Talk:California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences

Requested move 21 October 2014

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

The result of the move request was: not moved. Since this requested move waited a long time for resolution, there is no prejudice toward a new attempt to garner consensus if and when a new argument(s) comes to light. Happy New Year to All! (closed by page mover)  Paine Ellsworth   put'r there 15:38, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences → QB3 – I would like to swap "California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences" with its redirect "QB3" but can't figure out how to do it myself. The long form of the name is now deprecated; that is, the organization's leadership does not use it and has sanctioned the primary use of only the short form of the name. (The motivation is the confusion that results from multiple names appearing in scientific publications and the media). – Scerevisiae (talk) 18:22, 21 October 2014 (UTC) --Relisting.  sami  talk 23:40, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
 * This is a contested technical request (permalink). Anthony Appleyard (talk) 22:09, 21 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Full disclosure: I am the communications and marketing director for QB3. What evidence is required? Visit our website http://qb3.org to see our own usage. The University of California website http://www.ucop.edu/california-institutes/about/about.htm lists QB3 as the primary name, above the long form. Now, you make a good point about California vs. worldwide; but how much confusion is there? Google the name: ~416,000 results for "QB3" and ~146,000 for the long form. The name "QB3" is not common worldwide. (However, see entries from Malaysia http://educationmalaysia.blogspot.com/2007/01/qb3-malaysia-programme.html, Scotland http://www.saltirefoundation.com/UndergraduateInternshipProgramme/2014scholarsandBios.aspx and Australia http://www.health.nsw.gov.au/ohmr/Pages/nsw-medical-device-tp.aspx that reference San Francisco-based "QB3" primarily by the short name.) There is an architecture firm in Philadelphia called "QB3"; also "QB3" is used for the chess move and to refer to the third-string quarterback in American football. These don't seem to have Wikipedia entries. Also, it's a good point that "QB3" seems like an ambiguous abbreviation...but it's not an abbreviation, it's an alternate name. Here's the history. The institute was originally named the "California Institute for Bioengineering, Biotechnology, and Quantitative Biomedical Research" (the long form of the name has changed twice since then) and simultaneously given the short form of QB3, which was deemed catchier than "CIBBQBR". "Q" stands for "quantitative" and the "B3" for "bioengineering, biotechnology, biomedical research." "QB3" was originally an alternate name that has become the predominant form, and therefore the redirect should be from the long form to the shorter one. Scerevisiae (talk) 19:11, 22 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Oppose per WP:TITLEFORMAT. "QB3" appears to be an ambiguous abbreviation. There is no evidence that the subject is known primarily by that abbreviation and that abbreviation is primarily associated with this subject (especially when this entity is only appears to be in California and not worldwide). Zzyzx11 (talk) 06:41, 22 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Just to clarify: the talk page discussion and the article were at cross-purposes, but now are reunited. The result should be a page at either California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences or at QB3 (or QB3 (foo)), not California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences (QB3) with two parallel titles, per naming policy. Dekimasu よ! 00:33, 28 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Oppose: Per WP:AT "Article titles should be recognizable to readers, unambiguous, and consistent with usage in reliable English-language sources." Convincing evidence has not been offered that (a) QB3 is now the most common way this institute is referred to in reliable sources, or (b) that the acronym QB3 in reliable sources is more likely to designate this institute than any other meaning. We do know that the long form of the name, California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences, is in use and uniquely identifies the institute. It even appears on the web sites of the two affiliates at Berkeley and at UC Santa Cruz as one of its names. A Google search for 'qb3 -california -berkeley -ucsf -"santa cruz"' gets 386,000 hits, suggesting that the acronym QB3 is widely used for other meanings. Per WP:OFFICIAL we do not use the official name if the article subject is more widely known by another name. (I originally closed the discussion as Not moved but User:Scerevisiae appealed on my talk page. I'm undoing my closure and converting my closing comment into a vote. This will allow more opinions to be heard.) EdJohnston (talk) 02:05, 31 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Comment. Thank you to User:EdJohnston for reopening discussion. Ed mentioned that WP:NCA says "In general, if readers somewhat familiar with the subject are likely to only recognize the name by its acronym, then the acronym should be used as a title." That is my position. As evidence of instances where relevant players refer to QB3 by the short name only, I cite the regional trade association BayBio, the business reporting site Xconomy , the San Francisco Business Times , the local blog indogpatch , the pharma company Bayer , the bank JPMorgan Chase (keeping in mind that this is a joint press release involving QB3, but vetted by JPM lawyers), the Boston-area startup incubator LabCentral , and the investing firm angelMD .I acknowledge that these results are selective, but they illustrate that a range of organizations "somewhat familiar with the subject" routinely use the short form. In response to Ed's point that "A Google search for 'qb3 -california -berkeley -ucsf -"santa cruz"' gets 386,000 hits, suggesting that the acronym QB3 is widely used for other meanings" I would respond that 1) approximately 10% of these results actually refer to the institute QB3, and 2) the redirect QB3 has been in place on Wikipedia for several years with no requests for disambiguation, suggesting that while "QB3" may have many meanings, only one of them has proven nontrivial enough that someone has created a Wikipedia page for it. Also, Google Trends shows that while there is a significant number of searches for "qb3" there are none for "california institute for quantitative biosciences" .Scerevisiae (talk) 18:56, 31 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Comment: When I tried to undo my closure and relist this discussion back in 2014, I did the wrong thing with the templates. Hopefully it is now fixed, and the move bot will see it. Then the move will be listed at WP:Requested moves/Current discussions and we will have another seven days of discussion. Sorry for the inconvenience. EdJohnston (talk) 22:15, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Comment. Note: this is just a comment and not to be construed as participation in this requested move. Okay, I'm going to ask what other editors are probably dying to... Why has this RM waited more than three years to be "officially" reopened? It was closed with in October 2014, and then it was reopened two days later with the next edit. According to the table this is the oldest by far open RM at 1,172 days. So the question must be why did both the nom and the closer/reopener let this go three years before catching that it needed an "official" reopening?   Paine Ellsworth   put'r there  01:00, 5 January 2018 (UTC)
 * No good explanation. I came across this unfinished move when I was looking through my talk page archives and wondered what became of it. Without the proper template it escaped being included by the bot in the current discussions list. Due to that fact, people monitoring the list would not have seen it. Even so, it would presumably have been on several people's watch list. EdJohnston (talk) 02:18, 5 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Thank you very much for that! and yes, it is just a bit weird that the fully disclosed nom., Scerevisiae, did not catch this and try to get it "moving" again. Happy New Year to you and yours!  Paine Ellsworth   put'r there  03:52, 5 January 2018 (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.