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::::Please read the first sentence of the paragraph. It, hence the paragraph, deals directly with the capitalization of proper names, which would include 'Cuban Missile Crisis'. [[User:Randy Kryn|Randy Kryn]] ([[User talk:Randy Kryn|talk]]) 02:50, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
::::Please read the first sentence of the paragraph. It, hence the paragraph, deals directly with the capitalization of proper names, which would include 'Cuban Missile Crisis'. [[User:Randy Kryn|Randy Kryn]] ([[User talk:Randy Kryn|talk]]) 02:50, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
:::::Well that's the point—asserting without evidence that Cuban missile crisis is a proper name doesn't make it so, with or without the sentence you point to. [[User:Wallnot|Wallnot]] ([[User talk:Wallnot|talk]]) 03:21, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
:::::Well that's the point—asserting without evidence that Cuban missile crisis is a proper name doesn't make it so, with or without the sentence you point to. [[User:Wallnot|Wallnot]] ([[User talk:Wallnot|talk]]) 03:21, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

:::::{{tq|In English, proper names, which can be either single words or phrases, are typically capitalized. Such [proper] names are frequently a source of conflict, especially when different cultures, using different [proper] names, "claim" someone or something as their own. Wikipedia does not adjudicate such disputes, but as a general rule uses the [proper] name which is likely to be most familiar to readers of English. Alternative [proper] names are often given in parentheses for greater clarity and fuller information.}} The first sentence and the start of the second ({{tq|Such names}}) establish that in the rest of the paragraph ''name'' is referring to a ''proper name'' (ie we are using a shortened form of the fuller noun phrase ''proper name''). The first sentence acknowledges we capitalise proper names but does not intrinsically tell us anything else about proper names. In full, the paragraph is dealing with alternative ''proper names'' such as ''Mumbai'' and ''Bombay'' and not with whether something is or isn't a proper name - ie we must first determine if we are dealing with a proper name. [[User:Cinderella157|Cinderella157]] ([[User talk:Cinderella157|talk]]) 04:12, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

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Capitalization discussions ongoing (keep at top of talk page)

Add new items at top of list; move to Concluded when decided, and summarize the conclusion. Comment at them if interested. Please keep this section at the top of the page.

Current

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Concluded

Extended content

Capitalization of The

This page shows The Bahamas as incorrect, but the actual Bahamas article uses The Bahamas.

Quote from Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Capital letters: "Incorrect: weather in The Bahamas".
Quote from The Bahamas: "The first inhabitants of The Bahamas were the Taino people ...".

So, which is correct, the Bahamas or The Bahamas? Heddy10 (talk) 22:32, 14 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Lowercase (the Bahamas) should be correct here, but I'm biased because I'm the one that added it to the MOS. —Eyer (he/him) If you reply, add {{reply to|Eyer}} to your message. 23:51, 14 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The Manual of Style should be followed, regardless of what the referenced article does. In fact, the article should be edited to conform to the Manual of Style. —El Millo (talk) 00:27, 15 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I also would use lowercase in all contexts except the full "Commonwealth of The Bahamas". Pinging Donald Albury who has been editing the article and appears to prefer capitalization. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 06:24, 18 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The government of the Bahamas consistently uses a capitalized "The" in the phrase "Commonwealth of The Bahamas" on its web site. The Britannica article on "The Bahamas" states that the official name of the country was set as "Commonwealth of the Bahamas" in 1969, but was changed to "Commonwealth of The Bahamas" when the country became independent in 1973.The Bahamas - Independence An unofficial reproduction of the preamble and first chapter of constitution of the Bahamas, presented on the Bahamian government's web site, uses the phrase "Commonwealth of The Bahamas" twice, and the phrase "Commonwealth of the Bahamas" once, which does weaken my argument a little.Constitution of the Bahamas - Preamble and Chapter I I think the evidence is clear that the official name of the country is "Commonwealth of The Bahamas", and I think that using the capital "T" in "Commonwealth of The Bahamas" correctly represents the official name of the country, and improves the encyclopedia. - Donald Albury 12:25, 18 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
MOS:CAPS states very clearly that if something is not consistently capitalised in RS, it should not be capitalised. The fact that inconsistency exists even in the government's own communications suggests there are no grounds for capitalisation in running text here. RGloucester — ☎ 13:39, 18 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Part of CAPS, MOS:POLITICALUNITS, suggests that capitalizing to match the "name of a legal entity" is appropriate. I think Donald Albury's sources suffice to show 'The' is in the official name of the country. However, locations that aren't using the full name should be 'the Bahamas', as it's abundantly clear that RS are not consistently capitalizing this shortened form, and 'The Bahamas' is not the official name of a legal entityt. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 15:23, 18 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Don't know which is correct. But let's be sure we choose 'one', to use through out the 'pedia. GoodDay (talk) 16:03, 18 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
the Bahamas, per MOS:CAPS and internal consistency. Would take several truckloads of evidence to convince me to make an exception here. (See also my personal rant on "the" in names.) Popcornfud (talk) 11:53, 9 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I have placed a notice of this discussion at Talk:The Bahamas#Discussion of capitalized "The" in the official name. - Donald Albury 14:58, 18 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  • "The" in uppercase, of course, it's the name of the country, and per common sense, WP:IAR, and me packing my suitcase to be on the next plane. Randy Kryn (talk) 18:19, 18 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • We should use lowercase the. The country may like to be silly with their orthography, but we shouldn't be. --Khajidha (talk) 02:13, 7 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment For people who don't understand the difference, The Bahamas and The Gambia are the correct names for these two countries. Their governments have specifically included the capitalised "The" as a part of their country names in order to distinguish their modern countries from their colonial pasts.
    Country names are tricky, some countries with a singular name have attached a lower case "the" (e.g. the Sudan) to distinguish themselves from another geographical region (i.e. Sudan is a geographical region in West Africa while the Sudan is a country in North Africa). By contrast, some countries with a plural name have no "the" attached (e.g. Solomon Islands is the country, the Solomon Islands is the archipelago which also includes PNG's Bougainville (which may become the world's newest sovereign state). The same can be said of Maldives/Seychelles). Many people failed to realise these things, there are no grammatical rules about these special cases, we just need to remember them. When in doubt, just check the article List of sovereign states, if the definite article "The/the" is included in a country's official name, we need to include the definite article too. James Ker-Lindsay (talk) 11:49, 9 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Is that also true of The Maldives? Martinevans123 (talk) 11:58, 9 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Not really. The official name of Maldives is the Republic of Maldives, not the Republic of "The/the" Maldives. Maldives is the correct country name. The Maldives refers to the archipelago, it is a term used in geology/geography, not politics. James Ker-Lindsay (talk) 12:45, 9 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    "Many people failed to realise these things". lol. Martinevans123 (talk) 12:48, 9 August 2021 (UTC) p.s. I always get a bit thrown by The Netherlands[reply]
  • This is why context always has to be examined when editing for style… It is correct to use lower case “the Bahamas” when writing geographically about the islands, and also when writing historically about the British colony… however it is correct to use upper case “The Bahamas” when writing about the modern country politically (post independence).
    This does not “contradict” our style guidance. We explicitly say that there are occasional (rare) exceptions to our rules. This is one of them. Blueboar (talk) 13:50, 9 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    You are right, everything related to the modern country should be "The Bahamas" (not only politically though). James Ker-Lindsay (talk) 15:27, 9 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    sure… I used the word “politically” broadly - to juxtapose with “geographically” and “historically”.
  • A good guide for when to use the definite article "the" in front of country names and other geographical features: https://www.grammarly.com/blog/geographical-use-the/ 2001:8003:9008:1301:8DDE:C047:73F8:155C (talk) 03:28, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Definitely lowercase. We are not bound by "rules" made up by governments to make themselves feel more important (see WP:OFFICIAL), but follow common usage in the English language. That is very clearly lowercase. Capitalising "The" except at the beginning of a sentence is not natural English unless relating to the title of a work (and it looks pretty weird even then). -- Necrothesp (talk) 16:00, 20 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Really? What about The Hague? There are tons of reliable sources using the term "The Hague" in the middle of a sentence. Are you proposing some sort of double standards here?
    Examples:
    https://www.britannica.com/event/Hague-Conventions
    https://www.loc.gov/rr/frd/Military_Law/Hague-Peace-Conferences.html
    2001:8003:9008:1301:59F6:BF07:F678:CD17 (talk) 03:01, 25 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree, although I still support capitalization in "Commonwealth of The Bahamas" when used in full. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 16:07, 20 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    No double standards, since I wouldn't support capitalising The Hague in the middle of a sentence either! The fact it happens doesn't mean it should be encouraged. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:46, 2 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Definitely lowercase. I don't want my eyes poked out unnecessarily in the middle of a sentence. Tony (talk) 08:50, 15 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Lowercase except of course at beginning of sentence. See news results [1], in which "The Bahamas" is almost only found in a) sentence-initial positions, and b) over-capitalized headlines that also use "In" and "Of" because their house style is to cap EVERY word in a headline. See Google Scholar results; same story [2]; "The Bahamas" in mid-sentence is almost unheard of in journals. See N-grams [3], in which "the Bahamas" overwhelmingly dominates when you do proper searches that rule out sentence-initial position. Lower-case dominates by orders of magnitude.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:48, 16 October 2021 (UTC); evidence added 01:21, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    @SMcCandlish At the top of the MOS page, it says "Wikipedia relies on sources to determine what is conventionally capitalized; only words and phrases that are consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources are capitalized in Wikipedia." Everything below that line seems to only exist to list exceptions to that rule. Based on your analysis of reliable sources, it seems that lowercase the is the most common. So, the only thing left to consider is, should those sources really override the country's government's own preference ("Commonwealth of The Bahamas")? Based on some of the comments I'm reading here, it may be best to have a compromise where the islands are called "the Bahamas" and the government is called "Commonwealth of The Bahamas". I feel that anything else would just cause unnecessary conflict. Consider for a moment which the sources you read were referring to, the island or the government. After all, the most reliable source on the name of a government is the government itself, so I think they should be called what they want to be called. Heddy10 (talk) 22:08, 1 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    See WP:Specialized-style fallacy. And we've had this debate many times before about many things, such as various company names, a lot of universities, etc., and the end result is always the same: WP uses "the" because most sources do. See also MOS:TM and WP:OFFICIALNAME; WP really doesn't care about the preferences of particular publishers or other entities, nor for "officialness" of some particular style choice. WP is not written in officialese.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:31, 1 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Lowercase. The above discussions point to overwhelming support for lowercase the, both in Wikipedia's MOS and in reliable sources. Heddy10 (talk) 14:24, 2 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Lowercase predominates even in "The Commonwealth of the Bahamas" in books. Why would we do differently, in light of MOS:CAPS that says to avoid unnecessary capitalization? Dicklyon (talk) 06:45, 5 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Lowercase. Capitalizing "the" mid-sentence is ridiculous. Rreagan007 (talk) 05:35, 30 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Lowercase. MOS:CAPS says avoid unnecessary capitalization; reliable sources often use lowercase; nuff said. Feel the spirit of WP:OFFICIALNAMES. —  AjaxSmack  16:06, 3 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Consensus check

We've had a lot of discussion over many months, though few people are actually responding to each others' arguments. My read is that there's no consensus to change the guideline. Anyone seeing this differently? Firefangledfeathers (talk) 16:14, 20 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I support using the capitalised "The" for The Bahamas and The Gambia. We need to show respect to these countries and their people. 2001:8003:9008:1301:59F6:BF07:F678:CD17 (talk) 03:01, 25 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I certainly do not, not in mid-sentence. That's ridiculous, and it isn't something typically found in other publications. See news results [4], in which "The Bahamas" is almost only found in a) sentence-initial positions, and b) over-capitalized headlines that also use "In" and "Of" because their house style is to cap EVERY word in a headline. See Google Scholar results; same story [5]; "The Bahamas" in mid-sentence is almost unheard of in journals. See N-grams [6], in which "the Bahamas" overwhelmingly dominates when you do proper searches that rule out sentence-initial position. Lower-case dominates by orders of magnitude.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:48, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The Guardian, for one, does not seem to capitalize "The" in "the Gambia" in mid-sentence, or even in headlines (see here and here), although some other sources do. On Wikipedia, it is generally lowercased, I believe. Gambia is also often used without "the" in sources. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 23:53, 2 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
If you've ever actually read The Guardian and Observer style guide, you'd know that it's widely divergent from other style guides, even in journalism, on many points. "The Guardian does it" isn't a selling point, and certain cannot overturn the overwhelming evidence I provide of lower-case usage.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:03, 13 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
You may not have noticed exactly what I said. I said The Guardian does not use uppercase "The" in "the Gambia". —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 00:03, 8 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I did misread (but stand by what I said; The Guardian is rarely if ever relevant in style discussions on WP.  :-)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:25, 9 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Agree the guideline in the MOS seems to have consensus here, including the example that is violated in the article. Presently, the article caps "The" in "The Bahamas" even in contexts where it's referring to the islands, not the country, due to enthusiastic over-capitalizers. If we didn't have so many unneeded caps there, there would be less temptation to go off into the ridiculous this way. Let's fix. Dicklyon (talk) 16:57, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
A sudden capped "The" in mid-sentence is very disruptive. Tony (talk) 05:26, 19 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
When speaking of the islands (as an island chain and not the sovereign state), it is "the Bahamas". When speaking of the sovereign state, it should be clear the definite article "The" is part of the proper noun that is "The Bahamas". The demonym is "Bahamian" without a capitalized definite article preceding it. It is what the Bahamian people call their country. It is no different than North Macedonia or New Zealand or South Dakota. If I named myself "Trout Fishing In America", then everything that I claim is my name automatically becomes a proper noun, unless I specify otherwise (because I dictate how my name is spelled). Just because we don't like it being a proper noun is irrelevant. African Americans have unique names. For example, "Da'Quan" is a common name. The capital D, the apostrophe, and the capital Q are part of the name. Unless the person writes it as such, it is not "Daquan" just because someone doesn't "like" it. Go to the Bahamian website. Whatever way they write, should be how we write it. WP editors need to get over themselves. It's me...Sallicio! 13:14, 13 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Recent change

A recent change made by @Qwerty284651 with the edit summary "Minor fix" seems to be in conflict with Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters#Capitalization of The above. There was no formal closing. I don't read the consensus to say that we should capitalize "the" in the middle of a sentence.

I've reverted that change and opened the discussion here. SchreiberBike | ⌨  17:37, 27 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Good revert. It's also untrue that the Bahamas leads to a redirect, so the change worsened the guideline in two ways. Firefangledfeathers (talk | contribs) 17:40, 27 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, good revert, given the discussion above is overwhelmingly against using "The" in mid-sentence.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:08, 4 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Black/White, black/white, Black/white again?

Has this changed again? I keep finding references to a "recent RfC" but none of the links actually link to an RfC? Has there been one a new one I missed that definitely decided against certain choices? The last one I remember was that any of the above were not unacceptable? —valereee (talk) 01:24, 6 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Wait, is this what changed? This edit completely changes the meaning of the MOS instruction. Completely changes it to the opposite meaning. Was there an RfC in the meantime? Edit summary says to read discussion, but doesn't link to it? I feel like the last time we discussed this, people were saying that the most recent RfC did NOT say this, and said that while there was no consensus for B/w, there was also no consensus against it, and that this could be handled at individual articles. This change to the MOS seems to indicate the opposite. —valereee (talk) 01:27, 6 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. I remember seeing that and not having the energy to discuss it at the time. The edit was made by @SMcCandlish:, who usually does smart things, but I don't remember there being a consensus supporting it. SchreiberBike | ⌨  03:39, 6 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
To be clear on the status quo: I reverted that change by SMcCandlish, then I tried something new, and then he removed the whole bit about 'inconsistent style'. I don't think the current version is all that bad, though I prefer what we had before that flurry of edits. Firefangledfeathers 04:00, 6 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I've got someone arguing that Ethno-racial "color labels" may be given capitalized (Black and White) or lower-case (black and white). means B/w is prohibited. Which is not what the RfC decided. There was no consensus against Black/white. I'm going to add that statement. —valereee (talk) 17:47, 6 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I wouldn't have anticipated that argument, which is why I was ok with removal. I approve of the recent addition.
Anyone else feel like the time is right for a new RfC? My thought is to propose capitalized Black as the guideline for all American English articles, and explicitly leave white/White out of it (though I'm sure everyone will bring it up). Firefangledfeathers 19:24, 6 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Firefangledfeathers, do we have evidence things have developed any further? I think we need to see multiple right-of-center RS going to whatever we're arguing. WSJ has already gone to Black. Christianity Today is certainly allowing it, but I don't know if they've added that to their MOS. Re: White/white, though...there still seems to be a lot more variance. I think we could do an RfC on preferring Black for US topics, certainly. I think we probably need to leave White/white to creator choice/consensus at article for now. And even Black may need to be considered through a lens of varieties of English. —valereee (talk) 19:45, 6 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The latter half of your comment I agree with fully, and is generally what I was proposing. For "developed any further", I am not sure, and it's a good question. Certainly, "significant time has passed". Firefangledfeathers 20:04, 6 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • I would have to re-read the close of the most recent RFC (a few months ago), but my recollection is that there was a narrow consensus for “be consistent within the article”… ie either both should be capitalized, or both should be uncapitalized, but not mixed. Blueboar (talk) 21:24, 6 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @Blueboar, the way it was interpreted IIRC was that it should be always Black (or black) within an article (exception for within quotes), and always White (or white), but that consistency issues didn't require Black/White or black/white but could allow for consensus at the article for Black/white. —valereee (talk) 21:40, 6 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    That's exactly the opposite of the conclusion. The most opposed option in the RfC was "Black but white".  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  09:01, 22 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    But there was no consensus against that usage, IIRC. I think it's just something that can be argued at an individual article. valereee (talk) 14:34, 22 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    There was absolutely a consensus against Black/white. Just read the RfC. Where consenus was unclear was whether it was okay to consistently use Black/White in an article, or always go with black/white. "That which is not forbidden is permissible" being a general rule of thumb for wikis, the default result is that Black/White and black/white are both acceptable.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:03, 22 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Sorry, where are you finding consensus against B/w? I see consensus for B/W and b/w. Just because B/w was the most opposed doesn't mean their was necessarily consensus against it. valereee (talk) 13:57, 23 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    You seem unclear on the concept.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:23, 29 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agreed with Blueboar and SMcCandlish. The RfC was clearly about the idea of capitalizing Black but not white, and this was rejected. There is no basis for a statement here that implies the opposite - that mixing the two is acceptable. Crossroads -talk- 05:59, 22 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Where are you seeing consensus against B/w? I don't see consensus for, but I don't see consensus against. valereee (talk) 13:58, 23 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    There was not a consensus against, per se, but there was no consensus in favour of the proposal. And when an MOS proposal fails to gain consensus in support of it, it seems out of process to add a statement in the guideline that says "There's no consensus against doing this." If that were the standard practice for every single policy or guideline proposal that resulted in no consensus - to add a note in the policy or guideline saying "There's no consensus against [such-and-such]" - what a hot mess our PAGs would be! lol. I think WP:FAIT might be a somewhat relevant descriptor of this kind of action... 2600:1702:4960:1DE0:9500:B796:F20:CB93 (talk) 01:36, 24 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Hot mess indeed! The one time we did that before ("no consensus against capitalizing the vernacular names of bird species"), it led to years of knock-down-drag-out WP:DRAMA (see WP:BIRDCAPSDRAMA for an extended summary). We need to never have that happen again. The point of a style guide is to set rules and follow them, and sometimes these rules are entirely arbitrary and exist just to forestall bickering that robs people of productivity and goodwill. (And in this case it isn't arbitrary anyway; "Black but white" is an Americanism and a leftism and a journalese-ism, by no means standard practice across sources as a whole.)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:06, 4 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Pre-RfC discussion on capitalization in infoboxes

Should sentence case or title case be used in infoboxes? There has been quite a lot of unproductive debate on whether the specifics of Wikipedia guidelines on capital letters should apply to infoboxes, such as a recent RfC on MOS:JOBTITLES that failed to reach consensus. A lot of that debate centered on the first footnote in this guideline, which reads:

Wikipedia uses sentence case for sentences, article titles, section titles, table headers, image captions, list entries (in most cases), and entries in infoboxes and similar templates, among other things. Any instructions in MoS about the start of a sentence apply to items using sentence case.

There were concerns raised in the aforementioned RfC that the above footnote was written with a low WP:CONLEVEL and shouldn't be taken to prevent local consensus at other guidelines from allowing title case. Much of that debate was spent not on aesthetic preferences, but whether our hands were tied by this footnote. So, I'm seeking consensus from editors on the broader issue.

― Tartan357 Talk 03:43, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

An example of these options would have (for example) 46th President of the United States in the infobox at Joe Biden (which is the status-quo) or 46th president of the United States in the infobox. GoodDay (talk) 03:49, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

No, sentence vs. title case would have no effect on that phrase, since it starts with a numeral. There's an entire separate thread about this, below. If you want to write an RfC about MOS:JOBTITLES, then write one. Don't try to "submarine" it in as an RfC falsely about sentence case.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:15, 22 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Tartan357: I am excited to see how this RfC will go. Before it begins, can we (a) work on drafting a brief, neutral statement, (b) discuss how to organize the RfC, and (c) decide who to notify about it? Firefangledfeathers 03:51, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I bolded the question itself and tried to give some background on why it's being asked so as not to appear "sneaky" with the broadening of the subject matter. I feel I've distilled he issue to its simplest form, but am open to suggestions. We can place just that first sentence under the RfC tag, if you'd like. ― Tartan357 Talk 03:55, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I put a suggestion below before seeing this comment. I do think that anything we cut from your first opener could go below your signature. Firefangledfeathers 04:04, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I think we need two visual examples of Joe Biden's infobox (or whoever), to highlight this topic. A visual with the capitalisation (the status quo) & a visual without capitalisation, would help clarify the dispute for editors. GoodDay (talk) 04:01, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
For the notice, there are parts of your opener here that are non-neutral. How about:

The first footnote in this guideline reads:

Wikipedia uses sentence case for sentences, article titles, section titles, table headers, image captions, list entries (in most cases), and entries in infoboxes and similar templates, among other things. Any instructions in MoS about the start of a sentence apply to items using sentence case.

A related RfC on MOS:JOBTITLES from a few months ago ended with no consensus. Currently, there is a discrepancy, real or perceived, between this guideline and actual practice, as many infoboxes across the project have items in title case. Should we:

  • A: Use sentence case in infoboxes (affirm the footnote)
  • B: Use title case in infoboxes (change the footnote)
  • C: Other option (please be specific)
Firefangledfeathers 04:03, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
That works for me. ― Tartan357 Talk 04:05, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Great! Thanks for indulging me. Hoping to get this started off on the best foot possible. Firefangledfeathers 04:16, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Having more then two options, usually ends up in no consensus for anything. Also, we should point out that 'capitalisation' is the status quo in the infoboxes, whether one thinks that's an error or not. Again, two visual examples would help immensely, in reaching any consensus. GoodDay (talk) 04:07, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I am sympathetic to your view about more than two options. I'll leave it up to Tartan357, with both seeming fine to me. Without an Option C, someone will likely !vote C anyway. The other parts of your comment, GoodDay, I think you could bring up in your !vote. Firefangledfeathers 04:12, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I'd say just leave it out. Someone always adds their own option and if we're not providing something specific to choose, another option is unhelpful. ― Tartan357 Talk 04:14, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I'm planning on (if I can figure it out) placing two versions of the Biden infobox, concerning this topic. GoodDay (talk) 04:13, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
There's more to this issue than the caption on Biden's box. The infobox produces item headings "Governor General", "Prime Minister", and "Vice President". These are common nouns per any decent dictionary, and per MOS:JOBTITLES should be in lower case, so "Governor general", "Prime minister", and "Vice president". The infobox also produces "Resting place", and that's not in title case. We could use some consistency within the infobox, and I'd be happier if there were also consistency between the infobox and the text it accompanies. Chris the speller yack 04:18, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Chris the speller, I'm glad you're here. Does the template itself generate item heading? I've done a bit of looking and testing, but nothing rigorous. Firefangledfeathers 04:24, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I should have mentioned that it was infobox officeholder I was referring to. It generates the item headings itself, I'm pretty sure, not like some templates where some parameters build the headings and other parameters fill in the data. Chris the speller yack 05:06, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Chris the speller. I think picking the one example that has already been litigated extensively is a bad idea. I'm trying to address the broader issue so we don't get stuck arguing over that again. There are literally thousands of infobox templates other than {{Template:Infobox officeholder}}, and countless affected items beyond just job titles. ― Tartan357 Talk 04:21, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
If not Biden? Then how about Scott Morrison? -- GoodDay (talk) 04:35, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Taking option B literally, the top right of the article Northern cardinal would say "Northern Cardinal" where the rest of the article consistently says "northern cardinal". I don't think there would be support for that. I don't think those choices give a fair shake to the real question (about job titles) being argued. SchreiberBike | ⌨  05:37, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed, jobtitles should be exempt from this proposed RFC. GoodDay (talk) 05:40, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Well, we will see whether there is support for it or not. The footnote in question has been contested heavily in the past. This RfC does not ask any question about job titles, the goal is to clear up any uncertainty about the footnote so a clearer discussion can be had about job titles in the future. ― Tartan357 Talk 05:43, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
You say "This RfC does not ask any question about job titles", but doesn't affirming the present rule (option A) directly say that everything in a infobox, including job titles, must be in sentence case?
I haven't read all of Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biography/2021 archive#Government bio infoboxes, should they be decapitalized or not., but I don't think anyone there is proposing that infoboxes in general should use title case. I think the need for clarification is only regarding job titles in infoboxes.
Perhaps option B should say "Use title case for job titles in infoboxes (change the footnote)". SchreiberBike | ⌨  06:25, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
There were concerns raised in that discussion about the WP:CONLEVEL of the footnote currently included in this guideline. I am only trying to get a new consensus for the footnote. I'm planning on then following it up with a discussion on whether MOS:JOBTITLE should continue to exist. The closer in that discussion recommended we address these broader issues instead of such a specific application. I am literally just trying to get consensus for an existing item in the MoS! Please, please do not make this into an identical RfC to the last one. It is maddening that any way I approach this people insist on massively overcomplicating it. I'm taking a break. ― Tartan357 Talk 06:37, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Tartan357: I'm sorry. I've been there and I know it's terribly frustrating, so frustrating that I seldom put my thoughts forward. But, and it's a big but, this kind of preparation where everyone points out the possible flaws, interpretations and misinterpretations, makes proposals much more clear in the end. Everything is complicated; when "people insist on massively overcomplicating" things, it usually means that it was complicated to start with, but not obvious. My best to you and thank you for starting this conversation. SchreiberBike | ⌨  16:33, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@SchreiberBike:, Chris seems to be partially focusing in on the office titles, from what I've read. GoodDay (talk) 06:46, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Question: Is this about everything in infoboxes? (In the Joe Biden article, does it apply to the image caption, the phrases "In office" and "Personal details" and "honors and awards", and the words "died" and "lawyer" and "author" and "age" and "present" and "family" and "website"? In the Papa John's Pizza article, does it apply to "chicken wings" and "dessert"?) The question should be phrased to precisely describe what it is trying to affect (and what it is not trying to affect). —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 13:21, 7 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I believe things have been put on hold, per lack of clarification & the potential to create confusion. GoodDay (talk) 01:32, 8 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Who should we notify?

GoodDay, last time around, you notified, or at least recommended notifying, some high-profile affected articles and Template talk:Infobox officeholder. This time, more pages and more templates are implicated. Who do we need to notify? I don't think this question should delay the start of the RfC, by the way. Firefangledfeathers 04:15, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I think this should be left to the RfC process and Feedback Request Service, and I would appreciate a pledge from GoodDay not to notify individual WikiProjects, articles, and templates. This RfC affects all articles using any kind of infobox, which is far too broad for representative notifications of individual pages to be practicable. ― Tartan357 Talk 04:29, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Every area that covers a bio that has a title/office in its infobox. Politicians & royalty, etc, would certainly fit that bill. BTW: I got my Biden examples ready. GoodDay (talk) 04:31, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@GoodDay: Why are you limiting this to biographies and job titles? That is not the question being asked. ― Tartan357 Talk 04:32, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Why, what other titles are there? GoodDay (talk) 04:33, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The question is Should sentence case or title case be used in infoboxes? There's nothing specific to titles, officeholders, or biographies in that question. ― Tartan357 Talk 04:43, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The "title case" is what's currently being used in the infoboxes-in-question. Recommend you show a visual example of what you're proposing. GoodDay (talk) 04:47, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
GoodDay, the thing being proposed here is so simple and so broad that it can't possibly be distilled into representative visual examples. We have thousands of infobox templates, all of them affected. The question is very simply which casing scheme, title case or sentence case, should be used in all infobox templates. If you don't know what title case and sentence case are, follow the links. ― Tartan357 Talk 04:51, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I'm going to put up either Kamala Harris or Scott Morrison infobox examples. You free to put up other examples. GoodDay (talk) 04:53, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Those are both uses of {{Template:Infobox officeholder}}, just one of thousands of infobox templates! Your attempt to narrow the scope of this RfC to be identical to the last one is confusing me. ― Tartan357 Talk 04:56, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I'm confused by what you & the other fellow are proposing. Does it include political offices, titles etc, or not? GoodDay (talk) 04:59, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It includes that, but it also includes every other kind of sentence fragment in every field in every kind of infobox. I will try to create some examples for you. ― Tartan357 Talk 05:00, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. How about WT:MOS and Template talk:Infobox, at the very least? Firefangledfeathers 05:06, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
That's fine. ― Tartan357 Talk 05:11, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@GoodDay: See User:Tartan357/sandbox/infobox case. I'm trying to address the broader issue of what casing scheme is used in infoboxes, which will allow for greater clarity in narrower discussions like the one we had previously, if follow-up discussion is needed. ― Tartan357 Talk 05:23, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

TBH, what you & the other fellow are proposing, might be too ambitious & potentially confusing. GoodDay (talk) 05:26, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
GoodDay, if you really cannot understand the concept of title case vs. sentence case, which is a distinction already made in the footnote in this guideline, despite numerous examples and explanation, then you may wish to sit out this RfC. ― Tartan357 Talk 05:29, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Are you going to use all those infobox visual examples in the proposed RFC? GoodDay (talk) 05:30, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@GoodDay: No, because it's an incredibly basic concept in English that I'm surprised I'd have to explain to anyone here (and it's phrased in terms the footnote already uses). I am trying very hard to include you, but we are here to debate a stylistic preference, and if you don't have a baseline understanding of English style, then it's going to be difficult for you to participate. ― Tartan357 Talk 05:43, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Best to have visual examples. If you won't supply them, then I will. GoodDay (talk) 05:49, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
​​Fine, we'll include a link to my examples. Are we all in agreement about where notifications will go (only to WT:MOS and Template talk:Infobox)? ― Tartan357 Talk 02:28, 31 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Sounds good to me. Thank you again for taking time to do some pre-RFC work. Firefangledfeathers 02:30, 31 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I appreciate you recommending it. It was the right call. We should wait for GoodDay to agree to the structure and notification before proceeding. GoodDay, you have my word that if this RfC is closed in favor of sentence case, I will not lowercase in any articles until a new consensus on MOS:JOBTITLE can be reached, per the closer's recommendation. This is now a two-part issue. ― Tartan357 Talk 02:34, 31 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The RFC should be linked to politics, as it involves political offices. GoodDay (talk) 06:48, 31 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Two things. Does it have to be the specific A,B, and C listed above? It seems lacking without choice C being to allow either depending on the specific WikiProject consensus. Why must it be one or the other? Why can't we be more flexible? Simply use choice D as other. And if many many wikiprojects are involved with using the template, sure they should all be notified but can't it be done by a bot? Agree on some neutral language of what is being proposed and have a bot plop it on every wikiproject talk page that uses the infobox. That way no one gets caught off guard by a change. Fyunck(click) (talk) 07:13, 31 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm fine with adding that option. As for your second point, are you aware that all infobox templates would be affected (you're using singular language)? I'm fine with using a bot to issue notifications if you're able to set that up. ― Tartan357 Talk 07:55, 31 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    If all templates will be affected then ALL projects should be notified. That would be a huge important RFC and we don't want to hide things and have folks say later they never knew about it. I'm not a bot person but there are quite a few around here. Fyunck(click) (talk) 09:13, 31 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Sounds good. ― Tartan357 Talk 10:02, 31 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • "allow either depending on the specific WikiProject consensus". No, that's not how it works or has ever worked. The reason we have a centralized style guide is to prevent wikiprojects inventing their own "rules", and the proximal cause of WP:CONLEVEL existing was that wikiprojects kept trying to make up their own "rules" and ArbCom repeatedly had to put a stop to it until we codified the result in policy.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:18, 22 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    The policy says that individual projects cannot override community consensus. If the community opted to allow flexibility, then that most certainly would be how it works! You seem to be arguing that that option cannot even be considered because it is prohibited by policy, but that policy says no such thing. Or you're begging the question (i.e., assuming the outcome of a community discussion before the discussion has taken place). 2600:1702:4960:1DE0:25D7:83BA:434:F008 (talk) 01:09, 31 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Policies and guidelines are the codification of community consensus. They are not controlled by wikiprojects. Have the discussion, yes, but it should not be hosted at a wikiproject page, nor canvass a particular wikiproject.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:46, 16 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Capitals in hatnotes

At Talk:Autogas#Hatnote, Widefox@ and myself are having a discussion about whether a hat note should be

Not to be confused with gasoline.

or

Not to be confused with Gasoline.

To my mind, having that capital letter in gasoline halfway through a sentence (technically, a sentence fragment) is wrong. The WP:HATNOTE text doesn't seem that clear to me. I asked at Wikipedia_talk:Hatnote#sentence_case but they weren't sure either and recommended that I ask here.  Stepho  talk  22:32, 22 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting question. Though I normally go for lowercase when there's an option, I don't feel that way here. What's being distinguished here is not the substance or topic gasoline, but rather the article entitled Gasoline, I think. Dicklyon (talk) 02:29, 23 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
But what is being distinguished here is the topic: the hatnote appears on Autogas and makes a reference to a similar topic (gasoline), where we're not interested if that's the title of an article or, for example, a redirect to a section. All that matters is that the the two topics can be confused. An example of a hatnote that makes a reference directly to an article and not to a topic would be For other uses, see Gasoline. I imagine a {{distinguish}} hatnote would refer to an article and not a topic if the link is for an article where the name (and not the subject) is similar: say, if Autogas had a hatnote like Not to be confused with Autocas. – Uanfala (talk) 13:26, 23 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. This example is phrased to refer to a topic, not an article. If we want to refer the reader to the article (the title of which starts with a capital letter) rather than the topic (which doesn't), we should say something like
For the more commonly used fuel for automobiles, see Gasoline.
—⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 17:00, 23 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The article has a uppercase because of a software restriction. I don't think that's a reason to follow it. Lowercase makes it look "right". MB 06:12, 23 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The article title has uppercase because we use sentence case for article titles. In what contexts do you suggest we get away from that? Hatnotes generally just use the literal title. Dicklyon (talk) 06:27, 23 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Article titles use sentence case. By the same reasoning, should we have sentences in articles like "internal combustion engines often run on Gasoline" ?  Stepho  talk  08:47, 23 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Certainly not, and nobody has provided any reasoning that would suggest such a thing. Dicklyon (talk) 20:20, 23 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The example at WP:HATCONFUSE suggests sentence-case title in hatnotes, e.g. "Not to be confused with Pearl". In this example, "Not to be confused with pearl" woudn't make much sense, while for "Not to be confused with gasoline" it might. But I don't see that as a reason to make up new guidance when the current scheme is working pretty consistently through WP. Dicklyon (talk) 20:28, 23 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The pearl example is from the article Perl, so the connection between the two articles is one of similarity between titles, not one of topics. In either case, the hatnote could be reworded to make reference to a topic, and not an article title, and in that case it will naturally use lower case: Not to be confused with the gemstone known as "pearl", or Not to be confused with pearls. – Uanfala (talk) 15:09, 24 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment article titles use sentence case. Hatnotes are a sentence (fragments) that includes an article title|s. Sentence case should apply to the hatnote as a whole (ie lowecase gasoline but uppercase any words that would normally use upper case in a sentence. Perhaps the issue is that the hatnote is written in all italics (ie, including the leaders eg "For the more commonly used fuel for automobiles"). Perhaps it would be better if only the link|s were in talics as a means of distinguishing the article title, since this is a usual and WP acceptable way of distinguishing text. Conversely, links might be given in normal case since normal case is often used in italicised text to fulfil the function of italics eg: For the more commonly used fuel for automobiles, see gasoline. Cinderella157 (talk) 02:22, 24 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Hatnotes are in italics to make it clear they are not part of the article text, so I'd oppose complete de-italicisation. De-italicising every article title would remove the present distinction for titles that are normally rendered in italics, e.g.
This page is about the city. For the 1942 film, see Casablanca (film). For other uses, see Casablanca (disambiguation).
  • I can't immediately think of any articles with an italic title that would start with a lowercase letter in the middle of a sentence, but it wouldn't surprise me if e.g. some albums are stylised that way. Thryduulf (talk) 11:06, 24 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Reluctantly (and grudgingly) I concede to the consensus. I don't understand it or agree with it but I do bow to it. As Cinderella pointed out, if we are going to treat "Not to be confused with" and "Gasoline" as 2 fundamentally separate things then we need to make them visually distinct. Otherwise we get what looks like a simple sentence but with wrong capitalisation in the middle - hence my misinterpretation. Perhaps we could use a different font for the second half. Or even a colon between them. Anything to show that this is not a single sentence.  Stepho  talk  11:59, 24 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Stepho-wrs, to your: Perhaps we could use a different font for the second half. My example For the more commonly used fuel for automobiles, see gasoline. is saying just that? Thryduulf, you may not have seen that I made two propositions. In the second, I proposed that the links be in plain text and the other in italics. Double italics would then render as plain text. Therefore, your example would render as: This page is about the city. For the 1942 film, see Casablanca (film). For other uses, see Casablanca (disambiguation). This option would seem to satisfy your objection - ie that the hatnote is differentiated from article text? Cinderella157 (talk) 13:00, 24 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I hadn't picked up on that part of your suggestion, and you're right it does satisfy my desire to see the hatnote continue to be distinguished from article text. On a purely aesthetic level though I really cannot decide whether I like it or not, so I'd ask that it not be implemented before more than at least a generous handful of people have expressed their opinion regarding it. Thryduulf (talk) 14:01, 24 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Cinderella157, sorry, I can't see where you mentioned 2 fonts. I did see your mention of both italic and non-italic and I intended my suggestions to be a follow-on from them but I should have made that more obvious. Combined use of both italic and non-italic is a good start but I was hoping to make it even more obvious that the hatnote is not to be read as a normal sentence. Perhaps:
Not to be confused with: Gasoline
Not to be confused with – Gasoline
More suggestions are welcome.  Stepho  talk  11:21, 27 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Stepho-wrs, italics is a different font. If the purpose of caps is as a distinction, WP:SIGCAPS covers this. IMHO (per above) it should be rendered as: Not to be confused with gasoline. Note that there is no colon or dash. The hatnote is a sentence and capitalised accordingly. We don't cap after a colon or dash either but we don't need a colon (or dash) here either. This is all consistent with the guidance at MOS:CAPS. Cinderella157 (talk) 11:33, 27 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Apologies - 30 years of Windows using "font" instead of "typeface" still leads me wrong, even when I know better. In the above I really meant "typeface". To my eye, using only italic characters followed by regular characters is not very distinct visually. Therefore it still looks like a sentence with a capital wrongly placed in the middle. It's still better than no font change at all but by using an extra symbol like a colon or a dash we make it even more visually distinct.  Stepho  talk  11:05, 28 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
It doesn't need to be "even more visually distinct". The "with" indicates that an item or items is/are following that word. It/they will be blue and in a different typeface, and that's plenty.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:41, 18 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Dance names advice requested

It seems clear from MOS:DANCECAPS that dance names are to be lowercased, but I want to double check before moving pages. There are a lot of dances at uppercase titles and that are uppercased in article text. (e.g. all of the ones in Template:Dance in India, some of Category:Dances of Japan, and the non-English words in List of Indonesian dances.) I have linked this from talk pages of WP:NCCAPS, WP:DANCE and a couple of others. Thanks. —  AjaxSmack  16:25, 3 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Good for you for prechecking the consensus before making a bunch of changes. The Manual of Style is clear that except for proper names these should be lower case, but excessive capitalization is common in games, food, martial arts, dance, and lots of other places. I've corrected many as I've run into them and only occasionally has there been any push back. Thanks for doing the work. SchreiberBike | ⌨  16:55, 3 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, and thanks for getting on this, AjaxSmack. I've spent quite a lot of time lower-casing the same sort of things in such articles, and I know Dicklyon has, too (mainly in sports), but it gets tedious after a while. I downcased a bunch of dance stuff, in which almost every dance-related term was over-capitalized, but after dozens of such articles I had to walk away and do something else.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:40, 16 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I would say be careful not to over-generalize. Checking a few of the Japanese dances, I found that Yosakoi is pretty much "consistently capitalized" in books and news, but others I checked are not. When they're clearly not meeting that criterion, consensus is clear that they should be lowercase. You could argue that Yosakoi is capped mainly when part of proper names (such as Yosakoi Festival, Yosakoi Dance Project, Shimin Kensho Yosakoi Dance Team, Yosakoi Naruko Dance), and that several English-language Japanese sites use it lowercase ([7], [8]), but you'd likely need an RM discussion to find consensus. I haven't looked at the Indonesian ones. Just make sure you can justify your changes in case someone objects with the claim that "it's a proper name". Dicklyon (talk) 13:20, 16 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Re sports, that was a big area for me in the last 6 months, after I discovered the huge degree of over-capitalization there (mostly in tennis, but it lots of others, too). Except for strong pushback from two editors in tennis who were on the wrong side of consensus, it went smoothly, with no pushback. There's still a lot more to fix; e.g. NFL Draft and NHL Draft are most often seen with lowercase "draft", but the football and hockey fans are strong fans of caps and would make it a too-hard argument to win. Dicklyon (talk) 13:27, 16 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
​​​Thanks for the input here. I'm not a strong proponent of lowercasing in general (and might disagree with some of you about e.g. battle or treaty names) and I abhor sources, reliable or not, that undercapitalise (e.g. The Economist's second world war), but the dance names (and sports terms) are so widely considered common names that Wikipedia should have the prerogative to lowercase them en masse as a simple style-manual issue. —  AjaxSmack  14:32, 16 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. Another I've been working on is "The Siege of X" where sources say "The siege of X". A few proper names exist, typically as the "Great Siege of X", but even in articles I've fixed, randoms re-cap it now and then. I'll do more of those soon. Dicklyon (talk) 15:08, 16 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
You mentioned "the Twist" or "the Mashed Potato" being a "name for a specific dance", but a better term would be that it is "a name for a type of dance". Use bananas and grammar here to form an analogy: "Pens are for writing." – generic; "I have a pen on my desk." – specific but indefinite; "The pen on my desk doesn't write." – specific and definite. Whether generic or specific or definite or indefinite, pen remains an uncapitalized common noun. I can replace "pen" with a type of pen (e.g. ballpoint pen, quill, fudepen), and the three sentences would remain viable. The same with types of dances (e.g. Dancing is good exercise; Our activity last night was dancing; My dancing last night was horrible → The twist is good exercise; Our activity last night was the twist; My twist last night was horrible — a bit awkward but the best you'll get from me.). Other similar examples would be code vis-à-vis braille and location identifier or singing vis-à-vis beatboxing and chiaroscuro. On the other hand, you could not make sentences like these with proper names like Wikipedia or Tsar Nicholas II. So in short, being a type of something or being specific does not make it proper.
The intro of Wikipedia's proper name article might help with affirming what a proper name is: uniqueness is a factor as is the idea of being a single entity. There is not one unique twist or mashed potato. Both have been danced millions of times. But these issues are not always clear cut especially when related to capitalization—there have been innumerable Mays and autumnns—which is why I solicited input (nb issues raised at Talk:Proper noun and WT:NCCAPS, and see WP:BIRDCON as an example of an extensive discussion on a single category). —  AjaxSmack  03:30, 18 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I can endorse that summary.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:35, 18 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Capitalize Marine when referring to an individual servicemember

Per the the US Department of Defence's Military Community & Family Policy (MCFP) style guide, Marine, when referring to a servicemember is a proper noun and is capitalized. I cannot find anything to support this when referring to members of the British Royal Marines or ROK Marines. I propose we update the WP Manual of Style to reflect the proper grammar for the American variant of the naval infantry. See here. It's me...Sallicio! 04:32, 17 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

There are at least two things wrong with this suggestion. One is that you're mischaracterizing what that style guide says. It does not say that "Marine" is a proper noun. The term "proper noun" is not used at all in that document, as far as I can see. And "marine" is clearly not a proper noun in the linguistic sense. The second is that you are presuming that Wikipedia should do whatever the US DoD says should be done in its own publications. The DoD style guide simply does not apply to Wikipedia, because Wikipedia is not a DoD publication. In fact, that style guide even explicitly says that some of what it says is different from what some other style guides say (e.g. the AP Stylebook). Why should we consider its guidance to be desirable to follow? —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 20:48, 4 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I can see your first point, but nevertheless it says it should be capitalized. To your second point, what you say is what's called a "red herring fallacy". Your argument that WP should not follow the DoD guide is because WP is not a DoD publication. That's true; however, WP is not a publication/subsidiary of APA, MLA, or any other guideline standard organization. Yet, WP follows them in their areas of specialty. It is an accepted practice, WP should follow suit. It's me...Sallicio! 14:47, 5 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Absolutely not. This is purely a conceit. The armed forces capitalise lots of things that nobody else does. It is not a proper noun, it is not normal English and as BarrelProof says we are not obliged to follow internal style guides. We long ago decided not to capitalise ranks (as we originally used to) unless they were immediately in front of someone's name, another thing that the forces commonly do. -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:41, 5 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I can understand why you would think that, as I have found no reference of British English capitalizing its servicemembers of the Royal Marines. But it is not purely conceit. For one, in American English, it is common practice to capitalize the servicemember. Even in the British-based encyclopedia Britannica, "Marine" as a US servicemember is capitalized. Secondly, it serves linguistic utility. The capitalization differentiates between generally aquatic-based to that of the naval infantry service (which itself is already established as a proper noun) or servicemembers. It's me...Sallicio! 14:17, 6 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Aside: Encyclopædia Britannica is a now a US-based publication and has been for some time.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:37, 18 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
On the contrary, the British Armed Forces frequently capitalise anything and everything, including Marine (which in the Royal Marines is the private-equivalent rank as well as a generic term for a member of the corps (or the Corps, as they would write it!)). But that too is a conceit. Wikipedia is written in standard English, not service English, whether British or American. It serves no useful purpose whatsoever to capitalise anything except proper names. -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:05, 6 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
When I'm editing and see the word marine I imagine how it would be capitalized if instead it was either Army, similar to Marine Corps, or soldier, similar to marine, a person. Like soldier, sailor, airman, etc. Wikipedia style is to use lower case because those are not proper nouns. That differs from many military sources which capitalize all of those. SchreiberBike | ⌨  15:53, 6 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Necrothesp: everyone would write the Corps with a capital C because it is in reference to the Royal Marine Corps (a proper noun, just like the Royal Navy, Royal Army or US Navy, etc). @SchreiberBike: no military source capitalizes soldier, sailor, or airman; however, they do capitalize Marine, per the DoD manual of style. The servicemembers of the Marines are the only ones to take on the name of their respective service. It's me...Sallicio! 20:23, 6 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
"no military source capitalizes soldier"
This took five seconds to Google. SchreiberBike | ⌨  20:53, 6 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I apologize. I was in a hurry and was rude. What I should have said is that I think you are mistaken and a search of .mil websites shows frequent capitalization of soldier, sailor and airman in the middle of sentences. Try a Google search like "soldier site:.mil" and you will see. Thank you. SchreiberBike | ⌨  21:58, 6 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, Corps of Royal Marines. You see, this is just a variation in style. It is not uncommon to capitalise part of a name when only part of a name is used. But it is unnecessary and generally we don't do it on Wikipedia. So, no, "everyone" wouldn't do it. Once again, it's a bit of a conceit that organisations like and often insist on in their internal style guides because it makes them feel important. -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:29, 21 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
If cases vary and it Marines is usual, then capitalise it. The question is a specific one about capitalising Marine, not ‘general’ about other namings. A statement as to what’s ‘general’ in names also leaves one knowing cases vary so winds up ‘maybe’. If there is no WP rationale of distinction between cases, and there are organisation style guides and actual WEIGHT of usage that capitalises Marine, then that argues for capitalisation in the case of Marines. Whether the practice is from conceit or not does not affect whether that is the common usage. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 14:49, 10 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Please review the opening paragraph of the project page which starts with "Wikipedia avoids unnecessary capitalization". Wikipedia long ago chose a style which capitalizes less than some sources and especially avoids Capitalization Because Organizations Like to Capitalize Things Which They Think Are Important. There's no reason this should be an exception. Simply, words like marine, nurse, king or third floor day janitor are not proper nouns. SchreiberBike | ⌨  15:39, 10 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Requesting guidance on usage of caps in the article title

Greetings,

During a DYK discussion some doubts were expressed about usage of Caps in the following article. I brought here so DYK discussion can continue to focus at the main DYK issues.

English is not my native language. Whatever is appropriate title writing style is okay for me. Please do guide.

Thanks and warm regards

Bookku, 'Encyclopedias = expanding information & knowledge' (talk) 04:04, 22 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

"National Women's Day" seems to be almost always capped in sources. The other not; 1983 women's march, Lahore seems like an appropriate descriptive title. Dicklyon (talk) 00:48, 11 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Wait… Dicklyon is deferring to source usage? Good gods! 😉 Blueboar (talk) 10:29, 11 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I know, I get shit when I use source stats, and shit when I don't. Such is life WP. Dicklyon (talk) 23:54, 11 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Capitalising game terms in trademarked games

MOS:GAMECAPS [9] states that trademarked sports and games are capitalized, untrademarked games are usually not, and then that "venue types, sports equipment, game pieces, rules, moves, techniques, jargon, and other terms relating to sports, games, and activities are given in lower case and without special stylization". All the examples of game pieces, moves, etc., are from nontrademarked games. Meanwhile, Good and Featured articles about trademarked games capitalise rules and terms - for instance, Dungeons and Dragons does so for ability scores,[10] and Magic: The Gathering does so for card names[11] and the colors.

I think the implication is that terms with specific uses in trademarked games should also be capitalised, so victory point, player character, or wound would not be, but Dungeon Master and so on should be. Is this right? If so, how should the rules be updated to clarify this? Maybe something like adding the sentence "Likewise, venue types, sports equipment, game pieces, rules, moves, techniques, jargon, and other terms relating to trademarked sports, games, and activities are capitalized if they are specific to that activity: ability scores in Dungeons and Dragons, card names in Magic: The Gathering, etc. Generic terms such as hit point, victory point, or player character are not capitalized." and specifying that the existing guidance is for non-trademarked games. CohenTheBohemian (talk) 13:06, 1 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

FYI, a related recent discussion can be found at Talk:Pokémon Legends: Arceus#RfC: Should Pokémon types be capitalized in sentences?. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 16:30, 5 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Good catch, thanks. It looks like the inconsistent sources were the key point there. How about this to clarify: "Likewise, venue types, sports equipment, game pieces, rules, moves, techniques, jargon, and other terms relating to trademarked sports, games, and activities are capitalized if they are usually capitalized in the context of this activity: ability scores in Dungeons and Dragons, card names in Magic: The Gathering, etc. However, generic terms such as hit point, victory point, or player character are not capitalized." (changes bolded) CohenTheBohemian (talk) 03:27, 6 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Compass points

The manual says: "Finer compass points take a hyphen after the first word, regardless, and never use a space". This may be true for the tertiary points (NNE for example) but is not true for the finest points such as north by east. Should the manual be changed to read:

Tertiary compass points take a hyphen after the first word, regardless, and never use a space: south-southeast or south-south-east, but not south-south east, south southeast. 'Points' have their last elements spaced: north by east or northwest by west.

Another related point was raised back in 2013 but neither discussed nor implemented: "should we mention that the abbreviations for compass points are capitalized?" See Archive 9 Martin of Sheffield (talk) 16:05, 21 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Martin of Sheffield, I have looked at the last sentence of the section and see: while in British English they are sometimes written as separate words or hyphenated. I would observe that "sometimes" negates this being an ENGVAR issue and it is perfectly reasonable for WP to prefer the concatenated form (should be used) ie southwest and consequently south-southwest. This would greatly simplify the guidance. Though, when this refers to a specific geopolitical region (eg South East England), we would defer to the form most WP:COMMONNAME in independent sources. My thoughts. Cinderella157 (talk) 11:08, 5 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
ENGVAR issue. The Commonwealth Style Guide says: In text, write the points of a compass in lower case. Use hyphens for points such as ‘north-east’. [12] Hawkeye7 (discuss) 11:21, 5 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Hawkeye7, I did a search for northeast and north-east limiting the region to Australia. Yes, the result favours "north-east" and the split is about 80-20 but results for the hyphenated form also include a significant number of hits for the unhypenated spaced form (ie "north east" - contrary to the Commonwealth Style Guide). I also did this search at bom.gov.au and this search at navy.gov.au. If anybody is following the Commonwealth Government style guide, it would be the government - but they aren't. I think my initial observation was reasonable. Cinderella157 (talk) 13:12, 5 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Though that doesn't address the issue of the tertiary points. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 11:57, 5 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I think you mean the quaternary points (north by northwest)? Do we need to address these? If so, just give an example rather than trying to explain it in words. Cinderella157 (talk) 13:17, 5 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Oops, yes. As I said in the first paragraph the existing text is wrong: "Finer compass points take a hyphen after the first word, regardless, and never use a space" when in fact this only applies to the tertiary points and not the quaternary points, hence my suggested edit. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 15:01, 5 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Capital letters#Proper names

It is my recollection that the section "Proper names" was merged into MOS:CAPS from a WP page of the same name not all that long ago. Regardless of the semantics, it is a common WP practice to refer to words and phrases that are consistently capitalised as proper nouns|names as defined in the lead of MOS:CAPS. I would observe that the section heading may (and has) been construed to create an exception to the lead definition/criteria. I would therefore propose removing this section from MOS:CAPS but retaining the sub-sections therein and have boldly done so per this edit. I would move the associated shortcuts to the lead but I have not done this yet. Cinderella157 (talk) 11:40, 5 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

And I've undone your edit. It's hard to see this as anything other than an attempt to get around points made at requested moves/move reviews, like the one we're both currently participating in. -- Vaulter 15:28, 5 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
And by the way, the bit about proper names has been on this page in some form since at least 2016 (I didn't bother going further back than 500 revisions) [13]. And the merger you referenced occurred in 2018 [14]. -- Vaulter 15:35, 5 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
In English, proper names, which can be either single words or phrases, are typically capitalized. And how do we (WP) determine what is a proper name? Cinderella157 (talk) 00:42, 6 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Ideally, by understanding Proper noun and the discussion of capitalization there. Peter coxhead (talk)
Pro-capitalization editors like to pretend as if there were some ironclad rule distinguishing proper nouns from commons and dictating which should be capitalized. That’s not the case as the Proper noun article itself observes: Although these rules have been standardized, there are enough gray areas that it can often be unclear both whether an item qualifies as a proper name and whether it should be capitalized: "the Cuban missile crisis" is often capitalized ("Cuban Missile Crisis") and often not, regardless of its syntactic status or its function in discourse. Most style guides give decisive recommendations on capitalization, but not all of them go into detail on how to decide in these gray areas if words are proper nouns or not and should be capitalized or not.
The point is that the distinction is often arbitrary, and “but that’s a proper noun!” isn’t an argument against an MOS rule that says a particular category of phrase (e.g., MOS:JOBTITLES) is treated as a common noun. Wallnot (talk) 17:55, 6 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The subsection doesn't really fit into MOS:CAPS. We could very reasonably mention how to determine if something is a proper noun, but the subsection doesn't do that, and instead mostly focuses on what name to use for things, which is not a CAPS issue. I support removal. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 15:50, 10 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

About two years ago, the pro-lower case editors began pushing & getting consensus on quite a few topics. At some point, there has to be a line that shouldn't be crossed. We can't lower case everything. GoodDay (talk) 20:09, 6 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. The line is what a substantial majority of reliable secondary sources capitalize, as the guideline itself says. Wallnot (talk) 20:43, 6 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
No doubt, eventually attempts will be made to lower-case entirely, article titles. GoodDay (talk) 01:32, 10 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
That would be silly, and wouldn't stand a chance. I've been accused of wanting to stamp out all capitalization, but actually I only favor removing capitalization that's inconsistent with our P&G. I think sentence case (initial cap) is fine for titles, and of course caps are "required" where sources cap consistently. Dicklyon (talk) 02:07, 10 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Give it time. A wave can get out of control. GoodDay (talk) 02:12, 10 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Also, this push to reduce excess capitalization didn't start 2 years ago. I've been at it for nearly 15 years, I think, and in the great majority of cases I get more thanks than pushback. Today I got this nice note. Dicklyon (talk) 02:17, 10 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I only hope you're correct, that there'll continue to be some limits. GoodDay (talk) 02:21, 10 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It's important to remember that whether something is a proper name or not and whether something should be capitalized or not are two different questions. These concepts are often conflated. Proper names are capitalized, but the mere fact of being consistently capitalized does not mean that something is a proper name. For example, brand names (e.g., "Chevrolet") and product names (e.g., "Camaro") are not proper names, but they are capitalized. Adjectives derived from the names of places (e.g., "Roman") are not proper names, but they are capitalized. Please see my accompanying edit about this. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 22:09, 9 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The borderline between what is and is not a proper name/capitalized is wavy and frayed. Chevrolet is a division of a company and named after Louis Chevrolet. Camaro is a designation for a series of designs and convention has decided that we capitalize those, though I can imagine that could have gone another way. Proper adjectives like Roman are a thing and in English are capitalized. The edit referenced above added "brand names"; that seems unnecessary as brands are already proper nouns. I think it would be better if ", such as proper names, demonyms and brand names" were removed as "terms that would ordinarily be capitalized in running prose" is sufficient. I don't agree that proper name and capitalization are two different questions, but I agree that it's hard to come up with a clear definition of proper noun that always works and everyone agrees on. On Wikipedia we've come up with the compromise: "only words and phrases that are consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources are capitalized in Wikipedia". That doesn't always come out the way I think it should, but it's an effective compromise. SchreiberBike | ⌨  01:29, 10 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that "only words and phrases that are consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources are capitalized in Wikipedia" is the most meaningful interpretation/compromise for WP purposes. I know some editors, such as CinderellaNNN, like to get all theoretical about what's a proper name and what's not, but I value data over theory. I agree with them on removing that odd paragraph. Dicklyon (talk) 02:07, 10 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I'll have to disagree on that language. This may call into question Wikipedia's common sense approach to astronomical names, such as Sun, Moon, Solar System, Earth, etc., which are not consistently capitalized in sources but are logically capitalized on Wikipedia. Would this override consensus on the beforementioned Cuban Missile Crisis? Language should reflect that there are exceptions. And an interesting question at Kill Bill, is the character The Bride lowercased "the" or uppercased "The" in running text? Would the proposed language here take precedence in character proper names such as this? Thanks. Randy Kryn (talk) 02:53, 10 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I think it's funny that what to you is "logically" done on WP is the opposite of what many style guides specifically say (e.g. NASA's). To me, terms like Universe, Solar System, etc. (also Cuban Missile Crisis) seem inappropriately over-capitalized on WP compared to how they are treated in our reliable sources. Dicklyon (talk) 02:58, 10 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
And so it goes, and maybe why you are trying to put this new language into the MOS to achieve these ends. Universe isn't included in caps, but Solar System and, how do you put it? etc.? (Sun, Moon, Earth), and you toss in the Cuban Missile Crisis, would be overturned by this new language, well, that's an overreach of well-established Wikipedia norms on Sun, Moon, Earth, and Solar System. Please explain, in 6 million words or less, how Sun, Earth, and Moon are not proper names? Randy Kryn (talk) 03:18, 10 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
NASA says that when you put "the" in front of "sun" or "moon" it's not a proper name. Maybe that's too strict. The big problem with those is that they're supposed to be considered proper names in astronomical contexts, but not when you say "the sun rose" or "the moon is full tonight", which are about our perceptions of them on the ground; yet all too often editors claim those are astronomical contexts and cap them. Universe and solar system are not generally capped per NASA, but are per lots of WP editors. And Cuban missile crisis is way more often lowercase in sources until recent years, when it's likely influenced by WP's over-capitalization, where it's been capped since this undiscussed over-capping edit of 2003 that came with this counter-factual explanation; before my time. Still, is not yet approaching "consistently capitalized" in sources. Dicklyon (talk) 04:13, 10 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Of course uppercase doesn't apply to perceptions (the sun rose), that's not the point here. The proper name of actual physical objects is where Wikipedia has it right and many sources inexplicably have it wrong (Scientific American for one). The nuclear furnace in the sky that fuels all life, Wikipedia says that it has a proper name. And the large rocky body circling the Earth (or would you argue that it is lowercased 'earth', and, if so, does not a planet itself deserve a proper name?), maybe that should have a proper name? Wikipedia gives it one, others don't. If you argue that Wikipedia should lowercase 'sun' as the star's proper name, or lowercase Solar System when referring to the specific solar system of Earth's nearest star, then there is something basically wrong with strict MOS language that would codify that viewpoint. Randy Kryn (talk) 04:31, 10 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I would have thought the other way around – that "the Sun" is a proper name (when referring to the sun that is in our solar system), while "a sun" (among many suns) is a common noun. I'm tempted to say that NASA is an organization of scientists, bureaucrats and engineers – not linguists, but that would be a rude thing to say, so I will not say it. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 07:13, 10 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Brand names are not proper names (in general). A proper name refers to a single entity, but there can be many Cadillacs in a single parking lot, and Charmin, Palmolive, NyQuil, OxiClean and Oil of Olay are not even countable things, much less unique referents. Chevrolet may be a proper name when referring to a particular person or a division of a company, but not when referring to a type of automobile. Types of things and categories of things are common nouns, not proper nouns. Linguistically speaking, brand names are not proper names. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 07:01, 10 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Apparently that odd paragraph that Cinderella removed came in via a "merge" from a page that was "redundant, poorly maintained, and rarely cited", in this edit of 1 November 2018. It's time to "maintain" it into something more sensible and less conflicting, or remove it. There's no need to talk about conflict here, and no need for an alternate obscure buried subjective criterion to what we've always had in WP:NCCAPS and MOS:CAPS. Dicklyon (talk) 04:34, 10 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The present language seems fine, and at least the language should keep the concept of "most familiar name in English" in some form, as often most recognizable will not be consistently applied in sources but will be used by many sources in a recognizable way. No need to throw out the baby with the bathwater here, as your approach to the commonsense use of uppercase that Wikipedia uses for some proper names (Sun, Moon, Solar System, etc.) is concerning and is at least kept in check by language such as already present here. Randy Kryn (talk) 04:44, 10 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
p.s. Dicklyon, you imply that this change removing "most familiar name" would enable a relook at the casing of Cuban Missile Crisis? This n-gram showing uppercasing by far the most familiar name for Cuban Missile Crisis would be tossed aside because it is not "consistent"? Keeping "most familiar name" in the language seems imperative when things like this arise. Randy Kryn (talk) 12:21, 10 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
"Most familiar" is just something to argue about. But if that's what was argued to keep Cuban Missile Crisis capped in spite of evidence that sources mostly don't, then maybe. I don't see how "Cuban missile crisis" can be seen as less familiar than "Cuban Missile Crisis"; it reads the same. Here is a better look at the 21st century trend to slightly more capitalization, much of which is actually in titles and citations, not in sentences; in sentences, which is what we care about, it's always less capping than what the ngram stats show (as you well know). It was unilaterally capped in 2003; we had a consensus to move to lowercase in 2012, and to move back up in 2015; so, sure time to look again maybe. Dicklyon (talk) 14:51, 10 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Clarify: Are some of you suggesting that the page title Cuban Missile Crisis, be changed to Cuban missile crisis? GoodDay (talk) 16:37, 10 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
It's an example of what excessive adherence to the word "consistently" would bring. N-grams show by far that the most familiar casing for Cuban Missile Crisis is uppercasing, but, since it's not 100% consistent Dicklyon would want to downcase it. The 2015 RM handled that, and no, "looking" at it again would not change the result (at a minimum it would be decided as no consensus and retain the status quo) but would only cost editors much time, slings and arrows, and whirlygigs of effort to play an old game which is still controversary played too much on Wikipedia. Removing language from this page which assures that the most familiar name in English deserves a role in deciding proper names will likely spill over into many areas to address or ignore past decisions such as Cuban Missile Crisis. Nothing is broken, so leaving the language on this page seems the best choice. Randy Kryn (talk) 20:01, 10 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
It's not a question of 100%; it's not even a majority of sources that cap Cuban Missile Crisis. The caps numbers crept up mainly from the many citations to titles with Cuban Missile Crisis, but still not to even two-thirds. Nothing close to "consistently". That's broken, but I realize a lot of editors prefer it that way, and it's a silly distraction to the issue here (it's the example from Proper noun#Modern English capitalization of proper nouns, and a topic that Randy and I have had spirited discussions on in the past, which is why he's provoking me about it). The language about familiarity is taken care of already by COMMONNAME (which is not about styling, just names). Here's a clearer view of usage stats, limited to probably a sentence context. Even if the very recent blip was real, it wouldn't suddenly have made the capped form more recognizable, and wouldn't explain why editors decided to cap it in 2003 and 2015. Dicklyon (talk) 21:15, 10 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
What's interesting is the number of references that predate the crisis itself. What, I wonder, was the Cuban Missile Crisis being talked about in 1800? Martin of Sheffield (talk) 21:11, 10 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
That's not really so interesting; they are very few, and such things are generally attributable to metadata errors, possibly from OCR errors, and/or from the smoothing; see hits through 1960. Dicklyon (talk) 21:15, 10 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
This thread would appear to be misconstruing the reasonable meaning and intent of the phrase "most familiar" in the fuller context of what is actually written.
In English, proper names, which can be either single words or phrases, are typically capitalized. Such names are frequently a source of conflict, especially when different cultures, using different names, "claim" someone or something as their own. Wikipedia does not adjudicate such disputes, but as a general rule uses the name which is likely to be most familiar to readers of English. Alternative names are often given in parentheses for greater clarity and fuller information. (emphasis added)
The text, read in its proper and full context is dealing with alternative names such as Mumbai and Bombay. It is clearly not dealing with differences in capitalisation such as Cuban missile crisis or Cuban Missile Crisis which are the same name but with different capitalisation. Cinderella157 (talk) 01:59, 11 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Please read the first sentence of the paragraph. It, hence the paragraph, deals directly with the capitalization of proper names, which would include 'Cuban Missile Crisis'. Randy Kryn (talk) 02:50, 11 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Well that's the point—asserting without evidence that Cuban missile crisis is a proper name doesn't make it so, with or without the sentence you point to. Wallnot (talk) 03:21, 11 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
In English, proper names, which can be either single words or phrases, are typically capitalized. Such [proper] names are frequently a source of conflict, especially when different cultures, using different [proper] names, "claim" someone or something as their own. Wikipedia does not adjudicate such disputes, but as a general rule uses the [proper] name which is likely to be most familiar to readers of English. Alternative [proper] names are often given in parentheses for greater clarity and fuller information. The first sentence and the start of the second (Such names) establish that in the rest of the paragraph name is referring to a proper name (ie we are using a shortened form of the fuller noun phrase proper name). The first sentence acknowledges we capitalise proper names but does not intrinsically tell us anything else about proper names. In full, the paragraph is dealing with alternative proper names such as Mumbai and Bombay and not with whether something is or isn't a proper name - ie we must first determine if we are dealing with a proper name. Cinderella157 (talk) 04:12, 11 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
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