Wikipedia talk:Article titles

WP:CONCISE

Full disclosure: I came to this page again from a discussion at Talk:May 1968 events in France. This edit by me is not related to any of the arguments from that discussion, however. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 02:14, 15 November 2019‎ (UTC)

RfC: changes to WP:COMMONNAME to accommodate individual's preferred name after court-ordered name change, marriage or divorce

Wikipedia:Common Name is an officially policy regarding how (English) Wikipedia should title articles about subjects. There has been contention over the years about how the Wikipedia community should title individuals and whether their preferences should have any influence on its naming. As of right now, a person's preference is not a factor and the only factor what whether reliable sources refers to the individual. High profile debates regarding individuals name have included Hillary Clinton (formerly titled Hillary Rodham Clinton]]). This discussion is particularly pertaining to when an individual legally changes their name via court order, marriage or divorce. Should we allow an exception or create a new policy/guideline that titles articles based on the personal preference of the person and take in account life events such as legal name changes? The reason I would like to bring this up is because there does not seem to be much consistency about this, probably because WP:COMMONNAME is decided on a base by base case. Currently, there is contention regarding Kanye West and whether the page should reflect his new legal name of Ye (here). This page has not been moved but it has been under discussion. This is comparable to other recent high profile name changes: Hailey Baldwin to Hailey Bieber, Melinda Gates to Melinda French Gates, MacKenzie Bezos to MacKenzie Scott, Facebook, Inc. to Meta Platforms, and other discussions in the past such as Caitlyn Jenner and Chelsea Manning. Some pages have been moved quicker than others, i.e. when it involves transgender individuals. Relevant topics related to this RfC are WP:NAMECHANGES, MOS:AT, MOS:BOLDLEAD, WP:SPNC, WP:NCP and MOS:DEADNAME. Any other editors who wanted to add any more relevant information and comments can below. Me opening this discussion should not be interpreted as support or opposition to any proposed changes. cookie monster 755 00:10, 30 October 2021 (UTC)

• Comment my personal opinion is that the sources should be our guide unless there is a very good reason (for example dead naming, which we know is a very sensitive issue for those concerned). In most cases, it's unlikely that (a) sources would differ that much from subjects' personal preferences and (b) that subjects would mind too much even if they did. For example, I was watching a children's reading hour during the lockdown which included a passage by Meryl Steep. But she had put herself up on the video call as Meryl Gummer, using the surname of her husband. Perhaps that's her legal name, perhaps it isn't. But clearly there's no way that using that name would be correct for us, given the overwhelming usage of Meryl Streep. Of course, if sources are split then you have to make a decision, and subjects' personal preferences then weigh much more heavily. But that's pretty much the case anyway, we don't need a change in policy to do that...  — Amakuru (talk) 00:29, 30 October 2021 (UTC)
• Comment - It always annoys me, when the RM route is bypassed & unilateral page moves are done, in the name of WP:COMMONNAME. GoodDay (talk) 00:32, 30 October 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose any special credence given to “court ordered” or “legal name” as this crosses the line into primary source sleuthing. Instead, rely on reputable secondary sources, and expect them to recognise court orders or legal name, or don’t mention court orders or legal names. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:04, 30 October 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose Current policy is not broken it does not need to be fixed. - Nick Thorne ^talk 01:49, 30 October 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose Existing policy is OK and would normally allow for this.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 06:45, 30 October 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose. I'm with the users above. We have sourcing policies and guidelines which specify significant coverage in reliable secondary sources independent of the subject. We have formal processes for page moves at a local level. I see no reason to change any of these existing !rules for this special case. I'm sensitive to issues related to deadnaming, but there's something like attempting to "right great wrongs" here. BusterD (talk) 06:59, 30 October 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose. Works OK now. Who cares what some judge says. Who cares about what the subject says. Some consideration should be given to BLP on the margins. If the sources are fairly close and the name is a pejorative (Fatty Arbuckle say) that the subject doesn't like, OK. Otherwise, usually no. (Deadnaming is an exception, that's special issue and can be treated differently.) Herostratus (talk) 14:12, 30 October 2021 (UTC)
• Support Common name is inconsistent and arbitrary and can easily be trumped by other policy such as name changes. Showiecz (talk) 14:17, 30 October 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose. Agree with User:Showiecz that common name is inconsistent and arbitrary - however, I think it should be "trumpable" by any sensible rationale and it's hard to see how the proposed change is going to help. Deb (talk) 16:04, 30 October 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose WP:NAMECHANGES is already a part of the WP:COMMONMANE policy, if reliable sources take a person's change of name seriously, then we will follow. If they don't, then these sources are accountable (via their editorial policies) to the subject directly. We shouldn't be trying to second-guess how reliable sources respond to every personal preference that can be expressed. Iffy★Chat -- 17:34, 30 October 2021 (UTC)
• @CookieMonster755: what is your brief and neutral statement? At over 2,100 bytes, the statement above (from the {{rfc}} tag to the next timestamp) is too long for Legobot (talk · contribs) to handle, and so it is not being shown correctly at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Wikipedia policies and guidelines. The RfC may also not be publicised through WP:FRS until a shorter statement is provided. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:44, 30 October 2021 (UTC)

  @CookieMonster755: Are you going to fix this, or am I going to pull the whole RfC? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:11, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

  @CookieMonster755: I've pulled the RfC tag, because it's blocking other, correctly formed, RfCs from being listed. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:38, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

• I think WP:NAMECHANGES is adequate as written, but I do wonder if in practice it is followed enough. -- Calidum 21:11, 30 October 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose. If it ain't broke... -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:29, 3 November 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose There are times where this is appropriate, and times when it is not. It's best to not be prescriptive and allow sourcing to figure out which way we should take it (eg the media still widely calling Kayne West "Kayne West", a strong sign we should not be moving it just because he got a court name change). --Masem (t) 13:34, 3 November 2021 (UTC)
• Support. I think it's somewhat ridiculous that we can't make case by case exceptions at the very least. Ye has been outspoken about West being a slave name for him (noted in the leaked songs Last Name [literally an entire song about it] and Chakras [Kanye gave up the West / Kanye to Yeezy / Maybe just Ye / Fuck a slave name] and him saying "West is my slave name" at a 2013 NYC listening party for his album) and I think that if transgender people are able to change their names to better reflect themselves and make themselves more comfortable, those who are publicly noted about their new legal name being spiritually important to them should be accommodated. GREENPROCYON (talk) 18:07, 4 November 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose. The guideline is just fine as it is. TheAmazingPeanuts (talk) 12:40, 6 November 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose I think case by case basis is how it should be done. in my opinion, Kanye West is still wp:commonname, but Mackenzie Scott is was a WP:SIGCOV topic, and should have been changed. Signed, I Am Chaos (talk) 06:43, 13 November 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose @User:CookieMonster755 most of the guidence you list above is from the style guideline, not the WP:article title policy and its subsiduary naming conventions (guide lines). The policy is quite clear "follow the sources Luke". In November 2011 wording was agreed to cover this issue, by giving more weight to the name used in reliable sources published after a name change, and it has been in the AT policy since then in one form or another. It is consistent with WP:COMMONNAME and in practice give useful guidence in this area. The odd exception are best dealt with case by case. — PBS (talk) 18:54, 23 November 2021 (UTC)
• It can certainly be taken into account just like what companies prefer to be called but what independent sources do should probably still be most important especially given that they are quite likely to use the subject's preferred name if the subject makes that clear. Crouch, Swale (talk) 19:04, 23 November 2021 (UTC)
• Comment, clearly there is no consensus for change here and all I have to add is to point out the broader principle which transcends all decision-making on WP: we follow the lead of reliable sources wherever possible, rather than decide based on our own criteria, and how to title articles about notable people certainly falls under that umbrella (unless there is a disambiguation issue in which case we still rely as much as possible on reliable sources in deciding what the disambiguator should be). --В²C ☎ 16:55, 29 November 2021 (UTC)

Use of primary sources to justify a name change

An interesting point has been raised at Wikipedia talk:Official names#Name changes.

I have always believed that following a name change, a corporate rebranding for example, we required evidence that reliable secondary sources had adopted the new name before moving the article.

But a good case has been made that this is contrary to policy, and that adoption of the new name by primary sources is sufficient under WP:NAMECHANGES.

This flies in the face of commonsense as far as I can see, so perhaps the policy needs clarification? Or is it being misinterpreted? How exactly?

Other views? Andrewa (talk) 10:48, 12 November 2021 (UTC)

There's a difference between the official/legal name of something/someone, and the name that is most commonly used to refer to it/them. We use the latter for article titles. Paul August ☎ 21:36, 12 November 2021 (UTC)

Exactly. But to what extent do we consider the name that is most commonly used to refer to it/them in primary sources? That's the question. Andrewa (talk) 10:36, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

• I was hoping somebody else would weigh in here, but since that hasn't happened, and since we agree something needs clarification, I'll reply here. I don't think there's a problem with WP:NAMECHANGES. Immediately after a corporate rebranding, it won't be possible to say that RSs routinely use the new name. On the other hand, if after some time, there is consistent use by primary sources and there's just no coverage by secondary sources, then de facto the common name has changed and we should follow suit. If secondary sources do continue to the use the old name, then we give them preference in accordance with our general policy.

I think we can bit a bogged down on what is actually a simple point. A thing's common name is what people commonly call it. We like to put our articles at that name, because that's where we expect users to look for them. According with our general practice, we establish what something is commonly called by looking at usage in RSs (rather than, say, relying on our own usage, which may not be representative). Usually if something changes its name, usage follows the change, but sometimes it doesn't, e.g. if the old name was particularly iconic or the new name is cumbersome. So we have a policy which tells us, in effect, to wait and see. The policy isn't establishing some higher bar for changing an article's name than for naming a new article.

The RM at Magic Springs and Crystal Falls is a good example of a reasonably common situation, where something fairly obscure changes its name and usage by seconardy sources is hard to establish. The name changed 5 years ago. Since then, there has been ample and consistent usage in primary sources of the new name. Unsurprisingly, the amusement park isn't generating steady third party coverage, and it doesn't appear that usage either way can be shown by seconary sources. While we can't be completely sure what people down in Arkansas are actually calling it (I would guess Magic Springs, both before and after the name change), the ubiquitous primary coverage strongly suggests the new name is established by now. A user who, say, is invited to the park and wants to find out about it, is going to look for it under its current name. If we were creating a new article, I don't think anyone would advocate for putting it at the old name. Havelock Jones (talk) 10:34, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

Disagree with several points here, but thank you for contributing. I was also hoping to get third party input! Andrewa (talk) 00:26, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

I'm basically with Havelock Jones here. While having secondary sources that affirm the name change is desirable, those may not be readily available. For many obscure organizations and companies, we have articles created years or even decades ago, often based on a handful of then-actual sources. As Havelock Jones points out, if something relatively obscure goes on to change its name, it is highly unlikely that people (and whichever secondary sources may eventually get to them) will persist calling it by the old name. I do not think it is fair to disregard primary sources (typically, the organization website and social network accounts) and to deny the requested move just because the proposer did not supply enough evidence in form of secondary sources. Just use common sense. No such user (talk) 10:13, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

If a company is so obscure that there no cover in secondary sources then is it notable enough to warrent an article? Any commersial company traded on a stock exchange will generate news coverage. The UK, and I assume almost any other modern first world contry, publishes lists companies with directors, turnover etc in the public domain, which can be used to verify a change in name of a limited liability company, charity etc.

I agree that the wording in WP:NAMECHANGES read as a stand alone section was not as clear as it could have been, and so I have clarified it. It is actually a subsection of the link to the section at the end of the paragraph "as described above in "Use commonly recognizable names.", and when read in context, "reliable sources" in the whole section actually means "independent, reliable English-language sources". To read it any other way would introduce the ambiguity, so I have made the implicit explicit (diff). — PBS (talk) 21:21, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

I disagree with the change. Linking WP:SOURCES borders on instruction creep, and "English-language" is uncalled for. Many foreign organizations are notable, but with little to none English-language coverage. If it's a Spanish or Indonesian or Russian organization, those sources will be the first to catch up with the name change and are equally acceptable. No such user (talk) 21:44, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

See (this diff).

Your concerns about notable foreign people, organisations, and objects is covered in a seperate section of the policy Foreign names and Anglicization and Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English).

The "Name changes" is a subsection of Use commonly recognizable names and until relativly recently was a sententence in the main section and it has fairly recently been broken out into a more detailed subsection. I simply copied and pasted the link from the main section into the sub section so that there is no contradiction between the two sections (which can happen if the subsection is read in isolation via the link "WP:NAMECHANGES"). So your objection is not valid unless you think that the main section ought to be changed to match the wording in the sub section, because it is clear from what you say that you think that the current wording in the main part of WP:UCRN is wrong. — PBS (talk) 13:30, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

PBS' point is valid: you can't object to the clarifying edit PBS made without also objecting to the main part of WP:UCRN. If you want to discuss that, then we need to have a separate discussion. --В²C ☎ 16:45, 29 November 2021 (UTC)

Actually, I do (sort of) object to that as well. In many cases of foreign subjects, there are no reliable English-language sources that cover the topic. Even if there are few (see the current quibble at Talk:Kiev Day and Night RM) they may fail to establish a pattern, so foreign-language sources must be analyzed. Of course, when there is sufficient English coverage it should pull much more weight than the foreign sources, but the guidance fails to go into such subtleties. I'm not saying we should remove "English language" entirely, but it does come with a caveat. No such user (talk) 09:21, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

Another instance

See this RM !vote. I'm not so much interested in the outcome of this RM (I don't think it improves Wikipedia much either way) as in the rationale of this !vote.

It seems to me that this rationale is quite wrong. But it also seems to me that current guidelines are not sufficiently clear on this point.

Pinging User:Born2cycle, User:PBS, [[User:No such user, User:Havelock Jones, User:Paul August. Thank you for your input above.

(Have I missed anyone?)

I have two questions.

(1) Does anyone think that the rationale given by this !vote is valid?

(2) For those who agree with me that this rationale is not valid, is this clear in current policy and guidelines? Where?

As an RM regular, I would appreciate clarity on this, and I doubt that I am the only one. Andrewa (talk) 17:02, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

I think the rationale is not valid per the requirement in WP:NAMECHANGES that "reliable sources written after the change is announced routinely use the new name". The objection is not to Twitter per se (per WP:TWITTER), but that a single tweet cannot establish routine usage. Havelock Jones (talk) 18:50, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

Even if the person themselves did use the new name repeatedly on Twitter, would that establish common usage? I don't think so. But perhaps WP:TWITTER needs clarification on that too. Andrewa (talk) 01:56, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

It's simply a case of searching for more evidence. The subject has apparently changed his homepage to https://www.riverbutcher.com/, and his Facebook page to "River"; the tweet has been noted by Yahoo Life. However, the current article title is gender-neutral RB Butcher, so that might as well be the best compromise until we get more sources to work with. No such user (talk) 09:30, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

Agree it's a case of needing more evidence. But it's also a matter of persuading the IP that this is the case. Andrewa (talk) 11:38, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

Clarity on dual qualifier titles

I've seen some near intractable situations created by the ambiguity of dual-qualifier titles.

Sometimes they clearly and only use the two qualifiers to narrow the topic. I.E Bulgarian folk musicians

Other times it can be ambiguous. For example, Nobel Prize winning athletes which could be:

1. Coverage of that subset of athletes = coverage of that subset of Nobel prize winners
2. An article about the possible cause-effect relationship between the two (in either direction)
3. Or, both of the above, although combining them makes the wp:notability question really messy

IMO it would help things if either:

• The title clarified which of the above that it is
• Create some encouraged standardized place for a note (which can only be changed by a substantial consensus) to clarify that. Possibly an invisible note right after the title.

This would not only help guide / clarify for article development, but also clarify for wp:GNG purposes starting with NPP patrol and also at AFD's. For example, #1 might just require finding coverage of athletes who won Nobel prizes. #2 would require finding suitable coverage of study of the possible cause-effect relationship between the two.

Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 20:27, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

WP:AT is not and ought not to become perscriptive in the way the WP:MOS is. I presume that when you write "dual-qualifier titles" you are concerned with descriptive titles, othewise we follow usage in "independent, reliable English-language sources". However this can also be a problem with some articles based on foreign sources eg Recovered Territories probably obvious to a Polish editor, but probably not to an English speaking monoglot.

"This would not only help guide / clarify for article development" article titles are for readers not editors. So if an editor thinks a name change would benefit an articles development, then they can either be bold and move the article to a new title or initiate an RM.

There are so many combinations that depending on context could be read as ambiguous, but might not necessarily be obvious. For example are "British imigrant families", families that have emegrated to Britain or from Britain? The initial intuitive view would probably vary between someone resident in Britain or resident in Australia). I think it is better if this is handled on a case by case basis, because depending on the reader's world view many article titles could seem obvious at first sight until they read the article and realise that it can be viewed differently. — PBS (talk) 14:15, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

Thanks. The solution would probably only be 1/3 here anyway. I was not thinking about being prescriptive, but merely providing a framework. Using my above example, if the editors decided on #2 above, (specifically the theory/study of how athleticism may foster Nobel prize winning) how would that be recorded or renamed? Clarity in the title would require a longer awkward-sounding title:The possible effect of athleticism on winning Nobel prizes And then of course, the wp:notability determination would have something to be based on. Probably the most common situation that I have in mind (although not within the section heading) it when an article is in essence about a term which is also a "lens" or view of "xxx" ... is that article also about "xxx"? For example, Political correctness or Anchor babies. I hate to complicate things by using a real world example (one that my above example was an analogy of) but one I recently stumbled into is Mass killings under communist regimes where 12 years later they still don't know what the article is about and is up for it's 4th AFD, the current AFD apparently setting the record for the largest ever in Wikipedia. Looks like it will be kept and their only solution to their dilemma will be to decide what the article is about and record their decision, but Wikipedia gives no guidance on a process for either. The only Wikipedia system for doing that seems to be to have sufficient clarity in the title which only a long awkward title would do. Of course for each situation an editor can make an ad hoc one up (invisible comments, a disambig note, and FAQ on the talk page)North8000 (talk) 14:16, 29 November 2021 (UTC)

Dash in sporting event titles

How do we interpret titles like Racquetball at the 2009 World Games – women's singles and 2017 FIL European Luge Championships – Women's singles and 1969 New South Wales Open – Women's Singles. Sometimes we see lowercase after the dash, as I would expect, but more often we see caps; even multiple capped words in the case of tennis. Is this like a subtitle? Is there any guideline relevant to it? MOS:SENTENCECAPS says not to cap after a dash, but that seems more about a sentence dash than whatever this is. Is there anything in Title or MOS about this kind of dashed title? Dicklyon (talk) 05:04, 1 December 2021 (UTC)

I'm no kind of an expert at this, but isn't the rule to use parens for for disambiguation except for places? Since "Racquetball at the 2009 World Games" needs disambiguation, wouldn't the go-to title be "Racquetball at the 2009 World Games (women's singles)"? Just asking. Herostratus (talk) 02:05, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

That might be better. I doubt that the projects think of this as disambiguation though. More like sub-categorization. If it were up to me, I'd say just merge the men's and women's doubles and singles into the main article, but I'm pretty sure that idea would be DOA. Dicklyon (talk) 03:05, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

In the sense of being a WP article title, this is probably a sub-title. If we were talking about the title of a work (ie book or similar) we would be applying title case and therefore capping after the dash. However, as this is not, we apply sentence case to the title. While some might apply capping after a colon or dash (and some not), WP clarifies this at MOS:SENTENCECAPS. Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 00:07, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

While it's most common in sporting events, we also see thousands of other two-part titles with spaced en dash separation, such as (with my comments):

• Satellite Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture (subtitle-like, as in sporting events; but is "Motion Picture" part of any proper name here? Source uses title-case "Best Actress in a Motion Picture", which one could argue is the proper name of the award; other places use a comma, as "BEST ACTRESS, MOTION PICTURE". Billboard Magazine uses lowercase "best actress in a motion picture".)
• Ruhr Industrial Heritage Trail – Duisburg: Industrial Culture on the Rhine (unnecessary extra context to name?)
• Memphis and its Necropolis – the Pyramid Fields from Giza to Dahshur (unreferenced disambig page claims it's the name of a National Heritage site. World Heritage Centre's orignial 1979 form says: "Nomination: Memphis and its necro­polis. The pyramid fields from Giza to Dashur". Their website has the two-part title-case dashed title like ours (but if someone claims we should follow their style, let's start by changing "Site" to "site" in the many places where some wikipedians insist on capping it).)
• Malabar – Sri Lanka Portuguese (I moved to unspace the en dash in this language class)
• First Battle of Eora Creek – Templeton's Crossing (title probably made up by a wikipedian; nothing like this in sources for the battles at these nearby places; apparently adapted from the battle honor "Eora Creek - Templeton's Crossing I"; a more crafty adaptation to WP style would replace the spaced hyphen with unspaced en dash)
• Party for National Concord – Abasangirajambo (unreferenced stub gives no clue about these name parts)
• Coed Mawr – Blaen-Car (unreferenced stub gives no clue about these name parts)
• Raffles International School – South Campus (unreferenced stub gives no clue about South Campus)
• No Strings Attached – Figurentheater & mehr (Official name No Strings Attached, with subtitle or description from website)
• Cerro Mombachito – La Vieja Natural Reserve (I moved to unspace the en dash on this two-part name)
• Kaze – Forces for the Defense of Democracy (I moved to unspace the en dash)
• Rally for the Republic – Lingui (another unsourced political party stub)
• Communist Party of Belgium – Marxist–Leninist (another unsourced political party stub)
• Wheelchair basketball at the 2016 Summer Paralympics – Men's team rosters (another sports hack, not an event)
• Leoz – Leotz (a town with names from two languages; should probably use just one)
• Izalzu – Itzaltzu (a town with two name parts for hard-to-discern reason)
• Siret – Prut – Nistru (unsourced stub; a region named for three places; probably should unspace)
• Sarriés – Sartze (Spanish and Basque again?)

The fact that so many of these are unsourced stubs suggests that they might be fixed when someone works on them. But others are clearly part of some intentional pattern, or at least are not unsourced and not stubs. I know the Milhist folks like to have "proper names" for battles, even if they have to synthesize some actions and make up names for them. And the many categories of sporting events and entertainment awards sometimes get done this way, but I still don't see how to interpret those in terms of our title and capitalization policies and guidelines. Like why is the "subtitle" of an event after the dash ever capped, and why sometimes in title case, when clearly not a proper name. It seems like the Milhist case, where they want to treat the made up compound as a proper name. Can we stop doing that? Dicklyon (talk) 00:18, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

I've tracked many of these (about 20,000) to User:DASHBot, which from 2009 to 2013 blindly moved titles from spaced hyphens to spaced en dashes; in many cases, unspaced en dash would have been the right thing to do, and I've just fixed a dozen or so of those, but there are thousands to go. Many of the others just mapped funny hyphen-separated two-part titles to funny dash-separated two-part titles of the sort I'm inquiring about. What a mess. Dicklyon (talk) 02:49, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

At WT:WikiProject Tennis#More discussion about dashes in sporting event titles I'm seeing pretty much a "tennis is special" argument about why they cap things like "Women's Doubles" when sources do not. Not to do with en dashes, but clearly contrary to MOS:CAPS. Dicklyon (talk) 06:34, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

Come on really? I'm seeing simply a different perspective because I gave you a heap of sources that spell it out Men's Singles. I'm not sure why you would say otherwise and mislead. It appears it's not so much "tennis is special" as much as "you don't like it." Fyunck(click) (talk) 06:46, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

Your sources were only about heading contexts, not sentences, which is what we go by, per WP:NCCAPS ("...unless the title phrase is a proper name that would always occur capitalized, even mid-sentence.") and MOS:CAPS ("...only words and phrases that are consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources are capitalized in Wikipedia"). Dicklyon (talk) 07:11, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

• 100-yard dash seems oddly relevant. ~ cygnis insignis 08:21, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

  Do say more. How is it relevant? Dicklyon (talk) 20:22, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

Maybe these dashed constructs should just be avoided, so we don't have to work the capitalization issue? Could do French Open women's doubles, for example, as is done in books. Dicklyon (talk) 01:49, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

Or "French Open Men's Singles" as is done in sources. Fyunck(click) (talk) 07:05, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

That capping is relatively uncommon, at least in books, and news. Dicklyon (talk) 17:26, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

But not per the events in question or official sources. And there are plenty of sources that use the full name as a proper name. Consensus simply chose one. Fyunck(click) (talk) 20:39, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

If we went by official names, it would be Roland-Garros, not French Open. And their site uses lowercase for men's singles and such; e.g. this page. Similarly, usopen.org says "US Open men's singles". Anyway, sources are mixed as we've all agreed, so MOS:CAPS says don't cap. Dicklyon (talk) 22:24, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

I didn't say official names, I said the official sources spelling. It is non uncommon to use Men's Singles. You said as used in books but I have books that do otherwise. If we go by ngram books we'd also spell their names Petra Kvitova and Marin Cilic because that's what is overwhelmingly used by almost every source, but those spelling versions are actually banned on Wikipedia. You keep making it sound like this is against our guideline MOS and it is not. It doesn't say if some sources used lower case that we must use lower case. You are making a mountain out of a molehill. There is nothing wrong with how it's done now. Could it be different, sure... but it is not wrong now. Fyunck(click) (talk) 00:30, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

Ah, sorry, I misunderstood. Still not sure what you mean by "official sources" though. I know there are sources, including books, that use caps. That's why I said "sources are mixed as we've all agreed". And it is wrong as it's capped now in WP, per WP:NCCAPS and MOS:CAPS guidance, since these are not proper names, not usually capped in sentence context in sources. I'm not trying to make a big deal out of it, just some routine fixing. Dicklyon (talk) 04:42, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

Standardization of U.S. Supreme Court case law lists

The Category "Category:Lists of United States Supreme Court opinions by topic" contains 13 members, most of which do not seem to adhere to any naming conventions. Eleven of them begin with "List of United States Supreme Court" but, after that, they vary as follows:

• "cases involving x" (five uses)
• "x case law" (four uses)
• "opinions involving x" (one use)
• "decisions on x" (one use)

Some kind of standard needs to be applied here. I think the current most popular phrasing, "List of United States Supreme Court cases involving x," seems like it would be appropriate. I can't see any reason to depart from the most popular convention. --Dennis C. Abrams (talk) 04:04, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

• • I think we do need separate "cases involving x" and "x case law" as there are things like "patent case law" and the other IP ones, while things like the First Amendment make sense as "cases involving the First Amendment". The other two can be renamed to be "cases involving X". --Masem (t) 04:44, 3 December 2021 (UTC)
    • I don't see how "cases involving copyright," "cases involving patent law," or "cases involving trademark/trademark law" are anything other than completely appropriate, let alone unpalatable to the point that we "need" separate naming conventions. --Dennis C. Abrams (talk) 05:31, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

En dashes vs. hyphens in articles about wars

MOS:ENBETWEEN says to use an en dash instead of a hyphen when referring to wars with two opposing sides in its name. However, I noticed that a lot of articles about wars use the hyphen instead in their titles and leads, and when I say a lot, I mean a lot. To name a few: Russo-Ukrainian War, First Sino-Japanese War, Franco-Visigothic Wars, Anglo-Scottish Wars, Greco-Persian Wars, Italo-Ethiopian War of 1887–1889, Anglo-Nepalese War, ... This is clearly a wide-ranging problem, but I fear that finding and changing every one of those article titles would be extremely tedious. So, what should we do about this? InfiniteNexus (talk) 04:43, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

I just restored this section that was archived, since nobody answered. Note that "Russo" and "Sino" are what's known as "combining forms". If these were Russia–Ukraine War and China–Japan War we'd use the en dash. But MOS:DUALNATIONALITIES says "Franco- is a combining form, not an independent word, so use a hyphen". So please don't do anything about those you listed which are all combining forms that take a hyphen. Dicklyon (talk) 06:29, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

@InfiniteNexus: – see response above. Dicklyon (talk) 06:33, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

Ah, I see. Thank you for enlightening me! InfiniteNexus (talk) 06:35, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

Where to ask when the common name is difficult to determine

Is there a venue to ask questions about how articles should be titled? At Talk:Graffito of Esmet-Akhom there's uncertainty about what the common name actually is (not a dispute, just a case where both the editors discussing the issue are unsure). A. Parrot (talk) 18:56, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

The article talk page is probably the best place (or, if there are few watchers, a related wikiproject), since the people in the best position to weigh in will be those who are familiar with the subject area, and who have access to and understanding of the RS on the subject. From my reading of that talk page, it sounds like Ichthyovenator may be on to something with their suggestion that there is no commonname for the subject, in which case WP:NDESC would be the relevant route to follow. Colin M (talk) 19:17, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

RFC on dash-separated titles for sports events

What is the most appropriate title style or pattern for articles with dash-separated two-part sports event titles such as 2014 US Open – Men's Singles? Dicklyon (talk) 05:20, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

Background

Many two-part article titles, with parts separated by a spaced en dash, have title-case or sentence-case capitalization after the dash. In a sentence context, MOS:SENTENCECAPS suggests to not cap after a dash, but there's no guidance in a title context, where the usage is more like illustrated in MOS:LISTDASH, where again there's no capping after the dash. This RFC is to look at these and decide what to do about the style variations, particularly in the context of sporting events for now, since that's what most of them are (find more context re other areas, and discussion of capping in tennis titles, in a talk section further up this page).

Some titles are not capped after dash, consistent with MOS:CAPS:

• Racquetball at the 2009 World Games – women's singles

But many have title-case or sentence-case subtitles after dash. Most sports mostly follow this sentence-case subtitle pattern:

• 2017 FIL European Luge Championships – Women's singles

Tennis articles usually have title case, with capped Singles and Doubles, in tennis-only events:

• 2014 President's Cup (tennis) – Men's Singles

but not in Olympic and similar International games contexts:

• Tennis at the 2011 Games of the Small States of Europe – Men's singles

The reasons for the capitalization variations don't seem to have much to do with WP's style guidance, and even the dashed two-part construct seems an unusual pattern per all the advice at WP:AT. Dicklyon (talk) 05:20, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

Options

Possible resolutions to choose from, support, oppose, or comment on:

• A. No unnecessary caps after dash, as suggested in MOS:DASH; " – men's singles".
• B. Just extend the downcasing (title-case down to sentence case) for tennis (and a few in table tennis and other random places), per the recent consensus at Talk:The Championships, Wimbledon#Requested move 2 November 2021; i.e. to " – Men's singles".
• C. Treat things like "Men's Singles" as proper names when in a tennis tournament context as is done by many tennis sources, but not otherwise (i.e. do nothing, more or less).
• D. Remove the dash and use the form usually found in sentences (e.g. books): "French Open women's doubles".
• E. Other -- please specify

Dicklyon (talk) 05:20, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

Discussion, comments, !votes

• D or A (as nom) – Personally, I think the dashed two-part structure confuses the issues, and we might as well drop the dash (most sources don't use it when discussing these events); either way, drop the caps, since sources mostly use lowercase "women's doubles", etc. Dicklyon (talk) 05:23, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

• D (or A E): See below for detail of my changed !vote largely per nom. WP house style is to not cap after a dash, semi-colon or colon unless "necessary" per MOS:SENTENCECAPS. The examples provided appear to be contrary to this. These options simply clarify the matter. To effect, they are using title case when WP article titles should be using sentence case. Option D avoids a dash, is natural and no less concise. Cinderella157 (talk) 09:50, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

• PS: Another reason for "D" (or A) relates to naturalness per WP:CRITERIA. "Naturalness" should require minimal changes to capitalisation in prose. WP linking does not differentiate on first letter capitalisation. Any capitalisation that follows in a title (from the first) should follow naturally. The status quo (lots of variations listed above) doesn't. See WP:TITLEFORMAT and particularly use sentence case. As this discussion has progressed, I am seeing (claimed) project and article level decisions to over-ride the broader level community consensus at WP:AT, WP:NCCAPS and MOS:CAPS (including MOS:SENTENCECAPS). Most of the examples of usage I am seeing here to justify capping, are where we would "expect" to see title case. How a particular convening organisation would cap a term is largely irrelevant because of the internally perceived "importance" and emphasis consequently assigned by capitalisation (per WP:SSF). WP (per P&G) relies on how same is capped in independent sources. Assertions that such terms are "proper names" doesn't fly unless they are substantiated against objective criteria and evidence (per P&G cited - not "it is clearly a proper noun [because I say so]"). The broad community consensus is to use sentence case for article titles and headings (unless otherwise necessary). Capitalisation is important. WP has and can change how capitalisation is implemented in the RW. This is orthographic citogenesis. WPs mission is defined by policy wrt WP:RS, WP:VER and WP:NPOV - which align with other previously cited P&G. It is akin to Star Trek's prime directive. What I can see is at least one particular editor changing "natural" capitalisation in text to conform to a title case styling that is quite contrary to P&G and the broader community consensus. Cinderella157 (talk) 12:03, 16 December 2021 (UTC)
• PPS: Regardless of whether the dash indicates a subtitle or not, comments are consistently referring to disambiguation and the dash as being a disambiguation delimiter. Policy (WP:AT) is quite explicit on the subject: Commas and parentheses (round brackets) are the only characters that can be used without restriction to separate a disambiguating term in an article title. Colons can be used in the limited cases of subtitles of some creative works and lists split over several pages. Cinderella157 (talk) 00:38, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
• PPPS: From the comments below, what appears after a dash is seen both as a disambiguation and a subtitle. For an example, in "2021 Wimbledon Championships - Men's Singles", the general perception here is that "Mens Singles" is disambiguating "2021 Wimbledon Championships". This appears to be just plain wrong, since the subject of an article is not the disambiguating term. It is the article subject which gets disambiguated. The article's actual subject is the men's singles title at the 2021 Wimbledon Championship - ie, if anything it should be: "Men's Singles - 2021 Wimbledon Championship". The dash, in creating a subtitle type disambiguation, is creating a subsidiary article relationship. This is quite explicitly contrary to policy (see WP:AT at WP:TITLEFORMAT: Do not create subsidiary articles).

I would also observe that the actual article titles pluralise "Championships" this would also appear contrary to WP:TITLEFORMAT: Use the singular form.

A much more natural title would be: "2012 Wimbledon men's singles". We might use the more precise title "2012 Wimbledon Championship men's singles" but WP:PRECISION deals with actual need due to real conflict in article titles rather than a perceived or hypothetical need for precision. While the shorter title might just possibly refer to a group of single men sometime in 2012, somewhere in Wimbledon, I could say with some certainty that we are never going to have such an article but, if we ever did, we can deal with that then. WP is not a crystal ball. A natural title may not work well for all existing articles (per some examples given below) but this would assume that aren't better ways to form the title. Cinderella157 (talk) 04:53, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

• Changed !vote I change my !Vote from a second preference of "A", since "A" or any dashed title form that uses the dash as a subtitle/disamiguation delimiter is clearly contrary to policy at WP:AT at multiple levels. My second preference is now "E", where this would only be some other alternative that is consistent with P&G. I am not seeing that any such specific proposal has been made. Cinderella157 (talk) 05:38, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
• WP:TSC (at WP:AT) gives technical reason for not using (or at least avoiding) a dashed construction. Cinderella157 (talk) 12:53, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

• E (or C)- Do Nothing. There is no issue here. As has been longstanding consensus for 20,000 articles just in tennis alone. Places like Wimbledon, Australian Open, US Open all use the caps as a proper name as you would La Brea Tar Pits. We have some google searches. And when it's used in context of the event title you have: such as at ESPN or IBM stat tracker where everything is capitalized. Places like the Australian Open draw sheet or the US Open draw are the things that influenced the longstanding consensus. Other examples within the sport such as Australia's Sky Sports, 2016 SBNation chart. There is a reason it has been done this way for a decade or more. Many important tennis sources capitalize certain titles as if they are proper names... You will often see Australian Open - Women's Singles spelled out just that way... even with the hyphen. It was discussed in other locations that if this is done bit by bit, project by project, this change will be a lot easier to do. That really seems unfair to me. There is nothing broken with this that we need to change countless thousands of article titles. Fyunck(click) (talk) 10:07, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

  It's hard to see why you linked those example sources. The only place where "men's singles" is used in sentence context, the SBNATION page, has it lowercase. The others only use such terms in title-case contexts. Please review WP:TITLEFORMAT ("words are not capitalized unless they would be so in running text"), WP:NCCAPS ("leave the second and subsequent words in lowercase unless the title phrase is a proper name that would always occur capitalized, even mid-sentence"), and MOS:CAPS ("only words and phrases that are consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources are capitalized in Wikipedia") to understand why those do not support a proper-name interpretation here. And yes, some sources do use the spaced hyphen as a separator, but WP would never do that, per MOS:DASH. Dicklyon (talk) 21:50, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

• D and/or any valid E option. Natural (e.g. "2045 Australian Open mixed doubles"), parenthetical (e.g. "2045 Australian Open (mixed doubles)"), comma (e.g. "2045 Australian Open, mixed doubles"), or descriptive (e.g. "Mixed doubles at the 2045 Australian Open") disambiguation seem to be the only formats consistent with MOS and existing article naming guidelines, specifically WP:TITLEFORMAT (i.e. use sentence case), WP:TSC (i.e. dashes require redirects, so why use them unnecessarily) and WP:QUALIFIER; dashes are not, title-case is not. For clarity, I do not consider "doing nothing" a valid option. _wjemather^{please leave a message...} 11:03, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

• To add/clarify, this should not be a one size fits all approach (and nor is the implication of D to just "remove the dash and caps" without any additional thought) and so almost all of the problems highlighted so far are a non-issue; i.e. we use a disambiguation option consistent with MOS. _wjemather^{please leave a message...} 15:38, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
• Note: my !vote above has been clarified and expanded. _wjemather^{please leave a message...} 12:22, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

• Comment/E - I feel like Option D is trying to circumvent WP:COMMONNAME. Whilst sentence structure might call things a certain way, these are titles for the events. You could say, for instance, the 2015 IBSF World Snooker Championship – Men's would be referred to as 2015 Men's IBSF World Snooker Championship in prose, but more likely it's going to be called the "men's event at the 2015 IBSF World Snooker Championship". I'd suggest that unless the actual name specifically has a dash in it, it should probably be a disambig (such as 2015 IBSF World Snooker Championship (Men's) or 2015 IBSF World Snooker Championship (men's event). There are certainly some cases where you'd want a dash, as it's part of the name of the subject, I'm not sure this should be made uniform. However, what is after the dash should only be capitalised if it is a proper noun. The tennis examples above would be fine, for example: 2014 President's Cup (men's singles), unless there's another event that that had that name that also had a men's singles. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 11:27, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

  @Lee Vilenski: I don't understand what you're saying about "circumvent COMMONNAME". You seem to acknowledge that the dash is not part of the COMMONNAME. Are you supporting option D (more or less), or opposing it? Seems like you're supporting finding good alternatives to the dash and caps, which goes beyond my D proposal, but is also going to be more work, harder to semi-automate. Are you arguing for moving to the parenthetical form instead? Anyone else want to comment on that? Dicklyon (talk) 17:45, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

  Oppose D. I'd be much more willing to see things done via disambiguation. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 18:58, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

• B or A - I probably lean slightly towards making the second part of the name be subject to the naming conventions in its own rights, thus capitalising "Men's singles" rather than all-sentence-case "men's singles". That's not a strong preference though, so A is also OK. Obviously oppose C, which runs counter to MOS:CAPS, and not too keen on D - I think the dash is useful in making clear that this is a two-part title with the name of the event on the tournament and the individual event on the right - but if my !vote is needed for a consensus for D, then happy to support that over the "status quo".  — Amakuru (talk) 11:35, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
• E: And my specification here is "do nothing." (This, mind, should've been one of the explicit options listed.) Any change is going to inevitably mean that there'll be a heavy push to rename thousands of fifty-seven thousand articles, and links to them broken in the process. No one has articulated any benefit to making any change (other than the eternally implied "conformity for the sake of conformity," because, well, hrm, reasons), never mind one strong enough to counteract the disruption. Ravenswing 12:49, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
• Comment – I don't think it's appropriate for the RFC author to be moving pages to his desired option while the RFC is ongoing [1]. Sod25k (talk) 13:09, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
• A or B; strongly oppose D – Removing the dash (option D) while working ok for some simple titles would render many others nonsensical and/or more convoluted:

• Shooting at the 1952 Summer Olympics men's 100 meter running deer, single and double shot
• Volleyball at the 2012 Summer Olympics women's tournament South American qualification

This query shows many long titles that would be mangled by such a change. The dashes are there for a reason, and cannot be indiscriminately removed. Downcasing after the dash (option A or B) on the other hand would alleviate the MOS:CAPS concerns without impacting on the titles' meanings/comprehensibilities, and would require the fewest changes to affected templates, so seems to be the optimal approach. No preference between A and B. Sod25k (talk) 13:44, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

• The Shooting at the 1952 Summer Olympics – Men's 100 meter running deer, single and double shot article title seems needlessly long - was there other amounts of running dear events? Why not Shooting at the 1952 Summer Olympics (men's 100 meter running deer)? Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 21:40, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

• No idea if a shorter title is possible. Those are just random examples I picked of titles that would be degraded if a naïve "remove dash" approach was taken. Sod25k (talk) 21:59, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

Some of these article titles are horrific. Taking your example, "Volleyball at the 2012 Summer Olympics – Women's tournament South American qualification" – this makes no sense as it is missing critical punctuation (at least one comma); "South American qualification for the women's volleyball tournament at the 2012 Summer Olympics" would make more sense. Likewise "Shooting (running deer) at the 1952 Summer Olympics" would be better as there was only one running deer event. _wjemather^{please leave a message...} 12:34, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Agree that those event names are word salad. If they are the official titles of these obscure events (unclear), then they might still be the best option. My point was that the situation would only be worsened by simply removing the dashes. Sod25k (talk) 16:01, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

Sod25k, if we remove all of the unnecessary over-precision (the word salad) you can arrive at something like "Men's running deer (1952 Olympics)" or "Men's running deer,1952 Olympics". Furthermore, these options are easily parsed. Cinderella157 (talk) 23:28, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

• B or E (do nothing): There are a bunch of reasons D doesn't work, including the three already pointed out by Lee Vilenski, Amakuru, and Sod25k above. Option A doesn't make it clear that the second part is a sub-title. You also generally wouldn't see the second part all lowercase unless it was followed by a noun (e.g. "men's singles event"), which would unnecessarily make the title longer. Sportsfan77777 (talk) 14:41, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
• Not D as I agree with the arguments/examples by users above (of which there have been many already). Ambivalent on the others, but agree that making the case consistent is sensible. Joseph2302 (talk) 14:45, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
• A seems like the best option here. --Jayron32 15:30, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
• E (do nothing) - per Ravenswing. Nothing is broken; there is no need to "fix" or "standardize" such a massive number of articles just for the sake of forcing conformity and standardization and I reject all other options. The examples provided by the OP all fall under their own Wikiprojects and can be competently handled by their own wikiprojects. I also strongly agree that "Do nothing" should have been an explicit option and OP should be TROUTed for not including it. -"Ghost of Dan Gurney" 17:37, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
• Whichever option gets a consensus here, it should apply to all sports unless there's a clear consensus that this should not apply to a specific sport. Assuming that to be the case, then I would prefer B over A per Amakuru and Sportsfan77777, I would also be fine with C if this would resolve the inconsistency, as long as it's Not D per Sod25k and Lee Vilenski. If however this is going to be applied unevenly, then we should go with E (do nothing) right now and let each sport come up with its own guidelines. Do the capital letters really matter that much that we have to dedicate an entire RFC to resolving this? Iffy★Chat -- 17:56, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
• E - do nothing - It's not shown that this is an issue. If anything needs to be done then then leave it to individual projects to sort at the wikiproject level. GraemeLeggett (talk) 18:30, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
• E - (with case consistency) From a template perspective, beyond the 57K of pages there are quite a number of templates that rely on the "EVENT" being separate and first - then the "sub-event" after the dash. Maybe another 1K of templates? - Mjquinn_id (talk) 19:01, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

  @Mjquinn_id: It's unclear to me what "with case consistency" means exactly. Sod25k (talk) 20:09, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

• Comment: – To the "do nothing" voters, the issue is that this discussion closed with a consensus "firmly grounded in policy" for "– Men's/Women's singles" for 50 tennis articles, leaving an as yet unresolved dissimilitude between them and all other (non-MSE) tennis event articles. Sod25k (talk) 20:04, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

  It is not grounded in "policy" at all. MOS is not Policy, and there is disagreement on whether MOS applies anyways against sourcing. That tiny little move is an anomaly with all other articles. Fyunck(click) (talk) 20:18, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

  I simply quoted the closing admin. The "anomoly" needs to be resolved one way or the other so we have consistency across the board for all tennis articles at least, as the infobox templates require a single capitalization style. Sod25k (talk) 20:27, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

  Sounds like an issue confined to and should be solved at the Tennis wikiproject and should have no bearing on others. -"Ghost of Dan Gurney" 20:23, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

  I don't necessarily disagree. I didn't start this RFC. Sod25k (talk) 20:27, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

  I understand, it was the closer who was incorrect. It is not a policy issue. Some say it is a guideline issue and others do not. Fyunck(click) (talk) 20:53, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

  This is the closer's statement, "After much-extended time for discussion, there is a clear consensus to move to Men's/Women's titles. Consensus to move to lowercase singles/doubles is narrower, but there is a consensus and it is firmly grounded in policy." Primergrey (talk) 22:33, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

  Although guidelines are not policy, an argument that consensus-based guidelines should be followed in a given case is an argument that is firmly grounded in policy. BD2412 T 22:44, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

  Yeah, I stand by "conformity for the sake of conformity." Potentially changing over tens of thousands of articles and who knows how many broken links because tennis infobox templates don't like the current capitalization style is the next thing to dementia. I suppose no one considered changing the damn templates? Ravenswing 21:12, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

No, the RFC author's motives for the larger move request are separate and covered in #Background. The tennis issue I raised because the conflicting capitalization styles for tennis articles in light of the recent consensus needs to be addressed, and could be by this discussion if a non-"do nothing" choice is decided upon. If no broader consensus is reached here, a tennis-specific discussion will have to be started. Sod25k (talk) 21:59, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

Fair enough. I did read Background, and while Dicklyon sets forth some of the variations that have been seen, he's left out the critical question: why is this something we need to "fix?" What is the actual problem here? Ravenswing 22:10, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

Two things. Tennis Project did address this years ago and decided enough sources used "Australian Open - Men's Doubles" so consensus was to use that form throughout. Hence all the articles are done that way except for the few that Dicklyon is changing even today. That said, Dicklyon is a good editor and a fair editor. He did try to form a fair RFC and listened to my concerns. But he is biased on this issue because it is his pet peeve... his own words in one recent discussion: "over-capitalization is a pet peeve of mine. It's broken and ought to be fixed." The fact that in forming this RFC it was discussed to specifically do it one Wikipedia area at a time to more easily weave through the process really bothered me. Sort of a divide and conquer feeling I got. I said this is a solution in search of a problem that could affect 10s of thousands of articles. That was before this RFC was plopped here, yet here it is. If this is iffy with some aspects of our MOS guideline (which is in the eye of the beholder imho), and there are 10s of thousands of articles throughout Wikpedia that use this style, then perhaps it's MOS that needs looking at? MOS does change to conform to large scale usage. It's done so many times. That's why it's a guideline not a policy. Fyunck(click) (talk) 22:44, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

• E - Don't change anything. It ain't broke, so don't fix it. GoodDay (talk) 02:35, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

  But it's pretty clearly broke, with rampant yet inconsistent over-capitalization in tennis articles among others. Dicklyon (talk) 02:43, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

  Perhaps, it would've been better (though taken longer) to have opened up an RFC for particular events. What's being covered here, just the Olympics? GoodDay (talk) 02:49, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

  The Olympics have less over-capitalization than the other tennis article titles. So it's more about the extra-overcapitalization of tennis titles, if we're not going to go the whole way like A or D. Dicklyon (talk) 02:55, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

  Bringing consistency to hundreds of article titles, can be difficult. I'll accept the results of this RFC, whatever it turns out to be. GoodDay (talk) 03:11, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

• D as first choice, since the dash really serves no function here (a comma will do, in any case where two parts of the title need to be separated), otherwise option A as second choice. There is nothing magically special about tennis, and a wikiproject is not in a position to make up its own pseudo-rules against site-wide guidelines (the very reason we have WP:CONLEVEL policy is to prevent that).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:06, 14 December 2021 (UTC)
• D, or failing that, A. Tony (talk) 01:34, 15 December 2021 (UTC)
• E —use the same titling convention as the actual event itself. Caps, no caps, dash, no dash. Whatever. Montanabw^(talk) 18:50, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

  I haven't seen much evidence that these actual events (if that's what they are) have titling conventions; we're titling articles on subevents typically. If you look at any of the articles linked as examples and look for sources, you don't see anything like a complete title for the subevent, typically. Or look at the various sources that Fyunck linked that influenced the convention adopted by the tennis project: titles of stat trackers and draw sheets are not titles of events; and they are typically only found in title context, as opposed to what our title policy says to look to, which is use in sentences (some do use colon instead of dash, which would have been a more typical "subtitle" style, but there's no standard). As I showed, you can find things in sentences like "U.S. Open men's singles" at usopen.org, and similarly uses in sentences in many sources, not typically fully disambiguated with year and subevent; these are where we should look in formulating title conventions consistent with policy. But thanks for your idea. Dicklyon (talk) 19:43, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

  I would say you are correct that there is no titling convention, whether it's the event itself or the press or books. You can research and find Australian Open Men's Singles, US Open men's singles, Wimbledon Ladies Doubles, French Open Mixed doubles and you can also find verbatim: Australian Open - Women's Singles, Wimbledon - mixed doubles, US Open - Men's singles. I'm not sure I've seen colons used. At Tennis Project we knew there were many incarnations. We decided years ago to go with the form Australian Open - Men's Singles... even with Wimbledon that uses Gentlemen and Ladies instead of Men and Women. We went against the actual naming at Wimbledon. It kept things neat and tidy and has worked just fine. Until now suddenly. Now to some it seems to be infringing on the rights of other articles. Same type of thing with the name "Championship" or "Championships." Sources are all over the place in newspapers so we went with "Championships" for all events. Choices were made on the questions and we made a decision and moved on to more pressing issues of bias in bios, no sources in bios, incorrect data in charts... things that really matter to readers. This RFC is a solution to something that isn't a problem. Fyunck(click) (talk) 22:24, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

  Your ESPN link shows with colon in title "2021 Australian Open Bracket: Men's Singles". Of course, we wouldn't interpret "Bracket" as part of a proper name there either. Dicklyon (talk) 01:45, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

  I've been looking at the project talk archives for something on past discussions or decisions about this, but didn't find much yet. The 2009 question at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Tennis/Archive_5#Capitalization, from a "Featured List" review, went unanswered; it led to some downcasing in a template, and in a few titles like List of Wimbledon Gentlemen's Singles champions, but not much else. What other relevant history is out there? Dicklyon (talk) 02:04, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

  As for what matters to readers, I think adding meaningless caps here and there (as you did here for example) is not doing anyone a favor. Those of us who fix such things would be happy to fix if you'll just not fight it. Dicklyon (talk) 02:29, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

  I just fixed about 750 like that one. I don't expect any pushback. Dicklyon (talk) 06:00, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

  I did that because I was told and shown that that was the way we did things. Most opening lines to our biggest tournaments were shown to be in error in what we told our readers. Some complained they didn't even know what sport was being talked about. So I fixed the ones that were a problem into semi-clones of what had been done before for years. You may not like it, but I was doing my best to listen to those readers who wanted the best information, for the sight-challenged to be able to see the text and tables, for our readers to know the sport and the event, and working with the Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red making sure our female player articles are on equal par with the men's articles. Those were primo important to Tennis Project. Sorry but your pet peeve of making sure we go by your book and make it "Women's singles" rather than "Women's Singles" seems crazy to me. There are some reasonable reasons for whatever format gets used, but no reasonable reason why we are here to begin with when there are so many more important matters that make a real difference to our readers. You changing 100s of those sentences as we speak and changing titles from "US Open - Singles" to "US Open - singles" even during this RFC is not doing anyone a favor either. We see what's important for the good of our readers, and by extension Wikipedia, very differently. Fyunck(click) (talk) 06:51, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

  Fyunck, I don't mean to be critical, as I know your heart is in the right place in wanting to do your best to improve WP. And I'm sorry I moved that one article while the RFC is open. But for the case corrections in the text of articles, there's no issue, I think. Over two-thirds of respondents here want to see a case fix in titles, since things like "women's singles" are not proper nouns. The issue is just what convention or pattern to use to fix it. There's no such issue in the 750 places I fixed in article text. The "reasonable reason why we are here to begin with" is to discuss what's the best fix for a widespread deviation from "normal". And you keep telling me about the past, what was decided or what you were told or how we do things, but you never find me a pointer that I can use to understand that past, so I find myself a bit frustrated in not being able to understand who decided what when. Dicklyon (talk) 06:32, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

  Actually 8 out of 18 want no change at all if you are counting. And where we differ is that I look at the term as a proper name and gave sources that show as much. You use the term fix and I don't think it's broken. I don't save records of every discussion so you can find things as well as I can. What bothers me is where we are usually looking for felonies and misdemeanors to actually fix, this at best is a parking ticket if we look at things from your perspective. I don't see the same things as you do in this instance. Just because it's not "normal" doesn't mean it needs fixing... just look at the outside world in that respect. If it changes it changes, but I think it's a mistake. Fyunck(click) (talk) 07:11, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

  I only see 4 clearly on the do-nothing side: (Fyunck, Ravenswing, GhostOfDanGurney, GoodDay). I'm not counting Sportsfan7777 nor Montanabw, who are somewhat amenable to some fixes or not. And there are 12 (Dicklyon, Cinderella157, Amakuru, Sod25, Joseph2302, Jayron32, SMcCandlish, Iffy, Lee Vilenski, Wjemather, Tony1, Kaffe42) in favor of some degree of case fixing; one could quibble about me putting Iffy there, but he seemed to be in favor of resolving the case inconsistencies. So it appears to be 2/3 to 3/4 or more in favor of some kind of fix here. We'll probably need to have a "runoff" between A (the most supported, with 9, Dicklyon, Cinderella157, Amakuru, Sod25, Joseph2302, Jayron32, SMcCandlish, Tony1, Kaffe42) and B to try to find consensus. And yes, I know, it's not a vote, and if we could get better guidance about the use of dash-separated two-part titles in general that could help decide which option is more aligned with P&G. Dicklyon (talk) 17:34, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

• A makes the most sense to me. Strongly oppose D for the same reasons other voters have already stated. Kaffe42 (talk) 15:46, 16 December 2021 (UTC)
• D, as a natural disambiguation, otherwise B, as a the dash reads as a separation between a title and a subtitle, making the section after the dash a separate sentences and thus a capital is required. (Summoned by bot) BilledMammal (talk) 02:42, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

• That is not how dashes function (see also MOS:DASH). In addition, these are not subtitles but if they were, colons would be the usual means of separation. _wjemather^{please leave a message...} 10:25, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

• E, leave it be. It's just not that critical. Let the individual projects make a rule for their project, if they want to. Otherwise let the article creator decide. If you had to have a rule, B seems best per User:BilledMammal directly above. Opposed to D, which is fine for sentences but for my part doesn't make the clearest possible title. Herostratus (talk) 06:09, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
  • Per WP:LOCALCONCENSUS (policy), individual wikiprojects and article creators may not make up their own rules. _wjemather^{please leave a message...} 10:25, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
• E is a strong first preference, even after reading everything in this discussion I still fail to see any benefit from imposing a single rule for all occasions. If there absolutely must be a single rule, then B is likely to be the most natural. strongly oppose D for the reasons explained clearly and concisely by others above. Thryduulf (talk) 15:24, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

  I have read the new arguments made since I left my comment above, and none of them have convinced me - my view that doing nothing is the best option stands - there is simply no benefit to the project or its readers from imposing any standard rule. I also remain of the opinion that option D would be harmful to readers' experiences. Thryduulf (talk) 15:53, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

• E. Follow the sources. Follow the quality, reliably published, reputable secondary sources. If these don’t exist, then the page should not exist as it’s own article. Consistency is important, but locally, across similar articles. Consistency in English does not exist across the entire language. Wikipedia must follow the sources, not lead the language. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:11, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

  You may be right that these subevents are not independently notable; they certainly don't have much representation in sources. But following sources in the way suggested by MOS:CAPS and WP:NCCAPS is what I'm suggesting here in options A and B and D: the titles are descriptive and shouldn't be dress up like proper names. Dicklyon (talk) 05:11, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

• Either A or B - For me I feel like these are probably the best options as by going D, titles of pages wouldn't be as clear cut as they are currently are right now. For C why we do need a capital letter after the dash. Like for me I would prefer to either go with the one capital (that being the Men's or Women's) or not have any at all. HawkAussie (talk) 03:30, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

Some clarifications

• The distinction between "policy" and "guideline" is the last resort of over-capitalizers, but it doesn't get anywhere, since WP:TITLEFORMAT is policy, and says "Titles are written in sentence case. The initial letter of a title is almost always capitalized by default; otherwise, words are not capitalized unless they would be so in running text."
• It's not just tennis that does the title-case "Men's Singles" and such. Also table tennis and bowls often, but not consistently, do this (e.g. 1965 World Table Tennis Championships – Men's Singles, 2000 World Outdoor Bowls Championship – Women's Singles.
• According to this query, the number of titles with title-case "Men's Singles", "Women's Doubles" etc. is about 4088 (there might be a few more with Pairs, Triples, Fours, etc., and Boy, Girls, Ladies, etc., from bowls or other sports). The total number of titles with spaced en dashes is more than 10X more, but there are not other big clusters of title-case capping like this. Entertainment titles such as Satellite Award for Best Actress – Musical or Comedy are one identifiable cluster, but much smaller (many entertainment awards don't used the dashed format, which might be a better approach to fixing there than here).
• The idea of each sport making its own title/style guidelines is a non-starter. That's what go us here, and is why we have something to fix, with tennis deciding that "enough sources" cap these things; and it's why leaving it to Wikiproject Tennis is not a good idea, besides the fact that the problem is not confined to there at this point.
• The double (title-case) capping is in the minority, in every source area I've looked (see discussion in previous section up-page where I showed that even official sites like usopen.org don't do that). It just leaves the reader wondering why they're suddenly seeing title-case where WP normally uses sentence case. So option C or "do nothing" doesn't move the encyclopedia in a forward direction, but backward.
• As for "Do the capital letters really matter that much that we have to dedicate an entire RFC to resolving this?", well yes, an RFC is by design supposed to be about a narrow question, and yes, when editors resist improvements motivated by policies and guidelines, that matters enough to justify discussion. A "whole RFC" even. And it should go without saying that those who don't much care need not participate.
• I probably provided too many options, such that none will achieve consensus. Certainly "do nothing" will not. Dicklyon (talk) 00:29, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

• Hrm. Well. I'm not quite sure from where you get the notion of each sport (or, come to that, any project typically using dashes in titles) making its own style being a "non-starter," why this is something that needs to be "fixed," what makes this by definition an "improvement," or how this shapes the direction of the encyclopedia one way or another ... serious hyperbole if I've ever seen it. You have articulated the case for none of this. So I will ask again: what is the benefit to the encyclopedia for one option to be chosen over another? Ravenswing 01:50, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

The benefit is for capitalization on WP to mean something to the reader. Dicklyon (talk) 02:45, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

That rather sounds like "The benefit is that neither I nor those who think like me will be irked at seeing an orthographical construction we don't like." I'm pretty particular myself over what I believe to be proper grammar and spelling, but I don't fall down the rabbit hole of presuming that what suits my linguistic amour propre is universally shared or a self-evident virtue. In any event, thank you for your candor. Ravenswing 03:48, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

It's nothing personal to me, just trying to go by the spirit of MOS:CAPS mainly. Dicklyon (talk) 04:55, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

It's bizarre that someone would be accused of being "irked at seeing an orthographical construction we don't like" or that "what suits my linguistic amour propre is universally shared or a self-evident virtue", when they are simply trying to bring a certain group of articles into line with a Wikipedia-wide style guideline. Primergrey (talk) 04:20, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

Not that bizarre – people grasp for straws. And you haven't registered your own opinion above, have you? Dicklyon (talk) 04:43, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

Far from it, when they cannot articulate a credible, tangible benefit for a proposal. See, what irks ME is creating rules for the sake of creating rules -- we already have a vast amount of that on Wikipedia -- especially when doing so produces no benefits and will require a hefty amount of work and disruption. Ravenswing 09:30, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

That you can see no benefit and jump from that to accusing someone of "creating rules for the sake of creating rules" is just a bad look. You asked Dicklyon to tell you the benefit of this proposal, then took his answer and completely disregarded it. That's pretty much the definition of bad-faith negotiating. Primergrey (talk) 09:51, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

Ravenswing, I'll assume you just didn't understand my too-short answer. WP decided many years ago that capitalization should mean that something is a proper noun (or proper name; don't ask me what's the difference, as that's for others to argue), and that excess capitalization besides that and starts of sentences (and starts of titles and headings) should be avoided. Besides avoiding the dilution of what capital letters are meant to mean, using "sentence capitalization" in preference to "title capitalization" style for article titles allows for article titles to be linked in sentences, without excess capitalization (this kind of linking is a benefit to both editors and readers). In the tennis project, we had a few hundred sentences (that I fixed yesterday) that said somebody "won the Men's Singles tennis title" (and such). I doubt that anyone would argue that "Men's Singles" is a proper name in that context, and nobody has commented on or reverted any of those fixes. Titles should be the same way, so I could write in an article that somebody "won the 2021 US Open men's singles tennis title"; if I use the current title and say he "won the 2021 US Open – Men's Singles tennis title", that defeats the usual scheme, putting both excess capitalization and excess punctuation in the sentence. If usopen.org can title an article "Take Two: Predicting Djokovic vs. Medvedev in the US Open men's singles final", it would seem natural for us to use the pattern I proposed in D. Nobody is proposing new rules here, just trying to move the articles to titles consistent with longstanding guidelines. It's broken; let's fix it. Dicklyon (talk) 23:10, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

Ravenswing, pls see the PS I added to my initial comment, since it touches on "why". This RfC is not about creating new "rules", it is about bringing articles into line with long-standing "rules" (eg WP:AT) because certain articles/editors have either been ignorant of the rules or have chosen to ignore them for their own preference. In editing on WP, there is an implied social contract to abide by WP's P&G. Cinderella157 (talk) 01:00, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

I had forgotten, or not noticed, that you'd already made the WP:NATURALNESS point above, so my extended explanation seems a bit redundant. Dicklyon (talk) 23:21, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

Background to forming this RfC An RM was opened at The Championships, Wimbledon to address inconsistent titles in some of the earliest events, with an initial proposal: 1903 Wimbledon Championships – Ladies' Singles → 1903 Wimbledon Championships – Women's Singles (typical). The close ultimately determined: 1903 Wimbledon Championships – Ladies' Singles → 1903 Wimbledon Championships – Women's singles (typical). The discussion did identify MOS:SENTENCECAPS as an issue but the closer made no specific comment WRT to this. A discussion was commenced at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tennis concerning various title formatting issues, including the use of a dash delimiter and capitalisation, both generally and more specifically after a dash. A discussion was also held here, with a question as to what, if any guidance existed WRT capping in a dashed title. Looking at the discussions, the matter of dashed titles appears to be most prevalent in sports article. I am not certain, but within sports, my understanding would be that tennis is the most prevalent for that style (by article count)? More certainly, it is the more prevelent WRT the issue of capping after the dash. Cinderella157 (talk) 03:21, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

What next?

The responses above show a clear super-majority in favor of some kind of case fixing (options A, B, and D), and a small minority in favor of doing nothing (C or E), so we should focus next on what's the best path forward. A number of editors favor the "natural" dashless form (D), while a similar number find that to be the worst approach (due mostly to the fact that it would be very hard to get right in general, for such a large and diverse set of pages, and wouldn't be compatible with a bunch of existing nav templates). So it seems to me that we need to choose between A and B. About half of respondents supported A, and nearly as many B (with different orders of preference). Personally, I prefer A, though I know B will be a lot less work.

The question really goes back to where I started in a section above: what is the intended function of the dashed two-part titles, and how should they be styled? It seems the main interpretation (at least in sporting events) is as a "subtitle", and some see that as justification for starting over "sentence case" after the dash; other point out that titles should be rendered as they would be in running text, and it would be unusual to see such capitalization (or dash) in running text.

Note that in lawn bowls the convention used on most is to treat the subevent as parenthetical disambiguation, as in Bowls England National Championships (Men's Fours), but still over-capitalized. It might be more logical as Men's four (Bowls England National Championships). Others, in the context of broader games, use the dash form, with various case variations, e.g. Lawn bowls at the 2010 Commonwealth Games – Women's triples. Several respondents mentioned parenthetical disambiguation as a possible improvement, so I'd like to see if there's more support for that, too.

So, I solicit here further comments that would help us converge on a consensus of the best way to move forward, particularly A vs B, but still open to alternatives. Dicklyon (talk) 20:03, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

• As usual, Dicklyon is trying to misrepresent the situation. I see 8 out of 20 votes (40%) for E, i.e. some variant of "do nothing". That's hardly a small minority in a poll with five options. Sportsfan77777 (talk) 07:27, 19 December 2021 (UTC)
  • Several of the E votes are certainly not "do nothing". Anyway, consensus is not a vote, and so there would have to be compelling reasons to go against MOS and "do nothing" when there are no technical reasons for not removing either capitalisation or dashes – especially when it comes to providing guidance for future articles. Avoiding work is not a compelling reason. _wjemather^{please leave a message...} 08:47, 19 December 2021 (UTC)
  • The clear "do nothings" I see are 5: Fyunck, Ravenswing, GhostOfDanGurney, GoodDay, GraemeLeggett. Sportsfan77777, I think you indicated that B might be OK. The "do nothing" case was C, though some also used E. Who else did I missed who wants to do nothing? And I see 13 that seem to be in favor of some degree of downcasing (Dicklyon, Cinderella157, Amakuru, Sod25, Joseph2302, Jayron32, SMcCandlish, Iffy, Lee Vilenski, Wjemather, Tony1, Kaffe42, BilledMammal) even without counting your B in there. I think 13 of 21 is a pretty clear super-majority for doing some kind of fix. Montanabw's comment is uninterpretable in this discussion, and Sportsfan77777 is too ambiguous to count either way; and Mjquinn id's "do nothing, with case consistency" is uninterpretable; but I counted them in the 21 total, so 13/21 is a lower bound on the fraction in favor of some form of case fixing/consistency. Dicklyon (talk) 18:15, 19 December 2021 (UTC)
    • Dicklyon, you're trying to tell me that I don't understand my own vote??????????? What is wrong with you? Sportsfan77777 (talk) 07:07, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

      I think I was saying that "B or E (do nothing)" is not clearly either a "do nothing" or "fix the over-capping" vote. Since you clearly understand your own intention, maybe you can explain it to us. Are you saying you're now opposed to B? Or that it's your second choice? Or what? Dicklyon (talk) 07:17, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

      I voted B or E equally. Per Iffy, I'm also against trying to standardize across different sports. Sportsfan77777 (talk) 07:36, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

    • Montanabw's vote is for what we already do, so that counts as "do nothing". Iffy explicitly states "do nothing" in their vote. You can't just not count votes because they disagree with you. Sportsfan77777 (talk) 07:36, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
    • Plus, now, there is also a new "do nothing" vote from Herostratus, so that brings the count to at least nine. None of the other options are clearly favored above that. You can't just group all the other votes as "any change is better than no change". Not all of them were explicit about that. Sportsfan77777 (talk) 07:36, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
• Wait until the RFC ends, and then have this discussion. It is not WP:SNOWING against C, D, and E yet - I'm not even sure whether a closer would find there to be a consensus against C, D, and E if the RFC was closed today. BilledMammal (talk) 11:07, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

  RFCs don't usually "end" except by going stale and expiring. I'm trying to keep the discussing going toward seeking a consensus. Dicklyon (talk) 18:15, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

• Without even considering the strength of arguments, 60% to do something (v "E" that has become a surrogate "do nothing") meets one definition of a supermajority. While it may not be (quite) snowing against "E" (do nothing at all), it is not an unreasonable question. Cinderella157 (talk) 11:41, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

  Considering strength of arguments is the big issue with this; 40% !voting for "E", if the closer thinks they have the better arguments, is sufficient to close the RFC in that direction. The other issue is that you assume every editor who did not !vote "E" supports doing anything over doing nothing. BilledMammal (talk) 12:07, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

  But E is not a thing; it's a collection of incompatible different ideas, most of which are not "do nothing". And the arguments are pretty much counter to sources and guidelines, so no closer is going to latch onto one of those and supervote it into a consensus. Dicklyon (talk) 18:15, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

  Also note that "do nothing" really does mean C: "Treat things like 'Men's Singles' as proper names when in a tennis tournament context, but not otherwise" (i.e. not in an Olypmics context). I tried to make it clear that "do nothing" is this absurd, yet I understand there are always a few editors afraid of changing things for the better. Dicklyon (talk) 20:11, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

  That is your opinion that things will change for the better. Some are afraid that things are changing for the worse. And E is a thing as much as some of the other votes are rather vague. You are also assuming that someone who votes for A will want B rather than E. That is not clear at all. I still think strength of argument is against changing countless thousands of articles for such a trivial matter, but that's not for me to determine. It's not close to snow and it's not a super-majority. Those terms are extremely biased in your conclusions and I'm actually shocked and disappointed you would use them to "poison the well." Fyunck(click) (talk) 23:10, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

  I'm trying not to make assumptions, but to invite discussion. I don't know what "want B rather than E" means, since E isn't a defined thing. Dicklyon (talk) 07:15, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

  Dicklyon, C is not "do nothing". C is have all sports follow the proper name convention. Not all sports do that right now. You biased the discussion against "do nothing" by not including it as an option to begin with, and yet it still seems to be the most favored option. Sportsfan77777 (talk) 07:12, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

  Who are you counting that I missed, as favoring "do nothing", and how does that differ from "C", which is to leave things inconsistent as they are even within tennis? Dicklyon (talk) 07:21, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

  It's pretty darned consistent in tennis articles. Sure there are some older ones and some newer ones and ones you changed, but that's because we didn't go on a crusade to fix them. When we notice a difference in an article we tend to fix it. We have plenty of old style performance charts too, but they are a minority and get fixed bit by bit. There seemed to be no issues among any tennis editors about a problem. You saw it and decided it must be broken and have demanded it changed. That's your right to do here but don't make it seem like we've had any issues with the styling... we haven't. We didn't need thousands and thousands of articles changed. Fyunck(click) (talk) 07:32, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

• Conceptually, I think this is a misleading way to frame the decision-making process. As an analogy, suppose we were trying to decide as a group what kind of pizza to order. 3 people want plain, 3 want meat-lovers, 3 want vegetarian, and 3 want Hawaiian. I claim there is a clear super-majority (9 to 3) in favour of having some kind of toppings, and a small minority in favour of no toppings. Therefore, we should move forward by focusing the discussion on choosing between meat, veggie, or Hawaaian. Is that a reasonable argument? It seems to me that, in this hypothetical, we have four options which are equally favoured, and one is just being brushed to the side based on some sleight of hand accounting. (After all, the same argument could just as well be used to push out the veggie option, since there's a clear supermajority against having vegetables on the pizza, and so on.) Colin M (talk) 18:54, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

  I was about to post the same type of thing... Thanks. Fyunck(click) (talk) 19:48, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

• The analogy is fine, if you are starting from a premise that everybody wants to eat takeaway and everybody wants to eat some type of pizza. However, isn't "do nothing" more like "I don't want to eat" or "I don't want takeaway (I'd rather eat in)"? And, aren't the dashed options like pizzas (while what comes after the dash is a topping) and the undashed option is another alternative, say Chinese? Cinderella157 (talk) 23:56, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

  No, that analogy doesn't work because in your scenario those who want to eat something and those who don't want to eat anything can both be satisfied at the same time (some people eat, some people don't eat), whereas with the article titles "do something" and "do nothing" are mutually exclusive options. Thryduulf (talk) 00:45, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

  Actually, it does per I don't want takeaway (I'd rather eat in). Cinderella157 (talk) 00:56, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Template Issues

Yes, there will be an issue with templates. I have a look at a couple of examples. Templates would be of two general types. For a particular event (year) they create links to the titles played for. For a particular title they create links to other titles played during a particular event. The latter are effectively sub-pages of an event page. In either case, the templates assume a particular article title format in order to generate the links. The templates will fail if there is no target article having the "assumed" article title format. However, this issue is easily remedied by ensuring there are redirects from the "assumed" article title format to the "actual" article title. I believe this already occurred for Wimbledon tennis championships that used "ladies" and "gentlemen" instead of "men's" and "women's" for titles. It is a simple solution to what might otherwise be perceived as a near insurmountable problem. Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 10:59, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

So we will also have to create more redirects in order to facilitate this massive change. Another thing for the closer to consider. Fyunck(click) (talk) 23:10, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

In the first instance, one simply leaves the old target as a redirect, rather than deleting it. My primary observation is that the matter of templates is not insurmountable by any means. And of course, the templates can be modified to accept the new pattern (per DL below). Cinderella157 (talk) 23:43, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

The templates can also be modified to use the new patterns where needed. Currently have the over-capitalization assumption built in, but that's not hard to fix. Dicklyon (talk) 18:15, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

Good grief, In other words they can be mass-modified to handle either under-capitalization or over-capitalization. Fyunck(click) (talk) 04:53, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

There are not many templates to modify; it's not a "mass" operation. Dicklyon (talk) 07:17, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

I have only looked at a couple of tennis templates but would make these observations. These are not "smart" templates that rely on recognising a dashed construction to generate an infobox - they simply assume such a construction and capitalisation. Consequently, any change whatsoever to "any" part of a "standard" title format will require a revision of such templates at the template level. They lack flexibility. While I am not familiar with the language or syntax of templates, this is potentially an opportunity to improve the flexibility of the templates. The issue is not a matter of parsing that is reliant on a dashed construction. Secondly, these templates are not the ducks nuts. Specifically, they create red-links for titles played for that don't appear to exist - such as invitation or masters titles. The templates are not being applied to "acknowledge" para titles being played for. However, this is not a deficiency in the templates per se but in how they are being applied. Any change can be seen as an opportunity for improvement and an opportunity to make such templates more resilient. Cinderella157 (talk) 11:36, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Current state as of December 20, and moving forward

I'm creating a new subsection here so that stuff not relating to templates can move forward, and the conversation regarding templates can continue in that section. Herostratus (talk) 07:57, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

So let's see, counting heads as of this date, we have, as a first choice:

• D, 7
• A, 3
• B, 3
• Do nothing, 6
• other E, 3 (each different)

Lot of editors gave a second choice, and these are:

• A, 5
• B, 3
• C, 1
• Do nothing, 1
• Other E, 1

And, five editors opposing D.

C got no traction, and there were three E votes that weren't "do nothing" were for one-vote proposals: 1 for parents, 1 for following sources, 1 unclear. Let's promote those editors' second choices (or drop them if there wasn't one)

Since D has 7 first choices (and no second), but five explicit opposes... I can't see D as going forward since it has essentially a "net vote" of 2. Five editors really don't want D, and I think it would be pretty divisive to go forward with that. (The D voters will object to that, but what can you do? Ignore the editors who specifically called out D to say they hate it?) So, also discarding D and promoting those editors second choices, we get:

First choice:

• A, 7
• B, 4
• Do nothing, 6

Second choice:

• A, 2
• B, 2
• Do nothing, 1

I can see a couple of ways to cut this cake, assuming you're even still on board with me here:

1) Combine A + B into "Do Something", giving "Do Something" 11+4 vs "Do Nothing" 6+1. Counting just first choices gives 65% to "Do Something", which with 17 people involved, I suppose that could count as a win, barely. Then, "A" having 7+2 vs "B" having 4+2, well, "A" is 7-4 among first choices (which are what mainly count), which is 64%... which 64% of 11 people doesn't mean much I'd say. Others may think it does. In this way you could either anoint "A" the winner, or run another RfC, "A" vs "B".

2) Drop B since it's the weakest of the three. Promoting "B" voters second choices (if any) adds one to "A" and one to "Do Nothing", giving First choice:

• A, 8
• Do nothing, 7

Second choices are no longer in play. 8-7 is a tie.

None of this considers strength of arguments, but what can I say? Nobody has a killer argument that I see. C'mon, it's a matter of opinion basically. If your argument is that good, it'll probably convince other people and you'll win the headcount anyway. If you're not changing people's minds, either your argument is maybe not as strong at you think, or else it really is a matter of opinion and arguments don't much matter.

So, these multi-choice RfC usually don't end with a clear "winner" and aren't so much intended to as to just generally be discussions, and also to narrow the field. I suppose the next step would be to have a new, binary, RfC, which will I guess could take the form of "A" vs "Do Nothing" (I reccomend this as simpler). (The annoying is that if "A" has 13 votes and "Do Nothing" has 10 votes, "Do Nothing" wins, since no consensus == no change. Oh well.)

or you could have something like:

• A: Do Something
  • A1: "men's singles" format
  • A2: "Men's singles" format
• B: Do nothing

If "A" is a clear win, then you see if "A1" is clear win over "A2" or vice versa; if so, Bob's your uncle, if not you're screwed, and I have no idea what you'd do. Herostratus (talk) 07:57, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

Comments on "Current state as of December 20, and moving forward"

First off, as you note, consensus is not built on headcount (or single transferrable vote) but on strength of argument; you also acknowledge that you are completely disregarding this in your unhelpful attempt to steer this discussion – plus we have Dicklyon's steering above. Second, many of the !votes above (including your own) directly contradict policy and existing guidelines, so very little weight can be given to them. _wjemather^{please leave a message...} 10:35, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

Also there's no indication of who was counted in each group there, so it's hard to check the interpretation. My impression is that the "do something" vs "do nothing" question is pretty much decided, and it's really just the second question that needs to be settled to move forward. Since I would expect most of the "do nothing" people to prefer the "do less" alternative, that's back to B being the output for all practical purposes, and maybe going to an RM discussion would be a way to test that. But other analyses may see it differently. The fact that Fyunck is re-canvassing at tennis project suggests that he too thinks "do nothing" has lost. Dicklyon (talk) 18:15, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

Considering only the votes and not rationales or strength, scoring each option as 1 for a first preference, 0.5 for a second preference and -1 for an oppose I find the options have the following vote counts (all working is shown at the end):

• A: 4
• B: 3.5
• C: -0.5
• D: -3
• E ("case consistency"): 1
• E (follow the sources): 1
• Do nothing: 5

Considering only first preference supports and counting "follow the sources" as effectively "do nothing": Do something totals: 13, Do nothing: 7

Factoring in opposition and implied opposition (those who supported only "do nothing" can be implied to oppose doing something): Do something: 10, Do nothing 6

Considering only numbers that's a weak to very weak consensus to do something, but that could easily change to a clear consensus either way or no consensus when arguments are considered. If we assume, for now, that there is a consensus to do something we would need to look at what particular something has consensus, and that is clearly not C or D. "Case consistency" could be taken as a support of any of the "do something" options and we've already dealt with "follow the sources" so we're left with just A and B.

On the face of it there is no clear preference between them, especially if Sod25k's preferences are equal (see below) which would put them exactly equal. However, of those who expressed a first preference for an option that has been dismissed (C, D, E or do nothing) and a second preference for A or B, 4 went for A and 1 B, suggesting that A edges ahead. However A got 2 explicit opposes while B only got 1 which suggests B edges ahead. As 1 of the explicit opposition votes for A and the only one for B was from the same person we can infer they opposed both equally and the other opposition to A was from someone supporting B that also suggests B is the least opposed.

So if I were closing this now based solely on the numbers, I would say there is a weak consensus to do something, a clear consensus against option D (especially as almost all the "strong" votes are in opposition to it), a weak consensus against option C and no consensus between options A and B and so would recommend a follow-up discussion. Thryduulf (talk) 19:44, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

My working for the above comment. Thryduulf (talk) 19:44, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
1st preference: A: 3 - Sod25k, Jayron32, Kaffe42, B: 3 - Amakuru, Sportsfan77777, Iffy, C: 0 D: 6 - Dicklyon, Cinderella157, wiemather, SMcCandlish, Tony1, BilledMammal E ("case consistency"): 1 - Mjquinn_id E (follow the sources): 1 - Montanabw Do nothing: 6 - Fyunck, Ravenswing, GhostOfDanGurney, GraemeLegget, GoodDay, Thryduulf 2nd preference: A: 6 - Dicklyon, Cinderella157, Amakuru, Iffy, SMcCandlish, Tony1, B: 3 - Sod25k, BilledMammal, Thryduulf C: 1 - Fyunck D: 0 E (parenthesis): 1 - wiemather Do nothing: 1 - Sportsfan77777 Oppose: A: 2 - Sportsfan77777, GhostOfDanGurney B: 1 - GhostOfDanGurney C: 1 - GhostOfDanGurney D: 9 - Lee Bilrndki, Sod25k, Joseph2302, Sportsfan77777, GhostOfDanGurney, Iffy, Mjquinn_id (implied), Kaffe42, Thryduulf E: 0 Do nothing: 1 - Joseph2302 (implied) Notes: Sod25k's preferences for A and B may be equal Iffy opposes applying any of A-D "unevenly" and thinks doing nothing is preferable to that. Mjquinn_id has not explained what "case consistency" means but the comment implies keeping a dash and thus opposition to option D}}. Thryduulf (talk) 19:44, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

I don't steer conversations. That's what you all do, and you're just projecting. And anyone thinking the matter is clear is guilty of partisan self-dealing or unsubtle thinking.

You'll note that I offered two ways of counting. #1 leads to "A" (not my preferred outcome) and #2 leads to "Do Nothing" (my preferred outcome). (Both lead to second, binary RfC IMO; and there are other ways of counting of course.). That is, as I said, "if you're still on board". You could be not on board with complicated manipulation of data and be ike "D has plurality, discounting negative votes which I do, so D" or whatever.

Absent new votes coming in, don't argue with me, don't argue with each other. We're all arguing for the closer. Name-calling won't help you there I bet. I proffered some raw data and a couple different ways one might consider it leading to different outcomes. The closer will decide how or if she uses the data and what, if any, advice she wants to take. (I do apologize for not including names as I usually do, I was rushed. Thank you User:Thryduulf for correcting this (but I'm not included (I was 1st=Do Nothing, 2nd=B, and opposed to D))).

It's not a headcount, but it is basically a matter of opinion, and if you don't want to count heads, then it has to be "no change" since opinions can't really have strength of argument. Herostratus (talk) 22:31, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

@Herostratus my apologies for missing you (not sure how that happened) but that pushes the headcount closer towards no consensus between "do something" and "do nothing" (if you accept that as a valid binary, and @Colin M makes a good point regarding that), strengthens the opposition to D and makes the lack of consensus between A and B even clear imo. Thryduulf (talk) 22:44, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

Sure, User:Thryduulf, no problem. As I said before, multi-option RfC seldom come to a consensus, they serve more to whittle down the options. Whether that should be "A vs B" or "A vs Do Nothing" I'll leave to closer. Herostratus (talk) 01:01, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

More creative counting. Good one. _wjemather^{please leave a message...} 23:53, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

What's that supposed to mean? Herostratus (talk) 01:01, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

There is no value in such an invented vote counting methodology with arbitrarily assigned values, selective negative counting (i.e. ignoring obvious opposition to the "do nothing" option), overlooking and misinterpreting !votes, etc. Why not assign zero to all !votes that disregard MOS, and minus one for "do nothing" to all non-"do nothing" !votes – the result would be very different. _wjemather^{please leave a message...} 10:56, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Defining the issues

Defining the issues As with many RfCs, the issues become clearer as the discussion unfolds. As I see matters, there are now two clear issues:

1. Whether it is reasonable/permitted to use a dash as a subtitle/disambiguation delimiter; and,
2. Assuming it is, how should the phrase following such a dash be capitalised (and why)? For simplicity, the options can be summarised as: "men's singles", "Men's singles" or "Men's Singles"

Cinderella157 (talk) 06:14, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

I think it's a little hazier than that. It's not always totally arbitrary in dash usage. If everywhere you looked it said "Campo Brazillia - Crocodile Especial" then that it what it should be at Wikipedia also. Now if some sources capitalize everything and some do not, it's up to the project to decide what works best. Same with the dash. If a dash is never ever used and the second part of the title is never ever capitalized, again that's much easier. It's when we have a mix of usage in the title (as we have in the RFC) where decisions have been made. But when decisions have been made, and it's been done to thousands of articles, then you don't move it to a different form because it's a pet peeve. There's no good reason to do it. Fyunck(click) (talk) 07:01, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Actually Fyunck, it really is that clear and that simple. Perhaps you might re-read my !vote. By policy at WP:AT, the dash, as a disambiguation delimiter is expressly not to be used. The dash disambiguation/subtitle construction is contrary to WP:AT on several levels. Any issue of capitalisation after such a construction is consequently mute (yes, I mean mute - as in silenced). Cinderella157 (talk) 10:15, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Actually, it is not, and it's a sticking point. You said "as a disambiguation delimiter." That's not what this is. The dash is actually part of the title in sources. Certainly not all sources, but some sources. And also... if Women's Singles is often capitalized in tennis title sources, and Wimbledon is often capitalized in tennis sources, why would you uncapitalize one of those terms? I also went to WP:AT and searched the terms you used... dash, disambiguation, delimiter. I am missing your argument's location. If you start saying everything is a disambiguation delimiter, instead of "2021 Australian Open" we'll have to start using Australian Open (2021) and George Washington (farewell address). There are certainly good reasons for different points of view but this is not black and white by any stretch. Fyunck(click) (talk) 10:53, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Unfortunately, you are misinterpreting what the sources are doing. They are following their own manual of style. The dash is (in general) not part of the title, it is merely the chosen means of separation used by the source in accordance with their MoS. Similarly, many sources commonly use title case; we do not. We have our own manual of style, which states that we use sentence-case and also guides against the use of dashes for this purpose. _wjemather^{please leave a message...} 11:04, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Fyunck(click), a delimiter is a sequence of one or more characters for specifying the boundary between separate, independent regions in plain text, mathematical expressions or other data streams. In this case, I am referring to a dash, which is separating a title from a subtitle or the "main" part of the title from its disambiguation. Your comment per: If you start saying everything is a disambiguation delimiter, instead of "2021 Australian Open" we'll have to start using Australian Open (2021) and George Washington (farewell address). It makes no sense to me since it appears to not understand what a delimiter is. To me, it seems to be a red-herring argument. If you were to read my !vote (in full), I have already directly quoted the particular text that is an explicate statement not to use a dash as a disambiguation delimiter. It is at WP:QUALIFIER (in WP:AT): Commas and parentheses (round brackets) are the only characters that can be used without restriction to separate a disambiguating term in an article title. Colons can be used in the limited cases of subtitles of some creative works and lists split over several pages. I have also identified at my !vote, other "levels" at which the dash construction is contrary to P&G, particularly at WP:AT. A significant number of editors have specifically identified that the dash is separating terms in a title with the function of providing disambiguation. The subtitle perception of the construction is also dealt with by the afore quote. A colon (and only a colon) is permitted in the subtitles of some creative works. We are not dealing with a creative work here and a dash is not a colon! Per WP:COMMONNAME at WP:AT: In Wikipedia, an article title is a natural-language word or expression that indicates the subject of the article. A dashed construction is not a ""natural expression" Consequently, we don't rely on "titles" and headings in sources using such a construction to determine a WP article title. The weight of P&G (particularly WP:AT - a policy) would determine that the dashed construction, the subject of this discussion, is not to be used on a number of levels. To argue otherwise would appear to me to be pettifogging. Cinderella157 (talk) 12:35, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

We are running into the same thing here. Why isn't the title at "George Washington's farewell address"? Per your arguments it should be and that is the situation here. As for the dash it's in sources even in sentences and I didn't see that talked about at WP:AT. But this is what's fun about Wikipedia, and yes I still have fun. Often things follow MOS to the letter, sometimes MOS gets shoved aside by consensus or no consensus or local consensus, and sometimes MOS gets changed because many don't like a certain rule (or the rule is too vague). Sometimes you go with 99% of English sources, and sometimes what 99% of English sources say gets banned here. That's Wikipedia. It's complex, but as long as we always keep in mind our readers' best interest, things usually work out ok. Fyunck(click) (talk) 19:45, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Fyunck(click), WP:AT both permits and even tends to prefer natural phrases for article titles and disambiguation (see WP:CRITERIA and WP:QUALIFIER). Your examples of "George Washington (farewell address)" and "Australian Open (2021)", would unnecessarily and unreasonably impose a constructed or artificial "qualification" over a perfectly natural construction that should be and is preferred. This sort of argument is therefore a red-herring. Furthermore, in the phrase "George Washington's Farewell Address", the attributive phrase "George Washington's" modifies the subject "Farewell Address". The subject of the article is then, the "Farewell Address". Placing the "farewell address" in parenthesis changes the subject and is wrong. Headings and the like are not natural language. They often drop "parts of speech" for brevity, such as preceding articles. I am not saying the dashed construction isn't used at all in sentences but I'm not seeing evidence presented that it is at all a WP:COMMONNAME - ie that it is commonly used that way in sentences in sources. WP:AT is not the MOS. It is not a guideline, it is a policy. From the passage I quoted for you, the policy lists the "only characters" that can be used as disambiguation delimiters. Consequently, an argument that says "Oh but it didn't specifically say I couldn't use a dash", would be just plain pettifogging. Cinderella157 (talk) 02:01, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

Obviously I'm not doing a good job of explaining because you keep missing my point. That's on me but I don't have a better way to say it. That or we have a different definition of "disambiguation delimiters" (which also is not on the WP:AT page) vs a proper name. Since I can't explain better and what you are saying keeps missing my point I guess we might as well move along because we have a communication snafu. Cheers. Fyunck(click) (talk) 10:33, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

This particular thread is about disambiguation. If you don't understand the term "delimiter", despite my previous explanation, it is largely immaterial. The purpose of the dash within the context of this thread (and this RfC) is to provide disambiguation. If it wasn't, I'm sure you would have said so by now. Disambiguation also appears to be the whole basis of your comments in this thread? WP:AT (per the passage already quoted), specifically says that there are are only certain characters that can be used to separate a disambiguator within an article title. A dash is not one of these. How then, is the statement quoted in any way unclear in respect to a dash being not permitted to separate a disambiguating term in an article title? Cinderella157 (talk) 14:14, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

Let's come at it from a different angle then so I can better understand. Let's fictitiously say we have the official "Nova Scotia Zoo – Botanical Garden." That's what they use and that's what most sources also use. New York Times writes articles that say there is a fire at the Nova Scotia Zoo – Botanical Garden, and Quebec Daily News says the CEO of Nova Scotia Zoo – Botanical Garden was fired yesterday. You seem to be telling me that even though you can use Nova Scotia Zoo – Botanical Garden in prose, as a title at Wikipedia it must be "Nova Scotia Zoo Botanical Garden" or perhaps "Nova Scotia Zoo, Botanical Garden"? We can't use "Nova Scotia Zoo – Botanical Garden" as the title here? That seems to be what you are saying to me and I want to understand you as it pertains to "Wimbledon – Womens Singles", "Wimbledon, Womens Singles", or "Wimbledon Womens Singles". Fyunck(click) (talk) 20:41, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

Obviously, Fyunck, your desire for "Men's Singles" to be a proper name has nothing sensible behind it. Unlike Washington's Farewell Address, which is a composition title, well known as such for well over a hundred years even if not original written by that exact title. Dicklyon (talk) 15:44, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

Actually that's a different story and it has much sensibility behind it. It's quite similar no matter how much you don't want it to be. Fyunck(click) (talk) 20:41, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

The problem with fictional hypotheticals is just that. At WP:AT: In Wikipedia, an article title is a natural-language word or expression that indicates the subject of the article ... that is most commonly used (as determined by its prevalence in a significant majority of independent, reliable English-language sources). If you are trying to say that the dashed construction is commonly used in prose (natural language) in a substantial majority of independent reliable sources, then show the evidence. Most often, you are seeing things like: "Highlights of Wimbledon Championships men's singles final". As to what WP:AT says on using a dash as a disamiguation separating character, I think it is self-evident. Cinderella157 (talk) 02:09, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

But you didn't answer my question. You simply added another question. In that hypothetical what would we use as an article title? It is also very often seen as 2019 Wimbledon Men's Singles event. No type of source dominates but you will see Wimbledon – Men's Singles, though certainly not as frequently as without the dash. Fyunck(click) (talk) 04:41, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

Firstly, your fictional hypothetical is very unlikely to the point of being improbable. Secondly, your example is not a disambiguation/subtitle construction, which is the subject of this RfC. Consequently, it is not being ruled against by WP:AT at WP:TITLEFORMAT (that limits disambiguation delimiting characters). It should still be avoided per WP:TSC at WP:AT. It also creats an issue with readability in prose, given the grammatical function of a spaced dash. Similar to a colon or semi-colon, it begins a new independent clause that could be a grammatically separate sentence. This is contrary to the fictitious name where it is intended to join. For this reason, I would find it unlikely that your news sources in the fictitious example would not use an alternative (such as "and"). Consequently, we would not likely be the seeing the fictitious "official" name as the WP:COMMONNAME in independent reliable sources.

To the issue at hand and particularly for tennis. You have not provide evidence of actual usage of the dashed construction in prose. However, you acknowledge that it is not the "most"WP:COMMONNAME and that the undashed construction is more common: It is also very often seen as 2019 Wimbledon Men's Singles event. I have looked quite hard to find evidence of the dashed construction in prose. I'm not finding anything; though, I am seeing it in headings and tables etc. Even then, I'm not seeing it consistently capitalised either in full or in part.

I do think we are now back at the start of this thread. The spaced dash construction used in many sports articles as a subtitle/disambiguation is quite contrary to WP:AT at a number of places. Cinderella157 (talk) 10:51, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

Herostratus, given that you have stated: Nobody has a killer argument that I see. Have you seen my revised !vote and the reasons I have given overall? Cinderella157 (talk) 09:59, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Hi User:Cinderella157. Yes, I have now, and thank you for digging up the "Do not create subsidiary articles" bit. And I mean those are all good points, and yes I see how as a matter of the written policy you're correct. So alright, yes, "matter of opinion" isn't entirely accurate, and strength-of-argument, in the sense of "how well do the various arguments adhere to policy" could be play. I stand corrected.

Your point remain unconvincing to me because I don't care about the letter of rules details so much, and this isn't really an "Azerbaijan/Transport" or "Azerbaijan (transport)" type situation in my opinion. Olympic-type sports events are just different, is all. "2017 FIL European Luge Championships women's singles" is just too run-on for my taste, "2017 FIL European Luge Championships – Women's singles" (or "woman's singles" or "Woman's Singles", whatever) is an aid to the reader in helping to separate out and hilite an important second part of the title. I don't think that WP:AT is intended for or helpful to be completely controlling at this level of detail. "Do not create subsidiary articles" is generally true and useful advice, but not here. And I don't think "Well, X would be better for the reader, but if you did thru the rules and follow the exact letter of them, we have to do Y" is a good approach.

However, yes one could take the stance "WP:AT as a policy must not and cannot be violated except in extreme and important cases", and "It's clear that 'Do not use titles suggesting that one article forms part of another... it should be named independently' is part of WP:AT. If the closer feels honor-bound to support the letter of policies (she might), then that might be a winning argument for her, and fine. Herostratus (talk) 14:06, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Herostratus, you omit to address that WP:QUALIFIER (in WP:AT) lists the "only characters" that are permitted as disambiguation delimiters? It's not a headcount, but it is basically a matter of opinion, and if you don't want to count heads, then it has to be "no change" since opinions can't really have strength of argument. [per yourself herein] Except it isn't? Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 03:26, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

Well... User:Cinderella157, I don't worry about stuff like that too much. There're a lot of rules here. Some of them are put in by a couple-few people, and some of them are put in by people who like to micromangage stuff, and a fair number contradict each other, and a fair number aren't followed generallt. I try to ignore at least one rule before breakfast, it keeps me young. After all the rules were made for the readers, not the readers for the rules. So, whatever is best for the reader. This is hard to know, but my considered opinion is that the abscence of a dash (or other mechanism, but the dash seems best to me) makes the title just a tiny bit more difficult to suss the title in a half second or so. For my part, I don't much care about the capitaliztion of the the second part of the title. Title case (Men's singles) seems best, but it's hard to know. Herostratus (talk) 15:32, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

Is the spaced dashed creating a subtitle/disambiguation?

Is the spaced dashed creating a subtitle/disambiguation? To my observation of the discussion herein, it is. It has specifically been referred to as such. With the exception of perhaps Fyunck, it has been at least tacitly acknowledged as such. In templates, it is being used as such. However, I am now specifically asking this question. This relates to matters of policy at WP:AT. For details, see my !vote (second down - please read in full) and the discussion immediately above (#Defining the issues). If it is not creating a subtitle/disambiguation, then what is the function of the dash? Cinderella157 (talk) 12:09, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

Comments

• This is an invalid question. Subtitles and disambiguations are not the same thing and should not be conflated, nor should subtitles be conflated with sub-articles. Thryduulf (talk) 12:14, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

  If it is not creating a subtitle/disambiguation, then what is the function of the dash? That is the substantive question. Cinderella157 (talk) 13:01, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

  There are tennis sources that use the dash in the way our articles do. My argument has not been otherwise. We (or I should say others) simply made the determination years ago to go with that particular sourced styling. I'm sure no one looked at all the data to search every style out there, but there are many. We went with it, no one objected, and now every article follows the same style... thousands and thousands of them. Suddenly we have to change all of them because one editor didn't like it and brought up an RFC? No one had complained for a decade and that's my biggest problem here. It's not like there was heaps of infighting and edit wars trying to switch from one style to another. All was calm and long-term stable, and it isn't broken. Fyunck(click) (talk) 03:51, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

Actually, Fyunck(click), your characterisation is quite inaccurate. This all started with an RfC initiated by Sod25 at Talk:The Championships, Wimbledon because of inconsistencies in titling. It was that RfC that bought "issues" to the attention of the broader community and in the first instance, an issue of capitalisation. It also created a precedent to change the capitalisation. The proponent of this RfC Dicklyon then discussed the matter with the tennis project and, both you, Sod25 and others were instrumental in bringing this RfC here. Your characterisation of this being because "one editor didn't like it" is quite inaccurate and may be considered an "aspersion". Unintenionally, things may have been done in a way that did not invite scrutiny by the broader community but it has happened now. Such decisions should then be able to withstand the scrutiny of the broader community or be bought into line with the consensus of the broader community. Cinderella157 (talk) 11:44, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

I think it is pretty accurate but you are correct in who brought it up. That RFC was made by Sod25 only to change a few articles that retained the word Gentlemen's and Ladies' so that it conformed to all the thousands of other articles. In the RFC Sod25 started, he specifically asked not to move to a different case or remove the dash. It was a truly massive RFC of what.... six? Two wanted things moved only and four wanted less capitalization but not necessarily moved from Gentlemen's and Ladies'. I'm not sure why you feel Sod and I were instrumental to bringing this RFC here. Fyunck(click) (talk) 19:45, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

At the Tennis project, Sod states: now that there is precedent to change the capitalization, I will support your RFC. And you state: I would not single out sports articles by any stretch. The latter widens the scope and determines a central venue. You certainly played a role (ie were instrumental) in bringing the RfC here. Cinderella157 (talk) 01:18, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

• It's clear to me that sports event articles are in their own special category where sub-article titling should be (and by a broad, longstanding consensus has been) permitted, regardless of what is currently written in the general policy pages. "Men's Singles" in "2021 French Open – Men's Singles" isn't acting as a disambiguator, as the event is part of the "2021 French Open" rather than being a separate concept with the same name. If anything, "2021 French Open" could be viewed as disambiguating "Men's Singles", yielding "Men's Singles (2021 French Open)" or "Men's Singles (tennis, 2021 French Open)" as the policy based format. However, these events are never referenced independently of the tournaments - in prose it's always "the men's singles championship at the French Open", or "the 100 meter sprint at the 2020 Olympics", so disambiguating in this way isn't appropriate (and the thousands of disambiguations of e.g. Singles would make many disambiguation pages unnavigable). The "at the" construction then seems appealing, but produces nonsensical titles for events at multi-sport competitions, e.g. "Men's singles at the tennis at the 2020 Summer Olympics" for "Tennis at the 2020 Summer Olympics". The dashes are in my opinion then the only viable option (and can't be simply removed as the examples in my vote rationale demonstrate), leaving the question to be just one of which capitalization style is preferable (i.e. options A-C). Sod25k (talk) 13:39, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

• Men's singles tennis at the 2012 Summer Olympics would be perfectly acceptable. The English language works perfectly well, and there is nothing special about sports that justifies having titles that are non-compliant with MOS with respect to case, punctuation and disambiguation. Please also read my comment in response to your !vote above with regards to nonsensical titles that exist due to current practices. _wjemather^{please leave a message...} 14:52, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

• That construction does seem to work ok grammar-wise even with long multi-sport competition event names, but it's also more difficult to parse. I wouldn't oppose a change to it, but I still lean towards the dashes for readability reasons and because it would be less work to change just the capitalization of the current titles. Sod25k (talk) 16:01, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

• I'm also not sure I've seen the "Men's singles tennis at the 2012 Summer Olympics" format used elsewhere? I'm not the greatest sports fan, but from a quick google it seems that when both parts are needed for context that the event comes first, and yes the dash does make it easier to parse. There is no single rule that can work for every title of every topic in the encyclopaedia so we shouldn't try to shoehorn things. Thryduulf (talk) 16:46, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

• Alexander Zverev won the gold medal in men's singles tennis at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. It wasn't hard to find a few. Cinderella157 (talk) 00:22, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

• There is no requirement to "have seen (a format) elsewhere". Can people please read the guideline here? _wjemather^{please leave a message...} 16:52, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

• If there is no requirement for a title format to be used elsewhere, why are arguments for article titles rejected because there is no evidence of them being used elsewhere? You can't have it both ways. Thryduulf (talk) 17:09, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

• There is a difference between there being an official and/or common name, and not. These articles fall under the "not". Seriously, please read the guideline. _wjemather^{please leave a message...} 17:58, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

Re "why are arguments for article titles rejected because there is no evidence of them being used elsewhere", Thryduulf, can you say who has rejected what titles on that basis? Dicklyon (talk) 04:15, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

There are very many examples of you and others doing exactly this, most recently that I was involved in was the RM of New York Subway, where nearly every single one of your arguments was based on what sources use. Thryduulf (talk) 01:22, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

No title was "rejected because there is no evidence of them being used elsewhere" in that discussion. It was certainly acknowledged, by me and others, that the capped "Subway" is used in lots of places; it was objected to because our our style is to cap only if caps are used consistently in sources, while in this case that caps were in an actual minority. You have misunderstood and/or misrepresented the position that you adopt as strawman to object to. Don't do that. Dicklyon (talk) 05:08, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

• Per Sod25k, it seems that "sports event articles are in their own special category where sub-article titling should be (and by a broad, longstanding consensus has been) permitted". This discussion has brought out a strong polarization over whether this should be accepted or fixed (with strong feelings for and against option D, essentially). This question deserves its own in-depth discussion, with options on alternatives, treatment as disambiguation, subtitles, sub-topics, or whatever, and corresponding punctuation and capitalization style guidance. I expect most of the "sports" editors would be against changes in the basic format, just because it's such a widespread thing. So I propose we get back to what to do about the overcapitalization of "Singles" and "Doubles" and such that leave tennis (and table tennis) articles in a state inconsistent internally, inconsistent with other sports, and inconsistent with policy and guidelines. It looks to me like there's support to at least implement option B, even though it's not many people's favorite, so I'll go ahead with some multi-RMs about that when I get time (I'm still pretty busy on the big changes to capitalization of "Province" and "District" for Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand, with provinces about finished and districts still to go, and have had good community help and support on that; hope to see similar here, to at least patch up the most painful inconsistencies). Dicklyon (talk) 16:23, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

  I see nothing even remotely close to support for B. It's more support for E. It's all over the place and piece by piece is not the way to go when thousands of articles are in the mix. It's pretty much no consensus to do anything and moving things to some undercapitalization variety isn't what this discussion points to. Fyunck(click) (talk) 21:32, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

  I agree with Fyunck - if all you are doing is counting votes then the absolute most you can say is that there is consensus to have a separate discussion about whether A or B should be the option taken forwards. It is not a vote though and reading the arguments the only things that are unarguable are that C and D do not have consensus (there might even be a consensus against D). I'm not neutral here, but I could see someone who is saying either there is a consensus for doing nothing or no consensus to do anything - and in practical terms there is little difference between them. There is very definitely no way this discussion can be used to support an RM. Thryduulf (talk) 01:20, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

  There's also clearly not a consensus for E, since it's not a thing, but rather a catch-all category of ideas that can't really be applied, like "follow the sources" (since sources don't use titles resembling these at all, and refer to them in a wide variety of ways). The only clear consensus is "not C", that is, don't just pretend it's OK as is. Dicklyon (talk) 16:14, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

  I don't see that at all... You added the E and people have gone for it because they don't like the other choices. Your logic also shows the clear consensus is "Not A", "Not B", and "Not D". One thing for sure is there is no consensus here. Fyunck(click) (talk) 20:05, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

  I offered C for those wanting to leave it in the currently broken state, and E for other ideas; there were quite a few other ideas, but none actionable. What's actionable is "not C", that is, fix at least the worst of the over-capitalization. Dicklyon (talk) 22:03, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

  "broken state" is your own opinion that you keep inserting. For many it's not broken. Sure it could change, but that doesn't mean it's broken. Wikipedia makes changes all the time for reasons other than being broken. Right now there's no consensus for anything. Fyunck(click) (talk) 22:27, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

  "Broken" is just my shortcut for the inconsistencies, with guidelines, with other sports, and within tennis (mostly). These are what most agree should be fixed. Dicklyon (talk) 06:11, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

  Fyunck(click), if this RFC closes as no consensus for sports articles generally, an RM for tennis articles specifically will immediately be started, which is very likely to pass given the policy/guideline-based rationale for the recent Wimbledon close. All that arguing for "do nothing" achieves then is making the non-inclusion of non-tennis articles in that RM more likely, thereby making the situation more "unfair" by your own standards. Sod25k (talk) 07:47, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

  I can only do what I think is right. If by doing that, Wikipedia winds up treating tennis articles unfairly to every other article, then so be it. There's no way of knowing what will pass and what won't around here. I've been here so long and seen so many moves go against or for MOS, nothing surprises me anymore. And if things get moved then that's the way it is and I move on like I always do. But I won't change my values on what I feel is correct just because the outcome might not be what I like. If you feel you have to single out tennis articles only I will let other projects know that they will be next and to join in if they like. But you also have to do what you think is right. All is cool. Cheers. Fyunck(click) (talk) 09:16, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

  {{U|Fyunck(click), you have already done that for this RfC, using language that might be construed as canvassing. I would hope that you are more circumspect in the future. There is an inconsistency with tennis articles as a result of the recent RfC. If no resolution comes from this one to address that, there will need to be a tennis specific RfC to address that. Cinderella157 (talk) 09:35, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

  @Cinderella157: No chance of that and I absolutely blast your use of the term canvassing. You are wrong and you should say you're wrong. I said from the very start, before this was even an rfc, that if it could very well affect multiple projects now or in the future they should absolutely know about it. I didn't care which way they swung, just that they should know. If it gets done as piecemeal specifically to avoid others knowing about it until their project comes under the same scrutiny, then that is wrong. I will let projects know about an rfc... not individuals, not those who I know how they feel. I am really offended by your wording... and it takes a lot. Fyunck(click) (talk) 10:43, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

  Fyunck(click), no chance of what? It is perfectly acceptable to make notifications to projects in neutral terms. On 13 December, you made many notifications to projects in much the same format (for example). It is the neutrality of same that may be construed as canvassing- even if unintended. I have suggested you be more circumspect in the future. I will not redact that. Cinderella157 (talk) 11:27, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Where are we now, 31 December 2021

Background

• The premise of the RfC is capping after a dash in a dashed constructed title.
• There is now (following a recent RfC) an inconsistency in capping of tennis related articles using a dashed constriction.
• The discussion at the tennis project "insisted" that the matter be considered "site wide"
• Other policy issues have become evident in the course of the RfC.

Where are we now

• There is (and was probably never going to be) a clear outcome. It was not a binary decision in the first instance. The duty of the closer is therefore to guide and narrow further discussion and ultimately further RfCs. The various sections after the #Discussion, comments, !votes section are fairly clearly indicating this.

• There are P&G that directly go to the matters under discussion - WP:AT (multiple places), WP:NCCAPS, MOS:CAPS (including MOS:SENTENCECAPS), WP:IAR, WP:CONLEVEL

• It's not a headcount, but it is basically a matter of opinion, and if you don't want to count heads, then it has to be "no change" since opinions can't really have strength of argument. While most of the !votes are substantially just opinion, there are some that are based in P&G.

• After some discussion (above), it is confirmed that the dashed constructions being used are not WP:COMMONNAME. Though they may appear as headings in tables, they are not appearing in prose. Similarly, "mens' singles" (etc) may be capped in headings etc but is not consistently capped in prose.

• At this point, there are 25 !votes. Considering the primary !votes

• 6 are for either A or B
• none are for C
• 6 are for D
• 2 are "not D". Another 4 editors are expressly opposed to D.
• 7 are for E and state that this is to do nothing.
• 4 are for E and are to do something.

• Of those that would E-do nothing: 3 are saying that the matter should be determined at a project level (one that also !voted "not D" is also saying this); 1 is saying there should be no single rule; 1 has explicitly mentioned making the RfC on an event-by-event basis; 1 would say it's too hard and without benefit; 1 is basically saying there is no problem, let it be (with particular reference to tennis); and 1 is saying not to force conformity.

• The last of these is somewhat ironic, since the dashed construction has been applied across articles precisely for the sake of consistency.

• Of those that are E-do something: 2 are to "follow the sources"; 1 would prefer parenthetic disambiguation over the dash; and, 1 is saying to use consistent case but does not opine what this would be or why.

• While following the sources is always good advice, the discussion above is indicating that there is not a clear WP:COMMONNAME. However (also from the discussion above), we are not seeing dashed constructions in prose. What we do see, with some regularity is something like "Wimbledon mens' singles" in prose. It was observed that some articles differentiated by gender probably don't have sufficient coverage in sources to warrant their own articles.

• Of the 6 editors expressly opposed to D, they would all cite (directly or indirectly) examples of awkward long and unnecessarily over-precise titles. At least one example has been described herein as a word salad. Regardless of whichever titling option is applied, such titles should be improved.

• Such ungainly article titles appear to be prevalent in certain projects. Consequently, there would appear to be a good rationale for resolving the issues herein at project level rather than centrally (as in this RfC).

• It would be wrong to oppose D on the assumption that it would be applied blindly and result in the same "word salad".

• There are 6 !votes of D

• Arguably, D is most consistent with P&G.

• An example such as "2012 Wimbledon men's singles" can be easily parsed and applied to a template. Such a format can be consistently applied over similar events - eg "2012 French Open men's singles". An argument that it can't be applied consistently or parsed for usage in templates lacks validity.

• It has been argued that the six emphatic !votes against D effectively cancel out the 6 !votes in support of D.

• This ignores the strength of argument. The support for D is strongly and explicitly grounded in P&G. The opposition to D is largely based on ungainly titles that should be fixed in any case.

• There is no support for C.

• C is effectively the status quo. To effect, it applies title case to that which appears after the dash.

• Evidence of usage in prose is that things like "Wimbledon mens' singles" more often appear just like that. There is no evidence support for the proposition that "Mens' Singles" is consistently capped in sources and is therefore a proper noun phrase as determined by criteria at MOS:CAPS.

• There is no support for the status quo.

• Arguably, a close that simply determines "no consensus" here would therefore be wrong without indicating some way forward.

• There are 6 !votes for either A or B.

• Previous attempts to analyse the !votes would tend to reduce the outcome to a choice between A or B that would need to be resolved by further RfC. Such analyses have relied on considering second choices.

• Option A is for no assumed capitalisation after a dash (ie sentence case is applied across the article title and capitalisation is only applied to words that would normally be capitalised in prose). This option is consistent with P&G in respect to the issue of capitalisation.

• Option B would assume that what occurs after the dash is capitalised as if it were the start of a new sentence. This is specifically contrary to MOS:SENTENCECAPS. Those that "opine" support for B do not acknowledge the contradiction. The preference appears to be largely on aesthetics.

• Only one editor has acknowledged inherant P&G issues with the dashed format and would WP:IAR but acknowledge this is a personal opinion to prefer the dashed construction. The P&G issues with the dashed construction were only identified late in the discussion. Only 2 !votes have been added since the issue was identified.

Where to from here

1. As previously identified, the status quo (option C) is untenable as an outcome from this RfC. However, there is no clear alternative outcome from this particular RfC. The closer will consequently need to guide the direction forward.

2. Do we proceed forward with a new RfC trying to reach a central decision on the issue of capitalisation in a dashed construction - this being the initial premise of this RfC.

• It would appear that the issues across projects are not all equal (particularly with some of the titles that were identified in opposition to option D).

• Previous analysis would suggest moving forward centrally on the basis of a choice between A and B. The analysis did not consider weight. It primarily counted !votes.

3. Do we cease trying to resolve this centrally (ie revert to a more project specific approach).

• One editor appears to be strongly opposed to this.

• A number of editors that would "E-do nothing" would specifically leave it to be determined at project level. Whether they intended this particular course is moot. However, there is some specific support for such a course.

• Issues affecting different projects are not all equal. Proceeding on a project-by-project basis is more suited to dealing with varying issues.

• If there is no outcome here, an RfC at the tennis project has already been foreshadowed. This is because of an inconsistency in capitalisation that has been created by this recent RfC.

4. Given the number of articles that appear to use the dashed construction and that such a construction appears quite contrary to P&G, can we simply ignore that?

• Should we proceed with an RfC to resolve the matter - ie a proposal to amend WP:AT to be permissive of such a structure. This may require amendment at several points or one proposal that would make it permitted for sports type articles and similar - ie an event with multiple awards or titles being competed for.

• An outcome that specifically opposed such a proposition would render any further discussion about how to capitalise after the dash redundant.

Cinderella157 (talk) 06:13, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

Hi, Dicklyon, Cinderella157, Fyunck(click), Wjemather, Lee Vilenski, Amakuru, Ravenswing, Sod25k, Sportsfan77777, Joseph2302, Jayron32, GhostOfDanGurney, Iffy, GraemeLeggett, Mjquinn_id, GoodDay, SMcCandlish, Tony1, Montanabw, Kaffe42, BilledMammal, Herostratus, Thryduulf, SmokeyJoe, HawkAussie - you have contributed to this RfC by offering a !vote in the initial section. You may be interested in contributing to further discussion immediately below. Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 02:03, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

Please see this section (above) for an assessment/summary. Cinderella157 (talk) 02:33, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

Comments on where are we now, 31 December 2021

• The piece by piece method is what I would strongly object to. That had been mentioned in prior discussions as a way to avoid letting other projects know about huge changes until it was too late for many projects to stand up to change. Sure I would leave things be as no big deal, it isn't broken and there are actual important things that we should be putting effort into instead of changing countless thousands of article titles and the infoboxes that will need new coding and LUA-written navigation bars/templates also. If there was new strong consensus to change from longstanding consensus, then that would be that. I let most sports/entertainment projects know about this rfc not knowing any of their preferences, and they were all over the map here. Actually most prodigious Tennis Project editors did not voice an opinion one way or the other, even though the project was informed. I don't see this as against P&G as they allow flexibility in these matters as some have pointed out. This looks like a no-consensus to me but I'm not sure what the way forward is... a bit tired from the holidays to think properly. Happy New Years everyone and drive safely this New Years Eve night. Fyunck(click) (talk) 08:11, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

  I don't know what piece-by-piece method you're talking about. I propose to fix about 5000 titles per option B, or 50,000 per option A or D. Either way, that's a bigger chunk than I've ever seen fixed before. Are you saying we need to go even bigger, and that if we do maybe we can find enough opposition and so do nothing instead? Dicklyon (talk) 20:04, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

Fyunck(click), this RfC has been conducted centrally and broadly notified. If a close here would recommend further action on a project-wise basis, then the existing notifications stand to inform on this. Your concerns about a piece-by-piece approach have been addressed both now and into the future for any outcome of this RfC. Tennis is broken as a result of the recent RfC. The way things stand here, with no support for C, I can't see tennis not changing and all the things you mention are going to need to be done when it does. Avoiding work is not a compelling reason. I don't see anybody actually saying P&G "allow flexibility in these matters". One can WP:IAR but not on the basis of "I don't like it" or "I like this better". There needs to be good objective reasons. Policy tends to be quite firm and WP:AT is a policy. You might see WP:PG and WP:IARMEANS. If the dashed construction is such a good idea, one should be able to convince others to change the policy to permit it. Cinderella157 (talk) 00:25, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

I didnt say this wasn't done broadly. It has been. But piece by piece is unfair to all projects that this could affect. Policy does not preclude the dash, but to be honest I'm not sold the dash needs to be there even if it can be sourced, but there are plenty of things I will argue against my own feelings if I feel it's not in the best interest of or helpful to Wikipedia readers. I see this as frivolous. Tennis is not broken and Wikipedia is full of different opinions. We really disagree on that term. I simply see no consensus to change here. Fyunck(click) (talk) 20:48, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

I'm too old & too confused, as to what direction this RFC has taken. All I ask is that we use english in the titles. GoodDay (talk) 02:10, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

LOL... post of the day! Fyunck(click) (talk) 06:08, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

This is straight up false. All of the votes for E that are "to do nothing" are "to maintain the status quo". By your own count, it's the most favored option. Sportsfan77777 (talk) 03:26, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

Ya mean my IQ is higher, then I'm aware of? sounds good. GoodDay (talk) 05:28, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

Just noting to anyone reading this that Cinderella157 moved one of my comments to make it look like I was disagreeing with GoodDay, when I was in fact criticizing Cinderella157's distorted summary above. I moved my comment back to the correct place, and put a strikethrough where Cinderella157 moved my comment. Sportsfan77777 (talk) 07:36, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

Chinese characters in title

I came across Qui Con Me (Ni De Se Cai 你的色彩), it's gotta be wrong, right? Abductive (reasoning) 03:39, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

I moved it to Qui Con Me. - Station1 (talk) 04:02, 20 December 2021 (UTC)