TRS Policy: Threads suggesting a rename without evidence

That's Rules Lawyering. And there will always be people who will try it.

There will also always be people who think that a Holler is a magic Wand, and that just because they call for a lock it will happen. But the mods won't be locking automatically, just because one person says they should. We haven't up to now, and we won't be starting. Our job involves using our judgment on Hollers and lock requests, not just responding blindly.

Who says that? Nobody says that. Has anybody ever said that?

I wouldn't say "misuse only," but I would say that lack of misuse is strong evidence against a name being unclear, which is one of the criteria and a basis for a couple of others.

You do need more than "I think this is unclear." We have a lot of people listing things as unclear because they aren't Exactly What It Says on the Tin. A lot of people use it as a nitpicky way to say they don't like something. You need actual proof that tropers other than you are finding it unclear.

At the very least, you need to explain what you think is unclear; that is, what you think it could be confused for, or what else it could be assumed to mean. The best way to support a claim that "It could be confused with <X>" is, of course, a wick check showing that it is being confused with <x>. But that's not the only way to support your claim — citing a dictionary definition of a term that is different than the way we're using it would be another, as would citing a Google books search that shows the same thing. There are other ways, as well.

We aren't intending to establish graven-in-stone rules that every OP must meet; we're stating that we expect you to put some effort into supporting your claim that a page name is broken when you make a thread.

edited 14th Feb '12 10:16:33 AM by Madrugada

Those are fairly weak justifications and don't really show a concrete problem.

And it runs into the problem that the only real way to dispute them is for the opposing side of the argument to do their own wick check showing that there isn't misuse. Which gets us right back to the problem of forcing other people to do the work for you.

The main three problems that are going to provide actionable evidence for an unclear name are going to be:

1. Misuse
2. Disuse
3. Premature launch

Generally speaking, chances are those will be the ones to shoot for if you're looking to rename. There are others like "Trope as a placeholder" or "Shares a name with a work" or such, but obviously they only apply in very specific cases.

...Okay, if a name is actively misleading, that's probably a problem. But still, you should at least skim the examples informally.

edited 14th Feb '12 11:12:18 AM by troacctid

The point is that the OP should contain an actual, substantial argument for why the name is harming the wiki. That's a rather simple concept. I don't see why it should become another venue for us to beat the dead horse of "this argument for renaming doesn't count, yes it does, no it doesn't".

I guess whether a particular argument "counts" for a particular name can be hashed out in the thread.