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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 discussion.
The result of the move request was: Not moved There was consensus for rejecting the proposed name. There was no consensus about whether "Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa" or "R. Praggnanandhaa" was the best choice of article title. (non-admin closure) Bejnar (talk) 00:26, 14 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
That's not true at all: the majority of the cited references use either the initial R. or, less commonly, the full patronymic Rameshbabu. I count only four where neither is used: [1][2][3][4]. All the pages listed on the first page of the Google News search results Appu provides also use the initial except for Chess.com which uses Rameshbabu, but none refer to him with just the given name. I support a move to R. Praggnanandhaa which from the foregoing appears to be the most common way his name is presented. It's also the preference of ChessBase India:[5][6][7]. In his GM title application to FIDE (his profile is here), he also used just R. rather than the full patronymic. I cannot support dropping the patronymic completely.
Oppose I'm not sure how much of the elision of the family name is Indian naming tradition, and how much is concern for the privacy of a minor. Regardless, I can't support a mononym here without better evidence; neutral on R. Pragg style. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 23:04, 24 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose It seems more like being lazy or economical. At least in some cases, the omission of "Rameshbabu" seems to be to avoid confusing readers because his coach is also named "Ramesh". Considering the WP:CRITERIA, the title we have seems to be superior to the alternatives proposed. Usedtobecool☎️16:38, 3 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
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.
Requested move 21 May 2022
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.
– Most sources (including FIDE) prefer to use the initial R as opposed to the full form Rameshbabu [8][9][10][11], as mentioned in the above move discussion. The discussion was closed with no consensus about this move, but it seemed like several users supported the move so I'd like to reopen it to hear more opinions on this. 9ninety (talk) 14:59, 21 May 2022 (UTC)Italic text[reply]
Comment: Possibly in line with what you might expect given this is a naming tradition used in Tamil Nadu, I think Indian sources tend to go with "R Praggnanandhaa", and Western sources tend to go with "Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa". When I google "R Praggnanandhaa", generally I mostly get Indian news articles, with the exception of this article in the BBC, written by BBC's India correspondent. When I google "Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa", I get articles in worldchess.com, NYT, Al Jazeera, CNN, etc., along with a couple Indian-focused websites too. Being a prodigious hopeful for Indian chess, most sources discussing him in English probably hail from India, so I think "R Praggnanandhaa" is more common as a percentage of all the English-language sources which exist about him. I'm not sure what the appropriate thing to do in this case is, but perhaps WP:TITLEVAR plays a role here, and we should go with "R Praggnanandhaa" given this article's strong ties to India? Endwise (talk) 15:33, 21 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: Shouldn't the article be moved to "Praggnanandhaa R", rather than "R Praggnanandhaa"? This is what the FIDE card displays, and it seems to match other Tamil Nadu chess player article names, such as Gukesh D. DeRhamCohomology (talk) 10:41, 22 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
SupportR Praggnanandhaa as common name. If it wasn't such a clear case i wouldn't support the abbreviation. Not sure of the precedent of WP:TITLEVAR in this regard but in the absence of a formalised Tamil Nadu name convention here at WP IN i don't think we can rely on that. I also supportR Vaishali as used in the NIE, TOI, The Hindu etc. I suspect that chess websites using Vaishali R are simply mirroring FIDE by principle. Note that FIDE doesn't use R Praggnanandhaa but the reverse, so in both cases there's a similarity of FIDE not matching common usage. Zindor (talk) 14:05, 22 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support this move. There also seems to be a case to move to just Praggnanandhaa, but I believe the 'safer' option is the one proposed in this requested move. Willbb234 18:40, 25 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Very Strong Oppose Obviously, we could shorten it even to Pragg, but what is the point of this silliness? People can't learn his name when the CNN anchors have? I mean should we change Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi to EmCee? I find it fascinating that the first thing Wikipedians do, before they can write two sentences of coherent prose, it to memorize some silly rules and throw it at each other. Let the young fellow keep his name, not subject to your Google ngrams or WP:THISORTHAT. I have to shake my head. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 00:58, 31 May 2022 (UTC) Added on 6/11/22, In light of my discovery that the media that uses "R. Prag..." are pretty much all Indian. I did a binary search, see my reply to Ab* below, and only two out of the first 100 returns were international. The sample was so biased. What compulsion Indian newspapers have for shortening the young man's name, I have no idea, but it is obviously introducing a bias in WP's choice of description and words. I say this as a battle-hardened veteran of such POV changes on WP, a veteran of nearly 16 years. user:Endwise's notion that it is somehow linked to Tamil Nadu is not accurate; it was once upon a time, but a large number of the more recent people from Tamil Nadu retain their full names. I will make a list below. Fowler&fowler«Talk»18:19, 11 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Praggnanandhaa himself used the initial "R" on his GM title application, and his FIDE page also uses the abbreviation. If Pragg really had a problem with it, he could easily just ask FIDE to change it. So I don't really see your point. We don't have to shorten it to "Pragg", R Praggnanandhaa is completely and probably more recognizable and more commonly used. 9ninety (talk) 11:16, 31 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I don't understand the logic. We are talking about the page name. We don't have to use it after the first sentence. I'm not seeing why it can't be: Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa, commonly R. Praggnanandhaa and familiarly Pragg is an Indian grandmaster etc. and use Praggnanandhaa thereafter throughout the article. Fowler&fowler«Talk»11:44, 31 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
His full name would still be mentioned in the article's lead, but since "R Praggnanandhaa" is the most common way of presenting his name (may even be preferred by Pragg himself), it makes more sense for the article title. People won't confuse him for anybody else if Rameshbabu isn't included in the title. It is also the format used in professional tournaments for his name. Btw, see also Gukesh D and S. L. Narayanan for example. 9ninety (talk) 14:01, 31 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
"Endwise's notion that it is somehow linked to Tamil Nadu is not accurate" I would not be so quick to dismiss what Endwise said - while many people do indeed internationalise their names, traditional naming conventions are still very common in South India, and from personal experience I'd say initial-ising the surname is as common as, if not more so than, using both names in full. H. D. Kumaraswamy, D. K. Shivakumar, M. K. Stalin, S. P. Balasubramaniam, T. M. Krishna, P. Unnikrishnan... while it is true that a large number of the more recent people from Tamil Nadu retain their full names (all over South India btw), Pragg does not seem to have publicly expressed a personal preference regarding his surname, so it is not unreasonable to say that his name might follow the old style too, and that seems to be Indian RSes' reasoning as well - apart from the fact that that's what he used on his GM title application, and what FIDE uses regularly. W. Tell DCCXLVI (talk to me!/c) 16:28, 12 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
It is most certainly not. If you do the binary search, "Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa" -"R. Praggnanandhaa" you get about 3,000 odd returns, but they cover many of the world's newspapers and other media, The Guardian Financial Times, FIDE, Reuters, MIT Technology Review, US Chess Federation, Taiwan News, CNBC, World Chess, Chess.com, La Presnsa Latina, Taipei Times, National Public Radio (NPR), Volkskrant, Chess24, ...
If you do a search "R. Praggnanandhaa" -"Rameshbabu" you get 180,000 returns, but they are pretty much all Indian sites. I searched the first 100, and only two (if that) were international. Two appeared to be international but they were only sites for Indian expats. So who is WP beholden to, the echo chamber of the Indian media, in which if one newspaper reports something, within minutes hundreds mirror it not just in English but in dozens of Indian languages, or the world's most reliable newspapers? This change is much more biased than I had originally presumed. Fowler&fowler«Talk»17:55, 11 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
"So who is WP beholden to, the echo chamber of the Indian media, in which if one newspaper reports something, within minutes hundreds mirror it not just in English but in dozens of Indian languages, or the world's most reliable newspapers?" Absent from your consideration are the millions of Indians who read mostly Indian sources. They may well be in an echo chamber, but the fact remains that that is the COMMONNAME people know him by. The Hindu, arguably India's most enWP-reliable large newspaper, uses only the initial, if it uses anything apart from his given name at all - in contrast to other chess players who appear in articles alongside Pragg, with whom the rules seem fairly inconsistent. Mentions of his full name on TH are few and far between. I do wonder, however, if all this really matters at all - there are redirects aplenty, and I don't think we'll be causing much trouble to readers either way. Kind regards, W. Tell DCCXLVI (talk to me!/c) 16:05, 12 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Comment The notion that using initials is somehow a nonnegotiable Tamil Nadu tradition is not quite true, or at least no longer true. It certainly was true, once upon a time, linked in part to not disrespecting the father's name (or family name) by making them game for the less than respectful pronunciation of others. Here is a short list of people from Tamil Nadu, or of TN heritage who have kept there full names on WP.
So you can't really make the argument that R. Prag... is the Tamil tradition and is therefore appropriate by the subject's strong links to India. Fowler&fowler«Talk»18:49, 11 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
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.
Requested move 28 August 2023
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: no consensus.MOS:INITIALS holds that the period should be used unless the person demonstrably has a different, consistently preferred style for their own name; and an overwhelming majority of reliable sources use that variant style for that person. It was clearly shown that sources exist that omit the period after Praggnanandhaa's first initial, but participants were divided on whether usage of the no-period style was widespread enough to meet the threshold outlined in MOS:INITIALS, preventing a consensus from forming. (closed by non-admin page mover) ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 14:50, 14 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@The Doom Patrol: This is not an uncontroversial request due to the two previous RMs held over this page. If you wish to continue with your request, click the discuss link in your request to begin a formal WP:RM discussion. Once you've done that, or if you do not wish to continue, please remove your request. – MaterialWorks20:03, 24 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@The Doom Patrol: The community is what decides article titles, not admin fiat. If you're so confident you're correct, then there'll be no problem with waiting a week to let the community weigh in on a discussion and be convinced by your argument, like what happens for every other potentially controversial move. SnowFire (talk) 15:08, 25 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
SnowFire: Admins make sure community guidelines are followed. Formatting is something community has already decided with INITIALS, and there's no contest why the guideline shouldn't be followed. Did anyone argued against it with an overwhelming majority of reliable sources to prove that the person demonstrably has a different, consistently preferred style? If not, the community guideline should be followed. I don't have to argue against a non-existent argument, not to mention burden of proof is within them. And, yes, I have a problem as I have better jobs to do than snowballing over trivial obvious cases.--The Doom Patrol (talk) 17:48, 27 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Move per MOS:INITIALS. It's true that there 'have been previous requested moves' (see above!) but not over this. In fact, it should have been addressed in the discussion of May last year, and moved then to R. Praggnanandhaa (regardless of what was clearly an oversight on the period not being raised, or probably even foreseen as an issue). The guideline is clear: An initial is capitalized and is followed by a full point (period), and the exceptions are slim: if Pragg himself spells his name dotless, or if reliable sources do. Neither is the case. SN5412914:52, 28 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Comment, leaning oppose. Can I ask for clarification about the claim that reliable sources don't spell the name dotless? The usual term is just "Pragg" for short, or "Praggnanandhaa", which we need to disambiguate. FIDE uses dotless: https://ratings.fide.com/profile/25059530 . I can't find any initialed versions with "R.", for all that this may argue more for Praggnanandhaa (chess player) or the like instead given that the dotless variant also seems rare. SnowFire (talk) 18:54, 29 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Using a full stop or not is just a stylistic issue, and Wikipedia's style is to use one without significant evidence that this is not the usual style. -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:41, 30 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
We'll have to agree to disagree here. Wikipedia can set its own style for running text, but for other people / organizations / etc., COMMONNAME predominates. And you have the burden of proof reversed: if there aren't any reliable sources using "R.", and I can't find any yet, then Wikipedia simply cannot "make up" its own unique spelling. We should have evidence that this is a term at all. (Anyway, that comment was in response to Serial Number 54129, who did bring up the topic of usage in reliable sources - I'd be happy to support if it really does turn out that they do use "R.") SnowFire (talk) 14:50, 30 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Dig deeper, SnowFire :) my comment was citing the guideline, itself previously cited, which establishes that either the subject or an RS defines a name, otherwise our MOS applies. SN5412914:54, 30 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
(de-indent) Thanks for the clarification. If no reliable sources are using "R." (the most important criterion), then upgrading to Oppose, there is an exception that our MOS shouldn't invent novel spellings. Also thinking that the original RM came to the wrong conclusion - I don't think "R" is that common an abbreviation outside of FIDE (which goes dotless), so would Support move to Praggnanandhaa. SnowFire (talk) 15:06, 30 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I should point out that within the Commonwealth it is far more usual not to use a full stop than to use one. Being British, I would not generally use one in my own writing. However, it is merely a stylistic issue and it has has long been Wikipedia's style to use them with initials, and therefore for consistency's sake and per MOS:INITIALS I will always advocate using them. -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:17, 30 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. I was originally strongly opposed because reliable sources overwhelmingly favour no period; however, Pragg's Facebook page is called "Praggnanandhaa R." and says "Official page of R. Praggnanandhaa Grandmaster". On the other hand, in this post on that very page he listed himself as "R Praggnanandhaa" while listing another player as "Vaishali R.". So it's a close call. Joriki (talk) 06:30, 1 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Oppose. In the recently concluded FIDE World Cup, "R Praggnanandhaa" was used without a dot. His FIDE rating card doesn't use a dot. Here's a handful of recent news sources using his initial without a dot: [12][13][14][15][16][17] I haven't found any sources or articles using "R." without really digging for it. On simply searching about Pragg on Google, all sources use either only "Praggnanandhaa" or his initial "R" without a dot. At least in Pragg's home country of India, his initial R is rarely followed by a dot. On grounds of COMMONNAME, present title should stay. 9ninety (talk) 15:18, 1 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
If we take this as a rationale then we probably need to rename all the thousands of other articles about Indian people (and British people, for that matter) with initials, as the full stops are rarely used in India (or the UK). As I've said before, this is purely a stylistic issue. -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:53, 1 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
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.