User:Wikimedes/sandbox/naming/shishapangma

I proposed a poll here, which Pseudois has seconded. Yu Hai’s comments and their responses do not appear to address this poll, and since there has been no further discussion on the proposal in the last few days, I am going ahead with it. I modified the wording slightly to be more neutral and more explanatory.
Within the next few hours I will put the following message on all editors’ talk pages who have been involved in the discussion (with the appropriate link):

"You have been involved in the recent naming discussion at talk:Xixabangma. There is a new poll to determine support for the move from Shishapangma to Xixabangma. If you are interested, please provide your opinion here."

I have identified these editors as having previously participated in the discussion:

Mike Cline

hike395

Racerx11

虞海 (Yú Hǎi)

Ratagonia

Kauffner

(Wikimedes)

Nat Krause

Pseudois

Quigley

BabelStone

PietJay

Montanabw

If I have missed someone, let me know, or give them this notice yourself. Given Mike Cline’s advice on canvassing, it’s probably better if we don’t invite anyone else, although anyone is of course welcome to join in.

Since wikiproject Mountains was notified earlier about the naming discussion, I think that it’s only fair to put notifications on the China, Tibet, and Climbing project pages as well. Within the next few hours I will post the following message on all 4 project pages (with the appropriate link):

"There is a naming discussion at talk:Xixabangma. There is a new poll to determine support for the move from Shishapangma to Xixabangma. If you are interested, please provide your opinion here."

--Wikimedes (talk) 22:42, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Poll to determine support for move from Shishapangma to Xixabangma

On October 26 2011, this article was Bold moved from Shishapangma to Xixabangma without discussion. Due to technical difficulties, it could not be moved back (without administrator assistance) to Shishapangma as per the normal BRD cycle. Now that there has been discussion (here to here), do you support or oppose moving the article from Shishapangma to Xixabangma?”

• Oppose move to Xixabangma. Wikipedia:COMMONNAME and Wikipedia:PLACE#Widely_accepted_name favor Shishapangma or Shisha Pangma and all sources referenced in the article use either Shishapangma or Shisha Pangma. Details follow: (Many of the links to the talk page are not working in my sandbox, see the web address for the location.)

First, I believe that Shishapangma and Shisha Pangma are minor spelling variations of each other, and that they are significantly closer to each other than to other spelling variations (e.g. Xixabangma or Xixiabangma). (see here or #3 here.)

Evidence in support of Shishapangma/Shisha Pangma:

1. Google Books and Google News Archive hits for Shishapangma and Shisha Pangma are each more than 3x more prevalent than hits for Xixabangma or Xixiabangma and each more than 2.8x more prevalent than hits for Gosainthan (thanks Hike395). (See 3.1 Broader Google test - I can't get the link to work.)
2. Looking at 3 of the most reputable English Language newspapers, all have predominantly used Shishapangma or Shisha Pangma since 1993:

The BBC has used Shisha Pangma exclusively since 2001. The New York Times uses either Shishapangma or Shisha Pangma, depending on the article, further support for grouping them together. (One of the NYT articles that uses Shisha Pangma mentions that Gosainthan is an alternate name.) (Searching the Wall Street Journal [4] reveals no hits for any of the four spelling variations or Gosainthan in its 2 year search history.)

3. Wikipedia searches for Shisha Pangma in 2010 outnumbered Wikipedia searches for Xixabangma by a ratio of ~16:1 (see point 3 –thanks Pseudois). (Shishapangma statistics are skewed by the fact that it was the article’s title?) There was no naming controversy at that time so it is unlikely that anyone conducted searches for the purpose of affecting these results. (See 11.3 on the talk page - I can't get this link to work either.)

4. All sources referenced in the article use either Shishapangma or Shisha Pangma.

Neutral Evidence:

1. A Google Scholar search (thanks again hike395) slightly favors Shisha Pangma over any other spelling. The sum of Xixabangma and Xixiabangma hits is slightly larger than the sum of Shishapangma and Shisha Pangma, and running the search with grouped terms gives almost identical results. IMHO, neither of these differences is significant. A detailed look at the entries may break this tie, however such an analysis will necessarily be long and involved, and I prefer not to introduce it here unless consensus depends on the results.
2. The Library of Congress has Xixabangma Peak as its subject heading for the mountain with several alternate names listed (thanks again Hike395). However, searching in the catalog under the various names yields 2 books that use Shishapangma and 1 that uses Xixabangma (post 1993, English Language). (Xixiabangma yields a book that appears to be in Pinyin and Gosainthan comes up empty.) I am a bit puzzled why the Library of Congress, which was long reputed to have the largest book collection in the world, should have so few books on the mountain (at least in its digital catalog) when Google Books clearly indicates that many more books exist. But based on the available information, I have to classify the Library of Congress as neutral.
3. Peakbagger.com’s webpage on the mountain is titled Xixabangma Feng (thanks racerx11), but the descriptive text uses Shisha Pangma, not Xixabangma. This makes it neutral IMHO.

Evidence in Support of Xixabangma

1. 28 of 28 Atlases in this Google Book search use Xixabangma or Xixabangma Feng and none use Shishapangma, Shisha pangma, or Xixiabangma (thanks Hike395). IMHO, Xixabangma and Xixabangma Feng both support Xixabangma, and this is the strongest evidence in favor of Xixabangma.
2. Encyclopedia Britannica uses Xixabangma (thanks Hike395). IMHO, the fact that it lists “Shisha Pangma” as the Tibetan name for the mountain does not diminish its support for XIxabangma.
3. Merriam-Webster’s Geographical Dictionary has “see Xixabangma Feng” (and nothing else) under the Gosainthan entry (thanks Yu hai). It apparently does not actually have an entry for Xixabangma Feng, but searches for other spelling variants come up empty, so I consider this weak support for Xixabangma.
   

Although there is some evidence in support of Xixabangma, I believe that in balance the evidence favors Shishapangma/Shisha Pangma, and there is definitely not sufficient reason for the move to Xixabangma. (The above summary of evidence is my own. I do not claim that it is the consensus view of the previous discussions.)--Wikimedes (talk) 20:51, 25 November 2011 (UTC)