Talk:FC Zenit Saint Petersburg

Requested move

FC Zenit → FC Zenit Saint Petersburg – Move made without discussion, and against the decision previously made on the talk page. Ilikeeatingwaffles (talk) 11:21, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

• Support - actually we shouldn't have this discussion. Some administrator should move the page back as a result of the previous discussion, and if Barocci wants to move it to FC Zenit he should make another "requested move discussion", when this article is in it's right position.Mentoz86 (talk) 07:57, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
  • Nice campaigning. [1] I very much welcome editors to the discussion, but presenting them the situation in such a POV-ish manner is a bit unconstructive, don't you think? Barocci (talk) 21:22, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
    • It's not about campaigning at all, but as I've already stated: this discussion shouldn't be needed as per the previous discussion. I tried to move it back to FC Zenit Saint Petersburg, but since I'm not an administrator, it wasn't possible, so I simply expressed my opinion about it and asked an administrator for a hand, which I haven't gotten... Mentoz86 (talk) 03:14, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support. And agree with Montoz86. It should not have been moved without a new RM. Walrasiad (talk) 13:44, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose. Yup, I am bold and the very same policy some of your, guys, actions are seemingly relying upon says "Editors may make changes without prior discussion" and then "Further discussion should then be undertaken on the article discussion page", so I believe it says I am not obliged to discuss my every single step and I see nothing controversial in moving an article from an incorrect to a correct name, but, if you are interested in discussing the matter, let's do it. However I honestly can't see any discussion on the subject here (which is a bit surprising), so let me start one:
• The move to FC Zenit that I've done is, I believe, an improvement. First of all, the club is never called "Zenit Saint Petersburg" in Russian, it's always just "Zenit", because the club is called that, "Zenit", and nobody really thinks there's a need for any disambiguation between reigning Premier League champions and some Second Division outsider, that's just stupid. Second, the club is clearly prefers to call themselves "FC Zenit" in English as well: their site is http://en.fc-zenit.ru/main/, at the bottom you can see "Football Club Zenit. All rights reserved.", in the club section "Zenit football club was established in May, 1925. At first the team was a part of the Leningrad Metal Plant in the name of Stalin. The club carried the name Stalinets from 1936 to 1940, when the club got its current name – Zenit. FC Zenit is the only team in the Russian Premier League representing St. Petersburg." and so on. Finally, the very reason the article was called FC Zenit Saint Petersburg initially is because of well known systematic bias of UK residents to (sometimes incorrectly) call foreign clubs (FC +) Club name + City name, like FC Inter Milan or AZ Alkmaar (note that both articles' names are correct). In case of Zenit, even in the UK-based press, both Zenit and Zenit Saint Petersburg are used, so I believe it is perfectly well to move the article to its correct title, which is simply "FC Zenit". Thank you guys for reading. Barocci (talk) 16:54, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
  • Example: FC Zenit, Zenit. Note that all recent headlines use simply "Zenit". On a separate note, please don't use any Google hit-based argument, total hits count says nothing about the recent usage because two or three years ago Zenit St Peterburg name were used more often, but now as the club become fairly well known in Europe it is no more the case, so you cannot correctly measure recent usage that way. Barocci (talk) 17:06, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
    • Oh, and the decision that the nom is referring to was made more that two years ago, things I believe have changed in favour of the move since then (as shown above). Barocci (talk) 17:17, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
      • Comment Why does the text on the club badge in the article read "Футбольный клуб Зенит Санкт-Петербург", which I believe is the Russian for "Football Club Zenit Saint Petersburg"? Ilikeeatingwaffles (talk) 21:42, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
        • Citing club logo section of the official website, http://en.fc-zenit.ru/main/history/logo/ : "When Zenit returned to the highest Russian league in 1996, the club brought order to its club documentation: the blue-white-light blues started to come on the field in shirts with the official club emblem – an arrow, a ball, and the golden ship of the Admiralty, with the words Saint-Petersburg Football Team written in a circle around the emblem. Starting from 1998, the team emblem took on a more modern look, and was made an officially-registered trademark. " Note that the text in two previous logos read "Футбольный клуб Зенит Санкт-Петербургский" and "Футбольный клуб Зенит Ленинградский", i.e. "Saint Petersburg Football Club Zenit" and "Leningrad Football Club Zenit", how they managed to loose that "-ский" suffix during the latest redesign I don't know :), but I don't think that this suffix-on-the-latest-logo issue is important for the club nor is it really important for the subject discussed there, as it is perfectly clear from the text cited above that they really meant Football Club Zenit from Saint Petersburg, or, well, at least there's no hint that they meant otherwise. So Zenit case now looks more similar to that of Ajax than that of Inter (thankfully, the former article is not located at FC Ajax Amsterdam either.) Barocci (talk) 22:10, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
          • (e/c)There is also an occasionally used naming convention in Russian to write club name as FC Club name (City name), maybe they meant that in the latest redesign but dropped the brackets for aesthetics reasons, a similar convention is used in ru-wiki, for example "Арсенал (футбольный клуб, Лондон)" (Arsenal (football club, London)), Зенит (футбольный клуб, Санкт-Петербург) (Zenit (football club, Saint Petersburg)). Anyways all that is a bit speculative to suggest, the source says Saint-Petersburg Football Team and nothing else so we should stick to that for the matter of logo meaning. Barocci (talk) 22:36, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
          • Well, that history isn't actually mega clear - no mention of the name change from Stalinets, it just 'happens'. Whe the text including the city's name is mentioned it never says anything along the lines of 'despite not be ing part of the club's official name...'. I note that UEFA [2] and the BBC [3] both call the club, Zenit St Petersburg, so I don't think that FC Zenit is the WP:COMMONNAME in English, though it is probably that in Russian. Ilikeeatingwaffles (talk) 22:23, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
            • As far as I know (and the evidence suggests), both "simply" Zenit and Zenit St Petersburg are WP:COMMONNAMEs. For example, from the UEFA.com link you've given: "Zenit 2-0 Dinamo Bryansk", "Shakhtar Donetsk 2-2 Zenit", "Zenit 2-1 Lokomotiv Moskva" an so on. Barocci (talk) 22:47, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
              • BBC, on the other hand, prefers Zenit St.Petersburg, while also using [4][5] "simply" Zenit freely. But for an opposite example I've given a link to SkySports search earlier that showed they favour Zenit over Zenit St.Petersburg. Barocci (talk) 22:57, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
                • It might be that the official name of Zenit is FC Zenit, but UEFA uses FC Zenit St Petersburg as the official name ([6]), and in articles about the club in The Telegraph([7]), ESPN ([8]) and Guardian ([9]) Zenit St Petersburg is used. AZ Alkmaar is often called AZ, even though AZ Alkmaar is the "right" name for a wiki-article, same goes with Inter Milan, Sporting Lisbon, AND Zenit Saint Petersburg. Per WP:COMMONNAME and WP:USEENGLISH, this article should be moved back. Mentoz86 (talk) 14:21, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
                  • No, UEFA actually uses shortened version extensively. Just click on "More news" link [10] and read the headlines or scroll down to the Matches section. Barocci (talk) 07:49, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

The Telegraph uses incorrect names such as Apoel Nicosia (instead of APOEL F.C.) or FC Basle (instead of FC Basel). In fact, I oppose the move exactly per WP:COMMONNAME, since both shortened and extended name are common, both are English, shortened is official and extended is incorrect, and the same naming pattern to use official name in such case is used for similar articles: compare FC Zenit (and not Zenit St Petersburg) to AZ (football club) (and not AZ Alkmaar), F.C. Internazionale Milano (and not Inter Milan), Sporting Clube de Portugal (and not Sporting Lisbon), APOEL F.C. (and not Apoel Nicosia), FC Basel (and not FC Basle), AFC Ajax (and not Ajax Amsterdam), N.E.C. (football club) (and not NEC Nijmegen), Bayer 04 Leverkusen (and not Bayer Leverkusen), Olympique Lyonnais (and not Lyon), Olympique de Marseille (and not Marseille), FC Girondins de Bordeaux (and not Bordeaux), shall I continue?.. Barocci (talk) 08:21, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

• Support - the previous RM discussion from November 2009 (Talk:FC Zenit Saint Petersburg#Requested move), which sought to move it to 'FC Zenit' was closed as "no consensus" - even though there was 100% opposition to said move. I suggest a move back. GiantSnowman 17:26, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
  • At least in that request back in 2009 there were a couple of arguments, albeit invalid and easily refutable, in favour of "FC Zenit Saint Petersburg" naming. And now nobody cares to elaborate at all. May I politely remind that Wikipedia:Polling is not a substitute for discussion and "Wikipedia has established processes to deal with certain procedures. These include deletion discussions and featured content. Because these processes are somewhat institutionalized, they are sometimes wrongly assumed to be majority votes. In reality, Wikipedia's policy is that each of these processes is not decided based on a head count, but on the strength of the arguments presented and on the formation of consensus.". Please, present a clear and valid argument for the article to be named "FC Zenit Saint Petersburg". Barocci (talk) 21:08, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
    • We have one arguments, and that is that the discussion was lost two years ago, and nobody supported you. You then waited two years, and instead of starting another discussion you simply moved the page without asking, even though there were nobody in support two years ago. As I've stated before, this page should be moved back by an administrator, and then you can start a new discussion, and I'll start using "arguments". Mentoz86 (talk) 03:14, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
      • Your suggestion contradicts Wikipedia:Consensus#Reaching consensus through editing policy, already cited. I don't understand why are you pressing for administrative intervention there, as if some administrator should revert all my edits because they are mine, not yours, and you disagree on that naming issue, as well :) Per policies, I was not required to start another discussion, which I didn't because this article doesn't get much attention from editors practically meaning chances that somebody would be interested in elaborating on the subject are small, and that discussion (which really looked like a set of fast thoughtless replies) in 2009 clearly illustrated that. So I believed the move would be an improvement because 1) now as compared to 2009 it is clearer from official club website how they prefer themselves to be called in English, 2) now as compared to 2009 "just" Zenit name is used more often. Times are changing, really. I remember watching Zenit away game against Olympique de Marseille on TV in English back in November or December of 2007, and while Olympique de Marseille was shortened to "OM" they managed to shorten FC Zenit as "ST-PET". Bloody hell! Imagine Chelsea F.C. being shortened as "LOND"! :) Thankfully it's impossible now so yes, times have changed. Barocci (talk) 13:49, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
        • No, there is not needed a RM to move a page, but you did two years ago, and there were no consensus to move it. And Yes, I want administrator intervention since you did moved the page regardless of the consensus to not move the page. It's not your edits I want reverted, it's the page move. And if there is clearer now that the page should be moved, than in 2009, why didn't you start a RM to discuss it, instead of moving the page when you obviously are the only editor that thinks that FC Zenit is the right place for this article. Comparing Zenit to Chelsea is just silly, in my opinion, as noone have ever called Chelsea "Chelsea London". You wanted arguments, look on my other reply for arguments. Mentoz86 (talk) 14:21, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
          • As far as I know, the Germans call Chelsea "Chelsea London". I think you've got the point anyway. As for you obviously are the only editor that thinks that FC Zenit is the right place for this article, it's the arguments' strength, not the votes count that is important in Wikipedia, and if that sole rule didn't exist, I won't be a Wikipedia editor at all. Barocci (talk) 07:39, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Moving the page back mid-discussion would just cause more drama. It is not adversely affecting the encyclopedia to have another RM at this time; after all, this is two years in the future, and as Russian football because more well-known in English-language sources facts may change. That certainly does not excuse Barocci's having moved in spite of the previous opposition when he knew it would be controversial, for which he deserves a good slap with a trout. As for the move itself, the club is almost always referred to by the expanded title in English-language sources. This is an open-and-shut case of WP:COMMONNAME. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 15:19, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

• That certainly does not excuse Barocci's having moved in spite of the previous opposition when he knew it would be controversial I obviously didn't know, I thought no one would care. Among the Wikipedians that gathered there, I believe only Ilikeeatingwaffles and me edited the article itself. Barocci (talk) 06:32, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
  • On the subject, I believe you, while in good faith, are passing UK-based sources as English-language sources, but English is a worldwide language and when you would look at the complete picture what you've said (the club is almost always referred to by the expanded title) would not be the case, for example Russian news agencies, which are more reliable sources on a Russian football club as they have better accuracy on this particular subject, don't use the expanded title in headlines at all Itar-Tass RIANovosti Russia Today nor do the local newspaper St.Petersburg Times. Barocci (talk) 07:25, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
    • That's why I said "almost always". Local sources are obviously more likely to use the "real name" of the club, but we are obliged to follow common use in order to provide the most familiar name for the majority of our readers. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 10:31, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
      • True, and then take a look at the issue from another point. Let's assume UK-based readers of Wiki read The Telegraph and the like and prefer FC Zenit St Petersburg. Russia-based readers are used to the official name (by the way FCZ abbreviation is well known itself, for example, it is used on fan scarves [11]) and prefer FC Zenit. How are we supposed to count where are the majority of this article readers from, Russia or UK? And then let's consider Europe, but uefa.com uses both Zenit and Zenit St Petersburg. And then we consider our worldwide audience, but fifa.com, like Russian sources, prefers Zenit in headlines [12]. And then some US news outlet I suppose prefer Zenit St Petersburg so... Well... Unfortunately we could not reasonably measure the most familiar name by asking readers of this article about their preferred news sources. That's why, based on my observations, I came to the conclusion that both names FC Zenit and FC Zenit St Petersburg are roughly WP:COMMONNAMEs. Hence the initial move to the correct name. Barocci (talk) 11:27, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
• Comment. Please take notice of the proposed move destination. It is not FC Zenit St Petersburg. It is FC Zenit Saint Petersburg. A name that is almost not used at all, even in the UK.[13] If you believe (I don't) that the article should be moved to FC Zenit St Petersburg, then you should indicate that in your replies i.e. "Support move to ... instead" because this request is not about a move to the title some of you are arguing for. Barocci (talk) 10:23, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
  • Good catch. I'm happy for the move to be to the appreviated "St" if that's more common. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 10:31, 3 February 2012 (UTC)