Talk:Gqeberha/Archive 1

Untitled
the List of cities in South Africa and the Eastern Cape Province article suggest that PE is now known known as "Nelson Mandela Metropole". Really? Since when? If anybody can expand on this issue, it would be nice. Nyh 13:23, 28 Jan 2004 (UTC)
 * PE along with the surrounding towns of Despatch and Uitenhage form the Metropole, which is an administrative area, but the towns retain their own names. In effect it means that the area is governed by one authority, not that the towns have merged. Grunners —Preceding undated comment added at 12:32, 9 August 2004 (UTC)

This page needs to be disambiguated from the Port Elizabeth in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Elizabeth,_Saint_Vincent_and_the_Grenadines). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.129.50.189 (talk) 09:40, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

I've created a disambig page, leaving the redirect from Port Elizabeth to Port Elizabeth, Eastern Cape. Crazyscot 16:03, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

The administrative entity is officially the "Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipality" and comprises the previous City of Port Elizabeth and the towns of Uitenhage and Despatch (plus some smaller settlements that were previously administered by a Regional Services Council) - and which still retain their geographic names. Elio1 (talk) 18:44, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Nelson Mandela Metro
There is a wiki page for the metro which should be referred to in this page in connection with government, Im going to copy the info from the Grahamstown article and make the neccessary changes. What is concerning me though is that the democraphics section here is based on Census SA's info that relates to the metro, for now Im going to leave the information here but it should go accross to the metro article with this article sticking really to the City. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Paul Hjul (talk • contribs) 08:01, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Defence against possible copyright violation
Some of the original content of this page appears at first glance to be a copyright violation, lifted from http://www.nelsonmandelabay.com/port_elizabeth.asp. However, on closer examination, that page in fact appears to have been lifted from Wikipedia. As evidence of this, consider the beginning of its second paragraph: "The Donkin Reserve Port Elizabeth": this could only happen if that page had been naively copied and pasted from the Wikipedia article without copy-editing. Crazyscot 13:16, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the proposal was move. JPG-GR (talk) 19:49, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

I am in the process of requesting a move to Port Elizabeth which is currently a redirect to here as per WP:COMMON.Crispness (talk) 09:17, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Support. Apparently this article was originally at Port Elizabeth until June 2005 when an anonymous user did a cut-and-paste move to newly created Port Elizabeth, Eastern Cape for unknown reason. There's no reason not to put it back. Station1 (talk) 04:00, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Support - no reason given for the move, and no alternative Port Elizabeth article to justify adding "Eastern Cape" to this one. Euryalus (talk) 04:51, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Support - Definitely. --Mr Accountable (talk) 17:08, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

'also' known as Nelson Mandela Bay'????
The city has never/is known as Nelson M'ela Bay??? This is the name of the municipality. One doesn't say: Baltimore, also known as Maryland is a city...''' - Can someone please change the beggining??--Bezuidenhout (talk) 18:40, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

WP:SAFRICA assessment
Notwithstanding the assessments made by the other projects that this falls under, I'm giving this a C. Needs references for a few unsourced statments before I give it a B. Ron2K (talk) 19:59, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Urban decay
It says that the urban decay of central PE was due to the moving of the University and building of motorsways? To me this sounds like bull as the real reason. Bezuidenhout (talk) 16:49, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't know about the moving of the university, but I understand that the building of the elevated M4 freeway did have quite a big effect in cutting off the city from its harbour, similarly to what the Foreshore Freeway did in Cape Town. I don't know if I would call that "urban decay", though. And in fact the CBDs of all South African cities experienced decay in the 80s and 90s - see Johannesburg, for example - so I don't know if it would be fair to attribute it to those PE-specific factors. Anyway, that whole section is unreferenced. - htonl (talk) 17:36, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

2010 FIFA World Cup
2010 FIFA World Cup [quote The Port Elizabeth harbour, waterfront and city centre are in the process of being upgraded before the 2010 FIFA World Cup, and are expected to rival the popular Cape Town waterfront. The city is one of the venues for World Cup games, and many more visitors are expected. To this end, there are calls for Port Elizabeth Airport to be upgraded, to ease the journey time and effort both for World Cup teams and spectators, and also more generally for tourists.[citation needed] unquote] The 2010 FIF world cup has come and gone. The Port Elizabeth harbour, waterfront and city centre were NOT upgraded before the 2010 FIFA world cup and certainly do NOT rival the Cape Town waterfront to the slightest degree. (There is NO tourist infrastructure in the harbour). In fact, members of the public are prohibited from entering the harbour. The airport itself was NOT upgraded but a few roads around the airport and in a few other areas were upgraded and completed prior to the start of the SWC in June 21010. A new bus service was started just before the Beginning of the competition. Members of the public who wished to attend any match at the stadium were required to park their cars at various venues and bus to the stadium. After the matches there was chaos as thousands of spectators tried to return to the car parks on the limited services provided. July 19th, 2010 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 196.210.244.185 (talk) 15:14, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Entering the harbour is not completely prohibited. The public can visit the resturant (Oyster Catcher?), Yacht Club and a few other spots. Security checkpoint on entering and leaving the harbour is an absolute pain. -- Firefishy (talk) 23:06, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Municipal Manager
The entry for "Municipal Manager" is out of date (as at February 2012). There is currently an Acting Municipal Manager (Mr. Themba Hani) until such time as a permanent appointment is made. Elio1 (talk) 07:36, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Since PE is not a minucipality it is rather unlikely that it will have a Municipal Manager. I have removed the municipal information from the infobox. --NJR_ZA (talk) 10:47, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

That's better - the "Municipal Manager" is at the head of the Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipality, which administers the metropolitan area of which Port Elizabeth forms a geographical part; the former Port Elizabeth Municipality was disestablished when the NMBMM was established. Elio1 (talk) 14:41, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

in terms of sports in Port Elizabeth. The IRON MAN SA event is held their every year. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 197.87.254.29 (talk) 12:35, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Another name change?
The official municipal website now refers to "Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality", i.e. the "Metropolitan" appears to have been discarded from the name. I don't know if the legal name has also been changed. Also, it appears the municipality has changed the title of its top official from "Municipal Manager" to "City Manager". — Preceding unsigned comment added by Elio1 (talk • contribs) 10:25, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070114052056/http://www.africaalmanac.com/top20highschools.html to http://www.africaalmanac.com/top20highschools.html

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External links removed by LibStar (talk)
Wiki policy on external links states quite clearly
 * 1) Wikipedia articles about any organization, person, website, or other entity should link to the subject's official site, if any. See.
 * 2) An article about a book, a musical score, or some other media should link to a site hosting a legally distributed copy of the work, so long as none of the  and  criteria apply.
 * 3) Sites that contain neutral and accurate material that is relevant to an encyclopedic understanding of the subject and cannot be integrated into the Wikipedia article due to copyright issues, amount of detail (such as professional athlete statistics, movie or television credits, interview transcripts, or online textbooks), or other reasons.

See particularly #3. Removing all external links but one is bordering on vandalism, and misquoting a Wiki guideline is not sound editing. Please discuss the matter on this page before reverting again. Paul venter (talk) 06:24, 6 October 2017 (UTC)


 * not vandalism that is ridiculous. LibStar (talk) 08:03, 6 October 2017 (UTC)
 * The links removed by LibStar, and now by me, are not about the subject of the page directly, and hence do not belong. For more information about why they do not belong, read WP:ELNO, specifically #13, and the rest of the guideline.  WP:ELYES is not a standalone piece of text.
 * Secondly, removal of external links is not vandalism. However, per WP:ELBURDEN, the undiscussed reinsertion of links is not the way forward.  --Dirk Beetstra T  C 08:42, 6 October 2017 (UTC)
 * thanks Beetstra. LibStar (talk) 10:00, 6 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Mmmmmmmm....LibStar did far more than remove the link I added - he removed all the links but one repeatedly (a clear case of edit-warring) and the undiscussed removal of links is not the way forward either - some evenhanded criticism might give the appearance of objectivity. I have neither the will nor the energy to engage in a futile exchange, but a third (unbiased) opinion might be a good idea.....Paul venter (talk) 16:05, 6 October 2017 (UTC)
 * you need to accept you lost the discussion here and WP:LETGO. it wasn't edit warring so stop clutching on straws. LibStar (talk) 01:50, 7 October 2017 (UTC)
 * now, this is not a battleground either, so that is unnecessary language not aimed at improving the article.
 * that also did not get to the level of edit warring, and if it was, it takes at least two to edit war. Also not aimed at improving the article.  And if you are not willing to defend these links, they are certainly failing our inclusion standards - they are just not being worth including.  —Dirk Beetstra T  C 06:19, 7 October 2017 (UTC) (fix ping Dirk Beetstra T  C 06:20, 7 October 2017 (UTC))

Missing Notable Person
Ashton Nyte was noted years prior as being a notable person from PE. Why has this been removed even though on his wikipedia entry it clearly states he was born here? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 105.227.91.224 (talk) 13:06, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

RJ Thomas 15:04, 14 January 2018 (UTC) I added Ashton Nyte back because he is clearly a notable person. (talk)

Semi-protected edit request on 24 February 2021
Reference [29] Delagoa does not mean "from Goa". Delagoa originates from Baía de Lagoa in Portuguese. Lagoon Bay in English. 102.182.13.62 (talk) 15:06, 24 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Yellow check.svg Partly done: I've removed the reference because direct Google Translate link is an exceptionally poor reference. But since you've not provided a reference yourself, I did not add your claim. Melmann 19:11, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

IPA Pronunciation of Gqeberha
The English IPA Pronunciation of Gqeberha should be added to the article. See Help:IPA/English for a guide. Park3r (talk) 23:39, 23 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Based on videos like this and this, the pronunciation in Xhosa seems to be (the tones and vowels may be off but they clearly have a high pitch in, and lengthen, the second syllable). I assume English speakers not familiar with click languages will pronounce it  or, but we shall see. Nardog (talk) 12:34, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

The b should be implosive according to both that audio and standard treatments of Xhosa orthography. Otherwise it would be Gqebherha. Changing this but leaving it open to discussion.

Note that the second video doesn’t seem to feature any native speaker: one is Anglophone, the speaker for the bulk of the video is Venda. Harsimaja (talk) 18:12, 24 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Ah, good catch about the implosive. Nardog (talk) 09:01, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 26 February 2021
The Walmer Township is also known as Gqeberha. https://iaps.architexturez.net/doc/oai-iaps-id-0103bm042#:~:text=Gqebera%2C%20also%20known%20as%20Walmer,of%20the%20white%20local%20council. PDKM (talk) 10:00, 26 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Red question icon with gradient background.svg Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Nardog (talk) 11:10, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

Renaming too soon
WP:COMMONNAME WP:OFFICIAL WP:NAMECHANGES would indicate that the name would remain Port Elizabeth until the established usage in English changes, at this point, it's too early to tell (WP:CRYSTAL). There are numerous cases of SA towns and cities having their old names as common names, because the new names haven't been accepted by the population, and are widely disregarded in WP:RS, are hard to pronounce in English, or take years to become common for other reasons. Renamings have also been withdrawn in the Government Gazette shortly after being promulgated, or successfully challenged for procedural reasons in court before the usage becomes common. I would recommend moving the page only after it becomes clear that Gqeberha is the common usage, and given the size of this city, this could take months or years, and certainly won't happen overnight. Park3r (talk) 21:53, 23 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Although I am not a regular contributor to this article, I 100% agree with this assessment. This is just not how things are done on EN.Wikipedia. The name change must only be reflected in the article's title once the reliable sources clearly reflect the new term as being accepted, and the sources commonly refer to it as such. Remember wikipedia is WP:NOTNEWS, we need not react immediately once an official legal position has been announced. We must follow the sources, to do otherwise would be WP:ORIGINALRESEARCH. - Wiz9999 (talk) 16:15, 24 February 2021 (UTC)
 * It should also be noted that news sources have changed their usages back-and-forth over a period of years in other cases, and this needs to be considered when deciding on whether a name change has really "taken" or not. Consideration should be given to other sources, apart from SA news websites (some of which may be politically linked), including international sources (since this is an internationally known city) and to making sure that sustained consensus is achieved over a large number of news sources. The risk of WP:CIRCULAR needs to be borne in mind. Park3r (talk) 23:16, 24 February 2021 (UTC)
 * I think the title should now be changed. It is easy to add a redirect using the old name, and international news sources have recognized the change. See South Africans get their tongues round Gqeberha, the new name for Port Elizabeth, CNN, 25 Feb 2021, [South African city of Port Elizabeth becomes Gqeberha, BBC News, 24 Feb 2021, and The Telegraph.[[User:Calmecac5|Calmecac5]] (talk) 23:37, 25 February 2021 (UTC)
 * WP:NOTNEWS. The risk with renaming based on contemporary news reports is that it presents a risk of WP:CIRCULAR references where the “endorsement” of Wikipedia becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy. We should follow the policies listed above. Park3r (talk) 11:52, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

The article shouldn't be moved now. The renaming of Barrow, Alaska to Utqiagvik took about a year, while Bangalore hasn't moved to Bengaluru in over a decade. We can better assess in 6 months if the common name has changed as a result of this government declaration. power~enwiki ( π, ν ) 22:50, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

Requested move 11 March 2021

 * 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. There is no consensus that the new name is the WP:COMMONNAME. -- Calidum 19:11, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

Port Elizabeth → Gqeberha – New official city name. 🔥LightningComplexFire🔥 19:01, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Do you have examples of the press using the new name? If you can give two South African sources and two non-South African sources using the name that aren't about the name change, I may support this.  Per my comments above, it normally takes a minimum of 3-6 months of usage of a new official name to support changing an article title here. power~enwiki ( π,  ν ) 19:17, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
 * , https://www.thesouthafrican.com/news/gang-related-shooting-teen-girl-grassy-park/amp/ https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/gqeberha-mother-and-daughter-jailed-for-murder-of-family-electrician-20210311 https://allafrica.com/stories/202102240610.html https://www.sify.com/sports/eastern-province-name-15-member-team-for-provincial-cricket-news-cricket-vdlslfgdcbiai.html 2 south african, 2 non south african (AllAfrica isn't only South African) 🔥LightningComplexFire🔥 19:29, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I'll !vote later today. power~enwiki ( π, ν ) 19:31, 11 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Comment: Per WP:NAMECHANGES, the decision to rename the article should be based on whether reliable sources written after the change is announced routinely use the new name. Taking a cursory look at Google News results over the past month:This is a bit of a crude measure, since not all of the listed results are reliable sources and not all of them use "Gqeberha" or "Port Elizabeth" in their own voice (e.g. appearances in quotes). A closer look is necessary to determine which is used more frequently, but it at least appears that there are reliable sources news outlets that use "Gqeberha" including (all from South Africa unless noted):• News24

• The Herald

• Eyewitness News

• Daily Dispatch

• SABC News

• Daily Maverick

• Independent Online

• GroundUp

• The South African

• The Sowetan

• Indo-Asian News Service (India)

• Sierre Leone Times (Sierre Leone) — MarkH21talk 19:26, 11 March 2021 (UTC); expanded list 19:37, 11 March 2021 (UTC); wording modification — MarkH21talk 19:47, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Indo-Asian News Service may have a "fake news" problem, but I'm not worried about their cricket coverage. At a glance, South African sources are largely using Gqeberha, but foreign sources are often using both names; many foreign sources (such as the BBC) haven't referred to this place at all since the name change.  I did find DA launches national petition to challenge Port Elizabeth name change which claims the name might be disputed for a month, not sure if that is true/relevant. power~enwiki ( π,  ν ) 19:41, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Ah yes, I didn't mean to claim that the list entirely consists of generally reliable sources. Indeed, it seems that there is little global coverage of the city in general so it is not easy to judge that aspect for now. — MarkH21talk 19:47, 11 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Oppose as per WP:OFFICIAL WP:NOTNEWS and WP:COMMONNAME. A lot of article moves on South African topics have happened without taking these policies into account (see Grahamstown and Mbombela [Nelspruit] which may have been prematurely moved). In the past, I proposed some page moves like Bela Bela that I'm now unsure about. Given the dearth of online sources, changing the name on Wikipedia too soon would result in WP:CIRCULAR references, where Wikipedia's "endorsement", used in snippets by Apple and Google would create facts on the ground, or at least drive coverage using the new name (WP:SOAP). Also, South African news sources have tended to jump around during name changes (depending on the political inclinations of their editors). In the case of another proposed city renaming, the Sunday Times and SABC both switched for a few years before returning to the common usage. From an editorial standpoint, the text of these articles tends to get overwhelmed by name change controversies as the government and opposition groups slug it out in court, and this gets reflected in Wikipedia, which is another reason to adopt a wait-and-see approach, and to weight international sources more heavily. Park3r (talk) 21:21, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Oppose. It's too soon to judge if this name change will be picked up by reliable English-language sources. Rreagan007 (talk) 01:30, 12 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Neutral it's not the WP:COMMONNAME globally yet. However, this is an article about a South African topic and per WP:ENGVAR South African English is what matters most.  That's less clear, but I still think it's a bit too soon for a move. power~enwiki ( π,  ν ) 01:47, 12 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Will eventually support, ...but waiting for BBC to follow its own story. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-56182349 grateful to for having launched the RM. Not least because was hunting for WP:NAMECHANGES re some recent name reversal RMs to move some Azerbaijan towns back to Soviet Russian names. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/02/24/south-africas-port-elizabeth-changed-xhosa-click-language-name/ It seems unlikely that this name change will not catch on, so the only question really is move it now or wait 3 months. Support move, but would be inclined to wait. The consensus above looks to be heading that way, which is what we'd expect and probably what our readers expect too.  In ictu oculi (talk) 10:06, 12 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Neutral - gut feeling is 'not yet' but I remember the same feeling (not necessarily WP related) when Bombay and Calcutta changed to Mumbai/Kolkata. Certainly in the ports arena, the national authority in SA is still referring to PE. Fob.schools (talk) 13:24, 12 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Support Based on what MarkH wrote it seems to be the common or at least most used in South African English—blindlynx (talk) 16:26, 12 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Oppose. It's been known as Port Elizabeth for most of its history. This does our users no favours. -- Necrothesp (talk) 16:44, 15 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Port Elizabeth seems the most common name in use, despite the change by the national gov't. It is the established, longstanding name of the city for its entire existence and the future will determine whether Gqeberha gains support, or not. thorpewilliam (talk) 09:03, 16 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Port Elizabeth has been used historically and internationally remains the de-facto name. The change appears controversial with a large portion of South Africans, particularly supporters of the Democratic Alliance. --Kirkworld (talk) 19:31, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

Proposed name change to Nelson Mandela City
Before any further article moves are considered, it should be noted that there have been 66000 objections (from people of different race groups) to the name Gqeberha (the origin of the name appears to be unknown, and the there appear to have been procedural issues, with only 393 people were consulted on the name out of a population of 1.4 million), that the municipality has lodged a formal objection, and that an alternative name proposed is Nelson Mandela City. Park3r (talk) 00:03, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

Audio recording of Gqeberha
We have the IPA pronunciation, but it would be great if we could add an audio recording as well, preferably voiced by a native Xhosa speaker.Park3r (talk) 01:45, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

And in English
In reply to the comment above asking for an audio recording .... I would like to see this, yes. Also I want to know, does this name have a different pronunciation for when it's used in English? For example, the Alaskan town name Utqiagvik has both a native pronunciation and an adapted English pronunciation. Likewise for many Spanish-origin placenames in the American Southwest, such as Las Vegas, Los Angeles, etc .... names we Americans might never think twice about. — Soap — 20:46, 24 March 2021 (UTC)
 * It sounds like some Xhosa-speakers struggle with the pronunciation, or at least the spelling . It's unlikely that an adapted standardised English pronunciation will emerge. South Africa is too riven by divisions (class, race, language, others) anyway, so at best you'd probably end up with two or three non-Xhosa pronunciations depending on the background of the speaker, and any of those would be used in English. (It is possible, if unlikely, that South African English speakers will be able to correctly handle the click sound the same way they can handle guttural sounds: I think I can approximate the sound in the NPR recording- despite only having a single click word: tsk in my vocabulary- possibly because of exposure to click sounds on TV when I was younger). This is why an audio recording would be really useful in the article. Park3r (talk) 01:18, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

I am Xhosa. How can I contribute? How do I upload? 41.114.178.27 (talk) 14:02, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

How do I upload? 41.114.178.27 (talk) 14:04, 21 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Register an account and use commons:Special:UploadWizard. The format must be Ogg, FLAC, WAV, or MP3. Nardog (talk) 15:27, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

Requested move 9 September 2021

 * 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 considered - please re-request with an actual rationale,    Red   Slash  22:30, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

Port Elizabeth → Gqeberha – Place here your rationale for the proposed page name change, ideally referring to applicable naming convention policies and guidelines, and providing evidence in support where appropriate. If your reasoning includes search engine results, please prioritize searches limited to reliable sources (e.g. books, news, scholarly papers) over other web results. You don't need to add your signature at the end, as this template will do so automatically. Desertambition (talk) 21:55, 9 September 2021 (UTC) The discussion above is closed. <b style="color: #FF0000;">Please do not modify it.</b> Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Requested move 20 September 2021
<div class="boilerplate" style="background-color: #efe; margin: 0; padding: 0 10px 0 10px; border: 1px dotted #aaa;">
 * 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: Closing early per WP:SNOW. Keeping this open for any longer will only make the move further away from happening. A new RM paying regard to policy, particularly WP:NAMECHANGES, would be welcome. Nardog (talk) 09:22, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

Port Elizabeth → Gqeberha – This article should have been moved months ago. Proof has already been posted on this page. However, South African news sources are not accepted for being "unreliable". This is transparently an effort by white South Africans to prolong the name "Port Elizabeth" in place of "Gqeberha" against the wishes of most South Africans. This goes against the fundamental ideas of Wikipedia. Articles should not pander to a specific ethnic group but rather reflect the common name. Three points from "Reasons for moving a page" apply here:

1. The title does not follow Wikipedia's naming conventions, such as that it is not the common name of the subject or it is overprecise.

2. The subject of the article has changed its name and the new name has come into majority use.

3. The title has been misspelled, does not contain standard capitalization or punctuation, or is misleading or inaccurate.

There are no more arguments to be made besides looking at the proof that has already been provided. It must also be noted that many non-white South Africans do not have internet access and are thus unlikely to appear on the wikipedia talk page in great numbers. The legacy of apartheid still looms over South Africa in many ways, this is one of them. Desertambition (talk) 04:50, 20 September 2021 (UTC) <div style="padding-left: 1.6em; font-style: italic; border-top: 1px solid #a2a9b1; margin: 0.5em 0; padding-top: 0.5em">The discussion above is closed. <b style="color: #FF0000;">Please do not modify it.</b> Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
 * Comment: You have made no effort to prove that Gqeberha is the common name. All you're doing is playing the race/apartheid card.  O.N.R.  (talk) 09:07, 20 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Oppose/Speedy close No substantive evidence provided. Park3r (talk) 11:51, 20 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Oppose/Speedy close "Port Elizabeth" is vastly more common than "Gqeberha" in searches,"Port Elizabeth","Gqeberha" this shows that reasons (1) and (2) are not reasons for a move. Reason 3 is not applicable either, since the current article name is correctly spelled/capitalised/punctuated, etc. -- Toddy1 (talk) 12:33, 20 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Procedural Oppose as other commenters have noted, the nominator has not even made a minimal effort to demonstrate what the common name is. No prejudice against this proposal if a rationale is given. User:力 (power~enwiki,  π,  ν ) 17:06, 21 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Oppose; the nominator has failed to provide rational supporting the move (The official name, per WP:OFFICIALNAME, is a candidate for the articles title, but it is not automatically assumed to be the correct title - in relation to #2, this means that Gqeberha is a valid candidate, but you still need to demonstrate that it has come into common use. Further, I would ask the nominator to be mindful of WP:CIVIL; while I am ignorant of the broader discussions on this page and elsewhere, the insinuations you have made in this proposal about the motives of some editors is problematic at best. BilledMammal (talk) 02:01, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Oppose. This is still the clear WP:COMMONNAME. -- Necrothesp (talk) 11:23, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Reasons provided are insufficient. Fbergo (talk) 23:34, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

Delagoa
Reference [29] of this article is incorrect. Delagoa does not mean "from Goa". Delagoa originates from Baía de Lagoa in Portuguese. Lagoon Bay in English.

Gqeberha/Port Elizabeth
Now that the objections to the name change have been rejected by government, and, more importantly from Wikipedia's perspective, with South African media extensively using the new name these days, is it time to change the name of the article per WP:NAMECHANGES? Greenman (talk) 15:08, 21 June 2021 (UTC)
 * It’s still probably too soon. Also due weight needs to be given to the (lack of) general credibility of the South African media, which has developed major issues with even simple fact checking and reporting .Park3r (talk) 01:54, 26 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Both of these links seem to be about reporting by one (1) outlet, the Pretoria News. Surely you're aware that a city generally has more than one newspaper, let alone an entire country. The New York Times running a bullshit article would not discredit New York City, and it certainly would not discredit all media in the United States! jp×g 03:03, 30 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I agree with, I am surprise that the article still defaults to Port Elizabeth despite its officially recognised, legally entrenched and widely used new name Gqeberha. The article's name should be changed to reflect this reality.--Discott (talk) 10:19, 2 November 2021 (UTC)
 * The most recent move proposal (see below, there've been three) did not succeed, but there'll be another one soon enough as the move is probably inevitable, it's just a matter of time. I'd suggest waiting till next year to avoid topic fatigue! Greenman (talk) 10:39, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

Requested move 30 September 2021
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 * 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 section. 

Port Elizabeth → ? – Port Elizabeth was renamed to Gqberha. This is the name used by government services and local media.

https://www.sowetanlive.co.za/sport/soccer/2021-09-12-royal-am-finally-win-their-first-match-in-the-premiership-hand-chippa-maiden-defeat/

https://www.news24.com/wheels/motorsport/gtc-heads-to-gqberha-with-title-battles-wide-open-20210525

https://www.enca.com/news/gqeberha-fire-businesses-and-vehicles-gutted

https://www.dispatchlive.co.za/sport/2021-05-02-going-the-distance-sa-half-marathon-championship-in-gqeberha-reminds-us-of-former-glory-days/

https://mype.co.za/new/gqberha-in-the-news-22-may-2021/146973/2021/05/

African news articles were considered "unreliable" before. I think this is incorrect and these sources should be taken seriously. There is no reason African media would be inherently unreliable.

Apologies for misspelling Gqeberha, Xhosa is not my first language.

Desertambition (talk) 03:16, 30 September 2021 (UTC) — Relisting. Havelock Jones (talk) 11:58, 13 October 2021 (UTC)


 * Oppose. First, while I feel that this doesn't improve considerably on the second proposal, in particular in the area requested in closing (A new RM paying regard to policy, particularly WP:NAMECHANGES, would be welcome), as this is now the third proposal on this topic I believe we should settle the question, at least for the moment.
 * Second, I want to comment that I support the use of the sources provided by Desertambition; while WP:COMMONNAME does require independent, reliable English-language sources, I believe that when considering between two names without NPOV considerations even unreliable sources can give evidence that a term is in common use - though please note that I have not assessed any of these sources for reliability, and so am not making any claim in regards to their reliability or lack thereof.
 * Third, even considering those sources, I believe the WP:COMMONNAME continues to Port Elizabeth. Ngrams is not particularly useful here, as it currently goes up to 2019 and the name change discussion was started in 2019, so I will directly consider news sources. "Gqberha" gives 81 news results, while "Port Elizabeth" tells us "many" (so many that the number is inaccurate and shouldn't be directly considered) and while not all of these refer to the location, enough do that I believe "Port Elizabeth" continues to be the common name.
 * I could be wrong, and I would welcome evidence being provided in support of the name change, and I will also note that I believe the common name will eventually become "Gqberha", and at that point I will be only too happy to support the move. BilledMammal (talk) 04:44, 30 September 2021 (UTC)
 * It may be the third proposal, but both the others were flawed. The first provided no rationale, while the second does likewise, as well as derailing itself talking about ethnic groups. Since the name has changed officially, and usage is increasing (it's getting rare to even see "previously called Port Elizabeth" anymore), the name change is seemingly inevitable, and the proposal will probably keep being made until it goes through. Greenman (talk) 15:47, 30 September 2021 (UTC)


 * Oppose. Still the WP:COMMONNAME worldwide. -- Necrothesp (talk) 12:46, 30 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Support (pending the misspelling being corrected). I am favour of renaming Port Elizabeth to Gqeberha. Gqeberha is now the commonly used name, as indicated in the examples in the proposal. However, note the misspelling in the proposal. It's "Gqeberha", not "Gqberha". This could explain BilledMammal's search results. The sources provided in the proposal are good, see https://mybroadband.co.za/news/internet/358453-here-are-south-africas-most-popular-news-websites.html It is not only local sites that have switched. News on the city is fairly uncommon internationally, but here is a recent example from the BBC. Greenman (talk) 15:33, 30 September 2021 (UTC)
 * That makes the case a little more opaque, but looking at the results generated, I continue to believe that Port Elizabeth continues to remain the most common term used internationally, particularly but not solely in sports-related news: BilledMammal (talk) 22:21, 30 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Some of the sources listed in the reply immediately above appear to lean towards Gqeberha. News24, which is South Africa's most widely read media source, has switched almost exclusively to Gqeberha. One of the two sources provided is sponsored content, and the other appears to be an anomaly. See for the Port Elizabeth tag, which as far as I could see returns no articles with Port Elizabeth in the title, but numerous with Gqeberha. Timeslive appears to be inconsistent, but appears to lean towards Gqeberha. I can't link to the results directly, but from the main page, a search for Gqeberha returns results with the term in the headline/summary, while a search for Port Elizabeth only appears to return results with that name in the body. Capetownetc is not a particularly influential or widely read site. I can only find a single recent article in the Scottish Herald referring to either, and only two each from Ugandan Daily Monitor and Zambian football, so not enough to establish a usage there, while I would say the New York Times, Washington Post sources below do more to establish WP:COMMONNAME. Greenman (talk) 23:14, 30 September 2021 (UTC)


 * Support for Gqeberha - I see a lot of media using Gqeberha internationally now, especially in the last month, including AP and Reuters . In the United States, it is now in use by The New York Times, The Washington Post  and the Los Angeles Times . Although I don't know much about South African media, The Herald, which is apparently the oldest newspaper in the country, is also using it (, ; see also Google search results). The South African Broadcasting Corporation has also switched (compare Gqeberha to Port Elizabeth results), but as it is a public broadcaster it would of course make sense that it would switch before the rest of the media. In fact, even in the international media the "formerly Port Elizabeth" disclaimer is going away. MSG17 (talk) 16:30, 30 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Some more: Mail & Guardian (Compare Gqeberha and Port Elizabeth tags) and TimesLIVE/Sunday Times (compare and ; the PE results mostly go up to Feb 2021, with Gqeberha seeing usage after that date in articles not about the renaming) use Gqeberha. AFP seems to be a bit more split, using both names (see these two Radio France International stories: PE and Gqeberha). MSG17 (talk) 18:42, 30 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Support move to Gqeberha per WP:NAMECHANGES.--Ortizesp (talk) 22:41, 30 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Support move to Gqeberha--RicardoNixon97 (talk) 06:52, 1 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Comment. After News24, which is South Africa's most widely read media site, IOL is no. 2/3 and also leans heavily towards Gqeberha. https://www.iol.co.za/search?q=Gqeberha returns 29 results since September while https://www.iol.co.za/search?q=Port+Elizabeth returns 12 since September, of which 4 are historical usage, 2 "formerly Port Elizabeth" after usage of Gqeberha, and 1 related to an unrelated entity based in the city that still uses the Port Elizabeth in its name. Greenman (talk) 10:46, 1 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Oppose as per COMMONNAME. Indeed, it is still clear that recent sources still call it Port Elizabeth, especially in Southern African neighbouring countries as well as worldwide.  The C of E  God Save the Queen!  ( talk ) 07:57, 2 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Cherrypicking is not helpful in establishing COMMONNAME. You listed one source to base your claim of "worldwide" usage, and one to establish "Southern African" usage. But here's an article from the same source using Gqeberha (full quote for those not wanting to register is "The park in Gqeberha, 460 miles (740km) east of Cape Town". Here's an example from eSwatini. Here's a Zambian football example. Greenman (talk) 11:14, 2 October 2021 (UTC)


 * Oppose as per WP:COMMONNAME. South African media has reliability issues in general, and are capricious when it comes to name changes, using one name for a while, then another, depending on the way the political winds are blowing. Wikipedia should not be used to establish facts on the ground, and changing the name too quickly here will result in WP:CIRCULAR references.Park3r (talk) 00:36, 5 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Oppose per WP:COMMONNAME in Britain. Google News search results for Britain for the past year are: Port Elizabeth 218 results, Gqeberha 13 results (both searches exclude the other name).  There is no point in Wikipedia using a name so unfamiliar to readers that even the proposer has difficulty spelling it. -- Toddy1 (talk) 12:55, 5 October 2021 (UTC)
 * ... someone remind me exactly why usage in Britain determines what we call a South African city Red   Slash  21:25, 8 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Oppose per WP:COMMONNAME. <span style="font-family:'Linux Libertine','Georgia','Times',serif"> Peter Ormond &#128172;  07:21, 6 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Support per proposal and WP:TIES Red   Slash  21:25, 8 October 2021 (UTC)


 * Strong oppose. I wanted to close it, but I decided that the result wasn't clear, so maybe I could throw my two cents.
 * Let's weed out some arguments that are inapplicable here. For example, WP:TIES says that when writing the article, the form of English used should reflect the subject described, i.e. in this case, South African English. That has no bearing on whether the article should change the name, but obviously it should be written in that form of English.
 * Now, as to the WP:COMMONNAME argument. Here are the searches limited to the last 8 months (the name change occurred in Feb 2021): Gqeberha Port Elizabeth
 * However, unlike my colleagues, I don't want to concentrate on numbers only, but on the frequency of publication and the countries of publication
 * From my analysis, South African media have not switched to Gqeberha exclusively. The first articles from non-RSA media outlets mentioning the new name were the NYT and Le Journal du Québec (Canada), which appeared on page... 12 and 14 in Google News search (btw, most of the usages of Gqeberha in international media mentioned above concerned a story about vaccine plants, which, while being important is a rather narrow topic). Both were talking about a planned Moderna COVID-19 facility in RSA and did not say "former Port Elizabeth". The coverage from outside South Africa still predominantly uses Port Elizabeth, and South African media outlets also use Port Elisabeth quite often; so often, in fact, that I could not really say if any of the versions appears more often.
 * I'll also add that Google Maps uses the names unevenly. The Polish, German and the Dutch version show Port Elizabeth, the UK and US versions show Gqeberha, while the Ukrainian version uses Gqeberha and a transliteration for Port Elizabeth (WTF?).
 * Now to the actual usage. Apparently Port Elizabeth/Gqeberha and quite a lot of people objected to what seems to be an imposed rather than agreed upon name change, claiming it not to be representative; and indeed residents don't seem enthusiastic about the name. Moreover, there are some mildly interesting reports about a Gqeberha man being convicted by a Port Elizabeth court (in fairness, it's the same in Ukraine and Russia: Kropyvnytskyi is the capital of Kirovohrad Oblast, while Yekaterinburg is the main city of Sverdlovsk Oblast) . Finally, Google Trends show absolute dominance of Port Elizabeth over Gqeberha worldwide. Even if we sieve out the usages of Port Elizabeth in context of the port on the Hudson River in New Jersey and stick to South Africa only, the picture doesn't change at all, and in all provinces of South Africa, Gqeberha is used at most in 7% of cases (Mpumalanga). In Eastern Cape, that's a mere 3%, while in Port Elizabeth proper, this falls to a marginal 2%. I don't know if this is because Gqeberha is too exotic for most people or because people tend to stick to what they are used to call something, but the evidence is that the official name is not popular among the readers (even if the press uses it quite often). (Btw, |Gqeberha Wikipedia stats confirm this disparity
 * Just to illustrate that even official designations do not override the article's name, the Czech Republic recommends Czechia as its official name, and it is even used by international institutions, but folks stick with the longer name. And so do we. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 14:11, 12 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Oooh, yes, WP:TIES is highly relevant. We go by what reliable South African English-language sources call it, because if they opt for Gqeberha, then that IS the name for it in their variety of English, and we're suppoesd to use the name in their variety. If this were a city in, IDK, Algeria, we probably wouldn't, but for South Africa we do.  Red   Slash  20:08, 12 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I beg to differ. English Wikipedia is not only for South African usage, but for the usage of all people capable of understanding English (or using Google Translate), but at the same time English Wikipedia accomodates for different accents, spellings and terms if appropriate. Using South African spelling is appropriate; using a term which is not popular among South Africans themselves (let alone other people) is not.
 * Comment Given that the new name will be almost impossible to pronounce for non-Xhosa speakers, even in South Africa (with its combination of clicks and guttural sounds), and certainly for international broadcast media, It's highly unlikely that it will become the accepted English name of the place. I would strongly advise you to actually listen to the pronunciation if you haven't already. One suspects that, after the novelty wears off, the only reason it will be used in the South African English media will be as a racial cudgel to belittle English speaking ethnic groups for not being able to pronounce "African" names, so WP:TIES does not apply. Park3r (talk) 08:00, 13 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Let's remember that we aren't creating the encyclopedia for the media, we are creating it for the people who expect us to cover information in the terms accessible to them. Evidence that the media use the official version is mixed at best, while the folks themselves seem to almost never use the name of the city. I'd have stopped here because it's common-sense to cover all ideas in the language most accessible to the people, which should be the paramount principle for us, but since invoking common sense might backfire sometimes, there's one more thing I'll add to be sure.
 * WP:TIES is from the Manual of Style (or a style guide) under the section "National varieties of English" while WP:COMMONNAME is part of Wikipedia policy called "Article titles", itself part of the Manual of Style. However, rather than linking to a general provision (which WP:TIES is, itself being part of guidelines, which are slightly below policies in the hierarchy), we should probably look at the specific paragraph which refers to language differences in titles, i.e. WP:TITLEVAR, which is also part of "Article titles". The problem is, it only deals with spelling differences, and mentions that very rarely, a non-nation-specific term might be used. Moreover, an explanatory supplement about official names stresses that "Article titles should be recognizable to readers, unambiguous, and consistent with usage in reliable English-language sources." (note the absence of nation-specific adjective). The proposed change makes the name even less ambiguous, but is not consistent with usage in English-language RS as the evidence for prevalence of the new name is mixed at best, and it certainly makes it not recognizable for outside readers. Since the change will, in balance, make the article worse, my vote does not change.
 * From my experience: the name of Ukrainian currency in Russian is generally "гривна" (grivna) and is commonly used in Ukraine and Russia alike, but according to Ukrainian authorities, "гривн я " (grivnia) is the proper name, which they insist is because they have to differentiate the 11th-century currency from the one used today (though it has probably more to do with being closer in pronounciation to Ukrainian than that history no one actually cares about). And Ukrainian media sometimes follow that official interpretation and write гривня, with appropriate declension and all that. But the article in Russian uses the more common version. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 21:52, 12 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Szmenderowiecki, I don't understand the Google Trends links you post. If I follow them, I get a graph showing "Gqeberha City in South Africa" and "Gqeberha search term" and a disclaimer that says "This comparison contains both Search terms and Topics, which are measured differently." And even if this was a comparison with Port Elizabeth as a search term, it's not a direct comparison since there are numerous entities with Port Elizabeth as part of their name.


 * Since the article name in Wikipedia is currently named Port Elizabeth, and links from other pages points to it, it makes sense that the page views would be far higher. The comparison is between those directly type in Gqeberha as a search term on Wikipedia itself, and every other person visiting the page through a search engine, following a link on Wikipedia, etc. Would you agree the Wikipedia stats are not relevant?


 * When I do a Google search over the last one month (8 months ago the change had not occured yet, and uptake was not immediate, so one month is more meaningful), and order by date, I get far more results for Gqeberha. Compare and . At this point in time, I get 15 results for Gqeberha in the last day. For Port Elizabeth, I get 6. Of those 6, only 1 makes sole use of the old name for the city. 1 is for a port in the US, 2 mention Gqeberha/Port Elizabeth, 1 is for the name of an entity (the Port Elizabeth Magistrates Court) while describing the city as Gqeberha, and the other is historical usage (referring to an event in the past when the city still had its old name). This seems overwhelmingly skewed towards Gqeberha, so I'm not seeing the same results as you. Greenman (talk) 21:44, 12 October 2021 (UTC)


 * Szmenderowiecki, you are wrong about the Czech Republic. Czechia is the approved "short form" name for the Czech Republic, not a new name entirely. Desertambition (talk) 22:19, 12 October 2021 (UTC)
 * True, but the Czech government wanted that change and there was a lot of pressure to switch to the short name, and yet ultimately nobody cared much and kept going the old way. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 22:57, 12 October 2021 (UTC)


 * The users opposing the move are so clearly biased it's almost unbelievable. Tons of articles on renamed South African cities have been flooded with disinformation from white South Africans who are upset at decolonization and tackling the legacy of apartheid. I have never seen such weak sources accepted for articles except for articles related to South Africa. There is a clear effort to ignore reality in favor of maintaining rosy apartheid-era viewpoints. We need some admins/experienced users to step in and clean up South African articles. This discussion should not be as contentious as it is. The proof provided is more than convincing. South Africa is a multiracial democracy now and they have democratically decided to change the name of the city. This name is now in use by local people, local media, and global media. There are some South African cities on Wikipedia that still have not been moved despite being renamed for over a decade. While we should always assume good faith, there is a point where we can't ignore the obvious reality. Also it should be noted that certain individuals keep saying that "South African media is unreliable." This is vague, misleading, and incorrect. We also should not ignore the racial connotations that come with statements like that, especially given the history of Apartheid. Desertambition (talk) 22:13, 12 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Apartheid ended 30 years ago. None of this nonsense is relevant any more.  What matters is the common name in English.  It is implausible to say that the British news media call it Port Elizabeth because of apartheid (which was never practiced in Britain).  A more plausible explanation is that they call it Port Elizabeth, because that is the commonly understood name. -- Toddy1 (talk) 22:23, 12 October 2021 (UTC)
 * This response illustrates my point exactly. A complete dismissal of apartheid is what's going on here. Apartheid only ended 30 years ago. That's not long at all. Segregation in America was outlawed decades ago and yet the effects still linger and impact people to this day. Wikipedia should not be a platform for white South Africans to create their own reality. Apartheid absolutely has to do with why it was called Port Elizabeth originally and why it is not anymore. There is a concerted effort to scrub or downplay the effects of apartheid on wikipedia and this article is just one example of that. At this point, Gqeberha is a well known name even among English-speaking South Africans. Perhaps even especially among English-speaking South Africans given the outrage over the name change. Desertambition (talk) 22:36, 12 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I've been born after apartheid ended. Secondly, I'm writing from an entirely impartial perspective because I have no ties to South Africa whatsoever, other than I can speak English with South Africans (do you see a lot of South Africans with knowledge of Polish, Ukrainian and Russian AND no knowledge of South African languages other than English?). Please stop this personal attack bullshit. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 22:49, 12 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I'm not trying to say everyone who opposes this move is a white South African. I'm saying that there is a concerted effort in South Africa by white South Africans to keep these names alive despite decolonization efforts. These efforts influence us all. The name change is a big matter of controversy among white English/Afrikaans speaking South Africans but is much less controversial to black English/Xhosa speaking South Africans. We are prioritizing the opinions of Afrikaners. We should also keep in mind the discrepancy in internet access which allow a minority in South Africa to project themselves on the internet disproportionally. Virtually all articles being written recently are using Gqeberha and even users on this page who oppose the name change tend to agree Gqeberha is going to be in vogue sooner or later. Desertambition (talk) 13:52, 13 October 2021 (UTC)
 * even users on this page who oppose the name change tend to agree Gqeberha is going to be in vogue sooner or later which indirectly means that it's not now. When it is going to be there, or if we have overwhelming evidence of its common usage in South African as well as other media outlets, I'll be more than happy to change my mind; my findings are such as presented, and I don't believe that "overwhelming" challenge is met here. I'm not getting into South African politics and race relations, because it's not a forum. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 15:36, 13 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Desertambition, clearly the evidence is not convincing enough if there is a debate. Since you've probably helped sink the proposal by resorting to conspiracy-laden rants and personal attacks again, it looks like we will have to wait for a future proposal to try again. Greenman (talk) 01:24, 13 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I am no apartheid sympathiser, as my edit history will show (see the article on Ciskei if you want evidence of this). However, the idea that this name change was a product of "multiracial democracy" despite it happening in the middle of a pandemic, with tiny support and minimal public consultation, is extremely unlikely. We're veering away from talk page guidelines here, but the local South African media, apart from being extremely "juniorised" (not a racist statement: here's a couple of black editors who spoke about it in 2005 ) is also politically fickle, and can't be relied on solely as a reliable source on this sort of thing. As for the usage by "local people" I'd certainly be interested to see that (outside of elite social media platforms).Park3r (talk) 08:22, 13 October 2021 (UTC)
 * The problem is, Google Trends does not recognize Gqeberha as a name for the city, and actually proposes to compare it with the city of Port Elizabeth instead :). So if you change it to "Port Elizabeth" as a search term, the advantage will skew even more to the side of Port Elizabeth, as the search term Port Elizabeth has more meanings than a search term Port Elizabeth as a city, so necessarily it will sum up all those terms that are irrelevant to Port Elizabeth in South Africa (that is, the marine terminal in New Jersey, which is actually called Port Newark-Elizabeth, an unrelated village, also in New Jersey and a town in the Caribbean). As you can see from the pageviews of each of these articles, none of them come close in comparison with Port Elizabeth here; and, as you can guess, none of these terms are relevant outside (in the first two cases) downstate New York and New Jersey, and, in the third case, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines; therefore, their influence on the hit count should be negligible. Similarly, Gqeberha only has got two meanings: the new city name (which even South Africans don't seem to be using too often from what I could say) and the eponymous river (which objectively few from outside Eastern Cape care about), so yes, we are comparing apples with apples.
 * Would you agree the Wikipedia stats are not relevant? The explanation you provide is fair, but it only shows something different: people don't care much about the new name, as otherwise there would have been a lot of name-changing (and, inherently, link-changing), which would mean that the ratio between Port Elizabeth and Gqeberha hits would have changed, either through direct search terms inside Wikipedia or through going through wikilinks (spoiler: it hasn't). The only thing that introduces bias here is Google search, so anyone referred from Google would hit as Port Elizabeth. But can it explain a 15-20-fold difference? I doubt it.
 * When I do a Google search over the last one month (8 months ago the change had not occured yet, and uptake was not immediate, so one month is more meaningful [...] Two notes here: first, the date when the name change occurred was on 23 February 2021, which is the starting date of all of my searches, and from my experience with name changes in Ukraine, these have been accepted in the media almost instantly; therefore, 8 months seems appropriate; and in fact, Google Trends don't see any change of relative usage of the terms at all, which means the term hasn't caught up (had it been at least marginally popular, it would have seen a gradual increase, see examples from Ukraine: Kropyvnytskyi, Kamianske , Bakhmut ). Second, the links you send me say "Hasło – "port elizabeth" – nie pasuje do żadnych wiadomości." [The search term "port elizabeth" has no related news stories], so yes, we all see different stuff in Google, that is, I don't see any of yours, sorry. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 22:40, 12 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Clearly Google shows us different things. Following your links, Trends shows me the city of Gqeberha, with no mention of Port Elizabeth, so presumably its localising the results even at that level, which makes discussions like this more difficult. It supports the claim that Gqeberha is the term used in South Africa, while in the rest of the world the usage is still more mixed. Greenman (talk) 01:24, 13 October 2021 (UTC)
 * For the court, I would gander that something similar to what happens in India when names are changed happened in this case, where the name of the city itself is changed but institutions are not (eg. Mumbai and Bombay High Court). As for the results in media outside of South Africa, I think the problem is that Gqeberha is not reported on that much internationally and hence why a lot of stories ended up being on the same topic of vaccine manufacturing due to the issues of distribution and inequality snatching attention. Nonetheless, I appreciate your use of Google Trends to try to determine what the common name is, although I am still doubtful that the SA media hasn't changed. I am also seeing similar things as Greenman, where the field for the topic has been labeled "Gqeberha" but then, in the "Compared breakdown by city" section, the name "Port Elizabeth" is used! Not helping things at all. MSG17 (talk) 02:21, 13 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately, there's no better comparison available, as the ngram database is available up to 2019. If you need the search term to search term comparison (with all the flaws pointed to above), there you go: Worldwide, South Africa, Eastern Cape Szmenderowiecki (talk) 02:36, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

Comment. The dispute over Port Elizabeth/Gqeberha will most probably be a fixture on the talk page of this article, therefore, I would ask all editors to consider this before escalating the talk page here into one of the lamest edit wars.
 * It took 13 move discussions to rename Kiev to Kyiv, and the thirteenth request was only granted as some extraordinary evidence that involved most of the respectable media outlets and international organisations, was presented there; the burden that high proved necessary to overcome the for now unfavourable Google stats. Just as was the case in Ukraine, this name change has political context (asserting Ukrainianness in the first case; getting rid of hallmarks of colonial history here). I would ask you to bear in mind that evidence of exceptional quality and quantity should be expected if the usage stats continue to be so skewed towards the now unofficial name. For the love of God, don't try to beat that record. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 03:08, 13 October 2021 (UTC)


 * It's a bit misleading to comment as if you are an impartial participator when you have clearly taken a side. Also seems like you're downplaying the very real issues implicated here. Your assertion that the usage stats continue to skew towards the unofficial name is false. Sources supporting Gqeberha are being dismissed outright. Even those users opposing it tend to agree Gqeberha is on its way to being the most common name. In which case, there's no reason to oppose the moving of the article. Desertambition (talk) 13:43, 13 October 2021 (UTC)
 * The policy-based reasons would be WP:CRYSTAL and the fact that WP:WIKIPEDIAFOLLOWS, it doesn't lead. The general reason would be that even if we happen to own a crystal ball and could determine with absolute certainty that a given name would become the WP:COMMONNAME, that doesn't change what the current COMMONNAME is - and we want the article at the current COMMONNAME, not the future or past one. BilledMammal (talk) 22:42, 13 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Even those users opposing it tend to agree Gqeberha is on its way to being the most common name. I'm not sure where this comes from, but given past experience with place renaming in South Africa, this is not a foregone conclusion. There is no evidence that it will be the most common name. Even name changes like Bela Bela (which I proposed for renaming a long time ago) and Polokwane are called Warmbaths and Pietersburg by South Africans of all races, especially locals. Gqeberha is literally not pronounceable in English using standard phonemes. A renaming like Nelson Mandela City might actually take. But again we are veering off-topic again. The WP:COMMONNAME in English seems to still be Port Elizabeth or PE, informally. Park3r (talk) 02:24, 14 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I don't know if that's the reality on the ground, but if Google Trends is any suggestion, Pietersburg is virtually obsolete, while Warmbaths usage is significant but still a minority. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 18:31, 14 October 2021 (UTC)


 * Oppose per Szmenderowiecki. When all the manuals of style that have stopped using Peking, Bombay, Calcutta, Madras, Rangoon and Kiev and started using Beijing, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Yangon and Kyiv stop using Port Elizabeth and start using Gqeberha, then Wikipedia should follow suit. —Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 01:54, 14 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Do many manuals of style even mention Gqeberha/PE? I noticed that AP did issue a tweet regarding Kyiv, and I did see a Facebook post regarding Kolkata, but they obviously can't keep track of every city in the world. And, what manuals of style should we look at for place names? Obviously AP and, if they have one, Reuters, but I am wondering what other manuals of style are known for documenting topological name changes in English (especially based on common usage) so that I can be better informed when future name changes come up. (Hopefully there are some free to access ones so that people can read them without having to shell out some cash!) MSG17 (talk) 16:58, 14 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Port Elizabeth, which has a population of about a million, is South Africa's second-largest metropolitan district by area size and can be considered a major world city. Therefore, it is likely to be among the world cities mentioned in style guides. As for the guides themselves, the 13 move discussions to rename Kiev to Kyiv brought forth tremendous amounts of references regarding renaming, including style guides. A good place to start would be at Talk:Kyiv/sources. —Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 18:06, 14 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I know that would be tremendous work to do so, but I think it would be nice if something like this is used as a "template" of sorts for starting future move discussions of major cities. MSG17 (talk) 19:30, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

<div style="padding-left: 1.6em; font-style: italic; border-top: 1px solid #a2a9b1; margin: 0.5em 0; padding-top: 0.5em">The discussion above is closed. <b style="color: #FF0000;">Please do not modify it.</b> Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
 * Oppose per WP:COMMONNAME.Invinciblewalnut (talk) 06:28, 14 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Oppsoe - Port Elizabeth is still likely to be in people's minds at this moment, a bit like Czech Republic where that name is still commonly used. Also per Google site results, we get around 189m results for Port Elizabeth compared to 4.5m for gqeberha. Not sure if that will tilt towards 50-50 anytime soon. Iggy (Swan) (Contribs) 22:24, 15 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Weak Oppose it does look like usage is moving to the new name, but not so convincingly as to move the article now. I expect I will support this in 6 months when the proposal is made again, but not today. User:力 (power~enwiki,  π,  ν ) 00:53, 17 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Support I accept names adopted by Google Maps, so I support not only changing Port Elizabeth to Gqeberha, but also Ivory Coast to Côte d'Ivoire, Macau to Macao, and the Czech Republic to Czechia. Vic Park (talk) 09:59, 18 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Strong Oppose per WP:COMMONNAME --Somerby (talk) 06:28, 19 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Strongly Oppose, majority of common people still use Port Elizabeth as well. Suffy69 (talk) 17:17, 21 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Support. I searched for aspen facility in south africa in google news and most of the results mention Gqeberha, including global media such as NY times and Bloomberg. Vpab15 (talk) 21:07, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

Fully protected edit request on 28 October 2021
A protected redirect, Gqeberha needs redirect category (rcat) templates added and adjusted. Please modify it as follows:


 * from this:


 * 1) REDIRECT Port Elizabeth


 * to this:


 * 1) REDIRECT Port Elizabeth

The Redirect category shell template is used to sort redirects into one or more categories. When pp-protected and/or pp-move suffice, the Redirect category shell template will detect the protection level(s) and categorize the redirect automatically. (Also, the categories will be automatically removed or changed when and if protection is lifted, raised or lowered.) Thank you in advance!  P.I. Ellsworth &numsp;- ed.  put'r there 03:07, 28 October 2021 (UTC)
 * WHEN YOU COPY & PASTE, PLEASE LEAVE THE SKIPPED LINE BLANK FOR READABILITY.
 * ✅ &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:34, 28 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Thank you ! and Best of Everything to you and yours!  P.I. Ellsworth &numsp;- ed.  put'r there 14:37, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

English pronunciation
A couple of years ago I posted this wondering if we could agree on a standard English pronunciation of the new name and was told that it was still up in the air. Im just wondering if this has changed. At least in the United States it's common for placenames of non-English origin to be pronounced in ways that fit the rhythm and sound of the English language, even if they arent particularly loyal to the original pronunciations ... many well-known French and Spanish names are good examples of this, and it's even quite common for the same words to have two different pronunciations. — Soap — 14:27, 26 August 2022 (UTC)