (talk) 21:04, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

Why is the WP:Yogurt Rule so hard to understand, and so easy to misunderstand? I had people ask me very similar things at Talk:Yogurt. THIS IS NOT ABOUT ME. I never participated in any of these discussions that have been going on and on for years until a week ago when I made this proposal after running into it somewhere and being shocked by it.

History showed at Yoghurt that people would continue to fight that title because they had good reason to fight that title, and that the conflict would be resolved with a move, because, once moved, there would be no good reason for people to fight to revert it. The exact same situation as here.

I understand how you're using "stable", and it's not unreasonable, but, like I said, it's a pretty useless definition of "stable" in this context. The majority of titles proposed for moving at WP:RM are probably "stable" in this sense. So what? That's not an argument to not move.

The closing admin decides if there is consensus to move, and it's not by counting !votes. It's by evaluating arguments. One of the arguments to move is that the current title is not stable (in the useful sense that includes not being seriously/significantly challenged in a long time), and that it would be stable (in all relevant senses) if moved as proposed, because there is no strong argument, and there would be no strong argument, to move Hillary Clinton to Hillary Rodham Clinton.

This is not merely a prediction. It's a claim that could be easily disproven by presenting a strong argument for such a move. There is no such argument. --B2C 21:15, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

...because there is no strong argument, and there would be no strong argument, to move Hillary Clinton to Hillary Rodham Clinton. This is not merely a prediction. It's a claim that could be easily disproven by presenting a strong argument for such a move. There is no such argument. There is absolutely a strong argument, and it has been made here over and over: Hillary Rodham Clinton is her name. This is the name she goes by and has gone by since the 1980s and continues to go by. It was her name as first lady, as senator, as secretary of state. If she should be elected president she would certainly choose to be known as President Hillary Rodham Clinton, and then we would HAVE to change it back, since we always list U.S. presidents according to the name they choose to be known by as president (see William Howard Taft above). This is why we have Dwight D. Eisenhower (the D. is unnecessary disambiguation since there are no other Dwight Eisenhowers); same with Lyndon B. Johnson and many others. --MelanieN (talk) 21:46, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

That's not a strong argument because a similar one could be made for the more concise name. Hillary Clinton is her name. This is the name used most commonly to refer to her in reliable sources, especially in the last decade. It was her name as first lady, as senator, as secretary of state.

A similar argument could not be made for Dwight D. Eisenhower or Lyndon B. Johnson, who were only very rarely referenced without the middle initials/names. It's not a strong argument. Not for this person. --B2C 22:03, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

"Not for this person." Please, do tell. user:j (talk) 23:10, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

Tell what? The argument that the person is only very rarely referenced without the middle initials/names is a strong argument for Dwight D. Eisenhower or Lyndon B. Johnson, but not for Hillary Clinton. --B2C 00:16, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

B2C: An article title is not unstable merely because it's been unsuccessfully challenged. It's unfortunate that you continue to insist that no strong arguments opposing your proposal have been advanced when – as others are noting – they have been, both in this and previous RMs. I understand you feel you're right: that's fine, and you certainly don't have to agree with those who oppose the move, but you're returning to your old habit of asserting that valid opposing arguments have not been raised when they have.

(I must also agree with Wasted Time R, Omnedon, MelanieN, et al. in questioning the appropriateness of relying on your self-made "Yogurt Rule", which both seems to encourage adoption of a change in spite of there being no consensus for it, and belief that there are no strong arguments from opponents.) ╠╣uw [talk] 23:04, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

An article title is not unstable merely because it's been unsuccessfully challenged. That depends on how you define "stable"/"unstable". If you define it strictly as "hasn't changed", then of course. But if you allow that controversy disrupts the "stability" of a title, especially by repeated challenges that result in "no consensus", then a title that has been repeatedly unsuccessfully challenged is unstable, by definition. What is the point of this semantic discussion? WP:TITLECHANGES is not clear on which connotation of "stable" is intended there. More importantly, it also states that for it to apply there has to be "no good reason to change it". Plenty of people have cited a number of reasons to change this title for reasons that they believe are very good, so whether the title is "stable" or "unstable" is moot, as WP:TITLECHANGES does not apply regardless (unless you're dismissing the good reasons good people have given for moving this article).

I'm not denying that there have been good reasons stated to keep this title where it is. Retain the status quo is probably the strongest among them, but of course that one would clearly not apply once the article is moved, so it's important to look at the strength of the arguments independent of that consideration. What I don't see is a strong argument for moving Hillary Clinton to Hillary Rodham Clinton - meaning an argument that would outweigh the argument to keep the article at Hillary Clinton. That's why I keep citing the WP:YR, as the situation there was so similar. While there was a strong argument to keep the article at Yoghurt, there was no identifiable strong move Yogurt to Yoghurt argument. I kept pointing this out, but it kept getting misunderstood as me saying there was no good argument against moving Yoghurt to Yogurt. Anyway, eventually, the article was moved, and, indeed, it has proven to be truly stable there, because there is no good strong argument to move Yogurt to Yoghurt, just as I had pointed out. Here I point out there is no good strong argument to move Hillary Clinton to Hillary Rodham Clinton, and you seem to interpret this as me saying "that no strong arguments opposing your proposal have been advanced". I've said nothing of the sort. --B2C 00:01, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

Sigh. Looks like we're back to WP:IDIDN'THEARTHAT. I advanced exactly such an argument here, noting among other things that if she were elected president we would HAVE to change it back to HRC. And dozens of people have pointed out things like the use of the HRC name by the Clinton Foundation, the Department of State, and the White House consistently when she was first lady. HRC is her name. The fact that a lot of sources shorten it to HC does not make HC her name. A lot of sources used to say "Princess Di", but that did not make it her name. I post here under the name MelanieN, but that does not make MelanieN my name. If this article was moved (which I doubt will happen), there would be strongly argued demands on a weekly basis to move it back to her real name. --MelanieN (talk) 00:32, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

Oh, I heard that, did you not hear my reply? About Eisenhower and LBJ?

Anyway, many people have multiple names, Hillary Clinton is one of them. No one is denying that Hillary Rodham Clinton is one of her names; pointing out that it is her name is not a strong argument, because Hillary Clinton is also her name.

You can argue that HRC is her WP:OFFICIALNAME, which your references to the White House usage etc. certainly support, but WP:OFFICIALNAME is not a strong argument, as it itself clearly explains.

Now do you see why this argument to move Hillary Clinton to Hillary Rodham Clinton would not be a strong one?

I admit there is a different standard applied to presidents, but that's WP:CRYSTAL for two reasons. First, we don't know whether she'll even run, let alone win both the nom and the general. Second, we don't know what name she'll be referenced by most often then. By then it might be Hillary Rodham. --B2C 00:52, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

B2C, the fallacy of your stance and your Yogurt Rule is that you seem to think that your interpretation of what is a strong argument is the only one. It isn't, and for all the reasons that people think this article should be at this title, they will still think so it if it gets moved, and they may well try to move it back. Wasted Time R (talk) 01:07, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) B2C, WP:OFFICIALNAME states "Article titles should be recognizable to readers, unambiguous, and consistent with usage in reliable English-language sources.". What part of the name Hillary Rodham Clinton fails to meet those criteria? Do you actually have a "strong reason" for moving it to HC, other than citing a "rule" you made up yourself? (BTW if you are using the "Google count" metric, of Arguments to avoid fame, please note that "Lyndon Johnson" has more hits (4,930,000) than "Lyndon B. Johnson" (4,250,000). And "Dwight Eisenhower" (3,880,000) is pretty much tied with "Dwight D. Eisenhower" (4,490,000). I thought you said the version without the initial was "very rarely referenced"? ) My point being: a Google hits count is a very poor method of determining the WP:COMMONNAME of something. For one reason, Google will always often, by its very nature, give far more hits for a shorter version of a name or phrase than for a longer version. --MelanieN (talk) 01:10, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

"Google will always, by its very nature, give far more hits for a shorter version of a name or phrase than for a longer version."

"Martin King" 1,800,000 "Martin Luther King" 114,000,000

"Daniel Lewis" 749,000 "Daniel Day Lewis" 15,900,000

"Sandra O'Connor" 1,040,000 "Sandra Day O'Connor" 1,490,000

"Harriet Stowe" 63,200 "Harriet Beecher Stowe" 755,000

"Hans Andersen" 804,000 "Hans Christian Andersen" 6,960,000

"Elizabeth Stanton" 153,000 "Elizabeth Cady Stanton" 636,000

"Sarah Parker" 754,000 "Sarah Jessica Parker" 31,300,000

Clearly, always does not always mean always. Dezastru (talk) 02:35, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

KABOOM goes the cornerstone of her argument. Will that change her position? Only if it relies upon her argument. If her position is purely subjective/emotional, it won't. Any bets on how this will go? --B2C 03:29, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

(B2C: That kind of thing is unnecessary: rather than sarcastically bet that others' arguments are mere emotion, please exercise good faith and civility.) ╠╣uw [talk] 11:17, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I corrected "always" to "often". Now (asking a second time), would you care to expound your "strong" reason for changing HRC to HC? Is it all based on WP:GOOGLEHITS, despite the well-known limitations of such searches for Wikipedia purposes? --MelanieN (talk) 03:38, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

Yes, Google will often give the shorter name more hits, when the shorter name is a prefix or suffix of the longer name. Of course. That's just basic search bias. I mean, for every occurrence of "John Doe" there is going to be at least one "John" and at least one "Doe". But that's not the case here. It's like the examples listed by Dezastru above... where the longer name is the shorter name with something inserted into the middle of it. For every occurrence of "John James Doe" there is not necessarily going to be a "John Doe". Whether there is or not correlates directly with how the subject in question is commonly referenced. In such cases there's no search bias at all favoring the shorter name. So, in this case, HC vs. HRC, there is no excuse to dismiss the significance of the Google count results.

To reiterate what is already in the proposal, but independent of WP:YR: Primarily, WP:COMMONNAME (recognizability and naturalness from WP:CRITERIA - "Hillary Clinton" is at least as recognizable and natural as "Hillary Rodham Clinton", arguably more on both counts, at least partially based on Google counts), WP:PRECISION (not overly precise, which HRC is - Yes, HRC is her name, but so is HC, which is shorter and just as precise), concision (also from WP:CRITERIA; HC is clearly more concise than HRC). Also, WP:OFFICIAL obliterates most of the support for HRC. --B2C 05:48, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

Wasted Time, I do not at all think that my "interpretation of what is a strong argument is the only one". WP:YR is based on the closing admin's interpretation of that.

If the article is moved, perhaps you and others will try to move it back. But, seriously, what argument would you use? And what makes you think it's a good strong argument? --B2C 03:34, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

Well, there's clearly no consensus for a move, so there's that. And, although you don't like it and try to deny it, Hillary Rodham Clinton is her name, which is a pretty strong argument to most folks who recognize that your "Yogurt Rule" and WP:ON are both essays, not policies — and neither of which can dismiss the significant common usage of Hillary Rodham Clinton, her longstanding and stated desire that "Rodham" be included, the fact that the most reliable sources include "Rodham" on first reference, and the fact that other encyclopedias include it in their article titles for her (a concept that is supported in an actual policy here, WP:TITLE). But, I wouldn't want to get in the way of your "obliterating" Rodham, since you're hellbent on trying to do that for whatever reason... user:j (talk) 09:16, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

B2C, just as an aside, one closing admin's word is not necessarily the only word. Long, contentious AfD decisions often end up getting appealed, and sometimes reversed, at WP:DRV, for example. But anyway. My argument then, as well as now, would be that there are exceptions to pure "common name" all over WP, from royalty (how many Americans would even know who Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge is?) to military aircraft (titles like Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress and North American P-51 Mustang violate every one of your recognizable, natural, precise, concise, and Google hits criteria) to elections (awkwardly worded, rarely uttered phrases like United States Senate election in New York, 2012) to songs (why "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction"? Everyone knows it as "Satisfaction"; why "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)"? Everyone but everyone just calls it "Norwegian Wood") to laws (pretty much everybody, pro and con, now refers to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act as just Obamacare). These are not isolated examples of "other stuff exists" that can be dismissed. Rather, they are systematic recognitions that sometimes other criteria can outweigh pure "common name". In biographies too there are exceptions, such as Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, where several alternatives are shorter and get more Google hits, and various presidents, as noted above, some writers, and so forth. When looking at the best sources, the hits differences between the two Hillary forms are not that great, and I believe that correctness, formality, best sources' first references, official use, and self-identification should all outweigh whatever hits differences there are. (These same considerations are behind many of the exceptions I pointed to.) I believe this is a reasonable argument, just as I recognize that there are reasonable arguments on the other side, and I think both sets of arguments will still be reasonable no matter how this decision goes. But your Yogurt Rule seem to think that as soon as one closing admin decides on one side, poof! every argument on the other side disappears. That to me is a little presumptuous. Wasted Time R (talk) 12:09, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

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