Talk:Emu War

Proposal to rename article to Emu culling

 * 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 after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved. (closed by non-admin page mover) Polyamorph (talk) 13:43, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

Emu War → Emu culling – Consensus per prior discussions[1][2][3][4][5] is that this was a largely unsuccessful wildlife management campaign, not a bona fide war against the emu population. Despite this, there still remains a vocal contingent of disruptive editors who didn't get the memo and actively refuse to take their shitposting somewhere else.

Various countermeasures have been put in place over the years in an attempt to curb the amount of vandalism this page attracts, from changing the article's infobox template from Template:Infobox military campaign to the less-permissive Template:Infobox military operation, to placing warnings against altering the infobox in the page's source code, to putting this article under indefinite semi-protection. None of them have worked, because all of them fail to address the root cause of the problem: the article's title, which these vandals use as their casus belli.[6][7][8][9][10] (That, and WP:LULZ.)

I hereby propose that this page be moved to Emu culling - they can't vandalize Emu War if there isn't a page with that name to begin with.

While "Emu War" is the most commonly-used title for this campaign by reliable sources, we are not necessarily shackled to it. WP:COMMONNAME states that "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. Neutrality is also considered; see § Neutrality in article titles, below." This would certainly fit the bill - as previously established, this was a wildlife management campaign, not a war.

WP:NPOVNAME further states that "Notable circumstances under which Wikipedia often avoids a common name for lacking neutrality include the following:
 * 1. Trendy slogans and monikers that seem unlikely to be remembered or connected with a particular issue years later
 * 2. Colloquialisms where far more encyclopedic alternatives are obvious"

"Emu War" is a textbook example of the latter case.

Renaming the article to Emu culling will make it WP:CONSISTENT with other articles on wildlife culling (cf. Cormorant culling, Shark culling, Seal culling in South Australia), expand the article's scope to allow for more extensive coverage of other instances of emu culling, and hopefully put the WP:LAME edit warring over how the article's infobox is formatted to rest once and for all.

Summoning for comment.

— Kodiak Blackjack (talk) • (contribs) 10:39, 25 June 2024 (UTC)


 * I'm not arguing that it was an emu culling, but this particular emu culling is known as the Emu War. I can see value in an article about emu culling in general, but that would not be this article. - Bilby (talk) 10:43, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I can see value in an article about emu culling in general
 * That's more or less what I'm proposing here. We'd just make the current article a subsection of a broader page on emu culling. Like the page on the Korean axe murder incident, where Operation Paul Bunyan isn't its own page, but just a subsection of that article. This is far from the only time emus have been culled in Australian history; it still happens to this day.
 * — Kodiak Blackjack (talk) • (contribs) 10:49, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I'd be amazed if 'Emu War' wasn't the common name for this incident in reliable sources. 'Emu culling' is a generic term not about this incident. We don't move Wikipedia articles against policy to stop vandals - that's what the admin tools are for. If the movie on this topic causes a spike in vandalism, as seems likely, it can be fully protected for a while. Nick-D (talk) 10:54, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Oh, no, I'm not debating that it isn't  the common name. It is. No doubt about that.
 * But I am saying that there are provisions in WP:COMMONNAME and WP:NPOVNAME that would allow for the page to be titled something other than the common name, if the common name is inaccurate - which it is. And since there's other reasons backed by policy on why creating a page on emu culling and porting this over there would be of use (WP:CONSISTENT, making room for information that would otherwise be WP:OOS), I don't see why we can't knock out two birds (heh) with one stone and make this a less appealing target for vandals. It's been a perennial issue for what, 14 years now? If we can nip it in the bud, we should.
 * — Kodiak Blackjack (talk) • (contribs) 11:25, 25 June 2024 (UTC)


 * Oppose. As acknowledged above, "Emu War" is overwhelmingly the common name. "Emu culling" may be a good description of what actually occurred but that is not the purpose of article titles. Vandalism can be dealt with through page protection. ITBF (talk) 13:25, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
 * As acknowledged above, "Emu War" is overwhelmingly the common name
 * I am aware, and I have addressed this above several times. Please read my previous statements on why WP:COMMONNAME can and should be overruled here.
 * "Emu culling" may be a good description of what actually occurred but that is not the purpose of article titles.
 * I think I might be confusing you here. The end goal here isn't to rename the page to Emu culling and change nothing else about it. The end goal would be the creation of a page on emu culling (in the vein of Cormorant culling, Shark culling, etc.) that includes this page as a subsection, and having Emu War redirect to that subsection. A page move, to my knowledge, would be the best way to facilitate that.
 * Think of it as less like a traditional rename request and more like a merge request - just that the destination page doesn't exist yet.
 * Vandalism can be dealt with through page protection.
 * Page protection hasn't been an adequate solution for this article in the past, and nothing suggests it would be in the future.
 * The page has been semi-protected since 2013, and it is still regularly inundated with 12-year-old internet pranksters with autoconfirmed accounts trying to sneak "decisive emu victory" into the infobox for Reddit karma. If we treat page protection as the only tool at our disposal to deal with persistent vandalism (and we shouldn't), the next step would be putting a WP:BLUELOCK on it, which I don't think is justifiable just yet.
 * — Kodiak Blackjack (talk) • (contribs) 16:06, 25 June 2024 (UTC)


 * Support. One American academic calls it an "Emu War" for the reason of sensationalism and suddenly this is the common name? I think not. 14.2.193.105 (talk) 07:59, 27 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Not remotely correct. ITBF (talk) 08:56, 29 June 2024 (UTC)


 * Oppose - Not sure where this "one American academic" claim comes from, but "Emu War" is the common name per the many sources listed in the article. And as above, we don't abandon basic naming and sourcing rules to appease vandals. As an addendum, this isn't an article about the general topic of emu culling, so renaming this article would simply be inaccurate. If we had such an article there might be some validity in a merge proposal. But this would be a discussion for that future time.  -- Euryalus (talk) 10:53, 27 June 2024 (UTC)
 * "Emu War" is the common name per the many sources listed in the article. And as above, we don't abandon basic naming and sourcing rules
 * It's not abandoning the rules. It's by the books. I've already iterated how and why - refer to the green bit in my original post.
 * to appease vandals
 * This is the opposite of appeasing vandals. Appeasing vandals would be letting them vandalize the page over and over again, as they have for the better part of two decades.
 * Let me give you a hypothetical. It's a little crude, but I think it works. Let's say there is a man who is persistently victimized by random stabbing attacks on the street. Let's say he's also fond of wearing shirts that say "PLEASE STAB ME" on the front and back. And finally, let's say that he doesn't actually want to get stabbed. What should he do to avoid getting stabbed? He has two options.
 * He can buy a stab-proof vest.
 * Or, he can just put a different shirt on.
 * This is the latter option. This is taking off the shirt that says "PLEASE STAB ME" on it. If he doesn't do either - if we don't do either - then their memes won't end here. Sure as the sun will rise, the slaughter will continue.
 * As an addendum, this isn't an article about the general topic of emu culling, so renaming this article would simply be inaccurate.
 * Have already addressed this:
 * "'I think I might be confusing you here. The end goal here isn't to rename the page to Emu culling and change nothing else about it. The end goal would be the creation of a page on emu culling (in the vein of Cormorant culling, Shark culling, etc.) that includes this page as a subsection, and having Emu War redirect to that subsection. A page move, to my knowledge, would be the best way to facilitate that."
 * "Think of it as less like a traditional rename request and more like a merge request - just that the destination page doesn't exist yet.'"
 * If we had such an article there might be some validity in a merge proposal. But this would be a discussion for that future time.
 * Does it make a difference whether the destination page exists or not beforehand? So long as it does eventually get made, the move can happen. If this discussion were to wrap around to a "support" consensus, couldn't we just put a pin on moving it for a while until the destination page is ready?
 * — Kodiak Blackjack (talk) • (contribs) 00:45, 28 June 2024 (UTC)


 * Oppose per Euryalus. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 16:32, 27 June 2024 (UTC)


 * Oppose. War is often used as a metaphor in Wikipedia article titles, see War as metaphor. SentientObject (talk) 22:43, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

Concede. I can see which way the wind is blowing here. It's not going to go through, and I don't see the point in beating a dead horse, let alone backing one. Might come back to this if a standalone article on emu culling gets written in the future, per 's comment "If we had such an article there might be some validity in a merge proposal. But this would be a discussion for that future time.", but consensus right now is opposition to the proposal, and there isn't a point in continuing as is. — Kodiak Blackjack (talk) • (contribs) 01:59, 1 July 2024 (UTC) The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
 * Weak oppose: The article describes a series of events that is more of a story of bungling than culling. The common name for this set of incidents appears to be "Emu War", using "war" as a metaphor, as noted by SentientObject – like the War on poverty, War on drugs, War on terror, and War on cancer. When there is a well established common name for a topic, we tend to just use that, even if it seems somewhat inaccurate or non-neutral. Being a target for vandalism does not seem like a very good reason for moving an article. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 20:22, 28 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Oppose per User:ITBF, User:BarrelProof, et. al. See WP:COMMONNAME. 162 etc. (talk) 18:26, 29 June 2024 (UTC)