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*::::::Oh, yeah, apologies, I think it's everyone else. [[User:Conyo14|Conyo14]] ([[User talk:Conyo14|talk]]) 22:01, 5 October 2023 (UTC)
*::::::Oh, yeah, apologies, I think it's everyone else. [[User:Conyo14|Conyo14]] ([[User talk:Conyo14|talk]]) 22:01, 5 October 2023 (UTC)
*'''Support''' for the capitalisation after dash as it is followed everywhere. The small caps thing is wholly unnecessary. Also I think this rfc should have it's own page because the discussion has gotten too long. <span style="border-radius:3em;padding:0 2px;background:#bdb2ff;border:2px solid #00b7eb">[[User:Zoglophie|<b style="color:#fffdd0">zoglophie</b>]]</span>[[User talk:Zoglophie|<sup style="color:#1167b1">•talk•</sup>]] 17:10, 12 October 2023 (UTC)
*'''Support''' for the capitalisation after dash as it is followed everywhere. The small caps thing is wholly unnecessary. Also I think this rfc should have it's own page because the discussion has gotten too long. <span style="border-radius:3em;padding:0 2px;background:#bdb2ff;border:2px solid #00b7eb">[[User:Zoglophie|<b style="color:#fffdd0">zoglophie</b>]]</span>[[User talk:Zoglophie|<sup style="color:#1167b1">•talk•</sup>]] 17:10, 12 October 2023 (UTC)
*'''Oppose''' the actual advice for colons says, "When what follows the colon is also a complete sentence, start it with a capital letter, but otherwise, do not capitalize after a colon <i>except where doing so is needed for another reason</i>," which suggests to me that "another reason" can be almost anything you want. which means that if you think the next letter needs to be, or should be, a capital, then do that. but if you don't, then don't. the rule as currently written permits intelligent choice. the proposal, as written, says, "be amended to allow for the first letter after a colon or en dash in an article title, section heading, or list item to be capitalized," and you can currently do that. the current guidelines actually permit that. and there is therefore no need to change anything. unless, what I think the proposer is actually suggesting is that instead of being permitted to do this, it should be mandatory. and that I think is a ridiculous suggestion, which I would oppose. '''<span style="font-family:times new roman;">[[User:Cottonshirt|<span style="background:DarkRed;color:#fff;padding:0 4px">Cottonshirt</span>]][[User talk:Cottonshirt|<span style="background:Crimson;padding:0 4px;color:#fff;">τ</span>]]</span>''' 07:06, 14 October 2023 (UTC)


== Men's Double Sculls ==
== Men's Double Sculls ==

Revision as of 07:06, 14 October 2023

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Capitalization discussions ongoing (keep at top of talk page)

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

Current

(newest on top)

Concluded

Extended content
2022
2021

Amendment of guideline for capitalizing foreign personal names

The current text reads (MOS:PERSONAL):

Personal names are the names given to people, but can be used as well for some animals (like race horses) and natural or man-made inanimate objects (like ships and geological formations). As proper nouns, these names are almost always first-letter capitalized. An exception is made when the lowercase variant has received regular and established use in reliable independent sources. In these cases, the name is still capitalized when at the beginning of a sentence, per the normal rules of English. Minor elements in certain names are not capitalized, but this can vary by individual: Marie van Zandt, John Van Zandt. Use the style that dominates for that person in reliable sources; for a living subject, prefer the spelling consistently used in the subject's own publications.

I propose to amend this as follows:

Personal names are the names given to people, but can be used as well for some animals (like race horses) and natural or man-made inanimate objects (like ships and geological formations). As proper nouns, these names are almost always first-letter capitalized, especially at the beginning of a sentence. Exceptions may occur for foreign surnames. Following the advice of the Chicago Manual of Style (Cf. The Chicago Manual of Style (15th ed.). U. of Chicago Press. 2003. pp. 313–17.) the national conventions on capitalization should be followed. Information on these conventions may be gleaned from a number of Wikipedia articles mentioned in Surnames by country, like Dutch name (Flemish name redirects to this), French name, German name, Italian name, Portuguese name, and Spanish name (some of these titles redirect). The conventions may be somewhat confusing to the Anglophone mind. There are particular difficulties with names that contain (separable) family-name affixes. Examples of these are given in List of family name affixes. The technical term family-name affix is not universal. The Dutch use tussenvoegsel; the French and Spanish use a translation of the term Grammatical particle though this term actually refers to a different concept. However this may be, these articles may further elucidate the subject and therefore be useful for a correct application of the conventions. The U.S. as a nation of immigrants, presents a special problem as these immigrants often flouted the capitalization conventions of their countries of extraction. Nevertheless, in this case the American practice should be followed. Example Martin Van Buren (instead of Martin van Buren, according to the Dutch convention), DePaepe (instead of De Paepe), Mrs. Vanmeer (instead of Mrs. Van Meer). Finally, be mindful of the conventions on Maiden and married names for women."

This proposed text could be made more concise by relegating details like the examples, the reference to WP:ABOUTSELF, and the exception referred to in "almost always" ("apostrophed" contractions like d' (French) and 't (Dutch)) to footnotes.

Motivation: This proposal is the result of a discussion in Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Anthroponymy#Capitalising_or_omitting_words_in_Dutch_surnames. To recapitulate the main points in that discussion: The current text of the guideline undoubtedly already intends to promote the observance of capitalization conventions, as used in the countries of origin of the bearers of foreign personal names. Unfortunately, such conventions are very often honored in the breach by unsuspecting Anglophone Wikipedia contributors. It was suggested that this resulted from lack of information about the conventions, and the substitution of "good-faith" guesses by the authors. As an illustration I'd like to use the "Dutch case". The paradigm of a Dutch surname is: "Zero or more (separable) family-name affixes, followed by one or more nouns (possibly intermingled with more affixes)". The "main rule" is that the first affix (if present) is capitalized (but none of the other affixes), as are all following nouns. Example: Van der Duyn van Maasdam. There are four exceptions to this rule: the first affix is not capitalized if the surname is preceded by one or more given names, one or more initials, a title of nobility (but not predicates of nobility, like Jonkheer/vrouwe), or another family name (mainly in married names of Dutch women). (Cf. "Persoonsnamen". woordenlijst.org (in Dutch). Nederlandse Taalunie. Retrieved 12 February 2023.; the guidelines for Dutch language issues and the contents of this useful website are at "Inhoudsopgave". woordenlijst.org (in Dutch). Nederlandse Taalunie. Retrieved 19 February 2023. Tip for almost everybody but Dutch speakers: Google Chrome has a new feature that makes translating webpages from Dutch into English a cinch.) Examples: Frans Adam Jules Armand (F.A.J.A) van der Duyn van Maasdam, general Herman baron van Voorst tot Voorst , Jonkvrouwe Ella Quarles van Ufford-van Heemstra Unfortunately this exception is in many Wikipedia articles apparently taken for the rule as stand-alone Dutch surnames with affixes are used without capitalization. Randomly selected examples: "van Leeuwenhoek" instead of "Van Leeuwenhoek" and "de Zuylestein" instead of "De Zuylestein". It should be admitted that a distinguished historian like Simon Schama (who we certainly recognize as an otherwise "reliable source") makes the same mistake consistently in his "Patriots and Liberators" for instance, but this is of course no justification, as the mistake is easily avoided if one just takes care to obtain the relevant information. The amended version of the guideline may help with this. We have tried to generalize this beyond just the "Dutch case" to other languages, as the problem may also exist for surnames existing in those languages (where the capitalization conventions differ, even between Belgium/Flanders and the Netherlands which share the same language). The U.S. is a special case, as this country has many immigrants of foreign descent, who routinely flout the capitalization conventions from their country of extraction. Of course, in this case the "American" capitalization should not be corrected with the country-of-origin capitalization conventions in hand. The "own preference" guideline should prevail here.

About the technical term "separable family-name affix": I would love to provide a wikilink, but the term currently is redirected to Separable verb and that article does not contain information on "separable affixes", even though the principle is the same. Maybe somebody could put in an edit? To prove I didn't invent the term myself, Wiktionary has an entry. See separable affix.

It was only briefly touched upon in the above-mentioned discussion, but a (sneaky) way out of the conundrum would be to simply omit the affixes in an abbreviated version of the surname. Simon Schama uses this policy to good effect in Rembrandt's Eyes (1999), where he uses only the nouns in the surnames of a long list of painters with van der in their surname (after first properly introducing the full personal name), as enumerated (incorrectly capitalized) under the letter "V" in the index of the book. There is no objection in itself to such a policy, but only if it is not used to shirk one's responsibility for proper capitalization. In fact, the policy is widely used in the literature in biographical articles and historical vignettes. Examples: Orange, Oldenbarnevelt and Zuylestein. But one should be circumspect: Gerard Reve preferred it, but his brother Karel not so much. And in some cases, for reasons that remain nebulous to me, except that it is "not done", it is an actual "taboo": Vincent van Gogh is never called simply "Gogh", and Johan de Witt never "Witt. With this in mind I propose (on my own responsibility) the following addendum to the above amendment (possibly as another footnote)

There is no objection to dropping the affixes in the mention of a surname in a text for reasons of brevity, provided there is little cause to fear confusion (a wikilink could be used to refer to the correctly spelled and capitalized personal name) and if there are no objections otherwise.

Ereunetes (talk) 22:14, 12 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

TLDR. Which is not a quality one desires in a manual of style. Aim for greater concision. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:00, 19 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Did you mean TL;DR? I think reading it is the least one could ask. Anyway, I proposed to relegate an appreciable part (TBD) of my proposed text (that is the text in the "talk quote blocks", not my explanation of it) to footnotes. That should make it much more concise. Oh, but you didn't read that. Ereunetes (talk) 23:40, 19 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
For anybody interested in using the new Translate feature in Google Chrome: make sure you have the latest update of the browser. When you encounter a web page in a foreign language, not the same as your default language, highlight a section in the text (in my experience it need not be the entire page) and right-click it (not necessarily on the highlighted section; in my own experience it works best if one right-clicks just outside of the highlighted section). A dropdown menu will appear. Select "Translate to [default language]".The original text will almost instantly be replaced by a translation into your default language. There will be a box enabling you to toggle between the original language and your default language.--Ereunetes (talk) 02:00, 20 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Of course there's an objection to dropping affixes just for brevity. You might use a famous "stage name", but one does not mangle names. Placing Dutch names in alphabetic order goes as follows: Reve; Reve, van het. Gerard van het Reve shortened his name as a stage name, which was made official in later years. It took a Royal Decree to leave out the "van het". Kees van Kooten and Wim de Bie mocked it by calling themselves "Koot & Bie" one television season. De Witt would never be a good option, because it would be confusing as both Johan and his brother Cornelis had fame at the same time. In a text about one of the brothers, you could use De Witt. You only get rid of the "De" if it is official, like Katarina Witt. Emmarade (talk) 18:10, 3 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I feel your pain. I am no big fan of dropping the prefixes like "van" and "de" myself. But when I have to choose between having an undercase "van" and no "van" at all, I opt for the latter. As I wrote in a post elsewhere in this discussion, Simon Schama dropped all prefixes (after he first introduced the full name of the painter) of Dutch painters he treated in Rembrandt's Eyes. That is one approach. Alfred Thayer Mahan consistently calls Michiel de Ruyter "Ruiter" in his The Influence of Sea Power upon History, even though he was a great fan of De Ruyter. So what can one do besides gnash one's teeth? But the recommendation to drop the prefixes has itself been dropped from the proposed amendment a long time ago. Please see the latest iterations far below in this discussion. So the subject is moot. Ereunetes (talk) 22:42, 5 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

When I was writing my book, I spent a lot of effort trying to get the caps right, on names like Van De Water, van de Geer, and van der Heijden. Perhaps I messed up, as I never discovered that rule about when to cap that first "van" or whatever. But I did find a Van der Pol resonator and Van der Pol equation by one van der Pol, or so I thought. My deductions of the underlying logic didn't quite get to the right place, it appears. Publisher was little help. So, yes, we need to include this some place. Make a concise version with footnote or link to more info, and maybe it will fly. Dicklyon (talk) 09:21, 21 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

First of all, I think you should try my little trick with Google Chrome Translate to look at the Nederlandse Taalunie citations; that may help you in future, not just for capitalization issues, but for Dutch orthography issues in general. To come to your remark: I will try to comply with your request in the near future. I already indicated a few topics that are ripe to be "footnoted" in my explanation above. I would add that the enumeration of "name" articles is superfluous since I discovered that they are already enumerated in the Surnames by country article, which I had overlooked before. Also the alternatives for "family-name affixes" as a technical term should be in a footnote, though I think it is unwise to completely leave them unmentioned, as some people who contributed to the "name" articles may be "invested" in them, and the "affix" technical term is not mentioned in those articles. Finally I added the citation for the Chicago MOS reference just now. This should be a reference. But ultimately what should be left in, put in footnotes, or completely scratched, is a matter for discussion. So I prefer to wait a while, before I commit myself. Ereunetes (talk) 21:21, 21 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Speaking of Dutch names, I remain fascinated by the Dutch vowel "ij" and the original Mac-ASCII characters ÿ (and uppercase IJ and Ÿ). Iirc, the Mac included the characters ÿ and Ÿ because someone thought they were needed or useful in writing western European languages, but I had a hard time finding anyone who would use them. When visiting Holland, I noticed signs like "ijs" or "ÿs" (which look alike in cursive handwriting, which is what I was working on at the time), and met people with that vowel in their name. I asked van der Heijden about it, but he didn't really clarify anything. I did also find a name with Ÿ carved in the floor of Amsterdam's Old Church, which I think is the only place I've ever seen it. I supposed everyone is happy wiht ij and IJ (like IJzebrand Schuitema), so I should try to forget about all this. Dicklyon (talk) 09:35, 21 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I hope you intended "Van der Heijden"? :-) As to the "Dutch Y" or "IJ" character: when they still had mechanical typewriters, the ones sold in the Netherlands had an "ij" key in which the two letters were connected. That saved one keystroke, so nowadays no one bothers anymore. As it happens my own "real" surname has an "ij" in it. People with almost the same surname have an "y", or even an "i" in that space. It is all pronounced the same, because the "vowel" is almost silent in our names and acts more like a consonant. The Dutch language is full of snares and bear traps like this. Because in words like hij (he) and het IJ (two capitals and not "het Ij"; the name of the river north of Amsterdam) the vowel sounds almost (though not quite) as the "i" in English "high" or "sigh". Please don't forget about "all this" though. You can't imagine how flattered I am with your interest. If you have specific questions, please ask. Ereunetes (talk) 21:09, 21 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Concise version with footnotes

Personal names are the names given to people, but can be used as well for some animals (like race horses) and natural or man-made inanimate objects (like ships and geological formations). As proper nouns, these names are almost always [a] first-letter capitalized, especially at the beginning of a sentence. Exceptions may occur for foreign surnames. Following the advice of the Chicago Manual of Style[3] the national conventions on capitalization should be followed. Information on these conventions may be gleaned from a number of Wikipedia articles mentioned in Surnames by country.The conventions may be somewhat confusing to the Anglophone mind. There are particular difficulties with names that contain (separable) family-name affixes, like Van Gogh and brothers De Witt. Examples of these are given in List of family name affixes. The technical term family-name affix is not universally used. Dutch name uses tussenvoegsel; French name uses particule; and Spanish naming customs uses particle However this may be, these articles may further elucidate the subject and therefore be useful for a correct application of the conventions. The U.S. as a nation of immigrants, presents a special problem as these immigrants often flouted the capitalization conventions of their countries of extraction. Nevertheless, in this case the American practice should be followed, not "corrected". [b] Finally, be mindful of the conventions on Maiden and married names for women. [c].

Notes

  1. ^ Exception "apostrophed" contractions like d' (French) and 't (Dutch) which are never capitalized; the following noun is, however. Examples: 't Hoen, d'Artagnan But at the beginning of a sentence: D'Artagnan (French)[1] and still 'tHoen (Dutch)[2]
  2. ^ Example Martin Van Buren (instead of Martin van Buren, according to the Dutch convention), Mrs. Vanmeer (instead of Mrs. Van Meer) In general, use the style that dominates for that person in reliable sources; for a living subject, prefer the spelling consistently used in the subject's own publications.
  3. ^ There is no objection to dropping the affixes in the mention of a surname in a text for reasons of brevity, provided there is little cause to fear confusion (a wikilink could be used to refer to the correctly spelled and capitalized personal name) and if there are no objections otherwise.

References

  1. ^ The Chicago Manual of Style (15th ed.). U. of Chicago Press. 2003. p. 313.
  2. ^ "Capital letter at the beginning of a sentence". Woordenlijst.org (in Dutch). Nederlandse Taalunie. Retrieved 5 March 2023.
  3. ^ The Chicago Manual of Style (15th ed.). U. of Chicago Press. 2003. pp. 313–17.

I hope this satisfies the people that asked for "conciseness".--Ereunetes (talk) 00:36, 27 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  • Would it not be far easier (and briefer) to simply say that we should follow how the names are styled by sources written in high-end sources (who will generally get it right). Blueboar (talk) 01:00, 27 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    It would indeed be easier if "high-end sources" generally did get it right. But they don't always. Take my example above of Sir Simon Schama in "Patriots and Liberators" and "Rembrandt's Eyes" who consistently got it wrong. Jonathan Israel on the other hand consistently got it right in "The Dutch Republic: Its Rise, Greatness and Fall, 1477–1806" (both according to the guidelines of the Taalunie that I referenced). Let us take the case of Joan Derk van der Capellen tot den Pol as an example. Schama's "Patriots and Liberators" and Israel's "Dutch Republic" overlap on the period in which Van der Capellen played a role: the Patriottentijd. At the first mention of Van der Pol Schama writes among others on page 65: "As a matter of plain fact, van der Capellen lacked the native property qualifications for admission...", so a flouting of the main rule that a Dutch surname in isolation starts with a capital letter. On the other hand, Israel writes on p. 1098 of "Dutch Republic: "The moment of disaster, according to Van der Capellen ...", a correct application of the same main rule. Fortunately, the author of the Wikipedia article also correctly applies the main rule. But how is one to decide between the three? The first two are both reputable British historians. But Israel (not necessarily a linguistic prodigy) apparently paid better attention to the Dutch primary sources he studied. Believe me, there is no acceptable alternative to the high road I advocate (and this concerns not just Dutch surnames, but other languages also). Ereunetes (talk) 03:36, 28 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Whenever I'm in doubt about the capitalization or defaultsort property of a name with "van", I consult van (Dutch). May be MOS:PERSONAL could refer to that article. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 06:50, 28 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    A very good suggestion! I had found the Van (Dutch) article myself, but had lost track of it. But it does give a good explanation of the Dutch rules, as far as the voorvoegsel "Van" goes; there are other separable affixes though, like De and Ter. So it is not just about "Van". However, I think it wise to be consistent in this proposed amendment, and refer to the article that is mentioned in Surnames by country. Nevertheless, I'll put a wikilink to the Van (Dutch) article in the Dutch name article. Ereunetes (talk) 00:38, 1 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes, I support a clarification of how to capitalize especially Dutch names, and agree that Ereunetes is on the right track here. It might be wise to start over with a neutral yes/no RFC on a specific proposal if it's not obvious what we're converging on here. I'm OK with the version in green above. Are others? Dicklyon (talk) 07:22, 5 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Fine, although the articles to be cross-referenced could include Nobiliary particle and specifically von. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 07:37, 5 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I put in Nobiliary particle underneath my reference to particule in my proposal above (conform the way French name itself treats it) Please click on the wikilink to check. I was trying to be "concise". Von could be mentioned in the same context. Ereunetes (talk) 00:52, 6 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • To some extent, this looks to me like a solution looking for a problem. As with everything in Wiki, our decisions are source based. The solution is to use the form that predominates in sources, except for living people, where we tend to give preference to the persons own choice (within reason). Perhaps the guidance could be improved but it should remain both brief and simple and I don't think the proposal does this. The only real issues are capitalisation of the surname at the start of the sentence and whether (and when) it is appropriate to drop part of the surname - noting that on the first mention, the name should be given in full. Cinderella157 (talk) 01:19, 6 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I beg to disagree. As I replied to Blueboar, not all sources are reliable in respect of orthography. Besides, in a number of countries capitalization of proper names is a matter of official regulation, not of private whim as in the U.S. So, even if the form of capitalizing Dutch proper names that predominates in the English Wikipedia is to leave family-name affixes lowercase, that doesn't make it right. To the informed eye it just looks uneducated. I agree in principle that the guidance should be "brief and simple", but that doesn't mean it is OK if it is balderdash, like this quote in the current text of MOS:PERSONAL:"As proper nouns, these names are almost always first-letter capitalized. An exception is made when the lowercase variant has received regular and established use in reliable independent sources." No, in the case of Dutch surnames, the exceptions are well-regulated by public authority, regardless of what "independent sources" may think.Ereunetes (talk) 07:27, 6 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    While I do understand that individual sources (even high end ones) can get a name wrong, that can be offset by examining multiple high end sources and seeing how they present the name in the aggregate. Blueboar (talk) 13:47, 6 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Blueboar, you beat me to it!. Yes, the consensus in sources. Cinderella157 (talk) 23:04, 6 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Maybe I should try a parable to show the advantages of my approach. Assume a novice wiki biographer who wants to write (another) biography of the mother of Audrey Hepburn, the baroness Ella van Heemstra, and is interested in the capitalization of her married name in her first marriage. They (the novice) only know that married name in lowercase: jonkvrouwe ella quarles van ufford - van heemstra. The novice now looks for guidance and finds the current form of MOS:PERSONAL. This amounts to saying:"You are on your own, squire; go live for a year among the Capitalizationists and try to infer from their contradictory mutterings what it should be. " This is not particularly helpful and may well discourage the novice. My alternative approach assumes that the novice wants to do what so many want: "look it up on Wikipedia". Of course, they could lookup Capitalization and look under "Special cases". There is some relevant info under "Compound names" (which is a misnomer, by the way). But the novice wants more. Back to MOS therefore. What I propose is the following search algorithm:
    • start at Surnames by country and search for a likely article (as the novice knows that baroness Ella was Dutch, they will not go far wrong if they click on Dutch name);
    • peruse the contents (left column) of that article and their eye will come to rest on the heading tussenvoegsel, which is already familiar from the guideline.
    • alight on that section and imbibe its contents; then glean whatever information about capitalization of Dutch personal names with tussenvoegsels seems relevant. That is quite a lot: "In the Netherlands, the first tussenvoegsel is capitalized, unless a given name, initial, tile of nobility, or other family name (e,g, in the married name of women) precedes it. For example: Jan van den Berg, J. van den Berg, but Mijn naam is Van den Berg ("my name is Van den Berg") and de heer Van den Berg ("Mr. Van den Berg"). Herman baron van Voorst tot Voorst. Mrs. Jansen - van den Berg. In Flanders, tussenvoegsels of personal names always keep their original orthography: "mevrouw Van der Velde", "Van der Velde, A.", and "Van den Broeke, Jan". In the Netherlands the first letter of the tussenvoegsel is written with lower case in the above four exceptional cases, whereas in Flanders it is written according to the entry for the person in the population register and on his official ID. This implies that in Belgium it is usually written with an upper case with the exception for names of nobility or the royalty; for those they are always in lower case, also in Belgium. See for an alternative discussion of the capitalization and collation issues around separable affixes in Dutch Van (Dutch)."
    Finally, this section also contains a reference to support these assertions: "Persoonsnamen". woordenlijst.org (in Dutch). Nederlandse Taalunie. Retrieved 19 February 2023.;
    • with this information the novice should be able to decide that the correct capitalization of the married name of Ella van Heemstra was: "Jonkvrouwe Ella Quarles van Ufford - van Heemstra". QED
    I think this ought to convince even the most skeptical defender of the status quo ante. Ereunetes (talk) 22:06, 6 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Ereunetes, since concision is an issue raised, can you say in one hundred words or less the key take-away of the amendment? Cinderella157 (talk) 23:09, 6 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Certainly: Conform the guidance given for non-English names in The Chicago Manual of Style, the spelling of those should follow the spelling guidelines for personal names extant in the countries of the bearers of those names (Cf. CMOS, pp. 313-17). The remainder of my proposed text just gives a method for helping Wikipedia editors implement that guidance in a practical manner, using the resources of Wikipedia itself. I would have no problem with putting that remainder in a footnote to the "key take-away."
I should like to add (but the 100 word limit then comes within reach) that the current MOS:PERSONAL actually does the same thing. But I think the current guidance is useless (Cf. mhy "parable" above) whereas my guidance is actually helpful in my humble opinion. Ereunetes (talk) 22:44, 7 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
CMOS does not have free access, so referring to it doesn't do much. Let's forget about your example bits for the moment. On my screen, the present guidance is about 3.5 lines of text. How would you improve the existing text without increasing its size by more than 10%? Cinderella157 (talk) 00:58, 9 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I already have indicated that above: Put everything in the "remainder" in a footnote. As you object to a reference to CMOS. the guidance could become "The spelling of foreign personal names and surnames should follow the guidelines extant in the countries of the bearers of those names." And in the footnote it would already say that anything goes for American immigrants. Ereunetes (talk) 18:15, 9 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Ereunetes, a major issue lies in the concision of the proposal. I am trying to facilitate a proposal that addresses this. It would therefore be useful if we could see how this might actually read. A more focused example is much more likely to achieve consensus than those already proposed. Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 23:57, 9 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Cinderella157I understand and sympathize with what you are trying to achieve. A problem with the "conciseness" issue, is that I think we should preserve some part of the old MOS:PERSONAL text as I already did in my proposal, though I am not enamored of that. That leaves even less space for what I try to achieve.

Personal names are the names given to people, but can be used as well for some animals (like race horses) and natural or man-made inanimate objects (like ships and geological formations). As proper nouns, these names are almost always first-letter capitalized, especially at the beginning of a sentence. Foreign names, especially the ones containing separable family-name affixes (footnote: examples in List of family name affixes) may pose special problems, as national capitalization conventions may provide exceptions to the above-mentioned main rule of capitalization, and from the conventions in use in Anglophone countries. These often differ by language community. It is strongly suggested to orient oneself about the specific conventions pertaining to a particular foreign personal name of interest so as to achieve a correct application of those conventions.

And then the rest can be put in one or more notes. Or someone could write an article containing a discussion of the relevant permutations that could then be recommended. Ereunetes (talk) 00:26, 10 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'm going to have to oppose this change, as a bunch of WP:Instruction creep that also has a WP:Wall of text problem (as does the proposer's writing in general, judging from what's posted here). To address the "parable" above, the novice would be instructed to "Use the style that dominates for that person in reliable sources". If they can't find any reliable sources, then the erstwhile biography subject is not a topic WP should be covering (WP:Notability). WP itself is not a source, and especially cannot be used circularly to verify itself (WP:CIRCULAR) so the raison d'etre here, "My alternative approach assumes that the novice wants to do what so many want: 'look it up on Wikipedia'", simply isn't an option. Only offsite sources are going to tell us what some biographical subject's name properly is.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:01, 7 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

In discussions with OP (on my talk page) I came to realize that my attempt to follow source usage, when I wrote my own book, didn't lead me to discover a key rule of Dutch names, namely the the prefix (e.g. Van) would be capitalized when the surname is used alone, but lowercase when the first name comes before it. If we don't articulate that somewhere, attempts to "follow the sources" aren't going to get us to a great place. But yes, it's rather too wordy. Maybe there's a short way to say follow the best rules and sources. Dicklyon (talk) 09:46, 7 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The shorter the better. I would welcome constructive suggestions. Ereunetes (talk) 22:27, 7 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I actually tend to agree with SMcCandish. But "Use the style that dominates for that person in reliable sources" is in the original MOS:PERSONAL. I simply copied that (as I copied the opening sentences). So I think the criticism should be addressed to the framers of the original version. I also agree that "Only offsite sources are going to tell us what some biographical subject's name properly is". This statement should be separated in two: the actual spelling in official sources like the Dutch and Belgian population registers, for instance. (Nobody, least of all myself, wants to change that). And the spelling when the name is used in the text of an article. My problem with the way the latter is often used in Wikipedia articles is that they diverge from official speling guidelines. To be specific: "van Leeuwenhoek" in e.g. the lede and elsewhere of Antonie van Leeuwenhoek is simply a spelling error, according to the rules of the Dutch Language Union It should be "Van Leeuwenhoek". (Cf. the reference given in the passage I quoted from Dutch name) I am sure SMcCandish does not want Wikipedia to be a den of misspellers sanctioned by the Anglophone Wikipedia community? Wouldn't that be a little arrogant on the part Of Wikipedia? It says actually: "We don't care about the spelling rules for Dutch names extant in that country. We will ourselves decide how we want to spell names of "darned furriners". That certainly is not the attitude of e.g. The Chicago Manual of Style. (Cf. the references I have given in several posts). Ereunetes (talk) 22:21, 7 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think the key question is the extent to which the Dutch rules are customary and correct in the context of English writing, and that SMcCandlish's point is that maybe they're not. I'm not sure. If you at book stats, it appears that English writers are pretty much completely ignorant of the Dutch capitalization rules. Is that OK, or is that something we should aim to do better on via style guidance? Dicklyon (talk) 23:37, 7 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'd like to make two points in reply to Dicklyon. I think that most of the "abuse" I signalize is based on a basic misunderstanding of the Dutch practices of capitalization. Anglophone writers are used to immutable spellings of names, as are the Belgians. But in the Netherlands (and France, Spain, and other countries), though the "main rule" is that all surnames are capitalized including the ones that contain one or more affixes, there are a number of exceptions (four in the Dutch case) to that main rule, that lead to a certain "mutability" of surnames, under certain circumstances. "Unfortunately", if one is first confronted with a Dutch personal name (i.e. a combination of one or more given names and a surname), one immediately encounters one or two of the exceptions: lowercase for the leading affix after a given name, or after an initial. So one may jump to the conclusion that "therefore" Dutch surnames that start with an affix, start with a lowercase letter. But however understandable, this remains an epic misunderstanding. The exception is taken for the rule. And even if one is indifferent about what other peoples may think, it is never a good idea to build on a basic misunderstanding of the facts, even if one subscribes to a solipsistic model for English writing. My second point is that unlike other rules promulgated by the Dutch language Union in recent years, this complex of main rule and exceptions has grown organically in the course of Dutch history. It is not the product of an official edict, but the official edict codified what already existed since time immemorial. But I think that only strengthens the import of cleaving to those rules as they are ipso facto also applicable in historical cases. Ereunetes (talk) 00:06, 9 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe the following perspective is helpful: Do not longer bend over backwards to respect the sensibilities of foreigners (as the Chicago Manual of Style would have it) and only follow American rules for capitalization. "President van Buren" would then become "President Van Buren" and "Dutch microscopist van Leeuwenhoek" would become "Dutch microscopist Van Leeuwenhoek". But that is precisely what the Dutch would like you to do. Because their "main rule" is also "Surnames are capitalized". So what is the problem exactly? Some might say: "Yes, but the personal name is spelled with a lowercase letter". True. But that is a consequence of the quaint Dutch exception to their main rule. Please explain why we should ignore the main Dutch rule in Wikipedia, but enforce an isolated Dutch exception? In America the rule for surnames is also not that certain surnames should start with a lowercase letter; why only for certain Dutch names? To put it a different way: I understand that for Portuguese names like Vasco da Gama it is perfectly alright to spell the affix with a lowercase letter, according to the Portuguese themselves (I have this on the authority of the CMOS; cf. CMOS, p. 314 ). So writing "da Gama" in a sentence is perfectly alright according to the guidance I propose. But that is a Portuguese convention. Why should everybody else have to follow that? On the other hand as an immigrant I am used to "adapt" to American mores. So I write my name "Ereunetes" and not ερευνητής like I was used to do Ereunetes (talk) 18:51, 9 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Further revision

@Cinderella157I understand and sympathize with what you are trying to achieve. A problem with the "conciseness" issue, is that I think we should preserve some part of the old MOS:PERSONAL text as I already did in my proposal, though I am not enamored of that. That leaves even less space for what I try to achieve.

Personal names are the names given to people, but can be used as well for some animals (like race horses) and natural or man-made inanimate objects (like ships and geological formations). As proper nouns, these names are almost always first-letter capitalized, especially at the beginning of a sentence. Foreign names, especially the ones containing separable family-name affixes (footnote: examples in List of family name affixes) may pose special problems, as national capitalization conventions may provide exceptions to the above-mentioned main rule of capitalization, and from the conventions in use in Anglophone countries. These often differ by language community. It is strongly suggested to orient oneself about the specific conventions pertaining to a particular foreign personal name of interest so as to achieve a correct application of those conventions.

And then the rest can be put in one or more notes. Or someone could write an article containing a discussion of the relevant permutations that could then be recommended. Maybe I could add the following posts I made on Talk:List of family name affixes#Affixes and Separable Affixes and Talk:Capitalization#"Compound name" unfortunate, does not cover subject for consideration: if these edits were made to the respective articles, that would lessen the "burden" of explication in our own remit. Ereunetes (talk) 00:26, 10 March 2023 (UTC) Copied from above to facilitate further discussion. Cinderella157 (talk) 00:34, 11 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Cinderella157 I have in the meantime followed up on my "threat" to revise the subsection "Compound names" of Capitalization. This should solve a lot of the problems with the incorrect capitalization of Dutch surnames with separable affixes, if the revision is not reverted by the irate "owner" of the article, and if people read the article and the section in question. Which is not guaranteed. I therefore propose the following footnote at the end of the above proposal:

Footnote. Information about these capitalization conventions may be found in Capitalization subsection Compound names and in the "country" articles (like Dutch name etc.), that are mentioned in Surnames by country. Note that the technical term "separable affix" is not universally used in those articles; alternative terms with a similar meaning are tussenvoegsel in Dutch name; particule (sometimes nobility particle) in French name; and particle in Spanish naming conventions.

Ereunetes (talk) 23:25, 14 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Ereunetes, sorry if I have been a bit tardy in getting back to you. I think I get what you are trying to do and it isn't a bad thing but ... There are a range of languages such that there is nuance both across languages and within which cannot be succinctly documented. This page really isn't the place for such intricate detail. I acknowledge your limitation to take such a thing on. Paraphrasing CMOS isn't a bad thing. If CMOS was open access or accessible through the Wiki library, citing it would be a solution but it isn't? Perhaps WMF could do something about that. The link you add to Capitalization#Compound names has a narrow focus on Dutch, Belgian and German names. When I read the modified text for here, It uses a lot of words to say not much. I could do a copy edit but I think the result would be to use less words but still say not much. I might give it a go nonetheless. Cinderella157 (talk) 02:32, 17 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
By all means give it a try. But the current MOS:PERSONAL says even less. I put the operative phrase into my edit of Compound names under "American names" just to show that it only makes sense in that context; not for personal names in general. Here, in my proposal, the meat is in the footnote, because I was not allowed to put it in the guideline itself, "because of conciseness". The more concise, the less information. It is Hobson's choice, I am afraid (or is it Sophie's? ) So I think the question boils down to: if we want to have a guideline at all in MOS, do we hold onto the inadequate formulation we have now, or do we try to find something more useful? You'll probably guess my answer :-) Ereunetes (talk) 06:39, 17 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Seems entirely reasonable as a footnote. But I'll repeat that for any given biographical subject, we should be treating the name as it is treated in most reliable sources; not everyone with, e.g., a Dutch name follows the common Dutch capitalization habits.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  14:02, 10 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
And that is exactly the problem because of which I started this discussion. Like I said before, many Wikipedia editors honor the capitalization rules of the Belgo-Dutch Taalunie in the breach, mostly from pure ignorance. Did you actually read the preceding discussion? Ereunetes (talk) 01:00, 18 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, and opposed adding a bunch of wall-of-text rulemongering about it. Do what the majority of sources do for the individual in question. Not sure how else to say it. If someone has been "over-correcting" in a particular case, then fix it, and ask them not to robotically do that to Dutch-descended (or whatever) names.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:58, 25 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
So why have a Manual of Style then? Because that is certainly a prime example of a "bunch of wall-of-text rulemongering". If we followed your advice a MOS would be superfluous. One practical question though: how do you decide what "the majority of sources" is? And what if "the majority" is simply wrong? Or is the majority never wrong? Ereunetes (talk) 23:59, 25 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
There's a big difference between having a concise rule and having a blathering, tumid, opinionated rule. Majority: typically determined by n-grams and other ways of aggregating results. In something like this, a very strong majority (across all the source material not just stuff that's not independent of the subject) is basically "never wrong"; see the first few sentences at the top of MOSCAPS. But even that's not quite right; for a living subject, we'd defer to their own preferred spelling, per WP:ABOUTSELF. This has come up many times; e.g. RMs to remove the accent mark in a name that is conventionally, generally, usually González but in a specific celeb's case is spelled without the diacritic; and so on. I've said elsewhere to you, in user talk, that this stuff isn't just my opinion but is years of RM and other consensus precedent, and is important for not repeating old "style fight" shitshows. You ignoring it all because it doesn't suit your desire to enforce a false "hyper-consistency" is why you are getting so much pushback here. (That, and your verbosity, and your combative attitude, which you also dragged with you into the user-talk discussion at Dicklyon's page. Even with that unnecessary baggage, I think there's still room to work to a compromise, though, or I wouldn't bother to continue this discussion.)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  15:17, 31 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Behind the scenes Cinderella157 and I have been working on a more concise version of the proposed amendment. This was the result:

Personal names are the names given to people, but can be used as well for some animals (like race horses) and natural or man-made inanimate objects (like ships and geological formations). As proper nouns, these names are almost always first-letter capitalized, especially at the beginning of a sentence[a]. Compound names may contain separable family-name affixes [b]The capitalization conventions for such affixes vary between (foreign) language groups.[c]. In some cases they are capitalized, in others not, depending on the language group. The capitalization conventions for the relevant particular subject's language group should be followed.[d]

  1. ^ Exception: Dutch contractions formed by an apostrophe and a single letter like 't and 's are not capitalized, even at the beginning of a sentence: 't Hoen and 'sGravesande.
  2. ^ See examples at List of family name affixes.
  3. ^ For example, the conventions differ between Belgium and the Netherlands, though they share a language.
  4. ^ Alternative terms for separable affixes include: "particle" in Spanish naming conventions; "nobility particle" in French names; and "tussenvoegsel" in Dutch names. More information on capitalization of compound personal names can be found at the Capitalization article, and at articles linked from Surnames by country (e.g. Italian name).

In addition I have edited Capitalization#Compound names to operationalize many of the reforms that were embedded in the original version of the proposed amendment. Also, in those edits a number of the comments and criticisms made in the above discussion this far have been taken into account. For instance, SMcCandish's preferences for the treatment of American subjects of foreign extraction with non-conforming ways of capitalizing their surnames have been met in a special sub section. I hope many of the objections made above have thus been met in a satisfactory fashion.--Ereunetes (talk) 19:51, 28 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

To repeat what I said in user talk: It's missing two key components (in underline below) which were established by consensus at multiple (and sometimes acrimonious) RMs and other discussions. I would re-do it like this (including some re-wording in the first case that better matches the language used at the top of MOS:CAPS):

Personal names are the names given to people, but can be used as well for some animals (like race horses) and natural or man-made inanimate objects (like ships and geological formations). As proper nouns, these names are almost always first-letter capitalized, especially at the beginning of a sentence[a] Compound names may contain separable family-name affixes[b] The capitalization conventions for such affixes vary between (foreign) language groups.[c]. In some cases they are capitalized, in others not, depending on the language group. The capitalization conventions for the relevant particular subject's language group should be followed by default.[d] However, for modern subjects, this can vary by individual, especially outside the country where the surname originated: Marie van Zandt, John Van Zandt; use the style that dominates for that person in reliable sources, and for a living subject, prefer the spelling consistently used in the subject's own publications.

  1. ^ Exception: Dutch contractions formed by an apostrophe and a single letter like 't and 's are not capitalized, even at the beginning of a sentence: 't Hoen and 'sGravesande. Another exception is made when a lowercase variant has become the dominant one for a specific subject in a substantial majority of reliable independent sources: k.d. lang, will.i.am. In these cases, the name is still capitalized when at the beginning of a sentence.
  2. ^ See examples at List of family name affixes.
  3. ^ For example, the conventions differ between Belgium and the Netherlands, though they share a language.
  4. ^ Alternative terms for separable affixes include: "particle" in Spanish naming conventions; "nobility particle" in French names; and "tussenvoegsel" in Dutch names. More information on capitalization of compound personal names can be found at the Capitalization article, and at articles linked from Surnames by country (e.g. Italian name).
I could even see putting the "for modern subjects" part in another footnote.

I'm not at all convinced that because Dutch would begin a sentence with 't Hoen that English should, or regularly does, but I'm willing to see if the proposal flies. I'm not willing to see provisions removed when they exist because they forestall repetitive shitshows. That's mostly what MoS is for.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  15:21, 31 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Dear @SMcCandlish. I think I see a basic misunderstanding here. The real dividing line is not between old and modern biographical subjects but between genuine foreigners with "foreign" (i.e. non-Anglophone) names, containing separable family name affixes on the one hand, and people living (sometimes for generations) in the U.S. with the same names. I agree that these groups should be treated differently, as does the Chicago Manual of Style in pp. 312-313 (15th ed.; later editions may have different pages). The CMOS starts with the treatment of "Americans" in an Anglophone context and they follow what you suggest (i.e. consult Anglophone Biographical Dictionaries, for the idiosyncratic spelling of these names, because there is really no alternative in view of the Total Chaos that exists in the US in the field of orthography and capitalization of names). And then they continue with the "genuine foreigners" (pp. 312 ff) where they in essence advise to follow the capitalization conventions of the countries, or "language communities" in question, and proceed by giving examples by country (distilled from capitalization guidance given by the respective official authorities by country, like the Dutch Language Union). I have followed this policy when I edited Compound names in the Capitalization article. The downside of this approach is that it plays havoc on the principle of "concision," so highly valued by Cinderella157. Because in the CMOS this approach takes five pages in small print. We therefore tried to achieve the same objective as the CMOS by using the resources of Wikipedia that already exist (i.e. the Capitalization article and a number of country-specific articles referenced in Surnames by country) to which we have pointed in footnote d. of our "concise" version (even though I would have preferred to put it in the main guidance, as in the original version). If you look at the "Compound names" subsection of the Capitalization article you will see that I there used the exact same language for the "American names" subsection as you now propose to include in the "concise" version (it was already in the previous "not-concise-enough version").
As to footnote a: this was provoked by the wishy-washy clause "almost always" that we inherited from the current version of MOS:PERSONAL, i.e. " As proper nouns, these names are almost always first-letter capitalized,..." It would be better to delete this clause, which would obviate the need for the explanatory footnote with examples of the exceptions. In the name of the principle "The exceptions prove the rule."
In sum: it is either the "concise" version, or the "long" version. If you insist on putting back the addition you propose, in the concise version, I have to insist on putting back all the things that were in the long version and that I have sacrificed on Cinderella157's altar of "concision". Ereunetes (talk) 22:09, 31 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, the material that SMcC would indicate does make this less concise. However, I acknowledge their reasons for including it. It would also be better if it could be retained in a more concise way but the way of doing this is not immediately apparent to me. We are substantially closer to reaching a consensus on changes to the section. It is a case of what the involved parties can ultimately live with. A position of only this or nothing is most likely going to result in nothing. Cutting off one's nose comes to mind. Cinderella157 (talk) 02:10, 1 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
If expanding the proposal to accommodate the amendment by SMcC is not objectionable to you, you cannot object to an expansion to accommodate an amendment I would like to make to the "concise" version, I think. I would like to include what is now footnote d.into the main text. Also, I'd like to drop "almost always", together with the explanatory footnote a. from the text. Also, all the nonsense about racehorses etc could be dropped from the text (Or moved to a footnote). This would give us the following draft:

Personal names are the names given to people. As proper nouns, these names are first-letter capitalized, especially at the beginning of a sentence. Compound personal names may contain separable family-name affixes [a]The capitalization conventions for such affixes vary between (foreign) language groups.[b]. In some cases they are capitalized, in others not, depending on the language group. The capitalization conventions for the relevant particular subject's language group should be followed. More information on capitalization of compound personal names can be found at the Capitalization and Maiden and married names articles, and at articles linked from Surnames by country (e.g. Italian name.[c]) For Americans with such foreign surnames the conventions in question may not be applicable. In that case use the style that dominates in reliable biographical sources, and for a living subject, prefer the spelling consistently used in the subject's own publications.

  1. ^ See examples at List of family name affixes.
  2. ^ For example, the conventions differ between Belgium and the Netherlands, though they share a language.
  3. ^ Alternative terms for separable affixes include: "particle" in Spanish naming conventions; "nobility particle" in French names; and "tussenvoegsel" in Dutch names.
Ereunetes (talk) 22:16, 1 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I don't have a problem with removing some of the guff in the introductory sentence. However, it is far from just me that needs to be convinced. You have omitted the case exampled by k. d. lang. I have recently seen discussions directly relating to this. On reflection, this is a significant piece of guidance and a point of contention in discussions. The issue of names away from their country of origin is not just an Americanism. What was fn a/1 has been omitted totally and my understanding is that the exception underscored in the first part of the fn is a substantial point being addressed by the amendment. I'm not convinced the part moved from what was fn d/4 is an overall improvement. What remains is now misplaced. It is too far removed from that which it is meant to qualify (ie separable affixes) so it is now out of context. It most certainly isn't a qualification of Italian name, which is where its current placement points. Overall, I see this as a step backwards. Cinderella157 (talk) 02:02, 3 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It gives me much satisfaction that you suddenly are convinced of the need to give explicit guidance in a number of instances, where you previously almost religiously let your preference for "concision" prevail. Far be it from me to stand in the way of footnotes of the kind that you now champion. So if you want the entire footnote a., as proposed by SMcC, restored (including the two Dutch examples with "apostrophed contractions"), you have my support. I would maintain that the "special treatment" of names of immigrants (flouting of conventions from the countries of extraction) is a singularly American problem (an example of "American exceptionalism" so to speak; I say this as a US citizen myself). If you know better, please give examples. As to the treatment of footnote d: I understand that you now propose to restore the entire footnote (including the part that I put into a new footnote) to the main text. Again, I have no objection. It was you who always insisted on the utmost concision. I am glad that you now share my viewpoint that "concision", though in theory to be applauded, should not stand in the way of "completeness". So, do you now support the amendment of MOS:PERSONAL with inclusion of the restorations you propose? Ereunetes (talk) 21:18, 3 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
As you asked, my own family name is not as it would have been written. While you treat this as some sort of personal competition in which to score points instead of a collaboration, you are likely to get nothing. Cinderella157 (talk) 22:58, 3 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Aw, you sound angry Cinderella. What did I do? I have conceded all your points. Didn't you notice that? What more could I do to earn your vote? Or were you always going to be opposed (as your previous posts on this page suggest) and was the "concision" ploy always that, instead of a serious attempt at compromise? As to your own family name being rewritten, the question then becomes: are you a non-US citizen or not? I was asking for an example of flouting of capitalization conventions outside the US. Ereunetes (talk) 20:27, 4 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Suggest you read WP:AVOIDYOU and focus on content instead of casting aspersion. There was no point in referring to my own family name if I were a US citizen. Cinderella157 (talk) 23:12, 4 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Could we avoid the ad hominem style of discussion? It is so unproductive. If I offended you, I offer my Unreserved and Abject Apologies. And I won't ask for your apologies for offending my feelings. Could we now return to the matter at hand? Would the formulation with all the "restorations" I conceded be acceptable? Ereunetes (talk) 18:19, 5 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitrary break (foreign personal names)

I have yet again formulated a version of the amendment incorporating the "restorations" demanded by @Cinderella157 and @SMcCandlish. I hope we can now finally come to an agreement.

Personal names are the names given to people. As proper nouns, these names almost always[a] are first-letter capitalized, especially at the beginning of a sentence. Compound personal names may contain separable family-name affixes.[b] The capitalization conventions for such affixes vary between (foreign) language groups.[c]. In some cases they are capitalized, in others not, depending on the language group. The capitalization conventions for the relevant particular subject's language group should be followed. More information on capitalization of compound personal names can be found at the Capitalization and Maiden and married names articles, and at articles linked from Surnames by country (e.g. Italian name). For Americans with such foreign surnames the conventions in question may not be applicable. In that case use the style that dominates in reliable biographical sources, and for a living subject, prefer the spelling consistently used in the subject's own publications.

  1. ^ Exception: Dutch contractions formed by an apostrophe and a single letter like 't and 's are not capitalized, even at the beginning of a sentence: 't Hoen and 'sGravesande. Another exception is made when a lowercase variant has become the dominant one for a specific subject in a substantial majority of reliable independent sources: k.d. lang, will.i.am. In these cases, the name is still capitalized when at the beginning of a sentence.
  2. ^ See examples at List of family name affixes. Alternative terms for "separable affixes" include: "particle" in Spanish naming conventions; "nobility particle" in French names; and "tussenvoegsel" in Dutch names.
  3. ^ For example, the conventions differ between Belgium and the Netherlands, though they share a language.

--Ereunetes (talk) 23:01, 18 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It's getting there, but "American" is wrong. This has nothing to do with the United States, and the same pattern of not following the "old country" capitalisation style can also be frequently found in the UK, New Zealand, Canada, Australia, etc., etc. I used "outside the country where the surname originated" for a reason. :-) You've also vague-ized in other ways, e.g. "In that case use the style that dominates in reliable biographical sources" should read something more like "In that case use the style that dominates in reliable biographical sources for that specific person", or people are going to misunderstand completely and think that we mean "follow the style that dominates in sources for all people with this surname, averaged out", which is not the case at all. And it really only applies to modern subjects, another caveat you dropped. Really, I don't know why you keep changing the wording I put back in. It was selected to be quite precise, for good reasons. If you're concerned about length, I'll repeat that this part about modern subjects can be shoved into another foonote. You're kind of re-editing at cross purposes to your own interests. The wording I used created an extremely narrow exception, and kept your general rule, and you've turned it into a broad and confusing exception that applies to everyone not just modern subjects (except then re-narrowed in a completely incorrect way to Americans only) that few will parse correctly. Please just accept the revision wording give above instead of trying to leaving your personal mark on it.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:18, 18 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It was probably too optimistic to expect you to accept my compromise offer, but was it really necessary to be so rude about it? You all but accuse me of bad faith, which I think is undeserved, as I bent over backwards to copy your version of note a. verbatim (including your hidden formatting). I think you should moderate your tone somewhat, if you want to be taken seriously. Now to the matter at hand. I had a good reason to reject your proposal for an addition to the main text of the amendment. Your proposed addition has the (intended?) efect of nullifying the reform I proposed. If you go back to what I wrote at the very beginning of this Section of the talk page, under the heading "motivation", you'll find that I pointed out that in many Anglophone Wikipedia biographical (and other) articles about Dutch persons with "compound names" the "Main rule" of MOS:PERSONAL (as it now reads), namely As proper nouns, these names almost always are first-letter capitalized, especially at the beginning of a sentence is flouted. Example: in Antonie van Leeuwenhoek the name is consistently spelled "van Leeuwenhoek", where according to this "main rule" (and also the Dutch capitalization conventions that I have repeatedly cited) it should be spelled "Van Leeuwenhoek". There is no justication for this misspelling, except for the fact that all Anglophone sources of said article that I could check online commit the same error. So the majority of your "reliable sources" (however impeccable they may be as biographical sources) give exactly the wrong capitalization advice. This could have been avoided if they had followed the advice of authoritative Anglophone Manuals of Style, like the Chicago Manual of Style, which says: "Dutch names. In English usage, the particles van, van den, ter, and the like are lowercase when full names are given but usually capitalized when only the last name is used" (15th ed. (2003), p. 315). Please explain to me why Wikipedia should not follow this sage advice that has been followed by generations of American college students? It is so utterly simple in my view. Why invent your own version of "Dutch" that has no basis in linguistics, but is just based on an erroneous interpretation of the exception to the Main rule (cited above) that applies to "full names" (in the CMOS parlance), but not to "last names"? My version of the amendment proposes to avert such mistakes, not only for Dutch names, but also for other non-Anglophone "compound" names, from other language communities, that all have their own capitalization conventions, as the CMOS also recognizes. And my version gives practical advice on how to implement this. What could be a rational objection to this? Ereunetes (talk) 21:28, 19 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The point of contention would appear to be For Americans with such foreign surnames the conventions in question may not be applicable. In that case use the style that dominates in reliable biographical sources, and for a living subject, prefer the spelling consistently used in the subject's own publications compared with the previous (original) wording: However, for modern subjects, this can vary by individual, especially outside the country where the surname originated : Marie van Zandt, John Van Zandt; [. Use] the style that dominates for that person in reliable sources, and for a living subject, prefer the spelling consistently used in the subject's own publications. [simplified by removing example] CMOS is an American publication writing primarily for an American audience. Not surprisingly it describes a matter in an American context but this does not ipso facto make it exclusively an American phenomenon. As I indicated previously and as SMcC points out most recently, this is a phenomenon that applies broadly to any country where there has been mass immigration. To the rest of the passage, SMcC would point to the less restrictive language which actually works against the stated intention of the revision. I share this view, that it actually works against the stated intention of the revision. While SMcC is advocating their wording, they are also explicitly stating that that their preferred version need not be adopted verbatum - even if this might be the simplest resolution. They state, should read something more like and offer that detail might be placed in a footnote. I see nothing in SMcC's comment that is not colegiate, constructive critique. I certainly do not see rudeness nor allegations. Cinderella157 (talk) 12:26, 20 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Noted. Thanks for your explication. Ereunetes (talk) 18:02, 20 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: I would like to say that this problem of personal name capitalization extend to other areas like objects named after a person. Is it van der Waals force or Van der Waals force? both can be found in literature, however in this example the former is more popularly used but it does not mean it is the correct use, it could be just negligence. Half of physics equations in Wikipedia use one convention or another when dealing with Dutch.--ReyHahn (talk) 13:08, 28 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Groan. It should be "Van der Waals force" but I think you are right that "van der Waals force" may be more prevalent. Which is exactly my point. This is just a manifestation of the misunderstanding of the correct application of the convention. Ironically, the Americans of Dutch extraction with a prefix like "Van" in their name almost always insist on using a capitalized "Van", even when the Dutch exception allows a lowercase. E.g.Martin Van Buren who insists his surname is Van Buren and not "van Buren", disparages the opportunity to use the lowercase in the spelling of his full name. My point: the use of lowercase in the stand-alone surname is completely idiosyncratic. It should always be uppercase in the stand-alone surname, so: "Van der Waals". Ereunetes (talk) 22:54, 5 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Conference Finals and Semifinals capitalization

Some of my sports case fixing edits got reverted with the assertion that "Conference Finals" and "Conference Semifinals" are proper names (I presume he meant just "Eastern Conference Finals", etc.). There is indeed a trend toward more capitalization in recent decades, but overall the book n-grams don't make these look like proper names; that is, capitalization appears to be very optional, per book sources. It's clear that "Eastern Conference" and "Western Conference" are proper names, but I can't see why we'd extend that to their finals and semifinals. Thoughts? Dicklyon (talk) 22:28, 20 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Best to leave'em as they are. GoodDay (talk) 22:56, 20 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
MLS's playoff rounds are given proper names (except the First round and final). Much like how we capitalize "Playoffs" in "MLS Cup Playoffs", since they are not a generic term like semifinals would be in other competitions; MLS based their structure on other American sports leagues, where the penultimate playoff games are given proper titles (e.g. AFC/NFC Championships in NFL, League Championship Series in MLB). SounderBruce 23:20, 20 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Where can I find more about your interpretation that "MLS's playoff rounds are given proper names"? Are they listed as such somewhere? Actually, I see in some (most?) of your reverts (like this one), you're actually asserting that "Conference Semifinals" and "Conference Finals" are proper names, even without the conference names. This is highly contradicted by source usage. And I'm not arguing about what MLS calls them, just whether they are proper names, as evidenced by consistent capitalization in sources -- which they're not. Similarly plenty of books use lowercase playoffs in MLS Cup playoffs, the playoff tournament leading to the MLS Cup. Dicklyon (talk) 00:26, 21 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Note that nbcsports.com writes "The final will be held on Saturday, Nov. 5. There will be three rounds – the first round, conference semifinals and conference finals – before the ultimate showdown." Dicklyon (talk) 00:31, 21 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
And espn.com similarly in their "MLS Cup playoffs conference finals preview". And nytimes.com with "The conference semifinals, which are single-game elimination matches, start on Thursday and will wrap up on Sunday. The conference finals are scheduled for Oct. 30, and the M.L.S. Cup final is ...". Dicklyon (talk) 00:39, 21 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
One local NBC website and an autogenerated ESPN report are not good enough sources; the New York Times has their own style guide (hence "M.L.S.") and cannot be used as a benchmark. I'm not sure where ngrams is pulling their data from, but there certainly weren't MLS books written before the league debuted in 1996. The round names are not generic terms due to the league's structure, and the league's website (which has editorial independence) uses the capitalized form. The league's own materials (season preview, match report, MLS Cup media guides, etc.) use it as well. SounderBruce 00:43, 21 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The older hits are mostly NBA basketball, I think. The ones I cited from common modern publishers are about MLS; not as definitive style guidance, but as evidence that these are not consistently capitalized in independent reliable sources. The preferred style of the MLS is of course to cap stuff important to them; there's nothing for us in those observations. Dicklyon (talk) 04:24, 21 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I agree with Dicklyon. We should not slavishly follow boosterism-by-caps. If we capped everything that companies (and NASA and the military and many government agencies) cap, we'd be poking readers' eyes out. Tony (talk) 05:44, 21 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Tony, I like your metaphor (if that's what it is) of "poking readers' eyes out". That's pretty much the way I feel when I see the capped fragments in table cells, too (see section above). Some editors think caps make it look more "professional" or something. To me, they make it look more like the "poke your eyes out" 1999 web look. Dicklyon (talk) 09:12, 21 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Finals and Semifinals etc are common nouns. They might be preceded by an attributive noun phrase that is capitalised - in this case for example, "Eastern Conference". There is often a presumtion that a capitalised attributive phrase confers capitalisation in full. It doesn't. Unlike most other European languages that only capitalise proper names, English also capitalises for emphasis, significance and distinction - but WP doesn't per MOS:SIGNIFCAPS. Sometimes however, such phrases are consistently capitalised - and then, WP capitalises such phrases. The ngram evidence isn't telling us that though. Cinderella157 (talk) 10:59, 21 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Concur with Cinderella157, et al. We have clear evidence of major, mainstream sports news sources not capitalizing these, so we should not be doing it either.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:50, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm with Cinderella too. MOSCAPS says that capping out there needs to be overwhelming for us to cap; which is in the same spirit as Chicago MOS and Hart's in the UK. Tony (talk) 12:34, 19 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose: Given the three sub-discussions that have concluded or are about to conclude and in all of those discussions the consensus is clear that North American professional sports use these as proper nouns. The group of editors pushing this need to find a more constructive way to contribute to the site, as all this does is waste the time of productive editors on general nonsense. Deadman137 (talk) 18:16, 3 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The worst part is they're going to claim consensus here among their little circle and then go bulldoze discussions elsewhere claiming to be the sort of broader consensus described in WP:CONLIMITED when it's literally only four guys in an obscure talk page as opposed to the larger numbers disagreeing in the actual articles. oknazevad (talk) 21:25, 3 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Who is "they" and why are you bringing an us-versus-them WP:BATTLEGROUND attitude here?  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:57, 10 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Finals capping again

@Deadman137: who reverted me fixing some of these [1] [2], asserting "proper nouns". Given the lack of consensus on events with "Finals" and such in their names, can we at least agree that when used alone (e.g. "Lost in finals" or "Lost in final", also "semifinal", "preliminary round" etc.) they should not be capped, even in article where that "finals" signifies a capped version such as Stanley Cup Finals?

@Deadman137: If you just keep reverting (e.g. capping "Lost in Semi-Finals" this time) and not discussing, that's not going to converge, because I'll just fix it again. It's obviously not capped thus in books, so what are using to assert "Proper noun"? Dicklyon (talk) 02:28, 4 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

We've had this conversation before and you've had this same conversation with many other editors and yet you continue to persist because you refuse to accept the arguments of other editors that disagree with you. Perhaps you should find something else to do around here that would be less disruptive and provide more value to project than this. Stop wasting people's time with your nonsense. Deadman137 (talk) 02:34, 4 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Other than the open discussion that this is a subsection of, I see a claim in 2020 that "NBA Finals" is a proper noun; so I'm not messing with that one. But for purely generic terms like "conference semi-finals" and "division finals", where we don't have conference or division as part of a larger name, I thought the results were pretty clear, but logically and by source usage (e.g. on this book search, 28 of the first 40 book hits use lowercase "the conference semi-final"). If you have a reason to assert that these are proper names, please do share the reason, rather than just say you've complained about it before. Dicklyon (talk) 04:10, 4 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You refer in the previous subsection above to discussions concluded or about to be concluded. Looking at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Capital_letters#Concluded, I find one "no-consensus" re Grand Final when part of a named event; I'm not touching anything like that. All the rest concluded lowercase. So I'm in the dark about what your complaint is. Dicklyon (talk) 04:15, 4 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think what's wasting people's time is the edit-warring assertion that common nouns should be capitalized because they're proper nouns. A table-cell entry like "Lost in Preliminary Round" has no proper nouns and so the only uppercase letter should be the "L" at the beginning. — JohnFromPinckney (talk / edits) 09:56, 4 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I support this position. ~TPW 13:41, 28 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Words like finals and semifinals are basic English words in a standard dictionary. When used as standalone words, they make perfect sense lowercase, and there is no added meaning to the reader if they are capitalized.—Bagumba (talk) 10:24, 4 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Sbaio: Another set of reverts now (e.g. this one and this one) with edit summary You have been told more than once to stop messing with official names. Not just Lost in Final, but even Lost in Final AHAC Challenge, a term that appears nowhere else on the web as far as I can find. He's not even claiming "proper nouns" or "proper names" – just "official names", which seems clearly irrelevant. Even if "Preliminary Round" is an official name, we don't cap that per MOS:CAPS, per long consensus and sources. Dicklyon (talk) 20:45, 4 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Why do you care so much about this? Is it hurting someone? Like if I turned in an essay using capital letters on Finals vs finals, I think my English teacher would understand the sports term vs a final series of something. The other thing here is, NHL editors are very keen on consistency. One change here needs to be made to all. Also, these articles are written in Canadian-English [3], which I'm not sure if there are additional nuances to be aware of. That being said, just make another RfC. It helps gain consensus from everyone. Conyo14 (talk) 21:49, 4 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
We care about it because we want the encyclopedia to look good and use standard English as part of a professional presentation. Uppercasing common nouns and lowercasing proper nouns is non-standard and inhibits clarity and easy understanding. Your English teacher may be patient and permissive, but we have established a manual of style specifically to make it easy to produce a standard look, and mis-capitalizing random words runs counter to that. It's not just understanding what was meant, it's being able to parse it easily. — JohnFromPinckney (talk / edits) 23:28, 4 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
We need consensus on this then, since it's not explicitly written as a rule. This statement from MOS:SPORTCAPS, "Specific competition titles and events (or series thereof) are capitalized if they are usually capitalized in independent sources: WPA World Nine-ball Championship, Tour de France, Americas Cup. Generic usage is not: a three-time world champion, international tournaments" will need to include "Ordered names of series such as 'First Round', 'Preliminary Round', or 'Semifinals' cannot be capitalized." Stanley Cup Finals will remain capitalized as it is the official and proper use of the name by the NHL and its sources, but use of the word Finals is a reference for Stanley Cup Finals in the context of an NHL article and I suppose that is more up to interpretation of the editors here. I, along with a few editors, successfully changed the round names from 2014–onward to be First Round, Second Round. etc. So, it can be done here regarding capitalization. RfC please. Conyo14 (talk) 00:00, 5 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Conyo, why do you care why I care? I don't care if you turn in an essay styled to your own preferences. But in WP, we have a manual of style. The interpretation seems pretty clear here. I'm struggling to think what question could be formulated and put to an RFC to clairify what has been clarified so many times already. Dicklyon (talk) 06:36, 5 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Where can I learn more about this changing of round names? Was it discussed some place? What was the motivation? Dicklyon (talk) 06:37, 5 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
RfC in 2016 here: [4]. Interestingly, we mentioned the use of silly caps, but it was brushed aside as it was merely about the name change than the grammar associated with it. The main reason for the change was because the NHL changed it for its official Guide and Record Book in 2014 and then the site also changed it. By 2016, there were more hits around Google showing secondary sources also conformed to the change.
I see now, where you said "Capitalization of the round names, not including the preceding word (conference or first/second would stay capitalized), can be changed after the RfC is over, but this topic is merely the discussion of just the names, not the grammar." I thought you were saying it was decided to cap these terms; not the case. Dicklyon (talk) 04:35, 6 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
FWIW, I care why you care because to me it's not an eyesore. In an RfC just state, "We need a consensus on whether the names of sports series when not used in a proper way are to be lowercase. We have some editors who are not conforming to MOSCAPS due to a misunderstanding of the vague rules on WP's MOS regarding capitalization in this case. All sports that do not have proper or official use of the series names in accordance to the primary source and/or a majority of secondary sources will therefore be decapitalized." If no consensus, editors will war, if consensus for change, no one will mess with this. I'll make sure to it. If consensus for no change, sorry bud. If the rules were more specific on this, I think we'd be better. Conyo14 (talk) 17:06, 5 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
We have a manual of style. It has been developed over the years through consensus. Your RfC would effectively say: "Should we ignore the Manual of Style in the case of sports capitalization?" Many people believe that their area of work should have a different style because they like it that way or because the specialist sources they read follow a different style. We don't need to reach a consensus that the Manual of Style should apply in sports; we already have that consensus. SchreiberBike | ⌨ 21:21, 5 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Isn't it a guideline and not a set of laws? Also, is it written there was consensus on this? If there is, then there is no debate. Conyo14 (talk) 21:28, 5 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That's right, it's a guideline, not a set of laws. Nobody is going to be punished for getting capitalization wrong. And yes, the consensus has been written down in numerous move decisions over the years, just not precisely on "Preliminary Round" or "in the Semi-finals". Those terms are just like so many others; the RM on "Name <sport> tournament" seems most analogous. Look at discussions in the last couple of years under #Current for example. It's also written pretty clearly in MOS:CAPS (... only words and phrases that are consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources are capitalized in Wikipedia) and WP:NCCAPS (one should leave the second and subsequent words in lowercase unless the title phrase is a proper name that would always occur capitalized, even mid-sentence); note the "even mid sentence" – the caps you see at the top of event listing, in news headlines, etc. don't count toward this criterion. With few exceptions, there has been a strong consensus to follow this guidance. The exceptions have been in cases where large numbers of editors asserted their preference, in spite of evidence that the term is not usually capitalized in independent reliable sources. Dicklyon (talk) 23:57, 5 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Also, is it written there was consensus on this?: Which "this" are you specifically contesting? —Bagumba (talk) 01:03, 6 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'd like to know where it is written in consensus whether semifinals, quarterfinals, etc. as a shorthand/reference to Stanley Cup Semifinals, Northeast Division Finals, Eastern Conference Quarterfinals, etc. should be lowercased when referenced. As far as I can tell, we have "no consensus" from a few months ago. So, yeah, it would be nice to reach a clear consensus. Not just editors saying "iT's rIgHt hErE iN MOSCAPS" (apologies for being facetious). Like where does it say that? It's all so vague and not specific enough for us. Please just do another RfC. End this war Dicklyon. Conyo14 (talk) 04:34, 6 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
One reason we're having this discussion here is to hear from people who care about what MOSCAPS says, and how to interpret it. It seems that there's a clear consensus that it's clear enough on the guidance already, and there's no exception for shorthand phrases that are not consistently capped in sources. And even thing like "Stanley Cup semifinals" don't usually have capped Semifinals in sources so it's a real stretch to make such an excuse for capping semifinals. Dicklyon (talk) 04:40, 6 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not arguing with you on this, because this is a stupid argument to have. You can probably relate being on the sense of reason. We hockey editors are so religious on keeping things consistent. An RfC will help strengthen everything though. Either that, or idk, maybe we pull a roll vote here with an additional week to officially, or properly, resolve this. You know if a majority of editors agree, then I mean, wow, all this fighting is over. Conyo14 (talk) 04:51, 6 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
To be fair he's just mad that two of his proposals in the last year were not accepted. [5] [6]
He's just trying to force his viewpoint when others have decided to move on. In both conversations he also had to be reminded about WP:BLUDGEON. Deadman137 (talk) 21:23, 6 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

In light of this discussion and time passed, I went ahead and restored the case corrections that were reverted, and a few more. But Deadman137 is reverted those again ([7], [8]); is there more to say abuot them? Are these terms (Quarterfinals, Preliminary Round, Division Semifinals) claimed to be proper names? Any support for that? Dicklyon (talk) 00:32, 6 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The edit summary says Stanley Cup Quarterfinals are an official round name. It might be, as a full phrase (but that's a separate matter). But the capitalization in question is for the standalone word quarterfinals. In this case, there is no difference in meaning for the reader if it is capitalized. —Bagumba (talk) 01:29, 6 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
If all it takes to resolve this just removing the hockey shorthand, we could consider that request. The terms Stanley Cup Semifinals and Quarterfinals date back to the 1920s and were used in some form or another until 1981 and one of the terms was brought back once for use in 2021. The Division rounds from 1982–1993 can also be expanded to their proper name as well.
Dicklyon I'm surprised that your actions haven't earned you some type of block at this point. I thought that it was a fairly serious policy violation to use a bot to add your preferred edit into multiple articles when you're involved in an active content dispute, some might even call that edit warring. I will remind you that Wikipedia does not have a strict time limit on how quickly a person is required to respond to you. A day or two is acceptable as some people are busy outside of this site. Deadman137 (talk) 02:56, 6 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not using a bot, and not doing high-speed editing of anything controversial. We haven't heard anything here to suggest that these terms are proper names (even if there are some proper names that contain words like Finals and Semifinals and Division Finals, those aren't what I'm editing). Even re "Stanley Cup Quarterfinals", book don't cap that. Dicklyon (talk) 03:51, 6 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
If all it takes to resolve this just removing the hockey shorthand, we could consider that request: I'm not a hockey editor. However, as an active editor in other sports, I don't see the advantage of being repetitively verbose and prefixing Stanley Cup. —Bagumba (talk) 04:04, 6 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Deadman137: So far your comments above amount to nothing but personal attacks on me. And nobody is supporting your notion (expressed in edit summaries, not claimed or backed up here) that these words are proper nouns, or proper names. There's a pretty obvious consensus that this is a run-of-the-mill application of MOS:CAPS. So can we just fix them and move on? Dicklyon (talk) 06:30, 6 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

More evidence

MOS:CAPS starts with "Wikipedia avoids unnecessary capitalization." Caps are unnecessary if a number of independent reliable sources avoid them. Examples of sources/outlets that have styles similar to ours, i.e. that cap proper names but do not cap things like "semifinals" in ... include:

The fact that lots of other sites would use "Conference semi-finals", "Conference Semi-finals", "conference Semi-finals", or even "Conference Semi-Finals" is not relevant to how we conform to Wikipedia style. Dicklyon (talk) 06:25, 6 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Let me start by apologizing to Dicklyon, you're right you did not use a bot to engage in your edit war, you used a wikipedia gadget and I have the receipts to prove it. Also holding someone accountable for their actions is not a personal attack. You know that in this case that these terms are used as proper nouns and you've known that for about a year now. Your sources are so good that we cannot determine who actually wrote two of your sources and the other two are local beat writers that are not considered to be experts in their field.
As oknazevad noted in this thread, this overarching policy of yours is WP:CONLIMITED. You've tried get your changes with North American sports through many times and you've not gained consensus at any point. As Randy Kryn noted in opposition: "per the decisions at the recent baseball RMs which kept the uppercasing of their end-of-season playoff schedules. That, along with the uppercasing of NFL conference championship games, seems to have set the style for consistent Wikipedia casing of North American high-level professional sport playoffs. Besides that, the discussion indicates that there is nothing broken here." Given that you do not have consensus the only thing that we can use is the edited consensus and that does not agree with your stance.
As Bagumba said in this thread: "But the capitalization in question is for the standalone word quarterfinals. In this case, there is no difference in meaning for the reader if it is capitalized." The problem with this argument is that you can argue the opposite as well and it is just as valid, "this part of the heading isn't capitalized, we should capitalize it as there is no difference in meaning to the reader." This flawed rule of yours could not be a better argument in support of WP:IAR than I've ever seen on this site. Also of concern is that during the process of coming up with this idea, it was decided to limit qualified sources to only independent ones as the only things that could refute your arguments, this generally is not supported by the community as primary sources are perfectly acceptable under the accepted standards of this site.
So to resolve this issue and end all the fighting we should rescind the current horribly flawed and under scrutinized rule and replace it with a reasonable argument made by GoodDay in 2020: "May not settle with many here, but perhaps a compromise is required. Leave those that are capitalised, as they are & leave those that aren't capitalised, as they are." So to take this just a little further, if a company or league capitalizes any names of their event, we do the same, if they do not capitalize, we do not capitalize. This is likely the only reasonable compromise that we'll be able to come to as what is currently in use is just going to cause further conflict. Deadman137 (talk) 02:10, 8 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"Leave those that are capitalised, as they are & leave those that aren't capitalised, as they are". Wowsers, I sometimes forget, just how logical I can be :) GoodDay (talk) 02:23, 8 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Have you taken this to the idea lab? Nemov (talk) 03:36, 8 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The problem with this argument is that you can argue the opposite as well and it is just as valid, 'this part of the heading isn't capitalized, we should capitalize it as there is no difference in meaning to the reader': This is contrary to MOS:CAPS, which begins:

Wikipedia avoids unnecessary capitalization

Also of concern...it was decided to limit qualified sources to only independent ones as the only things that could refute your arguments, this generally is not supported by the community...: The use of independent sources is also per MOS:CAPS (emphasis added):

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.

—Bagumba (talk) 04:17, 8 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
We could rewrite MOS:CAPS not just for sport events, but for capitalization of important topics of all sorts, as "Wikipedia embraces unnecessary capitalization. In English, capitalization is often used for emphasis of important terms. Wikipedia relies on sources to determine what might be capitalized; any words and phrases that are sometimes capitalized by promoters of a topic are important enough to be capitalized in Wikipedia." That would keep us busy for a while, putting all the caps back into the sports articles, the bird and plant names, and the all the rest. Dicklyon (talk) 10:41, 8 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Except, that's not actually what Wikipedia does. Just because people disagree with your particular approach doesn't mean that there are no standards, or that they aren't applied. --Jayron32 13:11, 8 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This is our time to determine what Wikipedia should do. What it currently does is the mess we're trying to solve. O.N.R. (talk) 01:42, 10 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Conyo wrote above, "NHL editors are very keen on consistency". Consistency is good. And the best way to get there, when things are inconsistent, is to move in the direction indicated by guidelines, especially those of very longstanding consensus about what we should do. For example, if you search for "Preliminary Round" in WP (using regular expression search), you'll find is less than a tenth of the use of lowercase "preliminary round"; the capped version is not all concentrated in hockey, and hockey has never been anywhere near consistent on this internally. So I've been moving toward consistency, per the guideline. What would you propose instead that could be less of "mess"? Why not just help? Dicklyon (talk) 22:17, 10 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The NHL's "preliminary round" only existed for around a decade 40-odd years ago, so it may not be a good sign of usage for the modern-day rounds. O.N.R. (talk) 00:40, 11 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Let me know if there's some other kind of round you'd like me to check. Dicklyon (talk) 03:37, 11 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
If we're limited to NHL, the obvious option would be the conference finals. Is it "Eastern Conference Final(s)" or "Eastern Conference final(s)" in a hockey context? O.N.R. (talk) 17:09, 11 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think we're accepting that it would be "Eastern Conference Final(s)" as the proper name of that event, like "Stanley Cup Finals". That's not one we've argued about. But "the conference finals" when the conference is not named, like in books. In Wikipedia, I count 230 articles with "the Conference Final" (optional s after that) and 160 with "the conference final" (plus 27 "the Conference final") so really not many in total and pretty well mixed. Dicklyon (talk) 18:23, 11 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Per Dicklyon, there's a difference between Eastern Conference Finals, which is a proper name for the event, and merely "conference finals", which is a generic noun phrase. In the context of, say, the NBA, the Eastern Conference Finals are the proper name of a specific event, whereas "conference finals" is a generic term that can refer to any number of conference finals, like the difference between "King Charles III" (a specific king, for which the title is considered part of the proper name) and "king of the United Kingdom", a generic noun referring to any of a number of such kings. --Jayron32 18:30, 11 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It's not a given to me that "Finals" should be obviously capitalized: The Tampa Bay Lightning entered their Eastern Conference finals matchup against the New York Rangers after a well-executed sweep of the Florida Panthers and as a well-rested team, getting nine days off between series. (ESPN) A reader won't interpret the meaning any differently if it was finals vs. Finals.—Bagumba (talk) 10:44, 12 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
My language "I think we're accepting that it would be 'Eastern Conference Final(s)'" was carefully chosen to allow that I also don't think it's a given. Particularly in examples like yours where I'd interpret "Eastern Conference" as modifying "finals matchup". If you said "the Eastern Conference Finals was held ..." then maybe the caps are appropriate. I'd want to check sources. My point here is just that that's not the subtle question being argued, where even "conference finals" has got pushback from a couple of editors, particularly Deadman137. Dicklyon (talk) 16:35, 12 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Looking more at sources, I'm more inclined to question those. In book stats, "Eastern Conference semifinals" in more common than "Eastern Conference Semifinals" except in a couple of recent years, likely influenced by Wikipedia's capitalization. Same with final and quarterfinals and Western. Dicklyon (talk) 02:39, 14 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

And again

@Deadman137: Another revert today claiming "still no consensus", capping "the Qualifying Round" and "the First Round". Have I read this wrong? I thought we had pretty clear consensus above, with Deadman137 pretty much alone in his objections, and still not saying exactly what his objection is or why. Plus the cited sources there use "the qualification round" and "the first round", so it's hard to see what he's getting at. Dicklyon (talk) 18:12, 11 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Dicklyon: You may want to go to WT:HOCKEY#Round_names_capitalization, as the editors are discussing a potential t-ban. I'd rather we didn't go there, so I'll just open an RfC there. I'd rather we not have an edit war of this magnitude over something so silly (pun intended). Conyo14 (talk) 02:42, 12 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, it seems totally inappropriate that a thread for notifying about this discussion forked into its own hockey-fan-centric discussion with explicit canvassing, but there it is. Dicklyon (talk) 03:27, 12 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Hey, we support Caps fans ;). But this does affect all of WP:HOCKEY, so let's involve more editors than MOS and hockey. Okay? Okay. Conyo14 (talk) 03:32, 12 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I see you have indeed launched an RfC at the forked discussion at the WikiProject: WT:WikiProject Ice Hockey#RfC: NHL round names capitalization. I suppose I better ping all the respondents here to go there now? Post it more centrally, too? Dicklyon (talk) 03:36, 12 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The RfC will ping random editors within 24 hours, but yes, please bring everyone and post centrally. Conyo14 (talk) 03:55, 12 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I listed it at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Capital_letters#Current. We should ping previous disccussants, too, But I'm pretty pooped right now, having flown from SYD to SFO today (a very long Thursday). Dicklyon (talk) 04:17, 12 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Some of the gist of the rationale to (arguably) support the capping of Final (and similar) in sentences and sentence fragments like Lost in Final is that Final is being used as a shortened form of a full name (eg Stanley Cup Final). The argument would continue, that there is no evidence of the broader community having reached a consensus on this particular matter; therefore, there is a need to arrive at a consensus on this. Please see Use of capitals in a shortened title, where this very matter was discussed. There was clearly consensus against this being a case where capitalisation would be permitted. Cinderella157 (talk) 03:35, 1 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for finding that from 2015. Also note that even in the full term Stanley Cup Final, "final" was most often lowercase until a few years ago; same with plural Finals; this shift was likely influenced by Wikipedia capping it since 2007. Dicklyon (talk) 05:02, 1 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Final in Stanley Cup F|final is a descriptive noun. There is no reasonable reason capping it is "necessary" per MOS:CAPS. I was not arguing it was. I was only speaking to the capitalisation of shortened forms of a full name which is presumed to be a proper name (ie capped in full). :) Cinderella157 (talk) 08:54, 1 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
No doubt that some sources who use Stanley Cup Finals, NBA Finals, etc. might also refer to the series with a standalone capitalized Finals. But what is gained over lowercase finals, if the context is clear which series is being referred to? For example, this New York Times source uses standalone lowercase finals and conference finals in an NBA article.—Bagumba (talk) 09:28, 1 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Another one

At User_talk:PeeJay#Wrong_how? we're discussing "FA Cup third round" vs "FA Cup Third Round" and such.

Here's the item in question: They needed three games to defeat Queens Park Rangers in the FA Cup Third Round, before hitting four past Oxford United in the next round.

@PeeJay: let's see if we can get more eyes on this question; I already it fixed it back to lowercase, but you're still saying that's wrong and capped it again. Dicklyon (talk) 14:09, 27 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Go the RFC route. Gets more editors involved & ends the content dispute, one way or the other. GoodDay (talk) 14:35, 27 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think we need a new RFC every time an editor doesn't understand MOSCAPS, do you? Dicklyon (talk) 14:52, 27 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It's best to have one, as RFCs tend to solidify consensus. GoodDay (talk) 15:21, 27 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
So far it's just one guy who doesn't understand MOSCAPS. If someone wants to make a case that this is a proper name, or that for some other reason it should be capitalized, let them say so and we'll see if we have clear consensus. It's hard to me to imagine who would still think it's not clear, after all the discussion at hockey and elsewhere. Dicklyon (talk) 17:27, 27 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I reckon it's up to @PeeJay:, which route he chooses :) GoodDay (talk) 21:36, 27 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not making a case for the round names in any competition other than the FA Cup. If other competitions don't capitalise, that's fine, but we have to go with what the evidence supports on a case-by-case basis. In both the competition regulations and the competition calendar, the rounds are capitalised. I can't explain why some pages on the FA website don't capitalise, but the regulations supersede random news articles. – PeeJay 13:05, 28 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That calendar doesn't have sentences. The rules include sentences such as "The Clubs competing in each Round of the Competition shall be drawn in couples..." This does not mean the WP should cap "Clubs" and "Round" and "Competition". Their style is to cap what's important to them, for emphasis. Our style manual says we don't do that. I'll go ahead and fix it again, given the lack of any good reason for capping. Dicklyon (talk) 15:31, 28 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Or you could wait until the end of the discussion… you've made a pretty big assumption regarding the FA's motives for capitalisation. – PeeJay 15:48, 28 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Your response indicates a clear lack of understanding of MOS:CAPS. The provision only words and phrases that are consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources are capitalized in Wikipedia is specifically to not put weight on "official" docs, where being too close to the subject means they're likely to be capitalizing for emphasis (at the FA do in the rules you linked for lots of other common nouns). Read it through, look at some of the precedents collected at the top of WT:MOSCAPS, and see if you don't agree. Dicklyon (talk) 15:41, 28 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Re my "big assumption regarding the FA's motives", you're right, I shouldn't try to make such inferences. My point rather is that their capitalization of "Club", "Round", "Competition", "Players", "Commercial Contracts", "Copyright Materials", etc., shows that they are not using a style in which capitalization is reserved for proper names, and therefore you can't infer from that doc that they treat anything capitalized in it as proper names. Since they often use lowercase for the round names in most other docs on their official site, the evidence is clear that even thefa.com does not support your interpretation. Dicklyon (talk) 19:56, 28 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Use lower-case, per all these other discussions. It's been observed many times that wikiproject-based fans of particular subjects (mostly sports, like football and hockey and tennis) work themselves up into a state of "discouragement" when they go the route of protracted squabbling to maintain their "capitalize this because we think it's important" bad habit. RfC after RfC about the same thing is the primary source of this, and is a general drain on editorial productivity. The WP:RFC process should be used for settling genuinely controversial matters involving a large number of editors to get to a consensus; not by one won't-drop-the-stick editor to delay the inevitable.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:56, 27 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, it could be a case of boosterism, such as organisations that cap job titles (Garbage Collector Grade 2). Our readers will find it so much easier to distinguish the proper name (FA Cup) from whichever round it is: ""FA Cup third round". "FA Cup Third Round" pokes my eyes four times and lacks the distinction. There is utterly no need for an RfC. Tony (talk) 08:20, 28 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

More case fix reverts

@SounderBruce: who reverted about 17 of my last 1000 or so sports case-fixing edits, for reasons that remain unclear. See User talk:SounderBruce#Capitalization reverts. He suggests another RFC, but hasn't said what the question is. Looks like mostly hockey round names, which we just re-settled with an RFC. Dicklyon (talk) 03:16, 9 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@SounderBruce: let us know if you need time to explain, before I restore my case fixes. Dicklyon (talk) 00:53, 10 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Lacking any response from him as he edits other things and ignores the pings, and in light of the recent RFC at WT:WikiProject Ice Hockey#RfC: NHL round names capitalization, I'll go ahead and re-do those fixes that SounderBruce reverted. Dicklyon (talk) 03:24, 11 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I checked out of this discussion a while ago. It isn't logical to use a hockey decision to decide how soccer terms are used. If you must continue being an annoyance to editors who are here to create content and not squabble over whether words should be capitalized based on whether 49.9999% of a selected number of sources use which form, I just ask that you do things with more care and consistency. Mass JWB-ing without care is hurting the project. SounderBruce 03:39, 11 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The failure of the hockey exception suggested that other sport exceptions would also not be in order. If I make mistakes in my edits, it would be useful if you would point them out instead of just reverting. I still have no clue what you're objecting to. I see you're mass reverting again, but have still not pointed out what I got wrong, if anything. Dicklyon (talk) 04:04, 11 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@SounderBruce: Wikipedia has had a style of avoiding unnecessary capitalization for longer than I've been around (over 15 years). It's not a real big deal like WP:NPOV or WP:V, but it's something worth attending to for people who enjoy such things. When someone writes "It isn't logical to use a hockey decision to decide how soccer terms are used", it's clear that there's a misunderstanding. The style decisions were made long ago and the vast majority of the encyclopedia follows them. They still sometimes surprise people who are unaware of them, but re-litigating them every time is not productive. Like many others (including me), @Dicklyon is doing the boring but satisfying work of making the encyclopedia use a consistent style throughout. It's gnome work, not for glory or barnstars, but it makes the encyclopedia better. SchreiberBike | ⌨  20:31, 11 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
With SounderBruce being a lone voice against what appears to still be a solid consensus, can I go ahead and re-fix those he reverted? Dicklyon (talk) 17:42, 13 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Not a peep about this at several FACs about American soccer in the past few years, where MOS compliance is actually checked carefully. I'm opposed to any actions that are not discussed with the wider community with input from editors who actually have some subject knowledge, rather than simply using the ever-worsening search abilities of Google. SounderBruce 05:26, 14 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe invite someone from WT:MOSCAPS to check next time. Dicklyon (talk) 02:38, 15 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, there was a peep, but you squashed it by asserting they are proper names. Dicklyon (talk) 02:47, 15 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Also note that near the top of this talk section I asked you Where can I find more about your interpretation that "MLS's playoff rounds are given proper names"? You didn't answer. Dicklyon (talk) 02:50, 15 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

His reverts' edit summary (MLS round names are proper names) e.g. here is just like what a couple of ice hockey editors were claiming for their sport. A perusal of sources does not support this; e.g. for "MLS Cup playoffs", it's easy to find lots of uses in reliable independent sources with lowercase "playoffs". For round names in isolation, even more so. It's not clear what SounderBruce means when he asks me to "do things with more care and consistency"; consistency takes time and he's just interfering by random reverts. And if more care is needed, I could use an example or two of where I got it wrong (I do make mistakes now and then, but I own them and try to fix them quickly). Dicklyon (talk) 21:34, 11 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I also did a handful of page moves to downcase "playoffs", thinking those would be uncontroversial as they seemed to be in lots of other sports I had worked on in the last year, but SounderBruce moved them back (e.g. here) with edit summary "Proper name of the tournament". So I suppose we need a multi RM discussion now, which will be another numbers game of soccer fans/promoters versus people who prefer to follow WP guidelines. Dicklyon (talk) 21:41, 11 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Year NHL playoffs

FWIW, I've attempted to implement the recent WP:HOCKEY RFC decision, at the (ya gotta start somewhere) 2023 Stanley Cup playoffs page. Don't know if I got it correct. Feel free to look it over. GoodDay (talk) 21:55, 11 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for doing that. I did a few more there; and still more. Sometimes it seems it will never end. Dicklyon (talk) 04:35, 12 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

RACECAPS note h

Hello! I have a question about note h, which currently reads:

A June–December 2020 proposal to capitalize "Black" (only) concluded against that idea, and also considered "Black and White", and "black and white", with no consensus to implement a rule requiring either or against mixed use where editors at a particular article believe it's appropriate. The status quo practice had been that either style was permissible, and this proposal did not overturn that. The somewhat unclear proposal closure was refined January–April 2021 and implemented, after a February–March 2021 overhaul of the rest of this section
(bold added to part that's the basis for my confusion).

Perhaps I'm having a brain lapse, but I'm not following the bolded text. Is it saying that there was "no consensus to implement a rule either requiring or prohibiting mixed use"? I ask because there's currently some edit warring going on at Tulsa race massacre on whether mixed capitalization is allowed. I'd note that, in early 2022, there was a subsequent discussion on this talk page as to mixed usage.--Jerome Frank Disciple (talk) 15:06, 14 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Reading the discussions, my conclusion is that its stating that there was no consensus to implement a rule requiring "Black/White" or "black/white" and that there was no consensus to implement a rule against mixed use, allowing for its usage where editors at a particular article believe it's appropriate (which I think is important to note, as mixed use primarily has to do with American race relations, and would be inappropriate elsewhere). Therefore, reverting or changing existing norms in the article over capitalization would fall under MOS:STYLEVAR, which states that When either of two styles are acceptable it is inappropriate for a Wikipedia editor to change from one style to another unless there is some substantial reason for the change. :3 F4U (they/it) 05:03, 16 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
In general usage for decades now, there's been a tendency for more left-leaning and African-American writers to capitalize "Black" as it has come to name a culture and ethnicity in the African diaspora; notably in the wake of things like the Black power movement. Whereas "white" is not generally a specific culture/ethnicity. Often "white" is capitalized by White supremacists. So, mixed usage, varying with context. - CorbieVreccan ☊ ☼ 20:00, 16 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That's the "Hitler liked cats so cats must be bad" fallacy. White supremacists also capitalize "Chinese" and "Maori" but we wouldn't consider writing them lower-case because white supremacists use upper-case. Major publishers like The Washington Post routinely capitalize White in the ethno-racial sense, right along with Black.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  02:36, 25 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Note the use of Blak culture and Blak sovereignty (always capitalised) in Australia. I don't know if these needs a mention in the style guide. SMcCandlish? There will no doubt be at least one full article about either or both at some point. (And as an aside, Indigenous and Aboriginal are always capitalised when referring to First Nations people or languages in Australia). Laterthanyouthink (talk) 02:19, 25 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

A bridge to cross when we come to it. Coloured is capitalized in the South African context. The issue at real debate here is the practice of some on the American left to write "Black but white" and whether WP should adopt it. So far there has been no consensus to do so, and I would think that one would not develop. A side matter has been whether things like "the indigenous peoples of South America" or "the native cultures of northern China" should have a capitalized "Indigenous" and "Native", and again we have not reached a consensus to do that and probably will not.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  02:39, 25 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your response. Yes - in South Africa, Coloured refers to a specific ethnicity though, not all people of colour, so slightly different. The Black vs white capitalisation is also a bit of an issue in Australia (and the term can mean different things to different people see Black Australians), with variation in capitalisation seen in the media and other literature. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 02:55, 25 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Our current de facto practice of being consistent ("black and white" or "Black and White") within an article is probably good enough for now, but I've said before that I think this needs to come to a proper RfC at some point so we have a clearer answer. (My own personal opinion is that these terms should be capitalized as ethnonyms, even if informal ones; and I do it that way. It's especially jarring to see something like "Asian, black, Hispanic, Native American, Pacific Islander, or white", as if two are being de-capitalized to denigrate them.)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:14, 25 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. When "Black" and "White" are being used as a race/ethnicity they should be capitalized. Rreagan007 (talk) 00:02, 20 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Absolutely, it looks bad. Doug Weller talk 12:08, 20 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Headings: should content after a colon be capitalized?

Hi all, I'm wondering if there's still consensus that content after a colon in a heading should not be capitalized.

The current guidance, in my opinion, seems counter to many peoples' intuition– I believe this may be because a colon is usually used after a date, so the secondary title includes the first capitalizable text. (I've even had my changes in this issue reverted, prompting me to question the guidance altogether.)

For reference, MOS:SECTIONCAPS gives these examples as guidance:

Use: 1891–1940: early history
Avoid: 1891–1940: Early history

Thanks! Wracking 💬 02:01, 18 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

There have been very similar topics discussed in October 2022, March 2022, and August 2021, mostly around capitalizing after numbers, and in all of them it was made clear that section headings, as article titles, use sentence case, in which only the first character of a sentence is capitalized (and proper nouns, of course), meaning that neither the first letter after a number nor the first letter after a colon should be capitalized. —El Millo (talk) 02:10, 18 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I see in the October 2022 discussion that @Spongeworthy93 provided a list of off-wiki examples of sentence case titles with a colon. Personally, I think those are compelling. APA also says to capitalize after a colon in sentence case titles. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Wracking 💬 02:20, 18 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It says that the first word after a colon is also capitalized when what follows the colon is an independent clause (emphasis mine), not in every case after a colon. Still, while APA suggest this, the Chicago Manual of Style suggest using lowercase after colon, unless what follows consists of two or more complete sentences.[1] —El Millo (talk) 02:40, 18 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The rules for sentences and sentence-case titles are different. Both APA and Chicago Manual of Style support capitalizing a subheading (text after a colon) using sentence case.
For titles, APA says "Capitalize the first word of the title/heading and of any subtitle/subheading".[2]
Chicago Manual of Style says, "In headlines or chapter titles or other display type, it’s normal to cap after a colon, even if the title or heading is in sentence case (see CMOS 8.158) and whether or not the part after the colon is a grammatically complete sentence."[3] Examples given by Chicago Manual of Style are as follows:[4]
  • The house of Rothschild: The world’s banker, 1849–1999
  • Crossing Magnolia denudata with M. liliiflora to create a new hybrid: A success story
Wracking 💬 17:43, 18 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Well, hold on a moment. You say Both APA and Chicago Manual of Style support capitalizing a subheading (text after a colon), but that seems to misinterpret what APA says, at least. APA does not (AFAICS) say what follows a colon constitutes a subheading. They say only, the first word after a colon is also capitalized when what follows the colon is an independent clause. — JohnFromPinckney (talk / edits) 22:15, 19 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@JohnFromPinckney: I think you're looking at the wrong APA section. See the link at ref 2 below. Deor (talk) 22:26, 19 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The link at ref 2 below is the one I followed. That's the place I looked and whence I copied the excerpt I pasted here. Where, exactly, do you (or Wracking, who actually made the claim I'm questioning) see that the APA says that what follows a colon is a subtitle/subheading? — JohnFromPinckney (talk / edits) 08:42, 20 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Sources generally characterize the bit following the "main" title/heading as a subtitle/subheading.[5] That aside, here's APA: In sentence case, lowercase most words in a title or heading. Capitalize only the following words: [...] the first word after a colon, em dash, or end punctuation in a heading.[6] Wracking 💬 16:38, 20 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
WP would not capitalize after an em-dash either. I think what's going on here is APA is interpreting all of these things as titles, and individually applying sentence case to each fragment divided by a colon or em-dash. And we tend to do that with off-site articles' sentence-case titles in citations, e.g |title=Mammal barbering 101: The aerodynamics of shaved weasels – To shave or not to shave (though this would depend on the citation style a particular editor was most used to; some would not use the captal Ts, and some would re-render the entire title in title case). But WP-internal article headings are treated as headings, as dividers, and formatted the same as list items, table headers, image captions, etc.: just plain sentence case as a single string (except where a new full sentence occurs, which is common enough in list items and image captions, but not headings or table headers). Whether that was a great idea or not is kind of moot now, after 20+ years.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:23, 25 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Use lower-case, per previous discussions of this. PS: WP:MOS does not slavishly follow Chicago (which itself changes over time). Otherwise MoS would just consist of a summary of Chicago instead of being its own style guide. MoS is our best community effort to synthesize all style guides into something that works well on Wikipedia. Do not let your head explode when MoS disagrees with something in some particular other style guide.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  02:41, 25 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I appreciate your comments. I'm not confused about the rules or how they work. My argument is that the MOS should be different. I cited other style guides to clear up other editors' confusion about the general understanding of "sentence case" (including off-wiki). I cannot find any style guide that treats sentence case display text as Wikipedia does, and I think that's notable. Thanks. Wracking 💬 03:13, 25 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
SMcCandlish, I'm relatively new to Wikipedia so I apologize if I brought these thoughts to the wrong place. Maybe I'll look at WP:VPPOL for this. Thanks. Wracking 💬 03:23, 25 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This seems as good a place as any. WP decided on a paricular form of sentence case for headings way back in its early days, and changing it now would be a monumental task for no gain. There's not a clear reader-facing reason to do it. Unlike, say, fixing rampant over-capitalization of terms just because they have something to do with a sport or dancing or videogames or the government or some other topic where people like to ignore MOS:SIGCAPS. That kind of stuff is mentally jarring to readers. "Why is this capitalized? Is it a proper name? A trademark? Is this some form of emphasis?" But it's really unlikely that many of them would notice a heading difference between "Blah blah: yak yak yak" and "Blah blah: Yak yak yak").  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:08, 25 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The current rule (do not capitalize after a colon in a header) isn’t being followed, though. That’s why I brought this up in the first place. So I’m not sure how "monumental" this task would actually be, as it wouldn’t involve large-scale changing of articles. :] Wracking 💬 15:06, 25 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed, capitalization after dash and colon and quite common, and often well defended. But the way to fix inconsistency is to move toward what the guideline suggests, not change the guideline and start going the other direction. Dicklyon (talk) 18:11, 25 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I think, in this case, Wikipedia should take a descriptivist approach, as the prescriptivist one clearly isn't working. (In my informal survey, about 85% of articles follow APA/Chicago, not WP on this issue. Let me know if you need details on my methodology lol)
I don't think any arguments for the status quo have been very strong, as they've been mistaken about the use of sentence case off-wiki and argued that because the rules are old they shouldn't be changed (even though, IMO, cited past discussion has been not on this topic, shallow, and misinformed). Maybe I'm under a false impression about the changeability of the MOS, then. Wracking 💬 18:27, 25 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see any statistical analysis proving that a majority of colons in WP headings are followed by a capital letter. The fact that you've run into a few cases of it doesn't prove anything, other than what's already been said many times before: No one has to comply with MoS to write here, and no one is expected to memorize MoS. (It primarily exists as a cleanup reference work for WP:GNOMEs and a means of settling recurrent, disruptive style disputes.) There is no line-item in MoS, or in any other guideline or policy, that is not routinely violated by editors, because editors mostly do not read our P&G pages. That doesn't mean we should reverse all the rules to do what the rule-ignorers are doing.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:37, 26 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Please don't twist my words. I did not say we should reverse all rules. I said we should reverse this rule.
Here is the informal survey I did:
  • It is not possible (AFAIK) to search article text for punctuation or case sensitivity, so I instead searched for a phrase that often appears in this particular header formation. On 25 May, I searched "early years", a common phrase used in headers that include colons. I reviewed the first 250 results, 40 of which included a colon in the header.
  • The results were as follows: 85% capitalize after the colon, 10% do not.
And here's the data:
Extended content
Thanks. Wracking 💬 00:35, 27 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/qanda/data/faq/topics/Capitalization/faq0008.html
  2. ^ https://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2012/03/title-case-and-sentence-case-capitalization-in-apa-style.html
  3. ^ https://cmosshoptalk.com/2022/02/15/when-to-capitalize-after-a-colon/
  4. ^ The Chicago Manual of Style 17th edition. 8.158: Principles and examples of sentence-style capitalization.
  5. ^ https://dissertation.laerd.com/style-guides-for-dissertation-titles-p2.php#:~:text=The%20first%20letter%20of%20a,Subtitle%20OR%20Title%20%E2%80%94%20Subtitle)
  6. ^ https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/capitalization/sentence-case

Hmm. That might be a significant enough trend to just RfC this then, to codify a style change. Doing "Foo bar: baz" instead of "Foo bar: Baz" is really a completely arbitrary preference; there's no meaning difference. Changing to "Foo bar: Baz" would mean changing an almost unbelievable number of headings, which is a point against the idea. But it would also be more consistent with our typical treatment of sentence-case titles in citations, which is a point if favor.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  14:52, 31 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I was looking for past discussions on this in the aftermath of #RFC on capitalizing after dash in sports article names below, and I saw that this discussion was still open (i.e. unarchived). I firmly believe the policy should be amended to allow for uppercase after a colon or en dash when it is being used as an introductory separator in an article title, section heading, or bulleted list item; the "do not capitalize after a colon or dash" rule only makes sense in prose. As I wrote below, the text that follows a colon or en dash in an article title, section heading, or bulleted list item is not a complete sentence but a sentence fragment, so we should not be following capitalization rules meant for sentences in prose. If you think about it, this is akin to subtitles in titles of works, whose first word we capitalize per MOS:TITLECAPS. InfiniteNexus (talk) 05:01, 12 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia title style is nearly identical to the AP headline style. I won't share directly from the AP site since that's subscription-only, but this post gives enough information to see what that style's about. There's no particular exception triggered by any kind of dash. ~TPW 13:27, 12 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia title style does not follow any style guide. Furthermore, as far as I know, most style guides recommend using title case (i.e. akin to MOS:TITLECAPS) instead of sentence case like Wikipeda for article titles and section headings. I believe there should be an RfC to amend our policy. InfiniteNexus (talk) 00:38, 15 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
WP:AT gives voice to WP:NCCAPS. That in turn gives voice to MOS:CAPS. MOS:AT is part of WP:MOS. WP:MOS and MOS:CAPS does apply to article titles. Furthermore, the WP:P&G linked is consistent across those linked pages. Cinderella157 (talk) 02:43, 15 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
And I'm not contesting that. I'm saying the guideline should be changed. This is one of those guidelines that exist, only nobody follows it because common sense tells us it's not good writing. InfiniteNexus (talk) 04:19, 15 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Open up Google News or some other source of article headlines and you will see that there are a wide variety of capitalization styles used. When I looked at Google News just now sentence case was dominant. Wikipedia's style is not out of step with other sources.  SchreiberBike | ⌨  21:01, 15 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for that. Yes, now Ctrl+F all the colons on the page and count how many sentence-case titles capitalize the first letter after the colon. Let me see ... hmm, seems like it's virtually all of them. InfiniteNexus (talk) 21:51, 15 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

information Note: Please see #RfC on capitalization after a colon or dash. InfiniteNexus (talk) 17:48, 20 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

List items, alternatives, compounds, etc. of music genres, occupations, sports positions, etc., esp. in infoboxes

I've gotten some pushback in opposite directions recently, like when I capped some music genres in a "flatlist" and when I lowercased alternatives after a slash, (as in Guard/Forward –> Guard/forward), both in infobox contexts. So I'd like to know how others interpret MOSCAPS there. My take has been to use sentence case for comma-separated and slash-separated alternatives or lists, and sentence case per item when they are formatted as a list; and I learned that Template:flatlist doesn't exactly format as a list; see its doc example

@Rikster2: who asked me at User talk:Dicklyon#Slash caps replacement to seek a consensus before doing more on this. He suggests that maybe we need an infobox-specific guideline, or perhaps something specific to player bios. What do others think? Dicklyon (talk) 18:07, 25 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I always assumed capitalizing all items in the list was consistent with MOS:LISTCAPS:

If the list items are sentence fragments, then capitalization should be consistent – sentence case should be applied to either all or none of the items.

—Bagumba (talk) 09:11, 26 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, if a pair of slash separated items is considered a list and if the items are sentence fragments. To me it's not a list, and here they are not sentence fragments, so this doesn't apply; applying sentence case as in "Guard/forward" seems more consistent with MOSCAPS to me. Dicklyon (talk) 15:29, 26 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Also, what do hyphenated compounds like "guard-forward" and "forward-center" mean? Is this a position? Or some relation between positions that would make more sense with a dash or a slash? Dicklyon (talk) 19:00, 25 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It's shorthand in (some) sports for players who are skilled enough to play multiple positions. I'd give leeway to using it in an infobox if it's common in the domain. Example prose: "Pat Cummings, a Knick forward, and Michael Cooper, a Laker guard-forward, who served..." (NYT) —Bagumba (talk) 09:14, 26 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
OK, like singer-songwriter. Dicklyon (talk) 15:29, 26 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Use lower-case for both. This is just more excuse-making to over-capitalize things that are subject to fandom urges to use capital letters. A player position like "forward" is not a proper name, so it's "guard-forward" or "guard/forward", which in an infobox would be first-letter capitalized: "Guard-forward". Same with {{flatlist}} or {{hlist}} giving music genres in an infobox:
That's not a list in the sense MOS:LISTCAPS is addressing. We may need to just add a line-item there to not capitalize every entry in a "list" that is put onto one line.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:31, 26 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Let's not overuse the "fandom" rant. See Bill Gates, the first occupation, Businessman is capitalized. I believe capitalizing first items, at least, is quite common on WP ibxs. —Bagumba (talk) 16:08, 27 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
He already agreed "which in an infobox would be first-letter capitalized". There's no issue there. Dicklyon (talk) 17:02, 27 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, I must of skimmed after "Use lower-case for both". Thanks. —Bagumba (talk) 17:16, 27 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I just re-fixed one of the Rikster2 reverts. Any objection to my doing the other 70 or so? Dicklyon (talk) 17:10, 27 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hang on a bit for more possible feedback on flatlists and slash lists w.r.t. MOS:LISTCAPS. —Bagumba (talk) 17:21, 27 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Why not give me more than a day and a half to respond before implementing a “consensus” of two and a half editors? Some of us have jobs and some of those jobs are also done on Saturdays. Rikster2 (talk) 18:22, 27 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You had been editing other things since I pinged you here, so I thought I should either go ahead or prod a bit harder to get you to come. Thanks for showing up. But you still haven't said anything. Dicklyon (talk) 21:24, 27 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Another question on that one would be what to do about infobox lines like "2007 / Round: 1 / Pick: 6th overall" (as controlled centrally by Template:Infobox basketball biography). Change to "2007 / round: 1 / pick: 6th overall"? Dicklyon (talk) 17:12, 27 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps discuss at WT:BASKETBALL. While we're at it, maybe streamline to like "2007: 1st round, 6th overall pick" —Bagumba (talk) 17:32, 27 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Probably I won't take that one on; but good idea – you should propose it. Dicklyon (talk) 21:29, 27 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
We can all mull over it. —Bagumba (talk) 02:39, 28 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Sports positions? Clarify, what's being requested for sports bio infoboxes content. GoodDay (talk) 21:31, 27 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Typically "Position: Forward/center", where Rikster2 wants Center capped. Dicklyon (talk) 21:45, 27 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, I'm not sure where to put this, but in my opinion, positions should be capitalized after the slash. I suppose there's lots of reasons why, but mainly it's just because "Power forward / center" looks, like, really bad... if you know what I mean? As opposed to "Power forward / Center"... Idk just wanted to leave my opinion somewhere, feel free to disregard :) JAX4981 (talk) 03:51, 28 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Opinions are fine. Mine is that we should follow guidelines instead of opinions about how it looks. Let's hear from more... Dicklyon (talk) 04:12, 28 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, that's fine, can you just point me to where in WT:MOSCAPS it talks about cases like this? Because it seems to be largely about actual sentences, which infoboxes aren't... I could be misunderstanding this though. I know Rikster provided 3 sources where both positions are capitalized, here's two more where both are capitalized, one of them being the official NBA website: 1 2
To be clear, I'm only concerned with specifically basketball infobox capitalization, I'm not quite smart enough to understand the rest of what is being talked about here :) JAX4981 (talk) 20:47, 28 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know of any MOSCAPS provisions specifically about basketball infoboxes. The closest bit is about list items, which is why we're talking about interpretations of that here. Dicklyon (talk) 01:34, 29 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I feel like it's kinda different though, because it's not mid-sentence. At the very top of MOS:CAPS 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." and from these 5 examples (1 2 3 4 5), I would say that those fit the criteria for a majority of reliable sources, and therefore, the position after the slash should be capitalized, no? JAX4981 (talk) 22:22, 29 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Here's what I see at your 5 links:
  1. Position Guard/Forward – an example of infobox-like structure
  2. G/C in a heading – not relevant
  3. This site can’t be reached Forward/Guard in infobox-like setting
  4. Denver Nuggets | #11 | Guard-Forward in a heading – not relevant
  5. Position: Point Guard, Small Forward, and Shooting Guard – definitely sentence-like noun clause, fully overcapitalized.– not relevant
And even if sources do cap in infobox-like contexts, that doesn't mean we do, if the general provision is to avoid unnecessary capitalization, and there's no exception for infoboxes. The "Wikipedia relies on sources to determine what is capitalized" is about "what", not "where". Dicklyon (talk) 23:22, 29 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure why the third link can't be reached, it's a USA basketball link with an infobox-like structure that says: "Positions Forward/Guard"
Also, I'm not sure why the fifth link wouldn't be relevant, as it's a source used in almost every basketball player's page.
And as for the what vs. where, I don't see why "what" can't include "where"
Anyway, my point is that I disagree, but I'm going to leave it there because I don't have much more to say. Hopefully someone with more knowledge than me on the subject can chime in here. I appreciate you taking the time to respond :) JAX4981 (talk) 23:39, 29 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That link is working for me now, so I struck the "can't be reached" and noted what it says. As for the last one, title-case phrases like "Point Guard" and "Small Forward" show that they're using title case, not sentence case like WP does, so not relevant to how to apply sentence case across a slash or comma. Thanks for your efforts, too. Let's wait and see who else has opinions or info. Dicklyon (talk) 02:57, 30 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
User:JAX4981 You are right! It does look bad! That was my claim because I told User:Dicklyon that it just doesn’t look proper! ReaganHoang10 (talk) 20:07, 5 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Your reverts with edit summaries like "Help me God" and "You've got to be kidding me" are no substitute for discussing and following the guidelines. Please stop that. Dicklyon (talk) 03:49, 6 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, I apologize for those comments but still. ReaganHoang10 (talk) 05:32, 6 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
And for genres, things like "genre = Indie rock, alternative rock, folk rock" (no pushback there; WP has a lot like this and also a lot over-capped. Dicklyon (talk) 00:30, 28 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. What's going on here is basically a proposal to change the dominant site-wide practice – on a technicality, a wikilawyering nitpick over what "list" might mean for capitalization purposes. All of us who've been around during most of MoS's formation already know that it doesn't mean to write |genre=[[Indie rock]], [[Alternative rock]], [[Folk rock]]. If we need to clarify the guideline wording to make this clearer, then do it. But see also WP:AJR.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  15:26, 31 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
In the case of genres in infoboxes, I've been fixing away, and there's no pushback. On the basketball positions, I've paused while we discuss. Seems to be the exact same issue, except it's more often slash than comma. Does that make a differrence? Can we hear a few more opinions before consider whether this needs clarifiation in MOSCAPS? A similar question has come up with dash-separated things in tennis tables (discussion linked at #Current. Dicklyon (talk) 15:42, 31 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
For context only, not an argument for one convention over another, but basketball positions are often listed by their abbrev: forward (F), center (C), and guard (G). Multi-positional players would be listed as F/C, G/F. The tendency to want "Forward/ Center" capitalized likely stems from "FC" being in caps, and the belief that also extends to its expansion. Likely not uncommon logic, or a sinister cabal, which is presumably why MOS:EXPABBR addressed the phenomena.—Bagumba (talk) 08:45, 3 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, such thinking is commonly part of the problem, and there's no objection to capitalizing such initialisms. Dicklyon (talk) 03:49, 6 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The guidance at MOS:LISTCAPS seems pretty clearly focused on not capitalizing.~TPW 17:05, 6 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Breed capitalization

Is there any appetite for a new RfC on breed capitalization? The reigning RfC seems increasingly out of place/a relic of the early 2000s, considering the stated aim to 'avoid unnecessary capitalization' and that advice on the topic outside of the industry is predominantly to not capitalize outside of proper nouns (perhaps with a few exceptions like 'Old English' and 'Great Dane', plus overriding trademark rules). A lot of effort has been put into this previously (WP:BREEDCASE) by @SMcCandlish. Perhaps a new RfC could avoid straying into the endless debate over what constitutes a standardized breed? To be clear, while I'd certainly help with the potentially resulting cleanup, I'm not all that well versed on RfCs, so I'm likely not the one to put forward a proposal. Star Garnet (talk) 17:00, 5 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think I want to wade back into this. It was very draining, and I'm skeptical that the consensus from the 2019 RfC would change. I tend to agree with you in principle, but the pain won't be worth it.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:12, 5 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
If it does come up, please do ping me and I'll participate. ~TPW 17:06, 6 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

TsNIITochMash

Thoughts on this title. Cinderella157 (talk) 08:20, 17 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Google books search has it all over the place, including all caps and first letter caps (and different combos in between). Cinderella157 (talk) 08:28, 17 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Capitalization of "Marine"

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
Closing per WP:SNOW. Supporting editors argued that editing the MOS would conform with the official USMC style as well as common styling choices in American news media and other sources. Editors in opposition argued that Wikipedia has no obligation to follow the styling of other sources, nor any branches of military in its MOS. There is a consensus to keep the lowercase styling of the word "marine." Combefere ★ Talk 16:07, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Should a member of the U.S. Marine Corps be referred to as a "Marine" (or, if retired, "Marine veteran") with a capital M? – .Raven  .talk 02:19, 18 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Re MOS:MARINE ("Military terms"): currently brought up at Talk:Killing of Jordan Neely...

The U.S. Marine Corps prefers the capitalization of "Marine", even applied to individual members (and also deprecates "former" or "ex-Marine" in favor of "Marine veteran"; "Once a Marine, Always a Marine") — and reports have generally complied:

We also rely on actual news reports as sources. Some of the cites actually in Killing of Jordan Neely:

At some point, shouldn't Wikipedia follow RSs as well as current off-Wiki style guides, and capitalize "Marine"? I so move. – .Raven  .talk 02:19, 18 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support capitalization. I see little purpose in swimming against the tide. I think it's safe to assume most editors won't think to check the MOS against the conventions of their citations, and those of us who have will go nuts bringing articles into compliance. Even gnomes have better things to do. ;-) Xan747 (talk) 03:05, 18 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • I oppose capitalization. Reading the arguments below has convinced me. Updated 18:00, 22 June 2023 (UTC) support capitalization - it's a proper adjective, after all, and as Xan points out, is contrary to essentially all conventions that cover this usage I have ever been aware of. I am hesitant to support the "once a Marine, always a Marine" styling - it isn't Wikipedia's place to uphold what is basically a vanity title - not to be disrespectful, but it makes it unnecessarily ambiguous to refer to both active and discharged Marines as simply "Marines." PriusGod (talk) 03:17, 18 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Discharged Marines are "Marine veterans", as distinct from "Army veterans", "Navy veterans", "Air Force veterans", and "Coast Guard veterans". (I suppose someday soon there will be "Space Force veterans".) – .Raven  .talk 08:23, 18 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    "Marine veteran" is not actually good writing. "Army veteran", "Navy veteran", "Air Force veteran" are all using noun phrases, and might be capitalized when they are short forms in a specific context of a longer proper name ("US Army", "Royal Navy", etc.); and not capitalized when generic (e.g. "Many of the immigrants were army veterans of their respective countries"). But the "marine" equivalent would be "Marine Corps veteran" (or in UK, "Royal Marines veteran", though "Marine Corps veteran" can actually apply to the UK as well; the full name of the division is Corps of Royal Marines). Just using the adjective as "Marine veteran" is like just using the adjective from "Air Force" and writing "Air veteran". "Marine" used as an adjective like that is generic: "marine unit", "marine tactic", "marine troops"; it is directly equivalent to "amphibious unit", "naval tactic", "air support", etc. That some people like to over-capitalize it anyway (probably in all of those cases) isn't really of any concern to us, other than a "capitalize everything with a military connection" bad habit to avoid. "Marine" as a noun is a modern back-formation from the adjective and has limited usage ("Jones was a marine", "Jones joined the Marines in 1947", capitalized in the latter case again as a short form of "Marine Corps" of a specific country (whereas "marine" in the former construction, "Jones was a marine", is not such a shorthand: expanded to "Jones was a Marine Corps", it would not parse).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  16:15, 18 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    > "'Marine veteran' is not actually good writing." — As I cited above, it is preferred by the Marine Corps itself, and used in multiple news agencies' reports. At some point, we concede our own preferences to outside sources.
    > "'Marine' used as an adjective like that is generic: 'marine unit', 'marine tactic', 'marine troops'" — With lower-case "m", "marine" as an adjective can simply refer to matters of the sea (Latin mare), e.g. "marine vehicle" generally means a boat or ship, not a car or truck belonging to the U.S. Marine Corps. The chance of being mis-read follows from that ambiguity. So lower-case "marine veteran" could be taken as referring to any "sea veteran," any retired (or even "old hand") sailor, including civilians or Coast Guard. We shouldn't leave doubt of our meaning. – .Raven  .talk 18:06, 18 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    If you think that governmentese and journalism for that matter are paragons of good writing, especially in an encyclopedic context, you really don't have much business participating in MoS discussions, LOL. With lower-case "m", "marine" as an adjective can simply refer to matters of the sea, yes "can" not "does". An enormous proportion of the words in English have multiple meanings, and we do not use capitalization as a signifier to distinguish them (MOS:SIGCAPS), we use clear writing.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  15:32, 20 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    So do you also insist that members of the Coast Guard should be called "coast guardsmen" rather than "Coast Guardsmen"? Hmm. Interesting. Actual usage in the real world, as by government and journalism, doesn't matter! We get to write our own language! – .Raven  .talk 22:01, 20 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose This has been discussed ad nauseam (better get me a bucket) and the status quo upheld each time. Unless there is something new or novel, this is just another WAFTAM doing the same thing over and expecting a different outcome. If used alone, it is a descriptive common noun. A marine is a nautical soldier. Capitalising for a US nautical soldier would fall to MOS:SIGNIFCAPS and we don't do that. If preceding a name and it is being used as a rank (equivalent to private), it is an attributive noun and title. In this case MOS:JOBTITLES also applies and it is capitalised when used as such. Cinderella157 (talk) 04:19, 18 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Marine expeditionary force: A Marine expeditionary force (MEF), formerly known as a Marine amphibious force, is the largest type of a Marine air-ground task force. ... larger than a Marine expeditionary unit (MEU) or Marine expeditionary brigade (MEB). / Each MEF consists of a MEF Information Group (MIG) as the command element, a Marine division (MARDIV) as the ground combat element, a Marine aircraft wing (MAW) as the aviation combat element, and a Marine logistics group (MLG) as the logistics combat element.
    Notice that only one of the words in the acronymic phrases is capitalized, each time.
    An aerodynamically alleviated marine vehicle is a kind of boat; "a marine thruster is a device for producing directed hydrodynamic thrust mounted on a marine vehicle, primarily for maneuvering or propulsion"; the lowercase "marine" conveys "of, found in, or produced by the sea".
    That's distinct from a Marine vehicle... unless Title Case makes it a Marine Vehicle. – .Raven  .talk 08:50, 18 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    The fact that you can find over-capitalized examples doesn't really tell us anything.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  15:59, 18 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Your calling them "over-capitalized" presumes your case. What if all of them are right? – .Raven  .talk 18:09, 18 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    The question of this RfC is capitalisation of marine and the guidance at MOS:MARINE - in reference to an individual or group of marines in the same context as using soldier, sailor or airman. Whether the examples provided are right or wrong is immaterial to this discussion because they fall outside the scope of this particular guidance being discussed. The comment is a WP:STRAWMAN. Cinderella157 (talk) 00:06, 19 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    The ambiguity of lower-cased "marine" is one good reason for capitalizing the word when it relates to the Corps.
    "He operated a marine vehicle" and "He operated a Marine vehicle" do not convey the same meaning. – .Raven  .talk 06:26, 20 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Once again, good writing can solve this issue. Surely you would write, "He operated a Marine Corps vehicle." Primergrey (talk) 07:40, 20 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Even without this, sentences are not written in isolation. Context establishes meaning. We don't hear capital letters yet meaning is still conveyed when spoken because of context. If it is not, policy tells us that we should refactor to accommodate the vision impaired relying on text readers. However, the example represents a red-herring argument, since we are considering the advice at MOS:MARINE, which is the use of marine as a term for particular service personnel. Cinderella157 (talk) 08:20, 20 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    > ""... we are considering the advice at MOS:MARINE, which is the use of marine as a term for particular service personnel."
    We are considering an RfC on whether to amend  MOS:MARINE on that very point.
    The ambiguity created by lower-casing marine is among the reasons to do so. – .Raven  .talk 08:28, 20 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    By that reasoning we can also say "He was a Marine Corps veteran", leaving "He was a marine veteran" to cover old sailors, whether civilian or from other branches of service (e.g. Coast Guard).
    It's a pity then that the real-world usage, as seen not only on that USMC webpage but also in a number of those RS headlines, is "He was a Marine veteran" or even "He was a Marine vet". – .Raven  .talk 08:22, 20 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    The RfC would state: Should a member of the U.S. Marine Corps be referred to as a "Marine" (or, if retired, "Marine veteran") with a capital M?. We are considering the advice at MOS:MARINE, which is the use of marine as a term for particular service personnel. Examples of A Marine expeditionary force (MEF) and He operated a marine vehicle do not address the question of particular service personnel. They do not evidence an ambiguity relevant to the question of the RfC. They are red-herring strawman arguments. There is no evidence of ambiguity presented when referring to personel. We would not refer to old sailors as a marine veteran. This would be an argument fallacy of unnatural, fabricated or false example. We would call them: a veteran mariner, a veteran sailor or a naval (coast guard) veteran if we wished to specify they were a military veteran. Cinderella157 (talk) 10:22, 20 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    > "address the question of particular service personnel."
    That's precisely why the capital M for members of the Corps — because "marine personnel" or "marine crew" or "marine crewmember" all might refer to any personnel or crew or crewmembers on a sea vessel, including "marine biologists" and other "marine scientists" on a boat off Bar Harbor. – .Raven  .talk 21:12, 20 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. I concur entirely with Cinderella157. This is tedious rehash of something that is rehashed so often it should get listed at WP:PERENNIAL. We have MOS:SIGCAPS and MOS:MARINE for a reason. We do not capitalize something just because it's American (even if some American journalists do).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  09:52, 18 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    American usage shouldn't apply in articles about American events involving American people? – .Raven  .talk 18:29, 18 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Maybe we should start ignoring all those ENGVAR tags in articles, then. Just because it's British doesn't mean we should do it that way, after all. Historians also tend to use Marine as opposed to marine, but as always I suspect Wikipedia's own twisted style preferences will prevail. Intothatdarkness 01:06, 7 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose on the same basis as Cinderella157, we follow status quo and reliable sources. We don't follow job title minutiae of the U.S Marine Corp but instead what is generally accepted. LoomCreek (talk) 09:57, 18 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    You mean the New York Times and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch are no longer reliable sources? – .Raven  .talk 18:25, 18 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    On how to write encyclopedically, no news organizations are reliable "sources"; we do not mimic other writing styles. WP is not written in news style as a clear matter of policy (WP:NOT#NEWS), and MoS has borrowed very close to zero elements of any kind from news style guides. It is based 99.99% on academic style guides.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  15:36, 20 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    On how to write encyclopedically?
    Encyclopedia Britannica: "The Marine Corps was founded on November 10, 1775, when the Continental Congress ordered that two battalions of Marines be raised for service as landing forces with the fleet. Marines have participated in all wars of the United States, being in most instances first, or among the first, to fight. In addition, Marines have executed more than 300 landings on foreign shores and served in every major U.S. naval action since 1775." – .Raven  .talk 22:05, 20 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Dictionaries:
    Oxford Learners' Dictionary: "The Marines became well known during the Second World War when they successfully attacked the Pacific islands occupied by the Japanese."
    Cambridge Dictionary: "He's in the Marines."
    (Neither of those being American  dictionaries.) – .Raven  .talk 23:47, 20 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose, also per Cinderella. I don't care what the US Marine Corps thinks (their name can be capped, but not "Marine", nor "Officer", nor "Soldier". Definitely no to that boosterism. Tony (talk) 13:24, 18 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    You also don't care what the press style-guides used by our Reliable Sources say? – .Raven  .talk 18:21, 18 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. Regulov (talk) 18:18, 18 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose: Please review the history of the issue in the archives. If there's something new to be said, I'd be surprised, but I'd read it with an open mind. Repeating old arguments gets us nowhere. SchreiberBike | ⌨  19:52, 18 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - We are no more bound to using news agencies' style guides than they are to using ours. Primergrey (talk) 04:55, 19 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support, .Raven has proven their case here, societal and journalistic usage uppercases the term, and uppercasing seems to be the common name. The fact that "marine biology" and the like are lowercase separates the word from military service (unlike army, navy, air force, which have no common usage outside of military use). Randy Kryn (talk) 09:32, 6 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    This seems an odd placement for an RfC on the topic, could have been done at the U.S. Marine page. Have that talk page and the talk pages of military WikiProjects been notified? Thanks. Randy Kryn (talk) 09:35, 6 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Now done. Thanks for the suggestion! – .Raven  .talk 21:29, 6 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose again. Absolutely no reason to make an exception from standard English (and Wikipedia) usage. What the USMC prefers is utterly irrelevant. They're marines, just like soldiers, sailors and airmen. And police officers, teachers, bricklayers, accountants, firefighters, doctors, etc, etc, etc. If we followed US military preferences, we'd capitalise pretty much every term relating to the military, as the military loves capitalisation. Also note that the USMC isn't the only marine corps in the world, and this applies to all of them. -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:17, 6 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per pretty much everything everyone else who has opposed has said. Necrothesp gives a really good explanation if you want more details. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 13:33, 6 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Every time this issue comes up, it reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of what the MoS is. It is, merely, our own internal style guide. Unlike our content rules, we have zero obligation to follow any other style guide. We could decide to style our articles in SaRcAsM fOnT if we wanted to. For that reason, and for many others highlighted above, I oppose amending the MoS to reflect the preferences of the US military. Parsecboy (talk) 22:11, 6 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per Parsecboy. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 22:18, 6 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak oppose. This is like a house style or legalese, where a common noun like “the Directors” is capitalized in an annual report, contract, or promotional literature. NY Times uses it, so maybe it’s becoming customary in US publications. I’d consider using it in articles on United States subjects, but then there would be inconsistency in the many articles about military matters and events that are multinational. I don’t think we want to end up arguing over “the conference was attended by naval infantry from allies, including ten Marines from Virginia, six marines from Manchester, and two dozen marines from European capitals.” If British, Canadian, and international publications start to always capitalize the common noun marine, then we should revisit it.  —Michael Z. 00:58, 7 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    @Mzajac: "... British, Canadian, and international publications...." —
    – .Raven  .talk 07:09, 7 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    That’s useful but recognize it is a mix of different meanings. “The Marines” refers to an organization in several, and there’s at least one attributive use of the organizations name: the “Marine parade deck.” How common is the capitalization? Is it ever used for British or other marines?  —Michael Z. 15:01, 7 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    1. > "one attributive use of the organizations name: the “Marine parade deck.'" — Which, please note, is also not "Marine Corps parade deck", contra @Primergrey:'s comment above.
    2. The British have the Royal Marines, and I've only ever seen that capitalized (i.e. never "royal marines"); for example, "An Afghan double killer was able to sneak into Britain posing as a 14-year-old schoolboy before going on to murder an aspiring Royal Marine, it has emerged." [telegraph.co.uk]
      They've fought alongside U.S. Marines, and those prefixes to "Marines" can disambiguate the two. Cf. "Allied Marines in the Korean War".
    – .Raven  .talk 16:11, 7 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I think we're all on the same page that when Marines or Marine is short for US Marine Corps (or Royal Marines), it's capped. What's under discussion is if marine as a word for individual military persons, analogous to soldier, sailor is capped. My opinion is that if sailor, soldier is lc, so is marine. Indefatigable (talk) 16:28, 7 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Just as even a single "aspiring Royal Marine" is capitalized, a single (U.S.) "Marine" is capitalized.
    If referring generically to 'seafaring infantry' not of any particular nation, then the generic term "marine[s]" could apply. For specific nations' forces, we should use their format, e.g. "A Spanish marine, left, explains how her weapon works to a U.S. Marine...." — and in fact I'm willing to start a separate RfC for that generalization (rather than change this one mid-!voting).
    ETA: Done, below, as a placeholder pending this RfC's conclusion. – .Raven  .talk 16:58, 7 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    The construction "an aspiring Royal Marine" is shorthand for "a person aspiring to be a member of the Royal Marines". "Royal Marine" is thus referring to the branch, not the individual. The same would be true if it were changed to "an aspiring US Marine". Most of the examples given as support for capitalizing references to individuals are actually such shorthand, and really should be phrased in a more complete form in encyclopedic writing. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 13:09, 11 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    By the same argument, "a Marine" is shorthand for "a member of the U.S. Marine Corps" — a very frequently used shorthand, no doubt because it is shorter by five words. As to "encyclopedic writing", I've noted above that Encyclopedia Britannica is among those using the shorthand. – .Raven  .talk 14:45, 11 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Regarding my comment, I did make sure to say "good writing". Your example couldn't even be bothered to include an apostrophe. Primergrey (talk) 23:04, 8 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    "Your example"? No — "organizations name" is Mzajac's own text. – .Raven  .talk 00:20, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support capitalization, or at the very least the creation of an AMVAR tag to use in articles dealing with the USMC. If we can have a tag intended to preserve spellings and other things considered British English (often for no other reason than the article subject happens to be British), this feels like a similar situation. Intothatdarkness 13:51, 7 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    • I hardly think the preference of the USMC can be regarded on the same basis as a national variety of English! Note that many of those opposing above are Americans. -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:32, 7 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
      The nationality of supporters and opposers doesn't matter to me. I think the nom has demonstrated that Marines is in fact in common usage, and has been for some time. And, really, ENGVAR is also about preference, isn't it? Wikipedia is often a walled garden and echo chamber. Intothatdarkness 15:47, 7 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
      > "Wikipedia is often a walled garden and echo chamber." — It sometimes seems to me as though some of us are trying to create a conlang (constructed language) just for Wikipedia, as though we weren't writing for the outside world. – .Raven  .talk 16:23, 7 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
      You do realize that description applies to literally every style manual, yes? There isn't a style guide in existence that isn't constructed, and CMoS clearly doesn't care what AMA says about how to format citations, for example. Why you think Wiki's MoS needs to follow usage elsewhere, I don't know, but to be clear: it does not.
      What this boils down to is, some of you like following the US DoD's idiosyncratic capitalization styling, and some of us don't see the need to do so. Parsecboy (talk) 17:57, 7 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
      Then maybe this should extend to things like ENGVAR as well, which some of us think is silly while others will enforce to the last ditch and breath. And as the nom has demonstrated, this usage isn't restricted to DoD. I realize this is probably going to fail, but that doesn't mean it makes sense or is in line with what's happening outside the walled garden. But Wikipedia also perpetuates things like Comanche campaign...something that exists only as an arbitrary designation used by the Army for lineage purposes. Intothatdarkness 18:09, 7 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
      Again, that other organizations' style guides also happen to follow DoD's capitalization preferences doesn't mean we have to.
      And again, supporters of the proposal are conflating following common usage for article content with following common usage for article style. The two are not the same thing. And as a tertiary source, we must do the former, but we are by no means bound to the latter. Parsecboy (talk) 18:25, 7 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
      So because we've always done it this way we should keep doing it this way just because we've always done it this way (even though almost no one else seems to, and we end up modifying sourced content to make it comply with our idiosyncratic style)? I'm not conflating anything...I just happen to disagree with what Wikipedia does here. Last time I checked that was still permissible. Intothatdarkness 18:38, 7 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
      We can do without strawmen, thank you very much.
      Why are we copy/pasting content from other sources? Formatting in a quote can obviously be maintained; anything else deserves the banhammer for copyvio. If we are paraphrasing content, as we should be, your comment is irrelevant, since all of the source content should be modified. Not sure I understand the complaint on this one. Parsecboy (talk) 19:19, 7 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
      Please confine your pedantic responses to something else. And you know as well as I people copy and paste content from other sources quite often. Sometimes it's public domain, other times it's people who can't be bothered to paraphrase (or don't know they're supposed to). We don't agree on this issue and aren't likely to. I'm leaving it at that. Intothatdarkness 21:00, 7 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
      Ah, yes, strawman my argument, accuse me of being a pedant for pointing out the gaping hole in your statement, and then take your ball and go home, all the while ignoring any substantive point I've made. A real tour de force. Parsecboy (talk) 23:27, 7 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
      No, I just don't think you've pointed out a gaping hole in anything. And your entire position does revolve around "we've always done it this way" while disregarding practices beyond Wikipedia. I don't see any substantive points you've made, either, aside from doubling down on your "we've always done it this way" position. I believe MoS in this instance needs to change due to common usage and practice beyond Wikipedia. You clearly do not. If common practice outside Wikipedia is somehow a straw man, you have a very unique definition of the term. I said I was stepping away from this because you're clearly not going to change your position, and nothing you've said has been convincing to me, either. Intothatdarkness 15:22, 8 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
      Please quote anywhere I said anything remotely close to “we’ve always done it this way, so we always should”. I won’t hold my breath, because you won’t be able to find anything to quote. You have (repeatedly now) strawmanned my argument.
      Let me break my basic point down for you: your (and .Raven’s) basic premis is that because all of the cited sources capitalize marine, we should also. My argument is that your logic does not apply to style guides. The MoS is entirely internally generated, and quite unlike our article content policies, we have no obligation to follow external practices. In other words, your fundamental premise is flawed from the start.
      By way of example, if I said we need to keep marine lowercase because the moon is made of cheese, the logic would be fallacious, since regardless of whether the moon is made of cheese or not, it has nothing to do with our internal style guide. Likewise, practices outside of Wikipedia have nothing to do with how we decide to style text. Parsecboy (talk) 16:09, 8 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
      I'm not directly quoting you, simply paraphrasing your main contention, which boils down to "we've always done it this way." That's what the internal MoS comes down to...a collection of things Wikipedia does a particular way. We are discussing a change to those guidelines to bring them more in line with external common practice. Just because something is internal doesn't mean it can't or shouldn't change to reflect other practices. Let me break this down for you: You don't seem to believe the MoS should reflect common practice because it hasn't to this point (that seems to be the core of your contention, leaving the content discussion aside); I feel it should be updated to reflect common external practice. You keep trying to deflect this by bringing up content as opposed to style. Your logic only makes sense if the MoS is a static, never-changing document. As far as I know it's not. Intothatdarkness 16:55, 8 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
      ..."because it hasn't to this point " - that rationale is entirely in your own mind. That is exactly what I'm talking about when I say you are straw-manning my argument. You have invented a justification that I have never uttered. The concept that the MoS is an internal document is simply a rebuttal to your argument (and .Raven's) that, because other places capitalize it, we have to also. Nothing more. Has it crossed your mind that there are other reasons to oppose this change? That many people, including myself, have already stated? Or are you assuming those of us disagree with you are doing so solely for an illogical reason, thereby allowing you to ignore any arguments to the contrary? I will grant you one thing: no one is going to change their mind here, because only one of us is interested in an intellectually honest discussion. Parsecboy (talk) 19:05, 8 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
      We could in theory agree, just among ourselves for Wikipedia usage, on a style that allwordsshouldberuntogetherlikethis, PeRhApSwItHaLtErNaTeCaPs, but that would not help our readers from outside understand our articles' meanings.
      If readers from outside, used to seeing "a Marine" for a member of the USMC, but "a marine" for a generic reference to no particular nation's 'seafaring infantry', sees us write "a marine" in reference to a member of the USMC, they will not correctly understand our meaning, because we will have unilaterally departed from the outside world's usage. – .Raven  .talk 19:42, 7 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
      Do you really believe readers can't be trusted to understand context? Are you suggesting that someone who reads United States Marine Corps would be confused by the current capitalization of "Marines from Ceremonial Companies A & B, quartered in Marine Barracks, Washington, D.C., guard presidential retreats, including Camp David, and the marines of the Executive Flight Detachment of HMX-1 provide helicopter transport..."? Come now. Parsecboy (talk) 20:03, 7 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
      Sometimes context will clarify meaning (as that quote did); sometimes not.
      Just having the word at the start of a sentence, so the reader can't tell why it's capitalized, might make meaning ambiguous, so the opportunity for confusion would remain.
      But a sentence like "A marine was found on the beach." — if we never capitalize it mid-sentence — will unnecessarily leave that meaning ambiguous.
      A sentence like "He traveled in a marine vehicle." — even more so. – .Raven  .talk 07:13, 8 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
      You're still pulling hypotheticals out of context, here and below (in that sentences are part of paragraphs, and sometimes another sentence will give you information about another), and badly written ones at that. Read the second paragraph here and tell me if you honestly think anyone would be confused by the lack of capitalization in the second sentence in that paragraph. Parsecboy (talk) 09:20, 8 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
      This is a reference to the branch and should really be "a Marine Corps vehicle" or "a vehicle belonging to the Marine Corps" or similar construction. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 13:11, 11 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
      In that example, both occasions of "the marines" follow the opening "the American 2nd Marine Division", which sets context.
      You called "A marine was found on the beach." a hypothetical out of context. Further above, I quoted a full paragraph from a Canadian article: "Military police found the Marine on a remote hillside on base and cordoned off the area, she said. They were communicating with the Marine when the individual sustained the self-inflicted gunshot wound around 8:30 a.m." Unlike your example paragraph, this paragraph doesn't specify context. Without that capitalization, one might well wonder to which nation's armed forces that person belonged.
      So relying entirely on a context having been set is precarious. – .Raven  .talk 09:39, 8 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
      Are you serious? Read the sentence that immediately precedes it. What kind of marine might one reasonably expect to be stationed at Twentynine Palms in California? You are still plucking sentences out of context to prove your point. The tendentiousness of your argumentation is becoming tiresome. Parsecboy (talk) 11:14, 8 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
      You had offered a link to a wiki-paragraph which gave context; I replied with a previously quoted+cited news-paragraph in full (no sentences plucked) which didn't give context.
      As to what kind of marine might one find on USMC bases — see:
      – .Raven  .talk 17:49, 8 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
      > "There isn't a style guide in existence that isn't constructed" — I note that the AP Style Guide adopts a socially conscious policy in its editing, e.g. re "deadnaming" ("The practice, widely considered insensitive, offensive or damaging, of referring to transgender people who have changed their name by the name they used before their transition."), and does not refuse to take note of outside sources' recommended usage.
      > "CMoS clearly doesn't care what AMA says about how to format citations" — I note that citation formatting is not a topic of social consensus, or indeed of much social concern. – .Raven  .talk 19:17, 7 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
      You've again missed the mark; that the AP has adopted a specific position on deadnaming has nothing to do with whether it's a constructed system or not. Nor does it mean that AP is obliged to follow anything beyond what its internal decision making body decides. Parsecboy (talk) 19:24, 7 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
      I think perhaps you may have missed my point: that the AP's social consciousness includes heeding outside sources' recommended usage means they are very much aware they write for the readership outside their own organization. This is quite distinct from creating "a conlang (constructed language) just for [them], as though [they] weren't writing for the outside world." – .Raven  .talk 19:30, 7 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
      The only justification you seem to have is your rather condescending opinion that readers can't handle context (and you've picked most of your examples completely out of context to justify your argument, as if readers would encounter "marine veteran" all by itself floating in the ether). No, I don't think I've missed your point at all. Parsecboy (talk) 23:27, 7 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
      So if you see "A marine veteran sailed across the Atlantic by himself." — which is meant? – .Raven  .talk 07:16, 8 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
      I'm done with your tendentious argumentation and will likely go visit the ANI thread. Parsecboy (talk) 19:05, 8 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose (Summoned by bot) per arguments of Necrothesp and others Absolutely no reason to make an exception from standard English (and Wikipedia) usage. What the USMC prefers is utterly irrelevant. They're marines, just like soldiers, sailors and airmen. And police officers, teachers, bricklayers, accountants, firefighters, doctors, etc, etc, etc. … Also note that the USMC isn't the only marine corps in the world, and this applies to all of them. Or incongruously and perversely, we would have one rule for US marines and another for marines from everywhere else and stylistic chaos whenever they meet in the same article space. Pincrete (talk) 04:02, 8 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    @Pincrete: Will the next section (currently a placeholder for an RfC) address your concerns? – .Raven  .talk 07:19, 8 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
No, it worsens the stylistic chaos whenever they meet in the same article space. IMO, with no tangible benefit for us AFAI can see. National papers may wish to defer to the conventions of their own national forces, but we have no reason to do so and it is not disrepectful to apply the same stylistic conventions to all forces and all professions everywhere.Pincrete (talk) 08:08, 8 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strongly oppose. Next thing we'll be asked to cap "Soldier". Tony (talk) 11:25, 8 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    A soldier is different than a Marine, which is a named branch of U.S. service. Apples and Apple. Randy Kryn (talk) 11:32, 8 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    No it's not, the United States Marine Corps is the named branch; "marine" is directly analogous to soldier, sailor, etc. This is special pleading.
    Tony, friendly reminder that you !voted in this poll on 18 June - you ought to strike out the vote part of your comment here. Parsecboy (talk) 11:40, 8 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Any participant here may wish to participate at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Marines_RfC,_and_two-week_site_block_proposal. starship.paint (exalt) 08:06, 8 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
So someone starts an RfC, proves their case with stats and excellent research, so what's the solution? Ban them! Ban them for two weeks, that'll teach 'em. Please consider withdrawing that request, although ANI often is a way to attract others to read the original topic. Randy Kryn (talk) 11:32, 8 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I missed the part where OP proves their case with stats and excellent research. Must be on a different page. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 01:01, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - Lowercasing may be “correct”… but this is one of those cases where enforcement will cause more disruption than leaving it alone. The capitalization of “Marine” is something that people outside of Wikipedia get passionate about. So, if we lowercase, someone will inevitably come along and uppercase it again… and then we will end up in never-ending revert wars as passionate people attempt to “correct the correction”. Blueboar (talk) 13:39, 8 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. Imagine putting all four of the services' terms together, and the oddity that would result—"soldiers, airmen, Marines, and sailors". It might be the USMC's preference to capitalize it, and some organizations might go along with that, but it doesn't obligate us to. Since the standard is to not capitalize what the other armed forces call their members, the same should be true of "marines". This applies, of course, only when "marine" is being used to refer to individuals who are members of such a force. When part of a name, such as 5th Marine Division, the term should of course be capitalized as a part of a proper noun. Seraphimblade Talk to me 19:53, 8 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per all the arguments above. The preference of the Marine Corps is irrelevant for our purposes, as we don;t have a vested interest in promoting that service. Until all the other members of the armed forces are capitalized, marines should follow along in the common usage. Beyond My Ken (talk) 19:56, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Also, User:.Raven must stop WP:BLUDGEONing this discussion, and if they don't they should be partially blocked from this page. Beyond My Ken (talk) 19:58, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose, I am sympathetic to the argument that this amounts to pandering to a special interest group which would cause more problems than it solves. If the support argument had been able to articulate how the capitalization serves an encyclopedic purpose it might be a harder choice, but they don't and "Respect mah Marines" doesn't get them over the line IMO. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 01:01, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Placeholder for RfC: National armed forces members' capitalization

Placeholder for RfC
[In view of the above RfC's discussion, following its conclusion I will propose this:]

Should the capitalization of titles for specific nations' armed forces members follow their own nations' practices, e.g. "Spanish marine" but "[U.S.] Marine" and (U.K.) "Royal Marine" for individuals? For instance:

This presumes the terms not attached to any specific nation remain uncapitalized, e.g. "Many countries around the world maintain marines and naval infantry military units."

– .Raven  .talk 19:01, 7 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Fee/Notes?

In this revert, User:SounderBruce says "separate statements". Mostly, it doesn't seem true that this table column has separate statements for fee and notes, but even if it did, would we capitalize both? I changed the column heading to "Fee/notes", and he reverted me (so far no reverts from lots of other articles besides Sounders). Dicklyon (talk) 03:32, 8 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Across WP:FOOTY articles, that column is used to note the transfer situation for players, which may or may not include the fee (sometimes this is undisclosed) or other notes (such as intra-club transfers that are calling up from reserve teams). Separating them into different columns would create a pointlessly wider table, whereas combining them is more efficient so long as the distinction is made (through capitalization). Please try to look around at the project standards before making mass changes without consensus. SounderBruce 03:40, 8 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I do understand the point and the use of the heading. I don't understand what provision in MOS:CAPS would lead one to cap "Notes" in this context. Dicklyon (talk) 03:48, 8 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Un-capping "Notes" implies that the column is solely for fee notes and not transfer notes in general. SounderBruce 03:57, 8 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'd use "Fee notes" if that was the intent; the slash indicates an alternative, no caps needed. We prefer sentence case in headings. Dicklyon (talk) 18:46, 8 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. "Un-capping 'Notes' implies that the column is solely for fee notes ..." doesn't make any sense at all.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:25, 15 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
We're not talking about changing to "Fee notes", but to "Fee/notes". Dicklyon (talk) 16:47, 17 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, sorry, I didn't notice your quotation marks. You're agreeing that what SounderBruce said made no sense, yes? Dicklyon (talk) 16:48, 17 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Right. It should be "Fee/notes". We only capitalize the first letter (i.e. we use sentence case) in table headings just as in article headings.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:56, 28 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I changed that lone article still using "Fee/Notes" to just "Notes". Let's see if SounderBruce sees that as a better solution. Dicklyon (talk) 16:54, 17 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

When to capitalize the name of an academic major or a department

@SomethingForDeletion: At this revert by SomethingForDeletion, the question is when to capitalize Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, in the context of a major field of study offered by a university. My thought was that we only cap when it's a full department names, as Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, but not in contexts like "... many of the same courses as the College of Engineering's Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS)". Normally, if someone has a degree in a subject (say physics), we say "BS in physics", not "BS in Physics"; is it different for a school offering a "BS in Physics"? I think the only thing I did wrong in this edit was to not also lowercase some other fields, such as Computer Science in a similar context. But what do others think? Dicklyon (talk) 16:46, 17 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

We've certainly discussed this before (somewhere...). I think we should downcase always subjects and majors, even to the point of "...was a professor of chemistry at...", but it's trickier (for me) with department names: "Department of Chemistry", but "chemistry department"?
I agree with you on "...the College of Engineering's Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering and computer science (EECS),..." (where, BTW, the college is capped just like the department's proper name). I also note that electrical engineering and computer science redirects to computer science and engineering, which page has been (appropriately) lowercased since June 2020. — JohnFromPinckney (talk / edits) 02:05, 18 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I now find MOS:INSTITUTIONS, which includes examples like The university offers programs in arts and sciences. There's also some relevant discussion from 2021 in this archive. — JohnFromPinckney (talk / edits) 02:21, 18 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. I believe this edit is about right for Berkeley. There may be quite a few others still to fix. Dicklyon (talk) 06:05, 18 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
My interpretation of "proper name" is the full name: I'll capitalize Oxford University Department of Chemistry, but not department of chemistry on its own because it's generic, and could refer to any number of chemistry departments. ~TPW 14:38, 24 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The proper name of a specific department at a specific institution is a proper noun, but the academic subject is not. There's confusion because institutions, which tend to capitalize for their own importance, will refer to their "Computer Science Program", but that should stay lower case, in contrast to the Department of Computer Science, or whatever the unit is formally called there. Same with academic majors or fields of study, they are commonly capitalized by institutions and on resumes, but not in general sources. For positions, I'd say "she was a professor of sociology at Fancy Pants University", but that "she held the John Smith Endowed Chair of Sociology at Fancy Pants University", assuming that's what the endowed chair is named. SchreiberBike | ⌨  11:47, 18 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I used to work for a university, in its administration. At most universities, a major is a proper noun, because it is a specific thing – a set of rules about which units you have to pass in order to graduate with that major. (Sometimes they are given other names such as "academic program".) There is generally a formal bureaucratic process to create, modify and discontinue majors - while it varies from university to university, very often Department of X just can't alter their majors at will, they need to send a request to higher in the administration for approval (exactly how far up it needs to go depends on the institution, but in some institutions it needs to go to pretty much all the way to the very top, even if only for a rubberstamp.) The major (or each successive version thereof–whether changes only apply to new students or also apply to existing students is a complex topic) is an entity in the IT systems, a separate row in a database table. To give a concrete example, Macquarie University in Australia currently offers a major called Entrepreneurship and another called Entrepreneurship and Innovation. Is "Entrepreneurship" a different academic discipline from "Entrepreneurship and Innovation". Not really. Majors aren't academic disciplines, they are rules about which units are required for graduation–indeed, if you compare the list of units required for those two majors, you will find that although there is a lot of overlap, there are some differences (the E&I major requires MGMT1002, "Principles of Management", plain E doesn't; whereas, the plain E major requires MGMT3000, "The Art of Negotiation", which the E&I major doesn't). Hence they are proper nouns not common nouns. It is true that sometimes there is a reasonably direct correspondence between majors and academic disciplines, but that isn't always true, and hence that correspondence cannot be the essence of the concept of "major". Also, while that concrete example is from an Australian university, I know universities in the US and Canada aren't fundamentally different – in fact, when I worked for an Australian university, we purchased a software package developed by a North American university to help us manage this stuff – so I have every reason to believe that at UCB it is largely similar. SomethingForDeletion (talk) 06:00, 20 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It's often ambiguous in our writing whether a term is the name for a specific degree program (a name, capitalized) or whether it is the name of the field that the degree program covers (a word, uncapitalized). To go back to SchreiberBike's example: one would write "she was a professor of sociology at Fancy Pants University" (lower case; that phrasing generally means it's the field of sociology) but "she was a professor in the Department of Sociology at Fancy Pants University" (but if you're doing it that way, make sure that it really is called the Department of Sociology rather than the Sociology Department or the J. Q. Richdonor Department of Sociology or whatever). —David Eppstein (talk) 06:46, 20 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I agree it can be ambiguous sometimes, but I don't think there was any ambiguity in the specific edit we are discussing here. It started with this edit of User:Dicklyon which was about the College of Engineering's Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS). When we are talking about a specific institution's "Bachelor of X in Y", the Y is a major/program not an academic discipline (even when it happens to have the same name as an academic discipline), so title case is correct (indeed UCB's own website puts it in title case), whereas changing that to all lower case is making it less correct. SomethingForDeletion (talk) 10:52, 20 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, in that case I agree that it was unambiguously the name of a program (should be capitalized) not the name of a field, because it was contrasting two differently named programs in basically the same field. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:09, 20 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, while there are plenty of ambiguous cases, this doesn't look like one of them. Berkeley, for whatever reason, gives the degree name in the plural (Computer Sciences), so it really doesn't coincide with the generic noun for the field [9]. XOR'easter (talk) 19:44, 20 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I am wondering if the Manual of Style should mention this issue specifically? I think the distinction between an academic major/program (should be capitalised, at least in the context of a specific program offered by a specific institution) and an academic discipline (should not be capitalised) is one many editors don't seem to understand – and their ignorance is understandable, since unless someone has actually worked in higher education, they are unlikely to have picked up on it. And I agree the distinction isn't always clearcut, but certainly in some cases (like this one) it is. SomethingForDeletion (talk) 04:02, 21 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see any harm in at least thinking up a couple illustrative examples. XOR'easter (talk) 05:43, 21 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Department of Computer Science (title). She majored in computer science (generic). Tony (talk) 05:53, 21 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, but "The UC Berkeley College of Letters and Science also offers a Bachelor of Arts in Computer Science", because as discussed above it's being used as the name of a degree program, not the name of a field. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:31, 21 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think when it's rendered like that it becomes a proper name, so capping is acceptable. But I too often see caps misused for majoring, for example. And "a PhD in mechanical engineering" should be normal, unless the PhD degree and coursework are specifically called "PhD in Mechanical Engineering". Usually not. Tony (talk) 12:32, 21 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think "She has a PhD in mechanical engineering" is fine in a biography, although "PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Woolloomooloo" would also be fine if that is the actual title of the degree/program she graduated with. Whereas, if the article is about an institution, listing the degrees/programs/majors it offers, it should be "PhD in Mechanical Engineering", assuming that is the formal title of the degree/program/major. But suppose hypothetically the formal title was actually "PhD in Engineering (Mechanical)", then it wouldn't be right to call that a "PhD in Mechanical Engineering", it would have to be either "PhD in Engineering (Mechanical)" or "PhD in mechanical engineering". SomethingForDeletion (talk) 00:02, 22 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It's rare for a PhD to have a formal name that includes the field. A PhD is a PhD, simple as that. Tony (talk) 02:51, 22 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think degrees and programs are different things. If the degree name includes "in Computer Science" or whatever, then OK, let's cap it. I'm not sure how often that's the case. For a program in computer science, though, I don't see how that becomes a proper name. And thanks, SomethingForDeletion, for letting me know about the University of Woolloomooloo – I lived for a month, earlier this year, at 1 Boomerang Place in Woolloomoolo (no kidding!), and hadn't been aware of the Monty Python connection. Dicklyon (talk) 05:23, 22 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Dicklyon: I come back to my example of Macquarie University – "Entrepreneurship" is a major of the degree "Bachelor of Commerce"; "Entrepreneurship & Innovation" of the degree "Bachelor of Professional Practice". Both the major and the degree are proper nouns. At least as far as Macquarie University is concerned, "Bachelor of X in Y" means the combination of degree "Bachelor of X" and major Y; the "Bachelor of X in Y" is not the degree, it is the name of the degree/major combination. I remember (from 20-ish years ago) that one student enrolled in a "Bachelor of Science in Computer & Information Systems" at Macquarie University, and then complained upon graduation that their piece of paper just said "Bachelor of Science" – Macquarie University's position is that "Bachelor of Science" is the degree, "Computer & Information Systems" was just the major, and they don't print the major on the actual degree, only on the academic transcript–the student was so upset about this they tried to sue the university, but soon discovered the law was on the university's side. But you see how the university viewed both as proper nouns. And that is hardly specific to Australian universities–if you study the websites of US colleges/universities, you will find very many of them take the same approach, including UCB (just with "majors" instead being called "programs", which is an accepted synonym. SomethingForDeletion (talk) 09:46, 23 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Coincidentally, I'm on staff at Macquarie U. Their page on E&I says "A major allows you to focus on an area of study, such as Entrepreneurship and Innovation, within more generalist degrees." So they cap it even when referring to a "field of study". I wouldn't think their style has much relation to ours, where we avoid unnecessary caps. Dicklyon (talk) 19:30, 23 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I used to work for Macquarie as well. I was never an academic, I was a general staff member, working on administrative IT systems. From my viewpoint – of course a "program/major" is a proper noun, because we had a database table called PROGRAMS (pretty sure that wasn't its actual name, I forget the database schema now), and every "program/major" was a row in it, and there were defined processes around adding rows to that table and retiring old rows (we never deleted data, we just "end-dated" things to indicate they were no longer current). Coming to "field of study", I should point out they actually use the phrase "area of study"–which is important, because historically at Macquarie "Area of Study" was also an entity in IT systems, there was a database table called something like AREA_OF_STUDY, and each Area of Study was a row in it. See for example "Accounting" Area of Study in 2004 Handbook: back in 2004, an "Area of Study" was a categorisation scheme for organising "Programs of Study", and every "Program of Study" had a primary "Area of Study" and zero or more secondary Areas of Study linked to it (which is where the "Other Relevant Programs of Study" on that page is coming from). There were two types of "Programs of Study" – "Coherent Study" (example: ACC01) and "Study Pattern" (example: DY002). The main difference, you will notice, is whether the requirements were expressed in a free-form text or in a tabular format. "Programs of Study" are not the same thing as "Degrees" – "Degrees" are a different database table again, and a single degree can have more than one program of study – see for example Bachelor of Commerce, which in 2004 had 14 programs. I'm sure it has all changed greatly by now, but the basic point that "programs/majors/etc are proper nouns not common nouns" hasn't. SomethingForDeletion (talk) 01:46, 24 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Just for the record, I'm a contractor for Macquarie University. Sigh. Tony (talk) 02:13, 29 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Jeez. Are we allowed to contribute here if we're not associated with Macquarie? — JohnFromPinckney (talk / edits) 12:40, 29 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Tony1: Right, but "PhD in Mechanical Engineering" isn't the name of the degree, it is the name of the program. And many PhDs do have formal programs of study, including required coursework. "PhD in Mechanical Engineering" is a different program from "BEng in Mechanical Engineering" because (1) it ends in the award of a different degree; (2) it contains different core units and electives. Also, when I worked for a university, we actually treated a PhD thesis as a notional "unit of study" – we had a notional number of hours a PhD thesis was supposed to take, so we enrolled all the PhD students in a "thesis unit" which was specified as taking that many hours. As far as the IT systems were concerned, a mathematics PhD student would be enrolled in a unit with a name like "MATH999: Mathematics PhD thesis", and while that was a very different unit from "MATH101: Introduction to Mathematics", as far as the student administration system was concerned, they were both just units. And the "PhD in Mathematics" program/major would have MATH999 as a mandatory unit, while "BSc in Mathematics" program/major might have a bunch of MATH1xx/MATH2xx/MATH3xx/etc mandatory units instead. SomethingForDeletion (talk) 10:02, 23 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Department of Computer Science (title). She majored in computer science (generic). Absolutely correct. -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:17, 24 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The real debate here though is about The College of Letters and Science (L&S) also offers a Bachelor of Arts in Computer Science, which requires many of the same courses as the College of Engineering's Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS), but has different admissions and graduation criteria.. In that sentence neither Bachelor of Arts in Computer Science nor Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science are generic. SomethingForDeletion (talk) 08:36, 25 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes they are. The College of Letters and Science (L&S) also offers a bachelor of arts in computer science, which requires many of the same courses as the College of Engineering's bachelor of science in electrical engineering and computer science (EECS), but has different admissions and graduation criteria. What's wrong with that? It's just a bachelor of arts (level of degree) in computer science (subject of degree). It's not a proper name. -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:25, 25 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
No but that's my point – it is a proper name. For the university bureaucracy, majors/degrees/programs are specific abstract entities, with defined formal processes for creating/discontinuing/modifying them - from a university administration perspective, they absolutely are proper names not common nouns. The University of X's "Bachelor of Arts in Computer Science" may have rather different content from the University of Y's, or even the University of X's five years ago or five years from now, and the University of X may even have both a "Bachelor of Arts in Computer Science" and "Bachelor of Science in Computer Science" with different content (core subjects and electives), admission standards, etc. SomethingForDeletion (talk) 02:08, 29 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
As someone who has had to evaluate whether course credit can transfer from one university to another, yes, majors/degrees/programs are specific abstract entities, and their names are proper nouns. XOR'easter (talk) 19:06, 3 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Encyclopaedia Britannica website says ("Are school subjects proper nouns or common nouns?"): School subjects are common nouns when used generally unless they are the name of a language. Names of specific classes or courses are proper nouns. I agree with the editors of the Britannica here. So, as a subject/discipline, physics is lowercase. But in the name of a specific educational offering (course/class/unit/degree/program/major/etc), it is a proper noun and hence title case ("Physics" not "physics"). SomethingForDeletion (talk) 02:11, 29 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The central issue here is that while "Bachelor of Science in Computer Science" is the correct name of the degree and program, "bachelor of science in computer science" is also correct as a generic description. And it is not always clear which is meant in a particular usage. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 16:54, 6 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It might not always be clear, but if we are talking about a degree/program being offered by a particular academic institution, in an article about that particular institution – then I think in that context it is clearly being used specifically rather than generically. And that was the context of the edit which started this discussion. SomethingForDeletion (talk) 05:56, 7 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The original question was about: "... many of the same courses as the College of Engineering's Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS)". In that case, it is not clear if that is a named major or an area of study. It is capitalized and linked, but when clicked, it goes to the page Computer science and engineering which is not about the named program. I think it would be a surprise for a reader to click on what appears to be a proper name, then to go to the general page about the topic. It's not different in type from clicking on University of California and being redirected to University.
I have been persuaded by the discussion above that sometimes the name of a field of study can also be a major/program/etc., and hence a proper name, but more often those words are capitalized for emphasis. If the sentence had been "... many of the same courses as the College of Engineering's Bachelor of Science Electrical Engineering and Computer Science program ..." it would not be ambiguous.
As I think about it, I have probably, among the hundreds of times I have knocked down capitalization of majors or fields of study, knocked down specific programs when I shouldn't have. I will be more careful about that in the future and I will try to write better to make the difference between a specific program and an area of study (a proper name and a common noun) more clear. SchreiberBike | ⌨  13:29, 7 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@SchreiberBike: It is capitalized and linked, but when clicked, it goes to the page Computer science and engineering which is not about the named program Personally, I have never thought of link targets as relevant to questions like capitalisation: if we look at the sentence in its context, and it is clear that in that sentence in that context, a particular noun phrase is a proper noun, and therefore deserves title case – I don't see why that judgement would be changed by the fact that someone has wikilinked the phrase to an article whose title is a common noun. We are never going to have articles for every proper noun, and so linking a proper noun to a common noun which names some concept of which that proper noun is an instance is not necessarily wrong, but I don't think doing so is a counterargument to the case that it is a proper noun in that particular sentence and context, nor do I think it even ought to make the matter ambiguous. SomethingForDeletion (talk) 01:26, 14 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

​​​​​​​​​​For a case that doesn't seem to fall quite on one side or the other, would you capitalize "Asian Theatre" in this case? —  AjaxSmack  03:10, 25 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

As the name of a university course of studies? I would capitalize it. Note that their catalog does properly lowercase it ("Asian theatre") when using it in text to describe the theatre of Asia, rather than as the name of the major: [10] (in this link, there is a third use of the phrase, as part of a course title; it is in title case but would probably use a lowercase "theatre" in sentence case). —David Eppstein (talk) 06:46, 25 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@AjaxSmack: In that use, it is ambiguous. The phrase is: "The school offers Asian Theatre as a major and has ...". Based on that sentence, I can't tell if that is a named program or major or if it is a descriptive phrase. If instead of "Asian Theatre", it said "Chemistry", it would be equally ambiguous and I'd change it to lower case with little thought. It could be rewritten as "The school's Asian Theatre program has ..." and it would be clear that it is a proper noun. The university's main page on the program could use some copy editing, but generally refers to the field of study in lower case and the program in upper case. Further reading of the college's pages show that the major is in theater and the Asian subset is called either a concentration, focus area or a program, so it appears to be an error to call it a major. I hope that helps. SchreiberBike | ⌨  12:49, 25 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
​​Thanks to both of you. I just noticed the factual problems with the statement after you posted your link. I'll leave the sentence alone for now. I agree that "chemistry" would be lowercased as chemistry exists as an encyclopedic entity and "chemistry program" could be a program that studies chemistry. On the other hand, "Asian Theatre" doesn't really exist as an encyclopedic entity except as a program name so it's more of a proper name. But that requires a lot of thought be put in to each case, hence my question. After years of Wikiconditioning to decimate capitals whenever possible, I would have lowercased it (unless it was written "Major in Asian Theatre"). —  AjaxSmack  13:14, 25 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
No, per MOS:DOCTCAPS. ~TPW 13:52, 25 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think the capitals are acceptable there, since it's a particular school's specialization (with its own institutional history, course requirements, etc.) rather than the overall subject area. XOR'easter (talk) 17:48, 25 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
No, since the cited source says "Students can focus on Asian theatre as part of graduate degrees..." Dicklyon (talk) 15:56, 26 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

In biographies, when to capitalize the name of an academic major or a department

Much of the above discussion takes a university's view of capitalization because they are the ones making up names for all these branches (schools, colleges, faculties, departments, divisions, institutes, laboratories, etc.), and some WP editors work for a university or have spent a lot of time at them, but I have read WP:SSF, so I go more by how they are capitalized (or not) by dictionaries, encyclopedias and newspapers. The Washington Post seldom capitalizes department names at universities. I knock them down ("she joined the mechanical engineering department at Pompous University"). The degree "Bachelor of Science" is capitalized in dictionaries because it is the name of a particular degree or a person with that degree, not just descriptive (not "an unmarried man wearing a lab coat"). When a source says a person has a "Bachelor of Science in Computer Science", can we be sure that the person was in some fancy "Computer Science program" or did they just study computer science (common noun) well enough to receive a degree? Lower case seems the most sensible for "computer science" in this case, so I knock it down. You could say "Smith struggled with Computer Science 101 but did better in Computer Science 102", as these are obviously course names and proper names. Does the MoS need one set of guidance for biographies and another set for universities? Chris the speller yack 21:41, 10 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

No, the same conventions should apply to both. Per the discussion immediately above, we capitalize proper nouns: names of degree programs (academic majors) and names of departments, faculties, or schools. We lowercase names of fields. I undid an edit you made today on Morton Gurtin because the two names in question were clearly written as names of departments, not names of fields, so they should not have been lowercased. You can tell because the context of one of them was as the publisher of a reference (always a department rather than a field; a field is not the kind of thing that can be a publisher), and because they are phrases containing the word "department". One of them turns out to be an incorrect department name (it is about a former "Mechanical Engineering Department", a name that can be seen within the linked document about the department's history, but by the time the reference was published the name had been changed to "Mechanical, Aerospace, and Nuclear Engineering Department") and that should be corrected, but that does not change the fact that the intent was, very obviously, to refer to a department and not to a field. You would not lowercase "General Motors" despite the fact that its name consists of common English words and is descriptive of its business; I don't see why you think academic rather than business organizations should be treated any differently. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:41, 10 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. "Mechanical Engineering Department" should be uppercased, just as "Department of Transportation" is. XOR'easter (talk) 01:19, 11 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The reason you don't see why I think that is that I don't think that. If a business has a marketing department, it should not be upper-cased. If you search site:latimes.com for "mathematics department", you will see that almost all are in lower case. The phrase "mechanical engineering department" is descriptive, not a proper name; many universities have one, and if a university doesn't have one today, it can create one tomorrow. This is different from a proper name like "McDonough School of Business", but in "the law school at Pompous University", "school" is a common noun and "law" simply clarifies its purpose. That's not a proper name. Chris the speller yack 03:29, 11 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
In California, there is one Department of Transportation, but probably many mechanical engineering departments in many universities and colleges. Apples and Oranges. Chris the speller yack 03:32, 11 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
But there isn't more than one such department per school, and California's DoT isn't lower-cased just because other states have them too. The word "department" is a common noun, and "of transportation" clarifies its purpose, but put them together and you get the name for a specific organization. XOR'easter (talk) 15:51, 11 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Can we draw a distinction between say “mechanical engineering department” (a description) vs “Department of Mechanical Engineering” (a proper name)? Blueboar (talk) 16:08, 11 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The word "board" is a common noun, and "of directors" clarifies its makeup, but please don't tell me you would upper-case them in "... the company's board of directors voted to ..." or any other phrase just because it is a compound noun. We capitalize "Department of Transportation" because government agencies tend to be treated differently. Per MOS:INSTITUTIONS, "only words and phrases that are consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources are capitalized in Wikipedia.", and I would say that most departments of transportation fit that. Chris the speller yack 16:13, 11 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
MOS:INSTITUTIONS begins, Full names of institutions, organizations, companies, etc. (United States Department of State) are proper names and require capitals. A department within a university is an organization, not a feature of an organization; one generally wouldn't capitalize "board of directors" when talking about a company, but the analogy to a university department isn't the board of directors, it's the company. XOR'easter (talk) 17:37, 11 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The third sentence of MOS:CAPS 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". Neither nytimes.com nor washingtonpost.com nor latimes.com consistently capitalizes names of departments at universities; how much effort should we put into trying to concoct a way to circumvent the very clear guidance? Chris the speller yack 19:11, 11 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Nothing is being circumvented. We're just following the example of Inside Higher Ed: “We’ve become so dependent on things like Zoom and that dependence allows them to change things without consulting its users,” said Sukrit Venkatagiri, assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science at Swarthmore College. [11] Or In 2019, the chair of Virginia Commonwealth University’s Department of African American Studies asked a panel of four Virginia college and university presidents whether their institutions required a course on race and racism. [12] Or Hart Blanton, who heads the university’s Department of Communication and Journalism [13]. And the Associated Press: Moments earlier, Fedewa and Jim Schneider with the university’s Department of Fisheries and Wildlife journeyed up to the roof to retrieve the chicks despite their parents — Freyja and Apollo — angrily screeching and hovering above [14]. XOR'easter (talk) 21:41, 11 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Note especially in the final example above "the university's" is lowercase (because it uses university as a word, not a name, even though there is clearly one specific university in mind) but the name of the department within it is properly capitalized. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:58, 12 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
From apnews.com: "said Keith Howard, a professor at the department of music and center of Korean studies at the University of London", also "He later was chairman of the department of music at Cleveland State University", and "Guest conductor for the group will be Rollo A. Dilworth, professor of choral music education and chair of the department of music education ..." so they don't consistently capitalize department names. I agree that insidehighered.com does capitalize them, but they also consistently capitalize "board of regents", so I wonder how independent of the universities they really are. Chris the speller yack 04:08, 12 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You think that people who follow a consistent spelling convention could only do so if they are in the pocket of Evil Big Education? What a strange world-view. Please don't let it color your Wikipedia editing. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:41, 12 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe not in the pocket of, but in very close association with. The MoS says "substantial majority of independent, reliable sources"; a single source that's very close to the universities is still a long way from a "substantial majority". Chris the speller yack 13:48, 12 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Please stop applying your fringe views of independence to Wikipedia. It is seriously distorting your edits, as evidenced here. If you cannot be rational about these things you need to find something else to do. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:19, 12 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It's just one source, nothing like not a substantial majority of sources. And please adjust your tone. I am not irrational, and have not accused those who cannot follow straightforward MoS guidance of being irrational. Most reliable sources do not consistently capitalize names of departments at universities. I have checked. If you investigate and find that a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources consistently capitalize department names, then show me your findings and we will compare. I see no need for WP to capitalize more than most newspapers. Chris the speller yack 19:07, 13 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Is there at least agreement that "physics" in "his B.S. in physics" should not be uppper-cased in a bio? I checked for "his B.A. in music/Music" (because I haven't been titling the scale by changing a lot of those), and two-thirds were in lower case. It should be one or the other. I think the MoS could use a section indicating that changing to upper case should not be done. If there is consensus I'll add one. Chris the speller yack 19:30, 13 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I don't necessarily have a problem with "B.S in physics"–since the formal name of the program/major might not have actually been "Physics". Let me give you an example. Some Australian universities have two different physics majors, "Physics" and "Advanced Physics" (aka "Physics (Advanced)"). The "Physics" major is intended for your average student; the "Advanced Physics" major is an accelerated course intended for the top performers, and it is much more fast-paced, covering advanced material much earlier in the degree than the standard physics major does. Suppose someone graduates from the Advanced Physics major. It might be technically correct to say they have a "Bachelor of Science in Advanced Physics" or "Bachelor of Science in Physics (Advanced)" (I think in practice they often put the advanced bit in the degree name rather than major name, so I think it is most often actually "Bachelor of Advanced Science in Physics" or "Bachelor of Advanced Science (Physics)".) However, for a biography, one might consider the specific physics major they graduated in too much detail, so one might just say "they have a Bachelor of Science in physics". And in that sentence, the "in physics" is correctly lowercased, since it is not the formal name of their major, it is just the name of the academic discipline it is in. But, conversely, it would also be correct to say "they have a Bachelor of Science in Advanced Physics" (or whatever the precise formal title of the degree and major is)–that is just adding more information. However, I think something like "they have a Bachelor of Science in advanced physics" would be incorrect, since it is keeping the formal name of the major but wrongly lowercasing it. Coming to "Bachelor of Science in physics" versus "Bachelor of Science in Physics" – the first is always correct, the second is only correct if that is actually the precise formal title of their major/program. If you aren't sure, I'd go with the first; but, if you have a citation to demonstrate the second, I don't see the problem with the second, and indeed I'm not sure why we should replace the second by the first in that case–except possibly for the argument I made at the start, that the specific major they did is too much information. However, with this specific example, I think the fact they were such a good student they did a special major for advanced students probably actually is relevant biographical information, so the argument that it is too much information is dubious. SomethingForDeletion (talk) 01:42, 14 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
To my American ear, to have a B.S. in physics is to say that you have a degree in the field of study of physics. To have a B.S. in advanced physics implies that the field of study of advanced physics is a different field from physics. If instead one said that they had a B.S. from the University of Something through their accelerated undergraduate Advanced Physics program, then it would be clear that Advanced Physics is a proper noun, the name of a program. Again, good writing can make clear the difference between a field of study and a named program. SchreiberBike | ⌨  13:24, 14 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I agree "through their accelerated undergraduate Advanced Physics program" makes it clearer. And I agree that "B.S. in advanced physics" makes it wrongly sound like "advanced physics is a different field from physics". But would you think the same if you saw it in title case, e.g. "B.S. in Advanced Physics"? To me, the title case makes clear it is a proper noun, and hence is the name of a program/major, not a discipline. SomethingForDeletion (talk) 14:01, 14 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
In a perfect world, yes, but I see fields of study capitalized so often that I tend to assume it was written by someone unfamiliar with Wikipedia's style. At that point I could do further research to find out if there is a program with that name at that institution, but usually I don't. If the sentence were written more clearly then I'd know right away.  SchreiberBike | ⌨  15:02, 14 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Chris the speller: The MoS says "substantial majority of independent, reliable sources"; a single source that's very close to the universities is still a long way from a "substantial majority" I think you misunderstand the purpose of Wikipedia's requirement for independent sources. The point of it is, if we consider a single institution (like a single company or a single university), obviously anything it publishes about itself is likely to be biased in its favour, exaggerate its own importance–so it is proper we take non-independent sources with a grain of salt. But, it was never meant to apply to entire sectors of society, such as the higher education sector as a whole, or an entire industry, or so on. Saying a newspaper/magazine which focuses on the higher education sector is not an independent source for information about the higher education sector is to misunderstand what the requirement for independent sources is all about. How is your argument different from saying that we should consider an academic chemistry journal as a "non-independent" source for proper chemical nomenclature, because the chemistry journal lacks independence from the academic discipline of chemistry? That argument seems rather obviously silly, but how is yours really any different? SomethingForDeletion (talk) 01:55, 14 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Please read WP:SSF – "how to capitalize, italicize, hyphenate, ... Specialized works are notoriously unreliable for this purpose, because in a great many fields they tend to reflect conventions for specialized publications that widely depart from grammatical and style rules of everyday English". It is obvious that insidehighered.com is such a specialized work, so we cannot prefer its styling to that of dictionaries, newspapers and other encyclopedias. Chris the speller yack 14:28, 14 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The Editors of the Encyclopaedia Britannica agree with InsideHigherEd, at least when it comes to specific classes/courses (of which programs/majors are a type): "Names of specific classes or courses are proper nouns... When you are naming a specific class or course, such as Science 241 or Math 100, always capitalize it. Capitalize course titles such as "History of the United States" and "Elementary Physics."". If that's their style with respect to programs/majors, I don't see why that wouldn't do the same for the names of academic departments. Indeed, sometimes they do, see this sentence in their article Paul W. Taylor: "He spent the remainder of his career (1950–90) as a faculty member in the Department of Philosophy at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York". Or see also the Kids Britannica article on the University of California, which under the heading "University of California at Irvine" says: "Its Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences awards both graduate and undergraduate degrees". Although I note their style is inconsistent, and there are other articles in which they refer to academic departments in all lower case. However, the very fact that a generalist encyclopaedia does this is evidence against your argument. SomethingForDeletion (talk) 03:32, 22 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I would capitalize Boston University Department of Mechanical Engineering because it's a proper noun, but department of mechanical engineering is not. ~TPW 14:41, 24 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. Same goes for "is a professor of mechanical engineering", "has a degree in mechanical engineering", etc.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:54, 28 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think there is a distinction between "is a professor of mechanical engineering" and "is Professor of Mechanical Engineering". The second is a formal title, hence a proper noun; the first is just a description of their job. The second is only correct if that's their actual formal title, and would be arguably wrong if it were actually "Rich Benefactor Distinguished Professor of Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering"; whereas, the first could be correct even in this latter case. SomethingForDeletion (talk) 06:48, 28 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
For WP purposes, there is no difference because of MOS:JOBTITLES. We don't capitalize job titles or anything like them just because they're "formal titles", i.e. the actual names of the positions versus descriptive phrases for them (when those even differ at all). The nominal exception is when they're attached directly to the names as if part of the names ("Professor Stevens", "Professor of Anthropology Dorothy M. Stevens"). But we generally do not use that style at all for professors (versus, say, presidents of countries), and we decreasingly capitalize such things even when attached to names if they are "commercial" or everday. So even that distinction is mostly moot. The only case I can think of for capitalizing a professorial title by itself is when it is a named-endownment chair, e.g. "was appointed the Alfred Fitler Moore Professor of Telecommunication Systems at the University of Pennsylvania", because it's basically a professional award in addition to a job title/role. And same does go for roles; it's "department head", not "Department Head". [The article I lifted that named-endowment chair example from, David J. Farber, needs cleanup, as it appears to be capitalizing every single job title and anything like it. But I know Farber personally so I arguably shouldn't edit the article about him for at least a potential whiff of CoI concerns.]  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  02:01, 29 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

capitalizing gender in sports article names

In sports articles such as Rowing at the 1988 Summer Olympics – Men's coxed four, the gender variant after the endash is typically capitalized, but I can't find anything in the manual of style to indicate why. MOS:SPORTCAPS does not reference it, and MOS:DASH doesn't have anything about capitalization as there is at MOS:COLON. Moreover, I find it's not uncommon for the gender label also to be capitalized in the body of the article, which is certainly incorrect; I suspect that confusion resulting from this title capitalization convention is partially the cause. The only argument I've been presented with in opposition to changing these words to lowercase is that there are thousands of articles which would need to be updated. ~TPW 14:34, 24 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Who'ya gonna call? Dicklyon. Randy Kryn (talk) 14:36, 24 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed, that's a holdover from a lack of consensus trying to fix it on tennis articles. If someone wants to start an RFC at MOS:CAPS or some sports project page of WP:VPP or some such, I'll support lowercasing after the dash in general. Dicklyon (talk) 18:26, 24 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, I will word it as broadly as you suggest. ~TPW 18:44, 24 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

RFC on capitalizing after dash in sports article names

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
Consensus was reached in favour of no capitalisation. Timceharris (talk) 00:58, 12 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]


Should the first word after a dash in the name of a sports article, such as Rowing at the 1988 Summer Olympics – Men's coxed four, be capitalized?~TPW 18:45, 24 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Leaning yes. Outside sources for events often use title case, which could constitute an exception to the guideline for sentence case. Senorangel (talk) 03:50, 25 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • No, capitalization after the dash is contrary to everything in WP:AT, WP:NCCAPS, MOS:CAPS, etc, which say we use sentence case and avoid unnecessary capitalization. Others have their own style, often using title case in titles, but this would be not even that, and it would be (and is) an outlier w.r.t. normal Wikipedia article titles. Dicklyon (talk) 04:57, 25 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • No thanks: that's a weird look; draws attention to itself. Tony (talk) 09:15, 25 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • No Per above. Also, see MOS:SENTENCECAPS. We don't cap after a colon or a dash. Collectively, the guidance cited says No. Cinderella157 (talk) 10:56, 25 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment From our policy on Article titles. WP:LOWERCASE 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. WP:CONSISTENT says — We strive to make titles on Wikipedia as consistent as possible with other titles on similar subjects. We follow patterns from article titles for similar topics to the extent that this is practical. So at this point, I would say all these sports articles have been consistent in their titles over the years.
And on another note, since this has the potential to affect thousands of articles from a quick review - 1988, 2020, 2016, 2012, 2008, 2004, 2000, 1996, etc. Do you think this RfC has been advertised widely enough for a clear community consensus that has the potential to invoke a mass change of article titles? Isaidnoway (talk) 20:23, 25 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I just wanted to point out that the women's sports articles appear to be titled the same way - Rowing at the 2020 Summer Olympics – Women's coxless four, and the mens and womens Winter Olympic articles are too - Ski jumping at the 2022 Winter Olympics – Men's large hill team. I came to a very rough count of around ~3600 articles whose titles would be affected. And that is just the Olympic articles, I'm not sure about any other National/International sporting event articles that may have similar titles with men and women capitalized. Isaidnoway (talk) 00:01, 26 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
When we downcased things like "– Women's Doubles" to "– Women's doubles", there were about 20,000 tennis articles (outside the Olympics, which didn't have that problem). It's straightforward to compile a list of article moves and to get a bot approval to do the moves if there's a consensus to do so. It's also more or less straightforward to update all the links. Dicklyon (talk) 19:18, 26 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Generally sentence case is used. However, exceptions appear to exist for event names that are usually capitalized in independent sources. This could vary depending on the common usage. Senorangel (talk) 01:57, 26 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Be aware that "usually capitalized in independent sources" is a weaker criterion than MOS:CAPS specifies, which is "consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources". Dicklyon (talk) 19:18, 26 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Looking at titles with dashes, I do see that many of them have proper names after the dash, so those would not be changed. I'd focus on narrower sets such as "– Men's xxx" and "– Women's xxx" for starters (also Boys', Girls', Team, Individual, and such things found to be common in sports articles). Dicklyon (talk) 19:34, 26 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • No, except for course for a proper name like "Japan". The portions following the dash are not sentences and are not independent subtitles, and could actually be written with a comma (we just happen to have selected a dash). There is no cause for capitalization here, and all our relevant guidelines (MOS:CAPS, WP:NCCAPS, etc.) are consistent in telling us not to use capital letters except when necessary. That a few wikiprojects have gotten into a bad habit behind their WP:OWN / WP:LOCALCONSENSUS garden walls is no reason at all for us to codify some kind of inexplicable exception for them. PS: This really should have been opened at WT:NCCAPS, because MoS is not a title guideline (except inasmuch as a style matter that applies to running prose also applies to the article title; but this is a title-specific question).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:42, 28 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    When I posed this simply as a question, an editor suggested posting a request for comment here among several options. I would certainly welcome help in promoting it more broadly. ~TPW 13:45, 28 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I posted a pointer to it at WT:NCCAPS and the talk page of another naming criteria guideline (I forget which one, but it seemed relevant at the time). Someone else posted a similar notice to WP:VPPOL and I think that in particular will net significant input.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:43, 29 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • No. SMcCandlish's example about commas is useful. Overall, in the long run, the temporary disruption from a bot run moving a bunch of pages is less of a problem than the creep from making an arbitrary exception to our normal rules to acommodate these pages would be. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 00:58, 29 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes – Just like how the first letter after a colon should be capitalized (see what I did there?). Primarily from a visual standpoint, this just makes more sense and looks better. Keep in mind that an article title is not a sentence, even if we use sentence case. An en dash basically starts a new "sentence". InfiniteNexus (talk) 03:45, 31 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Please read MOS:COLON. The guidance tells us specifically that we do not cap after a colon. Cinderella157 (talk) 04:01, 31 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, in prose. InfiniteNexus (talk) 04:15, 31 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Whenever I see an argument "primarily from a visual standpoint," I have to what information this conveys that we do not think is necessary for anyone who receives information via their ears instead of their eyes. ~TPW 15:08, 31 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Per Isaidnoway, the scope of this is just too broad. Plus, there's already concerns about mistakes in updating these articles. Perhaps if the scope was narrowed, but for now I would be against mass changes. Thanks! Nemov (talk) 18:36, 6 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Would you comment more on the concern about the broadness of the scope? My sense of how "too broad" is used is "too vague." Isaidnoway's comment was about the quantity of articles. Is your comment about the technical ability to make a change to multiple articles? That's the sense I get, since you linked to a thread about semi-automated changes.
    Regarding mistakes, the mistakes I have discovered have to do with the gender being capitalized elsewhere in the article, which I surmise (without evidence) might be due to it being capitalized in the article title. I haven't kept a running list of examples, but if you'd like I will keep you posted should I discover more. ~TPW 14:43, 11 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • No. WP:NCCAPS refers to MOS:CAPS for when to capitalize, and CAPS' MOS:SENTENCECAPS is clear that we should not capitalize after a dash. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 22:58, 6 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment The people !voting "no" are all citing NCCAPS and MOS:CAPS. If there is consensus that those guidelines say not to capitalize after an en dash (or colon), then it's time to change that guideline, because it's ridiculous and misguided. Article titles and section headings aren't sentences; they're sentence fragments. Even if we are using sentence case, it doesn't mean we have to follow punctuation rules for sentences. InfiniteNexus (talk) 22:31, 11 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Executing on the above RFC

(listed as a subsection with the RFC so that subscribers to that RFC would be notified)

To get us started on how to put the above result into action, I've compiled a list of 40,000 or so articles that could use a lowercase after the dash. It's too many to list in one page, so I split into these two: User:Dicklyon/Cap after dash titles and User:Dicklyon/Cap after dash titles more. Someone (including me) should look the lists over carefully to see if my query swept up anything it shouldn't have. When we're happy with the lists, we can ask for a TolBot task and get bot approval to automate the moves (I won't be executing that, but I can help get the lists in shape and so on). Dicklyon (talk) 19:05, 17 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Some findings so far:

  • Some of the items listed include things like "– Men's Elite Division" or "– Women's Open Division". I don't see these terms much in sources, so it's hard to say if they should be considered proper names; seems to me that "– men's elite division" etc. would do just fine, but that goes beyond the immediate (word after dash) question. I can remove them from the list if lowercase turns out to be controversial. Dicklyon (talk) 20:16, 17 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Checking books, with query for "handball" with "open division" or "elite division", I find those terms usually lowercase; so I'll go ahead and fix those. Dicklyon (talk) 20:42, 18 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I moved those 9, including lowercase "men's" and "women's", so can take them out of the list now. I've only done case cleanup on 2 so far; they're a mass of over-capitalization, with things like "Semi Final" and "Left Back" and "5th Place" etc. Dicklyon (talk) 00:38, 19 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • There are 206 with "– (Men's|Women's) Freestyle ..." where Freestyle needs to be downcased to match the rest of the wresting and other sports' "freestyle". I just hadn't gotten around to moving them. I'm started this RM discussion to fix them. Dicklyon (talk) 20:54, 17 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • WAIT... I just saw this bot request. This was already handled in a couple of large rfcs' for tennis articles a year or so ago. Compromises and agreements were made in those decisions. We aren't changing things again because of an rfc that none of the projects were privy to! I just had to change a few back because it was brought to my attention on my talk page. We decided the first letter after the ndash was to remain capitalized in rfc's where projects were informed. Sneaking something by and then doing bot requests would require another bot request by the project to move them all back! Or The project would need to move them back one by one. Goodness... I thought we had finalized this garbage with all the past un-needed moves. This little-bit-here, then little-bit-more, little-bit-later, stuff has got to stop. Please pull those tennis articles off your lists of lower-casing. Heck you probably missed 99% of the tournaments since every single tournament ever done uses the format, plus every player article also uses the format. Fyunck(click) (talk) 00:40, 19 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    The close of this RfC would state: ... there is no consensus on capitalization for sporting events in general, and there is a rough consensus that specific capitalization rules for the tennis project are permissible at this time ... [emphasis added]. The other two discussions linked on your TP were not RfCs. Consensus can and has changed. It sounds very much like you are accusing either the nom of the RfC here (or perhaps somebody else) of bad faith or worse? Cinderella157 (talk) 04:15, 19 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    No it has not changed either in tennis or olympics where all articles are done this way properly. At least not per a consensus where all the sports projects are informed. The same folks who wanted it changed before are pushing it again. This was a done deal so we wouldn't have to go through it again. Thousands of fixes were done the last time and then we moved on. The nom here was not done in bad faith. However the list of pages to automove by someone who knows how contentious this is is mighty strange. He had been in another discussion very recently that might have gone downhill had I not suggested a compromise alternative that all seemed to agree with. Plus he gave a message to another editor about how tough this might be if we had to, god forbid, let many sports projects know about this potential change. Kudus to Dickylon by the way for letting that editor know there could be heavy feedback to page moves from some projects. Had another editor not informed me of their unhappiness I might not have noticed till 100s of automoves happened. That should never occur when almost every Olympic Project and Tennis Project article would be affected. There were large discussions and rfcs... one of which you mentioned... another discussion here. Another right here. The ndash is used as a separator of sentence fragments in multiple projects. Fyunck(click) (talk) 06:39, 19 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I would suggest a review of WP:CONLEVEL. Neither tennis nor any other project on WP is a walled garden exempt from the broader community consensus. You appear to be being somewhat liberal in your representations of matters and continue to appear to be casting aspersions about the conduct of other editors. This was already handled in a couple of large rfcs' for tennis articles a year or so ago. My response (immediately above) did refer to the three discussions you initially linked on your talk page, including those two you now link here. I will say it again, only one of those was an RfC. Cinderella157 (talk) 10:23, 19 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Plus in the previous discussions (RFC, RM, and others) there was never a consensus about the dash, or about caps after the dash. These remain open questions. Dicklyon (talk) 03:07, 20 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    "Heck you probably missed 99%..." – I'm only looking at article titles, not all the other places that might be miscapitalized, which of course should also be fixed. also, the "tennis is special" argument didn't carry much water last time, and still doesn't. Dicklyon (talk) 05:07, 19 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Per the concerns I raised above at #Headings: should content after a colon be capitalized?, I am preparing a formal RfC on challenging/changing the guideline. I cannot force y'all to wait until then, but please consider doing so. Thank you. InfiniteNexus (talk) 00:42, 19 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm not in a hurry. More discussion is good. Dicklyon (talk) 04:14, 19 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I think the fundamental problem is that we don't have any guidance on such a role for the dash in titles. Guidance says we don't do subtitles, but that's how some want to use the dash. I think the reason we don't is that we want to be able to directly use titles in article text (perhaps with pipe trick), and this construct won't work for that. As Fyunck points out, we avoided a case disagreement elsewhere by some rearranging. Maybe that's a good idea here, too. E.g. "2023 Blah Blah men's singles" without the dash. Or "Men's singles at the 2023 Blah Blah". Dicklyon (talk) 17:40, 19 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Guidance says we don't do subtitles – Wait, which guideline? InfiniteNexus (talk) 21:23, 19 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Dicklyon: Could you clarify? The RfC I'm preparing is basically ready to go, but I'd like to clear this up first. InfiniteNexus (talk) 05:44, 20 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
See my response below; I answered after Fyunck. Dicklyon (talk) 15:22, 20 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. InfiniteNexus (talk) 17:25, 20 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
There is something else too. Wikipedia changes by usage... it always has. If Usage has swayed a great deal one way then we can incorporate that into our rules as acceptable. Like the English language. It's like weed. Communities getting tired of making criminals out of 25 million people then legalize it instead. We've done that at wikipedia for a couple decades. But Dickylon's suggestion at least is something to look at. It could certainly be done but for linking, visual help, and sorting, it seems unwieldy and unnatural. Look at this years 2023 Wimbledon and it's branches:
  • 2023 Wimbledon Championships – Day-by-day summaries
  • 2023 Wimbledon Championships – Men's singles
  • 2023 Wimbledon Championships – Women's singles
  • 2023 Wimbledon Championships – Men's doubles
  • 2023 Wimbledon Championships – Women's doubles
  • 2023 Wimbledon Championships – Mixed doubles
  • 2023 Wimbledon Championships – Wheelchair men's singles
  • 2023 Wimbledon Championships – Wheelchair women's singles
  • 2023 Wimbledon Championships – Wheelchair quad singles
  • 2023 Wimbledon Championships – Wheelchair men's doubles
  • 2023 Wimbledon Championships – Wheelchair women's doubles
  • 2023 Wimbledon Championships – Wheelchair quad doubles
  • 2023 Wimbledon Championships – Boys' singles
  • 2023 Wimbledon Championships – Girls' singles
  • 2023 Wimbledon Championships – Boys' doubles
  • 2023 Wimbledon Championships – Girls' doubles
  • 2023 Wimbledon Championships – Boys' 14&U singles
  • 2023 Wimbledon Championships – Girls' 14&U singles
  • 2023 Wimbledon Championships – Gentlemen's invitation doubles
  • 2023 Wimbledon Championships – Ladies' invitation doubles
  • 2023 Wimbledon Championships – Mixed invitation doubles
There's like 260+ events a year like this in tennis alone. It is much easier to look at these as subsections of an event rather than heaps of articles starting with "Girl's singles." And tennis isn't the only sport with women's singles. All the Olympic articles are done this way too, so they'll have a big say in starting 120 years of olympics with discipline/year/event rather than year/event/discipline. These work very well as a subsection of sentence fragments and I can't fathom why anyone would really want to mess with them. While it's interesting, I can't see where it does anything but make things messier by using:
  • Ladies' invitation doubles at 2023 Wimbledon Championships
  • Wheelchair quad singles at 2023 Wimbledon Championships
  • Women's singles at 2023 Wimbledon Championships
I really think our readers respond better to and expect "2023 Wimbledon Championships" right up front with an essential subsection of "Wheelchair men's singles." It's tighter, it's more readable, and it's more natural. It's not broken in the least. I'm thinking there aren't a lot of sports that have a need for this type of subtitle sectioning... tennis, Olympics, badminton, curling, other international events like Pan-American games, etc... but this format works quite well for all the sports. We need to show some flexibility here when something works. And we certainly need every sports project and sub sports project notified if all their articles could suddenly change. Fyunck(click) (talk) 22:16, 19 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Probably I was recalling this bit at WP:AT#Subsidiary articles: "Do not create subsidiary articles – Do not use titles suggesting that one article forms part of another: even if an article is considered subsidiary to another (as where summary style is used), it should be named independently. For example, an article on transport in Azerbaijan should not be given a name like "Azerbaijan/Transport" or "Azerbaijan (transport)", use Transport in Azerbaijan." To me, it would make more sense to just have 2023 Wimbledon Championships with sections Day-by-day summaries, Men's singles, etc. Yes, I realize they'd be big. Or use names that don't use subtitles, per that section (in different words). Dicklyon (talk) 23:48, 19 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
And that might work best for many articles, but not all articles.. especially sports articles. Subjects that are huge yet intrinsically linked to the subject. We don't have to be a cookie-cutter, especially when something else works much better and has worked well for so long. I think it is a help to our readers the way we do it, and I will always side with what I feel is best for our readers. Fyunck(click) (talk) 00:23, 20 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm definitely with you there. It's just not clear what's best, as this two-part dash-separated title is almost unique to sports, and confuses me when I'm used to caps signaling proper names. Why not just 2023 Wimbledon Championships day-by-day summaries and 2023 Wimbledon Championships men's singles? Or leave out the word Championships even? Dicklyon (talk) 02:04, 20 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Championships is there because it's the official title of the event. In tables, to save room, we simply use Wimbledon. It seems like "2023 Wimbledon Championships day-by-day summaries" doesn't break it down as visually clear as the way we've done for years and years... that's it's an article on 2023 Wimbledon with in essence a subheading of "Day-by-day summaries." As if in an article you have the title but you also have section headings that would begin with a capital. I'm sure that's why every single Olympic and international event article does the same. Did you ever ask the Olympic Project why they do it that way? It is much clearer to my eye when it's separated by an ndash as two separate sentence fragments. Actually all our titles used to be separated by a simple hyphen but we changed it years ago. Could we do it as "2023 Wimbledon Championships men's singles?" It's certainly better than "Men's singles at the 2023 Wimbledon Championships." But it's not better than "2023 Wimbledon Championships – Men's singles" or even "2023 Wimbledon Championships: Men's singles." The ndash is analogous to a slash in some respects... two separate things in one title. It makes it very clear to all our readers. Dealing with sports all my life it seems pretty easy but perhaps being so sports-centric in my life it makes me unaware of how it looks to folks who might only work on something like presidential bios. Fyunck(click) (talk) 06:50, 20 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It's clear you have thought through your reasons for preferring the dash. I appreciate your clear rationale. I don't have any preference about dashes myself, other than consistency across the site to avoid unnecessary conflict by minimizing special rules that editors are expected to know before reviewing articles of a specific subject.
Since the request for comment was about the capitalization, I'm hoping to better understand why you think the big letter is important after that dash. ~TPW 14:36, 20 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I did find where the Olympic Project discussed this in 2008. So it's been fine with Olympics for 15 years and not sure why anyone would want to change what's worked for so long. Simply incorporate it like we do with flag icons for sports with sourcable use of flag icons for international sports. Fyunck(click) (talk) 06:56, 20 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

information Note: Please see #RfC on capitalization after a colon or dash. InfiniteNexus (talk) 17:48, 20 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Implementation of RFC concerning NHL playoff rounds

FWIW, the RFC result concerning NHL playoffs pages, having their rounds decapitalised (except for the final), has yet to be fully implemented. AFAIK, it's only been applied to the 2023 Stanley Cup playoffs pages. GoodDay (talk) 19:15, 17 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I did an awful lot of downcasing of things like "Preliminary Round" across a bunch of sports, but I don't think I ever made a special effort to finish up on hockey. Now I'm unable to use JWB, so probably won't work on those much. But if you can give a couple of examples with links, that might motivate me or someone to have a look. Dicklyon (talk) 20:02, 17 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Mainly, from the 1982 Stanley Cup playoffs to the 2022 Stanley Cup playoffs pages. GoodDay (talk) 20:18, 17 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I did this big messy edit on the latter. Let's see if it sticks. Probably didn't fix quite everything in that mass of over-capitalization. Dicklyon (talk) 00:45, 18 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Here's the RFC being referred to. Dicklyon (talk) 20:10, 17 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Shoot the Chute

Should the term Shoot the Chute be capitalized? In reading the article, I get the clear sense that this is a type of carnival ride, rather than a brand name; the fact that there have been at least three manufacturers brings it home for me. I think it is a common term that should not be capitalized. ~TPW 14:27, 30 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

"Shoot the Chute is an amusement ride", it says. I'd look to sources to see whether they treat that as a proper name. From books n-grams, looks like it's only half capped, so we should default to lowercase. Dicklyon (talk) 04:24, 1 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for giving another opinion. ~TPW 15:18, 1 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Linked miscapitalizations

At Wikipedia:Database reports/Linked miscapitalizations we have a daily-updated report of miscapitalized redirects that have links from articles. I've been working away on fixing those, and have eliminated the great majority of them by working from the "short end", where the miscapped redirect has only 1, 2, or 3 links to it. Previous to that, I was using JWB to work on the long end (where currently Softbank has the most links, which should be SoftBank in probably all cases). But that got interrupted by my JWB access being shut off due to a complain at ANI, so I won't be able to do much on those bulk items. Anyone want to help there? Dicklyon (talk) 02:11, 12 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It looks like there are about 700 instances of PlayStation miscapitalized as Playstation. I've fixed a dozen or so via linked miscapitalizations, but there are more there and a lot that don't show up there. Anyone want to help fix? Or should I maybe put in a request for AWB help now that I'm not allowed to do it myself? Dicklyon (talk) 06:17, 16 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Clarification request: capitalization of "the sun" etc.?

I'm in a discussion with another user about the exact meaning of the sentence "Names of planets, moons, asteroids, comets, stars, constellations, and galaxies are proper names and begin with a capital letter" in the MOS:CELESTIALBODIES section. My understanding is that this does not apply to the earth (our planet), the sun (the star it turns around), and the moon (its natural satellite), as these are already covered by the previous paragraph, which gives more detailed rules. (Capitalization in an astronomical context and in personifications, but not otherwise.) Their understanding, however, is that the sentence nevertheless refers to these three bodies too so that references to them are always to be capitalized.

What's the consensus interpretation here, assuming there is one? Maybe the page could be improved to clearly resolve the apparent ambiguity, one way or the other? Gawaon (talk) 14:28, 17 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The wording "Names of planets, moons, asteroids, comets, stars, constellations, and galaxies are proper names and begin with a capital letter is very clear. Wikipedia uppercases proper names, and of course this applies to the Sun, Moon, Earth and the rest. If anything this should be made clearer. Randy Kryn (talk) 15:38, 17 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps the guideline could be clarified simply by adding other at the beginning of that sentence: "Other names of planets, moons ...", since the foregoing paragraph details when earth, moon, and sun should (and should not) be considered proper names. Deor (talk) 15:47, 17 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This perennial topic has had discussions galore. Do you really think the Sun (the big burning nuclear furnace that keeps us all alive and editing), Moon (that huge rock-like thing that keeps attempting to fall onto...) Earth (hmmmm, no comment) and Solar System don't have proper names? For example, the Moon article, in its section on naming, says "Moon" is a proper name. Randy Kryn (talk) 15:52, 17 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
They're not always used as proper names. Or do you think that ""Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men" and "When the sun beats down and burns the tar up on the roof" contain incorrect lowercasing? Deor (talk) 16:36, 17 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That tar is burning because of the intense heat of the sunlight. Since you are going on about song lyrics how about "When the moon hits your eye/Like a big pizza pie". That's amore! (and lowercased because it alludes to moonlight) Randy Kryn (talk) 22:53, 17 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I, for one, would be happy with the suggested addition of "Other", as it seems quite well to reflect the intended meaning of the rule. See also the wording over at Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Celestial bodies, which includes the example: "The sun was over the mountain top" – very clearly using lowercase for what's evidently a reference to our star as visible in the sky. Gawaon (talk) 16:45, 17 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I have now inserted "Other" as suggested to make it clear that that paragraph is not to overwrite what the previous paragraph said to regard to "Sun, Earth" etc. That by itself should be a fairly uncontroversial change as everybody can read what the previous paragraph say, and why should it be there if it had no meaning? Gawaon (talk) 16:46, 20 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Randy Kryn, I see you have reverted the change "Other names of planets" which Deor had first suggested and which I had then applied. I must say I'm a bit frustrated to this. You can't act as if you own the MoS, preventing even the smallest changes to make the wording clearer. You know, as well as everybody else, that the preceding section says: "The words Sun, Earth, Moon and Solar System are capitalized (as proper names) when used to refer to a specific celestial body in an astronomical context" (emphasis added) – but not outside of an astronomical context, even when referring to the specific celestial bodies. The MoS itself gives "The sun was over the mountain top" as example for lower-case usage, and you yourself have admitted that lower-case it at least possible in phrases such as "They waited for the moon to rise."
Anyway, what do you think about inserting the "other" elsewhere and writing "Names of other planets, moons" etc.? After all, whether "the sun/moon" etc. are indeed names or just generic words which, when used with the definite article, refer to the nearest such object without thereby becoming proper nouns is very much part of the question. (Just like people living near a city might routinely refer to it as "the city", without "the city" therefore becoming a proper name and requiring a capital letter.) So by pushing the "other" back we prevent people from getting confused but without having to address the thorny (and not objectively decidable) question whether or not "the moon/Moon" is indeed a proper noun.
I'll hope others will weigh in on this too. Gawaon (talk) 11:57, 24 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Gawaon, please do not add to or try to "explain" long standing language in the MOS then, if reverted, become frustrated, thanks. "Other" is not needed, as there is no contradiction to address. Proper names are proper names throughout the English language, and have been since the beginning of time when English was first grunted in the caves. The opening paragraph, although it could be written better or even eliminated, just makes clear to editors who may not totally understand proper names that words like "sun" when it means "sunshine", or the common use of "earth" for soil, or that the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, are not uppercased. As to your example, "the city" is an example of a general use nickname but not a proper name as it does not denote to a worldwide readership which city. Randy Kryn (talk) 12:58, 24 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
How come then that "the sun" is considerable more frequent in written English than "the Sun" [15] and likewise "the moon" than "the Moon" [16]? Has it ever, for just one second, occurred to you that you could be wrong rather than the wast majority of the English-speaking world? Also, assuming that there ever is a human colony on Mars, would they really go on using "the Moon" (whether capitalized or not) to refer to Earth's moon? Maybe they would rather give it a proper proper name (say "Luna") and instead start to use the collective noun "the moons" to refer to the moons of their own planet? As long as there is no such colony, we simply cannot know that, and so the question whether "the moon/Moon" is a proper name or rather a definitive use case of a common noun is undecidable. Gawaon (talk) 13:11, 24 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The Mars colony is an interesting scenerio, thanks. I would think they would still call the Moon the Moon and the Sun the Sun, etc. Their own multiple moons already have names, which would be used, and when they strolled under the moons they would lowercase "moons" as a general name. The use of Sun and Moon in ngrams and such has been discussed and decided many times on Wikipedia, retaining the present usage. Yes, I was wrong once, in 1995 (or was it '94?). Randy Kryn (talk) 14:31, 24 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think the phrase "astronomical contexts" is causing some of the problem here. I would say that the name of the astronomical object should always be capitalized. Whenever you mean the specific ball of hot gas, that's the Sun; it's a proper name. That's true whether you're talking about astronomy or not.
When you mean the light or heat that comes from it, that should be lowercase. When you mean the disk of light in the sky — I think that's an in-between situation. So for example it's OK with me if Wikipedia articles say the sun rises earlier in the summer; I personally use a capital letter for this situation, but I recognize it as different, because you're not really talking about the astronomical object here (the Sun doesn't rise at all; rather, the Earth rotates so you get a different view of it). --Trovatore (talk) 18:54, 17 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The moon or sun rising or setting is clearly not an astronomical context; it's a very human-centric viewpoint. Dicklyon (talk) 20:13, 17 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
What I'm saying is, the guidance should be clarified. The name of the astronomical object should always be capitalized, even if not in an astronomical context. However, many common uses are not really about the astronomical object, and they can stay lowercase. --Trovatore (talk) 20:19, 17 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
What clarification would you propose? Currently the main page requests capitalization "in a scientific or astronomical context", but not "in general use". That's not so bad, and I suppose this wording expresses a consensus view that can't be changed easily. Now, how would you decide whether a usage outside of a scientific or astronomical context is about the astronomical object? To me that seems trickier than simply saying "just use lower-case in such cases", as the current rules do. Gawaon (talk) 21:07, 17 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Well, aboutness can be fraught, but it is really the center of a lot of editorial decisions. I would change the guidance to put it in terms of aboutness, and then give a couple of examples and let people take it from there. It shouldn't be a huge difference in practice, but it's closer to the real issue.
Maybe a test case: suppose that for some reason, in an article that's not particularly scientific, you had cause to say that something was as hot as the surface of the Sun. I would argue that, even though the broader context is not especially scientific or astronomical, the capital S is basically required there. --Trovatore (talk) 21:24, 17 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That example would of course be uppercased, as "surface of the Sun" refers directly to the star, which has a proper name (Sun). Dicklyon is correct about the sun setting, which has been lowercased for as long as I've been editing. This doesn't seem hard, if the language refers to the Moon, Sun, or Earth when discussing the moon, the star, or the planet, then they have proper names. I don't know even know why we are discussing this, seems like a 1930's comedy (which may be because I'm watching one now, so my feeling watching it is subjective and carried over as I type - sort of like the subjective language that some people want to place onto these proper names). The language could be simplified to "uppercased when used as proper names" and just get rid of the "astronomical" and other contested and confusing language (then clarify with a few examples, but most editors can recognize a proper name when they see one). Randy Kryn (talk) 22:43, 17 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I mean, I agree with you, but I'm not sure the current language that references "context" expresses that idea clearly. It could be interpreted as saying that if you talk about the star, but in some non-astronomical broader context, you'd lowercase it. The "proper names" language is an interesting idea; I could maybe support it, but it does leave some cases a bit unclear. Does the disk of light in the sky have a proper name? It seems like it reasonably could; there's no reason abstract objects can't be named. --Trovatore (talk) 23:07, 17 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That abstract disc in the sky is the Sun (didn't they learn you nuttin' in school?). As for its proper name, the language is already present in the guideline "Names of planets, moons, asteroids, comets, stars, constellations, and galaxies are proper names and begin with a capital letter. Randy Kryn (talk) 23:48, 17 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
But the abstract disk does rise and set. The hot ball of gas does not. --Trovatore (talk) 03:06, 18 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with the capitalization in this example ("as hot as the surface of the Sun"), but I'd say that the wording "surface of the Sun" by itself suggests a scientific context – that's hardly everyday language. In general, everyday usage, on the other hand, somebody might say "as hot as the sun" in a metaphorical rather than scientific sense ("very, very hot"), and in such a context lower case would be fine and usual. Likewise with the phrase "reach for the moon", which Randy Kryn once used as example. It has no scientific, let alone astronomical context, but simply means "try to do something very difficult or impossible", so lower case is fine here (and indeed common in general English usage, which Wikipedia largely strives to follow). However, when pursuing the "proper name" idea, it seems hard to explain why such usages should be lower-cased, or even why "the sun rises" should be lower-cased – after all, they clearly do refer, in some way or other, to our planet's star and moon, both of which have a name and are identified by that name in all these phrases. So capitalization depends not really on the name, but rather on the context in which that name is used. Gawaon (talk) 05:36, 18 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The problem is that "context" could be taken as the broader context (say, of the article as a whole). It should be surface of the Sun regardless of how pop-culturish the whole article is. --Trovatore (talk) 20:37, 18 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. One way out may be more examples to clarify to intended usage. Gawaon (talk) 20:39, 18 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

When our manual of style has micro-fine shades of meaning, as it does here, I do not believe it serves anyone. That's why there are perennial discussions, because we have rules that are based on subtle differences of context. I believe that words like sun and moon and earth never need be capitalized because it's always obvious what's being talked about. If the word we use to refer to a concept has become a common noun, it's always a common noun. There is no situation in which capitalizing "sun" is going to make it clearer to a reader that the in that instance the word means "the star around which the earth orbits" that cannot be made even clearer just be using clearer words. Moreover, that capitalization does nothing for anyone with a vision impairment; those individuals have no choice but to depend on context. Perennial arguments like this are evidence that we should shift to lower case in all contexts, and trust writing to get the job done. What's the value of creating discord and excluding the visually impaired by digging in heels about this?~TPW 13:24, 18 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I think any suggestion that would allow The Apollo project achieved the first human landing on the moon is a non-starter. Also not really following how capitalization "excludes" the visually impaired. --Trovatore (talk) 20:30, 18 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I'd say that such usage must be capitalized, while "they waited for the moon to rise" must be lower-case. So the most simple solutions are (sadly) unavailable. Gawaon (talk) 20:38, 18 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You say "must be capitalized", but sources mostly don't. Nor with the sun. Dicklyon (talk) 15:28, 19 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Interesting. I googled "nasa return to moon" and while NASA itself uses capitalization (as do we), most other sources don't. Personally I wouldn't be opposed to a "largely lower-case" resolution, I just think it's important to have a rule that's clear and easy to follow. Gawaon (talk) 16:23, 19 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I googled a bit further to see how others handle this and the first consistent and simple rule I found is from the MLA Style Center: "We usually lowercase sun, moon, and earth, but ... when the does not precede the name of the planet, when earth is not part of an idiomatic expression, or when other planets are mentioned, we capitalize earth." Examples include: "The earth revolves around the sun" and "The space shuttle will return to Earth next year".
Personally, I would be happy with such a simple and consistent rule. However, it deviates significantly from Wikipedia's current usage, which is to use capitalization in many cases (but without an easily detectable consistent pattern). Gawaon (talk) 16:44, 19 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I would prefer that, too. We also over-capitalize Universe and Solar System imho. Dicklyon (talk) 17:27, 19 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
When sources don't support a style that is also inconsistent, that's strong justification for a request for comment. ~TPW 18:05, 19 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
True Pagan Warrior, I see you have started RFCs regarding this manual before, would you be willing to do one for more consistent lower-casing of "the sun" etc. too? I would support it, but I have no experience with starting RFCs. Here's the text I would propose to use instead of the current first paragraph of MOS:CELESTIALBODIES (but it's just a suggestion, I'm open for improvements):

The words sun, moon, solar system, and universe are not generally capitalized (India was the fifth nation to land on the moon; The solar system was formed 4.6 billion years ago), except when used in personifications (Sol Invictus ('Unconquered Sun') was the ancient Roman sun god). References to our planet are written as the earth (lowercase, with article) or Earth (capitalized, no article); if other planets are mentioned as well, the latter form is usually preferable (Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars are the four terrestrial planets). It is lowercased in colloquial expressions such as what on earth.

Gawaon (talk) 17:46, 20 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I do not have the time at the moment, either to request comment or closely look at your proposed text. That means that we have time for others to weigh in on the text, or request comment themselves. ~TPW 18:25, 20 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Considering that the proposal doesn't seem to generate any enthusiasm, I'm not going to pursue it further. It would probably also be too big a change, considering the frequency of the capitalized spellings the Moon/Sun/Earth throughout Wikipedia. Gawaon (talk) 17:40, 26 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
What I'm saying is that a desire to capitalize a word is a desire to convey some information about that word, usually that it's special in some way, but since we do not pronounce capital letters, anyone who uses text-to-speech has no clue that there is information being conveyed. ~TPW 18:00, 19 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I mean, you could take that argument to say we shouldn't have images, because it might tempt us to leave out information from the text that the visually impaired could have used.
But anyway, you're mostly right that conveying extra information is not the main point. The main point is to capitalize proper nouns, which are the names of fixed things like the Sun and the Moon, as is correctly done in English. --Trovatore (talk) 18:45, 19 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
No, we have alt-text to convey information about images. As for what's a proper noun, that's the point of this discussion. ~TPW 18:59, 19 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Alt-text gives some information about the image, but it's never going to get across everything the image imparts to sighted readers. Put another way, by your argument, why use capitals at all? They do convey information that's not available to users of text readers. But look, text was developed for use through the visual sense. It's really wonderful that there are ways for those who can't see to nevertheless use text, and we should make that as easy as reasonably possible, but that's not a reason to avoid thinking about the visual presentation and how it can help the reader who uses it in the ordinary way. --Trovatore (talk) 19:15, 19 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think the best way to do that is only to capitalize words that are, per overwhelming consensus, proper nouns. For any argument around the edges like this, with capitalization in some contexts and not in others, it's confusing to visual readers and lost on non-visual readers. I don't see any point to capitalizing such words at all. Whether it's metaphorical or astronomical, the sun is the sun. How does capitalizing the word from time to time improve understanding for anyone, really? ~TPW 16:23, 20 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Completely agree. If a word needs emphasis, tag it as such, don't capitalize it. MOS says reserve caps for proper names, i.e. terms that are consistently capitalized in independent sources – not terms that are just "sometimes" capitalized in sources, or terms that are capitalized in sources that are promoters of those terms. Using caps sparingly is a great service the reader, and I hadn't thought about how it might also help the screen-reader user, but you are right. Dicklyon (talk) 04:17, 27 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Comment This really isn't all that hard. The words Sun, Earth, Moon ... a specific celestial body in an astronomical context. Astronomical sense means in the context of the science of astronomy - broadly construed. Trying to have it extend to more everyday uses could be construed as pettifogging. Cinderella157 (talk) 23:12, 19 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It isn't hard at all. If a word is a proper name, it is upper-cased. That's a universal rule of the English language. There is no separate category for the Sun, the Moon, the Earth, the Solar System, or the Galactic Center as proper names. Wikipedia status-quo on uppercasing all proper names is clear. Randy Kryn (talk) 23:56, 19 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
But how do you know what a proper name is, as opposed to a descriptor pointing to a specific object (an object that exists just once)? If you want to generally capitalize the Sun, why not equally generally capitalize the Universe, the World, Climate Change, Economics etc., all of which exist just once and could therefore equally well be regarded as proper names? Gawaon (talk) 05:37, 20 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The Sun? You know it when you see it (look, up in the sky, it's a bird, it's a plane, nah, it's the Sun). I think editors can figure out when the Sun is used a proper name or is referring to sunlight, etc. That's where examples can come in, but the proper name for the star is Sun and not much else to say about the topic. Randy Kryn (talk) 15:38, 20 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
According to at least one source, "Although it’s a star – and our local star at that – our sun doesn’t have a generally accepted and unique proper name in English. We English speakers always just call it the sun. ~TPW 16:26, 20 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm convinced by the good people at earthsky, why would humanity go to the trouble of actually naming the nearest star that has given us all life. It's not like it's obvious to anyone or deserving of a proper name, just hanging there, not doing anyone a bit of good. But to be serious, I'm extremely proud of Wikipedia for using obvious proper names for the Sun, Moon, Earth, and Solar System even when many sources, such as the one you point out, do not. By the way, may I ask what do you call it when discussing the Sun (I personally seldom discuss it, but there really should be a holiday honoring the thing, maybe call it Sunday or something). Randy Kryn (talk) 22:24, 20 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Just wondering in looking at this, are there times we don't capitalize Jupiter or Saturn? Granted I'm old, but I've used the phrase "jumpin' jupiter" many times. Is Jupiter always lower case in this context? I assumed it would be like cases of lower case sun and earth, but I've never seen it uncapitalized in that phrase. And sure I can see that we would spell it sunrise or sun-rise, but then when NASA talks about Titan and it's lakes and throws up a photo we see a picture of Saturn-rise over Titan? It does get confusing. Fyunck(click) (talk) 23:06, 20 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Barbie shows with embedded titles?

In the redirect titles Barbie & Her Sisters in A Pony Tale and Barbie and Her Sisters in The Great Puppy Adventure, are "A Pony Tale" and "The Great Puppy Adventure" properly treated as embedded titles, per MOS:THETITLE? Or should the "A" and "The" be lowercase? I'm thinking they're embedded titles, but the user marking them as "miscapitalized" disagrees. Dicklyon (talk) 03:31, 19 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

To summarize my previous comments, this is a pretty straightforward case of MOS:TITLECAPS. Words like "a" and "the" are never capitalized in a work title unless it is the first or last word of a title, or after a colon or dash. The "embedded titles" MOS:THETITLE alludes to is referring to titles of other works embedded in a title, i.e. a title within a title. A Pony Tale and The Great Puppy Adventure are subtitles part of the regular title, which follow TITLECAPS. InfiniteNexus (talk) 04:38, 19 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
But "An indefinite or definite article is capitalized only when at the start of a title, subtitle, or embedded title or subtitle." So if it's a subtitle, that would again make it capitalized, no? Dicklyon (talk) 04:56, 19 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, I misspoke. A Pony Tale is not a subtitle, as there is no colon or en dash. It should therefore follow the capitalization conventions of TITLECAPS, which says that a and the are not capitalized. InfiniteNexus (talk) 05:41, 19 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Side question: where do you find guidance that subtitles can be placed after dashes? All I can find is MOS:TITLEPUNCT, which includes "Where subtitle punctuation is unclear (e.g. because the subtitle is given on a separate line on the cover or a poster), use a colon and a space, not a dash, comma, or other punctuation, to separate the title elements. If there are two subtitles, a dash can be used between the second and third elements." That seems quite narrow. ~TPW 14:23, 19 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
One example would be the recent Mission: Impossible films. But usually, a dash is used as a "secondary" subtitle. InfiniteNexus (talk) 21:41, 19 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Just as a point of order regarding the M:I films, that was largely a special case because having two colons in the title would be awkward (and, no, we are not omitting the colon from Mission: Impossible, so don't even think about it). It fortunately has been consistent with outside-Wikipedia practice for those films as well. oknazevad (talk) 00:52, 20 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, and we also usually follow the formatting used in the billing block, we don't arbitrarily decide how to punctuate subtitles. InfiniteNexus (talk) 05:36, 20 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
To A Pony Tale and The Great Puppy Adventure (however capitalised) these are not embedded titles as described in the guidance. They do have a semblance of being a subtitle but are not formatted as a subtitle by using a dash, colon or parenthesis - nor do I see this being done in sources. Consequently, I don't think we should treat this as a subtitle in respect to the guidance that would lead us to capitalise the words in question. A Google search looking at the usual movie sites that are often used as sources show mixed capitalisation on the point in question. If we defer to the general advice at MOS:CAPS, we would lowercase the subject words. That would be my reading of things. Cinderella157 (talk) 12:11, 19 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Definitely not subtitles. But structured as embedded titles, whether "A Pony Tale" is a true title or not. Dicklyon (talk) 15:26, 19 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Dicklyon, they are not embedded titles, this is a fundamental misunderstanding of MOS:THETITLE. "Embedded title" means that the title of Work A is being quoted in the title of Work B. For example, Lorem Ipsum of A Christmas Carol, or Lorem Ipsum of Lorem Ipsum and The Odyssey. InfiniteNexus (talk) 21:41, 19 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It should be capitalized in accordance with MOS:TITLECAPS not because it is a subtitle, but because it is part of the title of the work. InfiniteNexus (talk) 21:41, 19 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see that I am disagreeing with you at all. Cinderella157 (talk) 22:50, 19 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Looks like everyone is on the same subtitle page on this. Randy Kryn (talk) 23:58, 19 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
So everyone's good with lowercase articles in these? I have a crazy backwards feeling somehow. Dicklyon (talk) 04:20, 27 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Everyone is okay with uppercased titles, as embedding titles. I thought that's what you had said above. And by the way, a quick quiz, how many of the 297 moons in the Solar System have lowercased names? Randy Kryn (talk) 04:42, 27 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Uppercase "A Pony Tail" and "The Great Puppy Adventure" as embedded titles? I read the discussion as nixing those capped A and The. Clarify? Dicklyon (talk) 04:50, 27 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus uppercases the 'The'. Wouldn't Barbie and her Sisters in a Pony Tail change the meaning or the embedded descriptor which is featured as an embedded title in the film itself? Randy Kryn (talk) 05:05, 27 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
For the last time, those are not embedded titles. ; or,–style subtitles that were popular in classic literature are no longer prevalent. Per MOS:TITLECAPS, words like "the" and "in" are not capitalized in titles of works; this is an extremely straightforward case, and I can guarantee you every single editor from WP:FILM will tell you the same thing. InfiniteNexus (talk) 05:20, 27 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm glad it's for the last time so you won't reply, but either the embedded title of the film's name is uppercased or the film itself should be renamed The Pony Tail on Wikipedia. It's a clear-cut case, but the opposite of what you are arguing. MOS:TITLECAPS is a guideline, and guidelines include the common sense language "...it is best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply". Randy Kryn (talk) 05:34, 27 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I really don't understand how editors continue to misinterpret MOS:THETITLE when it discusses "embedded titles". The example used there is "An Examination of The Americans: The Anachronisms in FX's Period Spy Drama", in which "An Examination of The Americans: The Anachronisms in FX's Period Spy Drama" is the title of a chapter and The Americans is the title of a TV series. To copy-and-paste my earlier comment, "embedded title" means that the title of Work A is being quoted in the title of Work B. There is consensus above that we are not dealing with subtitles due to the lack of a colon or dash; it is exceedingly rare for an exception be granted, and I see no reason an exception should be granted in this case. InfiniteNexus (talk) 05:56, 27 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Duh! This is not an embedded title nor a subtitle for reasons already stated. The guidance is clear as to what constitutes an embedded title. Sources don't truncate the fuller title that is being used. I don't see sources doing this so nor should we. Cinderella157 (talk) 06:21, 27 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The full title has plenty of sources which quote it exactly as titled, with the uppercased 'A'. The on-screen title has the uppercasing, which is logical given the wording. The words 'Barbie and Her Sisters' are presented as if they were 'starring' followed by the title of the film, but since the full title includes the starring roles then it acts as an embedded title (per common sense, which should take preference over strictly-following-guidelines). Randy Kryn (talk) 13:20, 27 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
We generally do not conform to how organizations style their names or trademarks, for example, even if they consistently use all-caps or capitalize their leading "the". Additionally, making an exception here would be breaching the long-standing naming conventions of the film project:
InfiniteNexus (talk) 16:40, 27 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
InfiniteNexus, please note that not one of your examples includes wording similar to Barbie and Her Sisters in A Pony Tail. Doctor Strange may come close if you squint a little, but no, that title actually describes where Doctor Strange has found himself in. In this and the other Barbie films it's like Katherine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart in The African Queen if that film was so-named. Big difference. That the studio puts the correct title styling in the clearest terms it could in the film's title sequence and film trailer seems evident and important to this discussion. Randy Kryn (talk) 03:31, 28 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It is also true that there are a good proportion of sources that don't cap "the" and "a" in these titles - sufficient for us to revert to the general advice at MOS:CAPS - which is the common sense approach. Cinderella157 (talk) 02:32, 28 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
If I hadn't nailed that horse down, it would have nuzzled up to those bars, bent 'em apart with its teeth, and VOOM! Cinderella157 (talk) 02:42, 28 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
OK, I agree that we disagree. On this one, I'm more on Randy's side than Cinderella's, which makes my head spin, but that's where I am. Dicklyon (talk) 04:07, 28 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
And I'm actually agreeing with Dicklyon here. The titles are clearly A Pony Tale and The Great Puppy Adventure - Barbie & her Sisters is almost a parenthetical, as in the example from MOS:TITLE, "(Now and Then There's) A Fool Such as I". See also Barbie in A Mermaid Tale, etc. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 15:01, 28 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I've exhausted everything I have to say, but I'll repeat that we always conform to our own MoS rather than follow how organizations (or even sources) style the trademarks they own. For film articles in particular, we never conform to stylization in logos. But I'm not going to continue wasting time pushing a change to a set of redirects about a series of obscure, animated, low-budget, direct-to-DVD films. So, do as you please. InfiniteNexus (talk) 14:46, 28 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Same. I'm not going to waste more time on this. I just wanted to know whether others agreed that these are cases of embedded titles, and I found that opinions are mixed on that point. For me, the substantive issue is whether to "fix" these, or to remove the redirect tag that says these are miscapitalizations. To prevent this coming up more in the linked miscapitalized redirects report, I'll remove that tag, and just call it "other capitalization". Dicklyon (talk) 16:45, 1 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

RfC on capitalization after a colon or dash

Should MOS:COLON, MOS:ENDASH, WP:NCCAPS, MOS:SECTIONCAPS, and MOS:LISTCAPS be amended to allow for the first letter after a colon or en dash in an article title, section heading, or list item to be capitalized? InfiniteNexus (talk) 17:45, 20 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Current Wikipedia guidelines dictate that the first letter after a colon (or en dash, by extension, since they function the same way when being used as separators) in an article title, section heading, or list item should be in lowercase, as the phrase that comes after the colon or dash is not a complete sentence. However, this rule is near-universally ignored by editors (see data presented above here and here), because common sense tells us that this does not make sense. Unlike in prose where the rule does make sense, article titles, section headings, and list items are not complete sentences but rather sentence fragments, so it is illogical to apply capitalization or grammar rules intended for prose.

Capitalizing the first letter after a colon or dash is the widespread standard among English-language publications that use sentence case in article titles. For example: Reuters ([17] [18] [19]), the Associated Press ([20] [21] [22]), The Washington Post ([23] [24] [25]), the Los Angeles Times ([26] [27] [28]), CNN ([29] [30] [31]), CNBC ([32] [33] [34]), ABC News ([35] [36] [37]), etc. For article titles and section headings, the use of colons and dashes is akin to subtitles in titles of works, in that they both provide supplemental or explanatory information attached via a punctuational separator. MOS:TITLECAPS instructs that the first letter of a subtitle always be capitalized, even if it is an a or the or of; the same logic should apply here. For list items, you can liken them to Wikipedia glossaries, only instead of line breaks, we are using colons or en dashes.

Examples on Wikipedia articles

Example of an article title:

From Cycling at the 2008 Summer Olympics – Men's individual road race
Capitalized (de facto) Not capitalized (de jure)
Cycling at the 2008 Summer Olympics – Men's individual road race Cycling at the 2008 Summer Olympics – men's individual road race

Example of a section heading:

From David Bowie
Capitalized (de facto) Not capitalized (de jure)
1962–1967: Early career to debut album
 
1962–1967: early career to debut album
 

Example of a list item:

From The Empire Strikes Back
Capitalized (de facto) Not capitalized (de jure)
  • Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker: A pilot in the Rebel Alliance and apprentice Jedi[6]
  • Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker: a pilot in the Rebel Alliance and apprentice Jedi[6]

See also past discussions that tangentially touched on this subject: Aug 2023, Jun 2023, May 2023, Oct 2022, Dec 2021, and Oct 2021. InfiniteNexus (talk) 17:45, 20 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Survey

Note: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style and Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (capitalization) have been notified of this discussion. InfiniteNexus (talk) 17:45, 20 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Actually I don't think Wikipedia guidelines say anything about ndash capitalization. It's always been pretty silent on the situation. It says ndashes can also be equal to a slash "/" which may or may not have capitalization afterwards. Most bio titles wouldn't need to use a colon or ndash... you'd get a tree or two broken off from the main article. Some sports like the Olympics or tennis are quite different, and it's why Wikipedia has usually been fairly flexible in how it operates, especially when you get heaps of specific disciplines such as Olympic swimming. It's what make Wikipedia great... it evolves with editors. It's only natural to have articles broken down into heading/subheading Swimming at the 2020 Summer Olympics – Women's 100 metre backstroke. It's easier to read for our millions of viewers. Every Olympic article and tennis article is done this way. The Olympics Project handled this way back in 2008. Tennis Project since 2006. When did this procedure suddenly start giving readers problems? I thought we had moved on from this in a recent RFC?. All sports projects need to know about this potential change. Fyunck(click) (talk) 19:42, 20 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support- I think this makes sense. I agree that the endash or colon in these cases acts as a bridge between a title and subtitle so I agree with capitalising the first word after it. Stevie fae Scotland (talk) 21:21, 20 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support for article titles and section headings, neutral regarding list items. – Capitalizing the "subtitle" (usually separated by a colon, less often by a dash) is intuitive and widely used in English. Gawaon (talk) 21:49, 20 September 2023 (UTC) Update: See the following "Comment on style guides" for additional justification. Gawaon (talk) 16:37, 23 September 2023 (UTC) Update 2+3: I somewhat modified my vote (twice) to explain my position regarding list items. Gawaon (talk) 18:09, 25 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment on style guides: Since some here have doubted that the suggested usage corresponds to popular practice, here's what two of the most widely used style guides say on the topic – italics added by me for emphasis:
    • The Chicago Manual of Style, section 8.158: "In sentence­-style capitalization, only the first word in a title, the first word in a subtitle, and any proper names are capitalized." As example they give: "The house of Rothschild: The world's banker, 1849-1999".
    • Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (a.k.a. APA style), section 6.17: "In sentence case, lowercase most words in the title or heading. Capitalize only the following words: the first word of the title or heading; the first word of a subtitle; the first word after a colon, em dash, or end punctuation in a heading; nouns followed by numerals or letters; proper nouns."
These style guides aren't arbitrarily picked. I used the Massviews Analysis API to check which pages in our Category:Style guides (including subcategories) are most widely read and checked the first three that are actually style guides. For two of them, the results are as above. The third, The Elements of Style, is a much shorter work which, as far as I could find, doesn't contain any detailed rules for capitalization or sentence style. Gawaon (talk) 16:37, 23 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I have no opinion one way or another, but when I see things like this come up again and again, I do think that some editors have completely lost sight of what wikipedia is supposed to be about. Whichever way these RfCs go (I use the plural because no doubt this issue will arise again) if an editor so feels strongly about change to launch an RfC and they win the RfC to change the status quo, they should change all the relevant pages themselves so as to allow other editors to spend their time on more meaningful editing. There are still many pages in need of more sources, better sources and more information. Tennishistory1877 (talk) 22:02, 20 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Boy that's a good point. However this particular Rfc, as worded, would require no changes to articles if passed. The proposer did this to head off changes by bot to these articles and these articles, plus all the peripheral articles that would need reworking/rewording. But for sure we have so many real issues to work on to make our articles better I'm amazed these piss-ant capitalization issues keep taking us from creation and vandal fighting. Fyunck(click) (talk) 22:36, 20 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I really care so little about the ins and outs of ndash capitalization. I havent even read the RfC proposal, as this would waste five minutes of my time on an issue I do not care about. But I do care about and keep an eye on the editing of tennis articles (I read your post on the tennis project page which alerted me to it) and I can see how you and another prolific tennis editor are continually left to pick up the pieces when editors come along and change trivial things such as capitalization. As you rightly say, this takes you away from vandal fighting. I know you and I have had our disagreements in the past, but you do prevent a lot of vandalism of tennis articles. My main criticism on these issues is not directed primarily at you, because you are the one reacting to the problems caused by others, but I still think it is important for all editors to prioritise the use of their time to deal with the most important issues. Tennishistory1877 (talk) 23:39, 20 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I wasn't the one who dug this matter up — I agree it's trivial and should be left alone in a perfect world, and in fact, that is how we have been operating for years. But now, since editors have decided to crack down on this non-issue, let's just settle the matter once and for all. Capitalizing after a colon or dash is already the status quo in practice, but the problem is that this technically breaches our MoS. InfiniteNexus (talk) 04:12, 21 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    You started an RFC on a question that you think is trivial? Good job. Dicklyon (talk) 05:04, 21 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    It's a trivial matter that needs to be definitively settled so we can move onto more important things. "Trivial" as in we should leave them alone; who cares whether or not they're capitalized? But since you and others are trying to force everyone else to use lowercase, which is against the norm no matter what the MoS says, I have a problem with that. InfiniteNexus (talk) 05:52, 21 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Fyunck, how do these ongoing case-fixing issues keep you from creation and vandal fighting? Why not just carry on? Dicklyon (talk) 05:04, 21 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    We all have limited time to perform additions, and fight vandalism. Maybe your time is unlimited but mine isn't. I haven't looked at 100s of articles on my watchlist for two days because I'm writing here or informing projects of the strange rfc that just took place and this rfc. I'm sure vandalism happened in several places and it will now slip by because of what I deem silly capitalization limits. Fyunck(click) (talk) 07:09, 21 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    You can just not participate in stuff you think is silly. Dicklyon (talk) 17:20, 21 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Trying to prevent silly mass-renaming initiatives by others is certainly a noble (and non-silly) goal. Gawaon (talk) 17:51, 21 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. This is too vague and over-broad, and predicated on a falsehood. Nothing at all in Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Titles of works#Capital letters (or elsewhere in MOS:TITLES) suggests to use lower-case for the first letter of a subtitle, and even says Subtitles: ... For titles with subtitles or parenthetical phrases, capitalize the first word of each element, even if it would not normally be capitalized, if the element is ... given in parentheses or following a colon or dash: "Fooling Yourself (The Angry Young Man)", "Linking Albinism and Immunity: The Secrets of Secretory Lysosomes", Star Trek: The Motion Picture. This is about externally published works. When it comes to our own pagenames, there is no reason to capitalize the "w" in "women's" in "Swimming at the 2020 Summer Olympics – women's 100 metre backstroke". That we're using an en-dash here is entirely incidental, and it could just as easily be a comma (and actually should be, per WP:COMMADIS; there is no "WP:DASHDIS"). The "women's 100 metre backstroke" portion of this is not an independent subtitle, but just narrowing detail to more WP:PRECISEly identify the topic of the article. It's a form of disambiguation. In the actual title of a published work, like the "Luke Skywalker: A pilot in the Rebel Alliance and apprentice Jedi" example given above, capitalization would follow the colon because there we are dealing with a subtitle, and we could not replace the colon with a comma. In short, we already capitalize after a colon when something is a subtitle, and we have no reason to capitalize after a colon or an en dash when something is not a subtitle, such as PRECISE-narrowing additional detail in WP's own article titles. This proposal is so vaguely worded that it would probably result in a whole lot of mis-capitalization of partial-sentence phrases after colons and en dashes in mid-sentence that have nothing to do with titles of anything at all. Also the claim that "this rule is near-universally ignored by editors" is ridiculously overblown. And "you can liken them to Wikipedia glossaries, only instead of line breaks, we are using colons or en dashes" makes no sense at all; most glossary entries are lower-case because they are not proper names, and a title and alleged subtitle of something are completely unlike separate glossary entries in any way. I agree with Fyunck(click)'s observation that this proposal was written simply to thwart one other particular editor, and that "we have so many real issues to work on to make our articles better I'm amazed these piss-ant capitalization issues keep taking us from creation and vandal fighting". This is petty "title-warring" and a desperate attempt to preserve over-capitalization in a subset of sports articles.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:13, 20 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

    An additional oppose reason: This proposal conflicts directly with WP:CITE, which permits use of any real-world-attested citation style. Some of them use lower-casing of everything in an article title other than the first letter and proper names, colons and dashes notwithstanding. This is why you'll see article titles in citations so often in the form "Foo bar: baz quux", especially in science articles (and you'll see it in the wild constantly if you spend any time at all on JSTOR and other indexes of journal articles). The claim below that "Foo bar: Baz quux" is some kind of "standard in English" is blatantly false.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  18:59, 22 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

    I don't agree with the last sentence. I find this is an attempt to preserve normal capitalization over the few who want under-capitalization. But I suppose beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Fyunck(click) (talk) 23:22, 20 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Nah, see canvassing note below.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:00, 21 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    To preserve normal capitalization over the few who want under-capitalization Yep. In past discussions, the main weapon used by pro-lowercase editors has been the MoS and NCCAPS, which prevented logic from prevailing. Everyone was so preoccupied with whether or not they were following the guidelines, they didn't stop to think if they should (i.e. no one stopped to consider whether the guidelines should be changed). InfiniteNexus (talk) 04:12, 21 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Half of this !vote makes no sense, and it seems like you're not getting my point.
    • I never suggested that MOS:TITLECAPS says to use lowercase for the first letter of a subtitle; my point is that we are giving subtitles of works an exception to the all-lowercase rule of WP:NCCAPS, so why not this? The colon or dash is being used in a title/heading/list the same way as a colon or dash in a subtitle of a work.
    • The en dash in "Swimming at the 2020 Summer Olympics – Women's 100 metre backstroke" is not being used for disambiguation purposes. "Swimming at the 2020 Summer Olympics" is not a type of "Women's 100 metre backstroke".
    • The Luke Skywalker example is a bullet point from a list of cast members, not a "title of a published work". According to MOS:COLON, we're supposed to use lowercase since the character description is an incomplete sentence ... but nobody, even FAs, follow this rule because it's stupid.
    • This proposal is so vaguely worded that it would probably result in a whole lot of mis-capitalization of partial-sentence phrases after colons and en dashes in mid-sentence that have nothing to do with titles of anything at all. How is it vague? We are specifically talking about colons and spaced en dashes when they are being used as a separator in article titles, section headings, and bulleted list items. I don't think we can any more clearer than that.
    • The glossaries example is in reference to the fact that the first letter after a line break is capitalized, even if it is a sentence fragment and not a complete sentence. For example, at Wikipedia:Glossary#3RR, the "A" in Abbreviation for three-revert rule. is in uppercase even though it is an incomplete sentence. The glossary entry could might as well have been styled as 3RR: Abbreviation for three-revert rule. instead of using a line break. That was my point.
    And finally, this is not just about sports (an area on Wikipedia I have never touched nor cared for), and it is not just about the previous RfC. There has always been confusion over whether policy permits the first word after a colon or dash to be capitalized in titles, headings, and lists; it's just that until the prior RfC, we have largely turned a blind eye to articles that technically breach the MoS. Now, editors have dug up this trivial matter and threatened to take action. InfiniteNexus (talk) 04:13, 21 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    What I frequently find in articles like "Swimming at the 2020 Summer Olympics – Women's 100 metre backstroke" is that "women's" is then titled in the lead and elsewhere, likely because some well-intentioned editor presumed it's a proper name for the sport, because why else would it be capitalized in the title? ~TPW 13:54, 21 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    That's a complete misrepresentation. The S in women's would be upper case for the same reason as the S in swimming is upper case-because it's the start of a title or subtitle. Nobody thinks it's a proper name.  — Amakuru (talk) 20:39, 21 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    and yet, I find it in the lead of sports articles. I haven't been compiling a list, but if you would like then I'll do my best. ~TPW 13:57, 25 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Here one: Weightlifting at the 2002 Commonwealth Games – Women's 58 kg; the lead has "women's" capitalized, when it's in no way a subtitle in that context. It's been that way since the beginning, from which I gather the creating editor followed what was done in a similar article to make that decision. ~TPW 16:22, 25 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose—per SMcCandlish. Tony (talk) 23:17, 20 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: See blatant "call to arms" WP:CANVASSING at sports wikiprojects, e.g. here. This WP:GANG + WP:BATTLEGROUND behavior.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:00, 21 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Absolute baloney and you should know better. I told people that the sports projects involved should be notified, and I did so. It can affect so many. What was ridiculous was trying to change things with no mention to the project's involved. So many sports articles could be forced to change, if a bot goes through the articles and auto-changes them, that it is quite important no matter what side you come down on. At least everyone will be aware as long as they subscribe to the projects involved. Fyunck(click) (talk) 01:32, 21 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Take it to ANI if it's that inappropriate to notify relevant projects of an RfC that affects a multitude of their articles. ― "Ghost of Dan Gurney" (talk)  04:35, 21 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    He's done this before to me so I'm getting used to it. Fyunck(click) (talk) 07:09, 21 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    The notice posted at the various sports wikiprojects is a campaign speech; it isn't a neutral notification – as such, it is canvassing. wjematherplease leave a message... 12:20, 21 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    It looks to me as if a handful of editors are trying to force a much larger group (sports Wikiprojects) to accede to their will, frankly. Considering this, the message was fine. ― "Ghost of Dan Gurney" (talk)  14:30, 21 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Nothing Ghost did was WP:CANVASSING. Implying they did feels contrived. It also goes against good faith to assume an editor reaching out to the several parties affected might have done so for "support" !votes. So, please consider good faith. Conyo14 (talk) 18:14, 22 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Repeat: "The notice posted at the various sports wikiprojects is a campaign speech; it isn't a neutral notification – as such, it is canvassing." Having an open discussion is not "forcing" anyone to do anything, and you're engaging in the fallacies that a) everyone participating in a wikiproject is part of a hive mind that agrees about everything, and b) that wikiprojects are a tail that wags the entire dog of Wikipedia, and get to make up their own rules to apply to categories of content they "claim". This is directly against WP:CONLEVEL policy, and such behavior by wikiprojects is the entire reason we have that policy, and the entire reason for several ArbCom cases that all came down with the result that wikiprojects do not dictate a damned thing about any topic, ever, and cannot be used as canvassing farms to thwart site-wide consensuses like policies and guidelines.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  18:54, 22 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Be careful... your hammering of everything that WikiProjects do is showing through. I let the projects know as is normal. Was it more emphasized so they'd notice... perhaps a bit. But then again the last sneaky RFC that attempted to wipe out all the capital letters in dozens of WikiProjects gave no notice at all to those projects of what was about to happen. That is a disgrace to Wikipedia. And a bot was about to be formed that wiped them out en masse to boot. Stop the high-almighty routine and move on. While I'm getting used to these attacks on my character from you, it does take up space and time here. Fyunck(click) (talk) 20:12, 22 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Horseshit. I'm in dozens of wikiprojects and most of what I do on this site is within the scope and work of one or another of them. That doesn't mean that everything imaginable that pertains to a wikiproject is proper and good. Abusing them as canvassing farms is a good example of something that is not good but is connected to wikiprojects.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  11:01, 8 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I think it's also fair to say that en masse changes across all of Wikipedia ought to have en masse notifications. Especially considering this is the site of English usage in editing on Wikipedia, it probably should not be decided one group of people, but rather several groups of people. Conyo14 (talk) 22:11, 22 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    SMcCandlish, Fyunck(click), Conyo14, GhostOfDanGurney, in the future it may be helpful to use the standardized {{please see}} template for notifications to avoid disagreements 🙂 (Commenting as an uninvolved third party)— Frostly (talk) 05:01, 8 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Can also use {{FYI|pointer=y}}. But it won't make any difference if the poster of the template follows it with an extremely biased call-to-arms canvassing message.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  11:01, 8 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per SMcCandlish. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 00:36, 21 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per SMcCandlish. Star Garnet (talk) 01:01, 21 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - I genuinely don't understand this persistent crusade against what seems to be specifically sports articles, but regardless, all of the "capitalized" examples look more proper. I also disagree with SMcCandlish's Women's 100m backstroke example; it does seem like an independent subtitle to me, which is being used as WP:NATURAL disambiguation. ― "Ghost of Dan Gurney" (talk)  02:23, 21 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I think the reason it appears that sports articles are being targeted is because sports articles are the only ones for which this local style is being applied. I haven't seen anything similar outside of sports, but Wikipedia is vast and others might be able to link to examples.
    As for the idea that capitalization makes the wording "look more proper," that sounds like a preference. Do you have any sources that back up that assertion? ~TPW 13:59, 21 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Capitalizing the first letter after a colon or dash is the widespread standard among English-language publications that use sentence case in article titles. For example: Reuters ([17] [18] [19]), the Associated Press ([20] [21] [22]), The Washington Post ([23] [24] [25]), the Los Angeles Times ([26] [27] [28]), CNN ([29] [30] [31]), CNBC ([32] [33] [34]), ABC News ([35] [36] [37]), etc. I understand we're WP:NOTNEWS and all, but I would say this shows a rough consensus amongst US-publications. ― "Ghost of Dan Gurney" (talk)  14:35, 21 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks. I was actually looking for sources supporting the "look more proper" assertion, in particular. It helps me wrap my mind around a discussion when I can separate what's sourced and what's preference. ~TPW 15:12, 21 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose, mostly – The crux as I mentioned in a discussion above is in WP:AT#Subsidiary articles: "Do not create subsidiary articles. If we really do mean to allow subsidiary articles, then maybe this kind of subtitle format will make sense, so let's discuss that first. At the other end of spectrum, however, the suggestion for "list items" seems very broken. The example given is more like typical use of colons in sentences than like subtitles, and there's no reason to capitalize there. For headings, in the middle of these, I don't see a clear case; the colon after dates is not clearly a title:subtitle kind of relationship, so lowercase seems fine. If there's a clear case of wanting subtitles in headings, let's look at that. Dicklyon (talk) 05:01, 21 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Alternative proposal I have thought some more about the comments above regarding the triviality of this issue, so how about this: instead of mandating one capitalization style over another, let's make this a MOS:RETAIN issue and make both ways acceptable (while keeping in mind WP:CONSISTENT). InfiniteNexus (talk) 05:55, 21 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    See now that's the way it should be. Simply retain what we already have and not force 10s of thousands of articles into some rigid format. Fyunck(click) (talk) 07:02, 21 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I also concur with retaining the existing style because it's trivial nonsense to mass move thousands of articles to conform to a style decided in a single discussion on an obscure guideline talk page where the participants are the same half dozen editors every time. The tail does not wag the dog, and guidelines need to be changed to reflect actual practice in articles, not the other way around. oknazevad (talk) 08:28, 21 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    That's asking every editor to know what special rules apply to different subjects. That's not the sort of consistency I think would serve the project. ~TPW 13:48, 21 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    If you want all of our articles to be consistent without needing to re-educate editors on capitalization rules, then you should change your !vote to Support. As I have stated several times, capitalizing after a colon or dash is the de facto norm, despite the fact that MoS tells us not to do so. This RfC is not an attempt to change the way we capitalize, it's to legitimize what the vast majority of editors are already doing (and extinguish calls for mass-changing articles to lowercase by a vocal minority). InfiniteNexus (talk) 20:22, 21 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    While I'm not sure how we should weigh "what the vast majority of editors are already doing," it's probably worth asking: do you have statistics to back up that claim?
    Also, I do not vote, even with an exclamation point. ~TPW 14:01, 25 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think the bike shed should be painted pink, but other than that I agree with SMcCandlish. older ≠ wiser 12:30, 21 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose on procedural grounds. In addition to the concerns raised over the broad scope of this request and the possibility of canvassing, a request for comment should be worded neutrally. The phrasing "because common sense tells us that this does not make sense" is not neutral.~TPW 13:51, 21 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Hi TPW. No comment on the rest of your points, but the neutrality requirement for RFCs applies to the question itself, which is just "Should MOS:COLON, MOS:ENDASH, WP:NCCAPS, MOS:SECTIONCAPS, and MOS:LISTCAPS be amended to allow for the first letter after a colon or en dash in an article title, section heading, or list item to be capitalized?" Neutral enough, I think. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 13:57, 21 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks, I'll take another look. ~TPW 15:14, 21 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support where appropriate. It is standard English usage.  — Amakuru (talk) 20:35, 21 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Except it certainly is not. It's one of multiple common styles. But I won't repeat myself; see previous comment: [38].  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:00, 22 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support And any feelings of neutrality should be considered !support, IMO. Because there is no good reason to change, as demonstrated through article status quo and external sources, and so we shouldn't. No good will come either way, there's probably no bad to come either way, so why make an unnecessary change to countless articles. And if there is an effect, it'll be that inconsistency is introduced if the changes are made. So just don't. Kingsif (talk) 21:56, 21 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Let's not bring the English-language Wikipedia in conflict with the English language itself. This is standard linguistic practice and should stay that way, regardless of what a handful of editors here may think. I also find InfiniteNexus' alternative proposal above an adequate option. The Kip 00:21, 22 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose as unnecessary (SMcCandlish has it covered pretty well); the sole purpose of the proposal appears to be to protect existing bad over-capitalisation (mostly sports event article titles), which is obviously a terrible reason for changing guidelines. wjematherplease leave a message... 09:41, 22 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Bringing guidelines in line with actual practice both on and off Wikipedia is the best reason to change a guideline. Guidelines describe what is, the do not dictate what a handful of busybodies think should be. oknazevad (talk) 13:24, 22 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    That isn't what is being proposed here, and hurling insults about probably isn't the best way to convince anyone otherwise. wjematherplease leave a message... 13:48, 22 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support It took me some time to think about this, since honestly I don't care what happens to the sports pages, but the other main thing that bugged me was what would happen on other projects (i.e. the articles above unrelated to the sports). So, I wanted to do some research and I got some:
1) From What do you mean when you say to use "title case" for proposal/project titles? via The University of Arizona, "In title case, capitalize the following words in a title or heading: the first word after a colon, em dash, or end punctuation in a heading"
2) From When to Capitalize after a Colon via The Chicago Manual of Style: "In headlines or chapter titles or other display type, it’s normal to cap after a colon, even if the title or heading is in sentence case (see CMOS 8.158) and whether or not the part after the colon is a grammatically complete sentence."
3) From Punctuation and capitalization via Royal Roads University: "When using a colon to join two clauses, capitalize the first word of the clause after the colon if it is a complete sentence"
4) From Title Capitalization Rules various different styles of writing which secondary, reliable, and independent journalists, book writers, etc. will use.

I am not disparaging the obvious though, Wiki MOS is different on purpose. Just, feels contrived to be different on one question, what defines a proper noun? In my honest opinion, I have seen thousands of articles where the journalist will capitalize the article heading (and even the subtitle). Conyo14 (talk) 18:47, 22 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose capitalisation after a dash in article titles when that which follows a dash would not otherwise be intrinsically capitalised. The noms premise is that the advise of WP:P&G not to capitalise in this situation is consistently ignored and that WP:P&G should be amended to reflect the common practice. The evidence offered for this is a reference to two lists here and here. The assertion drawn from this evidence fails to consider the history of these article titles. The listed titles are all sports related. They do not represent a common practice across WP but in a specific area of WP. Fyunck (at #Executing on the above RFC) has referred to three discussions that occurred at about the start of 2022. Prior to these, these dash-constructed titles in the form meet-event typically used title case which is clearly contrary to WP:P&G. The meet part of these titles are of such a form that there is no apparent distinction between the application of sentence case v title case. However, the event part clearly used title case (eg Women's Singles). The close of this RfC would state: ... there is no consensus on capitalization for sporting events in general, and there is a rough consensus that specific capitalization rules for the tennis project are permissible at this time ... [emphasis added]. The result was that the article titles were changed to reflect sentence case, save that capitalisation after the dash remained an artifact of the original inappropriate use of title case. The noms premise and interpretation of the evidence is therefore incorrect in light of the context as to why this situation exists. MOS:TITLECAPS has no application to this particular question, since it only applies to instances of title case and WP article titles are written in sentence case. We now have the result of #RFC on capitalizing after dash in sports article names, which would tell us not to capitalise after the dash for sports articles. As to the use of the dashed construction, I do disagree with its use for some of the reasons already mentioned, and particularly where there are two dashes in a title (eg 2007–08 UCI Track Cycling World Cup Classics – Round 3 – Women's individual pursuit). But that is not a question at present. Cinderella157 (talk) 02:01, 23 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    We all agree that article and section titles are in sentence case, but what you seem to ignore is that "capitalize after a colon or n-dash" is a regular part of the rules for sentence case throughout the English-speaking world, as various people have pointed out and Conyo14 has shown with several links. Gawaon (talk) 06:13, 23 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Please note that my comment at this time is to one particular aspect of the proposal. [W]hat you seem to ignore is that "capitalize after a colon or n-dash" is a regular part of the rules for sentence case throughout the English-speaking world ... That is a pretty bold statement made without substantiation (a faulty generalization) - I support it happening. I know it happens. Therefore, it happens everywhere most of the time. To the sources provided by Conyo14:
    • 1 applies to title case, not sentence case, and is therefore irrelevant.
    • 2 is actually a CMOS discussion page. CMOS doesn't cap after a colon generally in sentence case but does in some specific instances that are perhaps too "subtle", including in headings and titles. It is an interesting article that considers that there are different styles that exist in respect to colons but certainly does not support the almost always everywhere premise. It would conclude by saying: If it’s equally correct to uppercase or lowercase after a colon in most instances, why does the matter deserve attention at all? Editors have actual errors to attend to. Why not let this slide? That’s an option. But the best reading experience results from a great many editing choices that are insignificant in themselves. Taken together, they add up to elegant and coherent writing.
    • 3 would capitalise after a colon if it is a complete sentence (or in a reference).
    • 4: In sentence case, the first word and all proper nouns and proper adjectives are capitalized. All other words are lowercased (just like in a regular English sentence): Bank of America is missing out on Wall Street’s boom. Umm, certainly doesn't support capping after a colon in any context.
    To, ... as various people have pointed out ...: I consider the comments of those that have supported the proposal so far in order.
    • The noms statement can be broadly characterised as a faulty generalisation in respect to assertions and evidence. It provides examples that only support the premise, rather than an unbiased survey (cherry picking (fallacy)). It makes an appeal to common sense (an argument from incredulity). Doesn't really fly for me.
    • To summarise: don't change sports titles. Lacks substantive reasoning.
    • I think this makes sense. Lacks substantive reasoning.
    • Yourself: It's intuitive and widely used in English. Lacks substantive reasoning or evidence.
    • ... look more proper. Lacks substantive reasoning - opinion.
    • It is standard English usage. Lacks substantiation.
    • Because there is no good reason to change [things that don't comply with the existing guidance] ...
    • This is standard linguistic practice ... - an assertion made without evidence.
    • ... I have seen thousands of articles where the journalist will capitalize the article heading (and even the subtitle). Yes, but are they using sentence case or title case. TBH, I couldn't see any logic to what was being said.
    • Support per InfiniteNexus. Offers nothing independent.
    If the premise is that capitalisation after a colon in sentence case is a consistent universal practice, then let us look at more sources:
    • The APA would cap after a colon in sentence case headings and titles. More generally, only a complete sentence after a colon is capitalised (see here).
    • The AGSM uses sentence case for headings and makes no exception after a colon generally when in a heading or title. It would only cap after a colon for a complete sentence (see here).
    • Online Grammar (an Australian site) states: only the first word and proper nouns have initial capitals. It makes no exception for a colon.
    • The University of Maine Uses sentence case for certain headings. In sentence case only the first word of the sentence and all proper nouns are capitalized.
    • The London School of Economics uses sentence case for titles and list items. The use of case (ie upper or lower) follows the normal rules of a sentence in the English language. Specifically, capital letters are used for the first letter of the first word; proper nouns; and abbreviations/ acronyms. All other words are lower case. [emphasis added]
    • Grammarly states: If the colon is used to introduce an independent clause, capitalization is optional.
    • Monash University states: If a colon introduces a complete sentence, more than one sentence, a formal statement, quotation, or speech in a dialogue, capitalise the first word of the sentence - otherwise, don't.
    • ANU states: ... only the first letter of the heading or title is capitalised, along with any proper nouns.
    • ABC (Australia)for headlines states: Capitalise the first letter of the first word and proper nouns only: Lorde talks about headlining Splendour. No exception for colons.
    I don't think that I "ignored" anything. My view was that I: Oppose capitalisation after a dash in article titles when that which follows a dash would not otherwise be intrinsically capitalised. If anything has been ignored, it is that I have expressed a view at this time on one particular aspect of the RfC. I am yet to address views on the other aspects of the RfC, as I indicated in my edit summary - there is [m]ore to follow on other questions. Cinderella157 (talk) 14:56, 23 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Note that "headings and titles" is what this RfC is all about, so calling these "specific instances that are perhaps too 'subtle'" wholly misses the point. For the rest of your style-guide research, while interesting, I'd wonder how many of them actually cover this specific case – sentence style for titles and section headings – rather than talking about capitalization rules in general. If they only cover running text, then what they have to say is irrelevant. Of course different rules apply to running text – nobody suggests that you should capitalize each word after a dash or colon in running text. Only if they have rules for sentence-style headings, that's where it gets interesting. And as I point out in my newly added Comment on style guides above (written after your comment), two of the most influential style guides (CMOS and APA) are in agreement with this RfC. (Personally, I haven't found any counterexamples of style guides yet, but it's possible that they exists.) Gawaon (talk) 18:41, 23 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Where I have stated, ... some specific instances that are perhaps too "subtle" ..., subtle is in quote marks because it is being quoted from the source in respect to capitalisation after a colon in running prose. I did report that CMOS would capitalise after a colon in sentence case headings regardless of these subtleties. I don't think it is I that have totally missed a point. I have already listed CMOS and APA, and what they have to say on the subject, so adding them again achieves nothing of substance. Counterexamples do exist, they are reported and they can be read. As to [how] many of them actually cover this specific case, where they do (and many do), I have reported this. If a guide gives advice on capitalisation in sentence case generally, it is nonetheless relevant if they do not specifically mention headings and titles. The only reason to do so would be if there are rules different from the general advice for sentence case. Cinderella157 (talk) 00:28, 24 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    1. [39]applies to title case, not sentence case, and is therefore irrelevant. Is title case not what this RfC is about??
    Conyo14 (talk) 23:59, 23 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Conyo14, no. WP uses sentence case for headings and titles. This RfC is about a specific issue of capitalisation when using sentence case in headings, titles and lists. It has nothing whatsoever to do with titlecase. Cinderella157 (talk) 00:41, 24 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment SMcCandlish would observe, This [RfC] is too vague and over-broad. I tend to agree. It would apply to both colons and dashes (different forms of punctuation, albeit that they are somewhat similar) in three different situations (albeit that titles and headings are also similar). In total, there are six different discrete situations to consider. One cannot reasonably assert that the evidence and rationale by which a proposal may be supported or opposed in each particular situation would be the same. Nor can one reasonably assume that there is good reason to support or oppose the proposal in all of these situations. What I am seeing in a number of responses so far is blanket support or opposition being given where the rational being given clearly indicates that the view applies to perhaps only one of the situations in question. How are such comments to be weighed by the closer? Because the RfC is more complex than a single question, I have responded to a single situation so far and will give further responses dealing with the other situations in due course. Cinderella157 (talk) 02:30, 24 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Well, more precisely, one can blanket-oppose this because it's a proposal for a major change based on the flawed reasoning you outline. That is, blanket support has no clear rationale, while blanket opposite actually does: we should not be making questionable changes to guidelines at all. :-)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  02:58, 24 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    We are not dealing with "six different discrete situations", we are dealing with one: the use of a punctuation mark as a separator in a non-prose context. InfiniteNexus (talk) 23:04, 24 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    We are not dealing with the use any punctuation mark as a separator but two specific punctuation marks. It is not just any non-prose context or even one non-prose context, but three - two of which are similar but not identical and one of which is unrelated to the other two. While you may not see the distinction, others do. Cinderella157 (talk) 02:34, 25 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Why three different contexts? I'd suppose "article title" and "section heading", but that's only two. So what's the third? Gawaon (talk) 06:25, 25 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Gawaon, ... an article title, section heading, or list item to be capitalized? [from the RfC question - emphasis added]. This somewhat goes to prove my point, that people are offering support for the proposal without fully understanding what they are supporting. Cinderella157 (talk) 06:44, 25 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks, I do indeed not see why one would use caps in the middle of list items. Maybe anyone has good examples of where that's usual and makes sense? Until such show up, I will adapt my vote above accordingly. Gawaon (talk) 10:21, 25 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    One example I can think of off the top of my head is film cast lists, such as the one I cited in the opening statement (The Empire Strikes Back#Cast). More examples: John Wick (film)#Cast, The Shawshank Redemption#Cast, Avengers: Endgame#Cast, Seven (1995 film)#Cast, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl#Cast, Saving Private Ryan#Cast, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (film)#Cast, Tropic Thunder#Cast, etc. These are all featured or good articles, selected randomly from WP:FA and WP:GA. InfiniteNexus (talk) 17:37, 25 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Hmm, interesting. I'm not wholly convinced, I think something like "Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker, a pilot..." would work as well if not better. And for the cases where one or more full sentences follow, capitalization after the colon is already allowed per the current rules. But considering that it seems common enough at least for cast lists also in other cases I guess I'll change my vote to neutral regarding list items (neither wholly convinced, nor strictly against). Gawaon (talk) 18:07, 25 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    More evidence I randomly chose some ten movies in a row (The Wizard of Oz (1939 film), She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, The Hunt for Red October (film), To Kill a Mockingbird (film), Battle of Britain (film), Zulu (1964 film), Blazing Saddles, Some Like It Hot, Breakfast at Tiffany's (film) and The Odd Angry Shot) and none of these evidenced the use of a colon let alone capitalisation after a colon. Of the movies listed by InfiniteNexus, Avengers: Endgame and Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (film) use a mixed style - where there is a long description of the character, the actor as role: appears as a heading, followed by a line-break.
    As the movies listed by InfiniteNexus are reported to be GA and FA articles, I took a random sample (every fifth article) from this list of 187 FA articles in the Film project. The initial 21 samples was reduced to 11 samples where samples did not use the a description that might be preceded by a colon (E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Manhunter (film), Pather Panchali, Rob-B-Hood, The Grand Budapest Hotel, The Thing (1982 film), Bad Times at the El Royale, Prometheus (2012 film), Star Trek: First Contact, The Dark Knight and Trading Places). Of these only Rob-B-Hood and The Dark Knight would capitalise after a colon in a line of text. Prometheus (2012 film) uses the actor as role: as a heading, followed by a line-break for all roles. It is arguably a different case to that being considered. Trading Places uses lowercase following the colon. In most other cases, what precedes a description of the role is a comma. This supports the observation made by Gawaon that it would work as well if not better using a comma instead of a colon. A total of 3 randomly selected samples evidencing use of a colon is not sufficient to determine consistent widespread use of capitalisation in such a situation - use in list items. However, we can conclude that a colon is probably being misused in such circumstances. Cinderella157 (talk) 10:23, 12 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    This is not an omnibus bill. Even if you insist that we are dealing with three/six different situations, you must recognize that they are connected and similar to each other. Also, have you given any thought to the alternative proposal I suggested above? InfiniteNexus (talk) 17:42, 25 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose capitalisation after a colon in article titles and capitalisation after a dash in section headings. The premise of the RfC is that the proposed capitalisation is a consistently followed global capitalisation convention and that WP:P&G contrary to said convention is near-universally ignored by editors. Neither of these two premises have been objectively established. There is no evidence whatsoever of capitalisation occurring in these two cases, let alone that it is a near universal practice. Therefore, there is no sound basis to support the RfC in respect to these two cases. Cinderella157 (talk) 03:56, 25 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose capitalisation after a colon or dash in list items. The only evidence presented relates to casting in films where there may be instances of capitalisation after a colon in cast lists. This is a very specific case that does not evidence a widespread practice of generally capitalising after a colon in list. There is no evidence offered at all, of capitalisation after a dash in list items. The premise of the RfC is that the proposed capitalisation is a consistently followed global capitalisation convention and that WP:P&G contrary to said convention is near-universally ignored by editors. Neither of these two premises have been objectively established. Where I have looked for more evidence (see above), it is quite clear that where a colon is being used within cast lists, it would be preferrable to use a comma. Consequently, I see no sound basis to support the RfC in respect to these two cases. Cinderella157 (talk) 11:13, 12 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    You've already !voted. Conyo14 (talk) 00:00, 13 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose capitalisation after a colon in section headings. The only evidence offered in respect to this case is where that which occurs after the colon is the first letter in the heading (eg 1962–1967: Early career to debut album). This is a very specific instance and quite probably an artifact of a perception that the first letter in sentence should be capitalised - regardless of whether it is preceded by other characters such as numbers. To quote from this web page, many style guides advise against using a numeral at the beginning of a sentence. The page then cites several acknowledged style guides. I recall that there was some advice that may have addressed this to a degree but I believe the specific examples that might have clarified this have been removed and I don't see any specific advice that would clearly resolve how to deal with this specific issue (capitalisation of the first letter v capitalisation of the first character of a sentence). If there is any change required to the MOS it is probably this issue (SMcCandlish?) but this is not the question at hand. There is no evidence offered of capitalisation after a colon in section headings that do not suffer from this ambiguity. The premise of the RfC is that the proposed capitalisation is a consistently followed global capitalisation convention and that WP:P&G contrary to said convention is near-universally ignored by editors. I do not see that this has been established in this particular case that the RfC would embrace. Cinderella157 (talk) 12:32, 12 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Comment for closer - This is the second oppose by the same editor regardless if the two opposes aren't entirely the same thing... they touch on the same thing. They should have been done in the same Oppose section. I've never seen the "opposes" separated like this and I want to make sure the closer, who might not realize it's the same person, realizes it's doubled up. If this get's merged into the same oppose section you can remove my post here. Fyunck(click) (talk) 07:07, 25 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    With any luck, the closer will be evaluating the strength of the arguments, rather than their number; that should render this concern moot. If the closer does a count instead, I'd support a review. ~TPW 14:07, 25 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't think that will help in the least as compared to what Wikipedians actually want. Just because some want to write a Tolstoy-length speech here (and do it over and over) doesn't make their argument any better. What other guides may do doesn't necessarily mean anything to Wikipedia. Look at diacritics. 99.9% of all sources don't use them for people in English. It isn't even a contest. But Wikipedians decided to go against the overwhelming majority of sources and use them here at Wikipedia. The rfc for that was pretty much a larger show of hands and is now a done deal.
    With the Dash there was a status quo. All was fine. No one wanted to change anything in MOS since it was vague on the issue of dashes. Editors did their own thing fighting vandalism, adding much need content, and straightening up charts and such. Most editors don't look at MOS discussions. There's a niche that loves that aspect but most could care less. Probably vice-versa too where the MOS editor may not deal with the day to day upkeep of something like Olympic sports.... especially in an Olympic year. It's pretty tough. Then a few folks here tried to change things that have stood for 15-20 years a couple weeks ago, quietly, without letting anyone know about it. Some of them knew what would happen if more folks were informed about it per a discussion on your talk page. Then there was talk about creating a bot that would changes 40,000+ articles. Not even counting all the peripheral articles that link to the articles that potentially could change. The links might be redirected but there is also lots of actual wording that would need to change. It would be a LOT more than 40,000+ articles that need tweaking. That's when the dam burst and why we are here today. That's also what a good closer will look at. Fyunck(click) (talk) 22:25, 25 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Cinderella157, what are you doing? You have now opposed this RfC four times. Yes, we all know you're against it, but surely saying it once is sufficient? Gawaon (talk) 12:50, 12 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Gawaon, I have not opposed this RfC four times. There are six different permutations to this RfC. I have made four comments to oppose specific permutations of this RfC. I have also previously explained from early on why I was addressing the RfC in this way. Cinderella157 (talk) 13:09, 12 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Well, let's just hope that the closer won't get confused by your arguably confusing behaviour. Gawaon (talk) 14:54, 12 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    You are creating the illusion that there is more opposition to the proposal than there actually is. InfiniteNexus (talk) 22:11, 12 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • More style guides These guides specifically refer to headings/headlines and titles, and do not cap after the colon.
The Guardian When a colon is used in a headline, the next word is usually lowercase, eg Osborne: there is no plan B.
University of Cambridge Use sentence case for headings and headlines (and also remember to use lower case after a colon)
University of Oxford Headlines, journal articles, chapter titles and lecture titles: Only capitalise the first word... ‘Multiplicity of data in trial reports and the reliability of meta-analyses: empirical study’
Imperial College London Sentence case should be used for headlines and the titles of articles, chapters and lectures... ‘The impact of sleep and hypoxia on the brain: potential mechanisms for the effects of obstructive sleep apnea’
Cinderella157 (talk) 08:55, 25 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The Guardian style guide goes on to say, One exception to this rule is in web furniture where the colon comes after the title of a series, for example as in the headline “Digested week: Words mattered to Stephen Sondheim”. Similarly, in a standfirst after a descriptive tag such as “Exclusive” or “Analysis” the next word should take an initial cap. Another exception on the web is when the colon introduces a complete sentence in quotation marks, such as Maro Itoje: ‘Whenever England take the field we should win’. In special cases, capitalization is not just allowed, but required. XOR'easter (talk) 19:52, 25 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, we would cap a quotation introduced by a colon but that is not in question here. The Guardian would cap after a colon "in web furniture where the colon comes after the title of a series" but not for titles and headings outside this context. However, the premise of this RfC is that this type of capitalisation is a consistent universal practice, when the evidence is clearly showing that it is not. Cinderella157 (talk) 02:57, 28 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support per InfiniteNexus. RegalZ8790 (talk) 03:32, 23 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support per Fyunck(click). Bgsu98 (Talk) 13:09, 23 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support per Fyunck(click) and others. Kante4 (talk) 07:16, 25 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Several users have questioned the claim that the MoS is near-universally ignored when it comes to titles, headings, and lists. For article titles, the use of a colon or dash is rare (not counting titles of works) and mostly pertains to articles about sporting events. The lists compiled by Dicklyon illustrate that. For section headings, "Year: Description" is the most common use case. Wracking has already conducted a random sample survey above, but you can do one yourself too! If you go to a random BLP, and it has "Year: Description" section headings, chances are the description bit will be capitalized. For list items, it would not be possible to comb through millions of articles to find those with bulleted lists using colons or dashes – yes, I have tried, but my regex searches have all timed out, but perhaps someone else with more advanced regex skills will have better luck. InfiniteNexus (talk) 17:19, 25 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support There are cases where it makes sense, so the Manual ought to say that it is allowed. XOR'easter (talk) 19:57, 25 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support allowing both. Capitalization and non-capitalization are both well-represented in the wild, as evidenced above, and natural for content writers to write and readers to read. Generally, there's no need for imposing global consistency on this matter which is something of an edge case. In the article title context, editors can consider consistency with similar articles, among the WP:CRITERIA, WP:TITLECHANGES, etc. Adumbrativus (talk) 02:51, 26 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support per nom and Fyunck(click). Capitalizing the first letter after a colon or dash is a widespread standard among English-language publications and should not be an issue at all on Wikipedia.--Wolbo (talk) 16:49, 27 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support capitalization of the first word of a subtitle following a colon. my understanding is that this RFC would allow editorial discretion in cases where our current MOS has been interpreted as requiring subtitles to start with lower case. lowercasing the initial word of a subtitle is contrary to many other style guides. perhaps the lowercase-enthusiasts would also support lowercasing the initial word of a sentence that does not start a paragraph. perhaps that would even be a consistent style. but it would be a nonstandard style and despite its elegance we should not use it. for the same reason we should not insist on starting subtitles lowercased. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:32, 27 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Due to the rather broad wording of this request for comment, it's possible that you didn't realize that this is about dashes and colons, not just colons, and not dashes or colons. ~TPW 18:02, 27 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    due to the length of my response, it's possible that you didn't read the part about how this would restore editorial discretion in all of these cases rather than a forced nonstandard lowercasing by the lowercase-enthusiasts. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:26, 27 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Your response was not overly long, but it did lack any reference to "dash," and specifically expressed support in reference to "colon." I was checking out of concern that you may have had more to say, because I wouldn't want any editor's thoughtful and constructive comments to be silenced. Thank you clarifying that your brief response should be broadly construed. ~TPW 14:06, 28 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support per XOR'easter, Adumbrativus, David Eppstein, etc. I see no reason (policy-based or otherwise) to centrally regulate this rather than allow discretion. It logically leads to (manual) mass-edits and bikeshedding in articles that, I assume, are far from FA-class. Too much time has been spent on this, and will continue to be spent on this unless the proposal passes. Follow WP:RETAIN, and focus on scrutinizing the substance of our articles, not the style. DFlhb (talk) 02:51, 29 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per SMcCandlish and Cinderella157. An additional consideration is readability: a string of material written in lower case forms a readable sentence whereas a capital letter is a visual interruption, justified to flag things like proper names but otherwise carrying no utilty. The previous sentence being a good example; why capitalise the 'a' after the colon? Hence the logic behind the style guidelines cited by Cinderella above. Further, language and its usage perpetually evolve, and in the internet age the direction of travel is toward reduced capitalisation. I don't see the benefit to readers of changing our guidelines to make a step in the opposite direction? MapReader (talk) 08:33, 30 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Nevertheless, the specific example you give should (in article space) already be capitalized per MOS:COLON: "When what follows the colon is also a complete sentence, start it with a capital letter". Generally I'd say it's a question of striking the proper balance: ALL UPPER-CASE TEXT, as the Ancient Romans did it, is not great for readability, but neither is all lower-case text. An upper-case letter here and there is not going to hurt, and indeed makes things easier and more agreeable for the reader. Gawaon (talk) 09:35, 30 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, but personally I would adopt something like the authoritative style guidelines cited by Cinderella above. Thinking we have gone too far with the capitals already is a legitimate reason for opposing the original change as proposed. MapReader (talk) 13:06, 30 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support This is a common sense proposal that will help avoid a "one fits all" approach that's better applied to math than the English language. Nemov (talk) 20:00, 4 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose the only reason to have a subtitle as part of an article title would be if creating a subsidiary article, which should not exist per WP:AT#Subsidiary articles. (t · c) buidhe 20:47, 4 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Keep in mind, however, that the proposal is not just about article titles, but also about section headers (and even list items). Gawaon (talk) 21:47, 4 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    However the rfc was created because of page moves of decade+ article title consensus, not section headers. If those articles weren't being moved we wouldn't be here. And it's not just about a change in MOS which doesn't really address the subject of ndash. It's also about the issue of moving 40,000+ consensus article titles and the peripheral 10s of thousands of articles that get affected by those moves. That's what happens with an oppose. Support is actually the status quo of what we have now. Fyunck(click) (talk) 22:34, 4 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Fair enough, and I agree. But the article titles you mention are in any case not in violation of WP:AT#Subsidiary articles, so it seems the above Oppose is neither complete nor particularly well-founded. Gawaon (talk) 06:19, 5 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Agreed. Fyunck(click) (talk) 06:24, 5 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    That is not the only reason. It would also be reasonable to have a subtitle in the name of an article whose subject has a subtitle in its name. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:38, 4 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, but if it is a title (of a work), it would come under MOS:TITLECAPS and is also outside the scope of this RfC. Cinderella157 (talk) 22:55, 4 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support – This does not seem to merit a site-wide style mandate, and bots should not be mass-changing capitalization in this type of situation. Leave it to local editorial discretion, and if inconsistency becomes a noteworthy problem at some future time more specific cases can be reconsidered then. –jacobolus (t) 17:39, 5 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - It is a trivial issue, but on the basis of Olympic sports and their various events, it simply makes no sense to have them be in lowercase. - Mjquinn_id (talk) 18:16, 5 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Eh? MapReader (talk) 20:02, 5 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Is this person confused on what support and oppose means in the context of the RfC? Conyo14 (talk) 20:09, 5 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I was thinking the same thing. Maybe @MapReader: doesn't. Support means a couple things here. 10s of thousands of decade-long consensus articles would not change with support and they would with oppose. And MOS, which is vague on what happens with an Ndash, would be flexible on the situation with support, and rigidly outlaw capitals after ndash/colon if opposed. Support is the status quo in articles, with the assumption that MOS could be tweaked to make it clear that flexibility is allowed in situations.... especially every Olympic article. Oppose makes us change 40,000+ articles and fix 10s of thousands more peripheral articles, with the assumption that MOS could be tweaked to make it clear that no capitals are ever allowed after ndashes or colons in article titles (barring a proper noun). So the "eh? response is quite strange. Fyunck(click) (talk) 20:37, 5 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    The debate is about capitalisation, or not, after a colon. I struggle to see how Olympic events are relevant in any way? Proper names due to be capitalised in all positions with text would remain in capitals, regardless of the punctuation preceding. Names that aren’t due to be capitalised within articles would follow whatever guideline is agreed when they follow a colon. This really isn’t a debate about the nature of the word that might follow the punctuation. MapReader (talk) 20:49, 5 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Sporting events are extremely relevant. Not only do we see things done a certain way in the real world, many of us feel Wikipedia needs a little flexibility in the face of decades-long consensus views. It shouldn't just be decided by those who happen to enjoy working on MOS topics. Topics that are directly affected should also have a say since WikiMOS is made up of all our views. We stray a lot from Chicago MOS or AP MOS because editors decided ours would be different. That's cool. But sometimes through the years you blink and realize something got changed by 10 or 20 editors. Usually it's a good change, but not always. Some of us feel that this potential limitation would not be a good change, so we support the status quo and do not wish to change 10s of thousands of articles. Fyunck(click) (talk) 23:10, 5 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    After a colon or a dash. See the first example: Cycling at the 2008 Summer Olympics – Men's individual road race. Support means to leave that as it, oppose means changing it to Cycling at the 2008 Summer Olympics – men's individual road race. Gawaon (talk) 21:02, 5 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Now I think all y'all are confused. MapReader, Gawaon, and Fyunck understand the RfC, the person who doesn't is User:Mjquinn_id. Conyo14 (talk) 21:07, 5 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Mjquinn_id and I seem to understand it the same way, so that doesn't make much sense. Gawaon (talk) 21:14, 5 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Oh, yeah, apologies, I think it's everyone else. Conyo14 (talk) 22:01, 5 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support for the capitalisation after dash as it is followed everywhere. The small caps thing is wholly unnecessary. Also I think this rfc should have it's own page because the discussion has gotten too long. zoglophie•talk• 17:10, 12 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose the actual advice for colons says, "When what follows the colon is also a complete sentence, start it with a capital letter, but otherwise, do not capitalize after a colon except where doing so is needed for another reason," which suggests to me that "another reason" can be almost anything you want. which means that if you think the next letter needs to be, or should be, a capital, then do that. but if you don't, then don't. the rule as currently written permits intelligent choice. the proposal, as written, says, "be amended to allow for the first letter after a colon or en dash in an article title, section heading, or list item to be capitalized," and you can currently do that. the current guidelines actually permit that. and there is therefore no need to change anything. unless, what I think the proposer is actually suggesting is that instead of being permitted to do this, it should be mandatory. and that I think is a ridiculous suggestion, which I would oppose. Cottonshirtτ 07:06, 14 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Men's Double Sculls

... is just one example of an event name that's over-capitalized in hundreds of articles. "Women's 100m Breaststroke" is another (not to mention that it needs a space between the number and the m). There are dozens more such events. They're mostly the same set of articles, e.g. East Germany at the 1980 Summer Olympics, across various countries and years, and some non-Olympic articles, too. Sorry I'm not able to work on those for now. Dicklyon (talk) 06:16, 4 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Demonyms

Is there any place in the guidelines that says demonyms (e.g., Hoosier, Carioca, New Yorker) should be capitalized? I see that demonyms are included in a list of examples of capitalized terms in MOS:HYPHENCAPS, but that does not seem sufficient so me, since it is not a direct statement saying they should be capitalized. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 19:24, 9 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

That's universal English usage, isn't it? As such, I don't think we have to repeat it. Gawaon (talk) 19:46, 9 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Well, that could perhaps be said for proper names too, I guess, but we still say it explicitly. And apparently whoever wrote the Carioca article didn't know it. I suggest to put into the list that's at the beginning of MOS:PEOPLANG, a section I hadn't noticed before making that comment. It would only take one added word to include it there. Perhaps it's already covered by "nationalities, ethnic and religious groups, and the like". I was hoping to find the word "demonym". How about adding a shortcut called MOS:DEMONYM that links to that and including it in the {{Shortcut}} at the top of that section? That's currently a red link. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 20:15, 9 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Carioca is probably somewhat of a special case – the article frequently puts in it italics and lowercase, treating it as a Portuguese rather than English word. As such, it is of course not capitalized – though, once considered as loaned into English, it is.
Generally, I'm certainly not opposed to adding "demonyms" to the section you mention, though I don't think an extra shortcut is needed for it. Gawaon (talk) 20:30, 9 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

International incidents and affairs

To me, named 'incidents' and 'affairs' are not meaningfully proper nouns in themselves, and the current distribution of articles on Wiki seems to go either way, e.g.

Though, oddly, on a skim there seems to be far more capitalized 'Incidents' than there are 'Affairs', perhaps this is due to different source language trends, since 'incident' seems to be a common East Asian translation, while 'affair' is more European? Either way, I think they are pragmatically equivalent, and as a rule they should both be lowercase in the form {} affair. Remsense聊 16:47, 13 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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