Hosta

Draft: To help keep this discussion to a manageable scale, I took care to avoid bringing up issues that were not actually used to justify the naming of the article.

The original adaptation of the current article naming was initiated by User:Delirium 4 years ago on the grounds that the Japanese 'controls the islands' and that 'They are Japanese territories right now as far as international law is concerned'.

Numerous debates were conducted (1)(2)(3) on whether or not the islands should be renamed "Pinnacle Island" (the pure English name of the islands). The proposals were all defeated. Smaller-scale articles also occurred sporadically.

The main supporting arguments were: - Wikipedia:NPOV due to the level of controversy dealing with sovereignty. - Liancourt Rocks, a similarly contested territory between South Korea and Japan, was given a similar treatment - Relative frequency of name usage in practice based on search engine results - "Senkaku Islands" was the most commonly used based on some search engine results.

The main opposing arguments were: - CIA world factbook uses Senkaku Islands as the official name - "Pinnacle Islands" is rarely used as a name - "Pinnacle Islands" is not the same as "Senkaku Islands". - The are notable differences between Liancourt Rock's scenario and this situation. The specifics of the differences were not explained in the thread, however. - "Diaoyu" had very similar or greater number of hits based on other search engine results.

On "Pinnacle Islands" is not the same as "Senkaku Islands": This argument was the principle rationale of the opposing the name change in move request #2. Subsequent discussions (1)(2) suggested there were much controversy surrounding this argument due to an inconsistency with the cited source.

On 'search engine results': (1)(2)(3)(4)(5)(6)(7)

On 'Japanese control of the Islands': Whether or not this is true is quite subjective. As User:129.78.208.4 pointed out, the islands are currently uninhabited. While Japanese naval ships occasionally patrol those waters, naval vessels from both Chinese governments had also entered those waters on their own accord. Chinese civilians had also made numerous trips to the dispute territory without acknowledging the authority of Japanese coast guards.

While some may want to equate this circumstance to that of the Falkland Islands in terms of their status, it is not actually proper to do so. Despite the conflicting claims of the Argentine and British governments, the Falkland Islands differ from the islands in questions on three important issues: - The Falkland Islands are inhabited - The islands have been under British control for many decades before the World Wars - The Argentine government has not contested the islands' sovereignty through physical action since its last defeat 20 years ago.

On 'International Law': As User:Naus pointed out, the only international law that appear to support Japanese sovereignty is a treaty signed by the U.S. and Japan alone.

Status: Incomplete

on international law, there are a few essays in the link below the wikipage, which discussed about the relevance of Shimonogaki, Actual Control, etc. San9663 (talk) 14:16, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Will look into that later Bobthefish2 (talk) 22:35, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Update: 11/21/2010 - I have a couple of deadlines to meet IRL. This has to wait for a number of days.