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::I'm annoyed enough that you never bring anything but negativity to style discussions. But do I go around broadcasting it? Well, maybe today I do. [[User:Dicklyon|Dicklyon]] ([[User talk:Dicklyon|talk]]) 00:05, 12 March 2022 (UTC)
::I'm annoyed enough that you never bring anything but negativity to style discussions. But do I go around broadcasting it? Well, maybe today I do. [[User:Dicklyon|Dicklyon]] ([[User talk:Dicklyon|talk]]) 00:05, 12 March 2022 (UTC)
:::Take your foot off the lower-casing pedal for a while. Let somebody else take up that task. [[User:GoodDay|GoodDay]] ([[User talk:GoodDay|talk]]) 00:08, 12 March 2022 (UTC)
:::Take your foot off the lower-casing pedal for a while. Let somebody else take up that task. [[User:GoodDay|GoodDay]] ([[User talk:GoodDay|talk]]) 00:08, 12 March 2022 (UTC)
::Agree. "Vice president" and "Prime minister" looks idiotic. Or like something you would expect to see written by an 8-year-old with their phone's autocap setting turned on. [[Special:Contributions/2600:1702:4960:1DE0:4D69:F0F8:A0CA:5BC|2600:1702:4960:1DE0:4D69:F0F8:A0CA:5BC]] ([[User talk:2600:1702:4960:1DE0:4D69:F0F8:A0CA:5BC|talk]]) 19:22, 2 April 2022 (UTC)
:Per [[MOS:HEADINGS]], section headings are treated as normal sentences, using [[sentence case]], so in that example "century" would be lowercase. —''[[User:Facu-el Millo|El Millo]]'' ([[User talk:Facu-el Millo|talk]]) 19:52, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
:Per [[MOS:HEADINGS]], section headings are treated as normal sentences, using [[sentence case]], so in that example "century" would be lowercase. —''[[User:Facu-el Millo|El Millo]]'' ([[User talk:Facu-el Millo|talk]]) 19:52, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
::I know we use sentence case. But there are some contexts where a number doesn't count as the first word (e.g. in chemical names I know they have this convention). I haven't found anything else about this one way or the other. [[User:Dicklyon|Dicklyon]] ([[User talk:Dicklyon|talk]]) 00:05, 12 March 2022 (UTC)
::I know we use sentence case. But there are some contexts where a number doesn't count as the first word (e.g. in chemical names I know they have this convention). I haven't found anything else about this one way or the other. [[User:Dicklyon|Dicklyon]] ([[User talk:Dicklyon|talk]]) 00:05, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

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Capitalization discussions ongoing (keep at top of talk page)

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

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Concluded

Extended content

Capitalization of The

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

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

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

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

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

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

Consensus check

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

I support using the capitalised "The" for The Bahamas and The Gambia. We need to show respect to these countries and their people. 2001:8003:9008:1301:59F6:BF07:F678:CD17 (talk) 03:01, 25 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I certainly do not, not in mid-sentence. That's ridiculous, and it isn't something typically found in other publications. See news results [4], in which "The Bahamas" is almost only found in a) sentence-initial positions, and b) over-capitalized headlines that also use "In" and "Of" because their house style is to cap EVERY word in a headline. See Google Scholar results; same story [5]; "The Bahamas" in mid-sentence is almost unheard of in journals. See N-grams [6], in which "the Bahamas" overwhelmingly dominates when you do proper searches that rule out sentence-initial position. Lower-case dominates by orders of magnitude.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:48, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The Guardian, for one, does not seem to capitalize "The" in "the Gambia" in mid-sentence, or even in headlines (see here and here), although some other sources do. On Wikipedia, it is generally lowercased, I believe. Gambia is also often used without "the" in sources. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 23:53, 2 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
If you've ever actually read The Guardian and Observer style guide, you'd know that it's widely divergent from other style guides, even in journalism, on many points. "The Guardian does it" isn't a selling point, and certain cannot overturn the overwhelming evidence I provide of lower-case usage.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:03, 13 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
You may not have noticed exactly what I said. I said The Guardian does not use uppercase "The" in "the Gambia". —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 00:03, 8 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I did misread (but stand by what I said; The Guardian is rarely if ever relevant in style discussions on WP.  :-)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:25, 9 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Agree the guideline in the MOS seems to have consensus here, including the example that is violated in the article. Presently, the article caps "The" in "The Bahamas" even in contexts where it's referring to the islands, not the country, due to enthusiastic over-capitalizers. If we didn't have so many unneeded caps there, there would be less temptation to go off into the ridiculous this way. Let's fix. Dicklyon (talk) 16:57, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
A sudden capped "The" in mid-sentence is very disruptive. Tony (talk) 05:26, 19 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Recent change

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

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

Good revert. It's also untrue that the Bahamas leads to a redirect, so the change worsened the guideline in two ways. Firefangledfeathers (talk | contribs) 17:40, 27 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Use of initial caps in translations of place names

What guidance is there in Wikipedia (I have failed to find any but that's not to say it's not there!) as to the use of initial upper case letters for a descriptive translation of a place name? I might randomly use an example from Welsh; a watercourse by the name of of 'Nant y Llyn' - there are many but one such rises on the western slopes of Plynlimon in mid Wales. In standard fashion, this would translate as 'stream of the lake' though that collection of English words does not function as a place-name, simply an aid to understanding what the Welsh name is signifying for the English reader. I have always avoided writing the translation such that it appears to be a name ('Stream of the Lake' in this example) but others take a different view. I would not wish to see, indeed it is not appropriate, for Wikipedia to come up with English versions of names composed in other languages, if they are not already referenced though giving the reader an understanding of the place name elements is fine - they will often be referenced in toponymic dictionaries. Of course if the feature regularly appeared in books or on maps with an English name too, one would record that. Any existing guidance or else thoughts on the topic? thanks Geopersona (talk) 20:08, 8 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It should depend whether the English is used as a simple gloss (lower case) or a name (upper case), which will vary by individual name. For example: "Llyn y Fan Fach (literally, 'lake of the small hill') is a lake ..."; "Llyn Talyllychau Uchaf (or Upper Talley Lake) is a lake ..." / "Upper Talley Lake (Welsh: Llyn Talyllychau Uchaf) is a lake ..." Doremo (talk) 03:51, 9 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Of course if we can find reliable sources that discuss the subject in English, we should look at whether they treat a term as a proper name or not. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 07:25, 9 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Doremo - Ah, 'gloss', that's the term I was reaching for but failing to recall! Yes, we're all on the same page here. Geopersona (talk) 18:01, 9 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
In the case of Southeast Asia provinces and districts, we decided to stick with lowercase "province" and "district", for Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand at least, where sources use those descriptive translations and usually use lowercase. I agree with Doremo that it's a sort of gloss vs name question, and should be informed via sources. If sources show caps are optional, we default to lowercase. Dicklyon (talk) 05:05, 3 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Ultimately, it comes down to determining whether something like "province" or "district" is part of a particular name (proper noun phrase). English-language sources will likely vary for some of these because of uncertainty based on the source language: some languages (like German) will capitalize noun descriptors that are not part of a name (e.g., Wiener Gegend 'the Vienna area'), and some languages (like Slovene) will not capitalize noun descriptors that are part of a name (e.g., Julijska krajina 'the Julian March'), and this may be reflected correctly or incorrectly in sources translated into English. And, of course, for some source languages (Hebrew, Arabic, Chinese, etc.) capitalization is irrelevant. Doremo (talk) 06:15, 3 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Capitalization of Chinese place-names

I've started a discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/China-_and_Chinese-related_articles#Chinese_placenames regarding, well, Chinese placenames. One of the issues is capitalization. Please comment on that page regarding articles like Zhenxing District and Hedong Township, Dayu County. User:力 (powera, π, ν) 21:32, 21 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

That discussion petered out after 27 November, when I suggested downcasing district and such where used. We might need a more focused discussion on just that question (or an RM). But I'm still finishing up the Southeast Asia ones, so not ready to dive into that. Dicklyon (talk) 18:42, 12 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The Southeast Asia (Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand) provinces and districts have all been lowercased, per general consensus and typical source usage. Should we open up this China discussion again? Dicklyon (talk) 05:01, 3 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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

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

Wait, is this what changed? This edit completely changes the meaning of the MOS instruction. Completely changes it to the opposite meaning. Was there an RfC in the meantime? Edit summary says to read discussion, but doesn't link to it? I feel like the last time we discussed this, people were saying that the most recent RfC did NOT say this, and said that while there was no consensus for B/w, there was also no consensus against it, and that this could be handled at individual articles. This change to the MOS seems to indicate the opposite. —valereee (talk) 01:27, 6 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. I remember seeing that and not having the energy to discuss it at the time. The edit was made by @SMcCandlish:, who usually does smart things, but I don't remember there being a consensus supporting it. SchreiberBike | ⌨  03:39, 6 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
To be clear on the status quo: I reverted that change by SMcCandlish, then I tried something new, and then he removed the whole bit about 'inconsistent style'. I don't think the current version is all that bad, though I prefer what we had before that flurry of edits. Firefangledfeathers 04:00, 6 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I've got someone arguing that Ethno-racial "color labels" may be given capitalized (Black and White) or lower-case (black and white). means B/w is prohibited. Which is not what the RfC decided. There was no consensus against Black/white. I'm going to add that statement. —valereee (talk) 17:47, 6 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I wouldn't have anticipated that argument, which is why I was ok with removal. I approve of the recent addition.
Anyone else feel like the time is right for a new RfC? My thought is to propose capitalized Black as the guideline for all American English articles, and explicitly leave white/White out of it (though I'm sure everyone will bring it up). Firefangledfeathers 19:24, 6 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Firefangledfeathers, do we have evidence things have developed any further? I think we need to see multiple right-of-center RS going to whatever we're arguing. WSJ has already gone to Black. Christianity Today is certainly allowing it, but I don't know if they've added that to their MOS. Re: White/white, though...there still seems to be a lot more variance. I think we could do an RfC on preferring Black for US topics, certainly. I think we probably need to leave White/white to creator choice/consensus at article for now. And even Black may need to be considered through a lens of varieties of English. —valereee (talk) 19:45, 6 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The latter half of your comment I agree with fully, and is generally what I was proposing. For "developed any further", I am not sure, and it's a good question. Certainly, "significant time has passed". Firefangledfeathers 20:04, 6 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • I would have to re-read the close of the most recent RFC (a few months ago), but my recollection is that there was a narrow consensus for “be consistent within the article”… ie either both should be capitalized, or both should be uncapitalized, but not mixed. Blueboar (talk) 21:24, 6 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @Blueboar, the way it was interpreted IIRC was that it should be always Black (or black) within an article (exception for within quotes), and always White (or white), but that consistency issues didn't require Black/White or black/white but could allow for consensus at the article for Black/white. —valereee (talk) 21:40, 6 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    That's exactly the opposite of the conclusion. The most opposed option in the RfC was "Black but white".  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  09:01, 22 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    But there was no consensus against that usage, IIRC. I think it's just something that can be argued at an individual article. valereee (talk) 14:34, 22 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    There was absolutely a consensus against Black/white. Just read the RfC. Where consenus was unclear was whether it was okay to consistently use Black/White in an article, or always go with black/white. "That which is not forbidden is permissible" being a general rule of thumb for wikis, the default result is that Black/White and black/white are both acceptable.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:03, 22 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Sorry, where are you finding consensus against B/w? I see consensus for B/W and b/w. Just because B/w was the most opposed doesn't mean their was necessarily consensus against it. valereee (talk) 13:57, 23 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    You seem unclear on the concept.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:23, 29 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agreed with Blueboar and SMcCandlish. The RfC was clearly about the idea of capitalizing Black but not white, and this was rejected. There is no basis for a statement here that implies the opposite - that mixing the two is acceptable. Crossroads -talk- 05:59, 22 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Where are you seeing consensus against B/w? I don't see consensus for, but I don't see consensus against. valereee (talk) 13:58, 23 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    There was not a consensus against, per se, but there was no consensus in favour of the proposal. And when an MOS proposal fails to gain consensus in support of it, it seems out of process to add a statement in the guideline that says "There's no consensus against doing this." If that were the standard practice for every single policy or guideline proposal that resulted in no consensus - to add a note in the policy or guideline saying "There's no consensus against [such-and-such]" - what a hot mess our PAGs would be! lol. I think WP:FAIT might be a somewhat relevant descriptor of this kind of action... 2600:1702:4960:1DE0:9500:B796:F20:CB93 (talk) 01:36, 24 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

RfC on capitalization of buildings

There is an RfC going on on whether the names of two buildings, the South Houses and North Houses at Caltech, should be capitalized. The question is whether these names are proper nouns, and whether the amount of sources capitalizing them is a "substantial majority". Your comments and !votes are appreciated. Antony–22 (talk⁄contribs) 03:44, 15 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Pre-RfC discussion on capitalization in infoboxes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The first footnote in this guideline reads:

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

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

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

Who should we notify?

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

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

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

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

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

TBH, what you & the other fellow are proposing, might be too ambitious & potentially confusing. GoodDay (talk) 05:26, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
GoodDay, if you really cannot understand the concept of title case vs. sentence case, which is a distinction already made in the footnote in this guideline, despite numerous examples and explanation, then you may wish to sit out this RfC. ― Tartan357 Talk 05:29, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Are you going to use all those infobox visual examples in the proposed RFC? GoodDay (talk) 05:30, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@GoodDay: No, because it's an incredibly basic concept in English that I'm surprised I'd have to explain to anyone here (and it's phrased in terms the footnote already uses). I am trying very hard to include you, but we are here to debate a stylistic preference, and if you don't have a baseline understanding of English style, then it's going to be difficult for you to participate. ― Tartan357 Talk 05:43, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Best to have visual examples. If you won't supply them, then I will. GoodDay (talk) 05:49, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
​​Fine, we'll include a link to my examples. Are we all in agreement about where notifications will go (only to WT:MOS and Template talk:Infobox)? ― Tartan357 Talk 02:28, 31 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Sounds good to me. Thank you again for taking time to do some pre-RFC work. Firefangledfeathers 02:30, 31 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I appreciate you recommending it. It was the right call. We should wait for GoodDay to agree to the structure and notification before proceeding. GoodDay, you have my word that if this RfC is closed in favor of sentence case, I will not lowercase in any articles until a new consensus on MOS:JOBTITLE can be reached, per the closer's recommendation. This is now a two-part issue. ― Tartan357 Talk 02:34, 31 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The RFC should be linked to politics, as it involves political offices. GoodDay (talk) 06:48, 31 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Two things. Does it have to be the specific A,B, and C listed above? It seems lacking without choice C being to allow either depending on the specific WikiProject consensus. Why must it be one or the other? Why can't we be more flexible? Simply use choice D as other. And if many many wikiprojects are involved with using the template, sure they should all be notified but can't it be done by a bot? Agree on some neutral language of what is being proposed and have a bot plop it on every wikiproject talk page that uses the infobox. That way no one gets caught off guard by a change. Fyunck(click) (talk) 07:13, 31 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm fine with adding that option. As for your second point, are you aware that all infobox templates would be affected (you're using singular language)? I'm fine with using a bot to issue notifications if you're able to set that up. ― Tartan357 Talk 07:55, 31 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    If all templates will be affected then ALL projects should be notified. That would be a huge important RFC and we don't want to hide things and have folks say later they never knew about it. I'm not a bot person but there are quite a few around here. Fyunck(click) (talk) 09:13, 31 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Sounds good. ― Tartan357 Talk 10:02, 31 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • "allow either depending on the specific WikiProject consensus". No, that's not how it works or has ever worked. The reason we have a centralized style guide is to prevent wikiprojects inventing their own "rules", and the proximal cause of WP:CONLEVEL existing was that wikiprojects kept trying to make up their own "rules" and ArbCom repeatedly had to put a stop to it until we codified the result in policy.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:18, 22 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    The policy says that individual projects cannot override community consensus. If the community opted to allow flexibility, then that most certainly would be how it works! You seem to be arguing that that option cannot even be considered because it is prohibited by policy, but that policy says no such thing. Or you're begging the question (i.e., assuming the outcome of a community discussion before the discussion has taken place). 2600:1702:4960:1DE0:25D7:83BA:434:F008 (talk) 01:09, 31 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Capitalisation of moon and sun

Just noticed that MOS:CAPS advises that Moon and Sun should be capitalised, but that seems to run counter to common usage, at least in book sources. See an ngram where the lower-case version exceeds the proper name version by a substantial margin. The names of these two bodies are clearly treated differently from other celestial bodies such as Mars, Jupiter, Milky Way etc, and I'm curious as to why we have advice to capitalise them when the world at large does not, given that we in general only treat things as proper names when a substantial majority of sources capitalise? Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 23:23, 13 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The ngram doesn't distinguish context - whether we are talking about a bright shiny thing in the sky or as celestial body. Cinderella157 (talk) 00:05, 14 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
That's true, but it seems unlikely that these sources, when mentioning "the moon" and "the sun", are really so often not talking about the moon and the sun. Popcornfud (talk) 00:18, 14 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
One would need to look at a sample set or sets (say one or two particular years) and determine the context and capitalisation for each hit in that year. I had a brief look. Yes, there are those that discuss the celestial body, but others on religion, history and poetry, where it is more about the bright shiny thing. One also needs to realise that title case usages (ie in titles) are not distinguished from running text so that caps will tend to be over-represented. Cinderella157 (talk) 00:57, 14 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Two things I'm not understanding:
1: I could be way off, but I was under the impression that the argument for capping sun/moon came when distinguishing between the sun and moon and the moons and suns of other planets/solar systems/etc. In that sense, I'm not understanding the difference between "the celestial body" and "the bright shiny thing" here.
2: title case usages (ie in titles) are not distinguished from running text so that caps will tend to be over-represented. Wouldn't this be further evidence that the capped forms are not used as much? Popcornfud (talk) 01:49, 14 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Popcornfud, the distinction being made by the guidance is whether they are being referred to as the bright shiny things in the sky versus as a celestial body in an astronomical sense. To the second point, I am not opposing the op but making neutral observations. One such observation is that any proposed change to this section (there have been some over time) usually end in a shit fight. But go ahead, knock your socks off. Cinderella157 (talk) 02:12, 14 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Amakuru that in WP, sun, moon, universe, and solar system are generally over-capitalized, relative to outside usage and outside style guides. The attempt to say cap them only in astronomical context is very hard for people to even interpret. But, as C157 points out, we've been over this enough times to be wary of re-opening that can of worms. Dicklyon (talk) 05:11, 14 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This might be easier for folks to understand with examples of when to cap or not to cap, since this is very abstract and difficult to describe on its own... A. The sun was shining on the sea, Shining with all his might B. The star at the bed centre of our solar system, the Sun, is 93 million miles from the Earth. C. The moon was shining sulkily, Because, she thought, the sun... D. Neil Armstrong was the first man to step foot on the Moon. (Despite the personification of the sun and moon in those examples - when mentioning them as the discs in the sky = not capped. but objects in space = capped. 2D verses 3D is another way you can think of it. As seen by a human on Earth, in 2D, don't cap; as it actually exists in space, capped). 2600:1702:4960:1DE0:25D7:83BA:434:F008 (talk) 01:26, 31 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Capitals in hatnotes

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

Not to be confused with gasoline.

or

Not to be confused with Gasoline.

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

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

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

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

Caps in tooltips

Template:tooltip, and its relative Template:abbr, is sometimes used to make definitions hover above abbreviations on mouseover. Should those "meanings" that pop up be in Title Case, Sentence case, or lowercase? Or if various are OK, how might one decide which is best? Should MOS say something about it? For example, SR, SR, or SR. Dicklyon (talk) 04:27, 11 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see how these would be any different from any other case (uses in captions and table headings etc) to make it an exception to sentence case - so "Strike rate". However, the tool tip is a poor substitute for a table legend and MOS:ACRO1STUSE applies but IMHO it is still a poor choice. Cinderella157 (talk) 04:56, 11 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Of those it looks cleaner if they are the same case but all lower case could work. Fyunck(click) (talk) 07:53, 11 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
What do mean, "are the same case"? Are you arguing for Title Case? Dicklyon (talk) 16:45, 11 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
What I mean is that the tool tip should be "Win–Loss" or "win–loss". Not Win–loss which comes across as quite odd in charts or tips. Fyunck(click) (talk) 07:08, 13 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Several people have said that "Win–loss" looks odd to them, but it looks completely normal to me. SchreiberBike | ⌨  16:03, 13 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Looks pretty normal to me, too. Dicklyon (talk) 02:24, 14 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Yep. It would only "look odd" on a site that did not use sentence case for table headers.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:11, 22 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
What would seem to be common sense to me would be that the text under the tool tip should be capitalized the way the words would be if they were not abbreviated. So, if the text was not abbreviated, what words would be used and how would they be capitalized? Those words should be seen when mousing over the abbreviation. SchreiberBike | ⌨  04:25, 13 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
SchreiberBike, if we confine this to abbreviations, (see Wikipedia:Tooltips for other uses), are you saying that it should appear in "dictionary case" (ie the way it would be presented in a dictionary heading of say, the OED)? How then, do we handle the Template:Tooltip, where it is used to show a link in another section or article and the section is "naturally" in sentence case (eg KO) - noting that the hover function over links shows the article title in the case displayed in the target page? If you are advocating "dictionary case" then it goes against advice elsewhere that would advocate sentence case. Not arguing against you, but just saying that if it should be "dictionary case", then it should say so somewhere. Cinderella157 (talk) 05:08, 13 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Right, "the way the words would be if they were not abbreviated" in Wikipedia would rule out title case, but could still be sentence case or not. I guess "dictionary case" means not sentence case, though that's not a term I'm used to in WP. I agree it might be good to say somewhere. The examples at the tooltip doc are mostly "dictionary case", but not all. Dicklyon (talk) 05:12, 13 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Dicklyon, "dictionary case" is a term I coined for the discussion. A dictionary uses running headings for each word heading (ie, the word in bold text and the definition runs-on from that) word entries in a dictionary are in lowercase except if the word is normally capitalised (ie a proper noun). It is how a word would normally appear mid sentence. Sorry if that wasn't clear enough or still isn't. Cinderella157 (talk) 01:00, 14 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Cinderella157 and Dicklyon: I'll just give some examples.
Using the abbreviation in the middle of a sentence, I'd write:
This was measured at {{abbr|MSLP|mean sea level pressure}}.
giving:
This was measured at MSLP.
or using the tool tip at the beginning of the sentence write:
{{abbr|MSLP|Mean sea level pressure}} is the standard for measurement.
with the first letter capitalized.
giving:
MSLP is the standard for measurement.
The examples at Template:Tooltip and Template:Abbr of {{abbr|MSLP|Mean Sea Level Pressure}} seem wrong to me. I don't think we'd use title case unless it's a title of a work. The example above combining {{abbr}} with a link (KO) is new to me. When I mouseover that, I see the preview of Knockout. SchreiberBike | ⌨  05:33, 13 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

SchreiberBike, you are saying that the caps used are context related (where in a sentence the abbreviation occurs). We use the casing as if the abbreviation was replaced with the term in-full in that particular instance/context. That makes reasonable sense. The question has arisen from how it would appear when the abbreviation is used in a table (ie "SR" appears alone in a column heading). In such a context, wouldn't we normally apply sentence case and write it in-full as "Strike rate"? Cinderella157 (talk) 06:03, 13 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Cinderella157: Yep, that's what I was thinking. If there were room in the cell of the table, we'd write "Strike rate", but space is short so we abbreviate. Abbreviations are often capitalized, so we write "SR". With an {{abbr}} template, we'd write {{abbr|SR|Strike rate}} giving "SR". If there was a Wikipedia article (perhaps Strike rate (tennis)) about the meaning of strike rate in tennis, on first use, we might link in the form SR. SchreiberBike | ⌨  06:12, 13 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
SchreiberBike, for the specific case, we are playing from the same page. If we are going with a context related capping generally, then it should probably be recorded somewhere? Perhaps a mod to MOS:CAPS under abbreviations? Cinderella157 (talk) 06:29, 13 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Cinderella157 and Dicklyon: I don't see an obvious place to shoehorn it into MOS:CAPS, but it might fit at Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Abbreviations. The {{abbr}} template and mouseovers are mentioned there. I'd suggest working out a proposed text in a sandbox, then proposing it at the MOS:ABBR. How does that sound? SchreiberBike | ⌨  16:31, 13 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
t would probably naturally fit at Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Capital letters#Expanded forms of abbreviations. Thoughts on this? Cinderella157 (talk) 01:05, 14 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
That's under Acronyms, but the heading could change to Acronyms and abbreviations. It does say "Do not apply initial capitals in a full term that is a common-noun phrase, just because capitals are used in its abbreviation" and we could add something about the {{abbr}} template with similar language.
Maybe we could change the above to something like:

In regular text or in a {{abbr}} template, do not apply capitals to a common noun just because capitals are used in the abbreviation.

There's some thoughts.  SchreiberBike | ⌨  01:58, 14 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Tooltips (per MOS:ACRO1STUSE) are generally limited to tables and like with limited space. See also MOS:NOTOOLTIPS. Consequently, I was thinking a little differently. Will get back with something. Cinderella157 (talk) 02:42, 14 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

SchreiberBike,Dicklyon: Please see proposal (actually a choice of 2) at User:Cinderella157/sandbox 7 the only change I am proposing is after the "Add" otherwise the preceding text is unaltered ATM. I must admit that on some further thought, I am warming to what is essentially a "dictionary case" option (ie the first of my options) but I can live with either. Cinderella157 (talk) 05:39, 14 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Those seem like plausible options. Certainly not title case. Dicklyon (talk) 02:48, 15 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

SchreiberBike,Dicklyon: Amended MOS:CAPS (IAW the first option), adding the following text: In cases such as table headings and infoboxes with limited space, the abbreviation template may be used to provide a mouse-over tooltip to expand the term. Capitalize the expanded form as if it were in parentheses following the abbreviation. This will mean some overcapping to fix. Cinderella157 (talk) 09:58, 22 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

That will mean a lot of overcapping to fix. Most tooltips I've seen are sentence case. We should get more input on whether people are comfortable moving that way. Dicklyon (talk) 15:25, 22 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I asked tennis folk at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tennis#Possible way forward. Dicklyon (talk) 15:32, 22 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I find these 22 templates that have tooltip text starting with a capital letter (each needs to be looked at carefully, as some of these will be proper names or complete sentences). I'll go through and fix if there's consensus to go this way (and there will also be a few thousand articles, which I can start on if people want). Dicklyon (talk) 15:56, 22 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

If there is a separate legend (as there is in many/most cases) then the tooltip is redundant and probably should be removed in any case. See Template:Performance key as an example, which is actually a legend itself. Looked at a couple of the templates above and they could (and should) be edited to remove the tooltip. SchreiberBike's proposal (option 2 in my sandbox) is just a bit too complicated I think. Cinderella157 (talk) 00:50, 23 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Ignore my list above, since Template:Performance key is not in it. I'll have to re-do the search better to include Template:abbr. Dicklyon (talk) 01:29, 23 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Here is a test edit. Dicklyon (talk) 01:29, 23 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
And here is a test edit in sports (volleyball). Someone should look at these and say whether they agree that dictionary case is better than sentence case or not. Dicklyon (talk) 01:42, 23 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
One more test edit. I'll undo them for now. Dicklyon (talk) 01:51, 23 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The funny vollyball term is a common noun - I followed the link. Cinderella157 (talk) 02:48, 24 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed, I also had to look up "Libero" to see if it was a name or something. Dicklyon (talk) 03:26, 24 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
And a dozen more test edits, mostly in sports that mention singles, doubles, or tennis, can be found in my contribs with edit summary test edit for tooltip lowercasing; do we want this? (via WP:JWB). Please review. This is going to be very hard to automate reliably due to the many proper names and variety of notations; maybe one small domain at a time. If the tennis project decides they prefer lowercase to sentence case tooltips, I've volunteered to implement that for them, but I don't think I'd try to go much further. There are many thousands of articles with potential changes. Dicklyon (talk) 17:41, 23 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I can live with either sentence case or dictionary case but title case is right out and SchreiberBike's proposal, while not unsound is probably too complicated. I understand that title case is attractive because it is probably easier to retro impliment. There are rational cases to be made for both sentence case and dictionary case. The tooltip is just like a caption and therefore we would use sentence case; or, the tooltip is functioning just like the patenthetic expansion of the full term that we would use in prose therefore we use dictionary case. It is a case of settling on which case. Cinderella157 (talk) 02:57, 24 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I can live with either, too, and am not really that keen to settle the question, since the work to implement it would appear to be very complicated and labor intensive (not subject to much automatic help). Within a limited area (e.g. tennis) it's not too hard, because there are a fixed finite set of things other than names to fix. I've volunteered to do it whichever way the tennis project prefers, if they ever get around to deciding. See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tennis#Possible way forward. Three options really: 1. leave sentence case; 2. change to dictionary case; 3. remove tooltips. Nobody there wants title case, except for Win–Loss; the Strike Rate thing was a red herring, since the editor who reverted my fix to sentence case says they think title case is wrong, and sentence case is wrong, too, and just want to decide between dictionary case and no tooltip; but mostly the project uses sentence case. Dicklyon (talk) 03:26, 24 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I've been away from a regular internet access for a while. I think best would be sentence case or dictionary case depending on whether the words being abbreviated start with a capital letter or not, but that would be difficult to implement with any automation. Alternatively, a reasonable case can be made for either dictionary case or sentence case. I'd chose dictionary case because Wikipedia avoids unnecessary capitalization (option 1 at User:Cinderella157/sandbox 7) but sentence case would be ok too.
This will also require changing the heading from ==Acronyms== to ==Acronyms and abbreviations==. And Template:Abbr/doc will need to be updated. SchreiberBike | ⌨  03:36, 28 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Checking where the consensus lies? There is a clear consensus against title case. Cinderella157 and Dicklyon would support either sentence case or dictionary case (as explained above) with no particular preference for either. SchreiberBike would express a slight preference for dictionary case over sentence case per avoiding unnecessary caps. A reasonable case can be made for either choice within the guidance provide by WP:MOS. SMcCandlish and Fyunck(click) do you have any preference and rational to support a preference? Cinderella157 (talk) 04:09, 28 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I think I had stated it before. In a tool tip, "win–loss" works just fine... although as others have stated, if there is a key that explains things I would dump the tool tip altogether. Fyunck(click) (talk) 06:04, 28 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. "Win–loss" also works just fine, but some editors want to avoid the case mismatch between parallel terms, so we won't go there (in tennis, at least). On table headings, however, which are supposed to be in sentence case, it's unavoidable. The original question motivated by the revert of "Strike rate" to "Strike Rate" was a bit of a red herring, probably more about that "Win–loss" issue, since the same editor agreed that title case was not right. In tennis, it looks like we'll just get rid of tooltips, so don't have to answer this question uniformly. At this point, I don't see a need for a style preference between sentence case and dictionary case, but consistency within articles, or consistency with context, would still be a good thing. I still have a few test edits to revert, where I changed to dictionary case, and I'll see if there's any title case in there. Dicklyon (talk) 14:31, 28 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Based on my sampling (see below), if I was to pick one it would definitely be sentence case; that would make it much easier to move toward consistency. Dicklyon (talk) 15:53, 28 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Use sentence case like we do with everything else. KISS. There is nothing magically special about tooltips or the string "win/loss". The purpose of MoS is ensuring consistency and avoiding strife, not engaging in strife over nothing nor making up random pointless exceptions to consistency, out of nowhere.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:05, 29 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

In the spirit of arriving at a consensus and because, as DL reports, sentence case would appear to be the most consistent use. I am prepared to support sentence case. Cinderella157 (talk) 04:51, 29 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Go sentence case! I don't care that much, but I'm willing to pretend to be enthusiastic in order to move forward. Done is beautiful. SchreiberBike | ⌨  05:05, 29 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
That does seem to be the emerging consensus (and common practice). I notified Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine in case they care, since a couple of their templates showed up in the ones I found using dictionary case. Dicklyon (talk) 02:42, 31 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Current tooltip capping practice

What's "out there" currently is mixed, but mostly sentence case and some inconsistent mixtures. Here's a sample from Template space (not necessarily unbiased); except for the sentence case ones, they mostly came from the test edits I reverted, mostly back to sentence case; I got no preferences expressed on any of the test edits:

Title Case:

Mixed mess; mostly capping letters used in the abbreviations, but some others, too. (e.g. "Abbr|PF|Points For (Total points scored)"):

Sentence case; these are most common:

Dictionary case, relatively rare:

and quite a few with one or two dictionary case abbr tips among others sentence case:

Dicklyon (talk) 15:48, 28 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Caps in headers that start with numbers

I can't find whether there's a guideline about titles and headings that start with numbers, as to whether to cap the first non-number word. E.g. in a heading like ==19th Century==, so we cap century, or use ==19th century== like in sentences? Dicklyon (talk) 18:14, 11 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'm annoyed enough, that we use "Vice president" & "Prime minister" etc, as section/sub-section headings. GoodDay (talk) 19:17, 11 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I'm annoyed enough that you never bring anything but negativity to style discussions. But do I go around broadcasting it? Well, maybe today I do. Dicklyon (talk) 00:05, 12 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Take your foot off the lower-casing pedal for a while. Let somebody else take up that task. GoodDay (talk) 00:08, 12 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Agree. "Vice president" and "Prime minister" looks idiotic. Or like something you would expect to see written by an 8-year-old with their phone's autocap setting turned on. 2600:1702:4960:1DE0:4D69:F0F8:A0CA:5BC (talk) 19:22, 2 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Per MOS:HEADINGS, section headings are treated as normal sentences, using sentence case, so in that example "century" would be lowercase. —El Millo (talk) 19:52, 11 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I know we use sentence case. But there are some contexts where a number doesn't count as the first word (e.g. in chemical names I know they have this convention). I haven't found anything else about this one way or the other. Dicklyon (talk) 00:05, 12 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
But there are some contexts where a number doesn't count as the first word — Please link and/or quote the specific MOS guideline(s) that lists, describes or mentions these contexts, so that we can see if there's anything that could be interpreted as including xxth century. Mitch Ames (talk) 02:19, 12 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I can't find such a thing (other than for chemical names at Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(chemistry)#Capitalization_of_elements_and_compounds). That's why I came here to ask if anyone knows whether we have such a thing (see how I started above with "I can't find whether..."). I was set to downcase Century in some headings, but had this feeling that I ought to ask first, somehow. Dicklyon (talk) 04:33, 12 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Even Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(chemistry)#Capitalization_of_elements_and_compounds doesn't say or imply that "a number doesn't count as the first word" - it says the symbol is always capitalised, independently of its position in a sentence (including the case where it follows a number because it's an isotope, eg "14C"). Mitch Ames (talk) 05:53, 12 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Also "we use 2-Aminoethanol at the start of a sentence and 2-aminoethanol if not at the start of a sentence". Dicklyon (talk) 07:18, 12 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
That seems odd to me but I guess I'm unfamiliar with the conventions of chemistry. The mathematics articles that I'm familiar with follow the convention that even for compound words starting with a digit, capitalization is a no-op because it's the digit that would change case and that makes no visible difference. (One could I suppose use a combination of text figures and upright figures but I've never seen that.) For instance, 1-planar graph has sentences beginning "1-planar", not "1-Planar", and the same is true for the references I can find that have that phrase at the start of a sentence. —David Eppstein (talk) 08:37, 12 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
It seemed odd to me when I first tripped over it, too. Apparently I can expect to not see such in other fields or contexts. Dicklyon (talk) 15:57, 12 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
For matters on chemistry, we tend to defer to the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry in much the way we tend to defer to the The International System of Units wrt metric measure and units. Might be an oddity and an acknowledged exception to the more general "rule" but it is what it is. Cinderella157 (talk) 00:27, 13 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Do not capitalize the first non-number word. There's no style guide on earth that recommends doing that. But we should avoid starting sentences with numerals, lowercase letters, symbols, and anything else other than a capital letter when practical to do so, because it's unclear to the reader that a new sentence has started and it looks like some kind of error. Never make the reader read twice and scratch their head if it can be avoided.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:06, 22 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Capitalization of the terms 'Neoplatonic', 'Neoplatonism', 'Neoplatonist' and 'Neopythagorean'.

Hi,


DON'T WORRY ABOUT THIS POST, I NOW LIKE THE LOWERCASE LOOK.


It's so different from scholarship and makes the text easier to read.


I am not sure if I can delete this post so I have included the above note so people don't have to spend any time on this topic.


Could we please capitalize the terms 'Neoplatonic', 'Neoplatonism', 'Neoplatonist' and 'Neopythagorean'.

This conforms to 20th and 21st century authoritative scholarship.

For capitalization of the terms 'Neoplatonic', 'Neoplatonism', 'Neoplatonist', see the authoritative scholarship:


NOTE: IN ALL THE TEXTS BELOW, IN THE BODY OF THE TEXT, WITHOUT EXCEPTION, ALWAYS CAPITALIZES EVERY INSTANCE OF THE TERMS 'Neoplatonic', 'Neoplatonism' AND 'Neoplatonist'


  • Nikulin 2019 Neoplatonism In Late Antiquity,
  • Mariev 2017 Byzantine Perspectives on Neoplatonism,
  • Remes & Slaveva-Griffin 2014 The Routledge Handbook of Neoplatonism,
  • Remes 2008 Neoplatonism,
  • Dillon & Gerson 2004 Neoplatonic Philosophy. Introductory Readings,
  • Lloyd 1998 1990 The Anatomy of Neoplatonism
  • Gersh 1986 Middle Platonism and Neoplatonism the Latin Tradition Vols. 1 & 2;
  • Gerson 2004 What is Platonism,
  • Sorabji 2005 The Philosophy of the Commentators 200-600 AD,
  • Harrington 2004 Sacred Place in Early Medieval Neoplatonism,
  • Harris 1981 Neoplatonism and Indian Thought,
  • Mariev 2017 Byzantine Perspectives on Neoplatonism
  • Merlan 1968 [1953] From Platonism To Neoplatonism
  • Wallis 1992 Neoplatonism and Gnosticism
  • Ahbel-Rappe 2010 Damascius’ Problems and Solutions Concerning First Principles
  • MacKenna 1956 Plotinus The Enneads
  • O’Neill 1971 Proclus Alcibiades I
  • Baltzly 2007, 2009 and 2013 Proclus Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus Vols. 3, 4 and 5
  • Calma 2020 Reading Proclus and the Book of Causes Vol. 2


For capitalization of the term 'Neopythagorean', see the running, or body-text in the authoritative scholarship:


  • Remes & Slaveva-Griffin 2014 The Routledge Handbook of Neoplatonism,
  • Remes 2008 Neoplatonism,
  • Gersh 1986 Middle Platonism and Neoplatonism the Latin Tradition Vols. 1 & 2,
  • Jackson Lycos & Tarrant 1998 Olympiodorus Commentary on Plato’s Gorgias,
  • Tarrant 2007 Proclus Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus Vol. 1,
  • Morrow 1992 1970 Proclus A Commentary on the First Book of Euclid's Elements,
  • Runia & Share 2008 Proclus Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus Vol. 2,
  • d’Hoine & Martijn 2017 All from One, A Guide To Proclus


And others.


Regards

Daryl Prasad

Darylprasad (talk) 20:18, 1 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]


    • Daryl, the examples you give are all titles of books and scholarly papers - which are written in “Title Case” (where nearly every word is capitalized). WP, however, uses “Sentence case” (where most words are not capitalized). So… could you give us some examples of how the terms you are concerned about are written in running text (ie how would they be capitalized within a normal sentence?) Blueboar (talk) 20:56, 1 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      Hi Blueboar,
      Here are six examples you requested of the capitalized terms 'Neoplatonic', 'Neoplatonism', and 'Neoplatonist' in body text, or running text. I have a further 7821 examples in 181 books of authoritative scholarship in Art, Literature, History and Philosophy in my digital library:
      "...which plays a prominent role in Neoplatonism." Nikulin 2019 Neoplatonism In Late Antiquity p. 7
      "...who transposed Neoplatonic teachings into a Christian context." Mariev 2017 Byzantine Perspectives on Neoplatonism p. 2
      "...could bring you to the pagan Neoplatonist ideal of mystical union..." Remes & Slaveva-Griffin 2014 The Routledge Handbook of Neoplatonism p. 38
      "...contemporary physics, Neoplatonism treats matter as inert and without any properties of its own," Remes 2008 Neoplatonism p. viii
      "...several features of the Neoplatonic approach to Plato." Dillon & Gerson 2004 Neoplatonic Philosophy. Introductory Readings p. xv
      "...was not repeated by any Neoplatonist known to us on this subject." Lloyd 1998 1990 The Anatomy of Neoplatonism p. 23
      Regards
      Daryl Prasad
      Darylprasad (talk) 23:46, 1 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The terms platonic, platonist, platonism, aristotelianism, stoicism, stoic, peripatetic, middle platonism, gnostic and gnosticim

Hi


Currently I am working on the article 'Neoplatonism' and according to:


Wikipedia:manual of Style/capital Letters:


"Names of ORGANIZED RELIGIONS (as well as OFFICIALLY RECOGNIZED sects), whether as a noun or an adjective, and their adherents start with a capital letter.


This means that the terms:


platonic, platonist, platonism, aristotelianism, stoicism, stoic, peripatetic, middle platonism, gnostic, gnosticim, neoplatonic, neoplatonism, neoplatonist and neopythagorean


and the like and all other non-organized religions and non-officially recognized sects all have to be in lower-case.


This post is not a question, it is alerting editors to the Wikipedia Style-Guide rules I am following.


It took me a while to get used to it, but now I kind of like it. Seriously. It's so different from scholarship and makes it easier to read the text.


You can ignore my previous post requesting to capitalize the words neoplatonic, neoplatonism, neoplatonist and neopythagorean.


Have a lovely day.


Thanks

Daryl Prasad

Darylprasad (talk) 16:51, 2 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Darylprasad: Have you read the last paragraph of MOS:ISMCAPS, which says, "Doctrines, ideologies, philosophies, theologies, theories, movements, methods, processes, systems or 'schools' of thought and practice, and fields of academic study or professional practice are not capitalized, unless the name derives from a proper name" (my emphasis), and "Nevertheless, watch for idiom, especially a usage that has become disconnected from the original doctrinal/systemic referent and is often lower-cased in sources (in which case, do not capitalize): Platonic idealism but a platonic relationship"? Words like Platonism and Aristotelianism are derived from proper names and should be capitalized. Also Stoic in the philosophical sense is conventionally capitalized to distinguish it from stoic in the general "impassive" sense. Please don't go around changing capitalization in articles unless you are sure that what you're doing is in accordance with the Manual of Style. Deor (talk) 17:23, 2 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Hi
Thanks for that
I am learning the intricacies of the style guide.
Regards
Daryl Prasad Darylprasad (talk) 17:45, 2 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
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