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Jim Baker redirect

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redirect without actual reference:

National Rifle Association (redirect from Jim Baker (lobbyist))

Requested move 22 November 2024

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National Rifle Association → National Rifle Association of America –

What's in a name?

National Rifle Association is unique amongst articles relating to National Rifle Associations in the title being arbitrarily abbreviated. The organisation is called the “National Rifle Association of America”, but the en.WP article title omits “of America”. In 2024, this:

  • Does not conform to WP:Criteria
  • Does not reflect the most common usage within WP
  • Deserves re-assessment and scrutiny per WP:GLOBALISE to ensure it is not embedding systemic bias.

This proposed move will probably be more controversial than it really should be.

WP:CRITERIA

  • Recognizability: The abbreviated form is only recognisable when contextualised as US/USPol. Most Authority Control sources & third party encyclopaedias use the full name, since context is not available until you start reading the entry.
  • Naturalness: “of America” is not unnatural - the other articles cope with “of Australia” or “of India”. Moreover, the majority of in-body wikilinks use the full “of America” form, so editors across en.WP don't find it too objectionable.
  • Precision: “National Rifle Association” is imprecise and does not unambiguously define the scope. This has caused actual errors and confusion including:
  • Concision: “of America” is not verbose. It might be verbose to use it repeatedly once contextualised, but not on first use or as an article title.
  • Consistency: omitting “of America” is inconsistent with NRA of India/Pakistan/Australia/New Zealand/Norway. We “got away with it” when Wikipedia was more US-centric, but Wikipedia is now covers more global subjects and it deserves re-evaluation to ensure we are not embedding systemic bias.

WP:COMMONNAME

A 2022 discussion on the Talk page (which was not an RfM discussion and therefore mainly engaged involved editors) came to No Consensus for Change. Some editors cited WP:COMMONNAME when opposing the move. However, this seems to be a What First Comes to Mind interpretation as COMMONNAME is really intended for situations like Cassius Clay/Mohammed Ali. Although there are exceptions where an abbreviation or acronym is used (e.g. FIFA), the only way I can see it applying here is by arguing that “the abbreviated form is what mass media use”. However, COMMONNAME is more nuanced than that:

“Editors should also consider all five of the criteria for article titles outlined above. Ambiguous or inaccurate names for the article subject, as determined in reliable sources, are often avoided even though they may be more frequently used by reliable sources. … When there are multiple names for a subject, all of which are fairly common, and the most common has problems, it is perfectly reasonable to choose one of the others.”

(Emphasis mine). The abbreviated form is not Precise or Consistent and is ambiguous without further context. Even if it commonly used (in context) by reliable third-party sources, it is not encyclopaedic. Per WP:COMMONNAME, we should look beyond the scope of what CNN or the NYT use and consider authoritative sources.

COMMONNAME also suggests looking at other encyclopaedic sources to determine what titles are in an encyclopaedic register.

Most non-English Wikipedias also use “of America” fr.WP, it.WP, simple.WP. Hemmers (talk) 11:49, 22 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

What has changed since your last move request 2 years ago? "National_Rifle_Association_of_America" Springee (talk) 12:24, 22 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Increasing globalisation, which deserves re-assessment - WP:CCC. The last discussion was a pure article talk discussion not a wider RFM, which limited contributions largely to involved editors. In light of Globalise, wider opinions should be sought.
  • Declining usage of the current title vs. the "of America" redirect for in-body wikilinks. In a similar vein, NRA was recently moved back to the disambig from being a redirect, since additional global "NRAs" meant "National Rifle Association" (of America) no longer met the criteria for Primary Topic.
  • An understanding that when WP:COMMONNAME was invoked in 2022, those doing so neglected to address the caveat highlighted above, and may have been citing the policy erronously on a What First Comes to Mind basis. This should have been challenged more robustly at the time. It is reasonable that the application and relevance of WP:COMMONNAME should be discussed and clarified, since the policy itself seems to explicitly oppose the current title. I hope those citing COMMONNAME this time around will address this issue and not just say "Oppose per COMMONNAME", which would be unhelpful given the clear and explicit issues presented.
The simple fact is, the current title does not comply with WP:CRIT or WP:COMMONNAME. It just doesn't. Authority Sources, other encyclopaedias - even other Wikipedias - all agree. We're out of step.
Hemmers (talk) 13:02, 22 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Can you provide evidence for those claims? Otherwise, this looks like you didn't get the answer you wanted last time so you are asking again in hopes of getting a different answer this time. On Wikipedia such strategies do work from time to time but it would be better if you provided better details why things have changed. Ping previous participants@Chaheel Riens, HiLo48, Bobsd, and Muboshgu:. Springee (talk) 13:35, 22 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Can you provide evidence for those claims?
I have - at some effort - literally compiled an extensive critique of this article's non-compliance with established WP Policy. I must ask you to engage with the substance of the issue and not engage in what could be considered ad hominems.
Changes - such as "National Rifle Association" being less widely used than "National Rifle Association of America" - are clearly evident in the wikilink stats (which I have listed). There was also the NRA disambig move. I have provided examples of erroneous links made to the wrong National Rifle Association. And we must remember that there was no firm consensus to "Keep" the title in 2022. It was a "No Consensus to Change", which is open-ended and accepts that there is uncertainty. If we are going to stick with a non-standard, inconsistent, non-compliant title, then we must expect it to be challenged and reconsidered periodically. Consensus can change.
I accept that "having another go" is sometimes deployed as a poor faith strategy. I would also caution that attempting to discredit the RFM by saying "it's just sour grapes" whilst declining to engage with any of the issues raised (including subsequent changes) is also poor faith. I am sure that is not your intention and your next post will "play the ball". Hemmers (talk) 14:25, 22 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
How many of the examples of National Rifle Association of America are ones you added/changed from National Rifle Association? The first one I investigated is the link from Ice T's article. It was added in 2014 or so as National Rifle Association (the cited reference just says NRA). You added "of America" last year [1]. How many other redirects did you change? Did your edits significantly change the numbers? Note that I picked Ice T's article basically because it was on the list and didn't seem like the sort of article that would include the Conservativism template. Springee (talk) 15:22, 22 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
AGREE with changing to National Rifle Association of America
My opinion has not changed since two years ago:
WP:CRITERIA is applicable in this case, because we already have additional articles with the text "National Rifle Association" so for precision and consistency, I think the article should be moved, and let the disambiguation page do its thing.
  • Precision – The title unambiguously identifies the article's subject and distinguishes it from other subjects. (See § Precision and disambiguation, below.)
  • Consistency – The title is consistent with the pattern of similar articles' titles.
Here are the current Wikipedia articles containing the text "National Rifle Association" .
They all contain the country name, which makes sense since "National" needs to point to "which nation" as soon as there is more than one.
What can possibly wrong with being MORE accurate AND consistent ???
National Rifle Association Note: we don't have to use the full name ... because "we" are America? :)
National Rifle Association (United Kingdom)
National Rifle Association of Norway
National Rifle Association of India
National Rifle Association of New Zealand
National Rifle Association of Australia
National Rifle Association of Pakistan
Here is Britannica:
Here is the copyright notice on the bottom of every webpage at the www.nra.org (where you need to be accurate for © )
© 2024 National Rifle Association of America.
 • Bobsd •  (talk) 19:11, 24 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Nothing has changed since the discussion two years ago. "National Rifle Association" is the WP:COMMONNAME in press reports. It is more WP:CONCISE without "of America", and is WP:PRECISE enough without the extra disambiguation. – Muboshgu (talk) 14:51, 22 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Why doesn't this apply?
    Ambiguous or inaccurate names for the article subject, as determined in reliable sources, are often avoided even though they may be more frequently used by reliable sources. Hemmers (talk) 15:10, 22 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Because it's not ambiguous or inaccurate. – Muboshgu (talk) 15:13, 22 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    It literally is ambiguous, and I have provided examples where users have wikilinked to the wrong article! Moreover, global notability has diluted enough that it lost PT on NRA. There are also far more articles linking to the full "...of America" redirect than the base title (by a ~3:1 ratio, excluding the Conservatism US template). The current title is inconsistent & imprecise - unless we're contending that all the major Authority Control sources and third party encyclopaedias are wrong, or excessively pedantic? It feels like a Seymour Skinner "no, the children are wrong" position to be in! Hemmers (talk) 15:39, 22 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    How many of those are articles that you changed? [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11] Springee (talk) 16:04, 22 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm not sure if this link will look the same for everyone but I selected the "...of America" (see (of which 962 are the "of America" redirect) above). I then selected 500 entries per page, selected the second page then reviewed the first 15 articles listed. All 15 were recently changed, after the 2022 move request, to link to "...of America" vs without. I think it's safe to say very few articles were originally written as "of America". It's only a question of how many. Most of the articles are about Americans so the NRA context would be clear. In every case I checked, which wasn't many, the source didn't specify "of America". Sometime it just said NRA. Springee (talk) 17:52, 23 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    @Muboshgu, Actually, here are the stats from a google search:
    "National Rifle Assocation" = 2,470,000
    "NRA" = 43,800,000
    By your criteria of frequency used in the cloud, the name of the article should be changed to "NRA"
     • Bobsd •  (talk) 19:28, 24 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I support the change mainly because I can not see any downside to being more accurate in the naming of the article. Yes, most people in the US and even globally refer to the organization as the "NRA", or less commonly take the time to say "National Rifle Association" , and fewer still would get out the mouthful "National Rifle Association of America" ... unless the person being addressed was confused, and qualification was needed. Say when speaking to someone in the UK. We are not supposed to be US-centric. So why not just be accurate and call the article by the same name that the organization itself uses?
When someone visits Wikipedia, and starts typing "National Rifle Association ..." all the articles will show in the list, and they can choose from there. No problem. Also consider, if we are stuck on the most commonly found reference to the organization, that would be "NRA" So why are those opposed to making the title more accurate, not pushing for changing the title to "NRA", which as a search term, doesn't even pull up the any of the National Rifle Association articles.
I'm a retired CSQE where more accurate (less ambiguous) was never considered a problem in any way ... ambiguous requirements gets you planes falling out of the sky. Almost every point @Hemmers has made seems to be met with a yes, but WP:COMMONNAME and WP:CONCISE without addressing why they should have priority over WP:PRECISION and WP:CONSISTENT.
I have nothing more I feel I can add to this discussion.  • Bobsd •  (talk) 20:34, 24 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

* Oppose I believe that nothing has fundamentally changed since the same editor proposed the same change back in 2022 here. Arguments then are as valid now as they were first time round. Responding due to a ping, because despite the comment from Hemmers that contributions last time round mainly engaged involved editors - I've only ever edited the article once to revert vandalism. Chaheel Riens (talk) 16:58, 22 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose (Responding due to a ping.) I simply cannot see the point of this request. I don't recall the previous discussion. I am Australian, and cannot recall EVER seeing or hearing the organisation referred to with "of America" as part of its name. I don't know of any other organisation known as a National Rifle Association. I'm someone who is very sensitive to American cultural domination in the world, often fighting situations where Americans act as if their version of something is the only one. (Misunderstandings of my position on this have upset American editors at times.) But this is NOT one of those situations. I see no case being made here that any confusion has ever resulted from our use of the current name. Just now I have discovered that there is a National Rifle Association of Australia but, as mentioned before, I have never heard of it. It is apparently all about the use of fullbore rifles in sport shooting competitions, but doesn't even tell me what a fullbore rifle is. Yes, we have an article - Fullbore rifle, but incredibly, it doesn't tell me either. My spellchecker thinks it's misspelt. There are more significant naming issues in this realm than sticking a seemingly redundant "of America" on the end of the name here. HiLo48 (talk) 19:46, 22 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Thankyou for your comment on Fullbore rifle - I have added a line describing the actual discipline to the lead of that article.
    However, the rest of the comment seems a bit strange. To say you have "never heard of another NRA" is just WP:BUTIKNOWABOUTIT. There are many organisations with the initials "NRA" that I have no knowledge of, but they exist - and the articles get enough traffic that the NRA of America is no longer PRIMARYTOPIC for "NRA"! For many Australians - whether they are shooters, firearms licensing officers, or simply involved in sports administration/governance at some level, any discussion of "NRA" or "the National Rifle Association" will be a shorthand for the NRA of Australia - because what would the NRA of America have to do with Australian sport?
    Just because you personally are most familiar with the National Rifle Association of America does not invalidate the concerns over PRECISION or CONSISTENCY. Personal familiarity should not come into this when we have objective criteria against which to judge the matter. Nor does it prevent "National Rifle Association" redirecting to a correctly titled article as PRIMARYTOPIC.
    It is very strange that we are setting ourselves in opposition to every major encyclopaedia, as well as authority sources like VIAF, the USLOC and the Library of Australia! Hemmers (talk) 10:00, 25 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Basically the same reasons as last time. While "...of America" appears more often now than it did in 2022, it appears that many of the "...of America" examples are recent changes and don't reflect the sources they cite. Springee (talk) 20:04, 22 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose a long-winded nomination that really only amounts to "other countries also have National Rifle Associations". Non-US press generally refers to it exclusively as the NRA. France24 does, al-Jazeera does, the Sydney Morning Herald's "NRA" section is entirely about the US group. And there is no claim that any other organization is prominent enough to challenge the primary topic here. Walsh90210 (talk) 22:26, 22 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    • Furthermore, many of the arguments about usage of the name "National Rifle Association of America" are because the nom themselves changed the link text (or simplewiki article titles). This borders on a bad-faith nomination. Walsh90210 (talk) 22:30, 22 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    "Non-US press generally refers to it exclusively as the NRA. France24 does, al-Jazeera does, the Sydney Morning Herald's "NRA" section is entirely about the US group."
    WP:COMMONAME is explicit that even reliable press usage of ambiguous names should not overrule PRECISION and CONSISTENCY. Basically all Authority Control and other encyclopaedias use the full and proper name. What is your line of reasoning is for opposing established policy? This is basically why I reopened the discussion - the realisation that people handwaving "oh, but COMMONNAME" were actually not applying the policy correctly. Hemmers (talk) 10:08, 25 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, WP:COMMONNAME and WP:CONCISE: I don't recall ever encountering the longer form of the name of this organization. Pageview statistics show that all other topics listed on the disambiguation page combined get about 80 page views per day over the last two years, while this one gets about 9 times that many. 90% traffic (even when ignoring the fact that several of those other organizations don't have a name that closely resembles this one – e.g., there is no "National" in the names of the organizations in the Dominion of Canada, Guyana, Jamaica, and Trinidad) is sufficient to indicate a WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 22:38, 22 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    As far as PRIMARYTOPIC goes, I have no problem with "National Rifle Association" redirecting to "of America". I am not proposing we move "National Rifle Association (disambiguation)" to "National Rifle Association".
    But why should CONCISE take priority over PRECISION or CONSISTENCY? Perhaps made sense when there was only one NRA article but there are now many. It's unclear why COMMONNAME should apply - if I hand you a book titled "History of the National Rifle Association", you will not know which NRA it discusses. You might suspect it will be the US entity, but you won't know - it is ambiguous. COMMONNAME caveats itself in cases of ambiguity - and Authority Controls and titles like Britannica clearly show the encyclopaedic register is to use the full name. Hemmers (talk) 09:25, 25 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"Jim Baker (lobbyist)" listed at Redirects for discussion

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The redirect Jim Baker (lobbyist) has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2024 November 22 § Jim Baker (lobbyist) until a consensus is reached. Hemmers (talk) 14:42, 22 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

922 g Federal gun status

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The NRA has been absolutely silent about the unconstitutional. 18. 922 g1 2600:1009:B160:8E9:F87A:DFD5:BCD9:69DD (talk) 15:04, 22 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

What do RS say? Slatersteven (talk) 11:24, 25 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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