User:Qwyrxian/SI Arg

WP:NCGN and WP:Article titles indicate that we must decide whether or not any one name qualifies as the "common English name" for this place. If there is no common English name, WP:NCGN states that we must choose the most prevalent one, though in cases where no name is regularly used in English, unusual alternatives are allowed (this led to Liancourt Rocks to be named as it is, even though it is rarely used in English). We are given a number of different measurements to look at when making this decisions; the belief of those supporting the SI name is that, while not all of the measurements indicate SI is the common name, the bulk of them do, especially those which are most important.

Various Google searches, including Web, News, and Scholar searches (see the archives here, along with others at Wikipedia talk:Requests for mediation/Senkaku Islands), have not shown either name to be particularly more prevalent. However, the same searches point out how terribly flawed a tool this for deciding the article name. For example, searching for English web pages containing "Senkaku Islands" produces 208,000 results, while searching for "Senkaku Islands" and excluding "Diaoyu" produces 375,000 results. While some of us have tried exhaustive searches (looking at every single result), even that fails because Google will only provide the first several hundred results, no matter how many they claim to have found in total.

Furthermore, Point 1 of WP:NCGN tells us to look at other recent English language encyclopedias. The last results I found (see Talk:Senkaku Islands/Archive 5) has Britannica not listing either and Columbia Encyclopedia listing only Senkaku Islands. To supplement this, last year I looked at a major US university library, and checked atlases. Every atlas I checked that contained any mention of these islands used the name "Senkaku Islands". 5 out of 5. Only one of those 5 even mentioned "Dioayu Islands", and only in the index (with something like a "See Senkaku Islands" entry). In other words, no one has produced any tertiary source of any type that doesn't prefer Senkaku Islands when it lists the islands at all. That seems like pretty clear agreement to me. Wikipedia should not be the only notable tertiary source to use a different name.

With respect to the names used by English speaking governments, both the US and UK governments use Senkaku Islands. Period. The Library of Congress has a subject heading for Senkaku Islands, and does not have one for Diaoyu/etc. Islands. In the Library of Congress – Federal Research Division Country Profile on China, the term "Senkaku Islands (Diaoyu tai)" is used, showing clear preference even in the article about China itself. Additionally, the official nautical charts of the United States(please zoom) and the United Kingdom (see page 76) both use Senkaku Islands. The official designation for these names among two of the largest and most politically/militarily powerful countries both designate the term to be "Senakaku Islands", strong evidence of the preference for this name.

In past discussions, those who opposed "Senkaku Islands" and supported Pinnacle Islands or some hybrid name (e.g. "Senkaku/Diaoyu"), have tried to argue that WP:NPOV means that we cannot choose a name which is also used by one "side" in the debate. This is absolutely wrong, and counter to the way Wikipedia handles disputed territories. It isn't POV to choose the name that is normally used in English. Some native American groups dispute US control of lands that were there's historical, but that doesn't mean we say that choosing the widely used English name is POV. Falkland Islands is used not because we are "siding" with the UK in the dispute, but because that's the name used in English. Seoul is in South Korea, not Korea. And, perhaps most importantly, we refer to the Spratly Islands, and name each individual island after the name used in English (like Itu Aba). Though the Google evidence is ambiguous, having looked at the evidence overall (especially the nautical charts and tertiary sources), it seems clear enough to me that the English name for these islands is "Senkaku Islands".