Talk:Ghaggar-Hakra River

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: Participants have pointed out that the focus of this page is on the Paleochannel called Ghaggar-Hakra and not the present day Ghaggar river. Hence this page is Not Moved (non-admin closure) >>> Extorc.talk 18:44, 13 January 2023 (UTC)Reply

Ghaggar-Hakra River → Ghaggar River – Because:

• In a Google Books search, Ghaggar river (23,000) gets more hits than Ghaggar-Hakra river (5,040). Ghaggar river also gets more hits than Hakra river (8,410). Added later: "Ghaggar river" (in quotes) gives 5,600 hits, more than either "Ghaggar-Hakra river" (2,190) or "Hakra river" (3,250), or the both of them combined.

• Among books published by scholarly publishers, Ghaggar river (1,080) again gets more results than Ghaggar-Hakra river (312) or Hakra river (659).

• More RS use Ghaggar for the river. Take for example Encyclopædia Britannica, which uses “Ghaggar River” and mentions “Ghagghar” as an alternative name spelling.

• The river part of the river (that is, the portion which is a body of water) is mostly limited to the “Ghaggar” part, the “Hakra” portion is a dried up channel and since the Thar desert receives very little rain during the monsoon, this portion remains mostly dry even when the Ghaggar portion swells with water during the wet season. This source cited on the article, for instance, uses “Ghaggar-Hakra” to refer to the paleochannel, but “Ghaggar River” when referring to the river. This one clearly uses Ghaggar for the river primarily and uses Hakra only as an alternative name used beyond Ottu Barrage (in the desert).

• Like articles of other rivers with multiple names, like Brahmaputra, Sutlej and Neelum, this article should be titled Ghaggar River, with Hakra mentioned as alternative name in the lead sentence, and then Ghaggar-Hakra or Hakra used in the body whenever a source mentions such name, especially when talking about the IVC.

• In the areas that the river flows through, it is known as Ghaggar in the densely populated fertile Punjab Plain of northern Haryana and southern Punjab, and as Hakra when it is dried-up in the barren, scarcely populated Thar/Cholistan desert along the India-Pakistan border. So, in the areas it flows through, there are many more people who call the river Ghaggar. Google Trends also reflects this, “ghaggar river” remains the most searched term from 2004-present, more than “hakra river”, “ghaggar-hakra river” and “ghaggar hakra river”, with the top subregions being the states of India where it flows through. UnpetitproleX (talk) 12:28, 5 January 2023 (UTC)Reply

• Oppose - the relevance is precisely in the dried-up part, due to the identification with the Sarasvati river. They should be mentioned together. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 12:42, 5 January 2023 (UTC)Reply

  Wikipedia article titles are bound by wikipedia's naming conventions. In any case, I'm not arguing that the dried up part is not relevant, but that according to Wikipedia's policies regarding article titles (particularly WP:COMMONNAME, WP:CONCISE and WP:CONSISTENT), the article title should be Ghaggar River. Both general books as well as scholarly sources, and reliable tertiary sources like Britannica, use Ghaggar far, far more than either the current title or only Hakra (i.e. the dried-up part where the relevance lies, per you). UnpetitproleX (talk) 14:32, 5 January 2023 (UTC)Reply

• Oppose - The claimed bibliometric data is flawed. "Ghaggar river" in quotes gives only in the vicinity of 5,000 hits. If you look through them, you would find many of those sources deal with the Ghaggar-Hakra combination, not the Ghaggar river alone. If the present day Ghaggar river is so prominent that it needs a page of its own, it can always be created. But, honestly, most river pages of India have hardly any content, e.g, [1][2] It is likely that it will be the same in this case. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 19:43, 5 January 2023 (UTC)Reply

  Thanks for pointing this out. In quotes,"Ghaggar river" gives 5,600 hits (so in the vicinity of 6,000 hits rather than 5,000 if we must talk in vicinities), more than double the hits that "Ghaggar-Hakra river" (2,190) receives. It is also gets more hits, by a significant margin, than "Hakra river" (3,250) gets. Further evidence in support of the RM. UnpetitproleX (talk) 09:33, 6 January 2023 (UTC)Reply

I think you missed the point. "Ghaggar River" refers to the present day river, whereas "Ghaggar-Hakra" refers to the paleo river-channel. They are different topics. Google counts won't tell you what topic the sources are dealing with. So using Google counts to make a decision on this issue is flawed. The real discussion should be about the pros and cons of these two different topics. In my opinion, "Ghaggar-Hakra" is the more important topic and "Ghaggar River" can be covered within that page. If a separate page for "Ghaggar River" is warranted, that can be created. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 11:47, 6 January 2023 (UTC)Reply

• Comment - regarding [[tq|This source cited on the article, for instance, uses “Ghaggar-Hakra” to refer to the paleochannel, but “Ghaggar River” when referring to the river.}}, Singh et al. (2017) actually state

The subsequent identification of this palaeochannel, known as the Ghaggar in India and the Hakra in Pakistan [...] The Ghaggar–Hakra palaeochannel has been claimed as the former course of a large Himalayan river that provided water resources to sustain these Indus settlements12, 33, 41, 42, which include important sites such as Kalibangan, Banawali, Bhirrana and Kunal. Moreover, the palaeochannel has been linked with the mythical Sarasvati River

So, these authors refer to the whole paleochannel as Ghaggar-Hakra. The topic of this article is Ghaggar-Hakra, not just the Ghaggar. As I noticed before, the present-day relevance is in the identification with the Sarasvati. So, an alterbative move is "Ghaggar-Hakra river and paleochannel." Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 11:34, 6 January 2023 (UTC)Reply

• Oppose The double-barrelled name is more common discussing the history, which is I expect what most readers are interested in - the current river being so diminished. Johnbod (talk) 04:58, 11 January 2023 (UTC)Reply
• Comment Noting that the oppose votes have not shown any evidence on why "Ghaggar River", which is the common name per wikipedia's naming conventions as shown above, should not be used as the title for this page. All oppose votes have been about what what is thought by them to be more relevant, mostly without much evidence. --UnpetitproleX (talk) 06:27, 11 January 2023 (UTC)Reply