This was a lengthy but actually quite straightforward discussion. There was a clear consensus from the beginning that the former title was not acceptable. From several suggestions, three plausible alternatives emerged:
Option 1 Gaza genocide question
Option 2 Gaza genocide accusation
Option 3 Gaza genocide
The discussion ran for several weeks and was well-attended after being centrally advertised to all editors. The rough headcount in favour of each option was 23 for Option 1, 26 for Option 2, and 32 for Option 3. Few editors in favour of option 1 were strongly opposed to option 2 and vice-versa; amongst those that indicated support for both, the preference was generally for option 2. A fair number of comments in favour of options 1 and 2, but generally not option 3, were not policy-based (i.e. along the lines of “there is no Gaza genocide”) and the headcounts for those options should be down-weighted accordingly.
The main argument in favour of option 3 was that ‘Gaza genocide’ is reflective of the wording used by available reliable sources, and several editors presented detailed source analyses in support of this. This argument was contested but not convincingly rebutted. The main argument in favour of options 1 and 2 were that the unqualified use of the word ‘genocide’ in an article title, when the existence of a genocide is disputed, would violate Wikipedia’s neutral point of view (NPOV) policy, and specifically the principle that titles should be non-judgmentally descriptive. Editors in favour of option 3 countered that the source analysis supported ‘genocide’ as a neutral descriptor (and conversely that ‘accusation’ is non-neutral), and/or that the presence of a statement in an article title does not imply that the statement is factual.
Considering that option 3 had the most support by a clear margin, that the arguments in favour of this title generally had a stronger grounding in reliable sources, and that neither side achieved a consensus on the question of which title is favoured by WP:POVTITLE, I see a rough consensus that the title of this article should be Gaza genocide. – Joe (talk) 09:54, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
Wikipedia is not a democracy, but still, since this conclusion is couched in democratic terms, I think it’s worth engaging with it on that level. It’s not clear to me how those numbers—23/26/32—were arrived at. They mention some people were in favour of multiple options, are those numbers counting them twice, Approval Voting style? Or only taking what is perceived to be their absolute favourite, FPTP style? If the former, then this is very obviously the right decision, especially when you take into account that the poor arguments used were un-wikipedian and should be down-weighted. If the latter, it becomes much, much more difficult to justify through sheer numbers. As stated, options 1 and 2 experienced a lot of cross-support, and so in an imagined IRV vote you might end up with something like 49-32, a strong vote in favour of option 2. Maybe more like 45-33 if you consider some exhausted votes who really don’t want another option and some who even jump from 1 to 3. And less once you down-weight the un-wikipedian answers, but probably still not so much less unless that “down-weighting” is to 0. So justifying option 3 becomes comparatively difficult, purely as a numbers game.
But skimming through a few of the actual detailed responses, I didn’t see any opposition to option 3 that even vaguely stood up to scrutiny. Which makes sense, because it just says what all of us have been saying for months.
The summary of the debate Wikipedians had:
Wikipedia is not a democracy, but still, since this conclusion is couched in democratic terms, I think it’s worth engaging with it on that level. It’s not clear to me how those numbers—23/26/32—were arrived at. They mention some people were in favour of multiple options, are those numbers counting them twice, Approval Voting style? Or only taking what is perceived to be their absolute favourite, FPTP style? If the former, then this is very obviously the right decision, especially when you take into account that the poor arguments used were un-wikipedian and should be down-weighted. If the latter, it becomes much, much more difficult to justify through sheer numbers. As stated, options 1 and 2 experienced a lot of cross-support, and so in an imagined IRV vote you might end up with something like 49-32, a strong vote in favour of option 2. Maybe more like 45-33 if you consider some exhausted votes who really don’t want another option and some who even jump from 1 to 3. And less once you down-weight the un-wikipedian answers, but probably still not so much less unless that “down-weighting” is to 0. So justifying option 3 becomes comparatively difficult, purely as a numbers game.
But skimming through a few of the actual detailed responses, I didn’t see any opposition to option 3 that even vaguely stood up to scrutiny. Which makes sense, because it just says what all of us have been saying for months.