Talk:The Bahamas/Archive 2

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. As opposers have said, WP:THE should be ignored in cases where The is part of the official name of the country. This makes all of the support !votes rather weak, including an WP:IDONTLIKEIT vote which does not help at all. Because of this, I am closing as not moved. Thanks. (closed by non-admin page mover) echidnaLives - talk - edits 03:23, 28 December 2022 (UTC)

The Bahamas → Bahamas – In line with other countries with "the" in their name (e.g the Netherlands redirects to Netherlands). Thiscouldbeauser (talk) 09:53, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose per previous recent discussion. YorkshireExpat (talk) 10:47, 20 December 2022 (UTC)
• Question What was missed in the previous RMs? CMD (talk) 10:58, 20 December 2022 (UTC)
• Support. WP:THE. Shwcz (talk) 12:57, 20 December 2022 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose and Snowball Close I don't know why this discussion has not been combined with the discussion in The Gambia talk page. As per the highlighted comment made by User:力 in the previous Move Request discussion in The Gambia talk page, and repeated by many other editors before, The Bahamas and The Gambia are two special cases which we just have to remember that the definite article "The" actually forms a part of the proper country name. They are not the same as the Netherlands, the Philippines or the Comoros.

As an interesting side note, some countries have deliberately avoided using the definite article "the" despite having a plural name (e.g. Maldives, Seychelles, Solomon Islands), again, these are special cases, we just have to remember them. As for the reasons, yes, all of them have reasons, mostly to do with distinguishing itself with another geographical or political entity, or distancing itself from its colonial past etc. We don't need to worry about their reasons, if in doubt, just refer to their official name, if it has "the/The" as a part of their official name, then it will always have "the/The".

Links:

https://www.immigration.gov.bs/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/TheConstitution_11.pdf

https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/bahamas-the/

Vic Park (talk) 13:32, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose. This is the long-standing name, and an exception as previously discussed several times. Walrasiad (talk) 15:48, 20 December 2022 (UTC)
• Support per WP:THE. Beginning an article title with "The" is generally a bad idea for searching and indexing purposes. Rreagan007 (talk) 15:51, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

  WP:IAR: occasional exceptions may apply! YorkshireExpat (talk) 19:24, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose as mentioned before "The" is part of the country's name unlike Netherlands per Britannica. Its "long" official descriptive name is "Commonwealth of The Bahamas" but its official "short" and formal name is "The Bahamas". Crouch, Swale (talk) 21:01, 20 December 2022 (UTC)
• Support, I don't really see the value in having it.--Ortizesp (talk) 22:40, 20 December 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose and Speedy Close "The" is part of the name. --Magnatyrannus (talk | contribs) 23:12, 20 December 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose per the three previous RMs and comments above. Randy Kryn (talk) 12:58, 21 December 2022 (UTC)
• Support per WP:THE. The definite article is more often than not lowercased in running text. Saying "it's part of the name" is contrary to WP:OFFICIAL. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:33, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

That has been discussed at length in the previous RMs and above. Randy Kryn (talk) 13:49, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

Indeed. And all I can see is WP:IDONTLIKEIT! WP:THE and WP:OFFICIAL have been ignored as though these names should be some sort of exception to the standard. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:47, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

Please see WP:THE#When definite and indefinite articles should be used. The Gambia is listed, which is precisely the same case as The Bahamas. YorkshireExpat (talk) 21:06, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

@Necrothesp: I don't think these have been ignored, as mentioned it seems all other countries other than The Gambia and the Bahamas do not have "The" in their Britannica articles which is strong evidence of Common usage. If you look at CIA's list of countries you can see it lists "Bahamas, The" and Gambia, The while for Netherlands it doesn't put ", The" as mentioned above which this BBC article mentions. Looking at Wikipedia:Official names#Practicality, obscurity-not obscure, competing authorities-apart from the longer descriptive official name (which no one appears to be suggesting moving to) it doesn't otherwise appear to be competing, changes to names-the descriptive name may be more likely to change but the shorter one is more likely to remain stable unless they formerly decide to say the country no longer has "The" and sources like Britannica took on then we would probably accept, propaganda-the "The" doesn't appear to be so. I also wouldn't be too quick to argue that just because it is usually lower cased in running text means "The" isn't part of the name when many style guides recommend writing "the" lower cases in running text even when its part of the name, see Wikipedia:Requests for mediation/The Beatles. WP:THE is similar to other things like common nouns such as Scarba not including the word "Island" as part of the name and Dinas Island having it despite not being an island. Crouch, Swale (talk) 18:29, 24 December 2022 (UTC)