Talk:Washington v. Trump

Requested move 10 February 2017

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. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: withdrawn by nominator Octoberwoodland (talk) 21:26, 10 February 2017 (UTC). (non-admin closure) Octoberwoodland (talk) 21:26, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

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Washington v. Trump → State of Washington v. Trump – Article should name the first Plaintiff to match the case style. Current title is not accurate. This title could be used as a redirect. As it stands, this title is not precise. Octoberwoodland (talk) 06:26, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose I don't particularly care either way, but to undermine that point I prefer this title as it better satisfies WP:NAMINGCRITERIA than the proposed title. (1) Recognizability: as our readers are probably non-experts and won't know the typical naming conventions of federal court cases, not using "state of" is what "someone familiar with, although not necessarily an expert in, the subject area will recognize" more readily; (2) Naturalness: typing the state name and Trump is more natural for readers than typing out "state of" and editors typing out prose are also likely to drop it; (3) Precision: "The title unambiguously identifies the article's subject and distinguishes it from other subjects" There's only one case by this name so it sastisfies the policy on precision; (4) Conciseness: "The title is no longer than necessary to identify the article's subject and distinguish it from other subjects", it is shorter than the proposed title and unambiguous; (5) Consistency: This is typical for our SCOTUS cases like Washington v. Texas (1967), Alabama v. Georgia (1860), and Kansas v. Colorado (various) and MOS:LAW says only ambiguous titles use the state name and as I have pointed out, the title is not ambiguous. Wugapodes [t^hɔk] [ˈkan.ˌʧɻɪbz] 06:46, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

You may want to get consensus next time before splitting this lawsuit out of the main article. The previous consensus was to combine all the suits into a single article. Octoberwoodland (talk) 20:02, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose The Bluebook and Legal Information Institute both agree that "State of" should be omitted from the citation. The Legal Information Institute § 4-300 Principle 7 states "Omit 'State of' or its equivalents except: when citing decisions of the courts of the state in question, in which case omit the name of the state instead and keep 'State' or the equivalent term." Thus if this were, counterfactually, a case in the Washington state courts, it would be "State v. Trump." Since it is in fact a case in the federal courts, it is properly stylized as "Washington v. Trump." — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ljdenbina (talk • contribs) 15:14, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose per MOS:LAW. According to the citation conventions used in the Ninth Circuit (Bluebook), "Washington v. Trump" is the proper short-form title for this case. However, if the United States Supreme Court issues a ruling on the merits, and Trump is the appellant at the Supreme Court, then it's possible that the order of the names will be switched. If this happens, then we will want to move the article to that title. -- Notecardforfree (talk) 20:04, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

Ok, you guys have convinced me. How do I withdraw this move request. Octoberwoodland (talk) 21:22, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

References

Recent revert to lead

Ahnoneemoos I reverted your edits to the lead because I do not think they are improvements. Firstly, the case is ongoing so the lead should be in present tense not past tense because, since there has been no ruling, the states are still alleging these things. The court documents and the news coverage refer to the defendants as "the government" not "the executive branch". Please stop changing instances of "the government" to the "executive branch" because the former is what reliable sources use and is the convention for when the federal government is the defendant in a case. Finally, when refering to the United States Constitution the word "Constitution" is a proper noun and should be capitalized. Wugapodes [t^hɔk] [ˈkan.ˌʧɻɪbz] 19:17, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

It's always a good idea to write in past tense when possible because it means those sections do not have to be constantly rewritten as the saga unfolds. The current lead is poorly written, but I am sure it will over time get sorted out and expanded. Octoberwoodland (talk) 21:14, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

The manual of style specifically says: "Generally, do not use past tense except for deceased subjects, past events, and subjects that no longer meaningfully exist as such." Wugapodes [t^hɔk] [ˈkan.ˌʧɻɪbz] 22:01, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

I stand corrected. It's pretty clear I still have a lot to learn about wikipedia. :-) Octoberwoodland (talk) 22:44, 11 February 2017 (UTC)