Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style

WP:NCCAPS → "shorter than five letters" rule

With regards to this and this, and in general, isn't this whole "shorter than five letters" notion leading to inconsistent, illogical results? And where does it come from? (like, what's the reference work for [English-language and otherwise] title capitalization out there?)

I mean, as is, when in mid-title, it produces things like this:

"than", "from", "till", "Until" – ... from ... Until... looks weird, does it not?

To conform to this, From Dusk Till Dawn had [rightly] just been changed to From Dusk till Dawn – problem is, it seems to be spelled From Dusk Till Dawn virtually everywhere else (a similar case would be Stranger than Fiction vs. IMDb's Stranger Than Fiction);

also, it's still Wait Until Dark, although "until" is just a one-letter-longer variant form of "till".

But if "till" were changed to "Till", we'd still have the lowercase "from", making for constructions like ... from ... Until... and ... from ... Till....

Changing "Until" to lowercase in turn would then be at variance with a whole host of other five-letters-or-longer prepositions and conjunctions.

Seriously, what the heck? I'm confused out of my mind... – ὁ οἶστρος (talk) 15:15, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

As a followup, more contradictory examples:

My Bonnie Lies over the Ocean

vs.

Someone to Watch Over Me

Somewhere Over the Rainbow

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Frost Over the World

Please, someone knowledgeable (What's the basis for the"shorter than five letters" rule? Where does it come from? Sources?) comment. While I do have a preference

– Honestly, don't the lowercased variations look downright weird to you, too? Like, did you ever see "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" given as "... over ..."? –,

I'm ready to put that aside if presented with logical and consistent guidelines. As is, it's confusing (I didn't change My Bonnie Lies over the Ocean to ... Over ... out of spite, but simply because I had its spelling elsewhere and entries like One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in mind) and handled inconsistently. – ὁ οἶστρος (talk) 19:46, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

The correct approach is to defer to common usage, and spell things the way the rest of the world spells them. Anything else is original research and is prohibited in wikipedia. Apteva (talk) 20:03, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

We've always imposed local capitalization rules, regardless of how they are capitalized in the original or other sources. That's what MOS:CT is about. I tend to agree wth this editor (whose name I can't type) that this particular rule is on shaky ground.—Kww(talk) 20:10, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm in favor of styling the caps consistently, but yeah, I think the 5-letter rule needs to be improved. Either an explicit list of words (and usages, for words that might be prepositions sometimes and other parts of speech others), or an explicit list of exceptions to the 5-letter rule, if the first list is unwieldy. -- JHunterJ (talk) 20:50, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

House style guidelines are not original research. -- JHunterJ (talk) 20:51, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

I for one will not wilfully go directly against the MoS in its current form (though, I might again by mistake). However, if the powers that be are insisting on sticking to that rule, I think the uninformed readers and editors deserve an explanation as to why the Encyclopædia Britannica, IMDb, AllRovi, Rotten Tomatoes, blu-ray.com, IGN, NNDB, Amazon, cduniverse.com, The New York Times, the Washington Post, the L.A. Times, Time magazine, the marketing divisions of film studios and countless others supposedly have got it so wrong. – ὁ οἶστρος (or, romanized, "ho oistros") (talk) 21:05, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

It's possibly a British/American English thing. All those sources are American, but the British Film Institute opts for lower capitalisation: BFI. Betty Logan (talk) 21:15, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Variations in style need not be explained as errors. Dicklyon (talk) 21:25, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Styles vary. Among guides that resemble ours on this four-letter rule are this and this and this. Dicklyon (talk) 21:13, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the links. However, two weren't searchable and within the excerpts of the third that were accessible I couldn't find any pertaining sections. There certainly must be a stronger case for that choice, right? How [and when] was it arrived at in the first place? Was it ever properly hashed out with broad participation? – ὁ οἶστρος (talk) 22:00, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

The first gives the rule

Capitalize the main words in a title and the first and last word, but do not capitalize a, the, to, or prepositions and conjunctions of fewer than five letters when they occur in the middle of the title.

It goes on to say that "The Moon is Down" is wrong because is, though a short word is an important word, and that "Travels With Charley" is wrong. I would hasten to add that the advice, though, is to Hemingway or Steinbeck and to the publisher - were they to have chosen a capital letter, we would be constrained to report that error, in my opinion, although we would not be constrained to use all capitals, as many books do for their titles.

The second uses the rule to "Capitalize significant words in titles", and here the advice given is to people like wikipedia editors, where the advise is not on how to construct a title, but how to report a title, although the advice on "importance" I would say is more easily determined by the creator of the work. It says

The classic system is to capitalize the initial letters of the first and last words of a title or subtitle, as well as all major (or "significant") words. Do not capitalize articles (a, an, the), conjunctions (and, but, if) or short prepositions (at, in, on, of) unless they begin the title.

The third gives the sage advice that

The use of capital, or uppercase, letters is determined by custom. They are used to call attention to certain words, such as proper nouns and the first word of a sentence.

and goes on to say

Capitalize the initial letters of the first and last words of the title of a book, an article, a play, or a film, as well as all major words in the title. Do not capitalize articles (a, an, the) or coordinating conjunctions (and, but, for, or, nor, yet, so), unless they bigin or end the title (The Lives of a Cell). Capitalize propositions within titles only when they contain more than four letters (Between, Within, Until, After), unless you are following a style that recommends otherwise.

This advice appears to apply both to originators and reports of works. Apteva (talk) 23:10, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Down in "The Moon is Down" is an adjective, not a preposition. I.e., down is serving the same function as red in the construction the moon is red. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 01:18, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Betty Logan, the BFI is an interesting find. On the other hand, a quick [and doubtlessly superficial] perusing of other British organs – such as The Daily Telegraph, Financial Times, The Guardian and The Independent – showed no support for the "shorter than five letters" rule. – ὁ οἶστρος (talk) 22:00, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Where the MOS can become OR is if no one writes "Somewhere over the Rainbow", and only Wikipedia writes it that way, that clearly is OR. Ditto if no one changes all caps in RUBBER SOUL to Rubber Soul, that is also OR. WP reports what the world does, and is, without making things up, which is what OR is. Apteva (talk) 22:38, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

It would be best not to keep confusing the content policy WP:NOR with styling guidelines; and this song is an odd case, since its actual title is Over the Rainbow. And it does appear in some sources with lower case "over", not rarely. And you're not seriously proposing that we use all caps in Rubber Soul, are you? Dicklyon (talk) 23:26, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

The thing to do when you find such inconsistencies is just to work on them. It is not surprising that WP still has lots of style inconsistencies. The MOS provides the guidance for which way to go to make things better. For example, Gerschwin's Someone to Watch over Me can be moved to lower-case over, which is not rare in reliable sources. See the first sentence of MOS:CAPS, which is what distinguishes our style from some others. Dicklyon (talk) 23:34, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

There are two problems with that though - first does it appear to accurately represent the actual title, and second while some books use "over" instead of "Over", "Over" is the preferred choice. But that is misleading because Someone to Watch Over Me is a popular book title, used by perhaps dozens of authors. Click on the Ngram links at the bottom, and try to even find references to Gershwin in any of the more recent citations. Apteva (talk) 01:00, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

Since Google Ngram Viewer is all about quantity (not quality), I don't see how this would be a suitable tool for establishing guidelines. Like, there are also significant instances of

"Neandertal" (treacherous, as the eponymous German valley [today] actually is spelled "Neandertal")

vs.

"Neanderthal" or

"miniscule"

vs.

"minuscule".

The BFI, the lonely major source brought up that seems to use lowercasing for prepositions such as "over", also is not consistent with Wikipedia's MoS; e.g.,

Wait until Dark

vs.

Wait Until Dark. – ὁ οἶστρος (talk) 12:57, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

What I find interesting about all these style guides is that the question isn't really what to do with four character prepositions, it's what to do with five-and-longer ones. I think all of them would have "over" be in lower case, but some of them simply say that prepositions should be in lower case, and give no different rule for longer ones.—Kww(talk) 15:13, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

The more important rule is to capitalize "significant words" in a title. As to NGRAMs, that is a title issue, not a MOS issue. Apteva (talk) 05:22, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

While I personally think we should just go the IMDb way (as ungainly as some of the titles there look) and style everything according to the guidelines used there, to take JHunterJ up on his proposal, how about modifying WP:NCCAPS to accommodate for these spelling versions?:

[proposed by ὁ οἶστρος:]

• From Dusk till Dawn (covered by current policy)
• Wait until Dark (not covered by current policy)
• Stranger than Fiction (covered by current policy)
• My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean / One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (not covered by current policy)
• 20000 Leagues Under the Sea (covered by current policy)
• Once Upon a Time in America (not covered by current policy)
• Girl Walks into a Bar (covered by current policy) – not sure it shouldn't be "Into", though (even if it looks as ugly as "Is")
• The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain (not covered by current policy)
• It Came from Outer Space (covered by current policy)
• From Russia with Love (covered by current policy)

[proposed by JHunterJ:]

• Blue Like Jazz (not covered by current policy)
• Bridge Over Troubled Water (not covered by current policy)
• Alternate From Dusk Till Dawn (not covered by current policy)
• 33⅓ Revolutions Per Monkee (not covered by current policy)
• Star Trek Into Darkness (not covered by current policy)
• [add your own examples]

Would be a compromise / hybrid of "both worlds": even more lowercasing but at the same time allowing for some exceptions to avoid counter-intuitive "butt-ugliness". – ὁ οἶστρος (talk) 12:49, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

The proper title of the last is logically Star Trek: Into Darkness (regardless what IMDb says - it is not a reliable source), so the "into" would be capitalized regardless of this debate (first or last word of a title or subtitle). SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 01:22, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Added an alternate result for From Dusk Till Dawn, and added Bridge Over Troubled Water, Blue Like Jazz, and 33⅓ Revolutions Per Monkee. We can sort the List of English prepositions into "capitalized (when used as a preposition, as long as it's not the first or last word in a title or subtitle)" and "uncapitalized (unless it's either not used as a preposition or the first or last word in a title or subtitle)" -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:40, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Seems to me you're advocating the IMDb model. I'd be all for that, the only constructions looking rather weird there that I can think of off the top of my head would be

... from ... Until... and

... from ... Till....

(as already mentioned in my very first post). Also, there's the question of "into" vs. "Into". Case for the former: it's just "in" and "to" put together; case for the latter: "Upon" and the like (but then, at IMDb, it's "Up" vs. "in"). Good idea about using that list. – ὁ οἶστρος (talk) 14:29, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I don't mean to advocate for deferring all of our titles to the IMDb's choice of caps. If we coincidentally land there, that's fine though. I don't think we should worry about which tiny words were assembled into which short words; the short words are now different enough and can't be simply replaced with their bits. Added one more: "Into Darkness" appears to be a subtitle in the new Star Trek film, even if they've made the weird call to omit a colon or hyphen or anything else. -- JHunterJ (talk) 14:58, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

I would not prefer IMDb's capitalization because it's IMDb, but because that seems to be the standard used, well, almost everywhere (if someone has the answer, I'd still like to know where they have borrowed it from).

Under Getting Started > Submission Guides > Title Formats (section Capitalization and character sets), they merely state:

"English language words which must begin with a lower-case letter are: an and as at by for from in of on or the to with".

It doesn't get simpler than that. Granted, it's a bit nonchalantly / loosely worded, omitting clarifications such as "unless they begin or end a title" (although that's implicitly taken into account), but I'm sure there are some Wikipedians who could elegantly and comprehensively incorporate the principles behind it into the existing MoS, while keeping it clear and readily accessible for everybody.

I suggest either adopting that approach in whole (which would cover everything JHunterJ would like to see) or amending it by adding

till,

until,

into,

onto and

than (but not Then)

to their list and be done with it (good-bye, "shorter than five letters" rule).

(By the way, browsing the database, you will find that IMDb is not always applying their own compass consistently, either, but in virtually every case that's just a matter of erroneous submissions that are open for correction – in the few cases where it's deliberate, then that's because they also do respect how the creators want their work spelled.) – ὁ οἶστρος (talk) 19:31, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

I see; I had misunderstood the IMDb suggestion, sorry! Yes, I'd be fine adopting their list, or adopting a similar list (such as your additions). I think I'd capitalize Till and Until and Than, but I've got no heartburn if WP decides to lowercase them. -- JHunterJ (talk) 19:33, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

That's the way I saw it, too. Actually, that's the reason all this started, as I – unwitting of the "shorter than five letters" rule – wanted to move From Noon till Three to From Noon Till Three. Meanwhile (primarily because of the unsightliness of "... from ... Till/Until ...", as in Lora from Morning Till Evening), I'd lowercase those few words. But crossing a Bridge over Troubled Water? I don't see that. – ὁ οἶστρος (talk) 20:09, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Commment. This discussion seems to be quite film-centric, and maybe isn't taking fully into account the requirements of other projects that have prominent usage of composition titles, but surely we should be discussing any changes in terms of published style guides, and which we should take our lead from, rather than in terms of what other websites do. --Rob Sinden (talk) 13:49, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

But surely we are not restricted to published styles guides as the only input to this discussion. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:52, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure. Isn't there an element of making up our own rules for the English language if we just copy what others do (or seem to do), rather than following established guidelines for usage? I guess it could be seen as WP:SYNTHESIS. --Rob Sinden (talk) 13:58, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Establish guidelines contradict each other, so we'll have to "make up our rules" (or make up our minds) regardless, no one's suggesting we "just" copy what others seem to do, and style guidelines are not encyclopedia articles, so it can't be seen as WP:OR. Also, the problems above also include musical compositions/ -- JHunterJ (talk) 14:50, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes, but we should be debating this in terms of the contradictions between the style guides and which established style we should adopt, not look to other websites to see what they do, without knowing their reasoning behind it (unless of course they have a published style guide). We don't know why the BFI or IMDB make the decisions they do. For all we know they could use a completely arbitrary system, so we shouldn't be following them. --Rob Sinden (talk) 15:29, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

I disagree. We should be debating this in terms of what makes the most sense (or best improvement) for Wikipedia. If a hypothetically arbitrary system makes the most sense for WP or results in the most improvement, we should use it. -- JHunterJ (talk) 15:49, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

That's just anarchy!  :) Should we start using arbitrary systems of punctuation and spelling too? We need to ensure our style guide has some basis in established usage. Whether that proves to be slavishly following one manual, or cherrypicking between different manuals, that's fine by me, but we shouldn't be inventing our own rules without seeking a precedent. --Rob Sinden (talk) 15:58, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

I doubt any system (capitalization, spelling, or punctuation) that makes sense for WP will be arbitrary, and none of the systems under discussion are arbitrary or without precedent. -- JHunterJ (talk) 16:18, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Well, there is a suggestion above to copy what IMDB do, but also to add a few four letter prepositions, but not all of them, and there is no mention of phrasal verbs (which is what brought me to this discussion!). This seems pretty arbitrary and doesn't seem to follow any of the accepted precedents for title capitalisation. I wasn't party to earlier discussions regarding the current style guideline, but they seem to have been well considered, and to me, the proposed changes seem whimsical. Any changes should be considered more widely, and we should seek broad input from other projects, particularly literature and language projects, rather than base the changes on what an internet movie database (that we don't even trust as a reliable source) use for their criteria of titling films, then adding a few arbitrarily chosen prepositions of our own. --Rob Sinden (talk) 16:40, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

No one's suggesting any change to the way we handle phrasal verbs (we continue to capitalize them in all cases). This discussion is just around prepositions, but without any arbitrariness (no one's suggesting we cast lots to see which prepositions are capitalized). -- JHunterJ (talk) 17:21, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

To respond to the original post, I have no idea where the "five letter" so-called rule came from, and disagree with it (and wonder who added it, with what supposed consensus), but it's a moot point. We don't change the titles of published works, last I looked, if they are consistently done a particular way. Now, if movie posters for From Dusk Till Dawn sometimes spelled it "till", we'd have a case for applying MOS's lower-casing rule, but otherwise we don't. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 02:25, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Actually, we ignore the capitalization used in the work and all reliable sources in favor of our own MOS, and not doing so would be an even harder change to get through.—Kww(talk) 02:52, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

I think SMcCandlish's point is that we typically do something like what MOS:TM makes explicit: editors should choose among styles already in use (not invent new ones) and choose the style that most closely resembles standard English. It makes as much sense for composition titles as for trademarks, perhaps. Dicklyon (talk) 05:46, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Read again. He's saying we wouldn't apply our MOS rule to write "Dusk till Dawn" unless the movie posters used it inconsistently. That's just not the case.—Kww(talk) 06:17, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Well, I won't try to speak for him. But I'm unclear on what you're saying. Are you stating your opinion of what we should do, or an interpretation of what we do do? In terms of "styles already in use", "till" is certainly out there, though maybe not in movie posters, which isn't were MOS:TM would suggest we look. If he really meant we should restrict to what we find on movie posters, I'd say, no, that's not what MOS suggests, nor what we do. Dicklyon (talk) 06:38, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

I was using posters as an example (add in press releases, reviews, IMDb listing, DVD cover, etc., etc.) If the title of the work is consistently spelled/capitalized/punctuated one way, why would we change it? I haven't seen anyone move Inglourious Basterds to a "correctly spelled" article name. On this micro-issue, I can only speak to what I do personally, which is name a work according to how it is spelled, if that's consistent, but if it hasn't been consistent and thus there is no "official" name, change it to what MOS prefers. I have not paid any attention to what others have been doing with such titles. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 01:15, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Spelling and styling are two different issues. Of course we shouldn't change a spelling, but as far as style goes we follow our own MOS for capitalisation of composition titles per MOS:CT, regardless of the published capitalisation. --Rob Sinden (talk) 11:45, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Not everyone entirely agrees that they are different issues. If you look at our most noisy and fractious perennial disputes here, you'll see that quite a few of them (most recently dashes vs. hyphens) come about because not everyone agrees they're distinguishable concerns in all cases. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ^⊝כ^⊙þ Contrib. 22:30, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

SMcCandlish, as shown at the very beginning of this section, Wikipedians, such as many of those assessing RMs, for example, clearly do not follow what you put forward, but instead point out that the MoS was "quite clear about this" – and why should they not?, as the MoS is clear on that point, only that it advocates, well, [at the very least] questionable rules for that point to begin with, in my opinion. (and, yeah, I won't contest the fine by the style police for the æsthetically challenged overuse in close succession of words deriving from the same root, and will instead only point at myself)

(Incidentally, I don't see a need for opening the can of worms – as I don't think it's as clear-cut as some seem convinced – of where the line between style and substance, the formal and the material, is to be drawn.)

There seems to be agreement (among the few participants in this discussion) that the current title capitalization rules are insufficient / subpar. So, where to go from here? What formal steps are there to be taken? While I don't know my way around the procedural parts of Wikipedia, what I can do is repeat, sum up and juxtapose the three options currently on the discoursive table, so that it can be presented in a bit less unwieldy and more neatly fashion for further consideration (although it's certainly not meant to replace the much more detailed and comprehensive debate proper).

But first, let me object to the claim that what's proposed here were film-centric approaches. I dont see that at all. To me – and I've yet to hear a cogent argument contradicting this –, work titles are work titles are work titles (yeah, we style TV series titles differently from episode titles, but you get the gist), and the rules suggested can be applied (and are widely applied) unreservedly to songs, sheet music, books, articles, video games, what have you (again, see the [short, unrepresentative and unsystematic] laundry list of publications I give a few posts above this one) – and for all, there are some quirky specimens that elude easy classification, that therefore can be controversial and for which there has to be made a case-by-case decision on how to represent them. (Like, is it "Se7en" or "Seven"?) Sure, I mostly (but not exclusively, as correctly indicated by JHunterJ) use[d] film titles for illustrative purposes here, but I might just as well have chosen song or poem or declaration or manifesto titles.

Oh, and, please, no more accusations of me wanting "whimsical" solutions:

For one, adding to JHunterJ's voice, it's been declared here numerous times before that the MoS is its very own, independent entity that draws non-exclusive inspiration heavily from a multitude of renowned – and sometimes conflicting – normative guides without following, adopting and adapting everything from all or any particular one of them (whether that's right / appropriate / wise or not is another matter to be examined separately).

Apart from that, it's obvious to anyone who really read what I wrote that I amply, over and over, many, many [many, many, ...] times repeatedly expressly declared that I would like to see authoritative sources on the matter and certainly wouldn't mind the MoS to be grounded on such.

There has been some chiming in, but I'm still mostly left in the dark as to what (singular or plural) both Wikipedia's MoS and the breadth of respected publications I enumerated base their capitalization on – and since the former goes against virtually all of the latter (and at times even against the BFI, the sole "contrarian" in the mix), if anything, it seems to me, it's the current practice at Wikipedia that might be termed "whimsical"...

IMDb serves as just one widely recognized and vastly influential (irrespective of what one personally might think of them) exponent that uses a way of displaying titles that (assuming – and conceivably incorrectly so – that it's everywhere identical down to the minutiæ) seems to be the predominant one the world over (it also makes sense to look at what IMDb does in light of the fact that they surely must obsess over spelling, as it's a, no, the vital part of their business, on which hinges quite everything for them).

Anyway, here are the three main types of capitalization rules weighed so far (NB: what follows is not worded in a manner fit for inclusion into the MoS; it's still about gauging the what? before taking on the how?, though shots at drafting something usable are naturally always welcome):

1. what's current in Wikipedia's MoS (whencever it came) (let's dub it [prep] prop 1)
   • includes the mysterious "shorter than five letters" rule
   • renders ... from ... till... and ... from ... Until...
2. as, for instance, seen at IMDb, but actually used (perhaps in variations) by a whole host of on- and offline publications (see the "few" examples I've given) ([prep] prop 2)
   • save for their position at the beginning or end of a title, these English-language words must begin with a lower-case letter:
     a, an, and, as, at, by, for, from, in, of, on, or, the, to, with
   • renders ... from ... Till... and ... from ... Until...
3. "third way" (And maybe there is an established published guide advocating this style, too, who knows? – I, for one, don't know.) ([prep] prop 3)
   • save for their position at the beginning or end of a title, these English-language words must begin with a lower-case letter:
     a, an, and, as, at, by, for, from, in, into, of, on, onto, or, than, the, till, to, until, with
   • renders ... from ... till... and ... from ... until...

Or, by way of examples:

1. [prep] prop 1
   
   • It's a Wonderful Life
   • I Was an Adventuress
   • The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
   • As Good as It Gets
   • Right at Your Door
   • City by the Sea
   • Thank You for Smoking
   • It Came from Outer Space
   • Singin' in the Rain
   • Girl Walks into a Bar
   • Lawrence of Arabia
   • Strangers on a Train
   • They're onto Us
   • Live Free or Die Hard
   • Stranger than Fiction
   • Lonely Are the Brave
   • Lora from Morning till Evening
   • Last Train to Freo
   • Wait Until Dark
   • From Russia with Love
   • One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest
   • 20000 Leagues Under the Sea
   • The Englishman Who Went up a Hill But Came down a Mountain
   • Once upon a Time in America
   • (And Then There Were None)
2. [prep] prop 2
   
   • It's a Wonderful Life
   • I Was an Adventuress
   • The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
   • As Good as It Gets
   • Right at Your Door
   • City by the Sea
   • Thank You for Smoking
   • It Came from Outer Space
   • Singin' in the Rain
   • Girl Walks Into a Bar
   • Lawrence of Arabia
   • Strangers on a Train
   • They're Onto Us
   • Live Free or Die Hard
   • Stranger Than Fiction
   • Lonely Are the Brave
   • Lora from Morning Till Evening
   • Last Train to Freo
   • Wait Until Dark
   • From Russia with Love
   • One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
   • 20000 Leagues Under the Sea
   • The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain
   • Once Upon a Time in America
   • (And Then There Were None)
3. [prep] prop 3
   
   • It's a Wonderful Life
   • I Was an Adventuress
   • The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
   • As Good as It Gets
   • Right at Your Door
   • City by the Sea
   • Thank You for Smoking
   • It Came from Outer Space
   • Singin' in the Rain
   • Girl Walks into a Bar
   • Lawrence of Arabia
   • Strangers on a Train
   • They're onto Us
   • Live Free or Die Hard
   • Stranger than Fiction
   • Lonely Are the Brave
   • Lora from Morning till Evening
   • Last Train to Freo
   • Wait until Dark
   • From Russia with Love
   • One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
   • 20000 Leagues Under the Sea
   • The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain
   • Once Upon a Time in America
   • (And Then There Were None)

Still open (well, for the person adding it, anyway):
[added by ὁ οἶστρος:]

• unto, as in Night unto Night / Night Unto Night
• vs / vs. / versus, as in Tucker and Dale vs Evil

[add what else comes to mind] – ὁ οἶστρος (talk) 18:40, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

• Comment - The rule about lowercasing prepositions in composition titles originally came from The Chicago Manual of Style. Its rule states that all prepositions are lowercased unless the first or last word of the title/heading, or if part of a phrasal verb. However, The Associated Press modifies this rule and lowercases only those words that have less than five letters. Wikipedia currently follows that modification. I don't have a CMoS subscription, but I learned about these rules here. -- Scjessey (talk) 19:45, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

As I mention above, "We need to ensure our style guide has some basis in established usage". Therefore if it seems we are following the style of The Associated Press then this is fine by me. If we decide to change this and follow another style guide then this is fine by me also. However, we should not be arbitrarily inventing our own style guide without following an established precedent. --Rob Sinden (talk) 11:22, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

• Comment: I think the easiest and simplest way to deal with this issue is to, for films, books, musical comps - in short any piece of creative work produced by a person or company, simply follow the choice of the creator (with possible exception for the likes of TH13TEEN, where stylised as should be used). As an encyclopedia, surely our ultimate aim is to be as accurate as possible to reflect, firstly, official and verifiable sources, and secondly, real world usage. douts (talk) 14:36, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

  With all due respect, that's a terrible idea. Manuals of style exist for a very good reason. How many times, for example, have you seen the track listing on an album cover be in all uppercase? Or all lowercase, for that matter? We need a guide and we need to stick to it. -- Scjessey (talk) 14:46, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

  Sorry, maybe I should have made it clearer. I was suggesting using the creators choice for article titles only. Also, with regard to song titles - listings on album covers may indeed sometimes be in all caps (often a marketing choice made by the production company, not the artists themselves), however on the official websites of the artists, they are normally (no doubt with a few exceptions) listed in lowercase. see and . Also, I'm by no means suggesting throwing out the MOS completely, however, this particular 5 letter or less rule seems to be causing much more trouble than its worth. douts (talk) 15:04, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

  No, we are talking about the same thing. All composition titles, basically. Anything that can end up as an article title should be subject to MOS guidelines, or there will end up being article move wars all the time. -- Scjessey (talk) 15:09, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

  Fair point - but also as such, the MOS needs to, and must allow us to achieve our goal here. To be as accurate as feasibly possible. At present, this rule is preventing us from doing that. The Into Darkness issue is a perfect example of that failing - official sources and real world usage uses an uppercase I, yet this guideline is saying we should use a lowercase i. Therefore we are failing in our aim of being accurate, and as such, the guideline must be changed. douts (talk) 16:45, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

  The point of the MoS is to achieve consistency. Inconsistencies arise because different countries, publications, individuals may use a different style to each other, or no style at all, intentionally or not intentionally. In order to achieve clarity, we should be applying a consistent style, regardless of how others may report it. We're not being inaccurate by doing this, as Wikipedia is our publication, so we apply our style, just like a newspaper or other publication will apply theirs. --Rob Sinden (talk) 16:52, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

  The trouble is, using Into Darkness as an example again, applying our style as it is now suggests an entirely different meaning than the one suggested by the official title. There needs to be a way that we can apply our style without creating this issue. douts (talk) 18:17, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

  That is not the case. Only some people think the meaning is changed. Many do not agree with you. Even Paramount uses the title as part of a sentence. Clearly it is meant to be read as a complete title with no pauses. And there is absolutely no way we are going to change MOS just because some people at one article think the guideline is wrong. -- Scjessey (talk) 18:23, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

  This whole section is not about just one article. – ὁ οἶστρος (talk) 19:36, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

  Yes, the Star Trek issue is best left at the correct talk page. It has already been discussed at length there, and we shouldn't be WP:POINTY here just to accommodate the one article. --Rob Sinden (talk) 20:14, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Some quick thoughts. Scjessey, thanks for the link. However, according to your source, "[...], The Associated Press would have you capitalize prepositions and conjunctions if they are four or more letters long." [bolding by me] – or in other words, the AP propagates (again, according to dailywritingtips.com) a "shorter than four letters rule" (which is not what WP:MoS currently prescribes), resulting in ... Into ..., ... Over ... and ... Upon ... (just like as seen at IMDb etc.), but also in ... From ... and ... With ... (unlike what's at IMDb etc.); but then again, maybe those rules are more intricate and dailywritingtips.com simply conveys them wrongly. This wouldn't surprise me, as they also feature this:

"Sentence case, or down style, is one method, preferred by many print and online publications and recommended by the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association. The only two rules are the two rules mentioned above: Capitalize the first word and all proper nouns. Everything else is in lowercase. For example: Why it’s never too late to learn grammar (all words lowercased except “Why”—first word in title)"

This seems to be misrepresenting APA in general or is at the very least confusing, as it doesn't mention APA's approach to titles. While I couldn't find much of anything useful concerning major style guides with unrestricted access online, I did stumble upon this (see p. 48). Recommending for titles what they call "Headline-Style Capitalization", the APA actually seems to say (what follows is out of the 2011 edition of the Pocket Guide to APA Style, an inofficial sorta "Reader's Digest" version of the real thing),

"[...]; capitalize all other words except articles, to (as part of an infinitive phrase), and conjunctions or prepositions of three or fewer letters." [again, bolding by me]

This again gives [among others] the weird ... From ... and ... With ... constructs (again, if represented accurately by that source).

Robsinden wrote, "we should not be arbitrarily inventing our own style guide". To basically repeat what I wrote several times before: If we already are following an amalgamation of several style guides (it does not seem to be "CMoS + AP", though), I don't see any methodological difference between that and my "proposition 3" (whether I would actually prefer that to what IMDb and others do, I'm not yet sure myself). – ὁ οἶστρος (talk) 18:46, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

I think "shorter than 4 letters" would be an ideal solution to resolve these problems - I can't think of many cases where there would be much contention over uppercase or lowercase for 2 or 3 letter words. douts (talk) 18:54, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

• Comment: The way I learned it, length is never a factor. All prepositions are always lowercase unless not being used as prepositions (as “onto” in “They’re Onto Us”). —Frungi (talk) 19:03, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

  I don't think this ("to be onto sb/sth", that is) qualifies. See here for an illustrative discussion on the matter. Therein contained is also a funny and memorable example helping to make clear the distinction (those easily offended may stop reading now):

  Come On Eileen vs. Come on Eileen
  (the former should technically sport a comma after "On", but often, "title givers" are rather sloppy with punctuation)

  Thusly, the capitalization of a single letter serves to convey two different meanings for an otherwise identical title (also something for the "capitalization is purley a style issue, and the way something is styled is always independent of its content, wherefore talk of 'right' and 'wrong' shall not be tolerated in this context" crowd to ponder on). – ὁ οἶστρος (talk) 14:39, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

  By the way, this is how the folks at MusicBrainz profess to handle things (which seems to be in between "proposition 2" – or "preposition proposition [2]", if one wants to emphasize the focus on prepositions – and "[prep] prop 3"), though, while they somewhat explain their rationale, they don't provide any sources. – ὁ οἶστρος (talk) 14:41, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

  Indeed, the Chicago Manual of Style method of simply lowercasing all prepositions that aren't the first or last in a title/heading (or a phrasal verb) would seem to be the easiest system to adopt. -- Scjessey (talk) 19:59, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

  I'm happy with that - it's an established and respected style guide. As long as we follow one of them... (And if fewer than four is also in wide usage by an established style guide, that would be acceptable too - my comments were related to when people seemed to be in favour of following the IMDB system without considering whether they were following an established guide). But yes, maybe we should seek consistency with ONE style guide, rather than cherrypicking from a variety of different guides. --Rob Sinden (talk) 20:14, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

  The IMDB system is a non-starter anyway, because we are talking about all composition titles. Books, films, plays, albums, songs, pamphlets, magazines, bits of legislation, whatever. -- Scjessey (talk) 20:20, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

  "[The CMoS] would seem to be the easiest system to adopt" (Scjessey) ... and would be at variance with how most titles (save for a few academic papers, maybe) are spelled in the overwhelming majority of "publishing-level" instances. (Rob Sinden: "[...] my comments were related to when people seemed to be in favour of following the IMDB [sic] system without considering whether they were following an established guide" – who are these people?) – ὁ οἶστρος (talk) 20:34, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

  Scjessey, how would the system behind IMDb be a "non-starter"? If IMDb used CMoS, would CMoS then become a non-starter, only because a film site uses it?

  (I'm sure you don't mean ill, but what you are doing is putting up and tearing down straw men, instead of addressing what I actually wrote.

  It's not about IMDb only, it's not about IMDb per se, it's not about a film-centric approach – a plethora of on- and offline publishers use that way of capitalizing, they certainly do not base it on IMDb, their output comprises the widest imaginable range of work titles.

  Not only did I spell out all of that in a clear and nuanced way the very first time around, no, I also explicitly repeated those points that were already worded rather unambiguously to begin with several times.) – ὁ οἶστρος (talk) 23:34, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

• I support amending the rule to cover all prepositions. The idea of capitalizing long prepositions is just a carry-over of the old convention of capitalizing all important words in all texts. It's a silly rule, as having X letters does not make a prep important, and we no longer cap anything else because it's important. — kwami (talk) 20:49, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

  I'd go for that, too. It's definitely a more sensible, and less arbitrary sounding rule. Being in the CMOS is enough to make it at least a candidate. Dicklyon (talk) 22:10, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

  It sure is a valid candidate, but while the CMoS is held in high regard and of great import to many areas, I just can't see that its influence extends significantly to capitalization of titles. Before another of those unfounded "you want a film-only solution" charges is hurled, take a look at the table of contents of this (Hal Leonard Corporation) or this (Music Sales Group). There's a myriad of real-world examples such as these where IMDb-like capitalization is applied (I'd of course still would like to know what all those are based on). Can you point to a smiliar breadth (many publications) and depth (quality publications) with regards to CMoS capitalization? (Also, are you guys / gals positive that the CMoS really says what you think it says? That's an honest question, as I personally don't have access to a copy and therefore have to rely on second-hand sources – and, as shown farther up, those can be wrong.)

  Yes, it does. CMoS 16th ed.: "8.155: Capitalization of titles of works—general principles. Titles mentioned or cited in text or notes are usually capitalized headline-style (...) 8.157: Principles of headline-style capitalization (...) 3. Lowercase prepositions, regardless of length [except phrasal verbs and Latin expressions like De Facto, In Vitro, etc.] (...) 4. Lowercase the conjunctions and, but, for, or, and nor. 5. Lowercase to [always] and lowercase as in any grammatical function." --Enric Naval (talk) 00:38, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

  Thanks for that, Enric Naval. I can't support choosing CMoS for title capitalization, then. In addition to many titles among the kind listed above, countless others, containing prepositions such as ... about ..., ... against ..., ... beneath ..., ... between ..., ... beyond ..., ... past ... and so forth, would look weird and be out of sync with common usage as well. – ὁ οἶστρος (talk) 12:22, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

  WP:COMMONNAME has nothing to do with the style of a page title. I think using CMoS is a great idea, and I would throw my full support behind that. -- Scjessey (talk) 17:20, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

  You can go around framing your opinions as apodictically as you want, that doesn't mean the matter is as clear-cut as you think it is. Also, being actually used certainly doesn't disqualify any styles nor any guides advocating them. – ὁ οἶστρος (talk) 21:04, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

  Indeed, there is an attempt to explicitly remove that confusion, via the RFC now open at WP:AT#RfC on COMMONSTYLE proposal. A majority of respondents agree that we should explicitly state in TITLE that the MOS is the guideline for article title styling, which is how we have always done it, and is the implicit point underlying most of this discussion. Some users don't think it's put clearly enough, and a few want to be able to let majority of sources determine title styling, but that is a very marginal idea, as it conflict with the whole idea of WP having any kind of consistent styling. Dicklyon (talk) 18:10, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

  You're not saying I am arguing against consistency, are you? No matter what one thinks of [the exact location of] the substance–style divide, why should "consistency" and "wide distribution" necessarily be mutually exclusive, why should the former not have preceded the latter? Ever thought about the possibility that there actually might be a reason for the apparent prevalence of the style used by IMDb and many, many others, that there might be a system behind that practice? I'm still waiting for the style experts here to tell me where that style was adopted from (then we could finally use the proper name, as many people seem to find it difficult to distinguish between "do as IMDb does because it's IMDb" and "let's find out what style guide IMDb follows and examine said style guide further") – a style that's been around way before IMDb even came into existence. Instead of just saying "I don't care if it's popular, we don't do popular around here!" (and thereby dismissing a view that isn't even held in this debate – at least not by me), one could be asking "Why is it popular? Might there be an authoritative style guide behind it?" You can have a style that's popular and systematic and therefore consistent, if it's well founded, ya know? – ὁ οἶστρος (talk) 21:04, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

  So, what do we have so far? Current MoS (capitalization rules of unclear origin), AP, APA and CMoS? What does the MLA say? What's the style guide governing "my" above "proposition 2"? What's the respective stance of other style guides? – ὁ οἶστρος (talk) 21:15, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

  Since determining the look of work titles throughout Wikipedia shouldn't be decided upon easily, does anybody know how to bring this to the attention of actual publishers, database operators, archivists, ... in all kinds of fields? – ὁ οἶστρος (talk) 21:27, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

  Posted a notification of this discussion over at the talk pages for MoS:CAPS / MoS:CT (Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters), WP:NCCAPS (Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (capitalization)) and WP:AT / WP:NC / WP:TITLE (Wikipedia talk:Article titles). – ὁ οἶστρος (talk) 08:29, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

I don't get why this is even a discussion for titles where we can see the author's intent? Does Wikipedia really support overriding the CREATOR of the title just to follow some silly rule? For example, there are many movies that are lowercase everything. Should Wikipedia capitalize that...thus changing the creator's work just beause it is a main word in the title? That is asinine. Who the hell is ANY Wikipedia contributor to decide what the author, producer, etc. wanted?74.67.106.1 (talk) 11:31, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

I agree with this sentiment. The name of a book, film, song, or other such work is whatever the author has chosen to name it. If Quentin Tarantino names his movie, FrOm dUsK TiLl dAwN, that is its name. That should be the overriding governing principle for names of these kinds of things, to the extent that it can be determined from, for example, the movie poster, titles, record jacket, and so forth. A recent example that I came across is Straight On till Morning (album). The article has an image of the album cover, on which "Till" is quite clearly capitalized. bd2412 T 02:16, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

You mean like Se7en and eXistenZ? See MOS:TM. --Rob Sinden (talk) 09:59, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

There's a huge difference between a title where its capitalization may not be exactly in line with normal capitalization rules for English but otherwise still readable in running prose; and then capitalization that makes reading prose difficult. We should avoid the latter case at all times (as noted by MOS:TM) but the former, we should stick with what is most official unless there is nothing assuredly official, in which case we should default to proper English capitalization (which the 5-letter rule is not always true). --MASEM (t) 14:43, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

And just to demonstrate the point [1]. --MASEM (t) 05:58, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

(ὁ οἶστρος (talk) 13:23, 30 January 2013 (UTC):)
To unify two discussions basically dealing with the same issues, the following was transferred here from its original location at the talk page for MoS:CAPS:

4-letter prepositions in composition titles

WP:CT is clear that only prepositions of five letters or more should have their first letter capitalized, but I've never seen an uncapitalized four-letter preposition in a title that didn't look wrong. The aforementioned Star Trek RM touches on this; it's definitely against CT, but it just looks sloppy and doesn't appear that way in most sources. I'm not the type to prefer source styling over MOS styling, though, so would anyone be amenable to expanding CT to capitalize four-letter prepositions? And don't tell me how much work that would entail—just whether it would be right or wrong, please. --BDD (talk) 17:33, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

It would suffer from the same problem with different words, such as "with" and "from" (View from the Top, It Came from Beneath the Sea, The Man with the Golden Gun, etc.) I think an explicit list is in order if the rule is to be changed, capitalizing some four-letter prepositions and leaving others uncapitalized. Maybe even capitalize some three-letter prepositions, as we already do in 33⅓ Revolutions Per Monkee. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:40, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Glad to see someone's talking about this. We've digressed on the "Into" argument regarding Star Trek, and we've opened a whole new can of worms. If, as some sources are suggesting, "into" becomes part of a phrasal verb, should it be capitalised according to the MOS? As far as we can see, it should. If that is the case, there are many articles (see a massive list of examples in the Star Trek discussion, some of which qualify) that may also need the "into" capitalised. Might it be wise for us to discuss the existence of phrasal verbs, and how this affects capitalisation? drewmunn (talk) 12:56, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Can you provide an example of a phrasal verb using "into"? (The Star Trek problem, IMO, is not one of phrasal-verbness, but instead stems from the use of a subtitle "Into Darkness" without the normal colon or dash or other indication; clever marketing, perhaps, but lousy style; as a sentence, "Star trek into darkness" doesn't work so well, so "Star Trek into Darkness" doesn't either, but neither does "Star Trek Into Darkness"; I'd go with "Star Trek: Into Darkness", and ignore their marketing style. But I realize that perspective is probably just one of many in that discussion.) -- JHunterJ (talk) 14:08, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Crash into Me and I'm into Something Good are two examples of the word being used as particles of the verb and should be capitalized, but aren't. There are many more. I also found Run Into the Light as one example of "into" being capitalized in a title, yet I'm not really sure it should be since it does look like it's being used as a preposition there. --DocNox (talk) 23:55, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Whay should "Crash into Me" be capitalised? I don't think this is a phrasal verb. The verb is "to crash", "into" is just the preposition. Not sure about "I'm into Something Good" though - maybe in this context "to be into" is a phrasal verb. "Run into the Light" shouldn't be capitalised though, unless it is about a chance encounter with the light! --Rob Sinden (talk) 09:00, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Be careful as to what is a phrasal verb and what isn't. "Trek into" wouldn't be a phrasal verb. In this example, "trek" is the verb, and "into" the preposition. However, "run into", as in accidentally meet some one, would be a phrasal verb, and in this example "into" should be capitalised in a composition title. However if you "ran into" a shop to get something, this is not a phrasal verb. --Rob Sinden (talk) 14:10, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

The fact is it can be interpreted either way and without context we have no way of knowing which is really meant. I doubt the filmmakers even thought about it this much. --DocNox (talk) 23:55, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

The purpose of Wikipedia: think deeply over decisions made in a split second. It's a bit like taking a literature qualification again. drewmunn (talk) 07:22, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

As far as a general phrasal verb goes, "trek into" isn't one. I'm not talking about specifically Star Trek - that's a more complicated problem. --Rob Sinden (talk) 09:00, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Having read what you've put forward so far, it's straightened stuff out for me a little more. I agree now that "trek into" in it's pure form probably can't be a phrasal verb; as you say, it doesn't really have extra meaning when combined. "Star Trek Into", however, probably could be, if you take it to mean the franchise gets dark. However, as you said, that complex and not really for this discussion. I know it's simplistic and probably too broad, but as suggested earlier by BDD, could we expand CT to cover "Into"? As suggested by JHunterJ, I don't think all 4-letter prepositions need CT, but some, specifically "into" could probably do with it. It would deal with all cases without the argument on a case-by-case basis. drewmunn (talk) 09:11, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

But what would be the justification for tmaking a special exception for "into"? Surely it should follow the same rules as every other preposition. --Rob Sinden (talk) 09:15, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Other than avoiding arguments such as the Star Trek one, I have nothing. drewmunn (talk) 09:17, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

The suggestion at WT:MOS#WP:NCCAPS → "shorter than five letters" rule is to abandon the letter-counting approach to preposition capitalization and instead identify which prepositions get capitalized and which don't. It wouldn't be a "special exception" for any of them. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:30, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

I wasn't aware of that discussion, but I'm against the proposed changes! --Rob Sinden (talk) 13:42, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

The current letter-focused guideline causes many problems and needs improvement. Whether we have special exceptions to letter-counting or skip the letter count entirely yields the same result. What's the downside? -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:54, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

I've just looked through the proposal, and think that, with a little refinement, it'd be a major improvement over the current system. drewmunn (talk) 13:58, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

If it is an established system of usage of the English language, then it's fine, but editors seem to be cobbling together rules based on examples given on other websites, rather than respecting long established guidelines of usage. We should be discussing which guideline to follow in these cases, not make up our own. --Rob Sinden (talk) 14:05, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Our manual of style is indeed assembled by editors, but we're not basing it on examples from other websites (although we are using other websites as well as other sources to inform the guidelines). -- JHunterJ (talk) 14:53, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

I remember some rule from somewhere (sorry, that's not helpful to anyone), that prepositions with more than one syllable should be capitalized. Thus, "from" and "with" (examples given above) are both one syllable long, while "into" (the other example from above), "wherefore" (although, this exceeds WP's 5-letter rule) are two syllables and should be capitalized. Would this be helpful in this debate, and would it be a helpful rule in Wikipedia MOS? The word "into" is unusual for being two syllables rather than one for its letter length. Also, does anyone know where this rule comes from? — al-Shimoni (talk) 02:27, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

A follow-up on my last (and perhaps my last comment and this should be moved to a separate thread of its own). I was looking at other four-letter English prepositions. "Upon" is a four letter preposition, but two syllables, and I noticed that it is, so-far that I have observed, consistently capitalized in wiki articles (for example, the multiple "Once Upon a Time" articles). Four-letter two-syllable prepositions include: amid (a+mid), atop (a+top), into (a shortened compound preposition), onto (shortened compound preposition), over, unto (formed by analogy of "until", a shortened compound preposition), and upon (a shortened compound preposition). The reason I point out the shortened compound prepositions is that WP asks to capitalize the first word of compound prepositions (regardless of length). That they are shortened forms, however, makes that WP rule no longer applicable (at least, as currently written). But, it seems that since 1) all the two-syllable four-letter prepositions (except over) appear to come from compounds, and 2) their two-syllable nature seems to make them want to be capitalized (and there seems to be a rule somewhere that says one should capitalize such — see previous comment by me), then a rule could easily and reasonably be created to say they should be capitalized. As a note, there are no three or shorter letter prepositions with more than one syllable.

Proposal: Perhaps we should amend the sentence in the article which says "Prepositions that contain five letters or more (During, Through, About, Until, etc.)" to read as "Prepositions that contain five letters or more (During, Through, About, Until, etc.), or more than one syllable."

Thoughts?

— al-Shimoni (talk) 03:17, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

I like it – and I don't: there are problems. Would you mind if I copied this whole section (or parts of it) over to the ["older", longer] discussion at WT:MoS and replied to you there? That way, everything would be centrally in one place – and a place where probably more people stop by than here. – ὁ οἶστρος (talk) 23:32, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

I haven't had time to read this through thoroughly, but from your last comment, I think we're getting somewhere. I agree with your observation of compound prepositions, and I think it warrants a look into. As for your proposal, I think it covers the purpose well. It may need some streamlining, but in essence I think it's good. drewmunn (talk) 12:30, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

I only just now noticed this section deals with the same issue I first brought up last November here. Everyone's input over there obviously welcome. (Crossed out because I realized the discussion I started is already mentioned and linked further up by JHunterJ. The invitation to head over to and join me at that WT:MoS section obviously still stands. Sorry for the redundancy.) – ὁ οἶστρος (talk) 19:42, 27 January 2013 (UTC) (ὁ οἶστρος (talk) 22:57, 28 January 2013 (UTC))

Is there an established style guideline that supports the theory that a two-syllable preposition is a compound preposition, or is this just synthesis? --Rob Sinden (talk) 09:13, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Except for "over", all the English 4 letter prepositions that I've seen have been shortened/contracted compounds. But being shortened, they are no longer two distinct words, thus the WP:MOS rule about a compound preposition may not apply. "Over" — from every source I have seen — originates as a single preposition (cognate to German "über"). The list of two-syllable four-letter prepositions is quite short (listed above). There are no two-syllable three-letter, 2-syll two-letter, nor (obviously) 2-syll single-letter prepositions. Capitalizing 5+ letter preps, or 2+ syllable preps would cover much of the words in dispute. — al-Shimoni (talk) 06:35, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Again, would the contributors here mind if I copied this over to WT:MoS, so we'd have everything in one place? I and others could just comment on your points there and link to here to get the context, but this would obviously be very cumbersome. Since I'd copy, not cut, you still could continue debating here if that's what you prefer, but I don't know if my action would be considered impolite or seen as an attempt to hijack your thread. Thoughts? – ὁ οἶστρος (talk) 09:32, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm all for copying it over, and nobody seems to be against it, so go ahead. Stick a referral link in here so we can get to the other conversation and hopefully get things moving on both fronts. drewmunn talk 10:00, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

al-Shimoni, your wording "Prepositions that contain five letters or more (During, Through, About, Until, etc.), or more than one syllable." would improve some titles (in my opinion), but also bring about renderings such as these:

Stranger than Fiction,
From Dusk till Dawn (while this spelling has grown on me personally, it's still at variance with widest and [semi-]official usage),
The Englishman Who Went up a Hill But Came down a Mountain or
33⅓ Revolutions per Monkee

(And what about like? Am I mistaken in my belief, that while it technically consists of two syllables, in practice – like, when employing poetic meters – it counts as one-syllable word? So how to treat it?)

Not to mention that your theory isn't style guide-sourced [yet] – and so far, neither are my [prep] props 2 and 3 (nor our MoS's current policy, for that matter).

I was mulling over and going through conceptions along the lines or "word-width" / "number of 'slim' characters", but I ran into trouble there as well – and, again, I couldn't find any authoritative guides propping up such gedankenexperiments.

Further, the crux with such "mechanistic" rules is that they don't account for "inner-language logic" / innate relationships between words (over–under, up–down, from–till/until etc.), therefore suffering themselves from a kind of "inconsistency".

While I personally don't like everything about it, I'm in the process of coming around to advocating the syle employed here (see the TOC there), above given as [prep] prop 2, also used by IMDb and seemingly the de-facto standard in professional-level publications the world over – obviously under the condition that we can establish its origin / trace it back to a suitable source. If we achieve that, then, in my opinion, this would represent the best of both worlds: it would be a systematic, sourced solution, and it would be reflective of widest common authoritative real-life usage. – ὁ οἶστρος (talk) 13:33, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

What system do you think the Dylan TOC follows and which titles do you think it affects? --Rob Sinden (talk) 13:40, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

I still don't know its name or origin. For how titles are affected, see the above three lists (out of them, it's [prep] prop 2) – ὁ οἶστρος (talk) 13:53, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

So which titles specifically are you drawing our attention to from the Dylan songbook? --Rob Sinden (talk) 13:56, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Both links from farther up (the other is this) were actually more meant as objection to CMoS, which lowercases all prepositions, while the books cited differentiate (meaning, "To Be Alone with You" or "Falling in Love with Love" wouldn't change, but, with CMoS, there's no more "Down Along the Cove" or "I've Got You Under My Skin"). As for being at variance with the "shorter than five letters" rule currently in use here, "Walkin' Down the Line" could be pointed to; in the other book, there's "Do Nothin' Till You Hear from Me". (By the way, the Dylan songbook isn't entirely consistent, either, like, by having "I am a Lonesome Hobo". And one could could also ask, why is it with, but Without?)

Don't song titles have their own (simple) capitalization rule separate from movie and book titles? Specifically, I understand the rule for song titles is along the lines of capitalize the first letter of every word, regardless of semantic function (so even definite and indefinite articles are always capt). I have not looked but, I am guessing WP's MOS completely ignores this industry convention and throws all titles under the same rules. — al-Shimoni (talk) 23:44, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

MOS:CT capitalizes songs like anything else. In practice, that rule is followed on Wikipedia and off Wikipedia, to my knowledge. Art LaPella (talk) 00:19, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

• I think it may be time for an RFC. With Star Trek into Darkness moved to Star Trek Into Darkness, the article (after rather extensive discussion) and the MOS are in conflict. Normally that means you change the article, but there seems to be broad dissatisfaction with the status quo, so it may be time to change the MOS instead. The only thing I'm not sure about at this point is how to propose a change. Should we just add to the current wording and say that prepositions of multiple syllables will also get capitalized? --BDD (talk) 16:17, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Star Trek Into Darkness is a unique case, and we shouldn't be getting all excited and changing the MoS purely on the basis of this. A lot of the arguments were based on whether or not "Into Darkness" was a subtitle: there was a lot of opposition to the suggestion that it was a running phrase. If we do change the MoS, it should be on a more solid grounding, and we shouldn't be trying to change the MoS to accommodate one title. --Rob Sinden (talk) 16:20, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

How is it a unique case, apart from the volume of discussion it provoked? Presumably you mean that we were capitalizing the title differently than virtually any other source. But that's the case in almost every other similar composition title; "Moves like Jagger" is just one that instantly springs to mind. The intent is not to change the MOS to accommodate one title, but to improve many titles. --BDD (talk) 17:19, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

It's a unique case, because the main argument is down to whether "Into Darkness" is an implied subtitle or not. The majority of editors seem to think that it is, that's why the capitalisation has stuck. We're not likely to have the same argument about, say, "Step into Christmas". --Rob Sinden (talk) 23:07, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

I disagree. It’s one possible argument, yes, but the main argument is that no one uses a lowercase ‘I’ in this title. See my following previous comment. —Frungi (talk) 00:33, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

I also disagree (and it doesn't hinge on being a minority–majority thing, anyway) – ὁ οἶστρος (talk) 13:01, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Sorry if this has been discussed already, but this is a long section… The way I see it, we should follow the MOS unless it conflicts with real-world use. The MOS should list an explicit exception for if no or scarce reliable sources use the style dictated by the MOS, or if a non-standard style is overwhelmingly used. This includes which words are and are not capitalized. —Frungi (talk) 17:49, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Frungi, in essence, this is like saying (for illustrative purposes just addressing one example of one facet of the issue), "we should leave in place the rules that prescribe to write ... over ..., but every time a title containing that word actually comes up (e.g., One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest – see how Warner Bros. sytle it in their press material for the Blu-ray Disc release), we should make an exception and switch to ... Over ..., since that's the way it's spelled the real world over". If you actually agree with the last part of that sentence, it would make a lof of a lot more sense to instead change our MoS (likely best to yet-to-be-sourced [prep] prop 2, in my opinion). – ὁ οἶστρος (talk) 13:01, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

But this is in direct contradiction of WP:NCCAPS which says "Wikipedia strives to become a leading (if not the leading) reference work in its genre, formality and an adherence to conventions widely used in the genre are critically important to credibility". As we can see from recent coverage in the media, our credibility has brought into question. If we'd have stuck to our MOS, this wouldn't have been an issue. --Rob Sinden (talk) 08:58, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Rob Sinden, if our MoS weren't at variance with "the world at large", this truly wouldn't have been an issue. I'm all for sticking to the MoS, but for that we first must make sure we have something worth sticking to (I'm just talking about the work title capitalization rules part of the MoS, obviously, although that doesn't mean the rest – comprising, no doubt, a great many valuable content – is already perfect, either). – ὁ οἶστρος (talk) 13:01, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

RfC: Should lines be used between a template and text above it?

This is an RfC to establish wider community input on whether this formatting should apply to all articles. This issue was discussed in the past: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 129#Spacing and Using the hidden comment function to create space between a template and text above it.

The Manual of Style states: "Check that your invisible comment does not change the formatting, for example by introducing white space in read mode." (WP:COMMENT)

Does this mean that the above formatting should be used? That is, Should white space be introduced between the last line of text and the top of a footer-(navigational) template? User:DoNotArchiveUntil 22:49, 25 January 2013 (UTC)Curb Chain (talk) 07:57, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Discussion

I don't think that Hidden Comments should be used to introduce white space because the simple enter-key will suffice. Secondly, using the enter-key to make lines to make white space is arbitrary and is not used.

• Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Layout#Headings and sections says "Between sections (and paragraphs), there should be a single blank line; multiple blank lines in the edit window create too much white space in the article." which is saying that hidden comments are not to be used to create white space, and not to create white space.

Specifically, the vast majority of pages do not have the formatting as I presented.Curb Chain (talk) 07:57, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

• Curb Chain has been on about this for quite a while now, to the extent of following me around and reverting my edits. He really needs to chill out and realize that the Manual of Style is not policy, it is not something that has to be followed slavishly, and it is certainly not a straightjacket preventing any of us from improving the encyclopedia. Indeed, it cannot be that, because that would, in itself, emasculate the entire purpose of WP:IAR.

  I've explained to Curb Chain many, many times, the purpose of the edits he objects to, and I'll do so once again for the benefit of othere. Please bear in mind that Curb Chain has brought this to AN/I on several occasions, and has been told by numerous editors there that his complaint is among the lamest thinsg anyone has ever come across. Also, please consider that his compaign of harrassment and annoyance is all about a single blank line.

  OK, here's the explanatuon. If you take a look at any decent-sized article, you'll note that the system, when it renders the page, provides a bit of spacing before every section header. This is to help the header stand out and be separated from the section above it. Unfortunately, the system does not do this at the bottom of the page, where any navboxes follow the External links section. Because of this, it's visually unpleasant that the new section (the navboxes) is so close to the text of the external links section, so I've been inserting a blank line to seperate them, to make it easier on the eye tosee the end of the external links and the beginning of the navboxes.

  That's it, that the sum total of what Curb Chain objects to, that he's started two RfCs to try to eliminate, that's he's brought to AN/I on at least two occasions, and that he's followed me around with no other purpose than to delete ,y edits. (Bear in mind, I don't travel around Wikipedia inserting this single blank line of space, it's part of my normal editing of articles, which is often quite extensive.) That he's fixated on this is, to say the least, rather bizarre. That his campaign is getting rather disruptive is a matter of opinion - but I think he's gone off the rails a bit. In any event, my purpose in making this edits is solely and entirely to make our articles just a little bit easier to use for our readers. Thanks. Beyond My Ken (talk) 08:23, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

  While I can't say that I find this a compelling disagreement or one to get worked up over, I am kind of inclined to agree with the person in the other discussion who said it'd make more sense to figure out if the extra space is something the whole site needs rather than to go around making impromptu additions of blank space to single articles on a haphazard and case-by-case basis. AgnosticAphid talk 08:47, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

  I would be more than happy if the system could be adjusted to provide the necessary spacing, but no one has ever indicated that this was possible to do. Since that's the case, this is the next best thing. Beyond My Ken (talk) 08:51, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

This is a technical issue and you can ask the developers to do this. You will probably need to get consensus for it.Curb Chain (talk) 01:49, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

• I would recommend against making additional space before a template at the end of the article, but it is not something that should be added to the MOS. The correct way to fix that sort of thing is to edit the template. Apteva (talk) 10:23, 21 December 2012 (UTC)
• I'm puzzled. I think I know what the question is asking, but I'm wondering about an exact offending edit. What is the problem, precisely? Where is a diff that I could use to judge? Is this one? If so, I would oppose the mass addition of spacing. The spacing (or lack of it) between template and text currently is, from what I can remember, deliberate, and if this is the kind of edit that that is offensive, I would oppose both the edit itself and the addition of text describing it to the MOS. --Izno (talk) 15:50, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes, it adds an extra space. We are talking about whitespace, so lines without a hidden comment would be included in the RfC question. And I see that the editor who added the line has just reverted you.Curb Chain (talk) 01:44, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

And now removed by a bot.Curb Chain (talk) 02:34, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

• This isn't really something MOS needs to address. There may be particular reasons in a particular article to do this (with HTML comments, with <br />, etc.), e.g. to work around misbehaving templates, or because of image spacing or whatever. We generally let editorial discretion reign when it comes to things like that. See also WP:CREEP. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 02:04, 24 December 2012 (UTC)
• I'm pretty sure that the "blank line" for navboxes is supposed to be inserted by some clever CSS, which was added a good few years back. We tried to get the same thing done for stub tmeplates, but I don't think it ever happened. Rich Farmbrough, 04:33, 3 January 2013 (UTC).
  

Why was it removed?Curb Chain (talk) 20:00, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

• The question here, as far as one can fathom, is whether the bottom of the page looks better like this (with space between the bottom of the text and the navbox) or like this (without that space). My vote would be marginally for the former (i.e. with space), since the navboxes are not part of the External Links (or References, or whatever) section, and the space makes that clear. Victor Yus (talk) 13:27, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Such spaces are regularly removed by bots, per WP:BODY#Heading and sections: "Between sections (and paragraphs), there should be a single blank line; multiple blank lines in the edit window create too much white space in the article.". "With space" would require a new policy which I have not seen consensus for.Curb Chain (talk) 04:19, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Isn't that the reason for this discussion? I don't think whoever wrote WP:BODY was considering this particular situation - especially since in this position, unlike between regular sections, the WP software doesn't put in any whitespace when there's a single blank line (that's what I'm seeing at least, I know sometimes these things are browser-dependent). Bots are even less renowned for their aesthetic judgement. All that matters is whether we think it's better with the space or without. I'm gathering your vote is for "without" - do you have any reasons? Victor Yus (talk) 08:02, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Well, if a space (how big the space is (height) will need to be determined) is advantageous, then this is a technical issue so that navboxes can be programmed to give a little extra space after the last ==External links== entry. And yes, this discussion is also to determine if this is needed to that effect, but to manually use <!--spacing--> or just 2 extra lines clogs up the edit history and is unnecessary when this can be instituted projectwide with a technical change. Otherwise doing this by one editor on only some articles seems haphazard.Curb Chain (talk) 12:44, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Of course if it can be done with tech wizardry that would be good, but if it can't (or if the tech wizards have got more important things to do) then I don't see any problem with one or several editors doing it ad hoc. Reverting such edits, and thus escalating this tiny matter into a dispute, seems more disruptive. Unless there are substantial reasons for preferring the layout without the space, in which case it would be nice to hear them. Anyway I've given my view, for as much as it may be worth. Victor Yus (talk) 10:31, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

Then that requires the determination of articles that ACTUALLY DO need that space. Which articles need it? I see no compelling reason on the other hand that certain articles need the formatting when all the rest of the articles don't have it.

If the articles do need the space, shouldn't we wait for the developers to add it? And that would require community consensus to do so.Curb Chain (talk) 07:35, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

The other problem is that bots remove the extra line reason being it creates white space. Wouldn't it defeat the purpose to add a space with a bot removing it?Curb Chain (talk) 07:47, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

COMMONSTYLE proposal

See Wikipedia_talk:Article_titles#RfC on COMMONSTYLE proposal ("the RfC")

The RfC is still open so I have reverted this edit

• 18 January 2013‎ Kwamikagami (→‎Article titles: c.e./clarify)

with this edit

• 08:03, 21 January 2013‎ PBS (Undid revision 533629974 by Kwamikagami Given that there is an ongoing RfC and that there appears to be no consensus for the wording in this guideline, I suggest that it is not altered until the RfC is closed.)

Because I think that the edit by Kwamikagami is premature. When the RfC is closed and it is decided what should be done at AT then we can look again at the wording here. -- PBS (talk) 08:15, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

PBS, I think you mean "with this edit: diff", and with this edit summary: "Undid revision 533629974 by Kwamikagami ...". And do you mean this, rather than what you wrote: "I suggest that it not be altered until the RfC is closed"? Best to express ourselves comprehensibly. ☺ Noetica^Tea? 08:59, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

I have no idea what was unclear to you. I said: I reverted edit A with edit B. That I did not put in a link to edit B was intentional as it was a revert of edit A to which I had provided a link. The wording you quote is from the edit history and was included in the bullet point of the reversal. -- PBS (talk) 10:03, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

• But it still says the same thing, just in an ambiguous and unclear manner. I don't see how the revert is an improvement. AgnosticAphid talk 03:35, 23 January 2013 (UTC)
• question: will I be blocked for violating the 1RR if I revert this revision? I don't think any function is served by deliberately restoring awkward and unclear text. AgnosticAphid talk 04:27, 23 January 2013 (UTC)
  • We could delete the sentence as there is may be no consensus for it, but I think it is better to delay that conversation until after the RFC is closed. Most people have presumably not found the wording "ambiguous and unclear" or it would have been changed months ago, so waiting a few days until the RfC is ended and coming to a consensus here based on the result of that RfC would seem to me to be the least time consuming option. -- PBS (talk) 17:08, 23 January 2013 (UTC)
    • Kwami's edit didn't change the meaning, it just clarified what the MOS already said. You reverted the edit, and now the result is a sentemce that is more ambiguous and less clear than it should be. The RFC is about adding a sentence to the article title policy to make what the rules already are more clear and easy for everyone to understand so that we don't have to explain every time there's a requested move about punctuation that the COMMONNAME policy doesn't concern punctuation. The RFC is not about changing the manual of style; whether there is a consensus to add something to WP:AT is a completely separate issue from whether there is a consensus to remove what is already part of the MOS.

      If you wish to start a separate RFC about whether this part of the MOS should be removed, be my guest. Until that happens, I stand by my statement that there is no function in making the MOS less clear than it could be. I would also submit that the fact that you seem to think this part of the MOS is somehow connected to RFC reflects the fact that you seem not to understand that the RFC actually doesn't involve a change in policy.

      So, I'll ask again, to those more experienced in this sort of thing: Would I be blocked if I reverted PBS' edit? AgnosticAphid talk 09:31, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

      • I refer you to the first remedy in the arb case, particularly the bit about getting consensus before making changes. Kwami's change clearly doesn't have consensus, so edit-warring it back in would be a very bad idea. Kanguole 11:39, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Kwami's edit DID change the meaning. It used to say that the article title "should be based on the 'Article titles' policy." After the change, it says that only the wording of the article title is governed by the "Article titles" policy, implying that some other aspects (perhaps punctuation) could be based on something else (perhaps the MOS). The RFC at the "Article titles" talk page proposes to defer to MOS for article title style (whatever that means). So this change could easily lead to the titles of some articles being changed, thus, there is a change in meaning. Also, Kwami's edit clearly anticipates the article title RFC will be successful. Jc3s5h (talk) 10:15, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

if you continue reading 9 lines after where it says WP:AT determines the title, you'll discover that the MOS already says that the punctuation of title is determined by the MOS, not WP:AT, whether this change is made or not. And honestly, I fail to see how changing "MoS applies to all parts of an article, including the title. See especially punctuation, below. (The policy page Wikipedia:Article titles does not determine punctuation.)" to "...The policy page Wikipedia:Article titles does not address punctuation and other issues of style.)" constitutes a change in meaning. Surely we can all agree that punctuation is an "issue of style"? I still think certain editors prefer to choose to believe wrongly that the current (pre-Kwami) text I just quoted either needs to be changed, which there is clearly no consensus for, or doesn't exist, which is false. But I have no interest in getting blocked over something so trivial, and I lack experience with things subject to a 1RR, so while I don't think a single revert on my end constitutes any more of an edit war than PBS' reversion, I guess I'll just leave things be. AgnosticAphid talk 15:35, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

RE: "the MOS already says that the punctuation of title is determined by the MOS, not WP:AT" It should be noted that many editors over at WP:AT disagree with this statement. My personal take is this: WP:AT states that there are five basic principles to choosing a title: Recognizability, Naturalness, Precision, Conciseness, and Consistency. We strive to have titles that meet all of these principles at the same time... but that is not always possible. WP:AT recognizes this, and allows for the fact that, in any specific title determination, one of these principles might outweigh the others. Now, the MOS is a function of the principle of Consistency (it sets a consistency of style for Wikipedia). So... since we desire consistency in our titles, we should normally follow the MOS... unless one of the other provisions of WP:AT indicates that an exception should be made. Such exceptions will be rare, but the can and do exist. Blueboar (talk) 18:00, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

My take, of course, is that WT:AT and MOS are thoroughly inconsistent, unless we assume that the principles for choosing a title don't apply in practice to the style of the title. Otherwise, assuming that the title matches the article, most of the MOS is meaningless. Exceptions are for special situations that a rule wasn't intended to cover, not for deciding that a clearcut instruction like "Mexican–American War" doesn't count, no matter how much consensus it represents.

However, we have argued this almost as long as we have debated Apteva before, and the rest of Wikipedia seems determined to prevent us from finding a simple way to settle style disputes. Should we give up and try something else? Like maybe just unwatch the whole page or something? Does it really settle more disputes than it incites? Art LaPella (talk) 19:00, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Blueboar, my point was just that the MOS already says title punctuation is determined here, not at AT, and since that's the case can't we go ahead and allow Kwami to make the place where it says that here as clear as possible? Instead it's like, people either can't accept or don't realize that that's what the policy currently is, regardless of the success or failure of the RFC. As a result, that part of the MOS is sort of written in stone, dispute its less-than-ideal clarity. I don't think that serves any purpose.

I find the deliberate intransigence displayed by some but all of not those opposed here to be frustrating and dispiriting. Maybe that's the point. Many editors use the fact that they personally don't like having a manual of style to stonewall any and all improvements to it without bothering to educate themselves about the purpose of the MOS (or even what the MOS says, as Jc3s5h's comment illustrates). What is the point of having the article title be determined by some different stylistic principle than the article body? Those who oppose the RFC for substantive and not wording reasons haven't even tried to say at the RFC. They all seem to think that the proposed clarifying sentence at WP:AT is a new principle, which it isn't, and that if the clarifying sentence were rejected in lieu of some "use the most common reliable source style in the title" rule then the rest of the MOS – which certainly applies to the body – would follow suit, which it wouldn't. At what point will those who are knowledgable and care about having a consistent and professional style say, "screw it, WP is determined to go back to having an impromptu mishmash of styles," like it did when I was in college and everyone thought the idea you might reference WP for something scholarly was laughable? I'm pretty new around here and I've nearly reached that point myself in just a few months.

More placidly, I tend to agree with you that there could be a situation where under WP:IAR the styling of the title should be determined by something other than the MOS – although what would prompt that isn't immediately apparent to me because then what about the body, should that be exempt from the MOS too, at least when it mentions the title? – but I don't think it's necessary to say that IAR applies to this like everything else. AgnosticAphid talk 01:12, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Re: "the proposed clarifying sentence at WP:AT is a new principle," As far as WP:AT is concerned, it is a new principle. It may not be a new idea here... but it is a new idea there. Hence the resistance to it. If the proposal there was rephrased in the way I outlined above (with MOS being presented a function of the principle of Consistency) it would probably be better received. Blueboar (talk) 01:49, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes, it would be better received at WT:TITLE; it also would make the MoS mean something completely unlike what it says, especially if articles are to be kept consistent with inconsistent titles. If words not meaning what they say doesn't bother you, then your previous post actually means you are announcing your candidacy for Miss America, so what are your measurements? Art LaPella (talk) 02:09, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Remember the purpose of the WT:TITLE edit was to prevent Wikilawyers from arguing that any MOS guideline they don't like, doesn't count because it has to match the title which is chosen by the most common name (even though style isn't chosen that way in practice). If rendering the MOS meaningless is desirable, we should state that explicitly, not hide it behind WT:TITLE. The so-called rephrasing doesn't solve that problem; it puts the opposite into policy. To argue that would make it better received, is like arguing that the operation is a success but the patient died. Art LaPella (talk) 15:10, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

No one wants to "render the MOS meaningless", the point that is being made on the talk page of WP:AT is that there are a number of factors that are considered when choosing an article title of which the MOS style is but one facet. -- PBS (talk) 18:20, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Which amounts to a distinction without a difference. If I might choose A or B, then isn't it meaningless to have a rule that I must choose B? Like saying nobody wants to render the civility policy meaningless; there are a number of factors of which civility is but one facet, you [obscenity] [personal insult]. Art LaPella (talk) 21:13, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

A better analogy would be two hospitals that are being merged... Hospital A (MOS) has long mandated a certain procedure be used when curing a certain ailment. Hospital B (AT) has long allowed its doctors to choose the procedure they think best. The two hospitals are now trying to decide whether to follow the rules of Hospital A or Hospital B... and both sides have strong opinions on the matter. Blueboar (talk) 17:02, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

I thought Hospital A treats cancer patients, which Hospital B traditionally refers to Hospital A. Now the issue is whether to treat cancer patients with antibiotics instead of chemotherapy. We might as well close Hospital A if that happens. Art LaPella (talk) 17:58, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Nope... At least that's not how the doctors at "Hospital AT" see it. "Hospital AT" has happily had its own cancer ward, and has traditionally not referred its cancer patients to "Hospital MOS". The doctors at "Hospital MOS" are now proposing to hang a sign in the lobby of Hospital AT saying "If you have cancer, go to Hospital MOS". This proposed sign upsets the doctors at "Hospital AT" and they are resisting. Blueboar (talk) 19:49, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Except that there are no examples that I know of. The title is styled the same way as the article. Lapses from MOS occur, but never on the grounds that the title and article shouldn't match, or that the article shouldn't match the MOS. Art LaPella (talk)

AgnosticAphid: What has styling to do with the reliability of content? Wikipedia explicitly allows a "mishmash" of referencing styles, for example. Does this mean that the content of a articles with references is unreliable? If a well written, well referenced article consistently uses in its text a style "forbidden" by the MOS does that make it unreliable? Are the many articles on the genus Pinus (see Category:Pinus) unreliable because most consistently capitalize the common name of the species? Would they suddenly become more reliable because someone went through and changed the case in accordance with the MOS? An article which consistently follows the predominant styling found in its sources is likely to appear more authoritative to anyone knowledgeable about the topic area than one which slavishly follows the preferences of the MOS and so may appear oddly styled. (At least in the area in which I mostly edit, plants, my experience is that the best articles follow the styling of their sources.)

This is the key argument on which the disagreement is founded. On the one side are those who want to allow the least styling flexibility they can get away with. On the other side are those who want to allow reasoned use of different styles commonly used in the subject area and its sources (as the MOS already does in some areas, e.g. English variants, referencing) – not an anarchy of styles as opponents are wont to claim. I don't see that there can be a consensus between such different positions. The situation is, I believe, that a majority of those who edit the MOS naturally favour the first position, whereas the majority of those who create content naturally act in accordance with the second position. Peter coxhead (talk) 18:08, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Sorry to stick this out of order, but with the outdent this seemed like the best location.

First, to get this off my chest, I think it's offensive that by saying "those who edit the MOS" believe one thing but "those who create content" think another you are strongly implying that people who edit the MOS don't create content. That's a disagreeable thing to imply and it's not true.

Second, I think the point of having a manual of style is for Wikipedia to be a professional encyclopedia. I don't think it's true that the encyclopedia would be improved if people could choose whatever style predominates in their particular field. Some people in some specialized fields presumably either little attention to the stylistic details discussed here or make their stylistic decisions for reasons that do not apply to a general-purpose encyclopedia. I am not familiar with the purpose of the MOS' rules about the capitalization of common scientific names, so I can't directly address your example, unfortunately. But I don't think the encyclopedia would be improved if, for instance, one group of articles used spaced m dashes or unspaced n dashes just because that's the way those specialists do things. People who know the English rules about dashes would just think that Wikipedia doesn't know what it's talking about. Similarly, in my professional work (reading legal opinions and writing legal briefs) I would say the overwhelming majority of people do kinda stuffy things like always use two spaces after a period at the end of a sentence. Would wikipedia be improved if all of the US Supreme Court articles did the same thing? I don't think so. We're a general-reference encyclopedia, not a source for specialists. There is a whole essay on this topic that I think conveys my point better than I can here; see WP:SSF. AgnosticAphid talk 02:19, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

So to bring this back to the topic at hand, if the MOS were changed to what you believe is the reasonable level of flexibility, would you then support making article titles comply with the MOS? Tdslk (talk) 21:51, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

If the MOS took the same approach as AT, i.e. setting out principles and then requiring editors to reach consensus within those principles, yes, of course. Who could then rationally dissent? So in problematic cases, styling consistency across Wikipedia, which is of course desirable, would be balanced against styling consistency with topic-relevant reliable sources, styling which works in an online as opposed to a printed work, etc., just as AT requires a balance to be sought between its principles. This is how WP works best: by consensus at the article level which is then copied across similar articles and so on upwards. The MOS can then say "this is what editors are generally doing, so you will probably want to copy them". It's messier than "the community" deciding a set of rules and then saying "obey and don't argue any more" (see below) but this isn't an encyclopedia with an editorial committee, it's an encyclopedia which anyone can edit. Peter coxhead (talk) 23:41, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Assuming there were a consensus for that, as evidenced by an unreverted new section in the MoS, I think that means: 1. AWB and similar editing for MOS compliance would stop, either as an explicit guideline, or because achieving consensus on each article, or even each article someone might complain about, is impractical. 2. That leaves the style of each article to its main editors, who presumably know its subject but not style. I have often demonstrated that even MOS regulars don't know the MOS, so average editors probably couldn't comply with more than a couple of its sub-rules if they wanted to. 3. They won't want to; it's normal to consider MOS rules to be intended for people less important than oneself. Thus 4. The MOS could pretty much be marked as historical. Which is not to say that would be a bad thing. Just be careful what you wish for. If a copyeditor applying a MOS rule gets reverted on the grounds that the rule is overruled by WP:TITLE or something, no possible consensus might be enough to persuade him to endure that abuse again. Art LaPella (talk) 05:27, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

As to the sentences under discussion see:

• Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 123#Dashes: a completed consensual draft for inclusion in WP:MOS (July 2011)
• The introduction to the line we are discussing was introduced here by user:Noetica on 6 August 2011 -- It seems Noetica was bold as there was no discussion initiated by Noetica on that date in the archives of the MOS, or more importantly on the talk pages of Article Titles which I would have thought was needed to see if there was consensus for this change as back in April 2011 there was not
• first discussion (24 August 2011), about the change on 6th starting with an example of "Finnegan's Wake" and "Finnegans Wake"
• I raised this issue hear back in April 2012.

There are probably other discussions that took place I have not checked the archives thoroughly. -- PBS (talk) 18:20, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

PBS, thanks for those links. They include my clearly marked edit from 6 August 2011 ("Revise: match current provisions at WP:TITLE; clarify the structure; note the role of MOS in settling punctuation for all parts of an article, including title (confirmed by consensus outcome, ArbCom dash poll)"). Please do not characterise that as bold, or undiscussed. We had more than eight weeks of unprecedented discussion under ArbCom direction, to settle disputes over punctuation in titles. Sixty editors participated; the consultation began here on WT:MOS, and then moved to two huge subpages of WT:MOS. On 24 July 2011 the result was accepted and endorsed by arbitrator Casliber (see Archive 123, Dashes: a completed consensual draft for inclusion in WP:MOS). Some did not accept that a matter involving style was settled by adjustments in Wikipedia's manual of style! Most prominent was PMAnderson, whose political intervention over Mexican–American War dragged on and on, implicating a few others who have consistently opposed any harmony between MOS and WP:TITLE. PMAnderson has been under multiple sanctions for refusing to accept such consensus; he is now under a one-year block, and an indefinite topic ban for sockpuppetry. He posted as JCScaliger in an ArbCom case, vigorously attacking me because he could not accept the community consensus that I took a leading role in discovering, from sixty editors' contributions. Continuing on a personal note: I spent literally weeks of full-time work on those efforts toward accord and resolution in 2011; others dedicated huge amounts of time also, of course.

The background issues in what PBS links were all discussed and settled long ago. Good to have them noted; but few will appreciate attempts to re-start old wars. The community resents that; it saps everyone's patience and resources. Best to focus on further development of both MOS and TITLE, and their dependent pages. Striking again and again at the core mechanisms for improving Wikipedian titles and styling is unhelpful. They run smoothly together if we let them; let's keep them in good order to meet new challenges, not artificially revived old ones.

Noetica^Tea? 21:05, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

1. "implicating a few others who have consistently opposed any harmony between MOS and WP:TITLE" I am sorry but do you consider your position opposing harmony between MOS and WP:TITLE or that of those who hold a different point of view to you? It seem to me that there are two different ways to harmonize the two, and the only issue here is which is the better method.
2. "Please do not characterise that as bold". As I said above "There are probably other discussions that took place I have not checked the archives thoroughly" so where on the AT talk page is the notification of the main discussion (the "ArbCom dash poll")? If it was not a bold edit where on this talk page did you discuss this specific change before you made it? Where on the talk page of AT was this change discussed before you made it? -- PBS (talk) 01:46, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

1. What I mean is perfectly clear in my post, and it fits with what you surely know about my position. I think you are not seriously asking for clarification, but disagreeing with that position. "It seem to me that there are two different ways to harmonize the two, and the only issue here is which is the better method." Funny then that I am the only one to make threads emphasising the harmony of the two, don't you think? I say they are already in harmony, and that is accepted by many other editors as a matter of course. Then there is a minority of which you are a member: in the main, not style specialists, and having little to do with manuals of style in real life. (Inevitable of course, on a volunteer project.) But those of us whose daily life involves guides to style have a clear understanding of how style and content are separate issues; and that is the way TITLE and MOS differ and are in harmony, not by one being subjugated to the other. Neither content nor style is subordinate to the other; same with MOS and TITLE.
2. "... so where on the AT talk page is the notification of the main discussion (the "ArbCom dash poll")?" As I explained above, with a full quote, my edit summary of 6 August 2011 referred to the "ArbCom dash poll". At the time people who frequented this talkpage knew exactly what was meant, as you certainly do also even now. There was no dissent on the talkpage, and the edit has long entered into consensus by being well grounded, correctly documented, and uncontested for well over a year. By usual standards, that was not especially bold! I am conservative and consultative when I make substantive edits, and I always explain what they are about. But if it was a bold edit, it was justified and accepted.

Noetica^Tea? 03:57, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Noetica, although I don't always agree with you, I appreciate your normally very carefully constructed arguments. So it's disappointing to see you employ the "I'm an expert, you're not, so I know best" line. It's patronizing and counter-productive. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:37, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Thank you, Peter. I did compose my response to PBS with care. My exact words, now with underlining: "Then there is a minority of which you are a member: in the main, not style specialists, and having little to do with manuals of style in real life. I deliberately did not exclude PBS as a style specialist, or as someone who has to do with manuals of style every day. (After all, I don't know that PBS does.) But that is indeed what characterises the minority as a whole – those who have a lot to say on style matters without really understanding them. If this were a page about quantum physics, those who are unqualified might be regarded as a nuisance. They would be excluded if they intruded sheer opinion for too long. Here everyone is welcome! I explicitly and repeatedly say it: let's get as many as we can from the community into discussion here. On the other hand, let's all keep an open mind and be persuaded by sound, well-informed submissions. And that includes non-specialists! Especially, perhaps.

Interestingly, many in the minority I speak of (which refuses to accept a plain demarcation between content and style) are computer experts. I suggest that this does not automatically make them experts in written communication, let alone the making of style guidelines to improve written communication.

Only rarely is an editor topic-banned here, and then because almost everyone's patience is exhausted.

Noetica^Tea? 10:36, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

As it happens, I had already explained at Wikipedia_talk:Article titles#What is style in this context? why I believe that there is not a "plain demarcation" between content and style, before I read this comment. I look forward to your reasoned response there. Peter coxhead (talk) 12:10, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Thank you Peter. It has been explained on WP:AT recently several times by several editors that there is already harmony between the two, because the decision process AT is based on the content of reliable sources, and if the sources have nothing to say on style -- which is the usual state of affairs -- then the MOS style is followed. A classic example is the use of "UPPERCASE LETTERS IN BOOK TITLES" those are nearly always placed in lower case and the capitalization follows MOS guidelines. However if the sources are specifically selective on style then that style may be followed, and the MOS recommendation may be disregarded. If they are disregarded then the MOS should follow the lead of AT because it falls under "Style and formatting choices should be consistent within an article, though not necessarily throughout Wikipedia as a whole." Blueboar has explained that this rule has to be taken with some flexibility and the example he gave is "Saint" in the title but "St." in the prose. The example I gave on the AT talk page was the use of "Melee" as an article and usage in other articles. There no disharmony in interpreting the MOS and AT that way. I consider your solution to be inelegant because it involves mechanical rules, that takes not account of what reliable sources state. This method used to be used in some of the naming conventions that started out with simple algorithms, to mimic reliable sources (because at the time all sources were surveyed not just reliable ones), but they ballooned in complexity to cope with exceptions. Once the main AT page incorporated only surveying reliable sources, the need for complexity in the naming conventions disappeared, because the main AT guidance then handled those exceptions automatically.

I do not usually lurk on this talk page (I am only here now because of the spill over from RfC on talk AT) -- I dislike the vitriol that frequently accompanies discussions here. I only know about the Arbcom poll because of what I have read since the latest RfC on talk AT (for example it was not mentioned during my visit to this page back in April 2012). I asked whether the editors who monitor the AT talk page was notified of the Arbcom debate, you wrote I spent literally weeks of full-time work on those efforts toward accord and resolution in 2011; others dedicated huge amounts of time also ... did any of them publish the fact that on the AT talk pages that there was a suggestion to include in the MOS "The policy page Wikipedia:Article titles does not determine punctuation."? As I said before I have not done an extortive search of the archives so it may well be ther, but if it was mentioned and your were extensively engaged in the debate at that time, then I presume you will be able to find it more easily than I can. I would appreciate you finding it because if I could read the notification in the archives of the AT talk page, as it would help explain the dynamics of the current AT talk page RfC. -- PBS (talk) 11:34, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

hyphens-for-dashes in sources: to correct or not to correct?

In the entry for the film For lung (as of 2013-01-24T12:47:10), a Hollywood Reporter quote reads (bolding by me), "Any real thought about the nature of duty and the law is swept aside for action, action, and more action-which is average for Lam [...]". Also, the corresponding article title is styled "Fire of Conscience -- Film Review". Are these two instances of hyphens-for-dashes usage to be corrected? Or must they be left alone, because they're integral to the source? – ὁ οἶστρος (talk) 13:46, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

There's no problem fixing up punctuation, spelling, italics, etc. We need to be true to what is said, but such details don't affect that. The only question would be changing punctuation that might change the meaning, like adding or removing commas. — kwami (talk) 14:34, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

WP:MOSQUOTE is actually pretty clear on this, it explicitly states that Wikipedia's in-house typography is to be followed for various dashes, even if this means a difference from the original quote. --Jayron32 14:37, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

OK, thanks to both of you. – ὁ οἶστρος (talk) 15:57, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Notice of a proposal for WP:PRONUNCIATION

at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Pronunciation. The proposal (I think) is that we change the MOS to recommend moving pronunciations out of the lead. (Personally, and it would seem others agree, I think this is part of a larger problem with clutter per MOS:LEAD that I've tried addressing before.) — kwami (talk) 01:09, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

I am one who disagrees, because pronunciations occupy a very small portion of the space in the lead, but they provide very useful information to readers who wish to read an article orally.

—Wavelength (talk) 17:11, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

I gather that the alternative being proposed is to put the pronunciation in the infobox. Do people not read the infobox orally? Blueboar (talk) 17:59, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

It should go without saying that starting a second conversation here is counterproductive. Post your comments over there, please. Designate (talk) 20:27, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Consistent variety of English: blanket changes

How proper is it for an editor to make blanket changes to an article in keeping with WP:CONSISTENCY. For example, if an article uses half "color" and half "colour", but also "center" and perhaps an "armour", would we go back to the first non-stub from however many years prior and decide that everything is BrE or AmE and then change everything accordingly? Or would it be proper to change one word (for example making all "color"s to "colour" for sake of consistency) but retaining the rest (such as "center", so long as that was as its first used spelling). Thank you. -Kai445 (talk) 17:22, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

If it is clear the article has unquestionable national ties, making those changes is non-controversial. But if it is the case that there's no clear indication of national ties, then doing such changes should only be done if consistent with how the first editor set the style, or otherwise seek talk page consensus before making the mass change. And if one is going to change the style of one word, they then should assure other words are similarly changed to that style, though. --MASEM (t) 17:26, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Sometime the "first non-stub version" concept doesn't provide a clear answer, either because it was inconsistent or because it didn't have any words that clearly indicate a chosen variety. So, it's proper to work toward a consistent style if none has been established (pick one), or toward whatever consistent style has been previously established. The changes should usually be few. Dicklyon (talk) 17:34, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

I am revising the heading of this section from Is it proper for an editor... to Consistent variety of English: blanket changes, in harmony with WP:TPOC, point 13 (Section headings). Please see Microcontent: Headlines and Subject Lines (Alertbox).

—Wavelength (talk) 18:08, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

I prefer the adoption of a uniform system of spelling (such as the one outlined at User:Angr/Unified English Spelling). However, if we are having different varieties of English, then editors can be assisted by a tag indicating the variety chosen for each particular article.

—Wavelength (talk) 18:42, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

There must be just one variety of English per article, not per word. If every center/centre is spelled "centre" and every labor/labour is spelled "labor," it is inconsistent and should be corrected. Use the first non-stub version that uses only one variety of English. If none of the previous versions do, then your own version will be the first, and you get to choose. After all, the whole idea behind ENGVAR is that no one variety of English is better or worthier than the others. Darkfrog24 (talk) 05:16, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Exactly... conform within the article, not across articles. If there is a reason to use one variety vs another in a specific article, conform that article in accordance with that reason. If not, pick one variety at random and conform. Flip a coin if you have to. The key is that we don't change back and forth once a variety is chosen... stick with whatever variety was chosen unless/until someone gives a good reason to switch (and there is a consensus to change). Blueboar (talk) 18:09, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Darkfrog, if you change "color" to "colour", change "center" to "centre", but if you leave "center" as "center", change "colour" to "color". The whole article should conform to one style. Where no other relevant considerations exist the style generally should be determined by the first non-stub version to establish a clear style unless there never was one in which case pick one if need be. JIMp _talk·cont 02:52, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Parenthetical designation(s)

Is there clear guidance on the best practice for designating infobox items which may be either singular or plural? Some infoboxs use the parenthetical (s); sometimes they have a space between the singular form and the (s), and some are displayed without space(s), some use a singular form even though they often have multiple entries, and still others use the plural form even if only one entry is included. WP:PLURALS is mute on the subject, and I think we should have a standard. Comments are needed, thank you.—_{My76Strat • talk • email • purge} 11:18, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

You mean infobox parameters, such as "occupation" in {{infobox person}}? --BDD (talk) 18:47, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Yes that would be using a singular tense even though multiple entries are possible. {{infobox person}} uses spouse(s), and partner(s) as well. {{Infobox musical artist}} uses "Genre" and "Producer" when they are almost always multiple entries. {{Infobox company}} displays Predecessor(s), Successor(s), and Founder(s). {{Infobox book}} uses Author(s), and Genre(s). I may have been mistaken about some having a space between the parenthesis, as I can not seem to locate one. But otherwise it seems there's no real standard, or I am unaware of it.—_{My76Strat • talk • email} 00:59, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

There's no standard practice as far as I know. If you're making a new one, I'd go with plural forms. Just my opinion, but I think one entry in a plural field doesn't look as strange as several in a singular one. --BDD (talk) 03:58, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Religious titles/honorifics

Hello. We seem to need help with religious titles and honorifics. I please request that we discuss, achieve a consensus and write down guidelines. Please see the talk page of the article Gandhi for more details, regarding a proposed move to Mahatma Gandhi. Here is an excerpt from that conversation:

• Comment: WP:MoS and current usage. Religious titles derived from formal initiations or high hierarchical functions usually make it to the article's title, e.g. Pope John XXIII, Swami Vivekananda, or Mother Theresa; but this is not true for low-ranking or less known clergy, such as priests or lamas. On the other hand, titles resulting from popular veneration or extolment are inconsistent, e.g. {Saint} Francis of Assisi and {Saint} Paul the Apostle -- but Saint Andrew and Saint Peter. Though WP:COMMONNAME takes precedence, the cases of the Christian apostles show that this is not strictly followed. The honorific Mahatma is the result of popular extolment, but also one with religious meanings.

I think the main issue here is that the common name is also a religious concept, which implies a certain spiritual status (saint, mahatma, mewlana) that is impossible to verify and different from a hierarchical title. Hence the request for debate, consensus and guidelines at Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style: is WP:COMMONNAME appropriate in the case of Gandhiji? What about the Christian apostles? What about {Mewlana} Rumi or {Avatar} Meher Baba? Why do popes or the patriarchs of the Catholic Church have their title in their names at Wikipedia? What about leaders of smaller religious organizations in which religious titles are also hierarchical designations, such as {Satguru} Sivaya Subramuniyaswami of Saiva Siddhanta Church? There is no obvious solution. I believe we need to keep in mind common sense, but avoid any subtle Judeo-Christian bias (as in allowing only titles that are familiar to a Western audience due to cognitive bias.) 98.234.105.147 (talk) 23:48, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

An edit in the provisions for ellipses

I have reverted an addition to the page, with this edit summary: "Revert addition of this text to the provisions for ellipses: '(This section does not apply to mathematical notion.)' [sic]; editors, please do not make substantive changes like that without discussing them first; and DO leave informative edit summaries♥". The editor then reverted my reversion, rather than discussing the change; so I reverted the edit again. In my edit summary I use the annotation "[sic]". Given the absence of the definite article ("to [the] mathematical notion"), it is not certain which of the following was intended:

1. (This section does not apply to the mathematical notion.)
2. (This section does not apply to mathematical notation.)

In my own opinion, neither version is warranted. 1 is unnecessary, since the context shows that the "elongated circles" of mathematics are plainly not the topic; and 2 is just not true. Let others have their say also.

Noetica^Tea? 01:53, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

But an ellipse does appear in the mathematical notations, rather often. I don't see why we can't have a short notice. -- Taku (talk) 03:10, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

First, you didn't address the problem Noetica pointed out. Second, it would be better to link a section on mathematics that does apply, if there is one. If not, what's the point? Dicklyon (talk) 03:34, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Well it took a few seconds to find that, so shame on all those who either moaned about its absence or refused to provide it.

I see nothing in the MoS section that justifies the exclusion of mathematical use from the instruction, although some of the provisions are evidently inapplicable. There should probably be a mathematical example added to the MoS section, at least among the exclusions to the rule about spaces before and after the ellipsis, to illustrate that it is included. Kevin McE (talk) 09:48, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

It's hard to know what you mean by this, Kevin: "so shame on all those who either moaned about its absence or refused to provide it". Dicklyon qualified his remark with "that does apply". Of course ellipses feature in mathematical notation, like this for example:

x + 1, x + 2, ..., x + n

No one has denied that! But the WP:MOS treatment of ellipses is relevant to those, so long as they are realised in normal text and not with special markup. So for example, the ellipsis points ought to be "..." (three dots, full stops, periods, full points, or what you will), not "…" (preformed ellipsis character, which is absent from the character sets under the edit window). Normal text is common in such casual mathematical notation; if it were not, a number of provisions at WP:MOS and WP:MOSNUM would be superfluous.

Noetica^Tea? 11:05, 3 February 2013 (UTC)