Talk:Timeline of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370

Capitalisation of "Captain" and "First Officer"

I disagree with this reversion of my edits. MOS:JOBTITLES does indeed say that a job title should be capitalised "when a title is used to refer to a specific and obvious person as a substitute for their name, e.g. the Queen", but in this case:

• The title is not being used as a substitute for their names. Would it carry the same meaning if we simply replaced "The Captain" with "Zaharie Ahmad Shah"? I think not - in this context we are talking about the position, not the specific person.
• We are not referring to a "specific and obvious person" - if "Captain" was a specific and obvious person there would be no need to qualify that term by appending "of Flight 370".

Other editors are invited to comment. Mitch Ames (talk) 08:05, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

The word "captain" should be capitalized where used as part of a proper name. Thus "Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah" and "The captain of Flight 370". Dondervogel 2 (talk) 09:26, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

Support Dondervogel 2 above; that's exactly how I read it. (Note: Mitch Ames both of your links above go to the same edit and I don't think that's what you mean.)  SchreiberBike | ⌨  17:30, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

I've fixed the diff link. Mitch Ames (talk) 10:49, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

Dondervogel and Mitch Ames have it exactly right; not only is that the long-standing consensus at Wikipedia, it is the normal, grammatically correct capitalisation in English, distinguishing correctly between proper names and common nouns. Shem (talk) 17:54, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

Support Dondervogel 2. GregJackP Boomer! 19:01, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

Consider these two sentences: "The British press reported that the Queen visited a children's hospital today." and "The Malaysian press reported that the captain communicated with ATC after departure." It is completely obvious to any reader of the first sentence, even if it stands on its own, that "the Queen" refers to HRH Elizabeth II, but, in the second sentence, it is not obvious to many people who "the captain" refers to; even if the context of a missing passenger plane is added, many people would not know his name. And "the captain" is not being used as a substitute for his name; it is just a common noun. There is no reason to capitalize "captain" or "first officer". Chris the speller ^yack 04:58, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

There was only one captain and one first officer on the flight, thus the use of "the Captain" and "the First Officer" refer specifically to Captain Shah and First Officer Hamid, respectively. For the same reason that "the Queen" is a proper noun in a work of the British press, "the Captain" is a proper noun when used in this article...it depends on the context. There are many queens in the world and "the queen" only becomes a proper noun when it is in a context that it clearly refers to one person. Likewise, there is only one captain and one first officer on this flight and thus "the Captain" is clearly used as a substitute for Captain Shah.

In my opinion, this discussion highlights the need for the wording of MOS:JOBTITLE to be changed to provide more examples. As for this article, I've changed the the occurrences of "the Captain" to "Captain Shah" (full name after first occurrence) and "The First Officer of Flight 370" to "First Officer Fariq Abdul Hamid". That should be a suitable compromise to avoid a lengthy discussion about such a minor issue. AHeneen (talk) 02:37, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

While I acknowledge your attempt at compromise, the new text is contrary to MOS:SURNAME. Although the use of "Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah" the first time is OK, subsequent mentions should be simply "Shah" (and similarly for Hamid). Given that - for the purposes of the timeline - it is the position that is relevant not the individual person, I still think that all instances after the first should be "the captain" and "the first officer" (uncapitalised). "Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah" and "First Officer Fariq Abdul Hamid" (capitalised titles) are OK for the first instance only. Mitch Ames (talk) 13:35, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

MOS:CAPS is clear on this: do not capitalize such titles except as part of someone's name.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  09:42, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

I've reverted most instances back to "the captain" and "the first officer", for the reasons I've stated previously, but I've kept the first instance as Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah, First Officer Fariq Abdul Hamid. I've also added refs to those first instances, because the "Factual Information ..." reference doesn't include their names, only their positions. Mitch Ames (talk) 05:50, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

The wrong area may have been targeted - unreliable source

Re the statement that "the wrong area may have been targeted" - I suggest that we need a better source for this statement. The current source is simply quoting the survey company that has thus far failed to find the plane. The survey company (Fugro) are not experts in the behaviour of planes, nor did they pick the search area. If they don't find the plane, of course they're going to say it's not there, thus we were looking in the wrong place (at someone else's request) - the alternative is "it's there and we missed it". 106.68.147.202 (talk) 12:39, 22 July 2016 (UTC)

The Times of India might generally be a reliable source, but in this case they are reporting what is clearly a biased and unreliable opinion (that of the search company). I still think we need a better source. 106.68.147.202 (talk) 09:55, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

Maybe the wording should be changed to something like, "Fugro, the survey company hired to search for the plane, believe that the wrong area may have been targeted."? -- Millionsandbillions (talk) 18:21, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

Agreed. It's neutral, factually accurate, and allows the reader to judge for themselves how much weight to put on the assertion that Fugro made. 106.68.147.202 (talk) 11:48, 29 July 2016 (UTC)