Talk:Pīpipi

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Changing the name please

Please can we change the name to Brown Creeper — Preceding unsigned comment added by DustyRedSkies (talk • contribs) 21:13, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

Would be good if the page name could be updated to the proper spelling of Pīpipi like that of the Kākā and other New Zealand endemic birds MothmanNZ (talk) 04:04, 4 August 2025 (UTC)

Requested move 15 January 2026

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: move. (non-admin closure) JoBo Gamer 20:07, 10 March 2026 (UTC)

Endorsed as a WP:BARTENDER close per request here. Iseult Δx talk to me 20:54, 10 March 2026 (UTC)

Pipipi → Pīpipi – As said by @MothmanNZ, there is a macron missing in the title ([], [])

I dont think this move request is necessarily controversial, but there is some inconsistency within the article between the English "brown creeper" and Māori "pīpipi". Perhaps discussion on which name is best for the Wikipedia article is needed. Jonaslamarche (talk) 07:36, 15 January 2026 (UTC) — Relisting. TarnishedPathtalk 05:10, 24 January 2026 (UTC) — Relisting. TarnishedPathtalk 02:53, 4 February 2026 (UTC)

  • I think any discussion of this species name should consider the discussion in the Notornis review of the Naming conventions the name was initially chosen with internationally. Actually also worth working into the article itself, on reflection. Sabine's Sunbird talk 18:42, 15 January 2026 (UTC)
    That link to the Notornis review doesn't work for me. This one does. Plantdrew (talk) 00:37, 17 January 2026 (UTC)
    I have added info from that review to the article, as suggested. Nurg (talk) 23:12, 27 January 2026 (UTC)
  • Support per WP:NCNZ convention on Māori-origin names. Cremastra (talk · contribs) 15:35, 16 January 2026 (UTC)
  • Support. We indicate long vowels with a macron in words of Māori language origin. "Brown creeper" is not used in the IOC World Bird List, which is a significant consideration. Nurg (talk) 01:44, 17 January 2026 (UTC)
After further study and adding naming info to the article, I have revised my opinion. See below. Nurg (talk) 23:12, 27 January 2026 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Suggest Mohoua novaeseelandiae, or brown creeper (New Zealand) as potential alternative titles. As far as I can tell, "brown creeper" is the name that is most commonly used in New Zealand for this endemic bird (although pīpipi is often mentioned as another name) The first link provided by the nominator gives pīpipi as a secondary name at the top of the page but uses brown creeper throughout the running text; I can't access all the sources used in the article, but that may be the only one that calls it pīpipi with a macron; others call it brown creeper or are globally focused ornithology websites that omit the macron. The second link provided by the nominator is a Maori dictionary that includes the macron, but lists a bivalve and another bird under the name pīpipi, and has 3 other Maori names for this species listed as synonyms (the review mentioned by Sabine's Sunbird also lists those additional Maori names and notes the absence of the macron in pipipi).
The is already some precedent for using names that are commonly used locally, rather than IOC names for New Zealand birds: Talk:New Zealand dotterel and Talk:Morepork#Requested_move (the IOC eventually adopted the name morepork, but hadn't done so when that article was moved). And Talk:Australian wood duck is another antipodean species that doesn't use the IOC name. Of course, there are also several cases where Wikipedia has added macrons to Maori-derived IOC names for New Zealand birds.
Wikipedia also has already dealt with a case where the commonly used name for a bird in New Zealand was not the IOC's recommended vernacular name, and where the name favored in New Zealand was used by IOC for a different species in another part of the world. That was resolved by moving both species to the scientific name and turning the ambiguous vernacular name into a disambiguation page: see Talk:Cyanoramphus malherbi#Requested move 12 March 2023 Talk:Eupsittula canicularis#Requested move 5 April 2023, and Orange-fronted parakeet. Both of the orange-fronted parakeet articles get similar page views, while the American brown creeper gets significantly more than the New Zealand one does, so making brown creeper into a dab page may not be the best solution in this case (however, the American brown creeper is currently mistakenly linked from at least three articles that intend the New Zealand species: Rubus schmidelioides, Biodiversity of the Kaikōura region and Lake Ellery). Plantdrew (talk) 02:24, 17 January 2026 (UTC)
  • Oppose and support rename to Brown creeper (New Zealand) (or similar) as brown creeper appears to be the common name. From some looking around it looks like "brown creeper" is used most of the time and when "pipipi" or "Pīpipi" is used, it also includes "brown creeper". Sources: and Geoff Moon's book New Zealand Forest Birds. ―Panamitsu (talk) 02:46, 17 January 2026 (UTC)
  • Support per long-standing practice on the use of macrons for names of Māori origin. While I do accept the comments from the opposing editors about the use of the name Brown Creeper, and I think it's close between the two names, the need for disambiguation with that name and WP:NATURAL mean that we should be sticking with Pīpipi (which, for clarity, should also be read as opposing a move to Brown Creeper (New Zealand)). Turnagra (talk) 08:23, 19 January 2026 (UTC)
  • Support I don't think this move request is controversial either, and a WP:BEBOLD or technical move request if needed would've been appropriate. WP:NCNZ provides long-standing practice on tohutō for names and words of Māori origin. Carolina2k22 • (talk) 23:55, 21 January 2026 (UTC)
  • Move to Mohoua novaeseelandiae. Since it's clear there is no overwhelmingly most common title between pipipi and brown creeper, we default to the scientific name, as recommended at WP:NCFAUNA.  — Amakuru (talk) 18:32, 23 January 2026 (UTC)
  • Support move to Mohoua novaeseelandiae per Amakuru. BD2412 T 01:24, 24 January 2026 (UTC)
Note: WikiProject Birds and Wikipedia:New Zealand Wikipedians' notice board have been notified of this discussion. TarnishedPathtalk 05:10, 24 January 2026 (UTC)
  • Support move to scientific name, there isn't a clear common name title to use. Traumnovelle (talk) 05:42, 24 January 2026 (UTC)
  • Oppose but support move to a scientific name with re-directs from the other two names. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 06:37, 24 January 2026 (UTC)
  • Strong oppose changing to binomial. WP:BIRD states birds should use the IOC bird name unless a consensus exists, but faliure to agree on an alternative is not an invitation to revert away from common names. Sabine's Sunbird talk 22:38, 27 January 2026 (UTC)
  • Move to "Brown creeper (New Zealand)". I have added some info about naming to the article. It now seems to me that the most commonly used name past and present is "brown creeper". The second most common seems to be "pipipi", although that is in more in American use than NZ use. If a form of "Pipipi" is retained instead, it definitely should have the macron added, consistent with Kākā, Kererū, Takahē etc. Nurg (talk) 23:12, 27 January 2026 (UTC)
  • Support nomination and, if moved, Brown creeper (New Zealand). Randy Kryn (talk) 03:19, 28 January 2026 (UTC)
  • Comment I've previously !voted above in support of the addition of a macron, but given the path of the discussion I also just want to add to that with my strong opposition to the binomial name per Sabine's Sunbird. Turnagra (talk) 04:36, 30 January 2026 (UTC)
  • Retain Pipipi, as that is the name on the new Avilist; neutral as to whether to add the macron as Pīpipi per Māori orthography. Strong oppose brown creeper / brown creeper (New Zealand), as it is dated, doesn't reflect phylogeny, and invites confusion with Certhia americana. Also oppose move to the scientific name, as we don't normally do so for birds. - MPF (talk) 18:27, 30 January 2026 (UTC)
    • Support move to Pīpipi - changed my mind on the above; this is in accord with the IOC guidelines saying " the committee is neutral as to the wishes of authors of regional works, who should feel free to add pronunciation marks that they consider to be appropriate for their intended audience" and also our own existing policies on similar cases elsewhere, e.g. Hawaiian names, and other NZ birds with Māori names. - MPF (talk) 21:46, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

Towards closure

There is no clear consensus for any one of the four plausible titles, and none appear to stand head and shoulders above the others by policy or rationale. It seems unlikely that a consensus will develop now, and because some preferences are unclear to me, I am struggling to even find a WP:BARTENDER close.

In order to move forward, but avoid an annoying four-way “no consensus”, we can do a quick ranked-choice straw-poll. My hope is that this will at least eliminate one of the options. Based on the arguments made above, please give me your preferences in order, from best to worst. You are welcome to protest this clear use of WP:VOTING but I recommend you still participate, because even if a winner is not chosen, I would like to still use the vote to at least recommend against some option. To this end, I will use instant-runoff to begin by eliminating “bad” choices.

You can write out a full rank, eg: A > B > C > D, or leave off options, eg: A > B. The four options are:

  1. Pipipi
  2. Pīpipi
  3. Mohoua novaeseelandiae
  4. Brown creeper (New Zealand)

— HTGS (talk) 03:16, 10 March 2026 (UTC)

I don't think this will be particularly helpful as it only serves to relitigate the above discussion. Personally, I think there are two separate questions that have been covered by this:
  1. Should the article stay at a variation of its current title or move elsewhere?
  2. If the article stays at its current title, should it have a macron added?
If we look at it in these terms, I think it becomes a lot clearer. I haven't seen any comments that oppose the addition of a macron specifically, rather they support a move to another title. So I think the answer to the second one (being the original move request) is to add a macron if the article stays with its current name. I also don't think we've got anything near a consensus for either of the proposed alternatives, but that's a job for a closer. Turnagra (talk) 05:40, 10 March 2026 (UTC)
I had the same impulse as you—bartender to the macron, worry about a second move later—but too many comments state an explicit “oppose”, and it’s not clear to me that they aren’t actually opposing the move to the macron, rather than just the current title. I was going to simply ask those people, but figured that if I was going to ask about relative preference, we may as well just see if something clearer falls out. — HTGS (talk) 20:01, 10 March 2026 (UTC)
HTGS, I've been looking at this too over the past few days. I think that a bartender close is definitely possible, given appropriate justification, and am willing to carry it out; see, for reference, a slightly easier close here. Then there's also the possibility of weighing the actual strength of PAG-based arguments. Iseult Δx talk to me 06:53, 10 March 2026 (UTC)
Fair enough. I could see a bartender to Pīpipi if you point out that of the many opposes, there wasn’t much substantive discussion against the macron spelling. For the rest of my preceding thought process, see my reply to Turnagra. — HTGS (talk) 20:07, 10 March 2026 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Page move completed

I moved the page per the consensus above. I also want to thank all the editors who took part in the discussion for working to reach a consensus on the name change.--SouthernNights (talk) 13:35, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

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